Sunday, May 7, 2023
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St. George's Cathedral in
Jerusalem. |
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Trust the Brits to add a little
England just north of
Jerusalem's Old City. |
This morning, we took a long time to go a short distance,
driving from our hotel in Palestinian Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Our first
activity after getting off the bus was to worship, and I’d recommend that as a
paradigm for entering the Holy City. We arrived at St. George’s Anglican
Cathedral, north of the Old City, and came in just as the procession was about
to begin. I took a seat at the back, in the overflow seating … yes, they needed
overflow seating for the fifth Sunday of Easter, not exactly a “y’all come to
church” kind of Sunday. The service was in Arabic and English, and kudos to the
Jordanian priest who preached compellingly in his non-native tongue (I’m
guessing the Arabic version was even better). I didn’t know most of the hymns,
but the sequence hymn was, “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones,” so we had lots of
opportunities to sing “Alleluia.” (It was sort of a Mr. Bean moment, with
everyone coming in strong on the word both languages shared.)
In the cacophony
of tongues at prayer, as I’ve experienced in Haiti, we got a foretaste of the
day when the multitude of nations will gather around the heavenly banquet
table. Like I said, I’d recommend it for all pilgrims as they enter Jerusalem.
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| The baptismal font and art at St. George's Cathedral. |
The priest was gracious enough to meet with us (staying
until he had just seven minutes to vest and get ready to lead worship), telling
us about the ministries of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle
East. “Small but mighty” doesn’t begin to describe their witness. The diocese
has only 28 congregations scattered across Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria,
and Jordan, but it provides 35 other missional efforts, everything from
schools, to evangelistic ministries, to the Princess Basma Hospital (which
we’ll visit tomorrow), to the guest house and college of St. George’s in Jerusalem.
It’s a stunning incarnation, showing how to be Jesus’ hands and feet in the
world from a posture of trust and relationship-building, which opens others’ hearts
in prayer, minds in service, and wallets in support. The priest also shared his
experience of being a Jordanian Christian serving in Israel, which aligned with
the experience of Fr. Nael, the priest we met in Nazareth. He said that, when
he first came to Jerusalem, he and some colleagues went to an event in the
Palestinian territory, which ended a bit late. He was about to drive the short
distance back to Jerusalem when the archbishop took him aside and instructed
him to stay the night instead. It wasn’t about overindulgence at the party. It
was about the danger he faced as a Jordanian passing through the Israeli
checkpoint late at night.
Next, we drove to Hadassah Hospital in west Jerusalem to
view the Marc Chagall stained-glass windows in the hospital’s synagogue. In the
process, we heard an orientation to the hospital and the Hadassah organization,
which began working toward better health outcomes in Palestine during the
British Mandate and later founded a world-class hospital in Palestinian east
Jerusalem. With Israel’s war for independence in 1948, the hospital opened a
facility in Jewish west Jerusalem, given that east Jerusalem was becoming
literally a war zone. For the second site, French artist Marc Chagall was
commissioned to create windows representing the 12 sons of Jacob. (The hospital
asks visitors not to post photos of the windows on social media, so enjoy them
here.) The guide proudly
described Hadassah’s policy of caring for anyone, regardless of nationality or
religion, as well as its arrangements with healthcare providers in the occupied
territories to transport patients needing care. The hospital visitor center
shows a map of Hadassah’s locations, which makes it clear that Hadassah offers no services in the West Bank or Gaza. I asked the guide whether Hadassah
could open a
facility there – would that be a possibility? She looked at me like I was crazy
or stupid and informed me that area was under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
I said I knew that, but I wondered whether it would be possible to offer
services in those locations. She said, “No. That’s a no-go. The Palestinians
control that land.” She didn’t want to talk about it further, so I let it go.
But – regardless of whether the hospital can’t offer services there, or won’t
offer services there, or has made a business or security decision not to offer services
there, it’s a tragedy – and one that undermines the hospital’s mission. In
fairness, of course, more familiar contexts also reveal challenging dynamics of geography. In Kansas City, you certainly find more hospitals and clinics serving the suburbs and west Kansas City than you find serving the historically Black east side. So we all have work to do.
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The Church of the Visitation
in Ein Karem. |
Near Hadassah Hospital is Ein Kerem, honored as the hometown of
Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist – so, it’s the
location of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, as they both celebrated
miraculous pregnancies. The grotto and church commemorate Elizabeth and especially
Mary as the preeminent example of a faithful person blessed to be a blessing to
the world. To me, even more striking than the modern church is the courtyard
statue of the pregnant Mary greeting the pregnant Elizabeth, as well as the
scores of plaques behind them sharing the Magnificat (“My soul magnifies the
Lord…”; Luke 1:46-55) in languages from around the globe. That Song of Mary is
about God overturning our expectations and overriding our cultural priorities.
It comes from a Jewish source, the song of Hannah ( |
Mary greeting Elizabeth, with the Magnificat
behind them in scores of languages. |
1 Samuel 2:1-10), who thanked
God for giving her a child she wasn’t supposed to have and prophesied about God
raising up the hungry and helpless while bringing down the well-fed and
powerful. That’s Mary’s message, too, singing about her Son’s coming kingdom,
in which God casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.
And the Muslim tradition honors both Hannah and Mary (and Jesus) as forerunners
of God’s work to bring us into heaven.
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Signs above a doorway in
Ein Kerem from past
Arab owners. |
But just down the street from the church
in Ein Kerem is an example of how quickly we forget, or how firmly we choose
not to learn, the unity that could come from our common story. Apparently, Ein
Kerem was predominantly Muslim before 1947. When the war for Israeli independence came, most of the
residents fled; and Jewish immigrants took the houses. Now it’s a Jewish town
whose older houses still have Arabic inscriptions in the stones over their
lintels. Intellectually, we know we share so much … but still, we shoot each
other and take land that isn’t ours because, after all, “It’s mine.”
And then – we got ice cream. Really good ice cream. For
several reasons, this may have been the richest day so far.
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