There was a time when Jerusalem was considered the center of the world. In June of 2019 I was privileged to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land: Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. A trip I had always dreamed of, it was a life-changing experience – both spiritually and politically. (You can read/see for yourself from my post-pilgrimage reflections.) But not everyone is able to travel to Jerusalem or other holy sites around the world.
Continue reading Walking the Pilgrim’s Way
Two months ago I was in the midst of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with thirty others from the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. It has taken me that long to articulate in writing my reactions and feelings about the political climate regarding Israel and Palestine. I have already posted numerous reflections on the sites we visited, both spiritually and historically. But I have skirted around writing about the reality of the Palestinian people that I experienced; it was just below the surface in all my postings about Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Samaria, and Galilee.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, Israel is called to be a light to the nations. As a people chosen by God (technically, Abraham received this promise for all his descendants/offspring) to show the way back to right relationship to God, today’s Israel has fallen short of this covenant. Power and rule have a tendency to let leaders forget their responsibilities, which ultimately leads to division and corruption. As in Old Testament times, history continues to repeat itself. Recall the role of the prophets who kept calling God’s people back.
This past Sunday’s readings (10th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 15) spoke to me (with help from a great sermon which I will link here when it is posted) from Isaiah 5:1-7 and Luke 12:49-56. Israel continues to this day to grow (be) the wild (sour) grapes, while God gave all of us a beautiful vineyard to live in to grow sweet grapes – if we would only cease our divisions and love God as well as love our neighbor. God is angry. Jesus weeps. Yesterday and today.
The U.S. and Israel have a complicated relationship, which was exacerbated this past week with the on-again, off-again visits of two U.S. congress women desiring to visit family in the West Bank. You can read about it here (from NPR) as well as many other news sources. These two women know what it is like for the Palestinians (Muslim and Christian) to live in the occupied territories. I don’t believe most Americans really understand what is really happening in Israel, or how the U.S. government is upsetting the precarious balance. You have to see it to really understand.
Wadi Qelt: Psalm 23
From the viewpoint on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem, you can easily see the vastness of the Judean Desert to the north and west. Leaving before dawn, we left Jerusalem for Wadi Qelt, a short drive from the heart of the city. The stark change in scenery is impressive, changing from a vegetative, mountainous, urban landscape to a yellow, rocky, desert scene almost instantly. A riverine gulch in the West Bank, once perhaps used to travel between Jericho and Jerusalem by individuals such as King David, Wadi Qelt eventually runs into the Jordan River near Jericho and the Dead Sea.
Stumbling out of the bus, we followed a dirt path up the hillside in silence. We gathered for a brief prayer and a reading of Psalm 23. Given almost an hour for our own time of prayer and reflection, we scattered to find our own ways to await the sunrise and listen for God, the air still cool. For those who climbed up to the top of the hillside, far in the distance was Jericho to the west, the oldest city in the world dating back 10,000 years, almost 900 feet below sea level. In July, there was no water running into the Jordan – no green pastures, no still waters, only valleys of shadow. And while this is a small desert in comparison to many others in the world, being in the midst of it was truly humbling.
Continue reading Pilgrimage Reflections: The Judean Desert
Wanting to visit the many sites of the Holy Land where Jesus lived out his life and ministry is usually why Christians make a pilgrimage to Israel/Palestine. Seeing the places noted in scripture changed what had resided within my imagination from the years of childhood to that of adulthood. My trip to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the surrounding areas in Judea and Galilee shattered my idealized pablum version of biblical times while confirming the realism that he lived and breathed as a human.
Bethlehem: Luke 2:1-20
Located in the West Bank, today Bethlehem is a town surrounded by separation walls in the Judean hills about 5 miles south of Jerusalem. Rising above the valleys below, it isn’t hard to imagine how magi traveling from the East might see a bright star “above” this city. From a distance, a star might appear as if it was resting atop a hill. Pilgrims have been visiting Bethlehem since the 1st century, so something had to have happened here. Visiting the Church of the Nativity, one has the expectation to stand where Mary and Joseph had sought lodging, giving birth to a son whom they laid in a manger since there was no room in the inn due to an overpopulated city because of a Roman census. Don’t get too excited. Yes, the church that commemorates the spot is beautiful: mosaics, oil lamps, icons. There are also hordes of people pushing and cramming into the little “cave/grotto” where the precise spot is marked by a 14-pointed silver star. Yes – X marks the spot. I climbed down into the claustrophobic space as my fellow pilgrims sang “Away in a Manger.” I bent into the niche on the floor and touched the star with the little window (plexiglass?) that showed the rock below. Not exactly a holy moment for me.
Continue reading Pilgrimage Reflections: Christmas Pageant Jesus
There is an old tale (which also shows up in early maps) describing Jerusalem as the center of the world, a city visit by kings and prophets, pilgrims and mystics, rulers and conquerors. Today we know it as a city claimed by three faith traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Physically, it is a divided city into four quarters that somewhat blend into each other as you cross from one quarter to the next: the Jewish Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter. All areas are a mix of secular and religious. More than 4,000 years old, its walls were rebuilt by Ezra and Nehemiah following the Babylonian captivity, the Romans (1st century), Diocletian and Aelia Eudocia (Byzantine 4th century), and Crusaders (11th century). The actual “cardo” from Roman times is actually about 15 feet below the cobblestones we walked on today.
On our various days visiting the Old City, we entered through a variety of gates. The current walls around the Old City (which have spread out since Jesus’ time) were built by Sulieman the Magnificent in 1542. Most of the gates we entered were built by Siran, an Ottoman-Turkish architect who lived in the 16th century.
Entering the Damascus Gate (Nablus Gate) is a different experience depending on the time of day. At 7:00 in the morning it is quiet with shops boarded up, trash being collected, and cats everywhere scurrying to find the last scrap to eat. By mid-morning and throughout the afternoon the gate (as well as the “main street”) is a bustling enterprise of merchants selling their wares from grape leaves, bread, spices, t-shirts, Disney knock-offs, and within the city we even came upon a shop for University of Alabama fans. We used this particular gate frequently, built upon an older gate built in Roman times. The gate’s name in Hebrew is “Sha’ar Shkem” since one travels away from this gate southwards; in Jesus’ time one would have passed through the city of Shkhem (North/Nablus) north to Damascus (Zion Gate). The street was designed by the Romans in the 2nd century CE after the city was established and rebuilt by Hadrian, which razed the city following the failed Bar-Kochva’s revolt in 136 CE. Another route split from the north gate from this main street to the Valley Cardo, which ended near the dung gate.
Continue reading Pilgrimage Reflection: The Old City
Rows of Sharon 