Reflections from Israel and Palestine, Part One

“O Little Town of Bethlehem:” 

I grew up going to Sunday school and worship in a small Presbyterian Church. Every Advent and Christmas Eve we sang this classic hymn; I can instantly bring up its tune in my mind. I cherish the memory I have, as a young boy, helping my Mom carefully unwrap her ceramic manger scene and setting it up. I have this idyllic, romantic image of Bethlehem. My imagination created a Christmas story that was soft and innocent with a beautiful Mary, an honest Joseph, a delicate but divine baby Jesus along with prayerful, reverent shepherds and majestic wise men. Somewhere deep in my heart I wish I could have that image back again.

My innocent imagination of the little town of Bethlehem is now forever shattered by the truth of what Bethlehem is today. The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program study tour on which I participated did not do the typical, fly-by tourist visit to Bethlehem. Most tours quickly visit the Church of the Nativity and Manger Square to buy an olive wood manger scene and then quickly escape back to the security of Israel. We did those things, but we also went deep into the bleeding heart of Bethlehem, Palestine. This real Bethlehem has shaken me, tossed all my preconceptions around a bit, and immersed me deeply in the history, ambiguity and the pain of the Israel/ Palestine conflict. This is our Holy Land; it is a profoundly conflicted place.

The Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church is a mission partner of our PCUSA World Mission program; one of the leaders of our study tour, the Rev. Kate Taber, now serves as our mission coworker on the staff of this amazing congregation. It is a short walk from the Church of the Nativity to Christmas Church along the main street of Bethlehem. Our team walked back and forth from our Manger Square Hotel to Christmas Church several times; it is a delightful walk overflowing with all the colors and flavors of Palestine today. I wandered up and down this way alone during some free time on a sunny, Sunday afternoon checking out the shops, the vendors and people watching. But I wonder how many tourists would never consider, and how Americans are afraid, to make this walk because of our perceptions and stereotypes about the Palestinians who live there?

I will make a strong statement: To be a Presbyterian today and to try in any, significant way to contribute to our church’s work in mission and peacemaking you must be educated about the work of Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine. You can start by reading the recent book by the senior pastor: The Rev. Dr. Mitri Rahab, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes or, at least, learning about him at his website.

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem" Psalm 122: 6.

A Call to Prayer from Pakistan

Many members and congregations in our Presbytery are connected with the Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan and know their remarkable spiritual leader Veeda Javaid. Now, sadly, in response to the recent, horrific terrorist attack this call to pray comes to us. Please pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in Pakistan and for everyone touched by this evil. Please pray for peace in the name of our Risen Lord!

A special message from Veda Gill, Executive Director, Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan

March 28, 2016

Dear Friends,

March 27, 2016 was a day of celebration for Christians in Pakistan. We were celebrating the Resurrection Day and also celebrating that it was a peaceful day for Christians. We celebrated Easter with a Sunrise Service and then a worship service at 10:30 AM .The churches were all jam packed. The State provided us with police security. We were all so thankful to God for His safety...until it was 6.30 PM.

My family and I were at our home when this tragedy occurred. Our house was packed with my husband’s 4 sisters, their husbands, and some of their children who had come from America to attend a wedding when we heard a big blast. This blast was only a 5-minute walk from our place. This is the place where Javaid and I usually go for a walk whenever time permits us. This is the place where I took my granddaughter every other day when they were in Pakistan for Christmas. This park attracts children because it has many different kinds of swings as well as many varieties of birds and animals. This is the park where poor Christians and Muslims come to celebrate as many rides are free. On Easter and Christmas we see a lot of Christians there.

The blast injured nearly 300 young parents and killed 72 young parents and children who were there for the joy of the rides. The lush green park was all covered with blood and dust.                  

A Pakistan Taliban splinter group (by telephone from an undisclosed location) claimed responsibility for this deadly suicide attack, saying, "We carried out this Lahore attack as Christians are our target." Punjab Chief Minister announced three days of mourning.

This is a difficult time for us all. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters have lost their near and dear ones. A Christian family came with 5 children and three died in the blast. My immediate family is safe but this incident has really shaken us. We strongly believe that there is a day to die. We are not going to die of fear every day. Life goes on with HOPE, TRUST, AND FAITH IN THE LORD.

Please pray for Pakistan and also for Christians in Pakistan. 

Veda

Thank you, Ann Weems!

Presbyterian News service announced the death of Ann Weems. She left behind this unpublished poem as one last gift, which the New Service shared in their obituary:

When You Hear of My Demise
by Ann Weems

When you hear of my demise
Don’t believe a word of it! 
Our God is the God of the living 
And I am living still! 
If it were not so 
He would have told us! 

Don’t believe a word of it! 
And whatever you do 
Please please please 
Don’t eulogize me! 

Gather instead for worship! 
To celebrate God 
Who gives each of us Life Abundant! 

Turn mourning into morning 
Turn tears into laughter! 
Turn sadness into joy! 
Turn somberness into celebration! 

Remembering that Jesus is 
The way, the truth, the life. 
Gather to celebrate life with scripture and prayer 
With jazz band with choirs, with pipers with dancing 

Follow with faithfulness the life you have been given! 

I left this earth in Alleluias 
Dancing with the angels of life 
Among the stars of God.

Praying

A gruesome terrorist attack during Holy Week feels especially evil. I pray:

God of grace and peace,
we pray for the city of Brussels
and the people of Belgium.

Help and heal the wounded,
receive the dying into your embrace,
and comfort those who mourn.

Strengthen rescue and relief workers
who protect and provide for others
in the midst of crisis and chaos. 

Give leaders the wisdom and determination
to understand the causes of hatred
and prevent it from gaining force.

Put an end to all violence and war,
and restrain the impulse
to use injustice to seek justice. 

Continue to pour out your mercy
upon the victims of violence in Bangladesh;
Istanbul, Turkey; Peshawar, Pakistan;
and all the places we forget or ignore. 

Surround us all with your grace
and bring peace to our weary world.
This we pray in Jesus’ name.

Gradye Parsons
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly 

Heath Rada
Moderator of the 221st General Assembly (2014) 

Tony De La Rosa
Interim Executive Director, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Book Review: Walter Brueggemann. Chosen? Reading the Bible Amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Walter Brueggemann. Chosen?

In preparation for my participation on the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program's 'Mosaic of Peace' study tour to Israel and Palestine this April, we have been provided with a reading list. Brueggemann's small book is at the top of the list. With all his experience as a teacher in the church and with his vast expertise as a student of the Bible, Brueggemann helps me to name something that is crucially important. This point is crucially important for our general and overall understanding of the Bible. This point is specifically vital when we ponder the complex issues of the Middle East. Simply put, we cannot and should not make a direct, unquestioned link between then and now. We must respect the interpretive distance. We cannot simply transfer and connect convictions about the biblical Israel with the modern state of Israel. Doing so is a misuse of the Bible.

In Brueggemann's words:

"It will not do for Christian readers of the Bible to reduce the Bible to an ideological prop for the state of Israel, as though support for Israel were a final outcome of biblical testimony." 

And also . . .

"It is my hope that the Christian community in the United States will cease to appeal to the Bible as a direct support for the state of Israel and will have the courage to deal with the political realities without being cowed by accusations of anti-Semitism."   

I look forward to visiting the Holy Land for the first time. I seek to travel with an open heart, an open mind and a deep commitment to prayer.

Report to the Presbytery of Carlisle February 2016

Bridging the Great Divide: Israel and Palestine

As citizens of the world who seek peace, as American Christians and as Presbyterians it is vital that we continue to pray for and seek to understand the difficult and multifaceted concerns of the Middle East. Our beautiful Psalm 122 encourages us to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem “. Our meeting of the General Assembly in June 2016 will, once again, consider important recommendations concerning our church’s response to these concerns.

At the meeting of our Presbytery this Tuesday, February 23, the Rev. Dr. Bill Harter distributed an important, new resource concerning the Middle East and our Presbyterian response. The resource is provided by the organization Presbyterians for Middle East Peace and is titled, Two States for Two Peoples.  This resource is available electronically at their website, pfmep.org.

For me, it is vital that we make every effort, when we ponder these profoundly difficult issues, to seek balance and a multiplicity of perspectives and viewpoints. Thus I also suggest that we ponder the work and the perspective of the PC(USA) Israel Palestine Mission Network. Their website is viewed at israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org. An important resource is available there: the study document Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study Guide was written by the Mission Network for our congregations.

As Christians today it is also important to consider a viewpoint from Christians in the Middle East. An important document is Kairos Palestine: A Moment of Truth, available electronically at http://www.kairospalestine.ps/, which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians. This has been an influential statement which has provoked wide discussion and strong responses across the spectrum.  There is now a Wikipedia page on Kairos Palestine which includes a brief description of some of the volatile debate and divisions around this document in the North American Churches.

For American Presbyterians, a helpful theological resource is Walter Brueggemann’s Chosen? In this short book, which includes study questions for church groups, Brueggemann brings his expertise as an Old Testament scholar into dialogue with these contentious issues today.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
   ‘May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls,
   and security within your towers.’
For the sake of my relatives and friends
   I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
   I will seek your good.   - Psalm 122: 6-9.

Book Review: Diana Butler Bass, Grounded, 2015

Book Review: Diana Butler Bass, Grounded: Finding God in the World: A Spiritual Revolution. 2015.

I have been a fan and an avid student of Diana Butler Bass since the days when her popular book, Christianity for the Rest of Us traveled through my church circles with enthusiastic popularity. But now she has left me behind. I do not know for sure where she went. But she left the church. I am church! My abiding spiritual life, blessed by a deep and personal relationship with Jesus Christ, is fully alive in and through the institutional church. I am committed to fighting for the vitality, the effectiveness and the vibrant future of the institutional church. The church embodies my spiritual life. But now, in my reading of her new book Grounded, Diana Butler Bass has abandoned me and the institutional church. She has moved, as a result of her “third conversion”, to some strange place that is, I guess, more aligned with Karen Armstrong’s Charter of Compassion than it is with my stodgy Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

She writes in her Conclusion this paragraph that for me lacks the nuance and sophistication that I found in her works. I find this to be a remarkably simplistic summary of things:

“The old God, the one believed in, preached and celebrated, and served in conventional religious institutions, is fading from view. And a new God, one of intimate longing and infinite love, experienced and proclaimed by seers and prophets through the ages, has risen just over the horizon. It is a new spiritual day.”

I read here her dismissal of the “conventional religious institutions” like the one I am committed to and serve in. This Great Emergence we are living through is certainly NOT going to happen like this. Our Reformation will not be an instantaneous on-off switch from an old God to a new God. There will be fits and starts, there will death and life, there will be success and failure, there will be new and old all mixed up together, and there are institutions doing fresh, creative, bold new things. Good bye, Diana Butler Bass. I am sorry you have abandoned our team, and walked out of our conventional institutions to live into some ethereal “earthy spirituality.” As for me and mine: We are church!