I had a few minutes today to catch up on our friends, Fred and Gloria Strickert, who are serving in Jerusalem ( http://walkinjerusalem.blogspot.com/).
Their
blog featured the Holy Week gatherings of Christians in Palestine and
Jerusalem. Their message underscores the reality that the pilgrims who gather there
from around the world have no trouble making their way in and out of
Jerusalem, while the Palestinian people who live in Israel/Palestine cannot receive permission to gather with the wider faith community.
As I read their blog, I was reminded how important it is to see beyond my day-to-day life into a wider world. I don't mean that my life isn't important, but as it is for most of us there are so many self-imposed boundaries that impair my sight. I mostly pay attention to very necessary activities, my work, my family, my church, my community. It's good to pay attention to these vocations. It's not so good when I allow these 'duties' to be a barrier to my self-proclaimed commitment to actively advocate for sisters and brothers who are not allowed to walk across their own town because of walls and permissions and harassment imposed by government policies.
As I reflected on Fred and Gloria's profound message, I thought of my own father's report of visiting the Berlin Wall shortly after it went up. I was in grade school but I still vividly remember his stories. They were about families who, because of the Berlin Wall, were split in two and suffered terrible poverty, fear, and hopelessness. My father spoke passionately about the horrible injustice of this wall and the doomed failure of any government that would, in the name of security, build walls to separate communities and families.
I can't get my father's story telling out of my head as I ask questions about who we are as United States citizens. Why is it that as a society we talk about injustice but do so much to impoverish others? How can we, as the Christian community, make more of an effort to speak up and speak out against injustice and prejudice? Why is it that as a people we can be outraged that we don't have prayer in public schools but care nothing about the fact that as a nation are sending munitions and millions of dollars of 'aid' so that other countries can kill and persecute their citizens, all in the name of national security?
I pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to wake us up and push us forward so we might be willing to do more than tend to our own personal daily business. It's a bit frightening to do so, but I pray that we would listen well to the voice of the followers of Jesus who, in the end, went out and shared the good news; the news that Jesus, who is raised from the dead, has turned things upside down and made the first last, and the last first.
