First Sunday after the Epiphany

Saturday night: We walked in last night after dinner to Ben Lehuda (I think that is the right spelling) - a kind of Harvard Square/Greenwich Village experience as Shabbat ended in West Jerusalem: lots and lots of young people, street musicians, gelato; a scene typical in many American cities, especially with lots of college students. I found it helpful to set our time here in that larger context, for our pilgrimage has not been a return merely a return to "the world of the Bible." Kind of like visiting Rome, there is ancient Rome and modern Rome. The can be literally on top of each other but I haven't had as much experience so far on this trip with modern Jerusalem, until last night.

Sunday morning, The First Sunday after the Epiphany (Baptism of our Lord): We attended church today "on campus" at the Cathedral Church of St. George the Martyr. As I believe I mentioned previously, the Rev'd Canon Robert Edmonds is the Canon Pastor to the English-speaking congregation at the cathedral, but prior to coming to Jerusalem he was the rector at the Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard. There he and his wife, Deb, were friends with parishioners Tom and Dianne Wilson, who moved a couple of years ago from Edgartown to Rutland and then became part of St. Francis. Dianne is now on the vestry. It's a reminder of how truly small the Episcopal Church is, and I'm glad for the connection with Bob.

I also appreciated the degree of familiarity that Anglican/Episcopal worship allows: although a couple of the tunes for familiar texts in the Hymnal were different, the liturgy was very familiar and in the midst of sensory overload and new experiences that is very cool. Like so many cathedral congregations, the "regulars" are a rather small group. In fact Bob had them stand and there were about twenty of them (tops!) in a full congregation of probably about 180 or so. There were three large groups there, each of which outnumbered the members: a group of Columbian Anglicans, a group of Methodists from Wesley Seminary, and our group. as well as visitors from around the world. Also it is admittedly nice, as a priest, to attend one service and just worship, at least for a change of pace. (Rather than leading three!)

Before church, which began at 11 a.m., Marty and I walked into the old city to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is pretty cool to be on that site on a Sunday morning. The rest of today we have some rest built in: people are doing different things but I think Marty and Chris and I are going to take some quiet time apart for a while and then walk into the old city before dinner to do some further exploring.

One thing I want to add about the Anglican Cathedral and in fact the Jersualem Diocese that surrounds it: the diocese includes churches in not only Israel but the Palestinian areas, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. They run hospitals and schools that serve anyone, regardless of race or creed. The work they do is important: as Canon Edmonds said today, in a climate of religious fundamentalisms of all flavors, the Anglican Church is a witness to moderation and reconciliation. We tend to preach the gospel first through our actions (like hospitals and schools for all) and when necessary, use words to bear witness to the life of Christ. In all of my ordained life, and I believe for decades now, the tradition asked of the American Episcopal Church is that the Good Friday offering go to the Diocese of Jerusalem. I have always supported that but I will return home with a far greater awareness for and appreciation for the the work that is being done here in the name of Christ.

Monday - Wednesday: I expect that I will not be able to blog until Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Yesterday as I noted we began traveling in the footsteps of Jesus by traveling to Bethlehem. Tomorrow morning we head north, to Galilee. We will be spending two nights in a guest house that sits right on the Sea of Galilee, which of course is really a lake. Over the next few days we'll be traveling to Nazareth, Mt. Beatitudes, Capernaum, Tiberius, Mt. Tabor and various other places. We'll have a boat ride on the lake, and celebrate Eucharist on the Mount of the Transfiguration. Guess who gets to be the celebrant there? Your's truly! I'm a bit awestruck by the whole thought of that. And then, just as Jesus and the disciples did, we'll come down from there to "set our faces toward Jerusalem" once again. Between Galilee and Jerusalem, on that return trip, we'll be stopping for lunch in Jericho and spending some afternoon time in the Judean Desert.

I really still cannot believe all of this. I realize that when I was here 26 years ago I saw with the eyes of a twenty-one year old, which of course were the only eyes I could see through! As a poor student, however, I didn't always know what I was seeing: we didn't hire guides, we simply went and saw the sites. That was great; don't get me wrong and in fact it's probably the right way to do it as a twenty-one year old. But now, as a priest, this is a different kind of pilgrimage and I am very aware that while sometimes the Church doesn't always achieve excellence, this program is finely tuned and truly excellent. The program is well thought out and the balance between head and heart, between academic learning and spiritual growth, is very good. I feel like this has already been a life-transforming experience and I'm not yet even halfway through it.

When we do return from Galilee, we'll be doing a Stations of the Cross walk in Jerusalem before this course ends. We'll be using a booklet put together by Stephen's predecessor as dean, Jon Peterson. I was looking through it the other day- and in the introduction he quotes a former Course Director of St. George's, Brother Gilbert Sinden, who said this about his ten years in the Holy Land: "I went looking for a top dressing on what I already knew; I leave ashamed that I had presumed to teach so long out of so much ignorance." Those are pretty strong words! But I am beginning to feel somewhat the same. There are some obvious learnings that come from here: two of them are that place names in the Bible matter and if you can picture them in your mind's eye it is so much richer. Someone else told us the other day that all of those names in the Bible do mean something; that people in the Middle East always pick names that mean something. So that's a good thing for lay readers to remember when the names are unpronounceable: what would it be like for us to recognize their name for what it means, and then to pay attention to things like "Miriam traveled to the Judean hill country to visit her cousin Elizabeth?" She didn't beam herself there; even if you read it in the blink of an eye it's a trip, a journey; you may sweat getting there and so forth. To travel to Cana of Galilee, or to climb up a mountain or down one--these things have far more meaning to me now than they did a mere four days ago, and I've been reading the Bible my whole life.

Being in church today and singing hymns like "Songs of Thankfulness and Praise" (wrong tune though!) and moving through all of those verses of how Christ is made manifest in the season of Epiphany; it just rings out in a very different way when you can picture where so many of those things happened. So, too, praying the psalms or reading from either Testament. I am sure I'll have lots more to ponder after the next few days in Galilee.

But in truth, these are but the window dressing. My two weeks will be nothing compared to Brother Gilbert's ten years here. But being in this place is transformative at a much deeper level, even in a relatively short period of time. It is about far more than new information, and for that I am deeply grateful and profoundly humbled.