Lent 4, John - Born Blind

John 9.1-41 (including Jesus’ explanation of this sign in 10.1-21)

…he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. (Jn 9.3)

Sometimes when I tell people what I have seen and heard in Israel and Palestine, I feel like the man born blind.

When I come back to the US with all these stories that don’t fit with what we have always believed about Israel and Palestinians, I get the questions—Aren’t the Palestinians encouraging violence? Aren’t their leaders corrupt? After all, don’t they want to see Israel “driven into the sea”? How do you know you haven’t been duped into sympathizing with the Palestinians? Is it possible you have been brainwashed? Like the blind man, I have seen something so powerful that I can’t keep it to myself. I feel compelled to tell everyone about it. Like the blind man, I’m not sure what it means, but in telling the story I am slowly finding the meaning.

This week in Beit Ommar, the Israeli army closed the city’s only entrance, the small dirt road that passes under the 50-foot-high guard tower. The people of Beit Ommar, fed up with Israel’s ongoing confiscation of their lands, have been demonstrating against the occupation. With the “unrest” all over the West Bank, Israel is clamping down on protest.

Jamal, in Beit Ommer (the name of the town, like most Arabic place names is spelled many ways in English – I have usually written Beit Ummar) wrote on Wednesday (his English is MUCH better than my Arabic, but I’ve done a little editing to make it clearer):

“Now the Israeli soldiers closed Beit Ommer; it's like a big prison, no one can use the car to go outside, also they arrested a lot of people (young men). Despite of that I continue working for peace. I invited Israelis to my house, I visited Sderot, in the south of Israel where Hamas rockets come through Gaza, I talked to people there, I faced dangers there, some people made a protest against me and other Palestinians who were there; they used bad words.

Photo is of Jamal and Margee, from our Compassionate Listening delegation last May, taken by Ellen Greene.

Also there were 4 women from Cyprus; I invited them to my house with Israelis. I coordinate with the Mayor of Beit Ommer; we invited many people to the Muncipality to screen a film about the conflict in Cyprus. Then we discussed with the Israelis; many shared and asked questions; it was a wonderful meeting. Last Monday the Compassionate Listening group visited us; we invited Israelis to the meeting, also Palestinians; they heard from both sides. Saddiye [Jamal’s wife] and the children help me in all my activities; they give me courage. It's not easy for me to continue without their support; sometimes Saddiye becomes afraid when I visit Israelis area because there is a lot of hate to Palestinians. Also my work with Israelis caused problems in my job [Jamal is a barber] because I lost many customers, because many people don't accept the idea that I deal with Israelis, but I want to continue what I started. We think of our children’s future; we want them to live on peace without fear , it's a big challenge.

Also last week we met with an Israeli family from Sedrot; they have 4 kids; our children shared playing with them; we shared a meal. It was really nice meeting. The plan was to visit them in their house but the soldiers didn't let us go to Sedrot even we though had permits, but this family come next to the checkpoint. We spent 4 hours together, this means a lot to us; we feel we break the wall between us.”

God, you know the desires of our hearts—longings for peace and security, for freedom and a future for our children. Help those of us who have been given these gifts to use them for the work of your reign of justice and peace. Amen.

Lent 2, Romans - Abraham's Heirs

Romans 4.1-5, 13-17

“For he is the father of all of us, it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’....” (Rom 4.17)

Standing on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City....Nowhere in the Holy Land is our common ancestry more evident—Muslims, Jews and Christians. We are sisters, brothers, cousins. We share each other’s holy places, revere the same stones.

After passing through the security checkpoint and opening our backpacks for Israeli soldiers in olive green uniforms so they can check to make sure we have not brought any bombs and weapons, we walk with the other pilgrims up the ramp to the park at the top of the Temple Mount (the Jewish name), or Haram al-Sharif (the Muslim name). On the square atop this tiny piece of land that has sometimes sparked warfare, we stand next to the Dome of the Rock, the mosque built on this hilltop where Mohammad is believed to have ascended to heaven. If we walk to one side and look over the edge, we see men and women swaying in prayer while reading the torah at the Western Wall; they come to the place where the largest stones we can see in the ancient wall are remnants of wall of Herod’s Temple; it is considered the gate of heaven. Walking to the opposite side of the Mount, we look out over the Mount of Olives and the Christian churches built on the hill, commemorating Jesus’ time on the Mount of Olives, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, weeping over Jerusalem, riding the donkey down the road and then up the hill to Jerusalem, with crowds shouting “Hosanna!” Photo: praying at the Western Wall.

One tiny space.....three stories of humanity’s search to know their creator.

As Paul points out, God had a plan when God covenanted with Abraham. God did not intend that the covenant would stop with Abraham. God’s plan was much bigger than Abraham. He was only the beginning, blessed “to be a blessing.” God did not make Abraham the father only of the Jewish people. Paul reminds the Romans that God’s promise included them too—God made Abraham the father of Israel, but also the father of “many nations.” (Gen 17.4)

So, this week, when we read of a family of Jewish settlers being killed in the West Bank, how can we trust God’s promises? When we hear of Arab villagers begin held under curfew and Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians to retaliate for murders that have not yet been solved, how can we believe that God truly is the father of the nations?

God’s promises seem far away.

But the people of Bethlehem, a short drive from this scene, do trust these promises. In a land where tomorrow is uncertain, the people of Bethlehem are building a college to educate the young people of Palestine, who cannot often get the permits to travel abroad for school. The first building of Dar al-Kalima College was dedicated in November, 2010. With the first classes offered in 2006, they have now graduated three classes of students in their two-year accredited programs in arts, multimedia, tourism and communications.

I look at what is happening and find it difficult to trust that God will bring something new out of the destruction, but for these people living under Israel’s occupation, facing eviction notices and unable to travel or visit family, God’s promises are enough.....for the building of a college! Photo: dedication of the college, Nov, 2010.

God of Abraham, we praise you for your unfailing promises to your heirs. Help those of us who live in relative comfort, to trust in your good intentions for your creation. Give us courage to partner with you in your new creation. Amen.

"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!

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.

Women of UNconventional Wisdom

Lent 3, Sunday, March 15, 2009
John 2.13-22

If we want to know God, we must look to Jesus. Not to our priests or our rituals, not to our Bibles or even our potluck suppers. If we want to know God, we must look to see who Jesus is. This story in John’s gospel makes it very clear—God is the one who turns everything upside-down. He overturns all the rules, all the ways of doing “business as usual.” Jesus stands in civil disobedience to the ways of the world, against the conventional wisdom, the wisdom of the rulers and the powerful religious leaders.

And he calls us to follow him.

In Israel the conventional wisdom says, guard yourself against attack—build a wall to keep out suicide bombers; require travel permits for anyone who looks or acts suspicious; keep the dangerous people walled up inside their West Bank towns—like Bethlehem and Ramallah. Conventional wisdom says imprison people who you suspect might want to harm you—even if you can’t charge them with any particular crime. Just to be on the safe side, keep all Arab young men out of Jerusalem; you never know who might be a suicide bomber.

The women of Machsom Watch, however, are UNconventional….AND very wise. These Jewish grandmothers have had enough of war and weapons and the militarization of their grandchildren who are trained in Israel’s army to harass Palestinians at the checkpoints. The women of Machsom Watch are turning the tables on the checkpoint system. These 500 women show up at the checkpoints and watch what happens there. Then they write down everything they see and compile reports of the way Palestinians are treated as they try to leave Ramallah or Bethlehem or Qalquilya or any of the 50 checkpoints they monitor.

These Jewish grandmothers turn the tables on the system of checkpoints by stepping in to help in situations where Palestinians are being harassed—like the man who was returning home after surgery to remove his leg. He had entered Israel for his surgery with both legs attached to his body; he tried to leave with one of his legs in a bag—he was taking it home so that it could be buried and when he died the leg could be buried with him. But the soldier at the checkpoint held him there because the man had his own ID card, but he had no ID card for the leg and no permit to bring a leg through the checkpoint. For ten hours this man sat at the checkpoint while the soldiers summoned a doctor to look at the leg to verify that it was indeed his leg and that it had no explosives in it. And Hannah waited with him, determined to see his ordeal through to the end.

Hannah is one of the grandmothers of Machsom Watch. She told us this story and many others—stories of families trying to get their children to the hospital for cancer treatment, unable to get through the checkpoint because they did not have the proper papers—papers for the child, but not for the mother to go along; papers for the mother, but not for medical purposes; papers faxed to offices the family cannot get to because they are on the other side of a checkpoint.

Hannah has seen it all and she does her best to overturn the tables, to turn the rules upside down so that people’s needs are met—the hungry fed, the sick given medical care, the poor helped.

Watch a 3-minute video of the checkpoint in Bethlehem, made by one of the grandmothers of Machsom Watch. Every morning more than 2000 workers stand, pressed in the crowd, to get to work. American USAID money was used to “humanize” the checkpoint—money spent on decorative “welcome” banners, flowers and shrubbery, and twelve guard stations, only a couple of which are open each morning.

O God, your foolishness turns our worldly wisdom upside down. Give us courage to act in unconventional ways so that our rules do not impede your justice. Open our eyes to see those places where we confuse our need for safety and security with your will for your people. Amen.