the highway

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:23-25 ESV)

A small group luau.

I’m sitting on the patio listening to a Mormon elder who grew up in Hawaii strum away on a ukulele, singing out that “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” ukele song. And I am transported.

Mormon elders hanging out with protestant/charismatic/evangelical believers may not be the biggest gulf spanned or the highest wall crumbled. But as I closed my eyes and totally forgot who was playing – other than the fact it was a human being with a song in his heart and a story to tell, I was reminded for a moment of this passage in Isaiah I recently had stumbled across (again).

“In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the earth.”

Egyptians and Assyrians and Israelites (interesting that Israel is the third!) worshipping together. Images of the tavern scene from Fiddler on the Roof – Russian Jews and Cossacks drinking and dancing and celebrating, because there was something to celebrate that transcended all of their differences (in this case an upcoming marriage). First the Jews celebrate and dance, then the Russians enter the picture and take center stage, and then there’s a little collision, and Tevye takes the plunge and enters the dance with a Russian goy.

I find striking that neither lost their identity as they entered the dance together.

“Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” Each distinct, each blessed, each joining hands.

In the tavern, Jew and goy each have their distinctive nationalities and dress and language and dance, ultimately playing off each other on the tavern floor – with Tevye daring to learn the Russian’s dance. Though, admittedly, this is only for a moment. It doesn’t take long for the present, flawed reality to cloud back in even as they leave the tavern and Tevye is warned of an upcoming “demonstration” by the local police. But for a brief moment there is a highway from Assyria to Egypt, from Egypt to Assyria, and north and south dance in worship, in life together, with little Israel the third partner on the dance floor.

Funny how absorbed we can be by our differences.

Even funnier how we try to “hammer them out,” thinking that this is the way to build this highway.

But the reality is this isn’t a highway that we can or need to build at all. It’s one that is already here, waiting for us to muster up the courage to see and acknowledge it. Waiting to be walked and danced and worshipped on. Waiting to be used. We can use it, or we can put our own roadblocks on it – political and religious, economic and social – we can pile them high and then defend our barricades quite zealously. And we do.

But the highway remains.

And as I listen to the strains of the ukulele, I find myself wondering on this 9/11 what it will take for us to tear down the barriers we have erected. What will it take to see Jew and Goy, Muslim and Protestant, Catholic and Mormon, _________ and _________ dancing together on that highway.

What will it take?

And still the ukulele plays.

Still Isaiah dreams.