When visiting the Old City of Jerusalem there are many essential rules by which one should abide. First of all make sure you have zippered pockets and hold your purse tightly, there are pick pockets everywhere. Second, don’t buy anything from a peddler, they will certainly rip you off. Third, if your with a group stay close together because it will get busy. This is no small feat because everyone cuts in line and everyone pushes and shoves. Sounds a lot like what Jesus taught, right?
The Christian quarter is a sight to see and these rules especially apply in the Christian quarter. Unlike the Jewish quarter and the Muslim quarter I was no longer just a tourist these were the tourist….. I mean, HOLY sites I had read about in Sunday school. These were the Christian sites that I have read and studied about all my life. Now that I am in seminary I am dedicating myself to a lifetime of studying and sharing these stories. It was incredible to see in person. The architecture dating back to what a scholar like myself refers to as “really old”, the art, the history, and evidence of devoted pilgrims desperately seeking the Messiah between these walls.
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It doesn’t stop there, however, there are other incredible features. Especially when visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is perhaps the most sacred site in all of Christianity. It is the place where Christ suffered death and was buried. Whether you believe Jesus was divine or not this is a site that most believe is truly the authentic site because it has been preserved over the course of history by varying circumstances. It was fascinating and beautiful. It contained beautiful domes, rotting wooden ladders, chapels, rusty scaffolding, mosaics, makeshift railroad tie construction, statues, plywood and monasteries. It really takes your breath away. By the end of the day I referred to it as the Church of the Holy Construction site.
Now, I know I can be crass but this is all true and it is truly a reflection on the Church today. This is the rock upon which the Church is built, literally. I know Jesus claims that it is Peter but the rock of Golgatha (where Jesus was crucified) can actually be touched through a small opening, so this is quite literally THE rock. The church is split between six different Christian groups; the Armenians, the Greeks, the Copts, the Roman Catholics, the Ethiopians, and the Syrians. Just picture a house with six siblings sharing a room fighting over which space belongs to them. It is so bad in fact that a Muslim family has served as the key holder of this holy site for several generations.
The result of these divisions are apparent in what is seen upon entering this site. The site is in obvious disrepair in many areas. An earthquake severely damaged the structure years ago and it still has not been repaired. Don’t roll up your sleeves and start a fundraising campaign just yet though. None of the controlling religious bodies can agree on just how to fix it or who will pay for what. It is therefore propped up and glued back together with duck tape and elmer’s glue (railroad ties literally holding together the chapel housing the tomb of Jesus). In fact there is a wooden ladder sitting above the entrance to the Church itself. It serves no purpose but to welcome you to this holy Christian site and no one will take it down so it sits there, rotting, year after year.
I have now come full circle. Walking in an ancient and sacred land I have carried my American problem solving skills on my back from day one. The Jews and the Muslims can’t get along and it makes no sense that it has come to this kind of violence. How horrible, they should be ashamed. If only they could model our church (yup, lower case c) and let something they hold sacred fall down around their ears because they hate each other so much, now that’s the model to follow. I was fascinated to find that the church is not Christ’s Church at all. To be honest it seemed to be such a metaphor for our Christian church (c, again) today. When the cracks appear over social statements, liturgical views, theology, or even paving the parking lot with that extra gift at Christmas we just tape and glue it up. We are no different than our Christian brothers and sisters at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The church is in this state because it isn’t Christ’s Church.
In a conversation tonight many of my fellow pilgrims began to debate how we keep people in our pews. Different strategies were proposed and debated. We glued some cracks, propped some scaffolding up, nailed plywood over a hole or two, and even propped a rotting wooden ladder by the entrance. What if we stopped strategizing and we just were THE Church, Christ’s Church? What if our church graduated to an upper case c and became truly Christ’s Church? Mission focused, mission minded, building on the rock of
God’s love and justice.
I had a chance to visit the Augusta Victoria Hospital after our visit to the Old City and I saw Christ’s Church. Augusta Victoria Hospital is a Lutheran hospital built in Israeli controlled Palestine. The Palestinian’s that live in the area suffer abysmal health care because they are unable to receive health care in Israeli hospitals (they don’t pay into the system because they are not residents of Israel). Now there are many dynamics to this situation and divided views politically here and at home (oops, there’s a crack, just slap a railroad tie on that) but before this hospital provided help to this community cancer was only known as “that disease”. Today Augusta Victoria provides technical health care services like mobile mammogram units, radiology, intensive care, bone marrow transplant, and elder care. At best, less than only 1% of those receiving care are Christian. No one proselytizes to them, they treat them and hopefully heal them. They are not given God’s word, they are shown God’s word.
Christ’s Church is a Church of the word. We love our story, we cherish our story, and we want to (and we should) share it with the world but we have to start somewhere. Today I visited two church’s, both were breathtaking, both have some work to do, but one truly displayed the resurrection of our Lord and Savior today.
Salām, Peace, and Shalom -
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