Rachel Corrie was late.  Missing out on the original flotilla to Gaza because of mechanical problems, the vessel bearing her name straggled along behind the main action.  Israel managed to board her without killing anyone so the leading villain in the long running Middle East blockbuster avoided the outraged condemnation that has marked much of last week’s media coverage.

The prophetic voice is one that Israel understands and has valued for millennia. When Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she took non-violent action to protect a Palestinian home from demolition she took her place in the tradition of prophets who tend to end up in the grave far faster than ordinary folk.  Death is inevitable because prophets have the annoying tendency to tell truth to principalities and powers, sometimes by just standing there in glorious vulnerability.

The dramas unfolding on our laps via Google are far more than just news stories.  Gordon Lynch calls them sacred narratives within which what is considered sacred or profane is exercised, weighed and pronounced upon.  As concerned observers in this great mythological drama we have options about how we engage with it.  We can walk away, assuming it has nothing to do with us or that the show is over and the powerful have won.  We can fight about the heroes and villains, take dramatic action to try for a leading role, or beg the directors for a script change.    All worthy options but ultimately about as effective as banging our head against Israel’s partition wall.

The Christian lectionary has just re-presented the Hebrew story of Babel when Earthlings became so self important that they built a huge tower to show off their magnificence.  God stopped this arrogance by muddling up their language and so our endless story of diaspora and disconnectedness continues.  This story sets the scene for Pentecost when the players are astounded that their enduring communication problems are healed by the intervention of the mysterious Spirit. True to the prophetic tradition, Rachel Corrie called for a return to justice and truth and died for it.  This week more people died alongside those in Gaza and more will die as this human tragedy unfolds.

To be outraged at Israel’s intransigence about Gaza or its relentless ghettoising of Palestinians in the West Bank may well, despite all our best social justice intentions, embed us in a way of thinking that never allows the Pentecost story of the liberating Spirit to be told. High on the thrill of moral superiority, our pious righteousness may blind us to the reality that the Spirited heart for change must arise from the original theatre company rather than be directed through the audience.
God give me sight beyond my own.

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