The Promise of Restored Fortunes

 

                                                       A Joyful Ruth at Ein Gedi, Israel, April 2023

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

    like the watercourses in the Negeb.
5 May those who sow in tears
    reap with shouts of joy.
6 Those who go out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    carrying their sheaves.

                           Psalm 126: 4-6 NRSVue

In April of 2023 we spent 16 days in Israel, as regular readers will know. We visited with one of Ruth's sisters, a step-sister with whom she is close, and her husband. We were well aware that our theological perspectives were and still are very different yet they were very hospitable and we had a wonderful time. 

We went with a degree of trepidation and also some guilt because we were well aware of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. We could not have foreseen the horror of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, only six months after we were there, nor the grinding destruction of Gaza by Israel and the staggering loss of life. 

This is a wordy introduction to the fact that we wanted to return to Israel once more to explore places that we couldn't visit back when I led tour groups to Israel. Our hosts were wonderfully accomodating in this regard, listening in advance to our interests and building an itinerary to "make it so." 

I had been intrigued for years by the story of David, the rebel, sneaking up on the sleeping King Saul at the spring and cascade of Ein Gedi in the Judean desert, choosing not to kill the monarch who wanted him dead. We went to this oasis and nature park and while it was late Spring there was still water flowing that we waded through on our hike to what's been called the David Falls. We were literally experiencing a watercourse in the desert/ 

Since our trip I often think of places we visited and the connection to passages of scripture I'm reading. Visiting Israel can make these biblical stories come alive and today's lectionary psalm, 126, is one of them. The exiled people of Israel have the promise of return and they seek restored fortune like the watercourses of the Negeb that dry up for months at a time, only to be replenished by the rains of Winter and Spring. 

The poignancy of this passage for me is that the Jewish people worked toward the re-establishment of a state of Israel in the late 19th and 20th centuries, a return from exile. Today displaced Palestinians have the same hope in the same land. This is a spiritual and practical desire for Jews and Arabs yet conflict and destruction has gripped the region and it is hard to imagine moving beyond tears and weeping to a place of joy. 

The Red Dot is Ein Gedi, beside the Dead Sea, adjacent to the West Bank,  and not far from Gaza to the West.