The Restorers of Streets to Live In

Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Joel 2.1-1, 12-17
Isaiah 58.1-12

“and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt…you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.” (Is 58.11-12)

Before dawn on April 2 of 2002, Pastor Mitri Raheb and his family crouched in their apartment adjacent to the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. They listened in terror as the tanks rolled down the streets on both sides of the walled compound which housed the church offices, an artisans’ workshop, a cultural center, media center, and a guesthouse, in addition to their home. They could hear machine guns and shattering glass; they heard the tanks shelling the buildings on their street. They ran from one side of the house to the other, to stay as far away from the shooting as they could. They watched TV to find out what was happening and they learned their neighbors, a mother and her son, had been killed. This day, and the curfew that followed, lasting nearly four months, was one of the worst times the Rahebs had experienced under Israeli occupation. (Read Pastor Mitri’s book, Bethlehem Beseiged, Stories of Hope in Times of Trouble, to learn the rest of the story.)

The Israeli tanks were too big for Bethlehem’s narrow streets. As they came up the streets on either side of the Lutheran compound they destroyed ancient walls of the buildings, broke all the glass in the windows, and the shells fired from the tanks put huge holes in their buildings. The soldiers came into their offices and smashed their computers.

Even though they were living in a town where the Israeli Defense Forces could enter at any time of the night or day arresting young men and demolishing homes with bulldozers, Pastor Mitri and his congregation spent many years building for new life in their community—especially for their children. With financial assistance from Europe, they built a new school, an artisans’ workshop and a community center; they created after-school and summer programs for the children of Bethlehem, Muslim and Christian.

They built the International Center of Bethlehem (ICB), a cultural facility adjacent to their church and guesthouse—a place for concerts, film festivals, speakers and community meetings. The ICB has opened a restaurant and bar, where people from Bethlehem come for a peaceful dinner on the terrace in summer. Sitting in the gardens on the terrace with friends, sipping some wine and having an excellent dinner refreshes the spirit and gives a sense of hope and promise for the future.

Even as Israel’s 30-foot high concrete security wall encircles Bethlehem, cutting off access not only to Israel, but to surrounding Palestinian towns in the West Bank, Pastor Mitri and his congregation have been building for the future. A poster hangs in the ICB, a reminder of the days of destruction in 2002, when the Israeli tanks, shot holes in their walls. “Destruction May Be, Creativity Shall Be,” it proclaims. The poster hangs in the artisans’ workshop, where beautiful jewelry and stained glass are created by women who have no other possibilities for employment.

These are the people Isaiah is talking about, the “repairers of the breach and restorers of streets to live in.”

While the people of Bethlehem are rebuilding, the Israeli government is continuing to demolish homes. In January and February, 2009, 10 homes have been demolished in East Jerusalem (West Bank, Palestinian area occupied by Israel since the 1967 war); one of the homeowners had an Israeli court decision to postpone the demolition until March 31; the soldiers carried out the demolition anyway. An additional 21 homes were demolished in Area C, an area between East Jerusalem and Jericho. As a result, 133 people were displaced. Source: Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, 2/2009.

O God, through your people you repair the breach and restore the streets for the living. Work your will through us so that we may be like a watered garden, a spring of water, refreshing and rebuilding our communities and our world. Amen.