Escaping Babel

In preparing to write this piece, my wife’s words “you have to deal with Burlington,” rang true and inescapable. I have to deal with Burlington, we have to deal with Burlington, and therefore we have to wrestle with the concept of moral clarity, though we seem to be looking through a glass darkly as of late.

As a religious person committed to pluralism and democracy, I am required to search for what is true based on available, current, and historically reliable information and be prepared for answers that are often messy and difficult. Ergo, all of the following things can be true and consistent, even if difficult to hold. The shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Burlington was a horrific hate crime. Neither antisemitism, nor Islamophobia have any place in a society committed to pluralism and democracy and should be condemned and rejected by all; although it remains to be seen if we will ever become a society committed to those distant but sacred ideals.

The October 7 massacre and kidnapping of Israeli Jews and others was an act of terrorism to be condemned in the clearest unequivocal terms. Hamas is a terrorist organization that does not speak for all Palestinian people and should be removed. One can believe this to be true and also believe that a continued campaign of relentless bombing of Gaza will not achieve this goal and will only create more terrorism, born from the blood of dead children.

One can believe that Israelis have an absolute right to self-defense, while also supporting international humanitarian guidelines, and calling for the removal of Netanyahu and his corrupt Cabinet that poses a very real threat to democracy in Israel and lacks moral authority or credibility.

One can support Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination and recognize that Hamas is not that. There have been no elections in Gaza since the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections, which were fraught with violence. Moreover, legitimate self governance cannot be predicated upon the wholesale removal and elimination of any people “from the river to the sea.”

To be clear, this is not an argument about moral equivalency, but a search for moral clarity. Moral equivalency justifications seldom scratch more than the surface, fail to take into account the historical context, and ultimately lead us into the downward spiral of quid pro quo which can be used to justify anything at all.

And so we all must deal with Burlington and the broader implications of what that shooting portends. Hate crimes should not be viewed in isolation, instead we must hold ourselves accountable to the wider cultural context in which they ferment. And this is certainly true when trying to understand the acceleration from conflict to war within a long and complex cycle. This is not the article I wanted to write, but this is the time I have been given, and it is unacceptable for clergy to ignore the difficult things when we are called to deep waters and fractious borderlands.

As a pastor and a burgeoning farmer, I know that there are no invasive species within the human family. Like many others, I seek to hear the voice of God through the din of war and a growing climate of fear and hate. What is She saying to me? I am listening. If we experience God through our human connections. If we are made in the image of God. If we are called to care for the stranger and dispossessed because we too were once sojourners.

Then we are also called to dangerous memory located within a story far older than our own and accountable to a future not yet born. Our ancestors watch while our descendants pray. If we share a common tongue, but speak a different language we are still in the ruins of Babel trying to reach God through anything but our neighbor.

-Rev. Jeannie Alexander

Originally published in the Bennington Banner