thesoulpurposedotorg

Bethlehem more than a manger scene

By Phil Haslanger
The Capital Times
Dec. 24, 2005

On greeting cards, in Christmas carols, in nativity scenes the images of
Bethlehem that the world clings to are those of a small town, a crowded inn,
a quiet night punctuated by the sounds of animals and later the voices of
shepherds.
But even 2,000 years ago, Bethlehem was a more complex place than
that. Today, it stands at the junction of the conflict between Israel and
Palestine with a forbidding security wall snaking through its streets.
Yet a visit to Bethlehem last month found a city that could still
revel in the many strains of religious tradition that have made it far more
than simply a place to remember the birth of Jesus. Consider a few images
from that week.
The first image is inside the Church of the Nativity, a structure
built in the sixth century that is one of the oldest churches in continual
use in the world. Two of us from Madison were sitting inside the huge and
somewhat faded and barren nave of the church that stands over the cave where
legend has it that Jesus was born. From down the steps that lead to that
spot came voices in Spanish of tourists, singing hymns in four-part harmony.
This was a moment that fit the idyllic picture of Bethlehem.
The image outside the church conveyed another reality. Along the
upper reaches of the structure are bullet holes from April of 2002 when
Palestinian fighters took refuge inside the Church of the Nativity and the
Israeli Defense Force held it under siege for about 40 days. This little
town of Bethlehem no longer in stillness lies.
Now shift your gaze to the streets of Bethlehem on a cold and windy
November night. People from 23 different nations here for a theological
conference join residents of Bethlehem in a procession from church to
church. There is the Greek Orthodox Church and the Syrian Orthodox Church.
There is a stop at the mosque where the mufti of Bethlehem greets the group.
Finally, the procession ends in a Catholic Church next to the Church of the
Nativity. The whole event symbolized both the richness of religious
traditions here, but also served as a reminder of the divisions that exist
among them.
No event of the week caught the richness of the diversity in this
place as well as a Shabbat service on a Friday evening. This is the
observance of the beginning of the Sabbath that often occurs with the family
at home. Here, Hannah, a Jewish woman from Sweden, invited those of us at
the conference to join her tradition. The group that gathered included
people from Dubai and Myanmar, from Tanzania and Germany, from the
Philippines and the United States.
We sat in a circle in the parish hall of Christmas Lutheran Church
to observe this Jewish ritual in a city dominated by Muslims. A native of
Bethlehem who now lives in Germany read one of the Psalms in Arabic. We sang
a hymn from the French Protestant monastic community of Taize in Swedish. As
we listened to Hannah pray in Hebrew, the Muslim call to prayer wafted
through the streets of the city.
That kind of weaving together of traditions is not really so strange
as it might seem in this city that many think of as one of the ultimate
Christian shrines. It is, after all, the place where Ruth, the outsider in a
story in the Hebrew Bible, came to care for her mother-in-law, despite the
ethnic differences between them. It is the area that Jewish people revere as
the birthplace of David, the greatest king of ancient Israel and author of
many Psalms. It is the place Christians honor as the site of Jesus’ birth.
It is a place where followers of yet another great religion, Islam, started
settling in the seventh century and now form the majority in the city.
As the Christmas hymn says, the streets of this little town of
Bethlehem are still a place where the hopes and the fears of humanity meet.
It is a place that ought not be defined by either idyllic images of angels
and shepherds nor by the forbidding reality of the imposing Israeli security
wall that now isolates this city.
It is a place where leaders of many traditions are working against
great odds to have hope overcome fear, to maintain a place where people of
different backgrounds can live together in a way that would truly honor the
history of this city. It’s a place where the light of Christmas desperately
needs to break through.

Phil Haslanger, the managing editor of The Capital Times, was part
of a United Church of Christ delegation attending a conference in Bethlehem
in November. E-mail is phaslanger@charter.net