Marlin & Sally in Jerusalem

Looking To Be Found

We’re in the States for a few weeks.  It’s time to spend a little time with family and friends.  It is also time to speak, time to bear witness.

I got up early yesterday morning, first morning in Michigan, jetlag and all of that.  We are staying in our daughter and son-in-law’s home.  As I rumbled around in the kitchen making coffee and looking for something sweet to eat, I heard our 6-month-old grandson talking to himself in his bedroom.  What’s a papa to do, right?  As I was coming out of his room, with him in my arms, I almost ran over our 4½-year-old granddaughter, Emma.  She is standing in the hallway outside of her room -- pink felt pajamas, blond hair matted from sleep, rubbing her palms in her eyes, and there she stood.

“You looking for me, Papa?”

“Yes Emma, I’m looking for you.”

You’re thinking I’m going to turn this into a God story, right?  Well I am actually, but not as you might think.

A few mornings ago we sat in Ben Gurion airport having a cup of coffee as we waited for our plane to leave.  An elderly Palestinian woman sat near us.  We could tell that she was very nervous.  She keep checking the time, looking around.  We wondered if this was her first flight.  Finally, Sally walked over to talk with her.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No thank you.”

“Do you take cream in your coffee?”

Smile.  “Yes, thank you.”  I get the signal to go get the coffee.  The two women talk.  This is her first time on an airplane.  She’s from East Jerusalem, and in fact, lives near us.  She is on our flight.  She is going to the States to visit her granddaughter who lives near Detroit.  We walk with her to the gate, and then, on to the plane.  We help her get her things stowed in the above-head compartments.  During the course of the flight we walk over from time to time to see how she is doing.  “Fine.  Fine.  I’m doing fine.  Thank you.”

Newark Airport is wild.  We have less than an hour to get our bags, go through customs, and connect with our next flight.  We have a baggage cart (3 bucks), our bags are on board, and we have to hustle.  We turn to go, and there she stands – tiny, confused, alone.

“You looking for me?”

She doesn’t say this, of course – not in words anyway.  But it’s there written all over her face – hope, fear, desire: “You looking for me?”

“Ah, there you are.  Come, it’s this way.”

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  We’re all looking for someone to be looking for us, especially when we are little, fearful and alone.  And guess what, there will be a time for each of us when we are exactly that.

When your time comes I hope you’ll find that indeed, someone is looking for you.  In the meantime, open your eyes and see who’s looking to you to be looking for them.

Further Signs?

Fatma Omar an-Najar, a 68-year-old grandmother, straps explosives to her body in order to achieve martyrdom.  She succeeds in getting herself killed, whether that is martyrdom or not is up to interpretation I guess.

At the ramshackle compound where the extended family lives, her oldest daughter, Fatheya, 52, explained Fatma’s motives: "They [Israelis] destroyed her house, they killed her grandson - my son. Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg," she said. "She and I, we went to the mosque. We were looking for martyrdom."

Congratulations.

A 20-year-old Israeli soldier moves his night vision riflescope to center the crosshairs between the dark eyes of Wala Nasr, a 13-year-old Palestinian girl standing in a hallway of her home.  Her father has warned her to keep away from the window.  She is.  The soldier pulls the trigger.  She is dead, the top of her head blown clean off.  After the operation, the commanding officer of the unit applauds his arm-pumping troops because they were 12 and 0 – 12 enemy dead to 0 good guys.

Congratulations.

Further signs that the apocalypse is upon us? 

No, these are further signs that there is no end to the incredible stupidity of humankind.

What are we to do, Jesus?  Tell us plainly, what are we to do in the face of such utter and incomprehensible idiocy?

“Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ – I have the end-time answers – and they will lead many astray.  When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.  This is but the beginning of the birth pangs” (Mark 13:5-8).

A grandmother choosing martyrdom as her legacy is but a birth pang, Jesus?  A child murdering another child and being lauded for the killing is but a birth pang, Jesus?

Yes, congratulations.

What are we to do in the face of this madness?  Flee to the suburbs, find a church that doesn’t talk about politics, anesthetize ourselves with American Idol and Monday Night football?  NO!  What then, Jesus?  What do you want from us?

“Beware, keep alert – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly.  And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

Be humble. Be informed.  Be involved.  Be hopeful.  Be vocal.  Be supportive of leadership.  Be critical of leadership.  Be listening.  Be questioning.   BE AWAKE!

Waiting

(The following is an excerpt out of an Advent sermon.  If you want the whole sermon then click on this title: Download luke_1.5.25.doc ).

Photo is of the place of crucifixion in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

“The incense burner was located right outside the dark and foreboding Holy of Holies where the mysterious Ark of the Covenant once resided – God’s earthly abode.  Zechariah went in alone.  This daily sending up of smoke to heaven symbolized the prayers of the people.  It was an enormous honor for any priest, but even more so for one who had waited so long for the opportunity.  After all, you only got one chance, so you wanted to make sure you savored every morsel of this sacred experience.  Now that it was finally the old man’s turn, Zechariah knew exactly what he would pray for as he stood before the cloud of smoke floating up to God.  A cloud that served to remind the people of the pillar of cloud/fire that was the sign of God’s presence with them in the wilderness all those years ago when God was dwelling and moving in their midst.  Zechariah will honor a promise he undoubtedly made to his aging partner, Elizabeth.  The old priest will pray for a baby – a son, no less, to carry on the family name.  Zechariah will pray that God will open Elizabeth’s womb and remove the disgrace of barrenness.

“Zechariah prayed his little prayer and the answer he received was a messenger from God.  Maybe the messenger emerged out of the smoke.  Maybe Zechariah closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, there the mighty messenger stood.  Maybe the angel was there all the time, and the Spirit of God simply chose to give Zechariah eyes to see what was otherwise not seeable.  I wonder what we would see if the Spirit gave us eyes to see what is otherwise not seeable.  I wonder if seeing angels present in our midst would frighten us as much as it did the old priest Zechariah.  I wonder what an angel would say to us – waiting as we are – barren, as we seem to be.  Empty, not fertile.  I wonder what God’s message to us would be.”

I don’t know much about what God would say, but I know a lot about what God has said in the past.  And I know that whatever God would say to us now – barren, not fertile, not expecting, puny, little, faithful us – whatever God would say to us, it would be a word of hope, a promise of babies to be born, of life and resurrection.  This is the message I bring to my barren Palestinian Christian friends.  This is the message they struggle to hear and believe.  And I have come to realize how important this message is.  And also, and even more so, how the message needs a messenger.  Which, of course, is where we come in.

Fathers

"Clearly violence begets violence and hatred begets hatred, and therefore both sides should stop the bloodshed and try to reach some kind of dialogue." (Noam Shalit, father of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.)

Gilad Shalit is held captive by his enemies.  Gilad’s father, Noam, waits for Gilad to be released and come home.  Twelve-year-old Saed Atamna is in a coma.  Saed was put there by his enemies.  An Israeli bomb slammed through the roof of his family home while they were sleeping.  Seventeen members of Saed's family are dead, made so by their enemies.  Saed’s father, Usama, waits for Saed to be released and come home.

Two fathers on opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- Noam, a Jew, Usama, a Muslim -- each reminding us of the father in Jesus’ story of the Prodigal, waiting, watching and hoping to receive his son back.

The two fathers met, talked, shared their sorrow and pain, embraced, and went together to face the media.

The first name from the lips of Galid’s father was not Galid, or Saed, but rather, Fatima Slutsker, 57-year-old mother of three killed by a Palestinain-launched rocket into the Israeli town of Sderot.  "It is innocent people who always pay the price in needless wars," said Shalit. The Atamna family "paid a high price" as did the Slutsker family, he added.

"We are all victims of the same madness, the same incessant wars and nonsensical violence," Shalit said.

The fathers agreed that leaders on both sides care more about winning and losing than about the sons and daughters who are dying.  The fathers called for a ceasefire.

Of course, who listens to fathers?  I mean, really, what do fathers know beyond love of a child?

“Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors?” (Mal. 2:10)

Stoned Hen

(Photo is from the Mount of Olives, inside the Dominus Flevit (Lord Wept) Chapel, where tradition says Jesus wept over Jerusalem.)

It’s been a long day, and it is still morning.  Jesus has just had a heated argument with the scribes and Pharisees, the Jewish leadership during the time of Roman occupation.  The whole matter ends in a shouting match.  Jesus has wooed and warned these stiff-necked collaborators with Roman, and to no avail.  They will not listen.  Maybe they cannot listen, so entrenched in old patterns of living, so co-dependent they’ve become with the very forces that are destroying them and their way of life.  That happens!  It might even be happening now.

Jesus has had enough.  He straightens his back, grits his teeth, and woes these pious men to kingdom come.  “Woe to you, blind guides …”  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He gives them everything he’s being storing up deep inside.  Like the prophets before him -- Elijah, Isaiah, Amos – Jesus releases into the air these damning words of judgment, and these words of God become like living stones waiting to one day be activated.    “Woe to you …” We know enough of history to know that one day these words of Jesus prove to be exactly what they were when Jesus spoke them – prophecy.  Could something have been done to change what was to come?  Yes, of course.  The purpose of prophecy is to encourage change.  Was anything done?  Clearly, not enough, although they did try crucifying the messenger.

Then Jesus stalks out of the city with his startled disciples trailing behind. Judas is stealing backward looks fearing that the thirteen of them will be struck by lightning even though there is not a cloud in the sky.  How dare Jesus challenge the nation’s leaders?

After a brief conversation around big stones being thrown down, and living stones being lifted up, Jesus climbs the Mount of Olives, sits down facing the Temple Mount and all of the tension and frustration and disappointment leaks out through his eyes and from his mouth.  Bringing up old images of a mothering God who protects his children like an eagle or hen protects her young, Jesus speaks to no one in particular, and everyone in between:

“Jerusalem, 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, and you were not willing!  See your house is left to you, desolate.  For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Matt. 23:37-39; Luke 13:34-35).

These words of Jesus came to mind for me this week as Jimmy Carter’s new book is being released.  Leadership in Washington is scrambling to put political distance between them and former President Carter.  You’d think the man had some kind of communicable disease instead of mere words to communicate.  “Former President Carter doesn’t speak for us.”  No, you’re right, he speaks to you, not for you.  And would it hurt to listen?

Jimmy Carter is not Jesus – true that!  Jimmy Carter does not bring words from the mouth of God.  Or does he?  What if Carter is speaking God’s judgment upon current leadership both in Israel and America?  Most of us want him to be wrong, because his words are hard to hear, frightening even, and harsh in places.  What if Jimmy Carter is telling the truth about what he has seen?  Most of those who are distancing themselves from Carter have not seen what he has seen because they will not go to the places he willingly goes.  It would damage their career to come to East Jerusalem and talk with Palestinians.  Why dismiss Carter without giving what he has to say a hearing?  Is it that these Washington insiders, like the scribes and Pharisees of old, are so locked into old patterns of life on the Beltway, and so joined at the hip with trusted alliances, that they cannot hear?  Or like the Jewish leadership in Jesus day, do these men and women have too much at stake to heed the warnings of a man with questionable roots.  A carpenter and a peanut farmer have a lot in common, I think.

Carter is not condemning Jewish people.  He is criticizing Israeli leadership, and along with them US policy in the Middle East.   Jesus was NOT condemning the Jewish people either. Rather, Jesus was criticizing Jewish and Roman leadership, telling them in effect, that if they continued to lead the people down the present path it would lead to destruction.  Which it did!  The Temple fell.  Rome fell.  Why?  Because leadership didn't listen to words they didn't want to hear. 

How about this – before we crucify Carter for having the audacity to risk popularity on principle, we listen to what he has to say?   Just put your stones down for a minute.  You can always pick them up again.  You won’t forget where you dropped them.  Just put down the stones and listen.  It won’t kill you!

Nadia's Prayer

(At the closing communion service of Sabeel’s sixth annual conference, entitled “The Forgotten Faithful,” Nadia prayed this prayer.)

Dear Lord our Father
Help us to hear your voice
Above the rumble of tanks
F14s and cluster bombs.

Guide us to the Kingdom of God
Here on earth where no permits are needed
No checkpoints, no walls
Only open hearts, and quiet minds.

Free us from the fear inside and around us.
We know it is the cause of all terror
That is mixed with our daily bread.

Comfort us; empower us to face the challenge of survival you have set before us:
The challenge of living in dignity in spite of humiliation and racism.
The challenge of nurturing hope even where despair is all around us.

Speak to us; we are ready to hear in Arabic, in Aramaic
In parables as you did your disciples by the Sea of Galilee.
We are your disciples today.

In Jesus’ name.
Amen.

The Land of Resurrection

She is small, brown, and yes, beautiful.  She is Palestinian.  She is a Christian from the Palestinian city of Ramallah.  Her father was a doctor, her mother an optometrist.  Nadia can trace back her family line for centuries.  She belongs to this land, and of course, this land belongs to her as well.

She is excited to be traveling within Israel/Palestine, especially with a large group of people from all over the world.  In fact, she hasn’t stopped smiling since the bus ride began – and why not, today is also her birthday.  She is 62.

“Checkpoint ahead.  Get out your passports and be prepared to show them to the soldiers.”  A checkpoint is a roadblock with an attitude.

Nadia is not smiling now.  From her handbag she quickly finds her West Bank ID, and a letter from the Israeli government giving her permission to travel from the West Bank into Israel.  The permit is for one week.

The rest of us dig out our passports and wait to see if the bus will be sent over to the side of the road for inspection, or waved through into the Israeli side of the tracks.  Nadia can hear her own heart beating as she prays that there will be no problem.  She doesn’t want to be a problem.  She doesn’t want to be singled out, the cause of any inconvenience for the foreigners on the bus.  An eighteen-year-old Israeli soldier waves us over.  He climbs on board the bus, and begins to make his way down the aisle, while his buddy watches his back by the front door of the bus.  Dutifully, we hold up our passports.  Dutifully, and with as much authority as an eighteen-year-old can muster among men and women old enough to be his parents and grandparents, the peach-fuzzed young man nods and moves on, his M16 making it difficult for him to swagger, although God knows he’s trying hard enough. 

He pauses by the seats of the Palestinians on the bus.  He wags his fingers, ordering ID’s to be produced.  When they are, he doesn’t reach for them.  He expects them to be placed in his open hand.  He stops at Nadia’s seat.  She does not look him in the eye.  Her lower lip quivers slightly.  Perhaps he notices.  Nadia places her West Bank ID, and the treasured letter of permission to travel, in the hand of this young soldier.  He looks at them for a long second or two, and then turns and walks out of the bus with the ID and letter in his hand.  Nadia nearly faints.

“Who is the leader of this group?” The soldier demands.

Omar, a young Palestinian – mid-twenties – steps up to the soldier and identifies himself as the one responsible for this group.

“This road is not for her,” declares the soldier.  “She cannot ride on this road.”

That’s right.  Nadia is on a road that is exclusively for Israeli citizens and tourists. As we enter the sovereign State of Israel, we enter a land where certain roads are only for certain people.  Nadia has her own roads.

And you thought Jim Crow was dead and buried in the “cotton fields back home.”  No, Jim Crow is alive and well, and living in the land of Jesus.

You thought apartheid was dead and buried in the rich soil of South Africa.  No, apartheid is resurrected, and in all places, here in the land of resurrection. 

"We the people..."

“We the people …”

There is such hope invested in these three words.  “We the people” spoke and now there is new leadership in the Senate and the House.  And unlike here in Palestine, no one is going to be punished for having elected leadership not approved by some outside power, because there is no outside power as powerful as “We the people …”

“We the people …”

There is such power infused within these three words.  “We the people” spoke, and immediately, heads began to roll, and old, entrenched ideas began to look like old, entrenched ideas.  These ideas have been old and entrenched for some time now, but only after “We the people” spoke did this become abundantly clear.

“We the people …”

There is such promise in these three words.  “We the people” could change the world if “We the people” were to notice that the world needs changing, and if “We the people” fully understood the hope, power and promise in “We the people.”

“We the people …”

There is no other force on earth as frightening to those in power than “We the people …”  And this is exactly as the founders of democracy wanted it to be.  “We the people” was the vision enfolded within every word of our own Constitution.  “We the people …”

“We don’t hate the American people, we hate the government of America.”  Every time someone from somewhere other than America says this to me, I flinch.  “We the people” is the government of the United States.  The problem, of course, is that “We the people” have forgotten that “We the people” is the government of the United States.  “We the people” have the responsibility to be informed, to be in touch with our elected leaders, and to challenge them when it seems to “We the people” that they need to be challenged.

“We the people” could force our leadership to travel a different path than the path now chosen in dealing with the rest of the people of the world.  “We the people” can remember, can’t we, that there was a time in America where we didn’t talk so much about “enemies,” and talked more about building bridges and making “friends” with the other people in the world?  “We the people” remember a time when “hope” was the engine that drove us to excellence in the world, and not “fear.”  “We the people” can say to our leaders: “Stop scaring us!  Start leading us!”

The innocent dead are piling up in a small strip of land called Gaza.  Just yesterday (Thursday), 20 Palestinian civilians were killed and 40 more wounded when five – just five – Israeli shells hit a row of houses in the northern Gaza farming community of Beit Hanoun.  Ten children are among the dead, the youngest just 3-months-old.

The Palestinian people have no voice except the voice of “We the people.”  Our leadership is beholden to Israel and is stuck in the political rut of unquestioned support of any and all action taken by Israel, even though such action is seeped in unabashed racism and acknowledged ethnic cleansing.  Who really cares that Palestinians are dying?  They are only Palestinians.  “We the people” have come to see the Palestinian people as “lesser than,” rather than “equal to,” and Israel counts on our prejudice to allow them to continue to tally up the score until there is no one left on the other side of the conflict.  A Jewish State means exactly what it says: A State for Jews and Jews only.  All others living in the State of Israel are either not welcome, or allowed to exist as second-class citizens only.

“We the people” can speak to the people of Israel and tell them that we love them and consider them our good friends. But “We the people” can also tell our good friends in Israel to stop the killing, stop the building of walls, stop the grabbing of land, and stop the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people.  Above all, stop scaring yourselves into killing others.

Just as Washington is listening to “We the people” for the first time in a long time, the people of Israel will listen, because “We the people” are people just like them, and neither of us want to become what God instructed Hosea the prophet to name his son – “Not-my-people” (Lo-ammi).  Hosea 1:9.

"The Occupation Has Failed"

Pushing up her thick-lensed glasses, a fifteen-year-old girl stood before a packed house and delivered a stirring message of hope.

"The occupation has failed."

She is part of a dance troupe that in the last hour and a half has stirred our hearts and inspired our imaginations.

"The occupation has failed."

There were about 30 of them, ranging in age from 10 to 18.  They played the traditional instruments of the Palestinian people -- the lute and drum.  They danced with great athleticism and grace.  They were wonderful.

"The occupation has failed."

Sally and I were especially drawn to the youngest two girls in the troupe.  They were 10-years-old and they were exceptional dancers.  One had a thin face, and was wearing thick-lensed glasses.  The other had a round face, reminding us of our granddaughter Emma.  I had trouble taking my eyes off her.  The two of them, along with all the rest, were so exuberant, so filled with energy, and so very, very beautiful.

"The occupation has failed."

After the program I sought out the parents of these two girls.  I found them in the lobby.  Not surprising, they were Muslim.  Not suprising, they were proud of their daughters.  I congratulated the moms and dads on raising what appeared to be two very well-adjusted, and healthy children.  They were gracious in accepting my praise.

"What would you like me to tell parents in the States about your daughters?" I asked.

I received a variety of responses, but the one I'll remember longest was from the mother with the thick-lensed glasses.  She said: "The occupation has failed."

I nodded and asked, "Why do you say that?"

Without anger or malice, at least none that I could see, she said, "The occupation has failed to break the spirit of our children.  The occupation has failed."

Then the fifteen-year-old girl, the one who spoke at the end of the performance, came up and gave her mother a hug.  Holding both her daughters now, the mother said, "You see?  The occupation has failed."

That's the problem with occupation, isn't it?  This all reminds me of the story of a little girl who was sent by her mother to sit in the corner.  A little later her father happened by.  Not knowing the why of the circumstance, the father asked, "What are you doing?"

With her arms folded in front of her, chin up, jaw set, the little girl answered, "I sitting in the corner.  But on the inside, I'm standing up!"

Oh What A Night

Last night Sally and I watched the chains of oppression begin to weaken.

A group of African-American church leaders shared stories with a group of Palestinian Christians, and being there with them, listening to them, learning from them was an experience that God-forbid we ever forget.

What a white man like me can never fully understand, these black pastors understood fully and from deep within their hearts.  What a white man like me can never see, these black men and women saw with eyes of collective memory.  They felt the pain of the Palestinians, not as one who looks on and can sympathize, but as one who has received the same blows and insults and attacks on dignity as the Palestinians experience every day.  They felt the humiliation of  the Palestinians because they know what it is like to be humiliated, labeled and treated as second class, simply because you are of a certain race and color.  Our Jewish brothers and sisters know of this as well, and one day they will remember that they know, and they will work for righteousness as hard as they now work against it.

It is the church of Jesus Christ that will finally find her voice and lead the way for change in this holy and revered land.  The church will finally see, finally hear and finally speak, and then the chains will finally break, but only then.  And as has been true in the past, in America and South Africa for example, it will be the African-American Church that leads the way.  A day will come when all people will be free, and that freedom will envelop the oppressor along with the oppressed, for as it stands now, neither is truly free.

At the end of the night we sang a freedom song out of the days of slavery.  An African-American Quaker who lives here led the singing.  Every black pastor in that room knew this song, and sang as only one who knows what the song is about can sing this song.  The chorus goes like this:

And before I’ll be a slave
I’ll be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord
And be free!

As we sang, I was drawn to the Palestinians in the room.  None of them sang along, they watched and listened instead.  You could see in their eyes a desire to hope, but also a caution bred from having hoped before and been disappointed.

One of the African American pastors noticed this as well.  When the singing ended he looked over at one of the Palestinian Christians and said:  “I promise you that I will do what I can.”

The Palestinian nodded.  The pastor nodded back.

The night ended.  Maybe a new day has dawned.  We hope so.  But oh what a night!