There is peace (or rather, there is an absence of war) in Gaza. As of this past Friday, an agreement brokered by President Trump has garnered sufficient agreement from both Hamas and Israel that the guns have fallen silent, the bombs have ceased falling, the remaining hostages are due to be released, and thousands of Palestinians are returning to the areas of Gaza in which they once lived, to try and rebuild a new existence out of the ashes and rubble of their former homes.

Netanyahu has claimed that this is a ‘national and moral victory for the state of Israel’, and it would not be surprising, before long, to find a similarly outrageous claim from the leadership of Hamas, also suggesting that they have achieved some kind of victory. Which is why, at times like this, we probably get an understanding of how the Middle East could produce a poet who could utter such a statement as “Blessed be the Lord my strength, who teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.”

Of course, we are only matter of a few days into this ‘absence of war’ in Gaza. We have not remotely reached a condition that could genuinely be called ‘peace’; for now, we merely have a ceasefire, and a ‘peace deal’ is still a considerable way off, demanding more complex negotiations and discussions which could – so very, very easily – unravel, possibly plunging the region back into warfare and violence. To use the language of Jesus which we heard in our second reading, although we may well have some ‘fruit’ to celebrate this weekend, it is, by no means, ‘fruit that will last’, though we all hope and pray so fervently that this will, please God, eventually prove to be the case.

And for that to be the case – for this fragile ceasefire to turn into a lasting peace – people are going to have to stick at it. On both sides of the terrible divide which has become such a gaping chasm between Israelis and Palestinians, in both communities, and at all levels, people are going to have to stick at it.

People are actively, deliberately, and painfully going to have to embrace the costly work that will be necessary to ensure that real peace is achieved – the kind of peace that is about mending what is broken; the kind of peace that is about creating safety; the kind of peace that is about restoring justice; the kind of peace that, ultimately, might speak about and demonstrate something of the love of God – about which we find Jesus talking at the opening of our second reading.

Which is also, of course, what Nehemiah is trying to do, in that convoluted narrative which formed our first reading.

To refresh your memories, we are in the middle of the fifth century before Jesus was born, getting on for a century after some kind of peace had returned to Jerusalem following its sacking by the Babylonians in 587. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians then would have born some comparison to the destruction of Gaza we have watched in these past two years: just about everything of importance had been raised to rubble. The Babylonians were harsh and cruel conquerors, and once the Temple had been destroyed, pretty much everyone of significance had been led into a demeaning exile in an unwelcoming foreign land.

But super-powers come, and super-powers go, and after some fifty years of exile, the Persians topple the Babylonians, and their control over the ancient Near East was very considerably more benign. Those Israelites who wished to return home were allowed to do so, and, indeed, money was made available to them for the rebuilding of the Temple and of the city of Jerusalem.

But – despite the good intentions of the Persian king Cyrus – this was not entirely straight-forward. Apathy, corruption and self-interest meant that the reconstruction of the Temple was not, in fact, quite such a high priority as one might have expected should be the case. And our first reading finds us the best part of a century later, and Jerusalem is still a mess. It is still not the ‘vision of peace’ that is the meaning of its name. And the pious Nehemiah has been given support and permission by the Persian king Artaxerxes (for whom he is the royal cup-bearer) to return to Jerusalem and try and resolve the situation – and, in particular, to rebuild the walls around this once-great city.

And when we hear the talk of the city wall, we should understand that this is about more than defence. The city wall is profoundly symbolic of the rebuilding of the identity that the Israelites are, uniquely, God’s people – God’s children, called by God into a particular and loving relationship.

But those around Nehemiah do not want this to happen. The provincial governor, Sanballat; the leader of the neighbouring Edomites, Geshem; and the well-connected Ammonite, Tobiah; these three throw distraction, deceit and downright danger at Nehemiah to prevent the fulfilment of his great vision – but, as we heard, all to no avail. Nehemiah is out to bear fruit – fruit that would last a good long while. Fruit which could speak to a true ‘vision of peace’ that befits those whom God has called to be God’s people – people called to love one another, just as God loves us.

Nehemiah discovered the profound truth to which Jesus gave voice nearly five hundred years later that one can be hated by the world for doing what we might think of as God’s work. And, in Christ, the challenge of that work is, perhaps, a little more wide-reaching than Nehemiah would have perceived or understood.

For, in Christ, our understanding of being God’s children or God’s people has been transformed into a bigger picture – into the biggest picture that it can possibly be. For the special relationship with God of the old covenant, rooted in a religious understanding related to a specific ethnicity – that covenant has been broadened and replaced by one that neither knows nor recognizes any distinctions or barriers, whether to do with ethnicity, creed, colour, gender, sexuality, or anything else which can be used to divide one beloved child of God from another.

And the kind of love that in Christ we have received, and which we are called to share – the kind of love which will, truly, bear the fruit that lasts, that endures, that remains – this kind of love is generous… some would say generous to a fault… for it is, as Jesus remind us, a love that is ultimately rooted in self-sacrifice.

The opening of Psalm 144 may well jar in our ears, and it is a reminder that there is a militaristic vision in some of the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures. And it is probable that in some shape or form much of this psalm has its roots in material similar to that found in Psalm 18, another, longer, psalm with much similar language about victory in battle – a psalm that is one of the older ones amongst those 150 beloved hymns of the Israelite people.

But this evening’s psalm, although it starts with hands that make war, and fingers which fight – tonight’s psalm changes gear, and its final four verses, give it a much later feel than the older psalm to which it is so clearly related. For in these final four verses we find a ‘vision of peace’ that has turned its back on war and violence. For they offer a vision of peace in which nobody is led into captivity, nobody need complain, a vision of an abundant life in which every need is met, and every person can be described as blessed.

That comes about – and, I suspect it only comes about – when people love one another as we have been loved by God in Jesus, living sacrificially, whatever the cost. If Israel and Hamas can learn a little of the dedication to God’s people and service that motivated Nehemiah, and which was seen, fulfilled in the life of Jesus… if those in the Middle East, and all of God’s children, here right now, and around the world… if we can all learn a little more of what it means to ‘love one another as I have loved you’, then we will bear that fruit that was so precious to Jesus – the fruit that will last.

Amen.