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Salaam and grace to you from Jerusalem, City of
Peace
Bishop Dr. Munib Younan, The
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)
This year we are blessed to celebrate the Jewish
High Holidays at the same time as the Holy Month of Ramadan. Both
Ramadan and Yom Kippur call for repentance and fasting, and Sukkot
invites pondering the wanderings in this life, as it commemorates
the Hebrews wandering homeless in the wilderness of Sinai after
their deliverance from oppression in Egypt. It reminds us we are all
just pilgrims and wanderers in God's world. And at the center of it
all is Jerusalem, with all its pluralistic richness, not only a Holy
City to the three monotheistic faiths, but also claimed by both
Israelis and Palestinians as their capitol. Of all places in Gods
creation, it is meant to be a place open to all and shared by all.
This month of feasts should encourage us all to
see hope and promise together in the City of Peace. Instead, this
month has become a showcase for exclusive claims of one religion
over another, of freedom for some at the expense of others.
On the road to Jerusalem the first day of Sukkot,
I was shocked to see a truck with two large stone blocks engraved
with words proclaiming them to be the "cornerstones of the third
temple." Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals and some Jewish
zealots were once again trying to begin the Third Temple on the
Temple Mount to hasten the coming of the Messiah. The problem is
that the "Temple Mount" overlaps the Haram al Sharif, the third
holiest site for Muslims, which now holds the Dome of the Rock and
Al Aqsa Mosques. There have been several plots to destroy these
Muslim sites in order to build this Third Temple. So far the High
Court of Justice in Israel has rejected a request from the Temple
Mount Faithful to place the cornerstones next to the Western Wall
because of the provocative implications. Nevertheless, this harvest
feast of Sukkot - which should be a sacred time to celebrate
deliverance from oppression and abundant life - has become for some
a call to "liberate" the Temple Mount from "Arab occupation" and to
push out one religion in order to claim exclusive rights for
another! Thousands of right-wing Evangelical Christians have
inundated the city to promote this twisted theology that God wants
to expel the Muslims to build this Third Temple that will then bring
on the bloody, end-time battle of Armageddon so that Jesus will come
again. This is reprehensible theology and false teaching which not
only undermines the meaning of the Cross, but makes a mockery of the
Christian and Jewish God of love and justice.
As a result, during
this month that is holy to both Muslims and Jews, this whole city
has catered to protect the right of the Jewish and right-wing
Evangelical Christians to worship as they like, while Palestinians
are locked behind barricades, closed-off streets and even, for some,
denied access to their holy sites. Streets are closed and filled
with police and soldiers who are there to protect the rights of some
at the expense of others! Though these actions are justified as
"security measures," they are arbitrary and inconsistent and do not,
in fact, guarantee security. They only guarantee inconvenience and
humiliation and increase the chance that people might be provoked.
And what about Palestinian Christians in
Jerusalem during these High Holidays? Only local Christians - not
the Christian Zionist visitors dressed in white robes who wish to
incite the final battle - are subject to these repressive measures.
We are all still under occupation, and the Feasts mean severely
increased closures, travel restrictions, road blocks, and check
points imposed on the West Bank.
Many Palestinian Christians, including myself,
treasure sharing our Jewish and Muslim neighbors' feasts and joining
them in prayers for justice, peace and reconciliation. I just
experienced the beauty and richness of a celebration in a sukka with
Jewish friends, just as I have experienced the same at a Ramadan
Iftar meal with Muslim friends. We have so much to learn from one
another when we honor and respect one another's traditions.
This week Muslim shopkeepers have
been asking me what "born again" means because right-wing
Evangelical Christians have been going shop by shop trying to
convert them. I have passed them in the streets this week but they
don't greet me and won't even walk with me. I've been told I am not
their brother in Christ, but an "Arab enemy of God." The Muslims ask
me how we Lutherans here relate to them and their theology. To me,
they add to our frustrations and make of Jerusalem a confused and
arrogant Tower of Babel, when it really is the City of Pentecost,
where the Spirit's universal language of love transcended the
diversity of human languages so that all understood. God's message
of justice, peace and reconciliation transcends the narrow, human
boundaries we create and empowers us to spread God's love to all
people.
If Jesus were to look out at Jerusalem today, he
would weep again over a Jerusalem that is being turned into the
exclusive realm of one group at the expense of others. Jesus called
us to do the things that make for peace and to be ministers of
reconciliation. Justice and truth-telling are necessary for the
birth of peace and reconciliation. Faith leaders cannot be silent
when religion is used to provoke conflict and justify exclusive
rights for one group and collective punishment for another. We ask
you, fellow Christians and people of good conscience, to help us
preserve the multi-faceted character, holiness and inclusivity of
this great city by affirming that Jerusalem is still the Holy City
of and for the three Peoples of the Book, where all have the same
right of free access to pray, without permits and permission from
the powerful.
Jesus still calls us
to a Feast of Inclusion and a New Jerusalem where all are welcomed,
all are equal and all are equally valued. We hold fast to our vision
where someday, Christians, Muslims and Jews, Israelis and
Palestinians - all people - will one day be able to freely celebrate
our diverse but equally sacred feasts. We pray for a religious
awakening of justice and reconciliation that puts an end to
occupation and oppression, suicide bombings and drive-by shootings,
terrorism and counter-terrorism, targeted assassinations and
incursions. The Book of Revelation in Chapters 22-23 shares a vision
of the river of life running through the Holy City, and on the banks
of that river is the Tree of Life. The leaves of this tree are
medicine for the Healing of the Nations. I was reminded of this
every worship service for 18 years as pastor in the Lutheran Church
in Ramallah, where I gazed at this hopeful vision in the stained
glass windows above the altar depicting this passage.
In the midst of all this pushing and posturing,
we raise our voice, small and insignificant but clear and convinced,
that the true fast "God requires of us is to do justice, love
kindness and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). Keep Jerusalem a
House of Prayer for all nations, open and shared by all, not a place
of exclusion - for the healing of the nations.
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