Saturday, April 3, 2010

"Working for Justice, Praying for Peace, Living in Hope"

John 20.1-18
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord". (John 20.18)

The Resurrection of our Lord, Easter Day
a message from Bishop Mounib Younan, ELCJHL, Jerusalem

“Working for Justice, Praying for Peace, Living in Hope” —these are the words at the very top of the web site for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)— http://www.elcjhl.org/ . How can this be? I ask—in a land where political and economic realities reveal only suffering and hopelessness?

Bishop Mounib Younan explains in his Easter message: (Below is an excerpt. Read the entire message: http://www.wfn.org/2010/04/msg00011.html)

….Where do we find hope when all seems hopeless? Martin Luther finds it in the very act that brings us into the Christian family: Through baptism, we are restored to a life of hope, or rather to a hope of life. Baptized into life in Christ, our hope comes from our resurrected Lord, who
sustains and renews our hope, enabling us to endure difficulties, vulnerability and weakness. And he not only implants this hope in us but commissions us to carry it to all. This is why we in Jerusalem continue to shout out the message of the early church: the resurrection of Christ is
our sole hope in this world. This has been our message for 2,000 years, and will continue to be our message until Christ returns. For the living Christ will never allow our hope to fade away, for he is a God of hope and wants us to be messengers of hope.

I experienced this deeply this past January at the general assembly of the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches (FMEEC) in Beirut, Lebanon. I had gone seeking a word of hope—and I received it, as I listened to the testimonies of our sisters and brothers in Christ in Sudan, in Iran, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. To me, it seemed as though the risen Lord was commissioning us for a new mission; that, like Mary, we are to revive hope in our fellow disciples by reminding them that the Lord is risen; that, like St. Paul admonishes, we are to strengthen our sisters and brothers in need.

Likewise, my sisters and brothers of FMEEC wanted a word of hope from Jerusalem. I told them how the evangelical message of grace was having an impact in the Middle East. I told them about how we were dialoguing with interfaith partners to bring justice to our region. I told them how the risen Lord gives me hope even in a hopeless situation…..

Likewise, we in the ELCHJL feel we have an important mission in our society. Like Mary, we stay in this land dying for peace and justice. As Jesus called Mary as his apostle of the resurrection, so we Palestinian Christians are called as apostles of hope despite our struggle, despite our hopelessness. Our congregations, schools and centers play an important role in providing hope and developing Palestinian society. Our parishioners’ daily struggle to maintain a Palestinian Christian witness in this land is an encouragement to our many partners and friends all over the world. Our efforts at building bridges between Palestinians and Israelis prepares us to live together peacefully after a political settlement is reached. Our dialogue with Muslims and Jews inspires other Christians to cross borders to build peace in this broken world. As St. Paul says of Jesus, “In his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Ephesians 2:14b).

Photo: Bishop Younan, socond from left, and other signers of the Kairos Palestine document, calling for churches worldwide to stand with Palesetinian Christians against the occupation.

The resurrection calls us Palestinian Christians, given our current circumstances and our steadfast hope in the victory of life, a special call to impart hope where hopelessness exists in the world. We can encourage persecuted Christians in Asia and Africa; advocate for innocent civilians in war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Iraq; stand up for oppressed minorities like Dalits in India; share our resources with countries like Haiti destroyed by earth quakes. We can facilitate reconciliation between majority and minority populations of Bangladesh, Central America, Burma and Turkey. We can teach people who fear unfamiliar cultures, religions and political realties about celebrating diversity. We can welcome refugees, migrants and trafficked people from among the poor and disempowered around the world. We can share with others the hope that comes from dialogue.

Surely everyone in this justice-deficient land, Israeli and Palestinian alike, longs for the day when they will hear words of peace like those found in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled,
and do not let them be afraid.”

As long as I believe in the risen Christ, despair will never overcome my hope; hopelessness will never overcome my trust in the living Lord. He is commissioning us, like Mary, to go and tell the world that he is risen. And, like Mary, I must not look for hope in a tomb. For Jesus is not there - he is out in the midst of life, beckoning us to follow him in his mission for peace in our beloved country. No, our Lord is not in the tomb, but he is with all of us who long for and work for justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.

May this hope, which began in Jerusalem with the risen Lord and continues in us today, inspire you to boldly say with us and all believers:

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Al Masih Qam! Haqan Qam!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Good Friday—Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?



Why are you so far from helping me,
from the words of my groaning?
















O my God,, I cry by day, but you do not answer….

















....I am a worm and not human;
















Scorned by others, and despised by the people.
















All who see me mock at me….
















Do not be far from me,
for trouble is near and there is no one to help.
















Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;.


















They open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion















I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast….

















My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.















For dogs are all around me;
A company of evildoers encircles me.
















My hands and feet have shriveled;
I can count all my bones.
















They stare and gloat over me;
They divide my clothes among themselves,
And for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, O lord, do not be far away!
O my help, come quickly to my aid!


















Deliver my soul from the sword,
My life from the power of the dog!
Save me from the mouth of the lion!
















From the horns of the wild oxen
you have rescued me….
In the midst of the congregation I will praise you….
















You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
Stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!


















For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted;
















He did not hide his face from me,
But heard when I cried to him….






















All the ends of the earth shall remember
And turn to the Lord
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before him….
















Future generations will be told about the Lord,
And proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.






























Many of the photos are mine – some are from http://www.freegaza.org/ and Reuters or AP; recent photos are from http://www.flickr.com/photos/imemc/, the archive of International Middle East Media Center; painting of Christ on the cross is from an exhibit, “Christ in the Palestinian Context” in Bethlehem: http://www.bethlehemmedia.net/photos_ed12.htm . Some were taken on Palm Sunday in Bethlehem; some in recent demonstrations against the ongoing building of Israel’s security wall in Beit Jala; some in Beit Sahour where the Israeli army recently built a watchtower; some show recent arrests and detentions; one shows victims of the war on Gaza in January, 2009; another shows a funeral procession in Nablus.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Maundy Thursday, "Thursday of the mandate"

John 13.1-17, 31b-35

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13.34)

Loving your friends—sounds idealistic, a bit simplistic, but not necessarily impossible. Until we read the part of the story tonight’s reading omits…..those fourteen verses in the comma, John 13.17-31b. And the verses that follow tonight’s reading—verses 36-38.

In the verses we don’t read on this night Jesus says, “one of you will betray me.” (13.21), and “before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.” (13.38) Whoaa!! Now, that changes everything. While Jesus may have convinced Peter that it makes some sense for Jesus to show his love by washing the feet of his students, these verses in the “comma” reveal how ridiculous Jesus’ command really is. Love the ones who betray us? The ones who set a trap for us, to kill us? (read John 13.1-38)

Yet, Jesus is very precise: “as I have loved you,” knowing full well what will happen later that night when Judas identifies him for the Roman soldiers and the temple police. “Love one another,” even when the congregation includes betrayers and deserters. This is not merely one of the commandments of God; it is THE “new commandment” Jesus brings from God for those gathered at his table.

The Palestinians I have met know intimately what it means to be betrayed and deserted.

In“Lawrence of Arabia,” you may remember that British officer Lawrence gains the support of the Arab sheiks in the fight against the Turks by promising them autonomy. While the movie is not history, it reveals a very real promise made to the tribes living in the land between Egypt and Turkey—the lands which today are part of Jordan, the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (West Bank and Gaza). The people of the region, who had suffered under Ottoman occupation, were promised freedom in exchange for helping to defeat the Turks. The Arab leaders were betrayed by Britain when its Cabinet agreed to support “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” (Balfour Declaration of 1917, from the appendix of A Palestinian Cry for Reconciliation, by Naim Stifan Ateek, Orbis Books, 2009).

While the movie is historical fiction, the promise of autonomy is very much a part of the real history of the Palestinian people. In The Olive Grove, (Saqi, 2009) Deborah Rohan writes the story of the Moghrabi family (who eventually emmigrated to Colorado). The grandfather, Kamel, was arrested by the Turks for joining with the British. His family’s story tells how the broken promise of Palestinian autonomy haunts him for the rest of his life and becomes an important part of the family story. In May, 1948, they are forced to flee for their lives, abandoning their home in Akka as the Zionist soldiers take over the town. Kamel Moghrabi died in Lebanon, heartbroken that his efforts to reclaim his home, his farmlands (the olive groves) or even the money he had in the bank, were futile. Bureaucratic regulations put in place by the newly forming State of Israel prevented Palestinians from claiming their property and money—declaring it “abandoned.”

Every Palestinian I have met has a similar story of betrayal—of abandonment by a world that watched more than 800,000 Palestinians fled their homes as the Zionists took over Arab towns following the withdrawal of the British troops from Palestine in 1948. The families all thought they would return to their homes after the fighting. Like Kamel Moghrabi, they believed that the world would not stand by while such injustices were committed. They were betrayed by the international community, which named the injustices in United Nations resolutions, but did nothing to help them reclaim their possessions.

But even in this 62nd year of their suffering, the Palestinians welcome visitors to their land—visitors like me from the very country that is still betraying them with $2.55B in military aid to Israel to support their occupation. Photo: Iptysam and her family welcome me into their home in Beit Jala.

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” I have experienced this Christian love in the welcome I receive when I visit the Palestinians in Bethlehem—even the Muslims. A love that transcends the betrayal and the desertion they still experience—while US dollars buy more ammunition for the Israeli soldiers who arrest their sons marching in protest of the Wall.

How can this be? It is a mystery to me—like the resurrection that awaits at the end of this most holy week.

Gracious God, you command us to follow in your way of love. You sent your son to bring us your message of reconciliation and peace, knowing that your love would be returned with betrayal and desertion, even by those who called you teacher and friend. Give us courage to be agents of reconciliation today—to carry your love even to those places where we will be betrayed and deserted. Amen.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Evening, Palm Sunday, 2010

Luke 19.28-40

“When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples….” (Luke 19.29)

As we lifted palms in church and heard the familiar words of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and shouted “Hosanna!” we were reenacting, as many Christians have done through the centuries, the event that begins the holiest week in the Christian calendar. Each year, Christians from all over the world retrace Jesus’ steps, processing down the Mount of Olives and into the Old City of Jerusalem. Palestinian Christians from Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank have participated in this procession for many years.

Even in Luke’s account, there are mixed reactions to Jesus and the adulation of the crowds. As they shout for joy and throw their cloaks on the path to welcome him, “some of the Pharisees” are worried and warn that this public acclamation should stop.

Not much has changed in the past two thousand years. The procession of palms in Jerusalem—Christians parading through the streets, praising God and marking this holiest of weeks, are still seen as a threat.

Although pilgrims from Ireland, the Philippines and Utah walked in the Jerusalem procession today, most Palestinians from the West Bank were denied entry into Jerusalem. In spite of the efforts of Palestinian church leaders who have been working with Israeli officials for weeks, no permits were given for their congregations to travel to Jerusalem, and Palestinians do not travel anywhere without permits. The five or so miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem have become a divide that cannot be breached.

In Bethlehem today about 150 Palestinian Christians, with their Israeli and Muslim supporters, (along with two donkeys and a horse) did manage to get past the checkpoint. But they were quickly stopped by soldiers who piled out of their jeeps—beating and arresting the marchers. Eleven Palestinians were arrested at the main tourist checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, the place our tour buses go through when we visit. (See photo with the palms and the soldiers arresting one of the marchers.) Four Israeli peace activists who were also detained were later released by the Israeli soldiers. See more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/activestills/ Read the story from Ma’an news agency: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=272253 ; more details from Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh’s blog: http://www.qumsiyeh.org/rightsblog2010/

Other Palestinians did manage to celebrate Palm Sunday at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. And others walked with palms in the village of Al-Zababdeh near the West Bank town of Jenin (see AP wire photo at top).

Even Jesus would not have been able to walk today from Bethany to Jerusalem. The Israeli security wall cuts off the main road, between Jericho and Jerusalem, the road that goes through Bethany. (photo shows where the wall blocks the Jericho road).

Today we marked Palm Sunday, not only with readings and reenactments of the procession, but also with the reading of the story of Jesus’ passion—the suffering he endured at the hands of the Roman empire, his arrest, the beating, the insults of the soldiers……….

Gracious God, you sent your son to show us your way of liberation and peace. Help us, who call ourselves by his name, to be messengers of peace and reconciliation in your world today. Help us break down the walls that divide us—to find one small thing we can do to bring reconciliation to the places where we live and work. Amen.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lent 5, Gospel of John

John 12.1-8

Bethany is one of the Arab villages on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the West Bank. The Arabic name is Al-Azariya (pronounce it quickly and you can hear then name of its namesake, from our story today—Lazareth). Its name comes from the Greek “Lazarion,” or “place of Lazarus.” Some mosaic pavement, the remains of a fourth century Byzantine church, can be seen there today outside the Franciscan Church of Saint Lazarus. The journal of Egeria tells us that pilgrims have been coming here since at least 384. She writes, “so many people have collected that they fill not only the Lazarium itself, but all the fields around.”

Today’s pilgrims drive to Al-Azariya in tour buses and make the short but difficult walk down the uneven steps to the Tomb of Lazarus, a small burial chamber with an anteroom. They might also visit the two churches and the mosque that mark this site. Muslims also venerate the raising of Lazarus, and by the fourteenth century the church built over his tomb had become a mosque.

Jesus came here for supper with his good friends shortly before his journey into Jerusalem, much like we gathered around these verses of John’s gospel the week before we celebrate that journey with hosannas and palms.

Before Israel’s security wall was built, Bethany was a stop on the main road between Jericho and Jerusalem. As you can see on the map, today it is isolated from neighboring Arab communities by the security wall, which snakes its way through East Jerusalem, carving out an easy passage between West Jerusalem and the Israeli settlements built in the West Bank.

On the map, the name for Bethany is spelled Al-Eizariya. The green line is the unofficial border between Israel and the West Bank; Israel’s security barrier is shown by the red and purple lines. Brown areas are Arab towns and lands.blue areas are Israeli settlements and lands claimed by them. Click on the map to see it larger.

This is why so many Arab towns have been protesting the building of the wall in the past couple of weeks—the wall has carved up their communities, dividing farmers from their fields, families from their grandparents; cutting off commerce between Jericho, these Arab villages and Jerusalem. Jericho is east of Bethany—off the map to the right.

Last week in Beit Jala, protesters marched with banners of Rachel Corrie, a young woman from California who died seven years ago on March 21, as she stood in front of a bulldozer, hoping to prevent it from destroying the home of her friends in Gaza. Beit Jala is south of Al-Azariya on the map.

They also marched in Al-Ma’sara (at the bottom of the map, just south of Bethlehem), where Omar Alaaeddin (see photo), a 25 year-old community organizer lives. This week he spent six days in Israeli six different Israeli prisons before being released on bond, without charges. During this time he was beaten and interrogated. One of the soldiers told him "do you think the international solidarity will protect you?" You can read his story and see pictures of his injuries online: http://www.flickr.com/photos/activestills/ and http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=58264

In the coming Holy Week as we contemplate the suffering of Jesus, and his death at the hands of the Roman Empire and the church officials who chose to cooperate with that system, I will be remembering the suffering of those today who organize for justice and peace, those who are punished, beaten and bruised, for their protest against the injustices they suffer every day. I will also remember the members of the Lutheran congregations in Beit Sahour and the Bethlehem region who will be gathering around the same stories and remembering their own suffering and losses—the family members imprisoned, the businesses ruined, the olive groves on the other side of the wall, the family members in far-away countries who have left for a safer, more peaceful life. I will also be thinking of their faithful witness, as they speak out for reconciliation and peace in their weekly non-violent protests.

O God, you have given us life abundant and, in Mary’s anointing adoration, you have shown us your way of faithful discipleship. Embolden us to anoint the feet of those for whom suffering and death is a daily threat. Help us become your prophets of peace and reconciliation, standing against the forces that use terror and intimidation to silence those who proclaim justice and freedom. Amen.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Lent 5, Isaiah

Isaiah 43.16-21

“I am about to do a new thing;
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43.19)

This week once again we heard prophetic words proclaimed to a people in exile—they have been forced from their homes and marched across the wilderness to a strange land; they have been uprooted from their homeland. The Israelites had been conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and removed from their homes in Judea. Far from all that is familiar, cut off from the temple which has been the center of their faith, they even feel cut off from God because they believed that God dwells in the ark in the center of the temple. They despair.

But the prophet has a message from God—God will do a NEW THING! “Do not remember the former things….I am about to do a new thing…..I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” God announces to a people who have lost everything—their homes, their lands, even those who feel estranged from their God—that all will be restored.

This is the promise that Palestinian Christians cling to; it is what they hear when they read scripture…..God’s promise that all will be made new, that all will be restored. Their suffering is not the end of the story.

Their hope is not based on hopeful signs from US, Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the nightly news. Their hope springs from good news like this from the prophet Isaiah.

This week I’ve listened to the tally of fatalities, as Palestinians march in protest of the seizure of their lands and Israeli actions limiting access to their farms and crops. They have also been marching in memory of Rachel Corrie, who was killed in Gaza seven years ago, run over by the bulldozer she tried to stop, hoping to prevent the destruction of another Palestinian home. These non-violent protest marches have been met by Israeli soldiers, tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, and, apparently, even live ammunition.

Doctors have provided x-rays that show live ammunition in the skull of nineteen-year-old Ousayab Qadous who died over the weekend in a demonstration in his village of Iraq Burin, near Nablus. http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11855. Following midday prayers on Saturday, the villagers were marching to protest the restrictions that prevented them from accessing their lands beneath the nearby Jewish-only Israeli settlement of Har Brakha. The marchers carried no weapons.

Similar events took place this weekend in other areas of the West Bank and Gaza, and Israeli security forces, deeming the marches to be “an existential threat” to Israel, arrived in the village with tear gas and rubber bullets http://palsolidarity.org/2010/03/11724. This is in the West Bank, on land that most of the world believes will someday become a state for Palestine. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/03/21/israel.clashes/index.html

This weekend four, Palestinian youths have been killed in these incidents. And Palestinian militants fired a rocket that killed a Thai farmworker in a greenhouse in an Israeli agricultural community just north of Gaza on Thursday. Israel retaliated with airstrikes on Gaza that killed twelve.

To see how Palestinians are resisting the Israeli security wall, read a story and watch video of the weekly protests in Bi'lin in the West Bank: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010219142048591226.html.

Even the news that peace talks will soon start again does not give hope to people yearning for peace in their communities in Israel and Palestine. It is God’s promises that bring hope into communities like the ones Isaiah addresses.

You may note that the verbs in this passage from Isaiah are in the present and future tenses. Yes, God has saved God’s own people in the past, but this God of past miracles is also a God of a future we cannot imagine….a future of liberation and homecoming and refreshing waters in the desert. A God who can make what seems impossible a reality.

O God of liberation and new life, you have shown us your ways—of restoration, reconciliation and homecoming. Help us to follow where you lead. Give us courage to do our part to make the world a reflection of your good creation; strengthen us for your work to bring home the captives and bring refreshing waters of hope and well-being to parched, inhospitable lands. Amen.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Lent 4 - Gospel of Luke

Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32

The much-loved story of the Prodigal Son has inspired literature and art for two thousand years. We love to read about our God, so generous that nothing—not even total rejection of God and all the ways God would have us live—can cut us off from God’s unfailing love and mercy. No matter how far we stray from what God has intended for us, God will always welcome us back. All we need to do is return, turn toward God (“turning” is the definition of repentance); the door is always open. It’s interesting that the prodigal son had not reformed his life; he had not gotten his life together. He returned at the lowest moment, when he had lost everything. And this darkest moment is precisely when God welcomed him back with a lavish party, an extravagantly abundant celebration.

How different this notion of God is from the God who punishes evildoers by rewarding suicide bombers with a special place of honor in heaven; or the God who has promised all of the land, from the Euphrates to the sea, to descendants of the Israelites who practice one particular form of religion. How large and grand God seems in the story of the Prodigal Son; how tiny the God of the young man who walked into the Park Hotel in Netanya and killed 30 people with his suitcase-full of bombs, or the settler attacking schoolchildren on their way to school in the Hebron hills…..or the God who smiles upon American hegemony in the world, for that matter.

The signers of the Kairos Palestine document know a very large, generous, abundant God. The God of this document, “A Moment of Truth, a Word of Faith, Hope and Love from the Heart of Palestinian Suffering” is the prodigal God of our story today. Palestinian Christian leaders of thirteen denominations issued their call to the world in this document on December 15, 2009. It calls upon the international community and, in particular, the church community, to recognize their complicity in the occupation of Palestine and to take action and stand against this occupation that is causing so much suffering and despair.

Photo: signers of Kairos Palestine, Lutheran Bishop Mounib Younan, second from left

Like the South African Kairos Document issued by church leaders in 1985, the Palestinian church leaders hope that this document will begin discussion in churches around the world, encouraging them to talk about the injustice of the 43-year occupation of Palestine by Israel. The document calls the military occupation of their land a sin and defines true Christian theology as “a theology of love and solidarity with the oppressed, a call to justice and equality among peoples.”

The document begins with a list of ways that the occupation is making life unlivable for Palestinians and discusses the ways Israel’s actions violate international law. Proclaiming, “The land has a universal mission,” the document sets forth the theological and biblical understandings that shaped their statement. It identifies signs of hope and proclaims a prophetic mission for the church, “to speak the Word of God courageously, honestly and lovingly in the local context and in the midst of daily events.” Finally, it looks to the future with faith and hope.

Do we believe we are created in the image of God, or do we imagine a God created in our own image? How is God looking at the lives of Palestinians and Israelis, two peoples in one land, suffering the effects of sixty years of war and terror? What is God doing there today, and what would God have us do?

These church leaders invite us, “Come and see.” They promise to welcome us as pilgrims. They invite us to “know the facts and the people of this land, Palestinians and Israelis alike,” and “to see the face of God in each one of God’s creatures.”

And they look to the future: “In the absence of all hope, we cry out our cry of hope. We believe in God, good and just. We believe that God’s goodness will finally triumph over the evil of hate and of death that still persist in our land. We will see here "a new land" and "a new human being", capable of rising up in the spirit to love each one of his or her brothers and sisters.”

AMEN!

Read about the document: http://www.aaper.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=quIXL8MPJpE&b=5492575&content_id=%7bCE92264D-510D-419B-9524-93966890E472%7d¬oc=1
View the document itself: http://www.kairospalestine.ps/sites/default/Documents/English.pdf

O God, you welcome us home with a love so much greater than anything we can imagine. We have sinned against heaven and before you. We are no longer worthy to be called your sons and daughters. Yet you throw open doors of exclusivity and shame, and you welcome ALL who enter, without judgment or conditions. Help us, who have been created in your image, to follow your example of extravagant love. By your generous welcome, break down our barriers of fear and shatter our so-carefully-guarded opinions. Give us courage to use our own prophetic voices in your work of reconciling the world. Amen.

If you would like to accept these Christian leaders’ invitation to “come and see,” think about making your own pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There are many opportunities, and we have a group going from the Rocky Mountain Synod. Check it out: http://www.pilgrimageholyland.blogspot.com/

Monday, March 15, 2010

Lent 4, Joshua

Joshua 5.9-12

“Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” Josh 5.9

As they stand poised to move into the land God has promised them through their ancestor Abraham, the Israelites pause to remember who they are—liberated slaves—and where they have come from…….Egypt. And who has brought them here? God. They did not do it on their own. God has taken their shame away and today they stand tall and proud, ready to claim for themselves their inheritance.

More than three thousand years later, Christians in Palestine feel their own disgrace. The humiliation of standing for hours at the checkpoints, the tanks that can roll into town anytime, day or night, the terror of not knowing if they will ever see their loved ones again. And then they hear God’s promise—the God who brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt has surely not forgotten these present-day slaves held in bondage by the Israeli occupation.

If you have visited the Holy Land, you probably went to the Shepherds’ Fields, where it is believed that the shepherds heard the angel’s announcement of Jesus’ birth. If so, you have been in Beit Sahour (“the place of the nightwatch”), one of the three towns that make up the Bethlehem District. During the intifada Israel levied special taxes in Beit Sahour (a form of collective punishment because it penalized everyone, not just the rock-throwers)—a glass tax for broken windows, a stones tax for damage done by stones, a missile tax for the Gulf War damage, among others (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_Sahour#Tax_resistance).

The people of Beit Sahour refused to pay these taxes: “No taxation without representation – No taxes without a government.” “We will not finance the bullets that kill our children.”

Israel responded, led by Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said: “We will teach them there is a price for refusing the laws of Israel.” In retaliation, after a joint prayer service of Israeli Jews and Palestinians at Beit Sahour’s Orthodox Church, the Israeli army imposed a 45-day curfew; they also blocked food shipments, cut telephone lines and seized millions of dollars in money and property from the homes of the tax resisters; 40 people were arrested.

When the UN Security Council debated a resolution condemning the siege and the indiscriminate seizure of property, the United States vetoed the resolution, even though it was supported by the eleven other member countries.

They organized nonviolent demonstrations, and with the support of Israeli and international peace activists, the people of Beit Sahour were successful. They continued to refuse to pay the taxes until 1995, when the Palestinian Authority (PA) assumed governance of Beit Sahour.

Even though the PA governed Beit Sahour, Israel maintained an army base nearby at Oush Grab. In 2006, after the Israeli army abandoned the base, the residents of Beit Sahour built a Peace Park on the land, with plans this year for a new playground. However, early this year the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) declared the area a “closed military zone.”

Last month soldiers showed up with bulldozers to begin construction of a watchtower. Why a watchtower? …..to protect the Israeli settlements that surround the entire Bethlehem district, cutting off Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala from the rest of the West Bank. (see map—brown/tan areas are Palestinian; blue areas are Israeli settlements—all lands to the east of the green line are in the West Bank; red and purple lines are the Israeli separation wall)

The residents of Beit Sahour, 75% Christian, hear God’s promise, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt,” and they are responding again nonviolently. On February 22, they marched on the road to the Peace Park, carrying signs protesting the building of the watchtower. Israeli soldiers attacked with tear gas. See video of the marchers and the soldiers, along with more details of the latest Israeli incursion onto Palestinian lands: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1276

Although we usually see only the stone-throwers on TV, there is a large nonviolent movement in the Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank—Muslim and Christian. I’m part of a book group which reads books that help us understand the conflict, and our latest book is Once Upon a Country, a Palestinian Life, by Sari Nusseibeh, a staunch advocate of nonviolence. (You can join us for discussion of this book on March 30, 7 pm at my house; email me: janlmiller@q.com.)

Gracious God, your servants in Beit Sahour are suffering. For sixty years, our government has supported the occupation; forgive us our part in supporting their suffering and turn our hearts to new ways of living together. Help us to recognize the places where your kingdom is breaking in—around the world and in our own communities—and give us the courage to join in. Amen.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Lent 3, Gospel of Luke


Our Lenten journey with Jesus is taking us closer and closer to Jerusalem, where we know the horrific fate that awaits him. In this portion of Luke’s gospel, we are reminded that Jesus is not the first Galilean whose blood will be spilled in the Holy City—Jesus lives in dangerous times, when one’s politics can get one brutally murdered, even in the precincts of the temple. The drama of Jesus’ crucifixion intensifies for us in this third week of Lent.

While his followers may have hoped that this disaster story would frighten Jesus, perhaps dissuade him from his death march toward Jerusalem, Jesus will have none of it. He uses the story to show that they have it all wrong—God is not an avenging superhero; God does not zap people for their sins (much as we might hope). Instead, Jesus uses these disaster stories to teach an important lesson about repentance.

This is a lesson we, too, can understand, in the wake of Haiti and Chile and Katrina. In times of overwhelming disaster, people ask, Why? Because these people were more sinful than the rest of the world? Jesus shows us how foolish our usual answers are.

Jesus shows us that there is more than one kind of perishing—the physical death under the collapsing tower, and the perishing of the soul because there has been no repentance, the soul has not changed course and turned toward the kingdom of God. God’s kingdom HAS broken in. Jesus has already called out for people to change their ways which produce only suffering and death.

Today we again witness God’s kingdom breaking in when we see people who refuse to cooperate with the death-dealing ways of the world, people who do not allow their anger and despair to define who they are. We have witnessed this in people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. I have also witnessed this in the Palestinian town of Jayyous, where Israel’s security wall is cutting the farmers off from their fruit orchards.

The parable of the fig tree is something every Palestinian can understand, because fruit trees are the riches of their land, too rocky and barren for wheatfields or vegetable gardens. And patience is a hallmark of a people dependent on olive trees that take seventeen years to produce fruit. In Jayyous, Israeli soldiers uprooted more than 6000 olive trees to clear the way for their wall. Then the wall cut the farmers off from their fields, so that now they have to go through a checkpoint to get from their homes in the village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom of the hill. Sometimes the checkpoint is not open; sometimes the soldiers will not let them pass, even though they have the proper papers. Photo: Jayyous farmers waiting at the checkpoint, June 2008

But the villagers of Jayyous, these cultivators of olive trees, are a patient people. They do not let the wall define who they are. They do not let the Israeli soldiers’ rudeness and arbitrary behavior determine their reaction. When the soldiers are demeaning, the farmers smile. When the soldiers rough them up, they organize nonviolent demonstrations against the wall. They march and carry signs. They sort through centuries-old documents to prove their claim on their lands. They file lawsuits in Israeli courts, using Israeli law to prove the validity of their claims. They welcome international visitors with hospitality—a delicious lunch prepared by the women of the village. They want the world to see how Israel is behaving unjustly—first by building the settlement of Zufim on their farmlands and then taking more of their lands to build a wall to protect those settlers from attack….from the villagers of Jayyous, who, by Israel’s reckoning must be very angry about all the land that has been taken from them by the bulldozers. But the Israelis have it all wrong.

The people of Jayyous are suffering physically—many of these farmers now depend on UN food aid and families are separated because the young people must go elsewhere to earn a living. Forty of the men of the village are in Israeli prisons, some held for years without even being charged with a crime.

But their souls are not perishing. Even under occupation, they are taking charge of their own lives, CHOOSING a nonviolent response to the violence being done to them and to their hundreds-of-years-old olive trees by the bulldozers. Surely we are witnessing a tiny sign of God’s reign; surely we can join in. Surely we can heed Jesus’ call for repentance, turn from our own ways of military domination, and join them in their nonviolent resistance.

Gracious God, you patiently tend your fig trees, planting, cultivating, nourishing us in faith, as we slowly learn to trust your bounteous goodness. Help us flourish in your tender care. Make us messengers of your good news. Help us bear good fruit for the life of the world. Amen.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Lent 3, Isaiah

Isaiah 55.1-9

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
Is 55.1

The pulsing heart of every Middle Eastern city or village, is the marketplace. With its geographical location on the sea, between the great cities of the ancient world, this strip of land that is now Israel has long been a commercial center—a stop on the way between Rome and Egypt and Mesopotamia, a marketplace for Egyptian cotton, spices from India, bronze from Rome, and silk from China. In Jesus’ day, food and other goods passing through Palestine fed and clothed the widely scattered cities of the Roman Empire.

On a walk today through the market in Bethlehem or Jerusalem, the pilgrim traveler encounters the descendants of the first-century merchants, still calling out, “Come into my shop!” “Come inside and let me show you my beautiful…..Hebron pottery, Druze weavings, Bedouin rugs.” “Come taste my spices, sample my honey and pistachio pastries.” “Come see my photographs; let me get you something cold to drink!” Palestinians today stand in a long heritage of commerce and hospitality that we hear in Isaiah’s call to the people, “Ho, everyone who thirsts….”

In today’s text, Isaiah stands in the marketplace, hawking his merchandise: “come, buy and eat!” But he shocks his listeners when he adds a new twist to the familiar sales pitch: “….Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

Isaiah is calling out to his people—the exiles, the Israelites who were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and had been marched hundreds of miles across the desert to Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophet is speaking to a homeless people, refugees longing for the land they had been forced to leave by the soldiers, many years ago.

What Isaiah offers, however, is more than food and water. When he tells these suffering people that water and delicious food is available to them “without price,” he offers hope, hope for a future unlike the captivity of Babylon.

All they need to do is listen…. “Incline your ear…listen so you may live.”

This is a message that Palestinian Christians hear very clearly today. This message speaks to their exile as well. The message speaks to 60 years of living without a homeland. Sixty years since they were routed out of their homes by conquering soldiers—many forced to march long distances, to end up in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Sixty years of living in a foreign land, governed by other people; sixty years of living under occupation—first by Jordan and, since 1967, by Israel.

Isaiah calls out to them, hawking his wares—refreshing water, tasty wine, nourishing milk—promising new life and abundance, calling on them to “listen…..so that you may live,” offering a covenantal promise, “my steadfast, sure love….” “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thought than your thoughts.”

This is where these Palestinian Christians place their trust—not in missiles and M16s, not in peace proposals and elected leaders—but in God’s ways. And so, they build schools, train leaders for a future Palestinian state, teach their children traditional Palestinian dances and songs, and continue to worship each Sunday and, as Holy Week begins, walk the Palm Sunday road into Jerusalem…..whenever they can get permits to travel, that is. They listen to God’s covenantal promise…..it is the only thing that gives them life. Photo: Bright Stars of Bethlehem after-school program for children

God of promise, you come to us in every age, offering again your covenant, if only we will listen. We pray today for open ears to hear your good news of hope and plenty. Help us to call upon you and follow in your ways of justice and peace. Amen.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Lent 2, Gospel of Luke

Lent 2, Gospel of Luke
Luke 13.31-35

Standing on the Mount of Olives, millions of pilgrims have beheld Jerusalem; then they walk down the hill, remembering Jesus’ last days. The Mount of Olives is the highest point in Jerusalem, and this is the view Jesus would have seen as he walked into Jerusalem.

Each time I stand there, my heart weeps for this city, with its gold domes and towers, a magnificent testimony to love for God. For centuries, religious people have built churches, mosques, synagogues, monasteries and holy shrines. The view is breathtakingly beautiful.
Photo: Jerusalem from Dominus Flevit, the Mount of Olives

On Sunday, as we were listening to these words from the gospel of Luke, young Arab men, hiding in a mosque built where the temple stood in Jesus’ time, started throwing stones at the people visiting the Temple Mount. They were angered by Israel’s decision to designate holy sites in Hebron and Bethlehem as Israeli heritage sites (see Monday’s meditation).

“Four policemen were lightly wounded by Arab stone-throwers yesterday during riots that began on the Temple Mount but soon spread to the alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City. Eight rioters were arrested….Senior police officers attributed the riots to the [Israeli] government's recent decision to declare Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem national heritage sites. That decision has sparked days of rioting in Hebron, and yesterday it spread to Jerusalem, police said. But Arab residents of East Jerusalem said the riots broke out because the police allowed a larger than usual number of Jewish visitors to ascend the Temple Mount yesterday.” (Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=temple+mount&itemNo=1153021ml?sw=temple+mount&itemNo=1153021)

Protests continued on Monday, as seven Palestinians were arrested (photo of protest from Palestine Network News): http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7907

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians appears so intractable that resolution seems hopeless, that these places where Jesus walked will never see peace. Israeli confiscation of Palestinian lands and stone-throwing young protesters have been constant news over the past 60 years, especially since 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza.

“Go and tell that fox….” Jesus’ words in this week’s gospel are a stark reminder that the powers of the world, whether Israeli, Palestinian or American, are not the last word. “Jerusalem,” the seat of religious and secular power, is the object of God’s mothering love. Behind all Herod’s foxy maneuvers for power, God waits…..not in judgment, but to surround Jerusalem with her mothering wings, protecting her chicks. God, whose spirit hovered over the waters at the birth of the world (Gen 1.2), is Lord of creation—not Herod.

If world peace depended on the efforts of the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli Knessett or the U.S. Congress, or our President, we would surely despair. “Jerusalem….the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings….” Today, as Palestinian youth, express their desperation and frustration at their own powerlessness by throwing rocks, Jesus reminds us of God’s plan to nurture us into new life, and gives hope for the future.

Mothering God, you have loved us since you birthed your creation. When we forgot your covenant, you sent your son to reclaim us. Nurture in us the courage to be messengers of your love for all the world. Help us find ways to bring hope—to the people who live in the shadows of despair, both here at home and in your troubled homeland. Amen.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Lent 2, Genesis

Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18

“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,’To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” Gen 15.18

The Al-Haram al-Ibrahimi or Haram al-Khalil, or Tomb of the Patriarchs is the most significant pilgrimage site in Hebron—built by Herod the Great in the first century CE, on the site believed to be the cave of Machpelah, where we are told Abraham buried his wife Sarah after purchasing the land from Ephron the Hittite (Gen 23). Abraham and Sarah lived in Hebron as aliens among the Hittites, one of the Canaanite peoples. Genesis later recounts that Abraham (Gen 25.7-10), Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah (Gen 49.29-32) were buried here as well. The building that stands today, the only fully surviving structure built by Herod, is thus sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Photo: Tomb of the Patriarchs, Hebron

Last week, on February 21, Israeli Prime Ministry Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Tomb of the Patriarchs (and another burial site, Rachel’s Tomb, or Bilal Ben Rabah Mosque, in Bethlehem) would be included in the list of some 150 national heritage sites that his government plans to protect and renovate under a $170m restoration plan. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights notes that the announcement was made on the eve of the sixteenth anniversary of the massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers at the mosque by Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler. Hebron is a town of 160,000 Palestinians and a few hundred Jewish Israeli settlers, who have set up residence in the area at the center of town, near the market and the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

On Monday in Hebron about 100 Palestinians rallied to protest this move. Rock- and bottle-throwing protests continued during the week, and on Friday Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad attended prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, as a sign of Palestinian opposition to Israel’s actions.

Read how the events were reported in Al Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/02/2010225111933403649.html
In the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/21/world/international-uk-palestinians-israel-sites.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=tomb%20of%20the%20patriarchs&st=cse
In the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=169404

Although there is no final peace settlement, I’d like to note that Hebron is in the West Bank, the area that most of the world thinks will some day become a state for Palestinians. Under the Oslo Accords in 1993 and a subsequent agreement between the PA and Israel in 2000, Hebron is designated Area A, under full Palestinian Authority control. Nevertheless, Israeli soldiers patrol Hebron….to protect the Israeli settlers.

As we read this week’s lesson from Genesis and ponder Abraham’s faithfulness, we see in the patriarch an example we might follow—of engaged, questioning faithfulness to God, who has also provided us with uncountable blessings and wealth. News from Israel and Palestine will also remind us of the ongoing struggle over these promised lands today. So what do we make of it all?
Abraham took seriously God’s presence and power in his life. Abraham challenges us to notice where God is present today—even in seemingly hopeless places like Hebron. For, above all, God is revealed to Abraham as a God of foolish, unreasonable hope—for childless Abraham and Sarah……and for us, living in a world of seemingly irreconcilable conflicts.

God of Abraham and Sarah, we confess that we underestimate your goodness; we limit your love and mercy by our own narrow interests. In this Lenten season, open our hearts to your love, and make us witness to your limitless love for all. Amen.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Lent 1, Gospel of Luke

Luke 4.1-13

“‘You are my son the beloved. With you I am well-pleased.’” (Luke 3.22) With these words, Jesus is identified by God and sent out to begin his ministry. But first, Jesus goes into the wilderness to learn what those baptismal words mean for him.

And in the wilderness, Jesus encounters the devil. Now, we expect the devil to be evil, but what the devil offers Jesus are GOOD things. First the devil offers Jesus the chance to make bread—just think how many hungry people Jesus could feed with this bread! Next, the devil offers Jesus the chance to rule the kingdoms of the world—Jesus could govern the people differently, with justice, and bring peace to the world. For the third test, the devil simply wants to see the saving power of God in action—a demonstration of God’s faithfulness. All seemingly GOOD things!

So it is with all the evils of the world. The evil offered up by the devil in today’s story masquerades as good. On the surface, what the devil offers sounds good, but Jesus is not fooled.

Today there are many places in the world where something which appears to be good actually produces evil consequences. Israel’s security barrier is only one example. Feeling threatened by suicide bombers, the Israelis are building a wall to keep them out—this seems like a good thing, right? Protecting people from danger, keeping children safe? Isn’t this what we all want? This is a good thing!

But where I have seen the wall, it only masquerades as a security barrier. The wall is not being built on the border between Israel and Palestine. It is being built many kilometers into the West Bank. All the area between the border and the wall, then, becomes Israeli territory because it is now on the Israeli side of the wall. The wall is a way of claiming more land for Israel, gobbling up olive groves belonging to Palestinian farmers. As I stood in the hilltop village of Jayyous, an Arab village in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem, I saw how the wall had been built to protect a nearby Israeli settlement, which had also been built on confiscated Palestinian farmland. The wall ate up more of the farmers’ orchards, cutting them off from the village. From that hilltop, the wall looked to me more like a way of stealing land from Palestinian farmers. More than 6000 olive trees were uprooted to build the wall, destroying an agricultural economy and reducing the income for the village—now many of these farmers, unable to get to their fields, depend on United Nations food aid for survival.

The map shows the wall snaking its way into the West Bank so that the Israeli settlement of Zufin can be included within Israel (Green Line is boundary between Israel and West Bank; red lines are the completed wall; purple lines are the wall under construction and planned). Read more about Jayyous and the wall:

Photo: Jayyous farmers' olive groves, seen from the hilltop village

Our unconditional support of Israel has seemed like a good thing. For sixty years, the U.S. has supported Israel with military aid, equipment and training. We have sided with Israel in the United Nations. The U.S. has refused to condemn Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. We have been uncritical of Israel’s arrests, interrogation and torture of Palestinian professors and students. We have stood by while Israeli soldiers, using American ammunition, have attacked Palestinian schoolchildren and peaceful protestors. Aircraft attacking Gaza in 2009 were manufactured by Boeing, as were the smart bombs they carried. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11743. These are complicated matters, and I don’t mean to suggest easy answers, but we need to examine our country’s actions and make changes.

Jesus was baptized as he began his ministry and so are we. This Lenten season offers us a “wilderness” time, time for testing our own purpose in the world. What are the devil’s messages to us? What is the work God would have us do to help bring God’s vision of justice, mercy and peace?

Gracious God, you sent your son to show us your way of justice, mercy and peace. Help us to be led by your Spirit during these forty days in the wilderness of Lent. Transform us by the power of your Holy Spirit and strengthen us to be your partners in building the world you have promised. Amen.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Lent 1, Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 26.1-11
“Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate...” (Deut. 26.11)

For a variety of reasons, Israelis live in settlements constructed in the West Bank, on land where the international community expects a Palestinian state to be eventually located. Not all settlers are there because they are religiously or ideologically staking a claim on all “historic Israel.”
A few radical settlers claim all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean; they want all Palestinians removed from that land. But most Israelis either are oblivious to the settlement-building or support the settlements because they provide a less expensive housing alternative. Housing in the settlements is subsidized, either by wealthy American and European Jews, or by the Israeli government. According to ICAHD (Isreali Committee Against House Demolitions: http://www.icahd.org/ ), most of the young families who buy homes in the settlements live there because the housing costs much less than in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

Some settlers, however, are fiercely militant, loudly and sometimes violently defending their right and obligation to populate all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, and they prove their claims with passages like these verses from Deuteronomy. So, when I read “the land that the Lord your God is giving you,” I cringed. These are the very words that I have heard settlers utter in defense of their illegal occupation of Palestinian homes and lands.

I was surprised to hear in today's text, however, that once the people of Israel have offered their first fruits to God in gratitude for this gift, they are instructed to celebrate “together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you.” In the gift of the land, God does not assume that the Israelites will remove all the prior inhabitants of the land. God apparently did not envision 1948, when soldiers broke down doors and forced Palestinian families out into the streets and on up the road, out of town, most ending up in refugee camps, some as far away as Jordan and Lebanon. These verses in Deuteronomy present a different plan. God’s plan for the land is that it will be a place where the Israelites (who, we are reminded were once aliens themselves, “afflicted” and “oppressed”) can thrive, but also a home for the “aliens.”

This is not the reality of this land today. Non-Jews cannot thrive, cannot participate in the abundance God offers Israel in these verses. Non-Jews live under different rules. West Bank Palestinian cars must have green license plates, to ensure they do not drive on Israeli-only roads. Palestinians applying for building permits, whether to build an addition to their homes or a new school in their community, are routinely denied—for years. Palestinian homes are still being demolished. In January a home was demolished in Jaffa. Palestinians must have a permit to do anything. Even the Palestinians who live in “autonomous” areas of the West Bank, like Bethlehem, must have travel permits to be allowed to leave their town—even when they are traveling to another town within the West Bank. Israeli soldiers stand guard at the entrances to Bethlehem and check identification of everyone entering or leaving—except my own busload of American tourists.
Photo: House demolition in Jaffa, January 18, 2010

Wouldn’t this celebration described in Deuteronomy be a grand vision for peace in Israel/Palestine? Jews and Palestinians together, in one great big party, celebrating the abundance of the land, offering up their abundance in gratitude for God’s gift. After all, God is God of Jews and Palestinians (whether Muslim or Christian), all descendants of that “wandering Aramean.”

God, you led Abraham and Sarah to a land of milk and honey, with enough bounty for all the inhabitants of the land. We thank you for the plenty in our own lives. Help us to trust in your promise of abundance, opening our hands and hearts to share our bounteous harvest with the alien in our midst. Amen.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Ash Wednesday--Mortality

Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010
2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10

Today we receive the ashes on our foreheads, a sign, to ourselves as much as to others, of our mortality, a reminder that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return,” as the words of the liturgy so brazenly proclaim. For, in America, it is easy to ignore our mortality, to think that we can live forever. After all, don’t we spend thousands of dollars on health clubs, vitamins, anti-aging creams, cholesterol-lowering drugs and spend our weekends on the ski slope or the treadmill—expecting to add a few years to our lives?

For Palestinians, living under Israel’s occupation, mortality is a daily reality—not some distant possibility. No matter how careful they are, at any moment the soldiers can knock on their doors, drag them or their husbands, wives, sons or daughters off to prison, or present the family with a demolition order, executable in two hours. For Palestinians, even if they obey all the rules (no additions to your house, no travels outside your town, no demonstrations against Israeli authority), there are no guarantees that the soldiers will not come.

When I read Paul’s words about all the hardships he has endured, I think of the Palestinians, “in great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger…” (2 Cor 6.4-5). The young men who work in the secret tunnels under the border between Egypt and Gaza endure hardships, working underground in hastily-dug dirt tunnels….and they know mortality. Take two minutes to hear them in their own words: "Tunnel youth."

Remember these two young men as you finger the grit of the ashes on your forehead and ponder your own mortality.

Gracious God, in your incarnation, you experienced suffering and death. Comfort those who today suffer hunger and imprisonment, especially the people of Gaza. Let your suffering accompany us on our Lenten journey. Teach us be your lips and hands, offering words of encouragement and support and sharing our abundance with the people of Gaza, who have nothing. Amen.

If you have another 3.5 minutes, learn more about the tunnels by watching “The Tunnels of Survival (Gaza).”

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Beware of Your Good Deeds—for Lent

Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Matthew 6.1-6, 16-21

Strange, on this first day of the season of Lent, a season historically marked by intentional practices of piety, that in our gospel text Jesus warns us against these very practices. Most of us are familiar with the practice of “giving up” something for Lent; giving up chewing gum was a popular Lenten discipline in my high school days. Scripture calls for three specific pieties for the faithful: almsgiving, prayer and fasting. I suppose chewing gum fell under the rubric of fasting.

Here, in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is very clear: BEWARE of almsgiving, prayer and fasting. BEWARE of the very practices God requires of us. Jesus does not say that we are to be the guardians of how others live out their piety. We are to concentrate on ourselves and, particularly, our own “good deeds” and our motivations.

The U.S. claims that standing in solidarity with the State of Israel is one of its good deeds—standing with the victims who suffered so terribly during the holocaust. We claim to stand with a democracy surrounded by hostile nations. Isn’t it noble to stand with those who suffer, to stand with those whose lives are endangered simply because of their ethnicity? Who could possibly argue against such a heroic undertaking?

But Jesus warns us to examine our motivations—are we really noble heroes protecting the weak and powerless, the widow and the orphan? Jesus calls on us to discern what God might be calling us to do as we participate in this conflict between two peoples who wish to inhabit the same land. What is God’s will for these people and for their land and how can help bring it about?

It is easy for me, having seen how Palestinians are persecuted and demeaned under Israeli occupation, to point the finger at the evil Israelis who bulldoze houses, shoot non-violent protesters in the streets and imprison children who throw stones. It’s always easier to point the finger at others’ motivations—much harder to examine my own. But here is Jesus, reminding us that it is my own house I must examine, not Israel’s. Even though I do not carry the gun or drive the bulldozer, how do my own tax dollars work in Israel to support the weak and powerless?

What I see when I visit Israel and Palestine, is that my tax dollars bought guns and ammunition used to destroy property and people in Gaza last year. One Palestinian friend whose family was not allowed to leave Gaza to come with him for graduate studies in Denver, told about his daughter’s puzzlement: “Daddy, these airplanes and missiles are from where you are, from America.” My tax dollars have been used to construct checkpoints where Palestinians wait in long lines every day just to get to work; my tax dollars have been used to fund an army that bulldozes Palestinian homes simply because they cannot get a permit to add a bedroom.

I cannot blame Israel—I have not bothered to pay attention to how my money is used. U.S. unconditional military support for Israel (2.3b in 2008) —this is not Israel’s problem; it is mine. The foreign aid I have supplied to Israel has been used to assuage my conscience for atrocities committed sixty-seventy years ago, when the world chose to turn its back on the Jews, refusing to intervene in the killings or to accept the millions of refugees fleeing the carnage. But it has not brought about justice God demands for the people of the land, either for Israelis or for Palestinians. This Lent, as I ponder what I can do to bring peace and justice for the Palestinians and Israelis, Jesus’ sermon is a timely reminder for me to examine my own part in the oppression and violence.

Gracious God of mercy, as we enter into this season of introspection and penitence, preparing to remember your son’s life, death and resurrection, help us to examine our role in life, death and resurrection in our own small world where we seek to live out your justice and mercy. Help us find signs of your will and join in efforts to raise the dead where we live and work. Amen.