Sunday, May 12, 2024
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| "A Pregnant Woman in Gaza" (Malak Mattar) |
I woke up Friday morning thinking about the billions of dollars of sophisticated American technology, the billions of dollars of precision American bombs, the illegality of all that weaponry transferred from American labs and factories to Israeli military sites. And then: the horrific buzzing of drones across Gaza as children huddle in cramped spaces with powerless parents, wondering who’s next.
I woke up Friday morning thinking about the four friends with whom I’d planned an act of nonviolent civil disobedience for later in the day. One of them, five month’s pregnant with their first child. One of them, confined to a wheelchair. Two of them in their 80s now, and as brave as any two mothers I’ve ever known. I woke up hoping that our courage would count for something, that our disobedience in a congressman’s office would count as obedience to a higher law.
And strangely, these verses from the Gospel of John washed over me in the shower that morning. Words of assurance. Words of encouragement. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” Jesus offering peace to his friends at a moment in time when it must have seemed to them that the whole world was coming apart. Jesus promising them that, in their witness, in their ministry, in their loving, they would never be alone. “If you love me,” he says in John, “you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, Sophia, to be with you forever.”
He is moments away from his own arrest. As this last supper is shared among friends at the table. He is facing the consequences of his own deep and boundless loving. As he offers these words of reassurance and solidarity. It’s a strange and disorienting moment for all of them. But Jesus reassures them, calms their nerves, reminds them of the peace that surpasses all understanding. “This is the Spirit of Truth,” he says that night, “whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees her nor knows her. You know her,” he promises, he offers, he reassures them. “You know her, because she abides with you, and she will be in you. We will not leave you orphaned…”
And then, coming out of the shower Friday morning, toweling off, and thinking of Ghassan and his grief, trying to hold that grief, even cradle it, (somehow) in my own fragile heart, I heard, just beyond the bathroom window, a dove. A single, lovely morning dove. “Boo boo bi boo boo.” And then again: “Boo boo bi boo boo.” And there she was. On the pointed roof of a neighbor’s house, just across the walk way out back. A single, lovely morning dove. And I had to believe, I just had to believe on Friday morning, that she was singing to me. “Boo boo bi boo boo.”
Because the truth is that those four remarkable friends and I were planning to sit down in our congressman’s office—until he openly, personally and publicly acknowledged our insistence on a ceasefire, and our protest at the use of American arms in ethnic cleansing and genocide. And as I got myself ready for the day, I was a little nervous about all that, a little anxious about how it would go and how I’d express myself in the midst of the tension that we would inevitably create in that office. I was a little anxious; but the dove sang a song to me. And she stayed, for several minutes, singing, praying with me.
And somehow, somehow, I heard the voice of Jesus: “This is the Spirit of Truth,” he said, as he did that night, “whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees her nor knows her. You know her,” he promised, as he did that night. “You know her, because she abides with you, and she will be in you. We will not leave you orphaned…” We will not leave you orphaned.
So I got arrested Friday afternoon. At Congressman Chris Pappas’ Dover office. With four dear friends, one of whom is five months’ pregnant. And the Spirit of Truth showed up. She was with us. And she did not leave us orphaned. Love made its case. Love made its case for peace.
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| Mother's Day Action, 5-10-24 |
What a powerful, prophetic call to action. What a provocative call to peacemaking. I want to say this morning that Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation stands right there with King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as sacred American scripture. Words we should return to, year after year after year. “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.” Wow. “We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
In our United Church of Christ, over many, many years, we have insisted on a two-fold Christian response to racism, systemic oppression and apartheid. First, we are called to confession. We are called to acknowledge the painful realities of racism, the historic grip of racism on our churches and communities, and the many ways we in privileged, predominantly “white” spaces still benefit from inequality and racism in our own time. We are called to confession.
And second, we are called to action. Merely to understand racism is not enough. Merely to know and recognize the language of oppression, even to name it as such, is not enough. As Christians, as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to action. To healing action. To imaginative and restorative action. And, if need be, with love always at the center of our lives and choices, to resistance.
Congressman Chris Pappas has voted time and again to extend U.S. aid to Israel. And over the past seven months, he’s voted with his colleagues in Congress to send billions of dollars of extra military aid to Israel, extra and lethal military aid that Israel is using to prosecute its devastating and cruel bombardment of Gaza. Upwards of 35,000 Gazans have been killed. Include those dozens in Ghassan Manasra’s family. Tens of thousands of children are among the dead. And thousands more are just now, right now, at risk of imminent starvation. And all this since the beginning of October. And all this with American weaponry, sophisticated technology and diplomatic blessing. And Congressman Pappas has voted for all of that.
Sitting in his Dover office Friday, we insisted to his staff that Congressman Pappas finally call for a permanent ceasefire, and that he refuse (at last) any further military aid for this illegal and vicious war, and that he reject any further campaign funds from AIPAC—the American Israel Political Action Committee. It turns out that Congressman Pappas receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from this rightwing PAC, and that their priorities have become his priorities. Rather than listening to his own constituents, rather than engaging us in conversation around war, and peace, and federal funding priorities, he’s more inclined to follow the prompting of AIPAC, the directives of his funders. And that’s just plain wrong. It’s just plain wrong. And Gaza is paying a huge and gruesome price.
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When the Dover police arrived to arrest us Friday, at the end of the workday, called in by Congressman Pappas’ staff who refused to engage us in meaningful conversation around life-and-death concerns; when the police arrived to arrest us, we went peacefully and willingly to their cars, to be written up, to receive our summonses for a court appearance in June.
And here’s the point of all this. At least part of it.
We believe, the five of us who sat in all Friday afternoon; we believe that every one of us has the capacity to change. Every one of us has within us the courage, the spirit we need to reassess a position, make a turn, and go in a new and life-giving direction. We know that Congressman Pappas has this capacity. From all accounts, he’s a great guy. On many other issues, he’s doing good work, important work, and adding his energy to all kinds of initiatives that make New Hampshire a better, safer and more inclusive place to live.
If Congressman Pappas were to hold a press conference tomorrow morning, and if he were to announce that he was refusing to take another penny from AIPAC (or, frankly, military contractors and manufacturers in NH), he would pay a price for that courage. He would undoubtedly get stung with accusations of being ‘soft on terrorism’ or even ‘turning his back on Israel’ or possibly even ‘antisemitism.’ But here’s the thing. We elected him to do just this kind of thing. We elected him to be brave. We elected him to pursue the common good at all costs. We elected him to risk some campaign cash in order to do the right thing. And our action Friday—where we put ourselves in an uncomfortable spot, where we were willing to face arrest and pay our fines—our action was our reminder to Congressman Pappas that he can do what we have done. We know that he has it in him.
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If my day, on Friday, began with the dove’s prayer, it ended with my arrest alongside four friends whose courage and loving commitment were and are powerful reminders of conscience and faith in our time. And then, as I crossed the street, having been arrested and released, I saw waiting for me five of you, five church friends, five siblings in Christ whose friendship reminds me that there are no orphans in the church. We are never, ever orphaned in the church. When we step out to build the beloved community, when we show up to feed the hungry in Dover, when we give our time to making the world safe for queer kids, when stand up (again and again) for the immigrants whose health and wellness is so very linked to our own—when we follow Jesus and keep his commandments, the Spirit greets us and sings to us and emboldens us and pushes us forward. She abides with us, and she is with us.
I give thanks for this community, for the church that stands up boldly and sits down bravely, and works on so many fronts to dismantle racism, apartheid and the war machine that is a threat to mothers and children here, there and everywhere. May God bring peace, to us, in us and most importantly through us. May God bring peace to Gaza, to Israel, to New Hampshire to the world. Through us.
Amen and Ashe.
