Jerusalem: Sign of the Covenant

Lent 2, Sunday, March 8, 2009

Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16

“Your name shall be Abraham…..you shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations.”

Walking the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, the pilgrim walks the covenant God made with Abraham—God's promise that he will be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. The Temple Mount is holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, all descended from Abraham. Muslims hold that it was from this spot that Mohammad ascended to heaven. Jews venerate it as the place of the Holy of Holies in the Second Temple. Christian pilgrims have come here for almost 2000 years.

As I walked through Jerusalem's suq, the old open-air market, a pilgrim myself, I took in its diverse aromas—the cumin, nutmeg, and cardamom of the spice merchants, the zaatar blended for dipping the bread with olive oil. I tasted its sweetness in the honey, walnuts and figs in the pastries in the next shop. My eyes were dazzled by the brightly painted ceramics, the stone jewelry, the diamonds and gold. The red and black Bedouin embroidery, and the red, orange, blue and purple of the Druze weavings.

Photo: Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and Lutheran Church of the Redeemer at left

Jerusalem is the crown of the covenant God made with Abraham, not because it is the property of the Jews or the Muslims or the Christians, but because it is the place where the “multitude of nations”—the descendants God promised Abraham—live and work together in the old market. Walking across the Old City, I had tea with the jeweler in the Armenian Quarter, bargained for the best price on a stone bracelet in the Arab Quarter, and stood, mouth gaping, at the gold and diamonds in the windows of the jewelers in the Jewish Quarter, all in one afternoon, in the space of less than a mile. In Jerusalem, the covenant—the multitude of nations—is a visible reality; it can be tasted and smelled.

God has been faithful. God has kept the covenant. It is we who have broken it with our scheming for territory; with our weapons delivering death to our enemies, fired by computer from the safety of a control center miles away; with our armies breaking down the doors of homes and dragging sons off to prison.

We have enjoyed God’s promised abundance, but we have forgotten our part of the bargain—we have forgotten that our names, too, have been changed, that in our baptism we are now new people. But even though we have forgotten, God has not. God’s message to Abraham is God’s message to us today. In spite of everything we do to break the covenant…in spite of military occupation, imprisonment, suicide bombings and security barriers, God is faithful to the promise made to Abraham. God keeps the holy city for the multitude of nations.

And the people of Jerusalem today live in the midst of the multitude. Peace groups like B’Tselem Israeli Center for Human Rights, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the Mothers in Black, Sabeel Christian Palestinian liberation theology movement, and the women of Machsom Watch stand as icons of the multitude of Abraham’s descendants. People from all over the world come to Jerusalem to work for peace—from Israel, Palestine, Europe, the United States, and some have returned from the places they have fled to for safety. God’s promises are everlasting.
O God, we confess that we have forgotten your covenant with us. We repent our unfaithfulness. In this Lenten season, you call us back to your covenant. Strengthen us for the journey. Amen.