Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

For most of us, Wednesday begins with a visit to the Wailing Wall, the Western (and only remaining) wall of the Temple. It is a highly signficant holy site for the Jews, of course.

Men and women - cordoned into separate areas - pray earnestly, rocking, touching the wall some posting prayesr in the stonework.

On Mondays and Thursdays there are Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs, important family occasions to mark the coming of age. Earlier this week, one group found themselves caught up in the moment, invited to join the celebrations - another unique and unexpected encounter.

Mud, glorious mud

Tuesday afternoon sees us at the Dead Sea, via Qumran and the Dead Sea, ear-poppingly deep below sea level. It's hot, very hot.

Everyone has fun with the mud and swimming (or bobbing) in the salty soup that makes up the sea.

And finally, at sunset, the buses pull in to Jerusalem and the wonderful Knights' Palace, just inside the Old City walls.

Jerusalem the Golden

Finally, here we are in Jerusalem. Tuesday begins at St Peter in Gallicantu, or St Peter of the Cock Crow, where we remember Peter's three-fold denial of Jesus.

Listen to an extract from our worship

We hear how Jesus came here to the house of the High Priest. It is one of the few places where we can be completely sure that Jesus actually trod. (The others are Capernaum and Lithostrotos on the Via Dolorosa.)

We go down into the excavations, deep beneath the church. We crowd into the cavernous pit, where Jesus was imprisoned.

The lights go off: we are plunged into darkness. We imagine Jesus being lowered down into the cold dark damp cave. Up above, Bishop John reads from Psalm 88, a cry of despair, of desolation.

We move up into the church for Mass, celebrated by Archdeacon Karen. In his address, Bishop John says that this is the moment that Peter finally grew up. He learned he was as fallible as the next person. "He denied Jesus not just once but three times," he says.

"Peter the Rock became Peter the Pebble. He finally lost his innocence."

He challenges us: have we ever denied our faith, played it down? "When Peter denies Jesus it is a form of betrayal. Judas had betrayed Jesus, but this was another form of betrayal - a betrayal of friendship. How did Jesus feel as one by one, the disciples fell away?"

He reminds us that only hours earlier, Peter had promised Jesus his love. Now he stabbed him in the heart.

"Now Jesus was down in the pit. How much worse can it get? The answer: a lot worse. But there's no pit that you have been in or are in or will be which Jesus doesn't understand. No dark place where Jesus is absent. No problem where you are alone.

"But at this point Jesus was alone. Very alone."



"He denied Jesus

Let battle commence

I'm not sure quite whose idea it was but the Blue Coach threw down the challenge of a clergy vs. laity skittles match. The original venue was Manger Square in Bethlehem, but somehow the match never transpired.

Our sidetrip to Ramallah offered neither time nor obvious location. But by the time we reached Ashkelon, there were no more excuses.

To be fair, the huge, shiny floored lobby of the Holiday Inn offered too good a surface to ignore. The ever-resourceful Debbie came up with the necessary equipment (water bottles and apples left over from lunch) and the teams were recruited. A number of clergy who'd previously been in hiding emerged into the daylight and stood up to be counted.

There are still some who maintain that the clergy didn't play fair. Certainly their naturally competitive streak came into play. Rumour had it that the Bishop was the one who fought dirtiest. But they certainly won hands down. Rematch, anyone?

The Mount of Olives

The Mount of Olives is bustling, the crowds quite overwhelming. We are crushed by the people around us, as Jesus must have been as he arrived in Jerusalem.

From the Mount, we see the city, as Jesus must have done. We begin at Bethphage, where the disciples find the colt for him.

As we pause for worship, Bishop John asks us to think of the contrast between the two processions arriving in Jerusalem that day: Jesus on a lowly donkey, amidst the noise and confusion, Pilate's grand procession from Caesarea.

“One believed in smiting your enemy, the other in loving your enemy. It's a huge contrast. But to most of the world today, it looks as if we are part of Pilate's procession,” he says.

Descending through the crush, we arrive at the Pater Noster church, where the Lord's Prayer is displayed in 120 languages. “Prayer was at the heart of Jesus's life. Time spent with his heavenly Father was central to all he did. He prayed all night when he has an important decision to make. And this is the model prayer, said all over the world.”

He invites us to say it slowly, in any language we know.

On down the hill, a twisting route. Under the olive trees, past the traders. It's hot, dusty. We're thirsty, tired. We arrive at Dominus Flevit, the church that commemorates the spot where Jesus wept over the City of Jerusalem.

Archdeacon Karen tells us that for her, these are two of the most powerful words in the Gospels. We reflect on some verses from Jeremiah, lamenting over Jerusalem.

On again, and we reach the Garden of Gethsemane. No chance for peace and prayer here: the Garden is almost overrun. But in one roped-off area, people are harvesting the olives, everyday life going on as ever. The Church of All Nations is a crush. Nonetheless we manage to gather around the altar built over the rock where Jesus prayed.

“This stone is very precious. Here was the culmination of the issue Jesus was facing all the way through,” says Bishop John. “He was tempted to take the easy way out. He had to have it out with God. It was the final handing over of Jesus to God's hands. This is the time Jesus says 'I've done all I can, it's over to you.'”

Lunch, and then a visit to the Israel Museum, where there is a scale model of Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, and also an innovative display of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd boy in the 1940s in Khirbet Qumran, on the programme for tomorrow.

My soul doth magnify the Lord

Sunday ends with a visit commemorating a visit. We walk up to the Church of the Visitation, in the village of Ein Karem, where the pregnant Mary met her cousin Elizabeth.

There are tiled tablets showing the Magnificat in hundreds of languages. We gather to say Evening Prayer in a small outdoor chapel.

Listen to an extract from our service

Bishop John reminds us how vulnerable Mary was. “She needed a break. She was shocked,” he says.

“She decides to go to the hill country to see wise cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth bursts with joy and tells Mary hoer own baby leapt for joy in her womb.”

Mary gets caught up in the moment and responds with the song we know as the Magnificat – a song of joy and a cry for justice. “It's strong stuff. We have a God of justice as well as wonder,” says Bishop John.

“This is a flagship text for Christians. How can it be right that 1% of the world owns 40% of the world's wealth? And that 5% owns 70% of that wealth? Or that the three richest people in the world are richer than the 48 poorest nations put together?”

We pray the Micah prayer, which is being said by 100 million Christians from 40 countries around the world on this day, the 10.10.10.

O Lord, our great and awesome God, loyal to your promise of love and faithful to all who honour and obey you, hear our prayer.
We pray for those who live in poverty,
we cry out for those who are denied justice and
we weep for all who are suffering.
We confess that we have not always obeyed you.
We have neglected your commands and have ignored your call for justice.
We have been guided by self-interest and lived in spiritual poverty.
Forgive us.
We remember your promises to fill the hungry with good things, to redeem the land by your mighty hand and to restore peace.
Father God, help us always to proclaim your justice and mercy with humility, so that, by the power of your Spirit, we can rid the world of the sin of extreme poverty.
As part of your global church, we stand with millions who praise and worship you.
May our words and deeds declare your perfect goodness, love and righteousness to both the powerful and the powerless
so that your Kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen

Blessed are the peace-keepers part 2

Jeff Halper heads up an organisation called the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), founded in 1997.

He gives us a fascinating potted history of the Arab/Israeli conflict. The whole area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is the Holy Land, he says. “The trouble is, two peoples are claiming one land.”

He reminds us that Zionism grew out of an emerging nationalism in Europe at the end of the 19th century, when Jews were being persecuted, especially in Russia. They fled, some west to the UK and the US, but many others wanted to claim Israel as their homeland. He tries to be fair: he doesn't believe that the driving force behind Zionism was colonial.

“Their blind spot was that they didn't see the Arabs, the Palestinians already living there,” he says.” They were irrelevant to the Jewish national story.

“The fly in the ointment, was that Zionists came into this country with an exclusive claim, and that turned Zionisms into a colonial movement, because they didn't recognise the rights or even existence of the indigenous people living here.

“In 1948, 700,000 Palestinians were driven out of the city, and in 1967 there was another displacement. This exclusive claim on the land continues until this present day.”

A highly effective method for displacing Palestinians has been through the systematic demolition of their homes. Since 1967, more than 24,000 houses have been bulldozed.

A number of attempts to carve up the land between the two nations were tried and failed in the 20th century. But in 1988 the PLO under Yasser Arafat accepted the so-called two-state solution under which Israel would take 78% of the land – even though Palestinians make up half the population. The Palestinians agreed that if they could have the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza as their homeland, they would recognise the state of Israel.

“It's not fair or just, but the Palestinians accepted this,” he says.

The two-state solution was accepted by the international community. In 2002 the Arab League accepted it. “Everyone agrees,” says Jeff. “Most Israeli Jews would also accept this, provided they were assured of their security.”

The problem, he says, is the Israeli Government, a coalition dominated by extremists. The Israeli Government has sanctioned over 200 illegal settlements on the West Bank and built a wall twice as high as the Berlin Wall and five times longer.

“The Israeli Government is still pursuing a policy of exclusivity. And Congress – which is dominated by Jews and Christian Zionists – won't allow the US to get tough on Israel.”

The real danger now, he says, echoing Mitri Raheb's words on Saturday, is that the Holy Land will move to apartheid. “The only alternative is a one-state solution and that's not even on the negotiating table. We're stuck.”

Jeff's organisation sets out to monitor and prevent house demolition, “It's a tragic, traumatic experience. Your sacred space is violated when your home is destroyed,” he says. “And it happens not because you are a terrorist, but because the Israeli Government refuses to grant building permits to Palestinians, even if they own the land.”

Some of this is based on outdated zoning regulations, dating back to the British Mandate when the population was a quarter the size. The Israeli Government has declared 72% of the West Bank as “state land”.

Many more homes have been demolished in military operations: 8000 Palestinian homes were destroyed in collateral damage in the conflict in Gaza of 2008/09. Bulldozers as high as two-storey buildings were sent in ahead of the tanks to clear the way.

“Even today there are 22,000 house demolition orders outstanding in East Jerusalem. That could happen at any time. Some families have seen their houses destroyed two or three times.

“Yet Israel has managed to capture the public discussion, as a poor western democracy fighting Muslim terrorists. Our job is to say 'no', this is not about security and we are going to resist it, by getting in front of bulldozers, calling journalists and diplomats, and rebuilding homes. We've rebuilt 170 houses over the last 12 years, not as a humanitarian gesture but as a political one, as a way of showing solidarity.”

Jeff ends with a strong image. The Israel/Palestine situation is not the bloodiest conflict, he says, when you compare it to what is going on in the Congo, for example. “But it is the bone in the throat of the international community.”