Month: February 2020

What Can You “C” in the Holy Land Via the YMCA?

The YMCA provides a unique lens through which to see the Holy Land.

Since 1878 Christian Y workers have been embodying their mission there, focusing on peace-making work in spirit, mind, and body.

In 1933 a building was finally constructed to give the Jerusalem International YMCA a permanent home from which to extend it’s influence and services to the wider community.

1933 JIY bw

80+ years later, a lot has changed in the Holy Land.

Though James Michener helps put “change” in perspective in this sacred place, what’s transpired in the past couple of generations has its own unique element.

With the devastating tsunami of consequences from the Great War, to the horrific pogroms and holocaust of the Jews, and the shifting tectonic plates of nationalism in the last century, Jerusalem has become epicenter to peace and conflict in the modern world.

The Y has been deeply embedded in this storm and is positioned to strengthen opportunities for truth, justice, and reconciliation non-violently.

There is so much to look at in Jerusalem and the surrounding cities, towns, villages, and countryside. So much to see. Like everything, we get to choose how we see what we look at.

Everything is interpreted, it is given meaning, significance, relevance, value. We in part get to choose how we see what we see.

And because of the sacred nature of Jerusalem and the Holy Land to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, along with many others, there are many perspectives existing alongside each other; there are many ways to see the same sites and circumstances.

What does my Christian faith shape how I see Israel and Palestine?

What kind of lens does Christ make possible for me as I seek to understand what I can see there?

How do I “C” the land where Jesus was born, lived, gospeled, was crucified and raised up? I don’t pretend to have an easy answer – everything it seems is complicated in Jerusalem.

But am I aware of my assumptions, my biases, of what I don’t know that I don’t know, of what I may be a misunderstanding?

Thanks to emerging friendships and conversations, it’s slowly stumbling in that direction. I can be a dense, obtuse learner.

The YMCA offers a unique way to “C” the Holy Land due to its historical and organizational striving to put Christian principles into practice without delving into doctrinal differences.

The Paris Basis of the YMCA is a genius document that emphasizes imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the good news of his kingdom, and harmonious relationship for all who believe.

It allows different kinds of Christians to work together for peace, focusing on what we have in common, and building bridges over what we can’t agree upon.

This is important ecumenical Christian work that the Y offers, especially in light of the historical reality – that Christians are willing to kill each other over doctrinal and cultural divergences.

It matters in a place where people are willing to kill each other over beliefs about who ought to have the right to live and flourish in the Holy Land.

The YMCA is radically committed to non-violent practices that forge friendships in unlikely circumstances, not only among Christians but among those of all faiths or no faith. The Y isn’t the only organization striving to do this, thankfully. 

When our OnPRINCIPLE YMCA group had its first tour stop on the Mount of Olives, it was a grey, bitterly cold, wet and windy morning. Miserable.

Shivering we looked over Jerusalem, seeing in the foreground ancient Jewish cemeteries. Our eyes were drawn to the aging walls surrounding the Old City, particularly the blocked up Golden Gate, which faces the east.

Behind it is the temple mount on which sit two sacred mosques. In the far background across the horizon are church steeples representing many different nations and traditions.

What did I see?

I saw a city beloved by three major world religions who all call Abraham father – yet a city whose streets have cruelly run with blood and tears from the children who have yet to found a way to live in peace here.

Like many, I see a city that yearns for peace but is unable to secure it.

I also see an opportunity to join in with my global neighbors to learn to love – in my case inspired and instructed by Jesus – to love not only those who love me back, but strangers and sojourners, and most importantly, our enemies.

On our way from the airport to our lodgings at the Y, we had to pull to the side of the road due to motion sickness from one of our fellow travelers.

We happened to stop at an entrance to a Palestinian village. I stunned by the guard tower, roadblocks, armed soldier, barbed wire, and a foreboding sign warning Israeli’s to avoid entering this dangerous area.

A stark reminder of the violent reality that infects the foundations of society in the Holy Land.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Either we can see those military outposts and accept the status quo, or we can “C” another way to build towers of hope that beckon enemies to reconcile and become friends.

That’s what I want to “C” in the Holy Land via the YMCA.

Grace To Say Yes

https://www.etsy.com/listing/235796382/framed-original-painting-the-three-marys

The striving of a Christian to live fully in reality, to be true and full of love amidst all the darkness, lies, and pride – how can it be done each day? I was struck by the following paragraph, a reflection on the “yes” of Mary, mother of our Lord, who is a perpetual example to us of grace and trust while immersed in sorrow and injustice. If she can say yes each day, by the grace of our Lord, we too can say yes.

“To join in Mary’s Yes at the foot of the cross is to declare oneself ready to undergo the Cross of Christ in whatever form one’s faith and circumstance might require.

To say Yes to that daunting possibility is not to know for certain that one possesses the capacity to carry through with that pledge. For the capacity to do so requires grace over which we have no control.

What we do have is the assurance that where sin – or evil or hardship or persecution – abound, grace superabounds.

That is all we need to know in order to commit with our feeble will to endure the Cross of Christ in whatever form it might take in our own lives and the premier place where the decision to do so is made at the Eucharist table of the Lord.”

The writer goes on to quote Adrienne von Speyer, a woman who had suffered greatly yet trusted Christ deeply:

“We must not fear this and let ourselves take back, in the night of suffering, the joy underlying this being allowed to suffer with Christ.

The joy may have been sent as a deposit; it may have become insensible; it must above all be there, even in the most profound suffering, as grateful joy that we know to be so profoundly anchored in the Lord that it does not disappear even when our whole capacity for feeling is required by the suffering.”

– Gil Bailie, “God’s Gamble: The Gravitational Power of Crucified Love” ‘Abide With Us’, pgs 348-9

Continue reading “Grace To Say Yes”

What Are Ways The YMCA Is For All In The Holy Land?

Since 1878 the YMCA has worked in Jerusalem to work for holy and loving peace among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as between international political and ethnic powers seeking to control the land.

There is still much more peace-making work to do in this place that sits at the center of the universe.

The Y is in the middle of it, striving to nurture loving, caring and serving with flourishing for all.

Let’s find a way to join in it.

The Holy Land is revered by millions of Jews around the world, along with billions of Christians and Muslims.

Jerusalem is a sacred city, the epicenter of the story of these three Abrahamic faiths that make up the majority of the world population.

The Psalms call us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem – one that we would all love to see answered in our lifetime.

For the religious among us, it’s almost as if Jerusalem is the center of the world, the point where heaven and earth have met, still meet, and one day will reconvene.

To be a peace-maker in the Holy Land is to embody the deepest hopes and calling of those who identify as children of Abraham.

And yet war, terror, fury, revenge, and hate corrode the foundations of what is most beautiful about the Holy Land.

So what is the YMCA doing in this land?

As an organization with Christian origins and heritage, with a commitment to living out the kingdom of God in the world harmoniously and for the common good, it ends up having a unique role in many communities across the world.

Especially in the Holy Land.

What does it mean for this kind of organization with this kind of Christian legacy to advocate for inclusivity amongst its membership and leadership?

At one level it creates space for Jews, Christians, and Muslims who do want to work, pray and play together to do so.

The synergy and love that develops around their efforts together not only becomes compelling attractive but healing as well as inspiring.

For those that feel like their only options are withdrawing from violence into safe enclaves of like-mindedness or wading into the conflict to show how right they are, there are other ways of being a peace-maker without being identical.

There are plenty of similarities and differences between the Jews, Christians, and Muslims who serve with the YMCA in the Holy Land.

But it’s the inclusive nature of the mission that both allows them to draw on the best of their faith traditions without requiring strict adherence to their religious doctrines or spiritual practices.

Mutual respect, compassionate caring, genuine honesty, and mature responsibility go a long way in allowing talented people of different faiths to do YMCA mission-work together.

Within Christian traditions, there can be the belief that God will only bless his people when they are holy and loving.

Thus there is always a striving to be more holy and more loving.

The problem is that these two desires can sometimes (often) cause conflict with each other.

Sometimes to be more holy I might feel the need to withdraw from those who are different or less pure than myself.

But to be more loving is to be more compassionate and healing to those least like me.

We can see this tension being played out in the stories of God’s people throughout recorded history. Including in the YMCA.

Since 1878 the YMCA has worked in Jerusalem to work for holy and loving peace among Jews, Christians, and Muslims as well as between international political and ethnic powers seeking to control the land.

There is still much more peace-making work to do in this place that sits at the center of the universe.

The Y is in the middle of it, striving to nurture loving, caring and serving with flourishing for all.

Let’s find a way to join in it.

(featured image is the domes of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the foreground, the Dome of the Rock mosque in the middle, and a Jewish cemetery in the far background)