"Today there are apricots" -- Sermon for 5 Easter 2017
Sermon for 5 Easter 2017: 14 May 2017
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer,
Jerusalem
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Did you remember
that it’s still Easter? We all know Lent lasts forty days, but it’s easy to
forget that the Easter season lasts for a full fifty days. We continue to
celebrate the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ until Pentecost on Sunday,
4 June, a feast whose very name means “fifitieth.”
 |
| Apricots (mishsmish) being sold outside Damascus Gate 12 May 2017 |
So yes, this
is still the Easter season! This is the Alleluia season! This is the season of
resurrection and new life! Furthermore, this is the season of the impossible,
for I can report that I purchased a kilo of apricots two days ago in the
markets outside Damascus Gate.
As you may know, in Arabic, if you want to say
something will never happen, you say “tomorrow there will be apricots”, because
the harvest season is so short. But today, we will not say “bukra fil mishmish”
(tomorrow there will be apricots). Today we say “hella fil mishmish” (Now there
are apricots!) Amen!
Today peace
is possible!
Today there
will be justice and equality for all!
Today the
prisoners will be freed!
Today there
is healing and wholeness and life, for all who believe!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Dear sisters
and brothers, today Christ is risen, he is risen indeed! And yet even for the
faithful it is often difficult to live into this reality, because we must contend
with death every day. Christ is risen, and yet there are tombs, there are
stones, and there are walls that stand in our path every day. Christ is risen,
and yet there is oppression, and hatred, and war to contend with every day.
Christ is
risen, and yet we must contend with the occupation every single day.
Yesterday
afternoon, as I left the home of some church members after a pastoral visit, I
attempted to leave the Old City through Damascus Gate. But as I approached the
gate, I saw crowds of people blocking the entrance. There had just been a stabbing
of a policeman near the Chain Gate, followed by the killing of the alleged
perpetrator, and all gates in and out of the city were closed as a result.
As I stood
there in the heat, contemplating what to do next, I heard several Europeans talking
excitedly around me. They were tourists who did not receive security alerts on
their phones, so they had no idea something had happened. When their questions
to passersby were met with confused looks, I stepped in to help.
“The gate is
closed,” I said. “In fact, all the gates are closed. You’ll have to wait.”
“But what happened?”
said the woman from France. When I explained the situation, she asked, “Is this
normal??”
Yes, I said.
Sadly, yes it is.
Then the
very tall man from Norway stood up even taller and proclaimed to all who would
hear, “Well I think this is outrageous!”
Amen!
Closed gates
are outrageous! Stabbing in the name of freedom is outrageous! The Nakba was
and is outrageous! Fifty years of military occupation is outrageous! Death and oppression
and racism and killing in the name of God, and trying to make peace through war
are all outrageous!
And yes, while
I would never call it “normal”, this is the status quo—even in this city, the
City of the Resurrection.
Yes, Christ
is risen, and still there is death to contend with: not only on days of
violence in Jerusalem, and not only on Good Friday. My fellow missionary here
in Jerusalem lost her father suddenly on Friday and is now on
her way to Oklahoma for his funeral. The 11-year old son of a fellow pastor died
of a rare and swift-moving cancer earlier in the week. One thousand five hundred Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are in their fourth week of a
hunger strike, hoping to draw attention to the policy of “administrative detention”,
a policy which is in direct violation of international law.
And while this
is the day honored in my home country as Mother’s Day, here in Jerusalem and
the West Bank we are honoring Nakba Day—69 years since the event that Palestinians
call “the catastrophe”.
There is
death to contend with, every day. And this is what makes it so difficult to
remember that the Easter season lasts fifty days. This is what makes it so hard
to remember that we live in a post-resurrection world, and we are an Easter
people.
And how then
shall we live? How do we find voices to sing our Easter “Alleluias” in such a
world?
Today, I
give thanks for the gift of Holy Scripture. I give thanks for the Living Word,
the book that Martin Luther called “the cradle wherein Christ himself is laid” for
it is a powerful answer to the world’s proclamations of hatred, death, and
destruction. The Living Word of God reminds us that while there is death to contend
with every day, there is also life to encounter every day. The Living Word of
God looks the culture of death in the face and proclaims: “No! Today, there
will be peace! Today, there will be love! Today, there will be room at the
table for all! Today, there is resurrection!”
Today, there
are apricots! Amen!
I especially
want to lift up the reading we heard this morning from the second chapter of 1
Peter. Now this is a passage that may not immediately engage us today, as it
draws on images and phrases that were meaningful to 1st Century
Christians, but which are not so familiar to us now. I doubt any of you have
used the phrases “spiritual milk” or “holy priesthood” in your recent conversations,
for example.
And yet, as
strange as this reading may seem initially, it is a powerful antidote to the
awful daily presence of death in our lives. This passage encourages us and
strengthens us to live in a world where we encounter both Good Friday and
Easter Sunday every single day. Above all, this Living Word of God empowers us
to see ourselves as living stones in a world that often treats us as dead weight.
Hear again
the words of 1 Peter chapter 2:
“Like
newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow
into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him,
a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s
sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,
to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ.”
Come to him…and
like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.
 |
| Israeli soldiers in the Old City, May 2017 |
I find these
words to be powerful and empowering in this moment in time. These days, I often
feel more like gravel than a living stone. More and more, I find myself
struggling to know what to say and what to do in a world where extremism and fascism
are gaining popularity, in a time when leaders call concern for the environment
ridiculous, and in a city which is simultaneously gearing up for and ignoring what
promises to be a tumultuous commemoration of fifty years of occupation.
Dear sisters
and brothers, even though we live in a post-resurrection world, and even though
I am called, ordained, commissioned and paid to preach the Easter Good News, I
often feel small and insignificant at the entrance to these tombs. I often feel
like a newborn infant, unable to do much more than pray and hope for something
different to happen.
But this
passage from 1 Peter reminds me that although I may feel like a newborn in the
faith, God provides all the nourishment I need to grow strong in faith and
courage. God has given us the Holy Scriptures. God has placed us in this community
of faith to support us, even far away from home. And the Risen Christ comes
near to the faithful, again and again, in the bread and the wine. Therefore, although
we have seen that the world is often ugly, and people are often broken, we have also tasted and seen that the Lord is
good. Amen!
1 Peter also
reminds us that although the church may seem weak in number compared to the
armies of death and destruction, Christ our cornerstone is building us up into
something great. Christ our cornerstone is building us up into a spiritual
house: a refuge for the lost, a home for the weary, and a mighty fortress where
truth, justice, and reconciliation can flourish.
“Let yourselves
be built into a spiritual house,” it says, and this reminds me that I don’t
have to be the whole house all by myself. I don’t have to possess the solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or discover the cure to cancer or make
peace in Syria all by myself. Small as I am, I trust that the Risen Lord is using
me, together will all the faithful, to build a house of love and life, in a
world which worships death and destruction.
Hear again
the Good News: There is death to contend with every day—but because Christ is
risen, there is also life to encounter every day. Amen!
On Wednesday
of this week, I was invited to sit with the wife of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Mrs. Caroline Welby, at a gathering of Palestinian Christian women.
This gathering was intended as a space for the women to share their stories
with Mrs. Welby. Her assistant began by smiling widely and asking the guests, “We
would like to hear your stories of joy. What do you enjoy about being a Christian and a Palestinian and a woman?”
For some
very long moments, the only thing you could hear at that table was the clinking
of coffee cups and the munching of ma’moul cookies. It felt to me—and apparently
did to the others as well—that Mrs. Welby wanted to edit their stories before
they were even told. She did not want to hear about ugly things.
Finally, one
of the women spoke up.
“Let me tell
you how it is to be a Palestinian Christian Woman.”
And one by
one, the women did just that.
They told of
humiliation at the checkpoints.
They told of
losing their homes and their dignity.
They told of
pressure from increasing radical beliefs on all sides—from both Muslim and Jewish
neighbors.
 |
| Palestinian Christian women sharing their stories with Mrs. Welby |
They told how,
as Palestinian Christian women, they must contend with death and despair, every
single day.
And yet, as
they spoke, it became clear that each woman’s story of struggle was also a
story of life. Each was a story of strength and courage, persistence and faith
in the face of death. Each story was a powerful witness to the presence of both
Good Friday and Easter in their lives of faith.
All the
women at the table happened to be mothers, and the great majority of their children
have chosen to leave this country. But one woman said that she encouraged her
kids as they left for college in Europe: “You will come back! In another country, you will be seen as a number.
You will be just another Arab. But here, you are somebody. This is where our
faith was born. This is where Christ was risen! We are not intruders in this
land.”
And then, an
elderly bishop’s wife told how, as a young woman, she was once humiliated because
her skirt was ripped as she walked through rocks and tangled weeds at a
checkpoint. The soldiers pointed and laughed because her underwear was showing
through the back—but she just twirled the skirt around so the hole was in the
front and walked on through. “From that day forward,” she said, “I just decided
to wear trousers.”
Dear
friends, be encouraged.
Do not let
your heart be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Come to him…and
like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. Taste and
see that the Lord is good!
Yes, there
is death to contend with every day. But because Christ is risen, every day also
brings new life, new hope, new faith. Death does not have the last word—and neither
will war, or prison, or illness, or fascism, or sexism, or lies.
Our story does
not end in catastrophe!
Today,
there are apricots!
Today peace
is possible!
Today the
wall will fall!
Today the
prisoners will be freed!
Today there
is healing and wholeness and life, for all who believe!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
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