Saturday, February 28, 2009

Wilderness, the Place Between Baptism and Ministry

Lent 1, Sunday, March 1, 2009
Mark 1.9-15

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

As our bus drove down the winding road from Jerusalem, east toward Jericho and the Jordan River, I looked out the window at the vast, dry landscape. Occasionally on the brown, rocky hills, I saw a goat or a camel, nose to the ground, but I could not imagine what they could find to eat in such a barren place. There was nothing green visible from the bus. The only color enlivening the palette of dirt-brown and dusty tan were the orange or blue plastic tarps stretched between sheet metal walls, used to shelter supplies or equipment for the Bedouin who make their camps in some of the gullies. The corrugated sheet metal also forms pens for their animals. Otherwise this terrain appears to be uninhabited—no water supply, nothing visible to graze on, no shade for the weary.

This is the wilderness where Jesus was cast out—a very scary place for one person, on foot, without my air-conditioned bus.

This scary place of wild beasts and angels is a bit like the season of Lent—a season that offers us the opportunity to cast off the comforts and distractions of life and enter into a wilderness time, 40 days for encounter, formation and change. What we know about his time in the wilderness is that this was the place where Jesus was formed for his ministry. Immediately after his time in the wilderness Jesus is preaching his message of hope, announcing God’s reign—giving good news for the world.

For Jesus this wilderness was the place between baptism and his ministry—much like our Lenten journey, poised between our baptism and our work to bring hope to the world.

The people of the Lutheran Christmas Church and their pastor, Mitri Raheb, always live in this Lenten time—between baptism and ministry. Their lives are lived in the wilderness—literally, because their town sits on the same landscape—and figuratively, because their Lent is yearlong, their entire lives lived in a time of testing and in the company of both wild beasts and angels.

In this time of testing, many of the residents of Bethlehem emigrate. Everyone I met had relatives in Europe, America, South America or Africa. And most had plans to join their relatives if things get worse. In this never-ending Lent of Palestinian existence, the people of Bethlehem encounter the wild beasts: the wild beasts of insecurity, never knowing whether an Israeli army bulldozer will come down their street to demolish their home; the wild beasts of hopelessness, because peace seems even further from becoming a reality because they watch Israeli settlements still being constructed on Palestinian land today; the wild beasts of depression, because finding work to feed the family gets harder and harder because Israeli soldiers arbitrarily detain goods being shipped into or out of Bethlehem and commerce happens at a snail’s pace, if at all.

But the Christians living in Bethlehem live their in this Lenten time under the sign of their baptism. They have heard God’s baptismal words, “you are my beloved.” For to be baptized is to be born anew into hope—not a hope based on a new technology or improvements in lifestyle, but the hope of things not seen. The certain hope of knowing that someday the curtain of the temple WILL be rent, their world will be torn in two and resurrection will be birthed from destruction. And the 24-foot high security wall surrounding their town will be broken in pieces. They live in this baptismal hope, like the writing on the wall in Bethlehem: “Love and kisses - Nothing lasts forever.” (The photo shows this part of the wall.)

God of all beginnings, in our baptism you claimed us and your voice named us your beloved. Journey with us through the wilderness of this Lenten season as we prepare for our ministry, the work you would have us do in a world which so desperately needs to hear a word of hope. Amen.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Standing with the Farmers of Gaza, in Their Fields

Lent 1, Sunday, March 1, 2009
1 Peter 3.18-22

“Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous…” (1 Peter 3.18)

Always, suffering….from the beginning, we are told in our holy book. Some suffering is simply part of being human—we are ill or we grow old. Other suffering is the result of not living in the way God intends for us. Because the world’s bounty is not shared equally with all, people suffer. Because we are not able to forgive our neighbor, we suffer. It’s the way of the world.

Standing against the way of the world also brings suffering. The world does not deal kindly with those who protest its ways. Resisting injustice brings condemnation. Jesus’ death on the cross at the hands of the Roman occupiers puts this kind of suffering at the center of the Christian life.

Today in Gaza, a month after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, Palestinian farmers are still being shot at while they harvest their crops in their fields. Israeli soldiers patrolling the border fire at the farmers in northern Gaza almost daily.

And international human rights workers (HRWs) are standing with the people of Gaza, walking with them in their fields, standing with them in their suffering. In defiance of the continuing Israeli attacks on farmers trying to harvest their crops, these human rights workers, wearing bright yellow vests and carrying megaphones and video cameras, accompany the farmers to their fields each day. Their bodies shield the farmers from the snipers’ bullets and their voices through the megaphones proclaim to the soldiers that these are unarmed farmers, not terrorists, and they are not alone.

On Tuesday of this week, Palestinian farmers from the village of Khoza, near Khan Younis, and the human rights workers accompanying them, were fired upon by Israeli forces. The farmers and HRWs were attempting to work on land around 300m from the ‘Green Line’.

One of the human rights workers reports, "We were accompanying farmers to gather peas from their lands. The farmers, for the most part, were elderly men and women with their sons. There were many farmers spread out over a large area. We were only in the fields for about five minutes before the Israeli forces began firing. I believe the firing was coming from four army jeeps and a Hummer. The shots were coming very close, and were sniper-type of shots.”

Before the shooting started, the soldiers had sat in their Hummer for about 30 minutes, watching the farmers harvesting their crops while the yellow-vested human rights workers stood lookout. As the farmers began to leave the field to return to their village, the soldiers started firing. See video of the attacks: http://www.freegaza.org/

"We are accompanying these farmers to harvest their crops because they have a right to their land. Palestinians who live or have land within 1 kilometre of the Green Line are being driven out by Israeli military violence. We consider this to be a form of ethnic cleansing. Withinternational accompaniment, these farmers are able to harvest their crops with a much greater degree of safety than if they were to come to these areas alone" Andrew Muncie (Scotland) —International Human Rights Worker

On February 18, a deaf farm worker, Mohammad al-Buraim, 20, was shot in the right leg as farmers, together with the international human rights workers, attempted to leave, having worked on their land for 2 hours in full view of the Israeli forces. Mohammad al-Buraim supports his family of 16 persons, but he will not be working for some time; the bullet penetrated his ankle and landed in the tire of the truck he was pushing because it was disabled. The photo shows Mohammad at al-Naser hospital.

Gracious God, comforter of those who suffer, lead us in ways of freedom and justice so that our lives stand against the suffering that can be prevented. Amen.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Rainbow: Sign of the Covenant

Lent 1, Sunday, March 1, 2009
Genesis 9.8-17

The covenant—at once a sign of promise and hope and a sign of grief, loss and despair. For the people living in the land of the biblical stories today, the covenant God made with Noah is not a simple matter.

On the way to Efrat, an Israeli settlement just south of Bethlehem, our bus took the “Israeli road.” Once it leaves the city limits of Jerusalem, the highway is built on Palestinian West Bank land because there are many Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Beautiful landscaped gardens welcome us to the settlement of Efrat. Olive trees and palm trees greeted us; waterfalls welcomed us from the dry dusty roads.

We sat in the synagogue listening to Ardie Geldman, who has lived in Efrat since 1985. He has raised his six children here. Efrat is a modern middle class town. Most of the residents are orthodox Jews and most commute to Jerusalem for work.

Ardie immigrated to Israel from the United States in 1982. Judaism had become the focus of his life and he and his wife came because of their “belief in the Torah, ” because of “the special relationship between Jews and Israeli land.” He told us that living here is a fulfillment of his obligation as a Jew to live on this land. His understanding comes from the covenantal relationship of the people of Israel with their God, a covenant we first hear about in the Bible in the story of Noah we read this week.

Ardie told us that, although the Palestinian community calls the West Bank “occupied territory,” he calls it “an area of disputed territory.” The Palestinian community refers to Efrat as a “settlement,” but he calls it a “solid, stable community,” and he tells us, “It ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The town has been here 25 years, “and with God’s help we will be here 25 more years.”

He told us it is different here from the U.S. Integration is valued in North America, but not here. Israelis must work on more basic issues before they can live together with the Palestinians. There are no Palestinians in Efrat, just like there are no Jewish families in Bethlehem, he tells us. He does not mention that it is not the Palestinians but the Israeli government that forbids Jews to live in Bethlehem, or even to visit.

He told us that the Palestinians “forfeited” their right to the land given them in 1948 because they rejected the partition of the land. Because the Arabs wanted all or nothing, they ended up with nothing. He also told us that the Jews are a people, not a religion; the land is part of their identity. He tells us, “We don’t have to demand. God and the Bible proclaim it our right. The land is our home. The Bible is the source of our origins. We are not into conquering other people’s territory.”

Ardie talked to us for about an hour. It is clear that he feels no responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinians. The Palestinians could have lived better lives if they had accepted the State of Israel. Their suffering is the fault of “their own failed leadership; Israel is not doing this to them.”

God’s covenant with Noah is a beautiful story. We love rainbows because they are a sign of a hopeful future, God’s faithfulness to us. But we must also remember that God’s covenant turns everything upside down, forms a people from nothing. Our rainbow hope is that with God we, like Noah, can do the impossible—create a people, Israeli and Palestinian, from a foolish band of dreamers who trust God’s promises.

O God of foolish hope; you call new life out of the debris left by catastrophic flood. Like your rainbow, make us signs of your promise. Use us to create new life out of the ruins of war in the land where you walked and taught. Amen.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Looking Good

Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

Looking good. It’s what we all do, and we are so good at it that we sometimes come to believe that we really are those good-looking people.

When I close my eyes and picture the “hypocrites” giving their alms as the music of a trumpet fanfare fills the streets, I hear the Israeli government in December, claiming that their attack on Gaza was a matter of self-protection, a response to Hamas’ rocket attacks in violation of the ceasefire. In January I watched Israeli spokespersons portray Israel as the innocent victim of Palestinian terrorists firing rockets at Sderot and other towns in southern Israel.

What they said is, in fact, true. But it is only part of the story—the part that makes Israel look good. Violation of the ceasefire did not begin with Hamas’ rockets. It would be impossible to trace it back and figure out who violated the ceasefire first, but Israel had already been violating the ceasefire—actually, ever since it began. Israel had not kept its part of the agreement.

When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, and removed the illegal settlements, it seemed a time full of hope—an opportunity for Gazans to govern themselves, live in freedom, and begin the economic development so desperately needed for survival.

However, Israel’s occupation of Gaza did not end with the pullout. Israel continued to control Gaza’s borders, and thus all trade and commerce, preventing needed supplies from entering Gaza—essentials like food, fuel and medicine, as well as supplies for building and manufacturing were denied entry. In June, 2007, things got even worse when Israel imposed a blockade (which the United States supports)—making Gaza totally dependent on Israel for food, fuel, electricity, cooking gas, medical supplies, building materials, etc. Things got so bad that even before Israel’s December 27 attack, the people of Gaza were living at a subsistence level, children were malnourished and most sick people were unable to receive treatment in Gaza; nor were they permitted to leave Gaza to seek treatment in Egypt, Israel or anywhere else. Even before December 27, 80% of the people of Gaza were living below the poverty line, subsisting on less than $3 per person per day. 80% of Gazans would literally have starved if they did not have food from international assistance agencies.

In November, UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon issued a statement: “The Secretary-General is concerned that food and other life saving assistance is being denied to hundreds of thousands of people, and emphasizes that measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and should cease immediately.”

Every once in a while, Israel would lift the siege of Gaza and let a few supplies trickle through the checkpoints, keeping people at a level of mere survival. Before the embargo, 500-600 truckloads a day would enter the Gaza strip. When Israel “opened” the borders, they increased the number of trucks from about 70 to about 90.

We in the West are more aware of what Israel says than what it does. We hear Israel say they are lifting the embargo, but we do not know that they still do not let in enough goods to feed the people and care for the sick, let alone enough goods to reopen the closed factories and rebuild the country. Israel denounces Hamas because it will not recognize the state of Israel, but few Americans know that Hamas has agreed to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders; they expressed this to former President Carter on his last visit to Syria.

There is no justification for Hamas rockets being fired at Israeli towns, but these rockets (which seldom hit their targets) are being fired as a way of resisting the occupation of their land by Israeli troops. To learn more, read Sabeel’s report on Gaza in its entirety. Sabeel is a Palestinian Christian liberation theology movement located in East Jerusalem.

O Lord our God, you teach us how to live in harmony with our neighbors and our world. Help us today, as we go out into the world with the ashes on our foreheads, to follow where you lead us. Amen.

Marked by the Cross of Christ

Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2009
2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10

As we begin this holiest season of the church year, Paul reminds us of the very core of our faith—that our God, against all human reason, reaches out to us in reconciliation. God will not let us go. God reaches out again and again, refusing to give up on us. In the ashes today, God once again reaches out and touches us with God’s own surrendered life so that we might be reconciled to God.

The ashes show us that reconciliation is at the very heart of the Christian life; it is what we are called to do above all else—reconciliation with God and with others. The Christians at the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem know this well. They have taken God’s invitation to reconciliation seriously and they have stayed in the land of Jesus’ birth, working for reconciliation with their neighbors. They have become peacemakers, bridge-builders, in the political landscape of the Holy Land. Living under the cross, they have been transformed by God’s reconciliation and have stayed in Bethlehem to be repairers of their broken world.

Because life is so hard in the Palestinian areas, many people have left—there are no jobs, commerce is made almost impossible by the Israeli permit system, educational and medical institutions struggle because Israeli authorities prevent them from getting the equipment and supplies needed for their work.

But many have chosen to remain in Bethlehem. If you look at the web site of the Diyar Consortium, formed by the Lutheran community there, you can see all they are doing to strengthen their community, to “equip the local community to assume a proactive role in shaping their future”—the schools, the Wellness Center, the concerts, the after-school children’s programs. The children's swim class in the photo above is one of the activities of the Wellness Center.

This month they are hosting one of many film festivals. The films name what oppresses them and celebrate efforts to overcome the oppression. The first film in February was “Bethlehem Checkpoint, 4 am,” a 2007 documentary made under the Project "Images for Life" which trains Palestinian refugees in photography and video. The film shows the “Carnal density of the queue, bodies piled up, squeezed, pushed, contrasts with the stillness of the cold metal bars,” as 300 workers queue up at 4:45 am, permits in hand, ready for the guard stations to open at 5 am, so that they can be scrutinized by the guards on their way to their jobs in Israel.

Take a moment to look at the ways they are bringing reconciliation to their community: http://www.annadwa.org/

Reconciliation—how very hard it is for us. Much easier forget the God we have already abandoned; much easier to walk away from the pain of our own broken relationships with God and with others. But reconciliation is what God offers us in Jesus Christ. God does not let go. God does not give up. This is what the ashes tell us.

O God of the ashes, may your mark on our foreheads remind us who we are and lead us to actions of reconciliation and hope. Amen.

Friday, February 20, 2009

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.