THE UNTOLD STORY: Entry Thirty-Five

Entry Thirty-Five: Jeremiah 29:10-12

Are all the odds stacked against me, dear Lord? Will there be no return from this exile…the exile of my son, Benjamin? The land is no longer ours…it is gone forever…no jubilee year will bring it back to us. But surely Benjamin is more important than land? This is a life…a human life. There is no way I can recreate him into an abstraction that can be added or subtracted. He is and always will be a part of me…a part of Miriam…a part of Aaron. That is the way God intended it to be…the same flesh and the same blood. If we cut him off, do we not cut off a part of ourselves too? 

Does it really matter who owns the land? Are they afraid that the breath of the Gentiles will foul the air they breathe? With their hearts filled with hatred…are they not already contaminated? Do they not see that by sustaining their loathing for Benjamin, they are most unlike the God they profess to believe in? God is love…and hate is the opposite of love. How can one hate what He has created? I cannot feel hatred for this Roman General. Is he my enemy? Is he the enemy of Israel? Is he not merely a small part of a larger machine we call Rome? 

Yes, Benjamin betrayed my trust. Never would I have imagined he would sell the land to anyone…Jew or non-Jew…never would I have imagined that he would leave without saying goodbye. But his errors do not justify mine. To be righteous surely means being a better person…not sinking to the levels of those who sin against us. No. Benjamin did not love enough to stay…I must therefore love even more for him to return. If I do what others have done, I slay my own child…and I make his return from self-imposed exile impossible. 

I must love more than all the hatred radiating from those around me…those who call themselves by the name of the God of Israel…my own people…my own son, Aaron. I must love as God loves.