Like many people, I also have been preoccupied in my thinking about and sympathy with both Jews and Palestinians. In fact, in a wider sense, I have also been thinking about and feeling sympathy for Ukrainians and Russians, white Australians and Aboriginals, Serbs and Kosovars, Armenians and Azerbaijanis and many other warring parties.

Please indulge me for a moment and let’s separate ourselves from a ‘fan cheering’ position which typically sides with one group of people at the expense of another. If we do, we inevitably find that things are not as simple as they seem. So, if we honestly delve a little deeper into a problem and listen carefully to the arguments presented by both warring groups, we will find more than one reason to understand the position and arguments as well as sympathise with every individual group on the list. However, this exercise may leave us genuinely baffled and puzzled. So, we either, at best give up in confusion or at worst we are back to our ‘fan cheering base’.

Please indulge me a little more, as I put forward both Abrahamic faith argument as well as solely Christian argument as the way forward from the crippling stalemate which sees more and more people lose their lives needlessly. This sermon is based on the example of unjust suffering and the crucifixion of Jesus.