Sunday of the Passion-Mark 14: Riots Among the People!

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday – Mark
Mark 14.1-15.47

Riots Among the People!

The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.’ (Mk 14.2)

Today, March 30, is Land Day—commemorating the day in 1976 when Palestinians launched a mass strike to protest Israel’s plan to confiscate Palestinians’ lands for the expansion of Israeli settlements. Israel’s announcement stated that the land would be expropriated for "security and settlement purposes," to create a Jewish majority in the northern Galilee.

The Palestinians who remained inside Israel after the armistice in 1949, became citizens of Israel. They were mostly involved in agriculture and their lands were important to their identity and their livelihood. In 1950 Israel had passed the Absentees’ Property Law, which transferred the property rights of absentee owners to a government-appointed Custodian of Absentee Property, effectively legalizing the confiscation of lands belonging to the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel in 1948. It also provided for the seizure of lands owned by Palestinians who were internally displaced—those who were forced from their homes and villages, and found refuge within Israel, but were never allowed to return to their homes.

On March 29, 1976, when they heard about the strike, Israel imposed a nighttime curfew on several Palestinian villages and sent 4000 soldiers with tanks into the villages.

The general strike marked a moment of pride for Palestinians. Palestinians protested in villages from the Galilee in the north to the Negev in the south. Solidarity protests were organized in the West Bank, Gaza and in refugee camps in Lebanon. On that day six unarmed demonstrators were killed, including three women. About 100 were injured and many more arrested.

Read more about Land Day in an editorial in today’s Haaretz newspaper by two Palestinians (one I met with on a Sabeel delegation in 2008).

Today in countries surrounding Israel, tens of thousands of protesters from all over the world are assembling to march to Jerusalem, to speak out against Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine. Boulder resident Michael Rabb, founder of the CU-divest movement to pressure the University of Colorado to divest funds from businesses benefiting from Israel’s occupation, is entering Israel from Amman. Follow Michael on Twitter: @mrabb

Michael writes: “Inspired by the sit-ins and freedom rides of the civil rights movement, in the USA in the ‘60s, and the Freedom Flotilla that attempted sail to Gaza last year, we intend to exercise our right to travel to Palestine.

Our delegation is responding to the Global March to Jerusalem organizers and Palestinian civil society organizations and peace and human rights activists who have called on civil society organizations and people of conscience around the world to come to Palestine March 30 for a week of fellowship and peace-building.”

If you want to encourage CU to divest, sign the petition: https://sites.google.com/site/cudivest/

God of exiles and freedom movements, give us courage to stand with those who are engaged in non-violent resistance to oppressive governments everywhere. Protect them from harm. Amen.

Being God's Servant

Passion of our Lord/Palm Sunday – Isaiah
Isaiah 51.4-9a

What are the characteristics of God’s suffering servant? What can we learn from this particular portion about the nature of the servanthood God desires? For this is the servanthood Jesus practices………and urges on his followers.

This servant is a teacher, who begins by becoming a learner, because God “wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.” The teacher does not shrink from teaching, but accepts the derision of the people. God stands with the teacher, giving support.

Teachers like Jesus face rejection and mistreatment. Jesus warns his disciples that the world will hate those who speak in his name because the world has rejected Jesus (Jn 15.18-19).

There are many ways to hold power. We see one example in the Roman army—beating, arresting, torturing, crucifying. But God shows us another way. In becoming human and submitting to crucifixion, God shows the power of suffering and death to overcome all other powers.

We think of those who have shown us this power in our lifetime: Gandhi, Mandela, Parks, King. Their example is intimidating, but recognizing their call to servanthood can teach us something about our own call to be servants of God. For we, too, are called to this way of suffering love—we are called to offer ourselves to be used as God’s response to a suffering world…..today, where we live.

Today when I think of the suffering servant, I think of all the Palestinians, Israelis and international supporters who offer their bodies as they seek to change the unjust system that is causing daily suffering. On Good Friday, while we strip our altars, they will be marching to protest the theft of Palestinian land for the wall being built around their cities.

And, especially today, I think of Hana Al-Shalabi, offering her body to change an unjust system of imprisonment. She is in the 41^st day of a hunger strike protesting administrative detention—the Israeli practice of imprisoning political activists without charging them with a crime. [Photo: Hana’s supporters in Gaza City, March 26]

This week her sister Zahra was interviewed by Linah Alsaafin. The interview gives us some glimpses of Hana, after her release from prison in October:

“’We were all filled with immeasurable happiness,’ recounts Zahra. ‘Hana couldn’t believe she was out of prison. We stayed up past midnight on the day she was released, just chatting and laughing so much. She told me stories about life in prison, the types of dinners she’d cook with the other female prisoners, the sanitary conditions of the cells, all in a joking way.’

The four months between October and February were trouble-free days, bursting with dreams and ambitions. Hana loved to socialize and meet with people. She was busy with getting her papers in order to register for university, with her eyes set on enrolling at the American University in Jenin. She wanted to get her driver’s license, and later buy a car. She went on a shopping spree, buying new carpets and curtains for her bedroom, as well as new clothes since she couldn’t stand to wear the ones she owned before her imprisonment. Also she dreamed of getting married and of finding the perfect man to spend the rest of her life with.”

Servant God, you have created us in your image. Open our ears to hear your voice, help us find ways to follow you in your path of peace and reconciliation, and give us courage to risk suffering. Today, be with your servant Hana in her suffering. Amen.

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday - Mark 11

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday
Mark 11.1-11

As worship begins this Sunday, many congregations will re-enact Jesus’ march to Jerusalem in some fashion, often with children waving palms, people singing.

As the writer of Mark’s gospel tells it, Jesus’ entire ministry has been leading to Jerusalem. The crowds have been following Jesus from Galilee, about a hundred miles north. Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem, at the beginning of the Passover, the most sacred festival in the Jewish year, is not a spontaneous event. Jesus has planned the details of this street theater beforehand and send

Jesus did not invent the procession. Everyone was aware of imperial processions—Pontius Pilate the Roman governor riding at the head of the cavalry and soldiers carrying the golden eagles mounted on poles, the grand display of weaponry and the beat of the drums—it happened every year at the beginning of Passover, to bring reinforcements to town to augment the Roman garrison at the Antonia Fortress in case of an uprising. This Passover celebration of freedom from slavery in Egypt was a dangerous time for their new masters.s his disciples to carry out the arrangements he has made.

On this particular Passover, Jesus’ followers line the roadway to welcome Jesus, giving him the reception that royalty and military leaders usually received—the cloaks and leafy branches symbols of royalty and signs of loyalty and praise. Their response is a political statement against the religious and military leaders who were oppressing the people and a sign of the threat that Jesus posed to the good order of the Roman Empire and the religious establishment in Jerusalem.

This week, Palestinians and their supporters around the globe are also preparing for a procession—assembling the people, providing transportation, notifying the press. The march commemorates Land Day March 30, the day in 1976, when Palestinians protested Israel’s plan to confiscate Palestinians’ lands for the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Some of the history: “On 11 March, 1976, the Israeli regime published its expropriation plan to confiscate Palestinians’ lands in order to further expand their illegal settlements and build military training camps. Quite interestingly, on 29 March, they also imposed a curfew in a bid to stop Palestinians from voicing their anger over the confiscation of their lands. However, on 30 March, Palestinian activists called for protests and people took part in demonstrations. Israeli regime’s forces killed at least 6 people and wounded over 100 Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinians were also arrested.” More….

People are coming from many countries, for a march planned to converge on Jerusalem. Organizers say they are not interested in confrontation with Israeli authorities. Organizers of this year’s march have announced a peaceful, non-violent demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian demand for an end to Israel’s occupation of their lands and with their hope for a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. “We are after all not an army, but popular peaceful international forces aiming to show solidarity with Palestine and with Jerusalem,” according to Zahir Al-Birawi, spokesman of the Global March to Jerusalem, which lists Noble Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mairead Maguire as advisers. Read Israeli reports on the march in the Jerusalem Post and in Israel Today magazine.

God of justice and peace, protect your people as we struggle to live our lives in safety and security. Amen.

Lent 5 - John: Following

Lent 5 – John
John 12.20-33

Whoever serves me must follow me… (Jn 12.26)

I’m troubled by the images I see when I read this passage.

“Some Greeks”—whose simple request “to see Jesus” starts the whole discussion. Jesus’ ministry—the work he is doing, preaching, teaching, healing, standing up for those who are suffering—has attracted people outside his community, the gentiles, the “other.” This frightens the religious leaders and speeds up his timeline, but it also shows that Jesus is not just for the chosen ones. His is a universal message of new life.

But it is also a message of death…a dying grain of wheat that only “bears fruit” when it dies (v 24). “Those who love their life lose it”—not a punishment, but a statement of how life is. The reality of a life too-well-loved is that, lived only for itself, it does not produce any fruit. When it dies nothing is left.

Then I come to “those who hate their life in this world”—these are the ones who have eternal life? These must be the ones whose lives bear fruit—leave something behind when they die, like the grain of wheat which dies, falls to the earth and sprouts again. Like Jesus.

And in the next breath Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must follow me…” (v 26) So this is not a really a story about Jesus, but about us. Living and dying, living life in a way that uses life up, so that new growth sprouts from the dying….

I’m thinking about Hana Shalabi again. Choosing to use her life—all of it—so that she can get a message out to the world: People are dying here in Palestine….look at us! This life we are living—we hate what is happening to us! We are treated as subhuman, humiliated at the checkpoints, arrested without being told why, kept in prison without ever having been convicted of anything. To the Israelis, our lives are worth nothing….but my life has

worth. I will do the only thing I can do behind these bars…..refuse to cooperate in this unjust system in the only way that is left to me…..refusing to eat.

Lying in prison, waiting for her life to end—in pain, mental confusion, debilitating weakness, difficulty breathing. Determined to continue her struggle. Confident that something new will come from her death, that new growth will sprout from her dying. Trusting that God will bring something new from her sacrifice. [Photo: Hana Shalabi's mother holding her picture--Reuters]

What is there for me to learn from this? Who will receive new life from her death?

If you have not done this yet, go to Amnesty International’s action alert and sign the petition for Israel to end its policy of administrative detention.

Gracious God—of those who love their lives too much and of those who hate what their lives have shown them—give us courage to walk where you lead. Amen.

Lent 5 - Hebrews: Obedience through suffering

Hebrews 5.5-10

He learned obedience through what he suffered…. (Heb 5.8)

Arguments about Israel and Palestine often degenerate into questions of who has suffered most. This gets us nowhere. There is plenty of suffering on both sides; it is not a contest anyone wants to win.

Lent requires us to examine suffering. Lent’s 40 days are preparation for a suffering Holy Week Jesus—whipped, mocked, beaten, bones broken, nails driven through his hands and feet.

So, when I read yesterday the report of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel about the effects of Hana Shalabi’s hunger strike on her health—her suffering was what drew my attention. She is in the 34^th day of her hunger strike in opposition to Israel’s policy of administrative detention—imprisonment without being charged with a crime. She began her hunger strike to call the world’s attention to her own imprisonment and the more than 300 other Palestinian prisoners who are being held without being charged with a crime—no trial, no evidence, no clue as to the crime they are alleged to have committed. She is also protesting the degrading and violent conditions of her arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. [Photo-Aljazeera: Despite many in Palestine committing to nonviolence, little attention is paid by Israel or the international community to those starving for justice (EPA)]

Because of her fast, Hana’s life is now threatened. The report from Physicians for Human Rights reports that "she suffers from a low heartbeat rate, low blood sugar, loss of weight, weakness in muscles, yellowing of the eyes and high levels of salt in the blood which [has] affected her kidneys, causing her pain in her sides, especially the left side, as well as pain in chest bones." [Photo-Aljazeera: Despite many in Palestine committing to nonviolence, little attention is paid by Israel or the international community to those starving for justice (EPA)]

UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk writes in Al Jazeera, “Physicians for Human Rights said that Shalabi cannot sleep because of pain; she also suffers dizziness and blurred and occasional loss of vision. Ms Shalabi told Mahameed that she took salt last week, but refused to take any more and is living on two litres of water a day.”

He continues, “The sad yet noble situation of Hana Shalabi is also well expressed by Yael Maron, a spokesperson for the NGO, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel: ‘The story of Hana Shalabi, like that of Khader Adnan before, is, in my opinion, a remarkable example of a struggle that's completely nonviolent towards one's surroundings. It is the last protest a prisoner can make, and I find it brave and inspiring.’"

Some suffering to ponder in this season.

Write in support of Hana: http://freehana.org/

God of the widow and the prisoner, be with Hana and all the Palestinians detained without charges. Help us to follow your words and find ways to minister to prisoners, wherever we are. Amen.