JESUS CHALLENGED EMPIRE WITH COMMUNITY RENEWAL,
SABEEL CONFERENCE IS TOLD

Bethlehem, Occupied West Bank — “Jesus was a Palestinian under imperial rule,” Dr. Richard Horsley told 240 participants in the Eighth Sabeel International Conference here. “Just as the modern state of Israel and other states in the Middle East were the creation of Western colonialism, so the ancient temple-state in Judea” was set up by foreign powers, Horsley said. The conference has gathered at the Bethlehem Hotel under the theme, “Challenging Empire: God, Faithfulness and Resistance.” Sabeel is the ecumenical liberation theology center based in Jerusalem.

Horsley described Jesus as a community organizer working to renew in village communities a commitment to the covenant laws of God. He said, “all of the Gospels … portray Jesus as having the same basic agenda, the renewal of the people of Israel in opposition to the Jerusalem and Roman rulers of the people.” Jesus’ program “tapped into the people’s deeply rooted cultural traditions,” he said. Horsley is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and the Study of Religion, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA.

The Rev. Christopher Ferguson, United Church of Canada, said the gospel message “has been grabbed and imperialized, the message of liberation made to destroy and oppress.”

Ferguson said, “Freedom is the message of the Jesus movement. Where we stand is resisting empire with the Palestinian people. It is not an optional extra but at the core of our faith and our relationship to God.”

The Rev. Mitri Raheb preached at the Wi’am Center in Bethlehem. He spoke to the familiar text from the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,” saying it would more correctly be translated, “for they shall inherit the land.” Raheb is the pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church and president of the Diyar Consortium in Bethlehem.

“We really think empire will last. Jesus says it will not,” Raheb said. “How wise Jesus was. No one of Jesus’ time would have imagined that Herod was not here to stay. Jesus tells us through this verse that we are released from the power of empire. Jesus speaks and empire has lost its power over us. We see it in the Arab world in these recent weeks. Young people saw that empire could be shattered. God won’t do it alone, only with us.”

The Rev. Naim Ateek, director of Sabeel, told participants Wednesday, “Today if you stand for justice and truth, you will be attacked. Churches suffer from weakness of the prophetic. Israel wants you silent, then you are okay. Once you speak out, immediately you will be attacked. Then the question is, Can you stand? And I thank God for every person who does that.”

The Sabeel International Conference continues at the Bethlehem Hotel through Monday, 28 February.

Challenging Empire:
God, Faithfulness and Resistance

will take place in Bethlehem, February 23-28, 2011. The focus will be on one of the most cutting edge issues in today’s world, one that touches on both religion and politics: Empire.
Since 1967, the Palestinians have become conscious of their life under a hegemonic American empire with Israel as an essential extension of its power, strategically located in the heart of the Middle East.

With friends from all over the world, we want to reflect on this phenomenon. How can we be faithful to God as we face the challenge of empire? What does radical Christian discipleship mean for us today and for all who live in the shadow of global empire? How do we resist faithfully and non-violently alongside people of all faiths and none?

What is truly exciting has been the growing awareness amongst biblical scholars and theologians of the different manifestations of empire. Their work has inspired us at Sabeel and alerted us to the dangers and threats of empire and challenged us to look at it in light of the Kingdom of God.

A number of prominent theologians, local and international, will help us translate and contextualize the relevance of this topic to our daily life. Confirmed speakers include:

Richard Horsley, author of ‘Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder.’

John Dear, Jesuit priest, pastor, peacemaker, organizer, lecturer, retreat leader and author of ‘ Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action ’

Mazin Qumsiyeh, Professor, Bethlehem & Birzeit Universities. Author of ‘ Popular Resistance in Palestine ’ and “Sharing the Land of Canaan ‘

Thabo Magkoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town.

Naim Ateek, Director of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center.

Chris Ferguson, Executive for the WCC United Nations Liaison Office

Ched Myers will be our Bible Study leader
Author of “Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus,” Ched has been an organizer and advocate who has for 30 years been challenging and supporting Christians to engage in peace and justice work and radical discipleship.”

Jafar Farah, Director of the Mossawa Center
Themes include:
Mapping Empire; Tactics of Empire; Jesus and Empire; Spirituality for Resistance
Faith in Action; A Vision for the Future

Worship by the Wall and in Bethlehem and Jerusalem

On Site Visits:
Hebron, the Old City of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, refugee camps, the Wall, checkpoints, Palestinian villages, Sheikh Jarrah and more.

Choose one of two optional Post-Conference Tours including:
Jerusalem; Galilee; Dead Sea; Jericho

Cost of the Conference:

$1050 (€750, £660) for single room
$950 (€680, £600) for double room

Cost includes room and meals for 6 nights (Feb. 23 thru March 1, breakfast), registration, on site visits and all related materials.

Registration                                Conference Brochure                                     Conference Program

Bethlehem, Occupied West Bank – About 200 international participants came to Bethlehem today for the Eighth Sabeel International Conference. The group gathered at the Bethlehem Hotel under the theme, “Challenging Empire: God, Faithfulness and Resistance.” Sabeel is the ecumenical liberation theology center based in Jerusalem.

Ambassador Hind Khoury told the group that they could not be meeting at a more interesting moment in history, “a historical moment for us Palestinians and Arabs, for empire and for the world. While the situation Palestine has been dramatic for too long, events are now snowballing in front of our eyes planting the seeds of change for the region and forever.” Khoury is the former ambassador to France from the Palestinian Authority and serves on the Sabeel Board of Directors.

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh’s task was Mapping Empire Today in Palestine and Israel, citing “The 13 percent of Bethlehem that is the concentration camp we (Palestinians) are allowed to live in,” while the remainder is either zoned out of bounds or “illegally annexed.” Israel continues building its Wall, which in Bethlehem is 60-70 percent complete. Qumsiyeh is a professor at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities.

The Rev. Alison Tomin and Deacon Eunice Attwood, president and vice-president respectively of the Methodist Church in Britain, discussed the process that led to adoption of an important report and resolutions on justice and peace for Palestine and Israel at last summer’s Methodist Conference.

Jericho – In the middle of a cold, rainy winter, Sabeel organized a one day women’s program to warm, sunny Jericho in the West Bank. 120 Palestinian Christian women joined in the field trip: 49 women came from Nazareth, 67 from Jerusalem and 8 from Ramallah, while later in the day around a dozen Christian women from Jericho joined in.
The program started with a visit to the Jericho Coptic Church, where Father Antonios from the Coptic church in Jerusalem gave a bible study from John 15:18-21, adding his own reflection about Palestinian Christians’ current situation in the Middle East. The next stop was the Catholic Church, where Father Ibrahim Sabbagh warmly welcomed the women with a brief explanation about the church’s history, its members and recent activities. The last church visit was to Orthodox Church in Jericho.
The morning ended with a short introduction to Sabeel’s 8th International Conference by Rev. Naim Ateek. Afterwards, the women were divided into twelve discussion groups and given three questions to stimulate their thinking and to further their interaction and knowledge of each other.
After lunch, Mrs. Vera Pano from Jericho gave a short lecture about the health status of women in Jericho and the difficulties they face due to the closure and checkpoints.
Later, the women visited the YWCA Kindergarten and Preschool at Aqbet Jaber refugee camp. Mrs. Irma Darwish, the Director of the YWCA, introduced its activities and the services they provide. The women were very moved, and collected an offering to support the wonderful work that the YWCA is doing in the refugee camp.
At the end of the day, everyone had the opportunity for free time in Jericho.

The young adults from the West Bank were able to join only because they had permits to enter Israel over the Christmas season, which, for them meant a once-a-year opportunity to take part in this fellowship.
The weekend was a great fun time for all the young people as they joined in volunteer work, cleaning around the ancient Church on the site of the home of Hannah- the mother of Mary at the depopulated village of Saffuriya. There was singing, dancing, Bible study at Stella Maris on Mt. Carmel, exploring the Baha’i Gardens on the slopes of Mt. Carmel.
As the young people sat overlooking Haifa Bay and the Mediterranean Sea, they discussed their lives in the different places they came from – Ramallah – Bethlehem- East Jerusalem.

by Samia Khoury

Sabeel organized on the 5th of January 2011 a special Ecumenical memorial service at St. Stephen’s Dominican Church in Jerusalem for the victims of the Coptic

It was a very meaningful service with the readings carefully chosen and the intercessions especially written for the occasion. The young woman who led us in the singing had a beautiful voice which added a special aura to the solemn event that we were gathered for. And as we lit the candles, I could not help but wonder who is going to be next. It was only last November that we also had another service organized by Sabeel in memory of the victims of the Catholic Church in Baghded, Iraq.

The Christians of the Middle East are in fact the first Christians. They are the followers of Jesus Christ who was born in Bethlehem. That is why we are often surprised when people inquire about when and how we were converted to Christianity. I remember writing a reflection in February 2006 on behalf of Sabeel for the Presbyterian Church in the USA Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study. I started it with the following paragraph: “The message of Jesus was launched from this Holy Land, to spread east and west, and has come back to us dressed in various new garbs. It has taken root in foreign soil, and has sprouted in different shapes, colors, and flavors. Sometimes, its original garment is hardly recognizable to us indigenous Christians of the land who are rapidly decreasing in number due to Israeli restrictions and political instability.”

Not only did this message come back in a different garment, but it came back to us with the wave of colonialism and split the indigenous Christian Church. Even new born babies started to carry foreign names, making it easy to identify the faith of a person from his or her name. Despite that, we continued to remain Arabs, whether Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese , Iraqis, Egyptians etc. And we remain Christians, faithful to both our country and our faith. In fact some of the outstanding leaders of Arab Nationalism were Christians. I am not writing a historical document to list all those who were involved, but I am trying to reflect on who benefits from this kind of extremism that is tearing the region apart by driving a wedge between the indigenous Christians of the Middle East region and their Muslim compatriots?

I remember after 1967 when the Palestinian Territories fell under the Israeli occupation, how easily the doors of the USA were opened for Palestinian emigration- mostly Christians- from the Palestinian Territories. Now all efforts with a variety of tools and strange hands are playing to split the people in each of the Middle East countries under the guise of political freedom and democracy. The basic policy of the colonial powers has always been “divide and rule”. So it is not strange that the powers who have succeeded in tearing up the whole Middle East into small states, and their allies or collaborators, are still at work fragmenting each state into political, ethnic and religious conflicts. When the masses lose hope in the absence of freedom, independence and stability, the ground becomes very fertile for extremism that could be used in different ways.

So hopefully both Christians and Muslims of the region are aware of who is at the root of all this, and that all learned people, lay, clergy along with Muslim clerics will engage in a campaign of building awareness to quench the fire that has been ignited as a result of those bloody massacres, so that we do not need to worry who will be next. It only takes a spark and then God help us, if it turns into a conflagration.

we are glad to present you with our 2010 Narrative Report. I would like to refer to a few highlights. Last February, our third national clergy conference was held in Jericho. Over fifty bishops and clergy from the various church denominations attended in a wonderful expression of ecumenism. On the second day of the conference, approximately forty Muslim clerics, including the Grand Mufti, joined us for the full day. This amazing experience opened the way for a number of Christian-Muslim workshops that followed during the year.

Another exciting conference took place toward the end of the summer. The 3rd national women’s conference was organized in Bethlehem with excellent women speakers from both the West Bank and Galilee.

Although we count our blessings when we think of these local conferences, workshops, ecumenical services and a variety of other activities, 2010 was a difficult year financially for Sabeel. While we carried on our ministries in the community here and abroad, trusting in the Lord to provide, we are still short of the necessary amount to cover all expenses.

On behalf of the Sabeel board and staff, I would like to express my thanks to all our friends and partners who have been faithful in their support of the ministry of Sabeel. In spite of the general global financial situation, we appreciate your continued stand with us as we work for justice, interfaith relations, and the building of the Christian community on strong ecumenical ground… Read More

Sabeel Celebrated the 15th Ecumenical Christmas Dinner on Saturday, December 18, 2010 at the Terra Santa Center in Beit Hanina, with more than 230 people from all around Jerusalem.

“…to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79)

One of the beautiful images about peace comes from the song of Zechariah after the birth of his son, John the Baptist (Luke 1: 68-79). At the end of this song, Zechariah utters a prayer, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

During this Christmas Season and as 2010 draws to a close, we feel like the people in Isaiah’s time, “…justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead. We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us” (Is. 59:9-11). The level of frustration, fear, and violence has intensified both in Israel-Palestine as well as among the countries of the Middle East. We stand in grief and disappointment at the failure of all peace initiatives. Many of us hoped that President Obama would be able to set our two peoples – the Israelis and Palestinians – on the course of peace. Regretfully, that has not happened so far. In the words of the song of Zechariah, our people continue to “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” In the midst of such despair and agony, our cry goes up to God for help.

The responsibility for achieving peace lies on both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. For peace to prevail, both need to sacrifice and compromise. It has become politically clear that the Palestinian leadership has already made a compromise by accepting the establishment of their state alongside the state of Israel, on 22% of the area of historic Palestine. The problem today lies with the unwillingness of the government of Israel to respect the demands of international law. The Israeli government values land more than peace, settlement building more than human rights. It uses peace rhetoric while daily it devours Palestinian land. Indeed, its feet are not guided by the way of peace. One is reminded again of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace” (Is. 59:8).

We believe that the coming of Jesus Christ has shown us the way of peace; and he can guide our feet into the way of peace. Peace requires commitment and sacrifice. It must be built on truth, justice, and mercy. It must have love as its logic. It must not crush the enemy. It must see God in the face of the other, even the enemy. Whenever active resistance is required, it must employ nonviolent means in order to breakdown the injustice and oppression. Ultimately, in order for peace to endure, what we love for ourselves, we must love for others – even our enemies. Only on such a basis, can peace be built.

What is required by the international community is to pressure the leaders of the state of Israel to walk the way of peace. All our people, Israelis and Palestinians, long and crave for peace. Indeed, it is within our reach. Let us continue to pray and work for its realization.
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9).

Naim Ateek
Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem

‘ …to guide our feet into the way of peace ‘ (Luke 1:79)

One of the beautiful images about peace comes from the song of Zechariah after the birth of his son, John the Baptist (Luke 1: 68-79). At the end of this song, Zechariah utters a prayer, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

During this Christmas Season and as 2010 draws to a close, we feel like the people in Isaiah’s time, “…justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead. We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us” (Is. 59:9-11). The level of frustration, fear, and violence has intensified both in Israel-Palestine as well as among the countries of the Middle East. We stand in grief and disappointment at the failure of all peace initiatives. Many of us hoped that President Obama would be able to set our two peoples – the Israelis and Palestinians – on the course of peace. Regretfully, that has not happened so far. In the words of the song of Zechariah, our people continue to “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” In the midst of such despair and agony, our cry goes up to God for help.

The responsibility for achieving peace lies on both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. For peace to prevail, both need to sacrifice and compromise. It has become politically clear that the Palestinian leadership has already made a compromise by accepting the establishment of their state alongside the state of Israel, on 22% of the area of historic Palestine. The problem today lies with the unwillingness of the government of Israel to respect the demands of international law. The Israeli government values land more than peace, settlement building more than human rights. It uses peace rhetoric while daily it devours Palestinian land. Indeed, its feet are not guided by the way of peace. One is reminded again of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace” (Is. 59:8).

We believe that the coming of Jesus Christ has shown us the way of peace; and he can guide our feet into the way of peace. Peace requires commitment and sacrifice. It must be built on truth, justice, and mercy. It must have love as its logic. It must not crush the enemy. It must see God in the face of the other, even the enemy. Whenever active resistance is required, it must employ nonviolent means in order to breakdown the injustice and oppression. Ultimately, in order for peace to endure, what we love for ourselves, we must love for others – even our enemies. Only on such a basis, can peace be built.

What is required by the international community is to pressure the leaders of the state of Israel to walk the way of peace. All our people, Israelis and Palestinians, long and crave for peace. Indeed, it is within our reach. Let us continue to pray and work for its realization.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God” (Matt. 5:9).

Naim Ateek

Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem