Fighting between Monk and the Worship of Place in the Holy Land

The disturbing footage of the monks fighting in the Nativity Church has been seen around the world. This is not the first time such a fight has erupted. The natural reaction any Christians should have upon seeing this footage is shame. It is difficult to even describe in words what one feels when he sees monks involved in such violence and rage! 

This incident reflects at least two major deficiencies within the Palestinian Christian community. The first is the status of the church and how it is still controlled by foreign powers. Palestine and the "holy cites" have always attracted Christians who want to control these sites. Everyone wants a share of the place. This is the story of the church in Palestine in a nutshell. Though we have called this place home for centuries, we have never in reality governed ourselves, as a people or as a church. Wars emerged over control of the cites, from the crusaders, through the Crimean War, on to our modern era, where a fragile "status quo" from the days of the Ottoman Empire governs the relationship between the different church families and who controls what in the holy cites. 

The monks involved in this incident are not local Palestinians monks. They are part of the Greek and Arminian churches. These monks, who come from outside, could not care less about the local church (and by the church here I mean the community of the believers). Their only interest is in the place and their own church/institution. Local Christians have always paid the price for these actions. The dead stones are more important than the living stones, and the local indigenous believers are on the margin. As a result, Palestinian Christians today are weak, divided, and scattered. Today less than 5% of the population in Palestine/Israel is Christian, and part of the blame falls on the status of the church here. 

The second deficiency this incident reveals is the obsession with the holy cites.  We are obsessed in this part of the world with "the place." We worship the place. We have idolized the holy cites. Similarly, radical Christian Zionists have idolized the land, and the question of "Whose Promise Land?" is a familiar question today. This is not a new phenomena to the people of God. We desperately need to go back to Jesus and his teaching about the place, and the Gospel of John is a good starting place. In Chapter 2, Jesus' body takes the place of the temple (2:18-22). In Chapter 4, in His conversation with the Samaritan women, Jesus declared that it is not important where you pray, but what matters to God is that status of your heart (John 4:19-24). Gary Burge's important study on the land in the New Testament Jesus and the Land is strongly recommended here. He argues that there is no place for territorial theology in the Christian theology today, and on page 52 claims: "Divine space is now no longer located in a place but in a person (Jesus)." 

What makes a land or a place "holy" to begin with? Is it the event? Or the actions of the people living in this place? The first "holy place" in the Bible is the garden of Eden. There, Adam enjoyed fellowship with God, but when he sinned, he lost that privilege. Israel's temple was destroyed and she found herself in exile because of her infidelity to God. The lesson learned over and over again is that our actions in any given place do actually matter. It is our actions that make a place holy or defiled (Lev. 18: 24-27; Num. 35:33; Ps 106:38). In particular, our faithfulness to God, and how we treat one another and the less privileged among us, are crucial for the survival of any community in the land (Lev. 19:34; Ezek 33:24-26; ). 

Jesus said, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35 ESV)." How far we have gone from this statement! We fight over ownership of a place, forgetting that it is the "meek who shall inherit the land" (Matt. 5:5). The land, like any other place, belong to God. May Christians in the Holy Land pay more attention in the years to come to the teachings of Jesus and learn how to love each others and our neighbors. This is the mark of our discipleship at the end of the day!

Christmas in Zababdeh. It was worth it!

Yesterday the choir had an amazing, God glorifying, ministry in Zababdeh, a village in the district of Jenin. There is a small community of about 2000 Christians in Zababdeh, and the service was in the St. Matthew Anglican Church. The church was incredibly packed. People filled the seats and aisles of the beautiful small chapel and there was barely room to move. The congregation was very thirsty and receptive. They participated in singing, and when we shared between songs I could see the words echoing with comfort and encouragement deep in their souls. The joy and peace of Christmas came to Zababdeh. Jesus was lifted high!



After the service, people shared with us and thanked us for the visit. One man told me that the singing healed his soul. Another man thanked us for coming such a long way to be with them and expressed how they feel isolated and neglected in this part of the land, and how our message to them was very important.

His words reminded me of a visit the choir did few years ago to one of the oldest churches in the world, “The Church of the Ten Lepers,” sight of the famous miracle of Jesus when he healed the 10 lepers. The church’s location today is in the small village of Burqin, where only 70 Christians live. I asked the woman who opened the church for us on how long Christians have been living in this place, to which she replied: “We have always been here.” As I reflect on this visit, and on our time yesterday in Zababdeh, I am in awe of the fact that the Palestinian Church is the oldest Church in the world. We survived over 2000 years of world history and different ruling powers, and remained as a living testimony in the land – a testimony to the greatest events that took place in the history of humanity: God visiting us, becoming one of us, living among us and eventually saving us through His death and resurrection. I think of the similarities we have with those lepers Jesus healed; neglected, ignored and forsaken by many, yet loved, cared for, and eventually healed by God!

It was our privilege to lift Jesus up in Zababdeh! I am so thankful and proud of the choir, who were determined to take this trip despite what happened on our last trip when we were attacked by the settlers. It was worth it. I am so glad we went. We made a difference. Thank God we were not attacked this time and the trip was safe. We were "only" stopped on the way back at a checkpoint near Bethlehem and some of us had to wait for about 30 minutes in the cold until we were cleared to go. (The conversation we had with the solders was interesting - but that's another story!) We did not allow this, however, to spoil such a special night. We were in peace!

Choir bus hit by settlers on way back from Nablus

I was hoping to write about something more pleasant regarding our Christmas ministry in Nablus. I was hoping to write about the usual; singing and rejoicing with the believers there. As always, Nablus concert was special. The Anglican church where we usually go was full. There was joy. The choir really did well. It was a real blessing!

On our way there I remembered the first time the choir went to Nablus in 2007. Back then it was really difficult to enter Nablus as it was under Israeli military siege. We had to change buses and go through many checkpoints. It took us about three hours. This time is was much easier to get into Nablus. The way back was a different story.

The road to  Nablus goes through many "shared" roads. These are roads inside the occupied West Bank that Israeli settlers use. The best and high land is occupied of course by settlers. Recently, the settlers have become increasingly violent, even attacking their own military - that military that is there to protect them. As we were passing by the illegal settlement of Ofra, we were attacked by a small group of settlers who were standing by the street. One big rock hit the front shield of the bus causing a big hole and cracks and miraculously the shield did not go down. I was in the front seat with Rudaina and we were hit by many small pieces of glass but thankfully we were not hurt - just terrorized! We were all shocked when it happened. We all thanked God for his protection and for the bravery of the driver who simply kept driving in very high speed. God protected us. But what if ...

Settlers violence is becoming the norm. We became yesterday one more victim of the "price tag policy." The question is for how long will it go unpunished? Had it been the oposite, I mean if Palestinian young people threw rocks at an Israeli bus and then hid in a Palestinian village, the Israeli military would have turned the village upside down until it finds the "terrorists".

How long will settlers activities go unpunished? How many more mosques will be burnt? Cars hit? People killed? What if the driver yesterday lost control of the bus? What if the rock went through the bus? When will Israel treat these settlers equally as they treat Palestinians who do violence (or nonviolence)? Will Mr. Natanyaho - who just last week refused to call these settlers terrorists - taken action?

Tomorrow we will go to the village of Zababdeh to sing and will we take the same road. We want to go. We must go. Life in Palestine is not easy or safe, but God never promised us safety.We will continue to sing and praise. We will continue to pray for peace and justice. We will continue to celebrate the Son of God who came to Bethlehem to reconcile us to God and to one another. We continue to hope. It is Friday ... but Sunday is coming.

A Season for Giving... and Singing! Christmas from Bethlehem

Last week the Bethlehem Bible College Choir (which I lead) kicked off a marathon of 12 Christmas services by singing by the separation wall in Bethlehem. The service was part of the Kairos Palestine second anniversary conference. Singing and praying for peace by the wall and the watchtower was a powerful experience and testimony.  It was cold and dark - literally and metaphorically. The wall behind us spoke for itself. I joked by calling out the solder in the watchtower and asked him to turn the lights of the tower on so we could see better. (He did not respond). But in the midst of this dark scene, we prayed for God to bless our country and to bring about His peace and justice. We were warm from the inside out. We were empowered.

This season the choir decided to do something different. We decided to give. The choir planned two visits: one to an elderly house for women and one to a small boarding school for mentally handicapped children. Both are run by Catholic nuns. This was totally initiated by the choir members, and they all gave (some very generously) to buy gifts - warm clothes for winter. The visits were special! We sang. We danced. There was lots of laughing, and lots of tears. We fell in love with the women and children. It is amazing how the giver ends up being the one receiving more in these cases. We were overwhelmed by this experience. All it took was three hours and few shekels, but it brought lots of smiles.

One woman was shocked when a choir member gave her a gift. "For me?" she asked? "I never receive gifts!" We were in tears. How selfish we have been.

"Why only during Christmas," another choir member wondered! "I want to do this more often."

I have all the respect for the nuns running these places. Their dedication and patience is amazing.

In the coming days we will head to Taybeh, Nablus, Zababdeh, and Ramallah. All are villages/cities with a tiny Christian minority. All feel forgotten. All are away from the attention Bethlehem receives, for example. We have developed a habit of visiting these places every Christmas, and this season we have a great opportunity to minister to the four of them.  I will try to blog about these visits - time permitting.

God is good!

We Live Here We Exist Here

For the last three weeks I have been participating in a prayer service that is held every Friday on a land that is threatened to be confiscated by the Israeli military for the purpose of the building the illegal separation wall. The land belongs mainly to the Christian community of Beit Jala, who are set to lose about 3000 dunums (300 hectares) of farm land, mainly olive trees. The wall is set to separate the land from its people, and also to cut any access from the town to the historic Catholic monastery Cremisan, which has been serving the town since the 19th century. (A statement from the monastery can be found here)

For the last few weeks, some of the residents of Beit Jala, along with few peace activists, have been gathering for prayer in the land, in the midst of their olive trees, in a symbolic faithful manner. The prayer takes places every Friday, and is led by Fr. Ibrahim Shomali from the Catholic Church in Beit Jala. Taking part in a Catholic Mass has been enriching. We sing (I played the guitar the last two times), pray, read the Bible, exchange the peace of Christ, and eat and drink the body and blood of Christ. We manifest our unity and solidarity with one another, and remember that Christ who unites us is with us. More importantly, we pray for justice. The people participating are hurt. They cry to God to intervene. They cry for justice.

The theme of the gatherings have been: "We live here and we exist here". A reminder of the centuries long Christian presence in this land. People were determined, yet desperate. One of my friends, who is set to lose land in this move, expressed his frustration to me. "First they took the sea from us, then they prevent us from going to Jerusalem, and now they are taking our olive trees!"

Injustice is becoming more and more the norm. The wall continues to consume and confiscate farmers land and it seems there is no stopping. (And oh by the way, for those who still believe it is a security wall, and not a unilateral enforcing of facts and borders, all they need to do is visit the Cremisan area and see for their eyes how all this could have been avoided had it not been for Israel insisting of including the small settlement of Har Gilo built on top of Beit Jala. One small settlement continues to cause harm and damage for thousands of farmers in Walaja and now the residence of Beit Jala.)
In the midst of this we continue to pray, holding fast to God's promises:

"If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness,                                                do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them." (Ecclesiastes 5:8 ESV)

   إِنْ رَأَيْتَ ظُلْمَ الْفَقِيرِ وَنَزْعَ الْحَقِّ وَالْعَدْلِ فِي الْبِلاَدِ فَلاَ تَرْتَعْ مِنَ الأَمْرِ لأَنَّ فَوْقَ الْعَالِي عَالِياً يُلاَحِظُ وَالأَعْلَى فَوْقَهُمَا

الكتاب المقدس- العهد القديم - سفر الجامعة ٨:٥