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goodbye [east] jerusalem, hello berlin

Our flight was at 5am. We left Augusta Victoria and the Mount of Olives at 1am. Security was easy (we were the lowest possible risk because we're a married couple traveling together). While we had little to no sleep we were quite able to enjoy Berlin today. 

First, we visited the East Side Gallery, a collection of murals on an old wall in the dead zone between East and West Germany.  A brilliant reminder that walls do fall.

Next, we went to a Turkish market that was not unlike the Souks in the Old City of Jerusalem, except for much smaller.  We picked up some meat, cheese, bread and bananas and enjoyed a picnic lunch by a river. 

Then, a nap. So glorious and so needed.

For our evening adventures, we made our way to THE main attraction: The Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Pictures were taken. Dinner was to be at a place suggested by the Lonely Planet, except that we forgot what it was called and found a place called Risotto instead. They only serve...wait for it...risotto! Delicious. We tried two different risottos, one with chicken and fresh tomato, as well as Parmigiano Reggiano. Not bad, but I think it would have been better with chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts.  Not so flavorful in the end. The other risotto=amazing. Ham, rosemary, walnuts covered with parmigiano reggiano. It reminded me of cream of wild rice soup that my aunt makes perfectly. I'm thinking of a concoction of risotto, wild rice and ham, carrots, onions, rosemary and walnuts with some PR on top.  It's going to be delicious if I figure it out. 

Tonight we're enjoying what people in Berlin call Germany's best beer.  It comes from Munich, so I know they're not being so biased: Augustinerbrau Munchen.  It's pretty good, but I'm looking forward to some good dark brews, especially Lowenbrau Dunkel and the Dunkel from the Hauptbrauhaus in Munich.

Tomorrow: A little more Berlin and Wittenberg.

It feels so good to be in Germany. Things are quite easy here and though my German isn't quite kicking in, it's a comfortable place to be.  A sort of in between place between a place we've called home and people who have been like family and our place in Minnesota, that is still not quite ready for us (nor us for it). Soon and very soon. 

Practice Resurrection :: A Sermon

The best part about Easter, you know, except Jesus, was probably the bacon. We knew it was coming.  Kathy brought 12 or 13 pounds of the stuff through customs and Susanne saved it until Easter, for the big feast after worship.  We were each allowed 3 pieces, which was really one piece cut up into three smaller parts.  Miraculously it was more than enough.  I can still smell it. 

The second best part about Easter was being with the community up on the Mount of Olives that night for another famous potluck. I’m not too sure how it happened, but Mark ended up playing for us his selection of Easter songs.  I’ll spare you the details, but I will tell you that I’ll never hear the Doors “Break on Through [to the other side]” the same way again.

I have my own Easter playlist.  The first song comes from a lesser-known band of misfits, The Hold Steady.  They tell a story of a girl named Hallelujah.  Of course her friends just called her Holly and Holly was a hoodrat, she had been disappeared for years and lost to the streets.  But then one day she finally came back.  You see, she reappeared one day at Easter Mass, hair done up with broken glass.  Limping left on broken heels she said, “Excuse me father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?” 

Another person who might be able to speak to how a resurrection really feels, another story that carries with it a chorus of resurrection is the story of Tabitha.

We don't know much about Tabitha. She was an ordinary saint, a woman who cared for the vulnerable and poor with good works and charity. We know that she was a talented seamstress, spending her life making sure that widows and other people in her neighborhood were clothed and covered.

We know she lived in Jaffa and probably saw a beautiful sunset or two over the Mediterranean Sea; she probably knew what it felt like to have the wind and sand whip through her hair as she smelled the warm and salty water ebb and flow as the tide washed over the beach.

We know that she died. We know the ordinary grief that was shared by her friends and neighbors as people ordinarily do.  We are, after all, ordinary people who have grieved in our own ways and in our own lives. 

This ordinary saint is remembered in an extraordinary way.  It has been recorded that she was “matheria,” a woman disciple of Jesus, the only person in the whole of the New Testament who gets that particular designation. We read that her name was translated from Aramaic into the Greek, that the writer of this text took care and attention to translate Tabitha to Dorcas so that the readers and hearers of the Greek text would know that her name means gazelle, a metaphor for beloved.   

Tabitha is God’s beloved but she is also the beloved member of a community. A community that grieved her death; a community that gathered to wash her body and make preparations her for burial; a community that sent for Peter to come and be with them.

Peter saw visiting her grief-filled community as part and parcel of his mission to bring the gospel to all nations and to the ends of the earth.  God’s mission does not skip over the reality and implicationsof the promise of Christ’s resurrection for the pain and suffering of individual lives.  We know that this is an extraordinary story. 

Peter came to her home, into the room where they had laid her, the upper room—not unlike the room where the disciples hid themselves after Jesus’ death and before they heard and saw his resurrection—and, after excusing everyone and everything from the room, Peter told Tabitha to get up. 

And she did.

Life came springing forth from death. Peter raised Tabitha from the dead.  Perhaps an Alleluia is in order.  Tabitha is risen, Alleluia!?

But there’s something lurking in the corner that we just can’t escape.  No matter how much we’d like to be, we are not Peter.  We can’t put ourselves into this text.  At our words the dead do not come back to life. We grieve ordinary saints with the same ferocity, saints that were as sweet and pleasant and beloved as Tabitha, saints with the same spirit of extraordinary compassion for the poor and vulnerable. The life-giving story turns and slaps us in the face because all we see is death.  We experience enough Good Fridays with no Easter Sundays.  When we experience the death of someone that we love, no matter how much we try, how hard we believe or how eloquent our words, we cannot bring the dead back to life. We can’t even scream our powerlessness away. 

A Manifesto:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of the everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window into your head. Not even your future will be a mystery anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer.  When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.

So friends, everyday do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance for what man has not discovered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Sat that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such results.  Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.  Practice Resurrection.

So goes the manifesto known as Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry.  I think he’s on to something.  Despite what the world expects from you and gives to you, choose instead to practice resurrection.

Practicing resurrection is perhaps first a failing, a recognition that the lions and the lambs are not sleeping yet.  That there are still tears that we cry.  That there are still hungry people.  That the poor are still with us.  That wars rage on.  That death does sting.  That this very list goes on and on.

Practice doesn’t make perfect, but practice does make permanent, in your memory, in your bodies and in your souls the promise of God’s faithfulness: to a redemption that gives birth to a new creation; to peace that will end all wars; to a banquet to welcome and feed the multitude of people; to life on the other side of death.

Practicing resurrection means learning what resurrection is and is not.  Resurrection is new life.  Resurrection isn’t reversal. Resurrection means first that some sort of death has taken place.  By its very nature, practicing resurrection is not living backwards, as if we could turn back the clock, but resurrection is living the future into the present.  It is preparation of a future event with full anticipation despite present circumstances.  It is engaging the present realities to bring about a new and different possibility.  Life in spite of death.  Love instead of fear.  Peace in the face of violence and war.  The lifeline instead of the bottom line. 

To practice resurrection is to perform an action now in faith and hope while waiting for the not yet of the resurrection.  Now there are tears to cry.  Then, God will wipe away every tear. Now there is death, then there will be life.  Even now we live knowing that there is life on the other side of death.

One last song,  Alleluia.  St. Augustine says: We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.

The St. Olaf Choir once sang a text whose only word was Alleluia, sung over and over again.  The director at the time, Kenneth Jennings, told the choir to think about it this way: “from the dawn of creation, from the beginning of time there has been a song of Alleluia sung continuously.  We don’t always hear it; it is often drowned out by the noises around us and in us, but this song of Alleluia is going on even now and will continue to the end of time.  All we’re doing is making the Alleluias audible.” To practice resurrection is to make the Alleluias audible.

That’s our task as well.  Living in this new life, living as an Easter people, surrounded by death as we may be, we gather as a community just as the disciples did around the table of the Lord and we make the Alleluias audible.  We make the Alleluias audible by working against everything that is death-dealing in us and in the world. 

We make the Alleluias audible by helping those with whom we work, to see where God is at work in the world.  We make the Alleluias audible sometimes, if truth be told, under our breath, sometimes through tears, death still has a sting, death still deals strong blows and at times the Alleluias are all but drowned out, but we continue to sing because God continues to raise us through death to new life.  We sing because we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.[1]

We are not Peter. We cannot raise people from the dead, but we can and do practice resurrection when we welcome new life, new life that has had a past, new life that has come from death and deadly circumstances.  We practice resurrection not by looking at the dead and whispering, life, life, but in working life where death has already made a claim.  We are not Peter, but we stand in the same resurrection hope and future together as God’s beloved.

You are God’s beloved.  You are the sheep in God’s fold whether you have heard his voice in shouts or whispers, praise or lament, or in sheer silence.  You are not alone.  No one and no thing can snatch you from the palm of God’s hand.  And God will wipe away every tear.

And for that reason we as an Easter people can say

Christ is Risen, Alleluia! 

---

[1] This paragraph and the two before it come from Dr. Kathryn Schifferdecker in the best sermon I’ve ever heard.  Sermon delivered at Luther Seminary Chapel, Spring 2007.

Making Jesus on the Mount of Olives

One thing that has been afforded to me in this fellowship year is time.  Time to peel garlic while the sun set in Tanzania.  Time to learn how to cook.  Time to bake bread.  Time to break bread.  

I learned how to make bagels last week.  We were surprisingly busy.  We went to the Galilee one last time.  We went to Nablus (Shekem) and saw Jacob's Well.  We went to Mount Gerazim and met some good (actual) Samaritans We went to Jerusalem to play volleyball.  When we were home in Beit Jala/Al Doha, I was working on Sunday's sermon, or my next quarterly report, or our itinerary for Germany, or last weekend's two interviews with churches in the Moorhead area.  When I wasn't doing any of that, I was baking.  Last week I learned how to make scones.  This week I learned how to make bagels.

We called them Benjamin Button Bagels because they were so wrinkly.

 

Final outcome: delicious!

The sermon this week was based on the Acts 9 story of Peter raising Tabitha from the dead. I used Wendell Berry's manifesto known as "The Mad Farmer Liberation Front", particularly his line to "Practice Resurrection."  I couldn't help but see a connection between practicing resurrection and baking bread (or bagels!).  Bread baking is inefficient these days.  It is not ready made.  It takes time.  You have to get your hands dirty.  You have to wait for the dough to rise.  Baking bread in a world of store bought stuff is a practice in resurrection.  It's also delicious.

Since this was our last Sunday in Jerusalem, I wanted to bake the communion bread.  So. I did.  Last night, after moving out of Bethlehem and onto the Mount of Olives, I went to the Stone House and made communion bread with Susanne.  We used the recipe from Luther Seminary, but I swear ours tastes better.  Even more, Susanne has an imprint that Christians from the Middle East often use and so our bread was not only tasty but also very handsome.  

 

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Sunrise service this morning looking over the River Jordan and the mountains of Jordan.

 

Happy Easter. 

Triduum part 2, Stations of the Cross//Via Dolorosa

We gathered as a community of Protestants for our way of sorrow this morning at 6:30 in the Old City at the first station of the cross.  In mob fashion, we took over the space and moved slowly from one station to the next as which we read, sang and prayed.  It was difficult for people, vendors and locals to move through.  It was difficult for us to move through the city streets as wave upon wave of pilgrim leapfrogged with us at different points.  

It wasn't a time for meditation, but for seeing, walking and stumbling a geographical route similar to the one Jesus took many years ago.  There are of course places where a rock or place rise up and stand out from the rest.  These are the places where Jesus apparently touched or fell upon at some point on his walk of sorrow.  Except that the rode he walked is buried under the rubble of 30 feet and 2000 years.  

I'm not sure if it was the early morning escapades or the large crowds and inability to hear, focus and take in what was being said, read, prayed and sung, but the stations of the cross wasn't a holy space for me.  It felt more like an idol, one that we carry as baggage. One that is so consumption driven that it is more about being there than feeling, encountering or witnessing anything holy.  I'm here!  Take a picture, quick!  Codify this moment.  Give me proof of my existence!  Hurry, I see the next place I need/want/must go...NOW! This isn't anything new for the rest of life; being here only magnifies the situation. We want to hold the holy and not behold the time, the place of encounter.  We rush to make things happen instead of letting things happen, letting things come to us and letting the holy break in to our lives in new and life giving ways.  

The day is a blur, my memory of it is in being pushed around, squished by other pilgrims who had to make it through and squashing other pilgrims who were trying to sit and be in a space.  Nevertheless I was richly blessed by the witness and encounter of other Christians on their own way of sorrow.  Pilgrims from the Philippines walked, some barefoot, through the Old City singing hymns and processing to each station on the way. Because it meant something to them it could mean something to me.  

It's a typical theme here in this land we call holy: it is hard to find and experience holy ground. There have been moments, unexpected and kind, that have been chalked full of the holy. These moments have involved quiet moments on Mt. Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration, in Tel Aviv (the most areligious city in Israel) at the Mediterranean.  It has happened where two or three have gathered for the breaking of bread with strangers at a secular Christmas party and a Seder with a family in Northern Israel.  It happened on a Friday afternoon when Muslims were not allowed to enter their holy sites and still gathered for noon prayers outside of the city walls; on that same day when I passed security guards and young soldiers and forced myself to say "Shalom" or "Peace and wholeness" as a pronouncement and hope and not just as a greeting.  It has happened on a "day of rage" when protests circled our neighborhood and I stayed in, looking over the city and praying for peace.

We look for holy in all the wrong places.  I think the thing I appreciate about the God who hides is that try as we might we can't help but find God on the margins, in the profane, in life, in the other.  God knows this, but we often don't: God is most likely to find us in these places and moments and we are more likely to find God there, too, out in the world and among the people.

 

 

 

 

 

Triduum part 1, Maundy Thursday

Today, of course, is Maundy Thursday, the first day of the big three, known also as the Triduum.  We gathered for worship at the main sanctuary at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City and worshipped in German, English and Arabic.  

After worship we processed through the Old City, down the stations of the cross (where we'll gather tomorrow at 6:30 to walk the Via Dolorosa) singing songs.  I've never felt so exposed as a Christian.  Christians are the minority here.  Tourist police made sure no real shenanigans came about, but we were clicked at, shoved and when we passed near a Jewish Yeshiva, met by shouts and songs that tried to crowd us out of our space.  Really, not that bad, but interesting nonetheless.

The procession finished in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives with more readings, songs and prayers.  

 

 

  

Seder Meal #2

The day after our Seder meal in Nahariya, we held our own Seder meal on the Mount of Olives.  The biggest adventure of the day was finding all of the ingredients when Jerusalem was shut down for the Yom Tov or Holiday.  Colin and I drove all over town, to Christian stores and Muslim stores, finding just about everything except the Matzoh.  Each time I asked, the store clerk inevitably laughed and said, no, we have no matzoh.  

We did eventually find it and threw the meal together with a little help from our friends.

Next year in East Jerusalem!

 

Jennifer, Kathy and Mary Margaret putting the finishing touches!

 

I wrote about the seder plate here, but tonight we added an olive, which symbolizes peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

 

My favorite photo of the evening:

 

Handwashing

 

 

Seder Meal #1

Colin and I along with two YAGM (Young Adult in Global Mission) volunteers packed up and drove out of town to Nahariya, Israel, which is just north of Haifa and just south of Lebanon.  We had been invited to a Seder meal and could not pass it up.  

A Seder meal takes place on the first or second night of Pesah (Passover) a 7 day holiday in Israel (8 for those in the diaspora) to commemorate the Exodus story.  It involves a highly planned meal, symbolic in each element, as well as a narration called the Haggadah, which retells God's famous intervention with the oppressors of the day: Egypt.  One marked sign of Passover is the lack of chameitz (leaven) in bread in Israel.  Exodus 12:15 is observed in trash heaps of burning Wonder Bread, whose aroma is a burnt offering of its own.  While some burn their bread, others give it away or use it up before sundown on the first day of Pesach.

Why the focus on unleavened bread? Two reasons: 

First, even before the first Passover, Israelites at this time in the calendar would gather all of their unspent grain and throw it out to both prepare for the new grain and to get rid of the grain that might have spoiled. 

Second, because the Israelites had no time to wait for their dough to rise before rushing out of Egypt and so they had to roll their dough before it was leavened into their kneading bowls, which they stored in their cloaks (Exodus 12:33-34).

We arrived just before the sun set into the Mediterranean Sea and were called to the table just as the sun was sinking down.

We gathered around the table and the Seder plate and began.

 

Traditionally, there are 6 bowls around the plate, each symbolic in meaning.

Beitzah: The Egg that starts the meal.  The egg represents mourning and life.  Traditionally the egg is the first thing that is served after a funeral.  But also the egg is something that can symbolize the beginning of life.

Charoset: coming from the Hebrew word for clay, it symbolizes the mortar bricks the Israelite slaves made in Egypt.  It is sweet, made with fruit, nuts and sweet red wine.

Maror (bitter herbs) and Horse Radish: keeps with Exodus 12:8, which says that they shall eat with bitter herbs.  We ate the Maror with the Charoset to taste the experience of Passover: Sweet and bitter.

Karpas: either parsley or celery that is dipped in salt water which symbolizes the tears of affliction cried by the Israelites as well as the water of the Red Sea, which had to be crossed.

Z'roa: is the Shank Bone or Chicken Neck, which points to the Pascal sacrifice in the Temple. 

On our plate we also had an orange, instituted by Susannah Heschel, to symbolize the fruitfulness of all Jews to include all marginalized people, particularly gay men and lesbian women who had been told previously that their presence was as if they put a slice of bread on the plate, see Exodus 12:15, linked to above. 

The meal is not a solemn event but one that rejoices greatly in retelling the story.  There are blessings, readings and retellings, meaning-makings and other narratives offered throughout the night.

One story that we heard was of the 10 plagues that struck Egypt.  We removed 10 drops of wine from our glasses not to celebrate the downfall of the Egyptians, but to mourn the pain they experienced.  When finished with the 10 traditional plagues, we turned to 10 contemporary ones, each time diminishing our wine.  

 

Trying the different foods:

 

Matzoh!

 

Gefilte Fish!
 

Let's not forget dessert!

  

Last but not least, our great hosts: Gila and Judy!

  
 

L'Chaim!

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

We gathered at 9 a.m. for our regular liturgy at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, though this Sunday the liturgy was anything but regular.  Sunday is a special day in the church known as Palm/Passion worship in which we re-tell the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey with shouts of Hosanna filling the air.  We began with a small procession and the perennial classic "All Glory, Laud and Honor."

All glory, laud and honor to you redeemer king, to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.

We retold the story and began the time known as Holy Week in the church in which we journey from shouts of "hosanna" (is a shout of praise that can be translated as "save now!") to cries of "crucify him" to the news of resurrection and the joy of Easter.

We couldn't help but remember celebrating a great Palm Sunday liturgy at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis.  The processional song still rings in our ears:

Jesus is coming, pave the way with branches, Jesus is coming Hosanna.  Hosanna, Jesus is coming. Hosanna! To the Prince of Peace.

One great surprise and gift his year has been in discovering (via Mary Shore) the work of Cheryl Lawrie over at Hold This Space.  I've since purchased her pocketbook liturgy, but this Palm Sunday sending out is a nice addition to the day.

Later in the day we gathered for the annual Palm Sunday processional from Bethphage to the Old City through the Garden of Gethsemane.  The AP story reported that there were hundreds of pilgrims who marched when in fact there were perhaps tens of thousands.  The story does quote two people I know, one from here and one pilgrim we just met, a pastor from San Luis Obispo. 

The march itself takes you down one steep hill and up another and is a gathering point for people from all nations to shout hosanna in the highest.  The mood was high and jovial, with smiles and joy abounding. I must confess that there wasn't anything that was overly spiritual for me, save for seeing many people from many lands singing and shouting Hosanna, but I was happy and thankful to be walking a similar route to the one Jesus took.  

I had the opportunity to practice some of my Kiswahili with some folks from Congo (where they don't necessarily speak Kiswahili) and a couple from Kenya.  We walked and talked from sisters and brothers from Italy, Egypt, Poland and the Philippines, just to name a few.  We saw some sisters from Mother Teresa's order of nuns.  We watched young people sing and dance their whole way down and back up the hills.  We carried palms as we walked past men and women carrying guns and weapons and prayed for peace in a land so distraught.  

Colin talking to a Franciscan brother from Italy

  

 

I'm not sure where they were from but they were very friendly!

 
 

Sunset :: Jerusalem :: Ash Wednesday

17 Feb 2010 :: Mount of Olives :: Jerusalem :: Sunset

Photos courtesy of Mark Holman

Sunset over Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives on Ash Wednesday.  Communion cups were set up in dirt and dust as we remembered not only that dust we are and to dust we shall return but also that there is life on the other side of death.

We ate root soup as inspired by Sara Miles' new book Jesus Freak:

The door is open, Anibal told the crowd, and God passes back and forth.  We're here because of our ancestors, the ones who go before.  We know we'll die too, but life itself goes on, God's body keeps breathing and we are part of that forever.  Then he fed us soup.

"There's some regular food too, but this is liturgical food, made from roots," he explained, handing me a bowl of the steaming, thick stew.  "Comes from the ground, where we're going.  At some point someone else is gonna eat root soup, and there will little molecules of Sara in it." [1]

The Avett Brothers provided me the best soundtrack for Ash Wednesday that day, including this jewel:

I want to fit in to the perfect space, feel natural and safe in a volatile place.  And I want to grow old without the pain give my body back to the earth and not complain. ...I want to have pride like my mama had and not like the kind in the bible that drives you mad. [2]

__________

[1] Sara Miles, Jesus Freak, page 138

[2] The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You, "Perfect Space".