Easter Greetings from Bethlehem

Bright Stars of Bethlehem
Lenten Reflections 2009
Easter Sunday, April 12

Dear Sisters and Brothers, Dear Friends,

Salaam from Bethlehem during this Passion Week.

The passion story could have ended with 3 men hanging on the cross: the first a criminal who was taking advantage of the instability under the Roman occupation, the second a fighter resisting the foreign dominance, and the third an “innocent” proclaiming the reign of God. And Palestine could have proved to be yet again only a battlefield on which empires can demonstrate their powers, or a cemetery full of tombs of martyrs. And the disciples could have just indulged like so many others in singing litanies of death, cursing the Romans, taking an oath to retaliate or going around trying to win sympathy for their just struggle. This would be a normal scenario in Palestine.

But what happened on Easter Sunday had nothing to do with normality. It was something extraordinary, an occurrence never heard of, and an event truly revolutionary. It wasn't a continuation of the human tragedy in Palestine, but it was a divine intervention. Through this intervention, the land known formerly as a battle field became a Holy Land, and where once cemeteries stood turned into a garden where angels appeared; and those mourning their hero became agents of transformation. The disciples could have spent their entire lives weeping over their lost cause, their killed victim and their shattered hopes. Instead and because of the divine intervention, they caught an incredible vision, they acquired tremendous courage, and they went around proclaiming the crucified as living. They were not anymore mere victims asking for help, but they were transformed to become people with a message that the world is eager to hear. What they have experienced firsthand was an answer to a global longing for life abundant that grows in the context of death, for true hope that shines through helpless situations and for lives that bloom in windy seasons. What God achieved in Palestine on that Easter Sunday through the resurrection of Christ from the dead is still felt today. This is the reason for our being here, and this transforming power is what our ministry is all about.

Thank you for being to us a resurrecting power and support. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Rev. Dr. Mitri RahebSenior Pastor, Christmas Lutheran ChurchPresident, Diyar Consortium

Bethlehem, Easter 2009

Learn more about the work of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem: http://www.brightstarsbethlehem.org/ and http://www.annadwa.org/

No King But the Emperor

Friday in Holy Week
April 10, 2009
John 18.1-19.42

“We have no king but the emperor.” (John 18.15)

There is a contest going on here, between those who uphold the status quo and those who want something different—the people of Israel, living under the occupation of the Roman army want new life. The temple authorities were an integral part of the power structure that ruled Palestine in the first century. This is how it worked: the Roman governor left much of the governance to the king, Herod, and the temple authorities. So long as they could keep the peace and the taxes coming in, the Romans were happy, their army well provided for. Because he wanted to keep the Romans happy, Caiaphas had said earlier that it was better to have one person die for the people (John 11.50). Someone had to preserve order and Jesus, with all his parading through Jerusalem on the donkey, was riling the people up as they shouted “Hosanna” and cried out for freedom.

The present-day occupants of Jerusalem and its surrounding towns also cry out for new life. The Jews long for peace and an end to the threats of suicide bombers; they long for a state where they can feel safe, a state of their own, where they are protected from persecution and hate crimes. The Palestinians long for restoration of their lands—a country without walls and checkpoints and travel permits, a country where they can live in their homes without fear of eviction and bulldozers.

For the residents of Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, the threat of eviction is a daily reality. Their story is reported this week in ei, the Electronic Intifada news. "’We are like the roots of a tree. The Israelis may cut us in places, but we will never die. We will not be transplanted from Jerusalem. I will not leave this house,’ Maher Hanun tells a crowded room of Palestinian community members supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists. Hanun is one of 51 residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem living in two housing units that are facing imminent eviction by Israeli authorities….

The people living in these housing units, belonging to the al-Ghawe and Hanun families, are due to be forcibly removed from their homes this week….The courts have justified these evictions by saying that the land that the houses are built on is disputed. Yet, the houses were built under a joint construction project by the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956, 11 years before Israel occupied East Jerusalem. The houses were given to the families, both made refugees in 1948 after Palestinians living in what became the state of Israel were expelled and dispossessed during what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe.Now these families are threatened with another Nakba. Israeli settlers that have moved into Sheikh Jarrah have falsified documents claiming ownership of the land. The Hanun and al-Ghawe families have presented their legitimate documents and an Israeli judge has not yet ruled on the legality of these papers. Yet the eviction orders are still proceeding, even though no official decision has been reached as to whom the Israeli courts recognize as the true owners.Both the Hanun and al-Ghawe families were forcibly evicted once before in 2002….” Read more….

A member of the al-Ghawe family stands beside a poster inside his threatened house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

O God, your cross reminds us that your suffering is the way of the world. As we look upon your cross today, help us to be bearers of the suffering of others—in our own neighborhoods and on the other side of the world. Amen.

Footwashing Love

Holy Week
Maundy Thursday, April 9, 2009
John 13.1-17, 31b-35

“Just at I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Today we commemorate Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. April 9 is also the commemoration of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the commemoration of the massacre at Deir Yassin in 1948, just before the end of the British Mandate. Deir Yassin was an Arab town west of Jerusalem, which happened to be in the way of the Israeli militias as they removed Arabs to make way for the state of Israel.

If you have 33 minutes, watch the video—with pictures of Deir Yassin today, written accounts from 1948, and survivors, historians and researchers telling the story: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=341600202419569830

The Deir Yassin web site also tells the story:

“Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.

In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage.

Part of the struggle for self-determination by Palestinians has been to tell the truth about Palestinians as victims of Zionism. For too long their history has been denied, and this denial has only served to further oppress and deliberately dehumanize Palestinians in Israel, inside the occupied territories, and outside in their diaspora.

Some progress has been made. Westerners now realize that Palestinians, as a people, do exist. And they have come to acknowledge that during the creation of the state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians were killed and over 700,000 were driven or frightened from their homes and lands on which they had lived for centuries.”

Deir Yassin is regarded as the turning point—the beginning of the Nakba, the “catastrophe”—the massacre created a panic and terrified Palestinians fled from villages all over the land that was to become Israel. Between 1947 and 1951, more than 400 Arab villages were vacated and/or demolished. The Nakba continues today, as Palestinians are still losing their homes and lands.

To read a more detailed account of what happened at Deir Yassin, see: http://www.deiryassin.org/shimontzabar.html, an account of what happened at Deir Yassin from Dr. Me'ir Pa'ill who was a member of the Knesset in the 1970s, representing the Meretz party. In April 1948, he was known as Colonel Me'ir Pilavski, a liaison officer representing the Palmach in the headquarters of the Haganah Israeli forces in Jerusalem.

A year later, the Jewish town of Givat Shaul Beth was built partially over the ruins of Deir Yassin. Today the site of Deir Yassin lies in suburban Jerusalem, 1500 meters north of Yad Vashem, the Israeli holocaust museum.

Read an article by Anis Hamadeh about the Deir Yassin massacre, comparing it to the attack on Gaza in December. About the author: http://www.anis-online.de/1/cv.htm

O Lord God, your Christ tied an apron around his waist and washed the feet of his followers, showing them his way of love and peace for the world. Help us, who profess to be Christ’s followers, to show your way of love to the world with acts of servanthood. Amen.

Blindfolded

Holy Week
Week of April 5, 2009

“Some began to spit on him, to blindfold him, and to strike him, saying to him, ‘Prophesy!’” (Mk 14.65)

painting is by Nabil Anan

It is hard for most of us to imagine being in this situation. We, who are privileged—white, middle class, straight—are unlikely to be falsely arrested, accused of crimes we did not commit or tortured into confessing. It does sometimes happen even in this country where we pride ourselves on the rule of law—but not often, and most assuredly not to us. Even if we are arrested, we do not expect to be spit upon, tortured, or mocked by the police. Our privilege protects us from such dangers.

Most of the people of the world do not enjoy such privilege. On yesterday’s news I heard an audio tape of a 17-year-old young woman in Pakistan being publicly flogged by members of the Taliban, who rule the town of Swat without restraints. She was flogged because she had rejected a marriage proposal from a Taliban fighter, who later saw her walking with another man. French police have been accused of unlawful killings, beatings, racial abuse and excessive use of force, mostly against ethnic minorities and foreign nationals. In Myanmar pro-democracy activists and prisoners of conscience, Hla Myo Naung and Min Ko Naing are suffering without proper medical treatment; one is in danger of completely losing his eyesight, having already gone blind in one eye whilst in detention after being denied specialist medical treatment. And even our own soldiers guarding prisoners at Guantanamo have been accused of beating the prisoners in their charge.

That's why so many people, even non-Christians, identify with the torture and humiliation Jesus received from the temple authorities and the Roman guards. It is why even Muslim artists painted Jesus on the cross for an art competition, "Christ in a Palestinian Context," in Bethlehem in 2002. The crucifixion was what spoke most convincingly to them about Jesus' ministry. Christ's experience was theirs.

April 28, 2004 - A detainee at an ad-hoc roadblock outside the village of Huwarra. His handcuffs were very tight and were only loosened at the request of B'Tselem staff.
Photo credit: Eliezer Moav, B'Tselem


March 31, 2002 - Arrested Palestinians being guarded by IDF soldiers during Operation Defensive Shield. Photo credit: Osama Silwadi, © Reuters

Both images are from B'Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights

O God, your cross speaks to those who suffer humiliation and death at the hands of the powerful. Help us, your followers, to carry your message of the cross to the people in pain in our world today. Amen.

She Has Done What She Could

Holy Week
Week of April 5, 2009
Mark 14.1-15.47

“She has done what she could” (Mark 14.8)

The Jesus portrayed in the gospel of Mark is concerned that his disciples take up the cross and follow in his way. This is what he takes great pains to explain to them. While they are bickering about who will be first and who will sit next to Jesus and how much money is being wasted on expensive ointments, Jesus keeps calling them back to what is needed, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant…” (Mark 10.39).

The disciples are to follow in the way Jesus has shown them—to do what Jesus has done…heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, cast out demons. To do what they can to bring about the reign of God, to be signs of God’s intentions for the world—to bring God’s mercy and justice to the world.

This is what the unnamed woman with the alabaster jar of nard does for Jesus. She does what she is able to do with what she has been given. And this is the good news. It is what all of us can do—what we are able to do. With respect to the injustices being suffered by Israelis and Palestinians, we cannot all do the same things. Rachel Corrie traveled to Gaza and stood in front of a bulldozer, trying to prevent a home from being demolished. Jeff Halper travels all over the world telling about the expansions of settlements while Palestinian homes are demolished in the same Palestinian neighborhoods. Dennis Healy has been the captain of the Dignity on several recent voyages to break the blockade of Gaza and bring medical supplies, humanitarian aid and international visitors to witness and report what they have seen in Gaza.

The farmers of Jayyous, a village I visited in the West Bank last June, are doing what they can—this week they are planting trees as a way of demonstrating against the Israeli security wall which has been built between their village and their farmlands, and against the permits needed to travel between the village and the farmlands: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10448.shtml

The photo shows two farmers from Jayyous planting a tree.

We cannot all do what Rachel and Jeff, Dennis and the farmers if Jayyous are doing, but we can do whatever it is that we have been given to do—read the news about what is going on in occupied Palestine, write letters and send emails and visit our elected officials, telling them what we have learned. We can talk to our friends and neighbors about what we have learned. In the U.S., there is a gaping black hole of accurate information about the lives of Palestinians; we are not paying attention. We often hear a great deal about the suffering of Israelis, but we do not hear about the suffering of the Palestinians. This is where each of us can make a difference, where we can anoint the suffering with costly ointment—for the healing of the world.

O God, in your suffering and death on the cross you showed us what it means to follow in your life-giving way. Give us the strength and good courage to go out, bearing your name and your holy cross to the world you loved, even to death. Amen.

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

Holy Week
Week of April 5, 2009

"Many people spread their cloaks on the road and other spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, 'Hosanna!'" (Mark 11.8-9)

Yesterday as we lifted our palms and shouted "Hosanna!" pilgrims from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem to walk the route that Jesus walked, to remember the events of Holy Week in the place sacred to three religions, in the place where Jesus brought hope of a new way of life, a way of life intended by God. Here is the story of the day for Lutherans of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, led by Bishop Mounib Younan:

Palm Sunday begins for Lutherans at Palm Sunday services at the Arabic, English-speaking and German-speaking congregations in the morning. Today, there was procession that began at Lazarus' Tomb in Bethany, where Jesus' Holy Week journey began with the death and resurrection of Lazarus.

Now, the Separation Wall cuts off the traditional Jericho to Jerusalem road that Jesus would have used. So Christians in Bethany and just on the other side of the Mt. of Olives can't celebrate the traditional Palm Sunday procession with the rest of the Christian community in Jerusalem. The journey begins at the Bethphage Church, with a portrait of Jesus on the donkey and the stepping stone, and continues up and over the Mt. of Olives, past Dominus Flevit church, where Jesus wept over Jerusalem, past Gethsemane, where he prayed on that Thursday evening, and up into the Old City.Thousands come from all over the world to celebrate, sing and process in this historic tradition.

This photo shows the Israeli separation barrier in Abu Dis, where it blocks the Jerusalem-Jericho road where Jesus rode the donkey from Bethany to the temple in Jerusalem. Many Lutherans in Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank are denied permits to make the traditional Palm Sunday pilgrimage.

"I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness." (Isaiah 42.6-7)

Watch the Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem in 2008: http://www.elcjhl.org/galleries/Videos/08marpalmsunday/myvideoplayer.html

Christ in a Palestinian Context, 2

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday
Week of March 29, 2009
Mark 14.1-15.47

Continue today with the reading of the passion narrative. This painting is from "Christ in a Palestinian Context," an exhibit by Palestinian artists during the months-long curfew in Bethlehem in 2002-2003 (see story below). It is described in "Bethlehem Besieged," by Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. (see April 2 post below for more) This painting is by Nabil Anani.


O God, your cross shows us your way of love and mercy. Help us, your children, to be your cross-bearers, bringing your message of reconciliation to those who suffer. Give us courage and patience for our work as we wait for your promised reign. Amen.

Christ in a Palestinian Context

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday
Week of March 29, 2009
Mark 14.1-15.47

Today’s text speaks for itself. It is the heart of the message of the good news, understood best by those who suffer.

During the many months of curfew in 2002-2003, Palestinian artists, Christian and Muslim, were invited to submit paintings for an exhibit, “Christ in a Palestinian context,” set to open at the International Center in Bethlehem in February of 2003. Two of the paintings would be selected to send to Sweden for an exhibit there. When all the entries were in, 60 per cent of the artists were Muslim—and all but one of them painted the crucifixion.

This is all the more remarkable because Islam teaches that Christ was not crucified; for them crucifixion means losing and God cannot be on the losing side. But for these artists, the message of the cross was so strong that they risked betraying their religion to paint the crucifixion because for them the crucifixion is the most vivid image of Christ in the Palestinian context. The passion story we read this week takes place in the context of the land where these artists live—where even today Israeli soldiers can ride in on their tanks, terrorize the citizens and impose a curfew at any time.

Take the next two or three days to read the passion story according to Mark and reflect on the text through this image, one of the paintings submitted for “Christ in a Palestinian Context.” It was painted by Adibe Abu-Said.

View the rest of the paintings. (Click on the images to enlarge them.)

O God, your cross is powerful comfort for those who are suffering. Show us, your followers, how we can be bearers of your cross for those who suffer in your world today. Amen.

Peacemaking: a Work of Community

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday
Week of March 29, 2009
Philippians 2.5-11

These words of Paul are addressed to the people of Philippi, part of his instruction on becoming an authentic Christian community. He encourages them by telling them that they have been given all that they need to follow the example of Christ in their care for one another. It is this supportive community that Christ’s followers also needed as they witnessed Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. It is also the community we need as we follow this path.

As we hear the story of the events of the coming week, we see that Jesus refused to use his power over others, his strength and his might, to avoid being crucified. He maintains, at great personal cost, his humility and his servanthood, the source of his true power. The exaltation of God comes because of Jesus’ obedience, not from his mighty arm or his miracles. As Paul tells the Philippians, we cannot follow in this path of obedience on our own; we need the community of faith.

Peacemaking is not easy work. Contrary to what they say, few people really love a peacemaker. Peacemaking calls us to a different way of life; it asks us to change our priorities, to give up our domination of others and our control over our lives. Peacemaking asks us to open our minds and hearts, to change our opinions, to risk getting to know the other and to listen. Peacemaking makes us and the people around us uncomfortable.

The people working for peace in Israel ask us to give up our ideas of who is right and who is wrong—to listen to the stories of people on the other side and to change our hearts and minds. This is what happened for Dalia the day she opened her door to Bashir. Her family had lived in the house in Ramle since 1948, after they arrived as refugees from Bulgaria. They were told the house had been abandoned, and they were thrilled to live in such a beautiful place with the lemon tree in the backyard. As she got to know Bashir, she learned that his family had been forced to leave this house with the lemon tree by the soldiers expelled all the Arabs as they cleared the way for the state of Israel, earlier in 1948.

Dalia was curious about this Palestinian family and met with them on several occasions. As she listened to their story, she realized that her happy childhood came at great cost for Bashir’s family. She tells her story in the book, The Lemon Tree, by Sandy Tolin. Since hearing their story, she converted the house, which she inherited from her parents, into a community center in Ramla—a place for building peace between Palestinians and Jews, and a place where international visitors can come and hear the stories.

Changing our viewpoints is not easy—it takes community. This book challenges the stories we have all heard about the creation of the state of Israel; the joyful creation of a Jewish homeland also has a dark side. Read the book and discuss it with a group on Tuesday, May 5, pm at our house, 1965 Hudson St., Denver. (RSVP: janlmiller@qwest.net)

Denver Rabbi Adam Morris traveled to Israel with a group of youth from Denver. Although he had many connections to Israel and had been there many times, he had never heard the stories of the Palestinians until last summer. In the community of students he accompanied, his eyes and ears were opened and he was changed. Last fall he preached a sermon on Yom Kippur, telling of his transformation. You can read the sermon that tells his story.

O God, you came among us to show us your way of peace and reconciliation, the life you intend for us. As we journey through the holy week ahead, open our minds and our ears. Make us mindful of your ways of peace so that we can find communities of peacemakers to support us in our work. Amen.