At its best, the Jesus Movement is a thick and interdependent network of 'base communities' (a nod to the practice of Latin American Christians in their own oppressive contexts)--smaller bodies of believers/seekers, embodying the gospel in work, worship, resistance and love. In a 'base community' the gospel is not taught as doctrine, or preached as univocal truth--but revealed by the Spirit in rich and expansive conversation and study. And in this way, the gospel grows from seeds sown in local contexts, traditional cultures and justice struggles.
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| Bible Study with Wi'am's Staff |
On Thursday, I meet with Wi'am's remarkable staff of teachers, organizers and mediators to read scripture and explore the community's faith in the present moment: a moment of fear and grief, rockets flying toward Tel Aviv, genocide rushing forward in Gaza. What I experience among them is something very much like the theological practice of a 'base community,' and it reminds me of the power of the One we love. Not a power to be managed and doled out by pastors and priests (and exegetes), but a restless power, an indigenous power, a relational power animated in curiosity and story. And solidarity.
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” And when she went home, she found the child lying on the bed and the demon gone (Mark 7:24-30).
At one end of our table is Nasser, a nurse, who left Gaza three years ago seeking relief, but still fears for a brother sheltering in a beseiged Gazan church. In Gaza, demons rain from the sky, with dollar signs attached. I fight this urge to throw myself as his feet, constantly, in confession. He sits beside Lucy who organizes here and empowers women in civil society. She accompanies women every day, working through patriarchal systems and the occupier's madness, seeking wholeness for families and neighborhoods. There's Diala and Usama, Zoughbi and Tarek and Abu George. Each of these dear ones has a story, and a portfolio...so many vocations in the midst of ethnic cleansing and occupation. They work hard. They love hard. They embody discipleship and faith. Brokenhearted and merciful. I'm joined at the table by three new friends from Washington State; we have so much to learn here. And our eyes are opened.
We read the strange text, first in English, and then in Arabic. Wednesday is Nakba Day across this land and around the world. It's a day of remembrance for the Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba), which included the destruction of Palestinian society and its homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of 750,000 Palestinians. Now, nineteen months after October 7, Nakba captures both their past and present, the devastating and genocidal moment in Gaza, and Palestinian anxiety that even Bethlehem may face a similar fate. Soon.
1. Jesus at a turning point. My colleagues talk about the movement from a narrow movement ("bread for the children of Israel alone") to a broad-based one. They note the significance of Tyre, as a place beyond the confines of "Judea and Samaria": Jesus is beginning to look beyond ethnicity, beyond tribal affinity, beyond religion perhaps. From Israel where he started to the Kingdom of God...
Tarek tells me that the word for "dogs"--in the Arabic translation--is even more demeaning: suggesting the most insignificant dogs, the littlest and least important, maybe the runt of the litter. Is it possible, even as we hear the gospel's radical invitation, that bigotry and xenophobia cling to our hearts and minds? (Is this how white nationalism, white christian nationalism works in the States? Does this explain its persistence?) Jesus--even Jesus--is confronted here, and invited to change!
2. Nevertheless, she persists. And on this Nakba Day, she is something like the incarnation of sumud--steadfastness. I wonder aloud where this kind of steadfastness gets its roots, its nourishment, its substance. Is it out of book? Is it creedal?
Lucy responds quickly, without waiting for me to finish the question. "It is because she loves her daughter, and she has been witness to her daughter's suffering." Reading this now, it seems so obvious...plain to see...but I think it's so much more than that. It is agape itself, the image of God within us--often buried in anxiety or distraction, but here (in Mark 7, and among the women I met in this morning's group) alive and ablaze. "Because she loves." "Because she's been witness to the loved one's suffering."
3. Jesus challenged. We are transformed not so much in private moments, in revelations received, but in communities of care and resistance. And Jesus is transformed by the woman's persistence. He will never be the same. I mention outloud, as I've done in the States, that it's sad she's given no name in the story: she's so important to the narrative, to the proclamation, even the way of the cross that emerges here, the practice that shapes the rest of his life.
But my Palestinian friends are quick to respond. "She needs no name," one says, "because she is everywhere here. Her spirit is found in so many of our sisters, so many of our daughters. They continue to believe and to love." And it strikes me, then, that this is not only a story of a little girl's healing--but of Jesus' healing too, the transformation of gospel to Gospel! She may be tortured by the occupation's 'demon'; but he too is beholden to its sophisticated ways.
Here's a story, then, about demons and families in crisis; about the vulnerability of children in wartime; about a well-meaning activist (Jesus) who's still beholden to stereotypes and doctrines of exclusion. Maybe he's traveled to the coast to cast a more dynamic, a more multicultural vision for his movement; maybe he's simply wrung out from caring and healing and feeding the hungry. Whatever the context in his own ministry, Jesus faces (with his unannounced sister) a Nakba-moment, of sorts. He is prepared to send her away, to exile her from the beating heart of his ministry.
On the eve of the Holocaust in the 30s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” What must die in me that solidarity might be born in my heart? And not just in my heart, but in the totality of my life? What kind of cross must I carry that I might see my life (and my world) as the Body of Christ--bound up with Zoughbi and Tarek, Lucy and Diala, Usama and Ahmad, Nasser and his brother in Gaza?
Her fingerprints, her grip are all over Jesus' arms, his hands, as he moves forward, as he deconstructs oppressive systems and rebuilds a movement of agape, shalom, sumud. There really is no way of the cross apart from her claim on his life and ministry. And that's worth thinking about--as I wander the West Bank meeting steadfast but grieving women, refugees from Gaza, and activists for a just peace.
To read together, as we've done today, is to read Jesus into our lives and ministries. It's a process as dynamic as life itself, and as difficult as the path from the Galilee to Golgotha. But it offers back all the wonder, all the glory, all the joy of human being (being human together). And I am grateful: so grateful for this faithful 'base community' and it's vocation of peace in the shadow of occupation.
