Israel pages: signing out

me coming out of Lazarus' tomb

The last day in Israel

Today three of us boarded a local mini-van type bus near the Damascus gate of the old city of Jerusalem and journeyed with our local Palestinian passengers to Bethany (modern name al-Eizariya), home of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus whom Jesus raised to life.  Bethany is only 4 km. from Jerusalem.  But there is this wall thing to contend with.  The trip took 20 minutes to go around the wall until we came to an opening.  Going out of Jerusalem is uneventful: they let anyone out.  Coming back in, however, was another story: an Israeli army person got on, said something we could not understand, and half the bus got out.  We stayed on.  We figured that if he wanted us to get out too, he would make it clear.  He never did.  There were just three of us on this trip: Kim, JW and me.  We had to show our US passports and try not to stare at the enormous gun he carried, and that’s it.  Then the others got back on the bus and we returned into the walled, walled city.

When Jess came to Jerusalem he made Bethany his HQ; the Mary-Martha-Lazarus family were friends.  For people who lived (live?) here, a 3 km/2 miles walk is no big deal – people walk all the time – most of them here are thin.  Go figure.  The “site” of the home is of course now a church – or rather a series of churches: the modern one you see first; behind it a Crusader-era church with its thick stone walls, and beneath that, a Byzantine church with it’s small mosaic floors still peeking through here and there.  The real attraction is the tomb that now is way below ground, down a twisting, steeply descending stone stair in to a small room the size of a walk-in closet.  Then there is a second chamber the size of a smaller closet, that you get into only by bending down and crawling underneath.

JW and Kim, hamming in the tomb- I'm on the opposite wall - small space.

By now we know the drill: this may not be THE tomb or THE place where Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ house was, but it is Bethany and it must be close and it probably looked something like this tomb.   How cool is that?

Of course no visit to the Holy Land is complete without a ride on a holy camel, right?  Awe shucks – it’s the last day; why not?

THE Holy Camel

Israel Pages: Tuesday, Dead Sea Day

Us pilgrims atop Masada

Today: The Dead sea area, including Masada.  This group shot is from the top of Herod’s fortress/palace/zealot’s last stand against the Romans in 70 CE.

We went down to the Dead Sea – the terminus of the Jordan River that begins all the way up in Mt. Hermon in the Golan Heightes, flows down the mountains into the Jordan River, into the “Sea” of Galilee (really a fresh water lake), on down the Jordan River and finally ending at the Dead sea, the lowest point on the face of the earth, 1,385 ft below sea level.  It’s warm there.  The Sea is shrinking fast as water all along the Jordan from start to finish is diverted for agriculture: if you want to make the desert bloom, which Israel has done, you need water; lots.  Even down at the Dead sea there are groves and groves of date palm trees – in a barren wilderness desert!  Amazing.

in the Dead Sea

at Masada

Israel Pages: Monday

Monday in Jerusalem

Tammy Jo breaking bread: Communion in the "Garden Tomb"

Israel is two things: a very dense 1 square kilometer old city in which everything significant happened, and also a place of sites that have been traditionally identified as “the actual spot”, most of which are covered by elaborate churches.  Some of them have a good shot at being either authentically “the spot” (meaning, the layer of rock you can see is actually the 1st century Jesus/Roman layer) or else built on layers above the spot at the same location, which has been destroyed, built over, destroyed, and built over again for centuries.  It has, after all, been 2,000 years; and for the first 313 years of Christianity, we were illegal, persecuted, and in hiding – not building pilgrimage sites and  publishing maps.  But Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, and his devoutly  Christian mother, queen Helen came to the Holy Land and asked the locals “where did it happen?”  At times they were able to say “here” or “under here” (under this pile of rubble).  It is relatively certain that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is  built on layers of destruction above the spot of the tomb of Jesus.   If so, then the place we visited today, the Garden Tomb is not the correct site.  However, this must be said; these two locations are not more than 1/2  mile from each other.  The more “authentic spot” now has a huge church over it; the probably inauthentic spot has the advantage of looking more like what it did in Jesus’ day: it’s a lush garden; quiet with tall trees shading walkways lined with blooming flowers, and it is home to a private tomb of a rich person.  Not only that, it is adjacent to an outcropping of rock that looks vaguely as if it could be “Golgatha” – the place of the skull.  So, maybe the Garden tomb is 1/2 mile from the real garden – but it has the look and feel of the real thing, which makes visualizing it easier.  At the Garden we held a communion service, each of us pastors in turn taking the cup and bread and offering it to the next until all were served.  In the background, I heard another group of pilgrims in the Garden singing “Slava Gospodu” or Praise the Lord” in a Slavic tongue – Russian I think(?) – reminded me of our days in Croatia.

Next we made our way to the Western wall, or the wailing wall.  What a party palace that was.  Think of an African village having a major feast: the sounds of drums and singing in celebration filled the air!  Several families were coming through the gate in succession celebrating a son’s Bar Mitzvah – when a Jewish boy turns 13 he takes on the “yolk of torah” and becomes a son (Bar) of the Commandment (Mitzvah).  What a festival; dancing, singing, carrying around the boy on shoulders, blowing the shofar (ram’s horn) – and drums!  Two drums at once, conga-like; and as I said, sounding like something I always associated with African rhythms.   One of our group said “baptism should be like that”.  Dead-right.

I'm trying to insert a prayer into the Western Wall AND keep my paper yamaka from blowing away

Another one of those authentic and not spots is Caiaphas’ house where Jesus was said to have been scourged.  The church there now sits over a dungeon which was made for torturing prisoners as the Romans seemed to be good at (there are no new ideas).  The dungeon has only one entry point: a round hole, like a street man-hole, down through which a prisoner would be lowered.  Inside the dungeon there are actually holes in the rock wall near the ceiling for tying up a person to be scourged and left hanging.  Clearly this would have been a perfect place to identify as the site of Jesus’ scourging.  But in the first century it was probably not where the Romans did that – but then again, it’s very close to it, and looks very much as it must have looked.  The totally authentic part of it is that there are steps going from that palace down the hill towards the Kidron valley towards the opposite hill called the Mount of Olives that are indeed 2,000 years old.  Yes, it is quite likely that Jesus walked those very steps in the 1st century.

In the afternoon we toured the Citadel, a castle ruin.  Now what you can see are walls built by the Crusaders, but the defensive towers are authentically Herod’s.  In other words, when Jesus looked up and saw Herod’s palace, he saw those very towers.

As we gathered this evening for worship we sang a song that I wrote for this trip called (in haste, for lack of a better title) The Israel Song whose refrain is:

All through these years,

All through these empires,

stacked on one another,

I can still hear,

Your voice calling, calling,

“Come weary pilgrim,

Come to the waters…”

a family celebrating a bar mitzvah at the wall

Israel Pages: Bethlehem Sunday

Sunday in Bethlehem

in an authentic shepherd's cave - table came a bit later

We started Sunday by going to Bethlehem, a scant 6 km. from Jerusalem, but a world away.  Bethlehem is now part of the West bank, a Palestinian territory.  We had to cross through that infamous, enormous cement wall to get inside.

Shepherds field

we went into one of many caves used by shepherds as sheep-folds in the time of Jesus

The Bethlehem Lutheran Church

Mary: 22nd anniversary of ordination: Lutheran Palestinian church, Bethlehem

We worshiped with Arabic Christians (I hope you take some time with that phrase and let it sink in: Christians who are Arabs) who worship in Arabic.  The Lutheran church in Bethlehem was built in the 19th century, neo-gothic design.  There, we celebrated the 22nd anniversary of one of the pastors on our pilgrimage, Mary.

Dheisheh Refugee Camp

After lunch we visited the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp which is a dense warren of overcrowded streets originally built as temporary emergency housing to the thousands of Palestinians who had to flee as the Israeli’s took control in 1948.  There has been no solution since that time.  This is not a pretty picture.  I put a link in this subtitle to the Wikipedia page that has the basic information about this camp.  The UN site also has more.

Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp, West bank

Israel Pages: Thursday, the Orthodox Church on the Sea of Galilee

First, this is us:

us pilgrims at worship

Today was a retreat day – no guided tour.  So a group of 9 of us took the 7 kilometer walk from the Mount of Beatitudes where we are staying down to the Greek Orthodox Church on the Sea of Galilee, just across a wall of stone from Capernaum where Peter’s house is.  Not only is the church beautiful inside and out, it is surrounded by lush vegetation – including a wrap-around grape arbor.  The priest got out his ladder and Cynthia climbed up to cut several clusters of grapes for us.

at the spring that feeds the Sea of Galilee

on the 7 km trek to the Orthodox church in Capernaum, Galilee

at the cliffs of Arbel in Galilee

me in my stylish Privacy towel at the church (God doesn’t like knees)

Orthodox priest in Capernaum

Cynthia getting grapes from the Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church arbor

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

Orthodox Church in Capernaum

us pilgrims at worship

Israel Pages: Wednesday Caesarea Philippi and the Golan Heights

I have had to accept that seeing Israel is a higher priority than blogging about it.  But the trip to Caesarea Philippi and the Golan was amazing.  King Herod – the one who Matthew tells us tried to kill all the baby boys so that the “king of the Jews” who the magi were seeking would not be born – Herod wanted to keep that title for himself.  And he was a brutal man.  According to the ancient historian Josephus, Herod “The Great” killed 3 of his own sons – and one of his wives – prompting Caesar to say that he would rather be Herod’s pig than his son (Jews of course would not slaughter a pig).  Herod died in 4 BCE leaving his kingdom to his 3 sons.  One was named Philip, thus the full name, Herod Philip.  Herod Philip built a city which he named for Caesar – in order to ingratiate himself to Rome – but there was already a city called Caesarea, so to distinguish them, Philips is called Caesarea Philippi.  He built it on a beautiful site, the source of springs which makes it a lush fertile valley – even creating a stream with waterfalls you see below.  But before Philip built his city, the site was already home to a large temple to the god Pan – often pictured as  partly goat, partly human.  The stream from the spring flows out from a cave under a great rock face – of course the streams of “living water” flow from the temple – that’s as it should be.  The city became his capital for the region.

This site is important for Christians because of the famous conversation Jesus had with the disciples which culminated in Peter’s great confession of faith.  Here is the text:

Pan's temple ruins

Matt. 16:13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.  18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

There is a lot going on here.  Jesus had changed Peter’s name from Simon – the name of a Maccabean war hero, to Peter, meaning “rock”.  He is in the region of the capital city, at a huge rock outcrop – that is not the rock on which Jerusalem is built, and he calls Peter the “Rock” – alternative to both Zion and Caesarea Philippi.

"... and on this rock I will build my church"

Pan’s temple ruins

“… and on this rock I will build my church”

Israel pages: Sepphoris and Nazareth

No one has heard of Sepphoris, I know, but wow – we all should have.

the group at Sepphoris

Sepphoris is a town so close to where Jesus grew up in Nazareth that lots of men and boys from Nazareth would rise each morning, take their tools, and walk over the hills and through the valleys – two hours – to find work on the city of Sepphoris.  It is almost unimaginable that Jesus and Joseph were not among them; of course they were.  Our bibles call Jesus a “carpenter” as if he worked with wood exclusively, but the Greek word is really a word for “building-tradesman” who could work with stone, wood, tin, plaster, – all phases of a building project – or even simply an unskilled building worker – the term is that broad. In any case, when Jesus was growing up in Nazareth it was a tiny place – 400 residents max – and probably less than that.  There would be almost no employment there; it is almost certain that people skilled in the building trades would go to the nearby city of Sepphoris for work.  So, we went to the ruins of the city of Sepphoris – from which the village of Nazareth is clearly visible – and walked on streets that Jesus himself may have walked on, or even built.

Sepphoris main street

It was Herod “the Great”‘s son Herod Antipas who was at work in Jesus’ day re-building Sepphoris to make it his capital.  He was re-building it because it had been destroyed previously.   This is key: the Romans destroyed Sepphoris and enslaved the Jewish survivors because at the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, a man named Judas led a revolt against Rome.  Rome ruthlessly crushed that revolt and Sepphoris, where Judas was from, was destroyed – the quintessentially disloyal city.  So when Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas assumed the throne, he wanted to make sure that Rome knew that he was loyal – the opposite of Judas.  So he re-built the home of traitorous Judas as a distinctly Roman city; any pagan Roman would have felt at home there, with its theater, temples, and all things culturally Roman.

So, every day, Jesus probably walked over the hills to work in Sepphoris and walked home each night to Nazareth having helped to build the kingdom of Herod, the Roman-pleasing sycophant.   And the remarkable thing is that when Jesus started preaching the kingdom of God, his references were all rural, in spite of having spent his working life in a Roman, urban setting.  He spoke of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, of the sower who sowed his seed and of the  shepherd with his sheep.  He seems to have intentionally avoided (rejected?) urban images and metaphors.  His kingdom was not Herod’s, or Rome’s, or the Zealot revolutionaries, but rather the trans-national, multi-ethnic Kingdom of God, the creator of “the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.”

When Jesus was born Nazareth had no more than 400 people living in it.  Now, modern Nazareth is home to over 70,000 people, mostly Christian Palestinians.  They are Arabs by heritage, but Christians by faith.  Think how hard their lives are between the giants of the Jewish state and the Palestinian-Muslim community!

Pray for peace.

oil lamp

grinding wheel for olives

in Nazareth

in Nazareth

window of church in Nazareth – of the annunciation of Gabriel to Mary

in Nazareth

in Nazareth

in Nazareth

Mosaic at Sepphoris from 4th century AD

our pilgrims at Sepphoris

theater at Sepphoris

Sepphoris main street

the group at Sepphoris

Israel Pages: Day 3 – Sunday in Galilee, Mt. of Beatitudes, Peter’s breakfast and the Jordan

Mount of Beatitudes Church

One of the amazing things about this trip is the company of 20 pastors I am with.  We all met for worship this morning in the outdoor chapel under the trees in front of the Mount of Beatitudes church that over looks the sea of Galilee.  I was leading music on so I didn’t shoot pics, but others did and I’ll have them later.  We were 20 pastors worshiping together is a wonderful thing to observe, especially given that we represent so many different denominations: United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Lutheran, Baptist, and Presbyterians.  We ended the day in an after-dinner sharing time on the question: how do you understand your call to ministry – including how it has changed from when you first sensed you call to now.  The sharing took 2 hours.  Everyone has a unique journey, punctuated by lots of unknowns, moments of deep devotion and surrender, episodes of pain and loss, and overwhelming times of joy and fulfillment.  Some of them are blogging their experiences on this trip; you can find their links to the right of this page under “Blogroll”. (note: this is Sunday – all of us are concerned for our congregations back home today as they worship without us – we are all permanently “professionally deformed” as my Croatian friends would say).

Today was a great day.  After worship we first learned about the place we are staying: the Mount of Beatitudes.  This church faces the sea of Galilee, which is maybe 500 years in front of us, but we are 100 yards or so above sea level.  The hill we sit on is quite steep in places, but the church sits at the apex of two ridges which form a V shaped valley.  So, sitting on the lake, with the constant breeze blowing off the lake toward the land, carrying sound, a person could stand at the bottom and preach to crowds gathered there in quite large quantities.  That natural amphitheater effect is why this site has been identified as the place where Jesus spoke the famous sermon on the mount.   Now, of course the only problem is that you have to be down at the lake level speaking to people above you to make this concept work, whereas Matthew has Jesus going up to the mountain to preach.

Marshal at the rock on which Jesus ate a post-resurrection breakfast

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he when up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven….”  Matt. 5:1-3

OK, so maybe Jesus gave a sermon to a crowd here – or not here – but if not, then someplace like this and very close by.  That is what is so cool about being here.  Even if the particular places that have been identified as “the SPOT where it happened” are uncertain, nevertheless, Jesus was here; literally.  We are only a 20 minute walk from his HQ in Capernaum.  He was with fishermen on this lake.  Maybe they even when to this crazy spring that is at the foot of this Mount of Beatitudes, pouring fresh cool water into the sea of Galilee (otherwise known as Lake Ginesseret) anyway Jesus was here – and now, so are we – and this is cool.

a cave above the Sea of Galilee

swimming in the sea of Galilee

Sunrise (again) on the sea of Galilee

church windows

church windows

Cynthia at the spring that feeds the Sea of Galilee – no doubt Jesus felt the waters here

the church at Tabgah – commemorating Jesus with the disciples after his resurrection – see John 21

standing in the Sea of Galilee

statue of the healing of the blind man

pilgrims at the church of the Mt. of Beatitudes

rock with inscription on the Mount of Beatitudes

swimming in the Sea of Galilee

another sunrise on the Sea of Galilee

Marshal at the rock on which Jesus ate a post-resurrection breakfast

Mount of Beatitudes Church

rock with inscription on the Mount of Beatitudes

Israel Pages – Capernaum & Arbel Cliffs, Galilee

This morning I saw the sunrise over the See of Galilee.  Umm-Saah.  breathe in – out.

We are staying at the Mount of Beatitudes guest house run by Italian Franciscan sisters.  It’s in Galilee, on the sea – and very new – nice.

This morning after a Mediterranean breakfast – yogurt, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, goat cheese, and bread sticks dipped in sesame seeds in olive oil – much to love already, we gathered for a pow-wow then set off to visit Capernaum.  Learned something new already: Capernaum is strategically located – Jesus used it as HQ for a reason.  There are two main roads that run the length of Israel, N – S, one on the Mediterranean side of the Jordan and mountain ranges, Via Maris (“the way of the sea”), and one on the East side the King’s Highway.  Then there are lots of smaller E-W roads to connect the country.  A town that sat on the intersection of a N-S and E-W road was in a great position to collect tolls.  Capernaum was one such town, the first town you would encounter coming down fro the N from Syria towards Jerusalem.  It’s called the  Jerusalem to Damascus road.  It is also an excellent location from which to launch a movement.  Everyone comes and goes through there.  Peter, chosen first, was from Capernaum.  And he was not a totally poor peasant as many of the people in Galilee were – he owned a boat.  Yes, a small fishing boat, but a boat.  That probably meant that he had a bit of capital – wood was very expensive because there was no useful wood native to the area; boat wood would have had to have been imported.  Also, Peter alone, on the night of Jesus’ trial made it all the way into Caiaphas, the high priest’s house – he was a man who had the standing to do that – so he was a notable in Capernaum – the perfect one to help spearhead a new movement.

Also it is remarkable that when you are at the door of the synagogue in Jerusalem, looking towards the sea of Galilee, only a hundred yards away (my rough estimate), in between you and the sea is Peter’s house!  Now the question is, is it really “Peter’s” house?  Well no one can be certain, but by the 4th Century, it had been identified as such and supposedly the trail goes back to inscriptions left there from earlier times – so maybe it really is his house.  Now, today, all you can see of Peter’s house is the ruins of an octagonal structure which is a 4th century house, in the middle of which are discernible ruins of a 1st century home – i.e. Peter’s.  When Jesus was rejected as Nazareth, he went to strategically-located Capernaum, found Peter, a local notable, whose home was smack-dab in the center of town between the synagogue and the sea where he ran a small fishing business and had access to water transportation; smart – very smart.

Mount of Beatitudes guest house - out digs in Galilee - on sea of G

Mount of Beatitudes guest house – out digs in Galilee – on sea of G

Sunrise – Sea of Galilee

Capernaum synagogue

Peter’s house (now a church is built over it, which protects the ruin

Capernaum ruins: 1st cent. = black stone, 4th Cent. synagogue = Background

Peter’s house ruins- background = Sea of Galilee

Synagogue in Capernaum, Galilee

Olive press in Capernaum, Galilee

cliff climbing

at the Cliffs of Arbel, Sea of Galilee below

Yes, we are all here – to Capernaum

to Capernaum

pow-wow

Israel Trip Pages

Packing to go

The Grotto at Bergamo - sacred space

Several of us “pilgrims” are connecting on social media platforms life Facebook and the virtual classroom web portal of United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, comparing notes about our frantic efforts to wrap up details, pack, and otherwise prepare to go.  We’ve been joking back and forth about how preparing for a “sabbath” rest is such hard work that it makes you feel like you need a sabbath rest.  But it did make me stop in the midst of my own preparation to ask the question: why do we live this way?  Do we have to?  Do we think people expect us to be frantic and busy?  Could I ever ask the church secretary to hold calls because I was praying – other than in a meeting called for that purpose?

We started our pilgrimage at the pre-Israel two day seminar held at a Catholic Retreat Center near Dayton called the Bergamo Center.  They brothers there have created some outdoor spaces that do something to  you that no amount of guards and signs could compel: they make you settle down, be quiet, and become reflective.  The main space is the grotto, the cave like rock structure with its statues, places for candles and for kneeling.  When we first encounter it, everyone in the group automatically falls silent and then speaks in hushed tones, as if a service is in progress.   Perhaps there, in that outdoor space, there is always a service in progress.

Whimsical Sacred Space

The brothers have a rich vegetable garden and a labyrinth made entirely of wild grasses and wildflowers.  They have also made a couple of other structures out of branches and plants that I cannot describe; it seems almost whimsical.  It reminds me of the kinds of shrines a native American might make, both in nature and of nature, without any object that is referential and no obvious way to interact with it, except to look; but again, it does have that effect: you stop, grow quite, and look.

Why does it seem that the Catholic tradition pays  more attention to sacred space than the Protestant?  Is the tradition of the Reformation which highlighted the role of Word over Sacrament to blame?  Was the course correction of the sixteenth century an over-correction?  Was it, like one of my seminary professors suggested, a trading of the “smells and bells” for the “verbal derby”?  In any case, it seems pretty consistent: get a group of Protestants together and take them to a space that Catholics have tended, and the Protestants get all quiet and reflective.

Perhaps we know that now, and thus all the literature on Christian Spirituality pouring out of the Protestant tradition these days.  Now we read about St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa in our own books.  It would be embarrassing not to know who the desert fathers were and  not to have read Henri Nowen.  In fact, good Protestants should probably feel guilty about not reading enough about the lives of the saints, and immediately put it on the to-do list to go buy the books and – what?  probably lead a group discussion about them so that we can be seen to be busily doing something.

Creation theology

I served as a missionary in Central Europe for over a decade during which I saw lots of American missionaries come and go.  Some were old some young, some came to teach others to do humanitarian work – but nearly all of us shared this one characteristic: we were busy.  Sometimes our business made sense to each other; sometimes not, but we were busy people.  That characteristic, I learned, is part of our culture that we take with us wherever we go.  We are Americans; that’s what we do.

Well, I have the disease.  It is really hard for me to sit still.  I feel like I have to do something constructive: make a blog entry, for example.  But that is exactly what this Sabbath journey to the Holy Land is all about.   The trip has been structured intentionally NOT to be a break-neck see-it-all tour of every known site of interest but rather a paced pilgrimage that has its own open spaces for the Sacred.  My question is: will I take my American cultural characteristics with me to Israel?  Of course I will; but will I be able to drop my guard of business enough to benefit fully from the sacred time and space?   That is what I am hoping.  Someday we all stop this hamster wheel turning anyway, as Ted Kennedy did today; as former brothers of Bergamo have done.  Let it not be the first time I slow down.

rest