{"id":1800,"date":"2018-05-05T23:40:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T20:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2018-09-26T07:46:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:46:01","slug":"reflections-by-charlie-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2018\/05\/reflections-by-charlie-lewis\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections by Charlie Lewis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, May 5, 2018 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Pilgrims of Ibillin\/ Living Stones<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is my second pilgrimage in two years with Pilgrims of Ibillin.\u00a0 Having \u201ccome and seen\u201d previously with my wife, Ann, and two sons, it\u2019s gratifying to be returning with a wonderful group of 25 people from my church and presbytery who are also having the opportunity to \u201cCome and See\u201d and then \u201cGo (home) and Tell\u201d what we have experienced and observed on this educational pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been incredibly eye-opening,\u201d is the most common response I\u2019ve heard in asking group members their impressions.\u00a0 Every person we have met so far \u2013 Israeli and Palestinian \u2013 have helped peel away some of the scales from our eyes, as Ananias did for Saul during his conversion, giving us much more clarity where our sight was limited.<\/p>\n

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Father Firas Khoury Diab with our guide, Usama Nicola<\/p><\/div>\n

One of those people who has helped peel away the scales from our eyes is the gentle, kind, and humorous Melkite (Greek Catholic) priest, Father Firas Khoury Diab, from the Palestinian town of Zebabdeh where we stayed last night.\u00a0 \u201cWhen scripture calls us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 22),\u201d Father Firas says, \u201cmany Israelis and Americans seem to think this prayer is only for Jews.\u00a0 But God wants us to pray for Palestinians as well who are also under God\u2019s caring eye.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAnd when we read the Bible,\u201d Father Firas adds, \u201cwe do not read it through a political lens.\u00a0 \u00a0We are reading it with the eyes of Jesus.\u201d Palestinian Christians, in other words, do not read the Bible to defend one people having a \u201cGod-given right\u201d to the land while the other does not.\u00a0\u00a0 The land, after-all, belongs to God (Psalm 24:1) and not to any one group exclusively.\u00a0No, when we read the Bible through the lens of Jesus\u2019 life and teaching, Father Firas would say, we discover that our Lord came to preach good news to those who are poor, discriminated against, demeaned, and dehumanized. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is this Jesus whose primary purpose was to free those held captive (Luke 4:16ff).\u00a0\u00a0In concrete, incarnational terms today, it is to liberate those held under ongoing military occupation, numerous human rights violations, land confiscation, and illegal settlement expansions (with UN reports saying 39% of Palestinian lands in the West Bank are under the control of Israel prohibiting any Palestinian construction – also contrary to international law).\u00a0\u00a0 All of this is carried out with impunity.\u00a0 \u00a0When we read the Bible through the lens of Jesus and not the lens of politics or a distorted theology, we simply cannot be pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian.\u00a0\u00a0 We must instead be pro-peace for all and pro-justice for all.\u00a0 \u00a0This is the only faithful reading of the Bible.\u00a0This is the message of the prophets and of Jesus himself!<\/p>\n

Having our eyes opened and seeing though the lens of Jesus, I don\u2019t know of a single member of our group who has not been aware of the strong pro-Israel bias that has shaped American thinking.\u00a0 But we have had the opportunity to balance this by hearing stories from our Palestinian Christian brothers and sisters, observing the conditions under which they live.\u00a0\u00a0 They are oppressive conditions that our current Secretary of Defense, James Mattis has used the term \u201capartheid\u201d to describe (at the Aspen Conference in 2014).\u00a0 These are the unjust conditions that General David Petraeus cautioned must be addressed if our country is to be an honest broker and not act in unfair ways that have become a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda and ISIS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need you to keep praying for your fellow Christians in Palestine,\u201d Father Firas, urges us, \u201cand for your prayers to turn to action.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe love this land and the people of this land (both Israeli and Palestinian) and your presence here helps us feel encouraged that we have brothers and sisters in Christ who care about our struggle.\u00a0\u00a0 We can survive because we have friends, friends who do not forget us.\u201d<\/p>\n

We, in turn, are not only honored to be called friends of the remarkable Christ-like Palestinian witnesses we\u2019ve met, like Father Firas, but we are also bound by our faith to see life through their eyes and to make room in our hearts for both Israelis and Palestinian who are seeking a just, sustainable peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, May 5, 2018 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Pilgrims of Ibillin\/ Living Stones This is my second pilgrimage in two years with Pilgrims of Ibillin.\u00a0 Having \u201ccome and seen\u201d previously with my wife, Ann, and two sons, it\u2019s gratifying to be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-april-may-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}