Women, lay people, process, and prayer

This post first appeared in "An Epiphany Sunday Morning," our parish's weekly worship leaflet.

The upcoming conclave in Vatican City is rather fascinating to me. Though I have to say Pope Benedict's decision to resign isn't terribly surprising. My own take on things there, at the Vatican, and generally within the Roman church in America, is that its decades-long turn inward and rightward should change. However naive it might be, I actually think the allegations of scandal and of corruption within the curia, swirling around every newspaper in the world, could actually lead the college of cardinals to make a choice that will lead Christianity’s largest church in a different--rather than the same--direction. 

Yet the whole way leadership is chosen is so completely different from Anglicanism’s understanding of baptism, of priesthood, and of the episcopacy. Granted the American church, the Episcopal Church, is uniquely democratic. Every diocese elects their own bishop--with the votes of both laity and clergy having equal weight. Which is to say, that in other parts of the Anglican Communion bishops are indeed appointed, not elected. Still, no province of Anglicanism has a curia or magesterium. In the Episcopal Church, and in a few other Anglican churches, the selection of the Presiding Bishop, our version of an archbishop, the laity play a crucial role. Electing a presiding bishop is not solely up to the bishops of the Episcopal Church. Yes, the bishops elect, but the House of Deputies (equal numbers of laity and clergy) must confirm the election. There is a check and a balance, and an ecclesiology which declares baptism a principal value: the voice and the wisdom of lay people count!

The button many people wore the day after KJS was elected. 

In 2003 I was elected to the Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop, and that committee elected me their secretary. It was wonderful work, for three years, coming up with a profile, and interviewing potential bishops in our church to be on the ballot at the General Convention in 2006. A seminary classmate was ultimately nominated and elected...a woman incidentally with precious little parish experience. Katharine Jefferts-Schori’s colleague bishops saw in her the gifts and skills to lead our church, and those of us in the senior house (the laity and clergy are considered senior!) confirmed handily her election. As the Presiding Bishop-elect entered the House of Deputies I sat there with tears coming down my cheeks. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven (Genesis 27:18). The moment stands out for another reason, in addition to the tears and the surprise that a woman had been elected because it was the first-ever text I sent! I sent it to my partner, Tom, who was in the Thousand Islands and it read, “KJS on 5th ballot!” Lest I suggest that the Episcopal Church is superior to other Christian communities I must state plainly that we definitely have our share of foibles and challenges. Our history during the Civil War and our reticence to make a pro-Abolitionist stance, and thereby to condone slavery, is appalling! Sadly that’s only one example. The point is we’re not perfect, by any means. But, when it comes to honoring lay people and women, we stand in a different place from our sisters and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Bible Challenge...game on!

Tomorrow at 9:00 folks at the Parish of the Epiphany who are interested in reading the Bible in the next year will gather in Hadley Hall to check-in, and to hear from each other how these first four days have been. Who knew Genesis would be this engaging?

I'm grateful to Marek Zabriskie for figuring this out--the Bible Challenge--and to my sisters and brothers at Epiphany who are doing this with me.

Snow...doing God's will

The glory of a New England blizzard. Now the storms are given names, and this weekend's was Nemo.
I love everything about a blizzard: I love watching it, listening to it, I love it that there is still snow, and I even love shoveling it.

In Psalm 148:8 the psalmist bids us to praise God..."fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing God's will."

I'm praying tonight for all those for whom this blizzard was not welcomed, or for whom it has meant increased hardship, or stress. I pray God's blessing and protection on the men and women from the Parish of the Epiphany who are trying to make their way home from Haiti (they're stuck in Miami).

Tomorrow we'll gather to praise God for gathering us once again, we'll welcome the newest members to our community, and after our worship, we'll have the Junior Choir play. See you in church.

Accepted, Loved, and Freed

For those of us who keep the discipline of the daily office (Morning and Evening Prayer), we commenced this morning with St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. 

It’s not always the most gracious of the epistles, but it’s definitely filled with passion! In this letter, perhaps stronger than in some of his others, St. Paul makes it plain that Christians do not have to  follow the law, the Torah (including circumcision) to be faithful. He’s upset because some of the early Christian leaders, especially in Galatia, were saying the opposite: that adherence to the law was a prerequisite to follow Jesus.

We know that St. Paul experienced his own liberation. We can too. The endless rat-race of constantly evaluating ourselves,  “am I okay?” can be replaced with a spirit of acceptance and affirmation. In our culture it's especially hard not to concentrate on having “the perfect life,” whatever that is, and that leads to a concern about whether people approve of us. St. Paul knew this struggle, and he had come out on the other side. So, there's hope for us! 

A central gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is unqualified, unadulterated acceptance. Paul preached this, and so do we. For the 60% of Episcopalians who have found our church as adults, Galatians reflects a kind of liberation...especially for those who have come from fundamentalist backgrounds where legalism and perfection were emphasized. 

Among the many gifts of Jesus Christ is freedom from anxiety about whether we’re accepted and loved. The answer, always, is “YES!” You are accepted, loved, and freed.

My happy home

It's unclear who wrote the hymn, "Jerusalem, my happy home." Some say it's a 16th century adaptation of St. Augustine, others attribute the text to an 18th century English hymnwriter, Joseph Bromehead. For the purposes of this blog post it doesn't matter. The hymn, of course, is a poem about the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly one, but I can't get that first stanza out of my head, as I look outside the window of my own home on this beautiful and frigid Boston morning.

Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys when shall I see?

It is good to be home. To be home to what is familiar and loving, to a happy dog (who is still alive and shows absolutely no signs of terminal cancer), to a wonderful partner, lover, and friend, to a parish church where I am unceasingly blessed to serve with young and old alike, with colleagues and parishioners who are passionate about the Gospel, our discipleship with Christ, and our desire to proclaim good news to the world. It is indeed good to be home.

But Jerusalem is also home, and ever shall be. Not the heavenly one from the hymn echoing in my heart, but the one on top of those Judean hills. The city that so many call holy. Some scholars call this ailment of mine,  Jerusalem Fever, a yearning for and a seemingly unquenchable interest in Jerusalem.

In the end I don't really have to make sense of this pilgrimage now past. Nobody expects that of me, least of all, I think, God's own self. What I think is necessary, and absolutely my call, is to savor all the sacred moments and places of that Holy Land, and to live now, here in Winchester in 2013, as if every place is as holy and powerful as the Jerusalem of Israel-Palestine. Even more, to pray about the possibility that in some mysterious and awesome way, Jerusalem (the city) is a kind of harbinger, or even an image, of the ultimate Jerusalem, the place where milk and honey flow.

The Way of the Cross

The Muslim muezzin chanting from the minaret next door to the hotel was the first sound which signaled to me that I was not in the United States. The chanting is a kind of wake-up call each day, beginning at 5:00am. This morning it awoke me, as usual, but it has become, just in a few days, both familiar and inviting. 

Iyad, our guide, met us in the lobby at 5:45, gave us a few instructions about the Way of the Cross, and off we walked, in silence, taking turns carrying a wooden cross. We walked past the shops in East Jerusalem, our neighborhood, and into the Old City through Herod’s gate. Even at that hour the city was awake with merchants opening up their shops, gas burners tended by early-risers making coffee. 

The first station, “Jesus is Judged” is a head-on collision with God’s capacity to reverse the order of things. Whatever we hold closely--power, security, wealth, status--they’re replaced with a crown of thorns. Whatever gives us meaning in life, on the outside, is turned on its head. This is the place where it begins, this first station, as God’s son wears a crown of thorns.

We took turns not only carrying the cross, but also reading the scripture for each station, and leading in the prayers. Sometimes we sang “Were you there?” between each station. Our Way ended in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Empty Tomb, and then we made our way to a group of Polish pilgrims standing around as the Franciscan priest led Mass. Most of us slipped in behind them to receive the very essence of who Christ, poured out in the flesh of bread and the cup of salvation.

We leave now, at 9:00am, to Emmaus where we’ll celebrate our own Eucharist. Then to Jericho for a party at Iyad and Simone’s house. We’ll be back in Jerusalem this afternoon. Pray for us.

A Journey of Contrasts

The following post is from Gayle Pershouse, one of the Holy Land pilgrims, and a member of the Parish of the Epiphany.

This is a journey of contrasts: Yesterday, on top of Mt. Tabor, my winter coat felt thin against the wind; by the afternoon I was basking in the sun in my bathing suit and swimming in the Dead Sea, then eating ice cream on the deck. As we go back and forth through “checkpoints” from Israeli to Palestinian areas and back again, we meet the contrasts of the land: lush and fertile/stony and arid; and the economy: thriving and modern/struggling, poor, “third world” in feeling.  Religiously, a pilgrimage is an experience of contrasts as well. Sometimes we encounter strange customs, sometimes funny moments, and then, unexpectedly, the ineffable will take us by surprise. For me, yesterday one bizarre moment was looking at the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a starkly barren desert place and listening to Iyod say that this is the place where the controversial Bishop Pike walked out into the desert and never came back.

Are we getting close to the saturation point on beautiful old churches dedicated to an important moment in Jesus’ life? A humorous moment came when, visiting the site of Jacob’s well, Iyod told us to stay close together because one of the vendors has a tendency to “hug the women much too long.” Most of us didn’t think we were in the age category to get such a “hug” but we stayed together as told. Then, at this same place, as we read the story of Jesus asking the Samaritan woman for a drink, drew water from the ancient stone well by lowering a bucket way down on a long rope, and tasted the water ourselves, the ineffable presence of Jesus was suddenly manifest to one of us in a very real way. Jesus was speaking to her personally about her husband.

The next site was an inexplicable contrast for me: an ancient ruin of a church in which ritual animal sacrifice is still practiced. St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, built this church in the fourth century. It is dedicated to St. George. The stone steps were saturated with the blood of sacrificed animals and the door jams were marked in blood with many crosses.

This town, Taybeh, gave us an even starker contrast: animal sacrifice in Christian ruins overlooking the “wilderness” contrasted with a visit to a modern micro-brewery making very good Palestinian beer!

“So what?” Is the question I ask myself. So, why come to the Holy Land when I can just as well meet Jesus in my own kitchen? (as my friend asked me before I left.) Each of us forms a different answer to this question. Maybe there are several answers for each of us, and maybe we will find more answers in the weeks and months after we come home. One answer is so obvious but so subtle for us we might miss it: as a little band of pilgrims seeking traces of our Lord, we become a brand new, unique expression of the Christ we are seeking. We are the Body of Christ here in a land that is much in need of peace and healing. Maybe that is reason enough.

Wade in the Water, Children...

The following post is from Marie Lee, a member of the Parish of the Epiphany. 

A crisp, perfectly clear morning in Nazareth, still shuttered as we headed north through Cana on our way to the River Jordan. Nazareth is perched at 1500 feet, so it is downhill all the way to get there. We pulled into a small park near the point where the river enters Lake Tiberias, which Matthew refers to as the Sea of Galilee. The river is only about 25 feet wide at this point. Due to the recent heavy rainfall, the ground was quite muddy and the river was wider and faster than usual. Iyad had prepared a bunch of small olive branches, which Bishop Gayle dipped into the river to bless each of us as we renewed our baptismal vows, and then anointed us with oil. Noah Evans, Rector of Grace Church in Medford then bent over the river, slipped a small plastic bag from his pocket, prayerfully releasing the ashes of a friend to the river.

Lake Tiberias with Horns of Hittin in the background

Lake Tiberias, 600 ft below sea level, is surrounded by mountains: the Golan Heights to the north, and the very striking Horns of Hittin to the east, where Saladdin defeated the crusaders (see photo). Our boat ride across the lake aboard a replica of a wooden boat from the first century provided the perfect backdrop for the gospel reading -- Matthew 14 verse 22-36 (the disciples panicking when a storm came up on the lake, and Jesus appears to them.)






Following another amazing lunch (Tilapia the main course) we hiked in silence from the Mount of the Beatitudes down to a flat shady spot overlooking the lake for the celebration of the Eucharist, led by Thomas. A small block of white marble served as our altar. The gospel reading was the Beatitudes, from Matthew chap. 5. Sitting in a semi-circle, we shared meaningful moments from our day, and each served bread and wine to our neighbor.

View from Eucharist site -- looking toward the Golan

As I've listened to the ancient stories -- so familiar and now envisioned anew in these holy places, I've never been more aware of the passing of time and of my fleeting presence. Sharing the Eucharist today, I was both a part of the timeless place before me as well as a member of the body of Christ.

Poppies in the field on our hike down from the Mount of the Beatitudes
to the clearing where we celebrated the Holy Eucharist.

St. Paul's Church, et cetera

St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Shefa-Amre, Israel.
PHOTO: The Reverend Noah H. Evans

A leisurely morning of it. We didn't leave the convent until 9:15. We walked a few blocks uphill to a Greek Orthodox Church built over a spring, the well where Mary the Mother of our Lord drew water. Their tradition--the Orthodox--is that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary there, at the well. The church was packed for their weekly liturgy, and in typical Greek Orthodox style it was exotic (to us, at least), chaotic, and exquisite. I told the Epiphanyites to "get ready for next Sunday!" They smiled, sort of. We traipsed through to the back of the well, hung around for a bit, and then made our way to the bus.

Our destination, north and west of Nazareth, was the town of  Shefa-Amre, in Israel proper, on the outskirts of Haifa, to St. Paul's Episcopal Church. The rector, Fuad Dagher, greeted us outside the church, and warmly welcomed us to Shefa-Amre and to St. Paul's.

He's quite the one-man band: delightful, passionate, entrepreneurial, and gifted. The liturgy was exceedingly familiar--adapted from their cathedral's customary, and the hymns--all well-known chestnuts--were accompanied on the Allen organ by Father Dagher himself. Presider, organist, and eucharistic minister! Bishop Harris preached, and Father Dagher translated it into Arabic for the several members of his parish.

After the liturgy we were welcomed again during the coffee hour. A young boy was having his birthday, and there was singing and, of course, cake. In typical Palestinian fashion the hospitality was lavish and unending.

Behind the parish hall is a newly restored 200 year old house which is used for the entire community (not just their parish) for concerts, art exhibits, and assemblies. It's absolutely gorgeous, and could (should!) win an award for historic preservation. With thanks to the Diocese of Los Angeles, who gave them the money to buy the property, and with the sweat equity of the whole town (Christians and Muslims and Jews worked together to rebuild it) the community has a place to gather, and something for which they're all very proud.

We didn't need any more food, but there it was...a feast at a local restaurant, the best in the town, which opened on this Sunday just to serve us. As Bishop Harris said, "when Jesus likened the kingdom of God to a banquet, THIS is what he meant."

A happy and holy Sunday to you all.

Judean desert, Jericho, and Nazareth

A very early morning. We left Jerusalem at 7:15 and made our way east toward the Jordan, about an hour's drive north and east. We disembarked in the middle of nowhere overlooking the Wadi Quelt, the usually dried-up river bed that served as the north-south road where people once dwelt in the canyons and caves of the mountainous desert. It was easy to imagine Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan because before our eyes, as Joan read that parable, we could see it unfolding...it was that real.

From there we traveled east to Jericho, which is 10,000 years old! Incomprehensible to consider that fact, given its current size and modernity. A cable car took us to the top of a mountain, the Mount of the Temptation, to an Orthodox monastery where one monk remains. Again, the pieces fell into place. How is this the spot where the temptation occurred? Of course we don't know for certain, but given that a community of believers has been dwelling in this cliff (think Navajo) since the first century, and that they've maintained a community for 2,000 years, it's pretty easy to say, "yup, this marks the spot."

The sycamore tree in Jericho where Zacchaeus climbed
to see Jesus pass through town.

Once we were back in Jericho we stopped by Zaccheus's tree, the sycamore tree, which he supposedly climbed to see Jesus passing through.

A longer trip north, and turning west into Israel itself, and then north for over an hour, we arrived in Nazareth. En route the scenery was central California...field after field of vegetation, produce, and beauty. Then, almost out of nowhere, the city of Nazareth appears in the distance. It's much bigger than its first century predecessor, which likely had 200 people dwelling in cut-out caves on the hillside. Today, more than 100,000 people live here, and it's exceedingly modern. Our accommodations, the Sisters of Nazareth Guesthouse and Chapel, are straight out of late 19th century, and as one of us said, "don't you feel like you're at the Isabella Stewart Gardner?" Yes, as a matter of fact.

Surrounding the convent, on every side, are churches. One is Anglican (part of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem), and the other three are some versions of Roman, Orthodox, and Armenian. And though each is distinct from the other (stand alone) they're almost integrated, together with shops for locals and pilgrims alike, into a story book of Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary, the God-bearer.

Tradition holds that this is the hometown spot
of our Lord's growing-up-Synagogue.

The grotto in the Basilica, carved out from the
nave's main floor, where the Angel Gabriel
announced to Mary that she would give
birth to Jesus, the Messiah.

We made it just in time to the "Synagogue Church" which of course never existed. It's a simple place dedicated to the time when the adolescent Jesus unrolled the scroll and read from the prophet Isaiah. We read the passage from St. Luke and sat quietly. Just steps away, as if it were some giant lighthouse, is the massive Basilica of the Annunciation, completed in 1969. Think modern ecclesiastical architecture taken to its zenith. Or, if you're not a fan, I guess you could say nadir. And yet, it retains several elements of its 5th century predecessor, including the apse, and even better, there is preserved right there in the middle of the church, the 1st century grotto where Gabriel announced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, the Messiah. We gave thanks for archeologists! Around the Basilica, so moving, are artistic representations of the Annunciation from every nation in the world (as the league of nations existed in 1968), most with mosaic, or ceramic tile, some with glass, but EACH conveys the essence of how Mary might be perceived or depicted in that particular culture/nation. "France's is SO French," said Pat Hitchcock (a pilgrim from the Parish of the Epiphany), and another pilgrim, Gayle Pershouse, said, "Look at Mexico's...it takes you there." I agree completely. Unfortunately our own country's rendition leaves something to be desired, even for me, one who adores 1960s-1970s "good" church architecture; I admitted to feeling a tad embarrassed to say it was from America. Another pilgrim, Don DeLollis, from Christ Church Andover, said, "Thomas, you'll just have to get over it!"

A few steps beyond the Basilica is an early 20th century Romanesque church (on the remains of an 11th century church) dedicated to St. Joseph. It's diminutive next to the Basilica, but it's no less embracing of his part, Joseph's, role in the story of salvation. First off, it's unpretentious and sturdy. There are three paintings in the apse: 1) the Holy Family, 2) The Dream of Joseph, and 3) the Death of Joseph in the Arms of Jesus and Mary. Don't miss these! A stairway descends to a crypt where caverns can be seen through a grille in the floor, yes, the very place where Joseph and Mary made their home.

Our supper was in a simple refectory with other pilgrims from around the world. A group of Italian priests, all collared-up (and cutting-up), a group of women and men from a French speaking island off Madgascar (Reunion, I think), and ourselves. After supper the 16 of us gathered in a circle in the convent chapel to say our prayers, and to say good-night.

Poor Nathaniel. Of course he said, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" It's clear that very little existed here in the first century. Now, in 2013, it's a place one could spend a week, easily, and not scratch the surface of meaning, of history, or certainly, of beauty. Get here if you can. 2015 beckons!

The Shepherds Field and Manger Square

An epic day! First, both Bishop Harris and I were on the bus. I'm fully recovered, she not quite, but almost. Thanks to Lester Hartmann, M.D.'s prescription of Tamiflu I really am flu-free. (We should talk about the miracle drug called Tamiflu...readily available to you. Take immediately, at first onset of flu symptoms, and it attacks the virus itself, thereby getting one well very soon.)

A sticker, one of many, stuck to the Palestinian side of the "security" wall

We began the day by taking the bus a short distance, but it took nearly 45 minutes, to Bethlehem; 4 miles away from our hotel. But, given Jerusalem traffic, and even more, the "security wall" which the Israeli government erected in the middle of the town, it's not especially easy to get to. In fact, it's arduous, and depressing. Bethlehem, at the turn of the 20th century was nearly 90% Christian/Palestinian. Now, not quite a century later it's less than 3% Christian. What happened to the Christians? They fled, emigrated to the United States, or other places where walls are not erected. Today, Bethlehem is a town of Palestinian Muslims whose economy is dependent upon the massive numbers of Christian pilgrims who make their way to Manger Square, the Church of the Nativity, and St. Catherine's Church. Their poverty is starkly obvious: the wall separates them, keeps them from their workplaces and their fields, and creates a kind of island in which they are trapped, save for those who are old enough or sick enough to get permits to leave and enter the state of Israel. Our first stop wasn't Manger Square, however, it was a grotto in what is known as the Shepherds Field, the place where tradition says the angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds and announced the birth of our Lord.

It's utterly believable...even the most jaded cynic of Biblical and archeological scholarship would be hard-pressed not to see the strong likelihood that shepherds would have lived there, and that in that first century, directly in front of them, to the west, would have been another cave in which Jesus could well have been born. We sang Christmas carols in a chapel, descended stone steps into a cave, and prayed.

From there we had time to shop at a Palestinian Craft Cooperative (my colleagues lucked out on very cool gifts...and they ship to the US, besides!). Anybody need an olive wood creche set? We walked a few yards from the shop to a sit-down lunch at a local Palestinian-owned/run place, Ruth's Field Restaurant. Ruth, the owner, does all the cooking, along with her family. Outstanding food.

Then it was back onto the bus for the trip up the hill to Manger Square. Did you know that today is Christmas? Yes, that's right, 18 January is Christmas. At least it is for Armenian Christians. The place was decked out, oriental carpets were festooned on every floor surface, and there were workers busily preparing for tonight's festivities with the Patriarch. The church itself is impressive enough, but to get to the "manger" one descends a set of stone steps, again into a grotto, and there a silver star marks the spot. We venerated the spot, and then Iyad took us into a corner. Pat Hitchcock read the nativity story and we sang O Little Town of Bethlehem. And Christmas does indeed come once more.

We got back to the hotel in time to be with each other, to talk and to listen, and to reflect on what each of us has seen and felt the last couple of days. So important to do this, and so moving to hear my fellow pilgrims speak about what has been moving and good, as well as what's been hard and challenging. After supper we surprised Bishop Harris with a little party to celebrate her 10th anniversary of episcopacy. Cake and champagne and flowers. A perfect ending to a perfect day.

A day in the old city

Today's post is from Gayle Pershouse, a pilgrim from the Parish of the Epiphany:

Today, Thursday, is our second day in the Holy Land. We started out early (7am) for a walking tour of Old Jerusalem beginning with the Western Wall. The Holy Spirit in the form of a white dove enchanted us by perching in a niche right above us while we prayed at the Wall. We moved from there to the Islamic side of the wall where we saw the Dome of the Rock and then on to the pools of Bethesda and St. Anne's Church. Here there is a custom that each group of pilgrims stands in the center of the nave in front of the altar and sings. Our impromptu performance is posted below for your enjoyment. We  took coffee or tea in an arab coffee shop and enjoyed a peaceful and delicious lunch at the Lutheran Guest House. We were hungry: I estimate we walked at least 6 miles in and through the narrow winding streets, including the Cardo, a souk filled with every kind of beautiful (and ugly) thing you can buy. Our last stop was at the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was buried. So many layers of history in one place! Iyad is showing us how to know what is from Roman times, what is 4th century Byzantine, and what is from the 15th century. Such a fascinating place!

Click here to hear us signing at the Basillica of Saint Anne in the old city.

Lest you are worrying, know that our leaders, Thomas and Bishop Harris, are quite recovered and joined us for dinner. Thanks be to God!

From the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane

 I'm writing today from the hotel. The rest of the group is in the old city visiting the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yes, I managed to catch the flu! I'm insistent upon losing only one day, and since we're so close to the old city I'll find my way to these places on my own, later in the trip. For now I'm drinking massive amounts of fluids and have slept most of the day. One of the pediatricians on the trip hooked me up with some tamiflu. If you haven't done so, get a flu shot!

Yesterday's trek, if you can call it that (everything is so compact), began at the Damascus Gate of the old city. Iyad explained, artfully, just enough to engage us, but not so much as to overwhelm us, the difference among the principal time periods which shaped both the architecture and the religious expressions of Jerusalem: 1st century (Roman) 4th-5th (Byzantine), and 11th-12th (Crusades). We walked, briefly, into the old city and exited on the Nablus Road ending up at St. George's Cathedral. Stunning! From there we met our bus, and following lunch, we gathered on top of Mount Scopus to get our bearings, and to appreciate once again how small the whole place actually is. I imagined a big city, but in fact, it's quite small, and during Jesus's time, of course, it was even more condensed.

Just east of Mount Scopus we stopped again to look east, and to see the dramatic beauty of the Judean desert, and also, to see Jewish settlements. In that part of the West Bank there really is only one section of hilltops without settlements. Who knows how long that will remain.

From there the bus took us a short ride to the Mount of Olives, and standing there, looking west, we could see the old city and get our bearings from a different perspective.

The mosaic in front of the altar at the "Teardrop Church" which is
about half-way from the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane.

Then began the palm Sunday walk. We descended steeply to the Garden of Gethsemane, except for one important stop along the way, the Church of the Dominus Flevit (meaning "the Lord wept"). The current church was built in the 1950s, but the original one was supposedly built upon the rock where Jesus had wept over Jerusalem. It was extremely powerful to read from the gospels Jesus lament over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41 and Matthew 23:37-39), and to sit inside of a church where the central image is a mosaic on the altar of a hen gathering her chicks under wings. Of course I told the story of "chicks on a stick" for children in the Palm Sunday procession back home (taken from Thomas Mousin and from Gertrude Muller's book, To Dance with God.)

Just inside the garden of Gethsemane

The Garden of Gethsemane itself is does indeed have some of the world's oldest olive trees, three of them have been scientifically dated to be over 2000 years old, making them witnesses to whatever biblical events occurred there. The Church of All Nations, also known as the Basilica of Agony, is a 1920s era shrine to mosaics! Unbelievable. The church was designed by Antonio Barluzzi, and the seals of the 12 nations which financed the project are represented on the ceiling, in mosaics, naturally.

We returned to the hotel late in the afternoon. At 5:00 a friend of Iyad's, a Palestinian Muslim, spoke to us about Islam, a sort of Islam for Dummies lecture. He was entertaining and passionate. At one point somebody asked him about what it's like to live in East Jerusalem, in 2013.
His response, even more animated than his discussion of Islam,
helped us to hear, maybe for the first time (I'm not sure how much
my travel companions have heard from Palestinians...we certainly
don't get the story from our media in the U.S.) the pain
of occupation, and the clear desire for a two state solution.

One of the olive trees that is over 2000 years old.

Day 2: East Jerusalem

 Today's post is from Laura Reboul, a member of the Parish of the Epiphany.     

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a day of emotional highs and lows.  After 3 days of sightseeing on our own in  Tel Aviv, Ted and I joined the group from Boston at the airport and met our guide Iyad for the drive to Jerusalem.  About halfway along the 45 minute trip, we crossed through the checkpoint (uneventful) into the West Bank and it was clear that the tone of our visit to Israel was about to change.  
      The highway was suddenly lined on both sides with a barbed wire fence.  In the far distance we could see a huge Israeli Jewish settlement built for about 100,000 settlers.  In the near distance we saw Palestinian houses - our guide indicated that these could identified as Palestinian because each roof had a black water tank.  Piped water to the settlers homes is reliable.  However, the water supply for Palestinians is apparently unpredictable, and it is cut off even more frequently in the summer.  Hence they have to collect a reserve of water in rooftop tanks for times when the government cuts off therir supply.        When we arrived at our hotel in East Jerusalem, we were in a very different world.  Stll in the West Bank, , this Arab section of Jerusalem was teeming with activity  The difficult position of the Palestinian Arabs was not as obvious here as along the highway.  After lunch Iyad took us around the neighborbhood and introduced us to the best Arab shops for spices, coffee, books, etc.  He obsviously is well respected as he and the shopkeepers all joked about being "cousins".  As the atternoon wore on, the hotel filled up with more groups of pilgrims wearing a variety of religious garb and hailing from places including Romania, Russsia, and Malaysia.        The Muslim call to prayer felt surprisingly comforting,  And the evening Compline service with the 15 of us helped bring this overwhelming day to a peaceful concludson.  Laura Reboul

East Jerusalem, Day 1

United Airlines #84 from Newark's Liberty Airport arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv earlier than scheduled (about 9:00am local time...we're 7 hours ahead of EST), and the passport control was a breeze.

Canon Iyad Qumri, our guide (and I think the guide of nearly every Episcopal Church group) was there to greet us, as were Epiphanyites Ted & Laura Reboul, who had spent a couple days in Tel Aviv. The journey from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is just 45 minutes, but eye-opening on every level, especially as we passed through the West Bank, though with our Israeli license plates it was uneventful. Even so, one cannot miss the fences and walls.

The only real setback for the group is that Bishop Harris is very sick, likely the flu. She arrived at Logan with what she thought was a cold, but by the time we landed in Israel, it was clear that whatever she has is more than a cold. Thankfully in our group we have three pediatricians, Lester, Donald, and Rita. Though they're not internists, they're all pretty expert in the flu. With their counsel, along with our guide, Iyad and his wife, Simone, (who's a nurse and is well acquainted with Bishop Harris) they agreed that Bishop Harris needed to see a doctor. She was given some intravenous fluids, a prescription or two, and is in her room resting.

Our accommodations at the Holy Land Hotel, in East Jerusalem, are perfectly fine: they're clean and we have free wi-fi. What else does one need? My room has a balcony which looks out onto the old city wall and the dome of the rock. I'll post some pictures later.

Iyad took us a few blocks for a shawarma lunch (delicious!), and gave us a brief tour of the neighborhood. A few of us, feeling intrepid and restless, ventured on our own into a small section of the old city: Noah (the rector of Grace Church in Medford), Pat (a parishioner from Epiphany), Marie (a parishioner from Epiphany), Anna (a young adult intern with the Diocese of Massachusetts), and I.

The wall of the old city is visible from my room. What's not visible,
unfortunately, is the dome of the rock....just beyond that illuminated wall.

Staggering, really. The psalmist put it this way: Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity with itself, to which the tribes go up. I felt that--something of that. Which is to say, that even on that brief trek through a very small portion of the old city, entering through Herod's gate and exiting at the Damascus gate, there is power in knowing that Jesus himself walked there.

There's one story that keeps coming back to me. My friend Dominic, a priest in the Church of England who leads many pilgrimages here, once said, "something happens to every person, spiritually, in the Holy Land. Every person has a moment." I don't yet know if he's right, nor am I suggesting that today was my "moment," yet here it was, "Jerusalem the golden."

 This evening we'll have dinner together, here at the hotel, and be reunited with two more members of our group, David & Kathy Laubenthal, who, like the Rebouls, came earlier. We'll say our prayers, and head off to bed.

The Holy Innocents

A priest and liturgist at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (my own alma mater) pointed out, in the Globe’s article, that in the Episcopal Church’s calendar we have these holy days during Christmastide which provide a context to address this legitimate  pastoral need. The day after Christmas, December 26th, is the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr, who was stoned to death. Today, is the Holy Innocents. Professor Larson-Miller wasn’t suggesting that we not create Blue Advent services, only that if we look to our existing calendar we can find rich resources that are both Biblical and liturgical. I also inferred by her comments that we’ve been doing this for centuries...that our tradition holds this, already! 

Meanwhile the parish where I serve is shut-up for the days between Christmas and New Year’s, and I bet a handful of the people whom I serve, at most, know that these days are filled with “major feasts,” including today’s, the Holy Innocents. If our churches don’t keep these days (i.e. if the clergy take 3-4 days off) how can we expect the faithful to know about them, or to keep/celebrate them?

When King Herod had all those under-two-year olds slaughtered he was using his power to squelch what he knew to be a liberating Word in the birth of Jesus. But St. Matthew’s telling of this god-awful story isn’t merely news. It's a story in the most literary sense, one designed to draw us beyond ‘what happened to them’ to the depths of ‘what is happening to us.’  Reading about a Joseph with prophetic dreams should remind us of another righteous man who ended up exiled from his family in Egypt. Hearing of baby boys slaughtered by the empire would remind Matthew’s readers of the way Moses narrowly escaped that fate as well. And any Jew hearing this story in 1st century Palestine would remember the more recent terrors under Antiochus, when any mother caught circumcising her son would be rewarded with a dead baby hung around her neck. 

And, even more, reading this story better remind us, in 2012, that innocents are slaughtered every day...in Syria, in the Sudan, in the Congo, and yes, on the streets in the United States of America. 

This past year (from December 2011 until December 2012) I spent a great deal of time with Stanley Hauerwas’s commentary on Matthew’s gospel (Matthew. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, 2006). I leave you today with a quotation from this book, and an invitation to reflect on our own response and feelings to today’s commemoration of the Holy Innocents, in the first century, as well as on those children who will die at the hands of tyrants, at home and abroad: 

"Perhaps no event in the gospel more determinatively challenges the sentimental depiction of Christmas than the death of these children. Jesus is born into a world in which children are killed, and continue to be killed, to protect the power of tyrants [like Herod]."

A prayer for Newtown, Connecticut

News from Newtown leads us to prayer. Here's where I went yesterday late afternoon:

Holy God, we pray for your guidance and presence. Surround the people of Newtown, Connecticut, as they respond to this horrible tragedy. Receive into your heavenly kingdom the children and adults who died this morning, give them unending joy. Bless and uphold their families and loved ones who grieve. And, finally, in your mercy give us wisdom and insight from this senseless violence, that we will do everything in our power to protect and nurture our children, in whom you make yourself especially known. We ask this in the friendship of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and in the embrace of your Holy Spirit, who breathes upon us a peace which passes understanding. Amen.