Call to Prayer
Mary Johnson and I welcome you to Evening Prayers. We discovered that Mary is Irish from Ireland and I am Asian American from San Francisco. Our time together is an invitation to celebrate our cultural richness and affirm our unity in Christ. We will be singing a hymn written by Rev. Harold Jow of the UCC to the tune of St. Catherine, Sandalwood Hills and Mountains of Gold and Be Thou My Vision, a good Irish tune that is sung in Ireland as well as in Irish Boston where I was born.
Our prayer time is an invitation for you to gather in small groups to pray.
Mr. Intersection
Sometimes life is a time of being betwixt and between, moments of uncertainty whether we are being pulled or being pushed, whether we are going out or whether it’s time to be coming in. Being betwixt and between is a time when we may be discerning God’s call for us in ministry and mission—are we ending one ministry to begin another, are we here at Tantur to discover Sabbath in order to become renewed once again because we have been feeling betwixt and between. We are allowing our lives to rest for these 4 weeks in order to become productive once again.
This morning we heard the difference between the Talmud and the Bible. While we are steeped in one, we are challenged to become familiar with the other—we stand in between.
A few days ago like perhaps most of us by now, we have witnessed the humiliation of people and the tension that exist between the Palestinians and the Israeli soldiers at the Bethlehem checkpoint. At this no-man’s land, we are between Palestine and Israel. There are high walls, barbed wire, graffiti of protest, electrical turn styles, fingerprinting, Palestinians who must feel repressed and young Israeli soldiers who are just doing their job. The places between Palestine and Israel are betwixt.
In our 1 Peter passage, we read that with Christ as our cornerstone, we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people, once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
In some ways, we are all people who are betwixt and between. We sympathize with the Palestinians as well as with the Israelis because we too are betwixt and between. But in Christ Jesus, we become God’s own people who can give mercy because we have received mercy. It’s like Christ was shamed on the Cross so that in his resurrection, we may once again have honor in the eyes of God.
One of my favorite theologians is Kosuke Koyama who spoke about Jesus standing in the intersection of life. Jesus puts himself in the middle of humanity and brings meaning and purpose to our betwixt and between lives. Just like this land of the Fertile Crescent is between the Euphrates/Tigris on one end and the Nile at the other, Jesus standing in the intersection of life gives us truth in our betwixt and between lives.
Koyama says Jesus came to a full stop and died on the intersecting Cross connecting our betwixt and betweenness. He becomes “Mr. Intersection.”
You are God’s people even when you may feel that you are betwixt and between. Mary from Ireland through our Tantur program is connecting with me, an Asian American who was born in Irish Boston. We may still feel betwixt and between, but in Jesus Christ, Mr. Intersection himself, we are God’s one people, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.
July 2008 Jerusalem/Tantur Sabbatical