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