Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Interfaith Peacemakers Summit with Safi Kaskas & Friends - by Brad Jersak

“Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called children of God.”

—Jesus

I write this testimony of God’s grace while the events are still fresh in my mind and warm in my heart.

For the anniversary of 9-11, I was invited to participate in an international gathering of Peacemakers from the three major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism), including various scholars, activists, imams, and rabbis from across the globe. The title of the conference was "PEACE through the Reconciliation of Our Holy Books"  

It was truly an amazing and beautiful day! 

I was so thrilled with each of the presenters and, just as much, their attentive and gracious responses to one another.

I was personally very moved by Dr. Safi Kaskas’ leadership. My Muslim brother and Qur’anic scholar spoke some very kind words about our first encounters that brought back precious memories. 

I was very impressed by the quality of the speakers that Safi assembled, and all on such short notice that we both recognized God’s hand in swinging open these doors to dialogue.

The speakers showed remarkable expertise and clarity about many pressing issues in the world today and an uncanny knack for addressing tender topics without condemnation of the Other. This was evident as we expressed remorse for the sins of our own movements, along with the willingness to advocate for the vulnerable.

Specifically, Muslim representatives denounced the violence done on September 11 by fellow radicalized Muslims, Christian representatives repudiated our violent response through the so-called “war on terror,” and Rabbi Lynn, for example, issued a clear call for the state of Israel to repent and practice equity toward the Palestinian people.    

In some ways, none of that surprised me, but I was delighted that several of the talks (back-to-back, unplanned except in heaven) brought into focus the injustices done toward indigenous people and the need for reparations. There was nothing in Safi’s invitation that indicated we should or could ‘go there,’ but I had the strong sense that it was a topic heavy on God’s heart and his people were tuned in.

All of that was very, very good. But I want to shift to the highlight of the day, when the ‘felt presence’ of God flooded our solemn assembly with joy and tears.

Our friend Mercy Aiken, a Christian peace activist and bridgebuilder, began to expound on Jesus’ words from Luke 19. She said, “On his way to the cross, we read about one of the few times that we hear Jesus wept. He is approaching Jerusalem, and the gospel says,

⁴¹ And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, ⁴² saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Mercy emphasized that phrase, “Now they are hidden from your eyes,” to lament the terrible spiritual blindness that has caused each of the Abrahamic religions to choose hatred, violence, and war over “the things that make for peace.” The fact that the way to peace has remained hidden to us is both tragic and obvious, especially when we consider Jerusalem as a geographical and symbolic center for millennia of conflicts… between the very faiths gathered at the conference.

Through those words, a powerful sense of sobriety descended and in my headphones, I heard quiet groans of awareness expressed. What are we to do? At just the right moment, Mercy began to spontaneously intercede that the Holy Spirit would mercifully open our eyes and draw us back onto the way of peace.      

And then I was stunned to tears, as were others, as she responded to her own challenge with a song of invocation—a Muslim worship chorus—“Open Your Eyes” by Maher Zain. I believe she sang these lyrics:

Open our eyes, our hearts and minds 
If we just look right, we'll see the signs 
We can't keep hiding from the truth
And let it take us by surprise
Protect us in the best way
Guide us every single day
Keep us close to You 
Until the end of time

(please watch the full song HERE and I have embedded it at the end of this article) 

Tears began to stream down my cheeks; I saw others wiping their eyes; an Imam posted Jesus’ words into the group chat; and as soon as Mercy finished, one of the Muslim men asked, “Could you also please sing a song for our Christian and Jewish brothers and sisters?”

Mercy responded, “Well, that sone really was meant for all of us… But I did think about that, too, in case it came up. So here is a song from the Jewish Scriptures that Christians also love to sing:

For Thou, O Lord, art high above all the earth
Thou art exalted far above all gods
For Thou, o Lord, art high above all the earth
Thou art exalted far above all gods

I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee, O Lord
I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee
I exalt Thee, O Lord

(you can see this song HERE and again, it's embedded at the end)

I could tell we were on holy ground, in a transcendent moment—we were encountering the heart of God as constructive dialogue gave way to worship in spirit and in truth, described and yes, prophesied by Jesus when he said in John 4 (MSG),

^{21 “}The time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

^23-24 “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

How did we get there? I believe it’s because God’s heart for peace and justice must be so broken that one whiff of that aroma draws his manifest presence in a heartbeat. So many of our religious meetings have not only ignored peace and justice—worldwide, our churches (I’ve seen it), synagogues, and mosques alike have been infested with hate, propaganda, and sermons encouraging vengeance and death-dealing. It’s an ancient problem.

The Jewish prophet Amos (5:21-24 MSG), speaking for God, prophesies,

“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image-making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

In my view, this conference served as an act of living repentance for just that problem.

This gathering exceeded my expectations, and I believe the individual recordings (forthcoming) will make a powerful series with the potential for long-term and widespread impact. Even better, I pray that our encounter would lead to lasting new friendships and created networks that extend beyond what we can ask or imagine... and that those who watch will experience the insights and wonder that were such a gift to me.

With love and gratitude,

Bradley Jersak

Conference Participants             

HOSTS:
Nahid Saiyed
Paul Armstrong

SPEAKERS:
Safi Kaskas
Brad Jersak
Samira Benturki Saidi
Mark Braverman
Muhammad Eissa
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Tariq Mustafa
Mercy Aiken
Dawud Abdur-Rahman
Rabbi Steve Weisman
Daisy Khan

 SONG 1 - "Open Your Eyes"

Song 2 - "I Exalt Thee"

Walking Between Layers of Time -- Return to Bethlehem -- Mercy Aiken

If I’ve learned one thing living in Bethlehem, it is that someday the streets I walk down will be unearthed by archeologists. We are all walking in between layers of time, over the stories of those who’ve gone before us and beneath the stories of who will follow. In this land, I can already feel the weight of the histories to come hovering lightly above me. Stories are easily lost. This awareness makes me long to learn the stories of today and pass them along as I am able.

To excavate the recent history of this land requires patience, imagination, a penchant for wandering in libraries and bookstores and a listening ear–perhaps to the old lady sitting next to you on the bus or the man who sells coffee in the street.

It seems that everyone who lives in Palestine and Israel, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jew has an interesting or heart-rending story to tell of depopulated villages, or the old way to prepare date jam, a murdered family member, living under curfew, a song that a shepherd used to sing to his sheep, a demolished home, what Gaza looked like when she was a child, why his family made Aliyah, how she got into reconciliation and peacemaking.

I arrived here for the first time in the fall of 2015 because I was desperate to understand the stories of this land; garbled and contradictory as they were on the other side of the ocean. I suspect that I carried a subconscious awareness of my need to make sense of what is happening here, and in so doing perhaps I would make greater sense of my own faith.

I remember well my second day at BethBC. One moment I was taking a photo of my feet on the gorgeous tiled floor of my office and the next I was nervously peering out the window at the large group of kuffiyeh-wrapped young men chanting as they walked down the street towards the Separation Wall. A moment later the sound of their chants was drowned out by the explosive sound of something. I cautiously crept outside with some of my co-workers but we quickly retreated indoors. So that’s what tear gas smells–and feels—like!

“Welcome to Palestine” said my co-workers wryly as they quickly shut the windows.

I quickly became accustomed to tear gas and skunk water –crowd dispersal methods used by the IDF against demonstrators—and learned to not go anywhere without a scarf around my neck or in my bag. After a few months of what became daily demonstrations in front of the college, I was explaining it to other visitors in the cool manner of one who’d been around such things my entire life. “That’s a rubber bullet–and that’s a tear gas canister,” I’d say with all seasoned experience of an old-timer as I led newbies through the Bethlehem streets.

But under my bravado, my heart was drying up. I never feared for my physical safety here. But cynicism, anger, confusion and depression were growing. And I could see the same struggle in my co-workers; the ones who had lived their entire lives in this desperately beautiful and violent setting.

The winter of 2015/16 was a relentless flow of blood. If the Holy Land were a woman, she would have been lying in a hospital bed as doctors desperately tried to wrap her wounds and supplement her with coagulants. Nevertheless, the blood did not stop flowing. Every other day was more bad news of someone getting killed or injured. And much of it was documented on shaky phone videos.

If you wonder how Bethlehem Bible students managed to study theology and Christian ministry with the sounds of war and ambulances ringing outside the windows, you’d be correct in surmising that it was not easy, especially when the fresh experiences were piled on top of older traumas which go back for generations. But the people who live under Occupation somehow manage to keep going in circumstances that would make others wilt, flee, lose faith, or adopt a fly-away theology. (Not that they don’t do those things here too – they do.)

When I left at the end of my first year, I never felt so happy to say goodbye to any place. The higher the plane ascended above Tel Aviv, the lighter I felt. And it would be over a year before I would return. But to say that hated it here would be an untruth. I loved it here, deeply. My honest struggle was how to process the painful and disorienting emotions that I had experienced over the previous year.

So, what brought me back?

I suppose it is those interconnected-issues of theology, eschatology and human rights–of working out the practicalities of our Christian faith in an area where every conclusion is challenged by facts on the ground that not only brought me here once, but also brought me back a second time.

And did I mention the people? The living stones who keep the dead stones clean for the tourists and pilgrims who come and go. The living stones who cry out in worship, who weep salty tears, who have been raised as sons of Abraham and Christ. These are the “most holy places” and they move the depths of my heart.

Our dear Bethlehem’s story is not finished and though she still speaks with passion and eloquence, too few have listened. We love Bethlehem for her old stories and not her new ones. Her new stories raise too many questions. They make us uncomfortable. Her old stories are beautiful, but they eventually become meaningless if we are not willing to listen to today’s stories as well…Not the stories we want to hear, not the stories imposed upon her by the ignorant and insincere, but the stories that Bethlehem herself is actually telling.

For God is not the God of the dead but of the living, and it always the living that He is concerned with.

And so I returned to Bethlehem not only because of the unique beauty and tragedy of this place, but because I’ve become convinced that at least part of my calling is to listen to her stories and share them as I can.

(An article I wrote last year for Bethlehem Bible College. And this year, I am working on a book about Bishara Awad, founder of the College).

"You Were God's Lover": Palm Sunday on the Mount of Olives - Mercy Aiken

It is the day after Palm Sunday, after a long weekend, and I am riding on a bus through Jerusalem, heading home. On Saturday I went to a wedding in Hebron. With my dear friend, the bride, and her closer friends, I danced in circles around the stage, trying to imitate the sparkling women around me. With my one of my hands, I twirled my fingers and with the other hand, I struggled to keep my hijab on my head, while smiling broadly at the rest of the group who sat watching us. I must have looked so ridiculous that a little old lady finally grabbed the hijab off of my head and twirled it around with her, laughing, as we danced. The audience laughed too, and I joined in.

I wish that my friends who hate and fear Muslims could be here, could experience this.

My American friends and I had walked through the city that afternoon before the wedding, enjoying little cups of Arabic coffee and kanafe and other gifts given by over-friendly shopkeepers. Our adventures included meeting a beautiful little girl who had two scars on her cheek from a glass bottle that her next door neighbor (an Israeli settler) had thrown through her open window one night and hit her in the face while she slept in her bed. Her younger sister had been hospitalized for 6 months from an injury to her head when a settler threw a stone at her. These things go practically unnoticed and certainly unreported in Hebron. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the settlement areas do little or nothing when these things happen. The little girl remembered me from last year and shyly gripped my hand, smiling up at me in a way that broke my heart. “She wants you to come and spend the night with us,” her father told me. “Please come. You are welcome!”

It is the day after Palm Sunday, after a long weekend, and I am riding on a bus through Jerusalem, heading home. On Saturday I went to a wedding in Hebron. With my dear friend, the bride, and her closer friends, I danced in circles around the stage, trying to imitate the sparkling women around me. With my one of my hands, I twirled my fingers and with the other hand, I struggled to keep my hijab on my head, while smiling broadly at the rest of the group who sat watching us. I must have looked so ridiculous that a little old lady finally grabbed the hijab off of my head and twirled it around with her, laughing, as we danced. The audience laughed too, and I joined in.

I wish that my friends who hate and fear Muslims could be here, could experience this.

My American friends and I had walked through the city that afternoon before the wedding, enjoying little cups of Arabic coffee and kanafe and other gifts given by over-friendly shopkeepers. Our adventures included meeting a beautiful little girl who had two scars on her cheek from a glass bottle that her next door neighbor (an Israeli settler) had thrown through her open window one night and hit her in the face while she slept in her bed. Her younger sister had been hospitalized for 6 months from an injury to her head when a settler threw a stone at her. These things go practically unnoticed and certainly unreported in Hebron. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the settlement areas do little or nothing when these things happen. The little girl remembered me from last year and shyly gripped my hand, smiling up at me in a way that broke my heart. “She wants you to come and spend the night with us,” her father told me. “Please come. You are welcome!”

The next day, on Sunday, a small group of us stood at the base of the Mount of Olives and watched the jubilant crowds descend the mountain, palm branches in their hands and songs on their lips—some joyful, some somber, some wild. Like so many others in Jerusalem of old and Jerusalem today, I’m trying to find Jesus in the crowd. I’m overstuffed with information, hard facts and hurtful realities. This is how I always feel over here—my mind and heart are on overdrive, a slow burn as I try to process everything. This unglossed reality sometimes draws me closer to Him, and just as often acts as a wedge between myself and God. The God in whose name so many cruelties are committed, some knowingly, some ignorantly.

We join the pressing crowd making its way past Gethsemane to the Lion’s Gate. Drums bang, bells ring, songs in various languages overlap with each other, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes not. French, Arabic, English, German, Hebrew, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Swahili.

Today, I need my King. Some say this is where Messiah will come (either the first or second time, depending on who you ask) and the Mount will split in two. From this spot, the resurrection will begin. In anticipation of this, tombs have become very expensive on the Mount of Olives, some people paying millions to be buried here.

I am utterly agnostic on that subject. I just want the hem of his garment, right here, right now.

We pass a large banner recognizing the 800 year anniversary of St. Francis meeting the Sultan of Egypt. While Crusaders marched to Jerusalem, armed with words and weapons of violence Francis had a different idea. Unarmed and poor, he crossed the Mediterranean, seeking dialogue, friendship, understanding, peace. His gentleness and intentional vulnerability impressed the Sultan and he was graciously received. He spent some months with the Sultan, enjoying his hospitality and returned to Europe with a smaller and truer word than the armored message that was carried by flags and banners and swords and spears.

I’m heading back from class at Hebrew University today. We’d been watching a video on the plight of the Negev Bedouins, most of who’ve been shuttled off against their will to massively overcrowded and impoverished “townships” while the others fight for their villages to be recognized, some of which have been leveled by Israeli bulldozers tens of times. “Why are they being so inhumane? Al Araqib existed here before Israel was a state! They can bulldoze us a hundred times and we will rebuild a hundred and one times!” cried an ancient mukhtar, his grey mustache curling over his mouth.

I must have been the only one in the class who gasped at the next scene: Rory Alec from God TV standing near the same village. “The Lord said to me, ‘Prepare the land for the return of my Son!’” he cried, gesturing to rows of trees that God TV has paid for, trees planted on village land, an upcoming forest in the barren landscape that will uproot the Bedouin and somehow hasten the return of the Lord.

"Sow a seed for God!" he said, adding, "I tell you Jesus is coming back soon!" And then he handed an oversized check to the Jewish National Fund, a group that plants forests in Israel, some of them built to disguise razed villages beneath them, yes, even razed Christian villages in the north.

Apparently, Jesus can’t return until all the Bedouin are swept out of the open country and into squalid cities where they can no longer ride their horses or keep sheep or plant gardens.

I have to spit the bitterness out of my mouth. Help me, Lord.

I open my kindle and continue a book I just started, called “Chasing Francis.” It is about a disillusioned Evangelical pastor who finds himself on a pilgrimage in Assisi. The pastor finds in Francis strange and yet compelling friend. In his journal, he writes a letter to him:

“I still don’t know if you were a genius or a lunatic or both. Kenny says you were God’s lover and that people who are in love should be forgiven for their excesses.”

“…You were God’s lover.”

Before I have time to absorb the sentence, tears are flowing out of my eyes and I am full-on sobbing on the bus. And once I start, I can’t stop. Embarrassed, I turn my face towards the window.

I see myself in my mind’s eye; the me of a few years ago, the me of decades past, me walking through grass, praying and singing. I remember how He lifted me from His quiver, fit me into His bow and released me through the air. How I straightened myself as I flew, knowing that His aim was true. “Hit the mark you desire, Lord!” I’d sung, feeling myself in His very windstream, the Arrow of the Lord. Oh, so many songs I’d sung, songs that flowed endlessly and made my heart feel so big that it encompassed all creation and I was suspended inside it; His heart.

And this moment I can feel it again, the wind whizzing above and beneath me.

“Am I still Your beloved? Am I off-course now? Am I still the one who sang to you in the wilderness? Can You still hit the mark with me - in spite of my anger? Tell me again--what do You want me to see here, to understand here, to know here, to do here?”

I’m wiping away my tears. Because I know I have failed here in so many ways. I’ve not kept the way of grace. The anger has hurt me, of that much I am certain. It makes me snap at innocent people who are ignorant of the reality here. It profoundly alienates me from that whole world that is projected by God TV, a world I once dwelt in, a world that is no longer and can never again be my home.

2000 years ago, you rode defenselessly into Jerusalem, your eyes freshly filled with the tears you’d shed over the city, your very body an eternal bridge across every chasm of alienation.

800 years ago, Francis, in imitation of you, crossed an ocean and built a small bridge between east and west, a bridge that we can still walk over. And how many others since then? Jewish sages, Christian mystics, Muslim lovers-of-you?

This land has a way of either fattening you in incense and oil and shrill creeds--or, like a scalpel, cutting your faith down to the barest bones.

That’s where I am now, whittled. Though I cannot deny that I love You still; maybe all the more in the midst of what You've made me see. Its hard for me to understand why You keep letting us mar your visage beyond all recognition and drag your name through the mud but I find that my heart still trusts that even over these bare bones, dead bones, dry bones within me and around me--this violent impatience, these unceasing tears, these brutal ideas of who You are and what You want--You will lovingly and patiently and faithfully wait.

"Tfadalu!" Bus Ride to Bethlehem - Mercy Aiken

I am helping an American couple in Jerusalem get settled on the bus for Beit Jala. They have lots of questions and we settle down in seats next to each other to make conversation easier. I don't want to overwhelm them with information and so I take it "shway shway." (Slowly, slowly).

"How long will it take to get to Bethlehem?"

"About an hour or more" I reply. They look shocked. "But isn't it just a few miles away?" "Yes, but the traffic in Jerusalem is always horrible this time of day. And on top of that, we have to go around through the checkpoint and to another drop off point before going back to Beit Jala" I reply.

They have so many questions: What are the checkpoints about? Are there any Arab citizens of Israel? How many? Do they speak Hebrew? Do any Jews speak Arabic? How do these people communicate? What about the people in Bethlehem? Are they allowed to visit Israel? What exactly IS the West Bank?

I can tell they are kind of scared to be going to Bethlehem and I reassure them repeatedly that they will be safe and the people there are (mostly) really quite lovely.

A man in sunglasses and a cane sits down next to me and I greet him in Arabic. "Ah, your accent gives you away! You are an American, aren't you? I've been to America. Miami --the weather there is very different than ours. Also Chicago, New Jersey...."

I ask him what he thought of America. There is a long pause. "America is America," he finally replies. "Whatever you want to find in America, you will find it."

A student in a grey hijab taps me on the shoulder. She has three candies in her hand -- one for me and one each for the Americans sitting in front of me. I hand them the sweets and they look back to see her waving and grinning.

The blind man misses that, of course. A half hour into the trip, he also reaches into his pocket. "Tfadalu!" and he holds out his hands, filled with sweets.

"Ah, Bethlehem Bible College! I know Mr. Awad. He is my friend." (Everyone from Bethlehem tells me the same thing).

I think of his statement about America. I've said variations of that comment for years... If you don't carry Paris or Jerusalem in your heart, how will you find Paris or Jerusalem when you are in the city itself? And be careful how you see the world: that's the way it is.

And so on we go to Bethlehem, sucking candies together, lost in our own thoughts. The bus drives through the afternoon light shining on grassy terraces made all the more vivid from the rain. We drive under the towering separation wall and past wildflowers growing through asphalt and red signs warning us there that there is danger ahead. The bus stops and cement-dusted workers make their way down through the hills and olive groves; the land where prophets and saints once walked and where, by God, they are walking still.

That's what I carry in my heart, of course. That's what I want to see--and thus, my eyes do see. I hope my American friends on this bus with me can see the same.

As for the blind man sitting next to me, he's humming softly to himself, a small grin on his face.

The Sin of Islamaphobia can never atone for the Sin of anti-Semitism -- Mercy Aiken

The sin of Islamaphobia can never atone for the sin of anti-Semitism. They are two sides of the same coin. They are a rash, a sickness, fueled mostly by fear, that has simply moved from one part of the body of so-called Christendom to another part. Despite all the positive work that has been done to bring healing between the Christian and Jewish world, the disease is not healed. Dehumanizing language towards our Semitic brothers and sisters is still tolerated, re-tweeted, celebrated and voted for.

Look at some of the common things that are expressed regarding Muslims in social media and elsewhere. Many of my Christian friends would be appalled if such language were used of Jews, but have no problem with it being used against Muslims.

Tolerance of such language reveals that the sickness of a broader anti-Semitic mindset remains for many people in the Western world, many of them Christians. I can't help but think that those who tolerate and support such language against Muslims in today's world, would also have had no problem tolerating and supporting such language in Europe in the 1920s and 30s.

The language is the same. The fears are the same. (They don't assimilate into our culture, they are anti-christ, they are secretly working to overthrow us, you cannot trust them).

We need to stop falling prey to this idea that there must inevitably some sort of war and murderous hatred between the children who call Abraham their father.

I pray that true Christian peacemakers will arise with open hearts towards the gorgeous God-given humanity of the others -- and for the sake of Christ (our beautiful Christ), become ministers of reconciliation and a gospel that is actually good news for the world rather than ministers of conspiracy theories and Hillary's emails. (Sorry if that is too pointed a jab, but I have seen SO much of this that I feel it must be acknowledged as part of the problem).

How does anyone even breathe in that tight, dark little world?

That compressed little stunted version of Christianity will someday merely be a chapter or book in some future generation's analysis of the ways that Christianity failed in this generation.

(And no, I am not saying that Christianity is an utter failure in this generation. I have full and glorious confidence in Jesus Christ and his righteous and peaceable kingdom. And for those who are wondering, neither am I laying the blame for all the problems at the feet of the Christian world. However, Jesus taught us to take the log our of our own eye first, before looking at everyone else. I wish everyone would take this approach).

I dedicate this post, with honor and respect, to various pastor friends of mine who are taking their congregations to visit mosques, sending words of condolence and support to them. I also dedicate it with honor and respect to the Jewish congregations in New Zealand and elsewhere who are standing mourning with their Muslim brothers and sisters...and finally to my dear Muslim brothers and sisters who have taught me so much about love and friendship.

Lord, teach us the way of love, for love never fails. Teach us to dwell in the broadness of Your heart. Amen.

Journey to the Father: Talking John 14:6 in Jerusalem -- Mercy Aiken

It was a drizzly January afternoon in Jerusalem and I was sitting in the Mahane Yehuda market eating Iraqi bamia (okra) with an Observant Jewish friend.  As usually happens in Jerusalem, the talk quickly turned to politics and religion. He’d read some of our better Christian theologians (he was impressed with N.T. Wright and Raymond E. Brown) and I’d read some of the better Jewish ones (I was impressed with Abraham Joshua Heschel).

While my friend respects the teachings and narrative of Jesus, he has no interest in becoming a Christian.  Nevertheless, he is intrigued by the Jesus who stood on the Mount of Olives and wept over Jerusalem.  He easily referenced the passage from Luke 19 that played a central role in his doctoral dissertation on Renaissance English literature.

 “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” (Luke 19:41-44 NIV).  

My friend has wept over Jerusalem himself. In his own words, “grieving for the calamities its citizens bring upon it through arrogance and ignorance in a cycle that is as painful today as ever before.”  

A few moments later he asked me a question that a Muslim student would also ask me during our English class a few weeks later. “How do you interpret Jesus’ statement,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”?

We have so many assumptions and unasked questions between us – we Christians, Muslims and Jews.  Questions like this have their own particular relevance in a place like Jerusalem where devout practitioners of their respective faiths pray and chant and fast and sing and light candles and pass beads through their fingers regularly; all focusing their attention towards the God of Abraham, the God of Creation, the One God. 

My Jewish friend was relaxed and curious. When I was asked the same question by my Muslim friend a few weeks later, his eyes shone with intensity and challenge.