By Revd Preb Nigel Guthrie
It was nearly thirty years ago that I joined a pilgrimage to the Holy Land arranged for clergy new to Derby Diocese. I realise now that I was fortunate to have had this opportunity at a time when visits were possible and the situation there was relatively stable. I remember vividly some of the landscape we saw, not least the Sea of Galilee and the slopes down to it, and the barren stony ground on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. These images still come back to me when I hear passages from the bible that relate to those places.
But I also remember what was for me a moment of shocking truth when we visited the River Jordan. On the opposite bank was a group of primary school children on a day out. The children and their teacher looked quite untroubled but accompanying them was a very obviously armed police officer. That little scene spoke volumes about the realities of life in the Middle East and the fear and anxiety that lies just below the surface even in times of relative peace.
I have been practising the accompaniment to Parry’s famous anthem ‘I was glad’ over the past few weeks in preparation for a concert this month. After the immensely grand introduction and celebratory opening section there is a very striking modulation from B flat major to G flat major (that’s from two flats to six flats in the key signature!) for the music which sets the words ‘O pray for the peace of Jerusalem’. The accompaniment to that section also has a long-sustained G flat in the bass. It is an extraordinary change of key and through that long-sustained pedal note Parry evokes an atmosphere of prayer and calm which is most beautiful. It struck me powerfully as I played it through just how much the need to pray for the peace, not just for Jerusalem, but for the whole region has continued over the millennia.
Since I started re-learning that accompaniment the conflict has escalated in the Middle East threatening to become a full-scale regional war. If that happens, we will all feel the consequences in oil price rises and in even greater global insecurity. And at the moment it is very hard to see a path to peace and reconciliation when there is, apparently, no desire for peaceful coexistence on the part of the leaders involved. How can we pray with any sense of hope for peace in the Middle East? But, with God change can happen; swords can be beaten into ploughshares. A dramatic change of heart (rather like a dramatic change of key) is needed to arrive at a place where people focus on how they can best live together in peace with their differences. Because the rights and freedoms of all the people of that region will have to be respected if anything like peace and security is to be gained.
God has given many of us a desire to pray and a heart of compassion for all those suffering through the present conflict. So, we must continue to pray, seemingly against the odds, for a new spirit to be born in the Middle East which recognises the image of God in those currently deemed to be enemies. It would be so wonderful if fear could finally be cast out so that future generations of Israeli and Palestinian children could grow up without the brutalising and destructive noise of war around them and taste the peace which God wishes for them.