SABBATICAL 25: "Judean Desert, American Temptations"

Wilderness / Sunday

I packed hurriedly, accepted the counsel of trusted friends, and left Bethlehem quickly Sunday morning.  "This time feels different," said one, at dinner Saturday night, glancing at news feeds as he waited for the check.  So he mapped my departure for me, called a car for early the next day, and reassured me that my going safely was his heart's desire.  "We need friends and advocates where you're going," he said.  Then, early Sunday, he arrived at my door--before the car and driver--as I shuffled books between my suitcase and backpack.  He handed me a bag full of sweet bread, boiiled eggs and falafel (the best falafel, I'll go on record, in the universe).  "For the road."  I've had a whole lot of bread in my time, some of it sacramental.  But this bread was the body of christ itself, salty with tears, as broken as love itself.  It would transfigure moments to come.  And days later, it promises something beyond my knowing.

Bound for the crossing between the Occupied West Bank and Jordan, known to many as the Allenby Bridge, my driver breathed a sigh of relief as we passed--without incident--one of the West Bank's most maddening checkpoints.  We whipped through the dry hills of the Judean desert.  We buzzed by Bethany, where Jesus is said to have raised Lazarus from the dead.  And we hurtled toward Jericho, passing the Good Samaritan Church--a nod to one of Jesus' most famous stories (the one where the devout fail to acknowledge the suffering of a neighbor; the one where the dismissed and disrespected Samaritan does exactly that and more).  Making a last turn toward the Bridge, my driver reminded me that we were not far from the "baptismal site"--where Jesus came out of hiding and yielded to repentance, renewal and humility at the start of his prophetic ministry.  That was Jesus' 'crossing,' I guess, as the Spirit's vocation claimed him at last.  His first surrender.

(Above, Tel Aviv, Friday Night)

Leading toward the Allenby Bridge itself, we found a curling, anxious tangle of cars, buses and trucks--all of them waiting for a gate to swing open, and hoping to make it through Israeli security, and then Jordanian security, before the whole process shut down for the day.  We waited in that anxious, crawling mass of vehicles for something like 4 hours.  Which seemed like forever.  The sun, bright; vegetation, sparse.  

And I had lots (and lots) of time to think.  About Zoughbi's bag of bread and falafel.  About Gaza, and famine, and genocide.  About the war just beginning between Israel and Iran, and what it might mean for dear friends in Bethlehem.  And about the Judean desert; about Jesus and the tempter; the temptations that prepared him (somehow) or motivated him (perhaps) for the soulful work of community-organizing and community--building that awaited him and all who would follow.  The heartbreaking vocation of the children of God.  

Temptations, Mine (1)

In Bethlehem the previous night, I'd struggled to find any meaningful sleep--saddened by the new wave of state-sponsored violence, screaming rockets in West Bank skies, and doubly saddened that the war had cut my visit in Bethlehem short by 10 days.  I'd felt some sleepless shame, I confess, around my own privilege--the privilege that allows me to jump the tracks when danger hits close to home, the privilege that so often hides me in American pulpits and summer cabins and even the scaffolding of "advocacy" and "peacemaking."  Dear colleagues at Wi'am have moved me with their tenderness and laughter, and their devotion to one another in a terrible time.  I count them now, not only as friends, but as sisters, brothers, wayfaring siblings in resistance and faith.  Leaving them as sirens sounded in their streets had seemed cowardly.

Waiting for that first gate, I had another thought, Jesus then haunting my weariness.  For I too, it seemed, would face a couple of temptations now.  In a desert of a different sort.  But temptations just the same.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ ” (Luke 4)

I will be tempted, returning home, to dismiss the importance of community-organizing, community-building and truth-telling in my American context.  My soul has been shaken, touched, even transfigured by the friendship of Bethlehem's faithful--mediators, social workers, writers, priests, guides, advocates.  This leaves its mark now, a holy mark, on my life.  But I will be tempted now to locate my work in THEIR streets; I will be tempted (even by love) to over-identify with these dear, brave, beleaguered Palestinian friends and to forget that MY urgent work, MY faithful resistance, MY service must speak truth to power, even take truth to power, and trust satyagraha in the midst of an American struggle.  The Apartheid-Free Movement!  FOSNA's effort to get Christians into the West Bank to see for themselves!  Congressional accountability in every district!  Clearheaded conversation about what antisemitism is and WHAT IT IS NOT!  And full-throated gospel preaching!

I have heard one message consistently, clearly and often.  From Rifat Odeh Kassis at Kairos Palestine to Dalia Qumsiyeh at the Balasan Initiative for Human Rights.  From Tarek Zoughbi at Wi'am to the Right Rev'd Richard Sewell at St. George's College in Jerusalem. From Ariel Gold with the Fellowship of Reconciliation to Crystal McCormick with Christians for a Free Palestine.  Every dear soul I've met over the past six weeks insists that America bears more than enough responsibiity for the madness of occupation, the grotesque project of genocide in Gaza, and ongoing hostilities between Israel and so many other nations in the region.  American diplomacy has failed every test.  American money has subsidized just about every conflict.  American industry has profited over and over again.  

Things in America are now so twisted; power is so corrupted; money is so idolized and enshrined in governance--that it's easy to want to escape it all, to bail on my responsibility among my own people, to yield to powers and principalities that seem eternal and beyond transformation.  But that would be the temptation, right?  To mistake Zoughbi's work for my own; to so cherish Lucy and Diala and Imad and Usama and THEIR work that I miss the prophetic edge of my own faith and the urgency of witness in the West.  The Day of Jubilee!  The Economics of Grace!  Human Rights for Human Beings!  

And democracies--bound in covenant and care--that feed the hungry, welcome the wandering stranger, provide for the widow and orphan, and study war no more.  

And that, all of that, is what Love requires now.  I will be forever unsettled and motivated by friends in Palestine, by their commitments and stories and cries for justice.  But I will resist the temptation to take up their cause, because they are brilliantly and uniquely capable of doing that for themselves.  What they ask of me, what they need from us, is to build movements at home that respond to theirs, and honor theirs...movements that take on the hard work, the prophetic work, the absolutely critical work of de-colonizing American politics and liberating the warrior economy from its addictions and greed.  

Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.  To justify (or ignore) American militarism every Sunday morning, in the name of patriotism or congregational unity, is to miss both Jesus' message and the costly grace at its core.  My friends in Bethlehem have their work to do--loving a fragmented and traumatized community; but you and I have ours to do too.  In New Hampshire.  In Washington.  In New York.  And it's going to cost us something.

Temptations, Mine (2)

Issa Amro, after an attack by settlers in Hebron

As I sift through two months of stories in places like Hebron, Bethlehem and the Old City of Jerusalem, I may also be tempted to give up on religion itself.  Whether or not you locate yourself in a faith tradition, you too may be familiar with this one.  For in so many ways religion now justifies cruelty and vengeance; and in so many ways it fails to address the aspirations of dear people, decent people, human communities in crisis.  Who needs it?

And Sunday's news out of Minnesota only intensifies our suspicion that the Sermon on the Mount no longer matters to the American church.  That these assassinations could be meticulously planned by a 'devout' Christian pastor no longer surprises us.  That Christianity itself seems to have given its blessing to a culture of grievance, video-game theology and hubris no longer shocks us.  Maybe we'd do well to bag the whole religious project, and look for common ground elsewhere.  There are plenty of wonderful people, principled friends, doing a world of good beyond the boundaries of religion and faith.

And this is a temptation, to be sure.  From Texas to Minneapolis, in Torah studies and Quranic interpretations: we find meanspirted pastors justifying genocide; we find divisive theologians turning one faith against another; we find systems of belief promising paradise to some while consigning many to endless suffering.  And on top of all that, there's a growing suspicion that Christian institutions (at least) are incapable--if they once were--of standing up to nationalism, racism and xenophobia. 

Rafah, 2024

So while I fully understand that the crisis facing Palestine (and the Middle East) is existential now, that it's about occupation and apartheid and geo-political power, it's easy to believe that religion stands in the way of meaningful progress, courageous negotiation and lasting reconciliation.  It's true enough in the American context (where Mike Huckabee and John Hagee embrace hubris and conquest as gospel); but it's just as possible to see in Israel, Palestine and the Middle East at large.  There's Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and so many right-wing Jews in Israel's government.  Preaching hatred, expulsion and ethnic cleansing.  Courting apocalypse.  And there are clearly Muslim clerics as well, fanning flames of distrust, seeking purity and power at the expense of collaboration and unity.

To be honest, then, it will be tempting for some of us to give up not only on religion, but on God.  The whole thing becomes something of an embarrassment.

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,

    and serve only him.’ ” (Luke 4)

At just this point, however, I return to my good friend, Zoughbi Zoughbi in Bethlehem, and his consistent refrain: "Yes, religion can be used to oppress and this has always been so.  But we believe it can also be, for us and for all, a source of resistance, imagination and renewal."  Almost predictably, he would add: "And that will be up to you and me."  I recall his exhaustion after long nights at the hospital with ailing neighbors.  I remember his joy in yucking it up with Muslim friends he trusts ("Tell me," he'd beg me, "which one of us is the Muslim and which the Christian?  Ha!").  And I marvel even now at his faith, his surrender, really, to One whose only passion is human kindness, collaboration and justice.  Not creeds and codes and secret handshakes.  

And there was that one day at Wi'am, in early June, in conversation with his staff in the shade of his beloved walnut tree...when I opened up my laptop...and played them all Mahalia Jackson's "Precious Lord, Take My Hand."  A song that makes the hairs on my neck stand on end, even to this day.  And I reminded them that Martin Luther King called Mahalia from time to time, on an old rotary phone, when he needed a prayer, a hymn, a blessing.  And she'd sing to him on the line: 

When the dark­ness ap­pears

And the night draws near,

And the day is past and gone,

At the riv­er I stand,
Guide my feet, hold my hand:
Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.

Zoughbi teared up that day, wept quietly as Mahalia sang to King, as she sang to lovers of life everywhere, sang to nonviolent believers and champions of resistance fearing for their lives.  In Bethlehem.  In Atlanta.  In Memphis.  And right there, in the shadow of the walnut tree, it hit me all over again: this God is, for Zoughbi and his team, Love itself; this God is the bestower of plenty in a land of sorrows; this God is the way-maker Christ whose mercy is true strength, whose compassion is true wisdom, whose trust is in grace alone--not victory, not vengeance, not even progress.  One friend singing to another.  Her faith restoring his purpose.

Religion, then, can be "a source of resistance, imagination and renewal."  And yes, indeed--that'll be up to us.

God Almighty said: "Humankind!  We created you from a pair of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other.  The most honored of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you." (Al Hujurat: 13)

My dear Muslim friends remind me that that this one verse is something like the key to their own spiritual practice, an invitation to relentless compassion and curiosity in God's world of wonders.  "That you may know each other."  Whatever the tradition, the Divine is so fully and fearlessly committed to us, so kindly and powerfully able to protect us from hatred and despair, that we have no need to use or manipulate others in our own journeys to wholeness and peace.  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1).  We have only to learn one another's names, rejoice in one another's joys, bear one another's sorrows.  And that, Zoughbi might say, is precisely how religion can again serve us, and serve all peoples, in our yearning to be free of violence and at one with one another.   God's world of wonders.

Pulling Back the Veil

Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered.
We most hold each other tight
And continue to pull back the veil. (Adrienne Maree Brown)

Rather than giving in to those peddling hate, rather than ceding religion and mystery and grace to frightened minds, I choose Zoughbi Zoughbi and Mahalia Jackson. I choose Al Hujurat 13 and the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  And I choose Adrienne Maree Brown.

"We must hold each other tight," she says, "and continue to pull back the veil."  This is the religious task, the vocation.  We must love one another so deeply, so defiantly and delightfully--that the Spirit herself is said to blush in our presence.  And then we must pull back the veil--to see behind the walls that some would design to divide us, to recover our curiosity and our capacity for forgiveness and imagination.  Their walls are not eternal, not even close.  We must pull back the veil to see again, even as Bartimaeus sees again: that mercy is on the move, that mercy is worth our sacrifice and our devotion, that mercy is God.

And so...

Returning to the States tonight, I choose Moses standing before the burning bush, removing his sandals, and trusting that the Presence he encounters there is beyond his control, but committed to his people's liberation.  I choose Moses knowing that I too will be called to say and do hard things: even to demand that Pharaoh let the people go.  And knowing there will be unnerving wilderness journeys still ahead.

I choose Jesus emerging from the Jordan, soaked to the bone, aware of a Spirit falling from beyond the horizons of his knowing, from deep within traditions of prophets and visionaries and troublemakers.  I choose Jesus on whom that same Spirit proclaims Love, Love, Love...forever marking him as Beloved.  Not just for one tribe.  Not just for one religion.  But for all.  

And I choose to lean into my faith so boldly, so completely, that there is space for us all: those who doubt and those who believe; those who dance wildly and those who sit completely still; those who love Torah and those who love the Quran, those who eat at kosher tables and halal tables and communion tables and tables of plenty the whole wide world around.

And even so, the tempations are with us always, right?  There is no conquering them finally.  Yet faith is such that every encounter with the tempter is opportunity and grace; to be tempted is to be called, and to be human, and to be drawn deeper into the work of solidarity and kindness, liberation and discipleship.  There are no earthly guarantees in all this.  But there is Love, One Love, unbending and unbroken.  And that is enough.  It will be always enough.

Then the devil led him to Jerusalem and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,

    to protect you,’

and

‘On their hands they will bear you up,

    so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”

Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4)