"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in
righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest
but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing
toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is
not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but
all is being purified."
Martin Luther
(Photos by Danae Hudson)
So October 31st was Reformation Day. If you are of the Protestant persuasion, perhaps you had a special service of some sort, or maybe you'd just halfway noticed an increased incidence of Martin Luther quotes popping up on bulletin boards and newsletter-tables-of-contents. Or maybe you had no idea, that's also very possible.
When I was at UNC, we Lutheran students celebrated by donning our Halloween costumes and taping the 95 theses to the door of the Catholic student ministries building. So at least we celebrated it?
Here in Jerusalem though, Reformation Day is a pretty big stinkin deal. Perhaps because it's not majority Protestant Christian like America, and thus the ethno-cultural-religious significance of the holiday is a lot more apparent, and the effects of that initial act of "Reformation" (the whole nailing grievances to a church door thing) are consciously felt a lot more often?
TANGENT
Hard to say for sure. Religious identity in America in general isn't really super salient or talked about much, so I guess it'd be doubly unusual to have some sort of "Protestant" or "Lutheran Pride" event.
Whereas here in the Holy Land, religious identity is proudly and assertively on display, perhaps only second in its significance to the behemoth that is "national identity," which just happens to be somewhat angrily and confusedly inextricably intertwined with the question of religious identity -- WHICH of course brings us to the fascinating question of the place we and Palestinian Christians occupy in this tremendous regional Palestinian/Israeli conflict that seems so strikingly to be divided across ethno-religious lines in regards to which we are not clearly situated, so we should just drop this question before it takes us further off topic.
GETTING TO THE POINT
So in the shadow of a tense, conflict-ridden Friday in Jerusalem (just the latest Friday in a couple consecutive months of escalating pressure) and the first gloomy, dark, wet day I've seen in my whole two months here, we Lutherans descended on the Old City, assembling at what has become my home church this year: The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, founded in the 1800s by Kaiser Wilhelm and now home to a motley mix of congregations of different languages and nationalities.
Redeemer on your average Sunday is already an exciting and fascinating smorgasbord of different peoples and voices and nations sharing the space and schedule-dancing around each other, but this service was something else entirely. (Smorgasbord is only appropriate because of the strong Scandinavian influences at play throughout the church space. A mixed buffet including meatballs and cabbage rolls would not be entirely out of place.)
The liturgy cycled spontaneously back and forth from Arabic to English to German, and sometimes all three at once. (And the prayers of the people took that and kicked it up a notch with some Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Danish.)
A whole parade of presiding clergy marched in at the beginning of the service, with not only Lutherans but Anglicans, Mennonites, United Church of Christ priests and probably Methodists, hailing from not just America, Palestine and Germany, but Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands.
And you see those guys in hoods and the other fancy looking patriarchal looking figures around them? Well, they're the patriarchs. Mixed in there you've got Ethiopian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and Syriac Orthodox (You can tell by the hat-shape.) Cause no Jerusalem Reformation Service would be complete without representatives of every other Jerusalemite Christian denomination falling asleep in the front rows and getting tipsy on free reception wine.
As you can tell, it was a pretty huge deal!
Although... it wasn't really the most elegant service.
Actually, it was downright messy in parts, if only because of the conflicting bulletins, the communion riot, and the whole thing where it sounded like mildly syncopated, throaty garbage when we sang.
"A Mighty Fortress is Our God" was a clumsy linguistic tangle of incomprehensible overlapping mumbling, and the Germans always seemed to have more words than us. The Lord's Prayer was more of the same but quieter and with less organ.
But what matters is that we were there. The wild, eclectic mix of peoples of all different backgrounds and origins and walks of life -- and the wild potential, the possibility that this joyous and messy pluralism represents.
We were gathered there in the midst of turmoil to celebrate Reformation. Reformation in the past and Reformation in the now.
Religion can be an escape, a way out of the circumstances of the world. Like a cornered animal it turns fatalistic and apocalyptic, turning within itself like the hedgehog of cosmology showing its spines.
But even if we had wanted to escape from the worldly circumstances bearing down on Jerusalem in general and the Palestinian Christian community in particular and just mindlessly peacefully celebrate for one night, that's not an option here.
"Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent," began the first reading, and the chanting drone of the Muslim call to prayer filtered into and through the church, filling the silences between words and sentences with the melodic reminder of the city around us.
It took me back, just hours ago, to my trip across the city earlier that morning. The Israeli government, in response to growing tension and violence, had completely shut down access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Al-Aqsa compound for the first time in I think probably decades.
The center of East Jerusalem, around the Old City, was swamped with heavily armed Israeli security forces. Positively marshy with martial enforcement. Like a bog of bogus political logic. Did I mention it was a really unseasonably gross and wet and hazy day?
I waited at a bus station for nearly 45 minutes (45 minutes longer than I normally would've) because the buses just couldn't get there. But that wasn't because of the security.
Lined up in front of one of the Israeli barricades were dozens of Muslims, young and old, lined up in even rows. They couldn't get to Al-Aqsa (the third holiest site in Islam), so they prayed at the barricade, kneeling down on carpet squares from home, cardboard they'd found on the way, or just on the wet dark street. They prayed, they bowed, they worshiped, they milled about a bit, and they went home.
It was profound and powerful and vaguely intense. I anxiously watched from the impatient bus line, satisfied by the reasonable distance between me and the inevitably political act I was witness to, but nervously plotting an escape route just in case.
I still don't know what to make of it. There were feels but I can't untangle them enough to name any and the whole experience thoroughly resists effective processing, let alone blog-worthy metaphorizing.
What I'm trying to say, (or at least what I'm going to say), is that the situation here is tense and tragic and painful and obscenely implausibly complicated. The only thing that's clear is that something has to change.
There's a lot wrong here, and there's a lot wrong in the world, and there's a lot wrong in "the church," whatever that means, and there's a lot wrong with us, whoever that is.
So in lieu of an escape, and with me unable to process enough to give you an adequate emotional conclusion, I'll offer you what I then received in that church in the Old City on Reformation Day, with so many different people coming together to share.
It was delivered in Arabic, but I'll be nice and give you the English.
"Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Hence, Reformation.
I'm not much of a "quote" person. It feels more lazy than anything else most of the time. But there are some things I just can't say.
"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified."
Martin Luther
"We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
Oscar Romero
Follow this link for the sermon, delivered by the excellent Pastor Carrie of the English congregation.
AND HERE FOR MORE PICTURES
