Advent 4, Week of December 20, 2009 - Luke

Advent 4
Luke 1.39-45 (46-55)

What an unlikely God those Israelites have been following—from Ur to Palestine, from Egypt across the Sinai Desert, and back to Palestine. The God of Mary’s rejoicing favors the lowly, not the powerful. His strength brings down the powerful. Unlike the gods of the armies who occupy the land, the Roman pantheon of gods, chasing after beautiful women and defeating their enemies in battle, Mary’s God uses strength and power to feed the hungry. What an odd God! Not at all what the rest of the world was looking for.

And so God continues to appear to us—not as a mighty woman- and enemy-conquering god, but as a small, vulnerable, powerless baby-god, born to a woman who describes herself as “lowly,” and her people as “servants.” Not only does Mary’s god bring down the powerful, but also sends the rich away with nothing—no reward, no lavish feast for the rich. The poor are the only ones who receive this god’s mercy and riches.

In the “hill country” of “Judah” today (scholars find little evidence to indicate the location of the town where Mary visits Elizabeth), the poor and powerless still count on God’s promised blessings; they still trust that God will fill their hungry stomachs and their aching souls with good things. The Christians who live in some of these hills outside Jerusalem today—in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, and south to Hebron hills—have learned that they cannot count on the promises of the Israeli government or the U.S. No matter what the treaties or peace agreements say, these humble hill country people have learned that they can count only on God, and so they live as if they are receiving God’s promised abundance, their guiding principle: “that they may have life abundant.”

Like the rest of us, these Palestinian Christians are preparing to celebrate the arrival of the Prince of Peace. This morning (Saturday, December 20) I worshiped with them, gathering with a small group at Bethany Lutheran in Denver—a service simulcast with those gathered at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Bishops, pastors and lay people committed to peace and justice read lessons and sang carols as we prepare to receive the Prince of Peace. This is the abundant life our Palestinian Lutheran sisters and brothers are creating—a life lived as if the wall were not separating us, a life lived, trusting that God’s promises of life abundant are indeed true. Photo: Lutheran Christmas Church, Bethlehem

Please join in praying one of the prayers we prayed this morning:
Incarnate God, your angel host announces that peace is born among us, embodied in frail flesh. With confidence in the power of that miracle, we bring you our prayers for the church and the world. That the child born to us may awaken us to heal this broken and hurting world, and that the peace proclaimed by angels in the shepherds’ field will be realized in every place of war and on every violent street, we pray to you, O God…Come now, O God of love. Reconcile your people and make us one body. Amen

Advent 4, Week of December 13, 2009 - Micah

Micah 5.2-5a

And they shall live secure,
For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth;
And he will be their peace. (Micah 5.4b-5a)

Security…..we are willing to do some very strange things in the name of security—it’s why we stand in line in our socks for half an hour at the airport, and spend our money on alarm systems for our houses and cars. It’s why we let strangers paw through our backpacks before we can get into the Rockies game.

We think that if we can just eliminate our enemies, we will be secure. It’s why we have thought that it is a good idea to sacrifice 4689 American and allied soldiers in Iraq and 1538 in Afghanistan (http://icasualties.org/), deeming this sacrifice necessary for our security.

That’s how we think in America, because we have power. We are not “one of the little clans.” We are the big guys……with the big guns.

But the people who live in the “Little Town” in Ephrathah today, don’t have any big guns—Palestinians have no army, no tanks. So they have to find other ways to be secure. They are building their security by making their town a safe place to live, by giving their young people a future of hope. Instead of taking up arms, the young people of Bethlehem can learn to use a camera to document their lives, to tell their stories to the rest of the world. Dar al-Kalima College offers classes in documentary filmmaking and communication. Instead of throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers who charge into Bethlehem in their tanks, the children of the Deheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem can take classes after school in the Bright Stars of Bethlehem program, taking swim lessons or music and art lessons, play on a soccer team or paint a picture. Photo: Bright Stars Christmas program, 2008

While Israel builds its security with a 24-foot high wall and guards armed with automatic weapons, the people of Bethlehem, walled in by this barrier, are building security with after-school activities for the children and youth of Bethlehem—Christian and Muslim. In a region we see as divided over religion, they are building bridges of understanding and peace, starting with the children.

You can support their work by reading more about their work and contributing to these programs: http://www.brightstarsbethlehem.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=4

This Saturday, December 19, you can worship with these remarkable Christians in their church in Bethlehem, via a simulcast. A special prayer service joining Christians living in Bethlehem, Palestine—the place of Jesus' birth—and Christians in Washington, D.C., will be offered in a live simulcast service at Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 East Hampden Avenue at 8:00 a.m.

This service brings together Christians from the Middle East and the United States for a unique opportunity to share the true mean of Christmas, the gift of God's love given to all the world through Jesus Christ. The service will be broadcast from the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, where the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb is Pastor, as well as from the Bethlehem Chapel at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Loving God, you have formed us and we are yours. You do not forget us, even when we are among the “little ones.” We rejoice in this Advent season as we prepare to receive you once again, the one of peace in a world in need of peace. Help us to be faithful followers of your way of peace, trusting in the security only you provide. Amen.

Advent 3, Week of December 13, 2009 - Luke

Luke 3.7-18

Bear fruits worthy of repentance...Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees…. (Luke 3.8)

I cannot read these words without thinking of all the olive trees I saw in Israel and Palestine that have been cut down.

On the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, on the left hand side of the highway, there is a whole orchard of stumps of the trees that have been cut down to make way for the settler road, linking Jerusalem to its settlements in the West Bank, where even today, the Israeli government has given permits for more illegal building, the “natural growth” expansion on land I always thought would eventually become the Palestinian state.

In Jayyous, where I stood in the village at the top of the hill and looked down on the olive groves which now lie on the other side of the barbed wire security barrier, I could see where hundreds of trees had been cut down to build the barrier, a twenty-foot-wide swath of dirt and barbed wire. Each morning and afternoon the checkpoint between the village and its olive groves is open for an hour to let the farmers pass through from their village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom. Seventy-five percent of their olive groves have been cut off from the village by the security barrier.

When we toured the village, Dr. Abdul Latif told us that one third of the villagers lost their land when the barrier was built because they could not provide adequate documentation of their ownership and were therefore denied permits to cross at the checkpoint and tend their olive trees. Fifty percent of the villagers must now depend on food aid because they cannot farm their land. Photo: view of the security barrier and checkpoint separating Jayyous from its olive groves.

The residents of Jayyous have been engaging in non-violent demonstrations against the building of the Israeli security barrier, and now 40 of the village’s 3000 residents are in prison. An additional 3000 people of Jayyous live abroad, many of them leaving because they were unable to find work and make a living in Jayyous.

Land confiscated from the village has been used for the construction of the Israeli settlement of Zufim. A report in 2004, describes one of the confrontations between settlers and the people of Jayyous: “On Dec. 9, Zufim settlers uprooted 117 olive trees at Jayyous, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reported. Villagers said dozens of settlers, some of them armed, entered the olive grove owned by Jayyous resident Mohammed Salim that morning and began razing it with a bulldozer. Villagers alerted the occupation authorities, but police and troops only arrived in the afternoon--long after the trees had been destroyed. "How would you like to buy one of my trees?" a settler told an international. The uprooted trees were carted away in the direction of Israel, possibly to end up in Israeli nurseries for sale, construction workers reported. The phenomenon of Palestinian olive trees uprooted by Israel in the building of its separation barrier ending up being sold as trophy plants in Israeli nurseries was well documented in "The battle of the Olive," by Danny Adino Ababa, Meron Rapaport and Oron Meiri, Jan 22, 2003, in the Israeli paper Yediot Ahanorot . Read the rest of this story: http://ww4report.com/105/palestine/jayyous

Read another article about Jayyous in The Nation, by this same writer, David Bloom: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040308/bloom

Gracious God, help us to heed John the Baptist’s call to repentance. In this Advent season, awaken us from our apathy and turn us to your way of justice and mercy, that we may bear fruits worthy of repentance. Amen.

Advent 3, Week of December 13, 2009 - Zephaniah

Zephaniah 3.14-20

And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth. (Zephaniah 3.19)

Prophets see what others cannot; they proclaim what others dare not; they shout the words that we do not want to hear. In the opening verses of his book, Zephaniah sees a Jerusalem filled with pride, ignoring God’s commandments, and pronounces a judgment they do not want to hear: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth.” (Zephaniah 1.1)

But he also sees that this is not the end of the story. After the oracles judge Israel for its sinful idolatrous behavior and announce a cosmic destruction, Zephaniah looks beyond her failings and sees a future the people cannot imagine—a future of hope and joy, a time when God will stand with them, protecting them from all danger, freeing them from their oppressors.

Zephaniah’s heirs, the people of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem have claimed their own prophetic voice. Where the view from Bethlehem is a 24-foot high wall, the people of the Lutheran Christmas Church see beyond the wall. In a town where going to work means a 2-hour wait in line to get through the checkpoint, these people hear Zaphaniah’s prophecy and build a college for the young people of Bethlehem. Where I saw empty hotels and shuttered stores, they see a future when their town will once again be a bustling pilgrimage site for Christians from all over the world.

Founded three years ago, Dar al-Kalima College offers degrees in tourism and media production. It provides practical skills and hope for the future for Christian and Muslim young people of Bethlehem. The people of the Lutheran Christmas Church are building, not for what they CAN see—the rubble and barbed wire closing all but a couple of the roads into Jerusalem. They are building for a future they CANNOT see—the future God has promised in these words of Zephaniah. A promise to all God’s people—Israeli and Palestinian—as they have seen it embodied in Jesus Christ. Photo shows instructor and student at Dar al-Kalima College.

I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth……A promise also for Hannah, living in Jerusalem on the other side of the wall, the Israeli grandmother I met who sees her grandchildren losing their compassion during military training that teaches them how to shoot Palestinian children who throw stones at them. Hannah stands at the checkpoints and monitors the soldiers’ behavior, helping Palestinians get through when they are denied passage for no reason. Zephaniah offers Hannah a promise that will change her shame into praise.

I will change their shame into praise….And a promise for Americans like me who sit by while our tax dollars provide weapons and ammunition and bulldozers that kill Palestinian children and destroy their homes…..a promise that God will change our shame into praise.

Read more about Dar Al-Kalima College in Bethlehem

Gracious God, we have sinned against your good intentions for your creation. We have made a mockery of your peace, with our insatiable need for comfort and security, which has made us deaf to the cries of your people who desire freedom. We rejoice that you have not abandoned us, that your mercy extends even to us in our disobedience. Help us to follow in your ways of peace and understanding and renew us in your love. Amen.

Advent 2, Week of December 6, 2009—Luke

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler* of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight the paths of the Lord
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'” (Luke 3.1-6)

In the sixty-first year of the reign of the State of Israel, when Benjamin Netanyahu is Prime Minister of Israel and Nir Barkat is mayor of Jerusalem, and the Israeli Defense Forces rule over Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, during the Presidency of Mahmoud Abbas and the reign of HAMAS, the word of God comes to the people of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, living between Jerusalem and the wilderness that stretches down to the Jordan River.

And the people of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem go out into the whole region of Bethlehem and gather in the children, the elders, the sick, the refugees, the hopeless…urging them to “repent,” to turn from their hopelessness and desperation, and follow a new vision, a vision announced long ago by the prophet Isaiah.
"....the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

The people of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem go out, saying to all the people, “We live under occupation. The state of Israel controls our travel, our roads, our businesses, and the Israeli army enforces the edicts. We cannot fly out of the airport in Tel Aviv; we cannot travel to the trade shows in Tel Aviv to purchase goods for our stores. Although we pay our taxes to the government of Israel, we cannot even drive within the West Bank, from Bethlehem to Hebron, on the ‘settlers only’ highway, but we must take poorly maintained back roads and sometimes drive around piles of rubble pushed onto the road by the soldiers’ bulldozers.

Photo: the settler road, walled off from the surrounding Palestinian lands, tunnels under the town of Beit Jala in the West Bank.

Then they say to the people of Bethlehem:

But the occupation does not define us; the occupation does not shape us and make us who we are; we will shape our own future. We will build a future for our children AS IF the occupation does not exist. We will build a school for our children, Muslim and Christian; and a Wellness Center for our tired and stressed-out people, weary from waiting for permits to travel or add a bedroom to our homes or repair our roof, weary from waiting in lines at checkpoints. We will build a senior center where our elders can find some peace and a place to share their stories and their wisdom. We will build a college where our young people can learn a profession and maintain our cultural identity—offering degrees in tourism, media and the arts. We will start a leadership circle, where our young people can learn skills and meet mentors who will enable them to be leaders in a future Palestinian state.”

Photo: waiting with the taxis, trucks loaded with supplies, buses and even ambulances at the checkpoint in Hebron.

Learn more about the gospel being proclaimed in Bethlehem through the building of schools and community gathering places: http://www.diyar-consortium.org/

As you shop for friends and family this Christmas, give a Christmas gift to the work of the people living in Bethlehem today: http://www.brightstarsbethlehem.org/

Gracious God, you exhort us to “make straight the paths of the Lord.” Help us to find ways to cry out in today’s wilderness of apathy and greed, hatred and ethnic superiority. Make us proclaimers of your “baptism of repentance.” Help us to turn from our despair and hopelessness and work together to make your world whole, in your holy land and in our own. Amen.

Advent 2, Week of December 6, 2009—Malachi

Malachi 3.1-4

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. (Malachi 3.2b-3)

It is tempting for me, sitting here in Denver, far removed from the conflict over land, water and religion in the Middle East, remembering the stories of suffering I heard from the people of Bethlehem, to read these words and shout……YES! At last, God will bring justice for the Palestinians! God will burn away all impurities….the fear, the hatred, the jealousy….and finally the people of Israel, transformed by God’s scorching love, will treat the Palestinians with justice and with dignity.

But the fiery conflagration Malachi promises is not for the people of Israel. It is for all of us….Jews, Palestinians, Christians, Muslims, Arabs and…..yes, Americans an ocean away.

In God’s own good time, we will all be purified—Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and even Americans. It is my own purification the prophet foretells, God’s own fiery way of turning the world into the creation God intended, with the bounties—the freedom and security—God intended for us all.

The news Malachi tells sounds like hope to all the people who are now suffering—whether it’s having to lift your shirt for the soldiers at the checkpoint at Qalandia, or being unable to get the papers to leave Gaza for chemotherapy, or whether it is losing your baby in the unexpectedly turbulent waters as you flee across our own southern border in search of safety and a full stomach.

Malachi offers hope, but he also foresees pain. Since I’m not one of the hopeless ones, Malachi’s prophecy is a bit terrifying. What will be burned out of me?

Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be painful. If it’s my greediness, then I’ll have to give up admiring those beautiful shoes in the window in Cherry Creek. If it’s my apathy that will be refined in the fire, then I’ll have to give up my hour of Law and Order SVU. If it’s my self-righteous indignation that burns to ash in the flames, then I’ll have to give up feeling superior to everyone. Whatever is burned away, I’m sure to miss it. Or will I?

God’s refining fire promises to make all things new, but, like childbirth, even the most welcome and exciting new things do not come without the pain of change.

Photo: Ruth, one of the Women in Black--Israeli Jewish women who have been protesting the occupation of Palestinian lands at a busy intersection in Jerusalem for 30 years.

What pain would I have to endure for peace in the Middle East? Cheap gas? Admitting that the U.S. does not always have the right answers? That this “Landofthefreehomeofthebrave” has not always lived out its promise? Taking a chance that Palestinians are capable of choosing their own leaders?

God of the cleansing fire, we pray today for the flames that will refine and purify us, making us the people you have created us to be…people formed in your image We ask forgiveness for our selfish, prideful ways and ask you to use us to complete your creation, looking around us to see how we can make your world more like what you intended for us. Amen.

Advent 1, Week of November 30, 2009—Gospel of Luke

Luke 21.25-36

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,
For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21.26)

What a strange way to begin our season of Advent preparation! This is certainly no stroll through the Cherry Creek Mall to admire the decorations and do a little shopping.

Jesus’ words are far removed from “Sleighbells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening” that accompanies us as we prepare for Christmas with visits to Target and Macy’s. These words are not the kind of preparation for Christmas that we in America are used to! This apocalyptic language sounds very strange to us.

But as the Christians in the Bethlehem prepare for Christmas, these words describe their daily reality. Their daily routines—going to school, to the market, to work—are filled with uncertainty and fear and foreboding. Uncertainty about whether they will be able to get to work in Jerusalem in the morning. Foreboding that the soldiers will come with bulldozers and demolish their homes because they could not get a permit and so they added a bedroom and a bathroom for their growing family anyway. Fear that the helicopters flying overhead will start shooting again.

And they have a keener sense of the nearness of the dominion of God too. We, who depend on our detailed plans, our bank accounts and our calendars, do not need God’s dominion. In fact, God’s dominion will probably interrupt our plans. The coming of God’s dominion will probably interfere with the Bronco game on Sunday and our night out on Saturday.

But in Bethlehem, where getting to work is uncertain (you might be stopped by the soldiers at the checkpoint and your permit confiscated), and people are fainting in the crush of bodies waiting to pass through the Bethlehem checkpoint, and you never know when the next war will begin……these words of Jesus in the temple might actually be comforting. Because he reminds us that whatever tumultuous events happen on the earth, they are not the end of the story. God is. If your brother is arrested or your home is bulldozed, this is not the end of the story. God has promised us that. And God’s dominion, God’s rule, God’s way of life, is not far away. It is near, as near as the sprouting fig leaves in springtime. And we can be part of this new life.

If we are alert, on guard, we can give children hope for the future. We can create spaces for healing in our communities. We can give our youth a sense of their own worth and abilities.

This is what the people of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem are doing in their community. Read about their peace-building work, bringing “life abundant” to the people of Palestine: http://www.annadwa.org/ . Watch their life-giving programs scroll across your screen. Click on the icons at the bottom of the page and read about their work. And join in this work by making a Christmas gift to support their programs. Or volunteer with a community program giving abundant life to our own children, who also need more than bank accounts.

Photo shows swimmers in class at the Wellness Center in Bethlehem.

God of the roaring sea, you are our only security and your promises are sure. Keep us mindful of your faithfulness and renew us in this season of the church’s New Year, so that we rededicate ourselves to being your partners in renewing your broken world. In the name of your Son, our teacher. Amen.

Advent 1, Week of November 30, 2009—Jeremiah

Jeremiah 33.14-16

The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house or Israel and the house of Judah. (Jer. 33.14)

When I asked him how the tourist business had been this summer, our tour guide Sami said it had been slow, but that the tourist season was picking up with the cooler fall weather. In the summer, during the quiet season, he and his wife and three small children had been able to spend time with his wife’s family in Jordan. They visited his wife’s aunt, who is now 80, and she spent a lot of time telling them stories about the past—about the days of terror, when her family was forced out of their home in a small village near Ramle, on the road between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. She remembered their long journey on foot, across the dry hills and through the desert to safety in Jordan, carrying a few possessions grabbed in haste. Thousands of families trudged this same road, carrying only what they could grab quickly, along with the keys to their homes, which they thought they would need in a few days or weeks when the soldiers left their village and it was safe to return. Many families still have their keys, and, sixty years later, in Jordan, this 80-year-old woman still carries the story, telling it for the children, so they can remember who they are, where they have come from.

Photo: Poster commemorating the 50th anniversary of the forced removals of Palestinian families from their villages and the tents they lived in while they stayed in the refugee camps.

Not much has changed in 2500 years. Today we hear Jeremiah speaking to the Israelites, who, like the 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, were routed out of their homes by soldiers, and forced to make the long march across the desert to Babylon. Sami’s aunt tells her story again and again, lamenting the loss of her home and her girlhood, separated from friends and family and everything familiar—the olive trees and oranges, the lemons and persimmons, the cinnamon and other delicious smells of her childhood.

Every Palestinian family I have met has a story like this one.

But, in this Advent season the prophet calls out to us, in our exile of broken treaties and hopeless peace negotiations, “the days are SURELY coming….” The promises of the Lord are sure, words of living water, spoken to all who long for justice in the land, all who long for a world where righteousness is lived out—where everyone lives according to the hopes and dreams God has for us. As we wait in Advent and yearn for God’s righteousness, we know God’s promises are sure…for we have met this babe that is to be born, the one “who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” We have seen him and we know God’s promises are sure.

God of all righteousness, in this Advent season we wait…and yearn for your justice and peace. While armies bulldoze homes in East Jerusalem, we wait in exile and long for the peace you have promised, to live in safety. Help us to be your agents of change, to bring about the new day of peace for all your people. We pray this in your holy name. Amen.

Advent 4 - Week of Dec 21, 2008 - Romans

Romans 16.25-27

Now to God who is able to strengthen you…be the glory forever! Amen.

It is a challenge for Palestinian Christians, grounded in Holy Scripture, to hear people cite the Bible as the authority for taking their land. Many of these families can trace their ancestry back generations, finding themselves in the stories in Acts about the early church. It might seem easier to reject the Bible and turn to political arguments.

But God speaks loudly to the Palestinians through the occupation, and the Palestinians turn to the stories of their faith for sustenance and strength. These same words have a far different message in their Palestinian context. Living under occupation, Bishop Mounib Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and Pastor Mitri Raheb, of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, have become excellent and practiced theologians, interpreting these texts from the perspective of people who are oppressed.

Lutherans in the Holy Land today bear this good news, giving God the glory for the strength God provides for them. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land is made up of six congregations, four in the occupied West Bank—in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour; one in Jerusalem; and one in Amman, Jordan, intent on bringing hope to their communities, even when their people often feel hopeless.

Each of these congregations has a school, because, as Pastor Mitri says, education is the key to achieving freedom and equal rights and creating a just and flourishing society. These schools, attended by both Muslim and Christian children, teach understanding and respect for other cultures. They nurture a curiosity about the world, a thirst for learning and creative problem-solving. The teachers encourage their students to resist the occupation by learning their own Palestinian culture, creating art and music that celebrates who they are and caring for their bodies with exercise.

As I walked into the Wellness Center in Bethlehem, Hamid grinned and practiced his English, saying “Hello, how are you?” When he saw my camera he made faces and jumped about, posing for a picture. His two friends walked in with their mothers for their swim lesson and he got them to mug for the camera too. I took several pictures, showed them to the boys and they giggled with excitement and posed some more. Although his English is limited, Hamid is curious about the bigger world. He wants to make friends with strangers. He has been raised to welcome the other, to approach the other without fear. He is the legacy of the Lutheran churches’ educational philosophy. The photo shows Hamid and his friends hamming it up for the camera.

Some in Israel claim election—that Israel is God’s chosen people by virtue of their ethnicity. Pastor Mitri has written, however, that God’s election is “a promise to the weak, encouragement to the discouraged and consolation to the desperate….Election is not a special privilege, It is much more a call to service, above all a service ‘to the other.’” (I Am a Palestinian Christian, Fortress Press, 1995, p 66) He cites Torah where Abraham is blessed, not for his own benefit or for the amassing of wealth, but so that “all families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12.3).

God’s election is not for personal or national gain, but for the benefit of others. The formative story of Israel is the Exodus, the tale of a people oppressed and enslaved by a powerful nation, rescued by God. Palestinians today see themselves as the Israelites, deprived of their freedom by a strong military power, bent on imprisoning them. God is for them their savior, strengthening them for God’s work in the world.

—For what work is God is strengthening us?

O Lord our God, you have chosen us and made us your own. In our baptism you have claimed us. As you strengthen us daily for your work in the world, help us to discern your will and give us the courage to go out and do that work in our own community. In the name of your Son, the babe of Bethlehem, Amen.

Journey to Bethlehem in Advent

Tales from Bethlehem, Reflections on the Weekly Lectionary in Advent

I invite you to join me --- This is the first in a series of meditations for your Advent devotions, reflecting on the weekly texts for Advent through my experiences on two trips to Israel and Palestine this summer and fall.

Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us"....Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2.15-19)

The stories of Jesus’ birth are pilgrimage stories—Mary and Joseph walking the rocky hills and winding roads on their way to Bethlehem, the shepherds’ trek to the stable and the Holy Family’s flight along the coast to Egypt.

Today Bethlehem is in the West Bank, land designated by the Oslo Accord to be administered by the Palestinian Authority. But on my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I saw that the reality on the ground is far different. Like Mary and Joseph, traveling pregnant from Nazareth to Bethlehem on the orders of the occupying Roman government, Palestinians’ lives today are shaped by the whims of the Israeli soldiers occupying their towns, guarding the checkpoints, controlling all movement. As I entered Bethlehem in June, 2008, I was shocked at the changes in the three years since my first visit. In the summer of 2005, when our bus arrived in Bethlehem, the Israeli security wall was being constructed. We saw the 30-foot high concrete barrier as it snaked around hills, cutting through Bethlehem’s olive groves, and, like a holiday parade, marching down the yellow line in the center of the main road into Bethlehem. That summer there were gaps in the wall, places where you could see through to the other side or walk around the wall….like the time we walked over a little hill to catch a bus into Jerusalem, avoiding the hassle at the checkpoint and the expense of two taxis.

When I returned in 2008, the Wall at the main entrance to Bethlehem was completed. There was a new checkpoint, with flower gardens and welcome banners proclaiming “Peace be with you.” Peace for the American tourists, with their blue passports, but not for the residents of Bethlehem. While our bus breezed through with a welcoming wave and a smile from the Israeli soldiers, Bethlehem residents stood in long lines to get to work. They must apply for permits weeks ahead of time, and only for a specific purpose. And, even if they are lucky enough to get a permit, they must wait, sometimes hours, every time they leave Bethlehem—daily for those who work in Jerusalem. We were told the beautification of the checkpoint came from USAID money, earmarked to make the checkpoints more “humane.” More humane for us perhaps, but not for the Palestinians on their way to work.

Today the wall divides the main road into Bethlehem, right down the middle—separating the houses on one side from their neighbors across the street. The stores selling olive wood nativity sets and religious jewelry are mostly closed now. Few tourists visit Bethlehem—they are told it is too dangerous. And no one wants to stop on this dreary street anymore, suffocating beneath the wall.And Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart…

These meditations were written for pondering during Advent, the time when we wait for a miracle—the birth of a savior for the whole world. Bethlehem today is in desperate need of salvation, but as they wait for their miracle, these faithful people of the Holy Land—in Bethlehem, Hebron, Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah—take God’s promises to heart and use their energy to create a new reality for themselves and their children, a world where children are educated, the sick are healed and all can celebrate their rich Arab culture.

As I read the weekly Sunday texts for Advent this year, I remember the land I walked on my pilgrimage and the amazing people I met. These are some of the stories I heard—stories of desperation and stories of hope from the Christians, Jews and Muslims living today on the holy land of Jesus’ birth.

—Jan Miller, Advent, 2008