Marlin & Sally in Jerusalem

Am I Okay, Papa?

“I miss my Mommy and Daddy.”  We’re having a sleep-over at Nana and Papa’s house.

“Do you want to go home?”

Nod of the head and tiny voice, “Yes.”

“Okay, but remember, if Nana and Papa have to bring you home tonight then we’re not going to do this again.  No more sleep-overs at Nana and Papa’s house.”  Idle threat and mean-spirited to boot.  A self-respecting grandfather does not say that to his beloved granddaughter.  But I did.  We do.  Don’t we?

“Emma, do you understand?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Okay then, let’s go.”

It’s quiet in the car.  Nana tries to engage in conversation, but nobody’s heart is in it so she finally falls silent as well.  This feels like rejection to Sally and me.  We’re not sure what it feels like to Emma, probably like she did something wrong and doesn’t know what.  She just wants to sleep in her own bed with her mommy and daddy in the next room.  Don’t we all!

The moment I reach to open the back door of the car to lift Emma out of her car seat, I realize that she has been looking into my eyes the whole time – searching in her Papa’s eyes.  For what?  Reassurance maybe, you know, “Are we okay Papa?  Are you angry with me?”  Deeper than that, I think, Emma is asking one of the most important people in her life one of the most important questions in life: “Am I okay Papa?  Do you approve of me Papa?”

Like warm butter over a slow burner, my heart melts, and I know that I have sinned against my own flesh-and-blood.  You know what I mean.  You’ve done it too.  “Am I okay, Papa?”

“I love you Emma,” I whisper.  Her arms tighten around my neck.  She buries her face into my shoulder.

The searching look that I saw in Emma’s eyes is a look that I see in the eyes of many of my Palestinian friends and neighbors.  “Are we okay?  Am I okay?”  I know this will seem a stretch for many of you, but Palestinians are searching to understand.  Most Palestinians have lived their entire lives under oppressive occupation.  They have endured years of abuse by Israel and by the world at large – physical, emotional, mental, this abuse runs the gamit.  As a people, Palestinians have been looked upon with distain and disrespect.  The Palestinian people are viewed as perennial losers, as a people incapable of caring for themselves.  Even their Arab neighbors look down upon them.  To say that Palestinians have a self-esteem problem is to say the least of what is to be said about Palestinians.  Palestinians long to be loved and valued.  They deserve it as well, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it?   

We’ve sinned against this people.  A simple “We love you” will not atone.

As I handed Emma over to her mother’s arms, she turned and said to her Nana and Papa, “I know what!  You can stay at my house tonight.”  There you have it, the wisdom of a child, and a creative solution to the issue at hand.  “I know what!  You can stay at my house tonight.”

You know what?  There is a creative solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as well.  I just wonder what child will finally imagine what it is.

“Unto us a child is born.  Unto us a son is given.”   Well, there was that one child, wasn't there?  What ever happened to his creative solution to conflict?

One Professor's Response

This is a 5 minute read and well worth reading twice.  MPV

(Dr. James Brownson of Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan sent this response to our last blog post (The Question).  I found it very helpful and thought you might as well.  With his permission I have posted some of his thinking on the soverignty of God question.  And just to set the record straight, neither Dr. Brownson or I are arguing that Israel has no legitimacy in the land, no right to exist, but rather, we are discussing the question of God's involvement in the shaping of human affairs.)

I read with interest your blog on whether Israel 's presence in Palestine is or is not God's doing.  You quote the question, “Who put Israel in control of Palestine ?”  The obvious, though unstated assumption of the question is that God did so.  The further conclusion then seems (to the questioner) inevitable:  If God put Israel in power, then Christians should support Israel.  You make some helpful comments in response, but I wonder whether some more precise distinctions might also be helpful in what you are wrestling with.

One such distinction is between the permissive will of God and the purpose of God.  Of course it is true that Israel 's presence in Palestine is part of the permissive will of God.  It happened, so God must have willed it in the sense of permitting it.  But Hitler was also within the permissive will of God, yet Hitler’s actions directly contradicted everything God has revealed regarding God’s purposes for human life.  Thus the mere fact of Israel 's presence and control in Palestine says nothing about the purpose of God.  The purpose of God for the world is centrally revealed to us in Jesus Christ.  We look at him to see what God intends for all of humanity.  Thus, the extent to which Israel ’s control over Palestine is part of the divine purpose is the extent to which it embodies the new shape of human life revealed in Jesus Christ:  forgiveness, justice, human freedom, reconciliation, concern for the poor, hope for the oppressed, etc.

Another way of exposing the fallacy of the question you wrestle with is to frame it with some other illustrations:  Who put Kim Jong-II in charge of North Korea?  Is the mere fact of his control and of his consolidation of that control through the acquiring of nuclear weapons a sign that God intends him and his family to remain in control of North Korea, extracting wealth from the entire country to such an extent that hunger and poverty are chronic and endemic?  Most Christians would find such claims to be monstrous.  Or for another example, let's go back to the year 2000.  The Taliban claimed that God put them in control of Afghanistan.  They defeated the Russians by what they perceived as miraculous divine aid.  Yet I doubt that many Christians would agree.  We simply cannot read the will of God (in the sense of God's purposive will) from current events; we must find the coordinates of God's will (in terms of God's purpose for the world) in Jesus Christ, and only in him.

What is reflects God’s permissive will.  God may have many reasons, utterly inscrutable to us, undergirding the divine permissive will.  But what is should never be equated with what God intends as the divine purpose or goal for human life, either now or in eternity.  To discover what God intends for human life, we must always look at Jesus Christ.

Making this distinction is the only way that Christians can ever discern anything in this world that they should resist.  Even the permissive will of God can and should be resisted (prayerfully and almost always non-violently), if it does not comport with the purposive will of God.

Anything other than this results in a kind of fatalism that must necessarily assume that whatever happens is expressive of God's final purposes for humanity.  I realize that this sort of fatalism is in fact attractive to many, but I don't see anything like this in Scripture.  Another equally unhappy alternative to such fatalism is to remove divine sovereignty from this world completely, and to place all the responsibility for the future of the world in human action alone.  Yet this removes any basis for hope in a God whose will can and does over-ride human injustice and oppression, liberating the captive and giving hope to the oppressed.  It is precisely this kind of hope that the oppressed throughout the world (including the oppressed in Palestine) most desperately need.

For me, the bottom line is this:  In Scripture, the will of God refers primarily to the final purposes and ends, revealed to us in Christ, toward which God is guiding the whole creation.  The world does not yet fully express and embody these divine purposes.  It is the calling of Christians to pray for, point to, work for, and seek to embody these purposes more and more in their own lives and in their communities.  Any appeal to divine sovereignty as an excuse to avoid this challenging task is nothing short of an abandonment of our calling as disciples of Jesus.

The Question

“What question is he asking?” 
That was my question as I listened to him asking me his.  I searched his face for an answer before giving him mine. 
“What question is he asking?” 
The look on his face is that of one insider talking to another, so I’m thinking that he’s thinking that he’s putting one on the tee for me, expecting I’ll knock it out of the park.  I’m thinking that his question is THE question.  You know, the one about which volumes have been written over centuries of time by the smartest people who ever lived – and I ain’t one of them, and you probably ain’t either.
“Who put Israel in control?"
That was his question.

This question is THE question, the you’re-in-deep-weeds question.  It’s the SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD QUESTION! 

A Wise Guy

He’s about 5 years old, I figure.  Like all little guys, he is a cute little guy.  He’s blond, blue-eyed and looks very handsome in his homemade wise man costume.  He is standing by the too green artificial Christmas tree that is standing on the too green carpet of the church lobby.  His red tunic stands out magnificently.  He looks like a king.  I spoke in his church that evening and now I am waiting for Sally to find her coat so we can go home.  He has just finished the last practice for the Christmas program to be held sometime in the week ahead.  He is looking at me.  I walk over and say, “Hey.”

His eyes narrow as his brain debates whether or not I am a stranger, given the fact that I just preached in his church.  He draws his conclusion and says, “My Mom says that you live in Bethlehem.”

Well, technically, we live in Jerusalem, but what am I going to do, split hairs with a five-year-old and make his mother a liar to boot?  “Yes,” I agree. “I live in Bethlehem.”

“Do you know Jesus then?”

I did not see that coming.  Now, of course, the question is; just how smart is this youngster?  Is he asking a theological question, as in “Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?”  Or is he asking whether I know Jesus well enough to have played video games in his home.  I take a both/and approach and say, “Well, yes, I know Jesus, but, see, Jesus doesn’t live in Bethlehem anymore. Okay?”  (Pretty soon there won’t be any followers of Jesus living in Bethlehem either, but I don’t want to ruin his Christmas so I don’t tell him that.)

“Did he move to Nazareth then?”

Okay, this child is smart, and this church has a good Sunday School, and I’m in way over my head.  “Well, no, see, well, Jesus lives with his father now.  See, Jesus is in heaven and he is sitting by his father there in heaven.”

“Why?”

Where is Sally!  Where is this boy’s mother!  Where is my mother?  “Well, see, Jesus is sitting up there in heaven and he’s sitting there by his father and he’s telling his father about us and what we are like and why we do the things we do and stuff like that.”

“Oh,” he says.  “Like if we’re naughty or nice?”

What!  No!  This boy has spent too much time in the Mall.  He’s thinking that God is Santa Claus and Jesus is the son of Santa.  Not good.  Not good, at all.  “Well no,” I say.  “It’s not like that exactly. I mean, it’s kind of like that, but see, Jesus is God too you know, and Jesus and God the Father are there in heaven and they are listening to our prayers and working with us to help people and to do good and stuff like that.”

His eyes have totally glazed over and he is looking at me like I’m the grinch who is trying to steal Christmas.  I know this look.  I get this look a lot.

“Oh,” he says.  “I gotta find my mom.”

Me too, kid.  Me too.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Man, you people ask a lot of questions!

Didn’t I tell you that the situation in our part of the world is complicated?

Obviously, you are not listening.

Seriously, thanks for the questions.  As Sally and I travel around the American Midwest we get a lot of them.  We appreciate each one, although some are more difficult than others, and many are more painful than difficult.  Like this one: “If we were to remove every Jewish person from the region (Middle East), would the violence end?”

Fair question, but loaded.  It is a question that implies that the core of the problem exists within the Arab world, and has little or nothing to do with the existence of the State of Israel.  And of course, the question also pushes all of our race-prejudice buttons, doesn’t it?  Most of us believe that the Arab world is, has always been, and will always be a world of violence.  The fact is most of us outside of the Arab world believe that the Arab male is violent in a way that is different from the way other males are violent.  We have this notion that males like us -- whomever us is, but be sure that us does not include them – are violent-lite, like low-fat milk.  Arab males have a violence gene locked up in their DNA, right?  We believe that Arab males, and along with them, if we are honest, other men of certain color as well, are violent-supercharged, violent-maxed.

Therefore, nothing we can do will change the violent nature of the Middle East, because the violence of the Middle East stems from violence inherent in the nature of the Arab male, so why do anything?  In fact, this kind of thinking thinks that we are fortunate that the Israelis are there to keep the violent Arab males from killing each other.  In my time in Jerusalem I’ve heard Arab males referred to as “beasts,” “vermin,” “wild asses,” and of course other names that I refuse to name in print. 

Or the problem in within Islam, right?  Islam is a religion of violence, right?  Really? And Judaism and Christianity are not?  Come on folks, let’s at least admit that such an interpretation is as much in the eye of the beholder as anywhere else.  Before we Jewish and Christian people start throwing stones we’d better spend some time down in the Jordan River with John the Baptist, because we have a lot to atone for ourselves.

As you can tell, I even resent the implication within the question, although I applaud those who have the integrity to ask it, as it is a question that is in the back of so many minds.  A gentleman asked me this question just last night and I liked him immediately, even as I hated the question.

The problem in the Middle East is not the existence of Israel, or the presence of Jewish people in the region.  There have been Jewish people in the region forever, or as close to forever as ever any of us will know.  Resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will not resolve all of the issues facing the region, but it will help.  By the way, building a fence between the US and Mexico won’t resolve the migration of illegal aliens either.  Whether or not it will help remains to be seen, but the fact is that the situation between Mexico and the US is more complex than can be fixed by a fence. 

Let me put forth a truth that almost every person of reason acknowledges as true:  Resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict will help stabilize the Middle East.  This is true.  However, this is not the reason that the conflict ought to be resolved.  The reason the conflict ought to be resolved, or better stated, the reason that reasonable persons ought to work toward a resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, is because what is happening to Palestinians is not right.  They do not deserve to be treated the way they are being treated.  They do not deserve to be marginalized and ignored.  Their story deserves to be told and it is a scandal that the United States media refuses to tell it.  Palestinians want and deserve a chance to prove to themselves and to the world that they can govern their own country, that they can earn their own daily bread, and most importantly, that they can live in peace with each other and with their neighbors.  Palestinian people want to be free to determine their own destiny, just as Jewish people want to be free to do the same.  Palestinians want to live on the land of their ancestors, just as Jewish people want the same.

As an American Christian I have a double portion of desire for Palestinians to be free.  A Palestinian male who is 58 like me has lived his entire life under occupation.  He has never known freedom.  I’ve never known anything but freedom.  I want him to know what I’ve known.  I want his children to know what my children know.

Mostly what I want for Palestinians is the same as what I want for every one.  I want Palestinians to know freedom, and I want them to know the One who has made them free in the way that fences and walls can’t make them prisoners.  One leads to the other.  Which one comes first is a chicken and egg question.  I’ll work for both.

That’s my answer.  Thanks for the question.

Modern Prophets

Good friend John Kleinheksel called my attention to the Lectionary passage for December 11.  It is another reminder of the courage of the prophets.  I think of Jim Baker and Jimmy Carter as I think of prophets. In these two you have  men who are as politically opposite as two men can be and yet they share a common vision for the Middle East.  Each is counseling our President and Congress to consider reconciliation over conquest.

The passage below is from Eugene Peterson's The Message, Isaiah 5:8-10.

You Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil

Doom to you who buy up all the houses
   and grab all the land for yourselves—
Evicting the old owners,
   posting no trespassing signs,
Taking over the country,
   leaving everyone homeless and landless.
I overheard God-of-the-Angel-Armies say:
"Those mighty houses will end up empty.
   Those extravagant estates will be deserted.
A ten-acre vineyard will produce a pint of wine,
   a fifty-pound sack of seed, a quart of grain" (8-10)

Baker and Carter, along with many others, have the foresight to want and work for peace because peace is what is best for Israel, as well as because peace will open the door of reconciliation with the Arab world. Peace with fairness to the Palestinian people is what is right and it would be good if the United States would move toward that position as well.  Isaiah understood God’s displeasure with greed, and he warned his people of the consequences of injustice.  I think Baker and Carter are doing the same.

Of course, one look at what is happening to Carter because he dared to challenge Israel’s version of the story, reminds us that a prophet is known as much by how fierce the opposition as by anything else.

Collateral Damage

(I wrote this on November 5.  I was waiting for some pictures from my photo journalist friend, but I’ve given up on her for now – she’s a busy gal.  I can wait no longer.)

Two more Bethlehem sons are dead and buried in the city of Jesus’ birth.  Within the security of a concrete wall, Rachel weeps on.

One dead man was a wanted man, a man targeted by the Israeli army for assassination.  He was 27-years-old.  Maybe he deserved his fate, maybe he didn’t.  Who is to say?  Dead men tell no tales.  The living has the advantage of writing the narrative for the dead.  The other dead man was seventeen-years-old, so what to call him, man or boy?  Collateral damage is Israel’s name for him.  He was shot once, in the middle of the forehead, by a “stray” bullet. The official line is just that, a line. As always, the Israeli Defense Force regrets the innocent loss of life, but has investigated thoroughly and determined the two killings to be righteous.  We expect no less from an army that unabashedly declares that it is “the most moral army in the world.”   Living here, and watching Israel define “moral” by her works, makes me wonder what this says about other armies.

A woman in her seventies is brain dead from the same “operation.”  Her name?  Collateral damage, with regrets to the family, of course.

The two dead Bethlehemites were buried in a cemetery located beneath Herodian, the man-made mountain created in the 1st Century BCE by King Herod the Great.  Herodian overlooks Bethlehem on the west, with the Jordan Valley on the east, and the desert beyond.  Herod, an Idomean, a desert man, loved to go to Herodian to get away from Jerusalem.  Herod hated Jerusalem.  King Herod is buried beneath a centerpiece located within a huge swimming pool at the base of Herodian.  Herodian is probably the mountain that Jesus is referring to in Matthew 17:20 when he tells his disciples that with a little faith they could order “this mountain” cast into the sea.

I stood among the hundred or so grieving men as they buried the two dead men, and I looked over at Herodian with wonder.  Buried at the base of this madman-made mountain is one of the most immoral men ever to have lived.  A murderous man, King Herod, yet brilliant and bold as well, considered by many to be the greatest builder that ever lived – greater even than Donald Trump, except of course, in The Donald’s own mind.  King Herod was responsible for hundreds of targeted assassinations, including two of his own sons, and his first wife.  After visiting with the three kings, Herod ordered the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem.  The innocents were the cost of Herod staying in power.

Neither of the two dead men had a trial, so we don’t know what evidence there was to justify the death sentence handed down and carried out by the Israeli Defense Force.  In the culture of occupation, the rule of law is also collateral damage.  A photojournalist from the States was interviewing the fathers of the two dead men.  I thought they would be angrier.  The father of the 27-year-old condemned man kept saying, “He wasn’t armed.”  The father of the 17-year-old didn’t know what to say.

“What do you want people to know about your son?”  She prodded.

“My son was not a terrorist.  I am not a terrorist.  This is madness.”

One man’s madness is another man’s moral mandate.  Self-protection and preservation require the killing of the innocents, along with the guilty.  In the war against terror, collateral damage is the cost of doing business.  “Don’t pull up the weeds,” commanded the farmer in Jesus’ story.  “For in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them” (Matthew 13:29).

Poor, dead Rachel, buried there in the middle of Bethlehem, weeps on. While mad, dead Herod, buried at the base of his very own mountain, weeps not, but wonders what all the fuss is about.  Scattered throughout all of Israel/Palestine the prophets roll over in their graves.

Because You Asked

Preaching can be what it is intended to be.  And sometimes it is.  Yesterday was one of those preaching moments for me.  You preachers know what I mean.  I'm talking about those times when you know that what you are doing is what you were created to do, and that you are doing it exactly as God intended.  When the preacher is preaching what the congregation would preach if they had voice to do so, then preaching is what it is intended to be.  When the sermon strikes everyone as so honest, so raw and real that it is an extention rather than an explanation of the text, then you know the Spirit of God is in the mix somewhere.  When those sitting there feel as if they are standing with the preacher in dialogue with the Word, then you know that as the preacher you've done the work of getting out of the way, and now the work that is being done is God's work.  People are free to agree or disagree, but not disregard.  These are rare moments for preachers, but they are one of the reasons we mount those frightening steps each week and stand weak-kneed behind that ancient word.  This happened yesterday, and I’m grateful to have been a part of it.

I was in 1st Reformed Church Orange City, Iowa in the morning, and 1st Reformed Church Sioux Center, Iowa in the evening – two of the great mission supporting churches in the Reformed Church in America.  Earthy people, these, and therefore equipped to get down and dirty with an earthy word.  I like these folks.

Many of those present asked for a copy of the quote I used from our son Joshua.  This morning I received several emails requesting the same.  The quote was an email that Joshua sent after his first two weeks in Jerusalem the summer of 2001.  He was there to study Hebrew, and he learned a lot.  In fact, as you can see, he learned a lot more than Hebrew.  Joshua was 24 at the time.

“We are getting out into the city a lot, and I'm learning a lot about humanity in general.  I've come to realize that I generalize about people way too often.  It's when you bunch a whole religious group or race together that you begin to find it easier to hate and dehumanize.  I no longer am going to allow people to talk to me about the Muslims or the Jews or the Palestinians.  That is dangerous.  Lots of good people get demonized for the acts of a few.  I also have come to realize that violence must never be an option, even if it means laying down your life.  This is the only way humanity can keep from slaughtering each other.  I would rather die than give in, and hate.  My Christian beliefs have been strengthened by what I have seen and heard here.  It is so clear to me that what Jesus taught is the only teaching that can save the world.”

Survey

Please take 5 minutes and go to the site listed and fill out this survey.  Do it today (Thursday, Dec. 7) as it will only be posted for three days.  When you arrive on the site please click on Complete Survey Now.   Thank you!  Survey.

Also, please pick up and read Carter's book. (It's on my suggested reading list.)  It is creating quite a stir and that's good. What those of us who are on the ground in Israel/Palestine ask is that there be vigorous debate around the issue.  By the way, when Jewish groups and leaders use the word "outrageous," then you know you've hit a nerve.  One more thing, when most of our politicans are quiet on a subject, you can be assured that change is in the air.  We can only hope that whatever comes out of Carter's willingness to be a lightning rod will be movement toward peace in Israel, because peace in Israel is what we all desire.  We need the leadership in Israel and Palestine to want peace more than land.

A Washington Post article on the controversy around Carter's book had this to say about Carter's stated hope:  "Speaking Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Carter said he was glad the book had raised controversy. 'If it provokes debate and assessment and disputes and arguments and maybe some action in the Middle East to get the peace process, which is now completely absent or dormant, rejuvenated, and brings peace ultimately to Israel, that's what I want.'"

Supermodel

Luke: 1:39-56.

An old Jewish jeweler, a man who has been in business in Jerusalem since 1938, once said to me, “Remember, your Jesus lived under occupation too.”  He said it almost by way of apology, as if he was confessing a sin to me.  “Remember, your Jesus lived under occupation too.”

We don’t remember that, do we?  Jesus was born under occupation.  He lived his entire life under Roman occupation. When the angel Gabriel came to Mary with the birth announcement, he came to a young woman who was living under oppression, and with daily injustice.

What follows is an excerpt from a sermon from Luke 1:39-56.  Click here to read the entire message Download luke_1.39.59 Supermodels .

“By the way, would you sing if you were Mary?  After all, Mary being ‘great with child’ is not something she could explain or understand, not something Mary had chosen or planned.  It put her in a bad way with her fiancé.  The angel told Mary to ‘fear not,’ but old Simeon told Mary the truth of what it meant for her to be ‘blessed among women’ when he predicted that ‘a sword, will also pierce your side.’  Motherhood would not be easy for Mary.  Yet Mary sang: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior …’

“This is no lullaby Mary sings.  The words thunder forth like a battle chant: ‘He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones; and the rich he has sent empty away.’

“Not too sweet a Christmas carol.  It’s a song about someone low going up, someone high being brought low.

“You think humility is some kind of weakness?  Think again.  Here we are in First-century Judea, in the December darkness, without a star in the sky, people shut up in the darkened houses for fear of Roman soldiers, streets deserted and fearfully quiet.  (One way to handle an oppressive situation in a place like Nazareth is to keep your head down, your mouth buttoned shut.)  There, in the dark silence, a pure, clear, feminine voice cut through the night.

“‘My soul magnifies the Lord … he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree.’”

A few weeks ago, in the city of Ramallah, I listened to a troupe of Palestinian youth singing and dancing.  They were talented and energetic.  They sang resistance songs.  They were defiant and bold.  As I watched, I wondered who these young people were.  And I wondered if Mary would have identified with them.  I wondered who the mighty are, the proud, the exalted.  I wondered if God was listening.