12-19-16<\/p>\n
Last week, our essay was about the \u201cLittle Town of Bethlehem,\u201d the village where God chose to become flesh and dwell among us. Last month, there were violent clashes and civic friction there. Last year, we recalled the sad story of a simple Palestinian Christian who served his church there, gunned down in crossfire in Manger Square. For the last generation, we almost have gotten used to \u2013 no: we have not \u2013 news stories of hatred, violence, oppression, persecution, and blood in the streets of the birthplace of Jesus.<\/p>\n
NOT filled with pilgrims, worshipers, locals, as once was the case for 2000 years. Violence between the Israeli forces and Palestinians had broken out, harshly. Again, this year. As before, during random days of the years. Again this year, but at Christmastide.<\/p>\n
There is a powerful song about a heart-wrenching story that was in the news a dozen years ago. Britain\u2019s Independent<\/em> newspaper reported then: \u201cFor 30 years, Samir Ibrahim Salman had made his way dutifully to his task as bell ringer and caretaker at the fortress-like stone-and-wood church revered by millions as the birthplace of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n Salman \u201ccrossed Manger Square to get to the church to climb the steps to the fourth-century bell tower\u201d as he did every day of the year. \u201cMinutes later, Samir was struck by a bullet in the chest. It was an hour before an ambulance could reach him but by then, he was already dead. The Palestinians claim he was killed by an Israeli \u2013 the Israeli army says they did not fire a shot near the church. Samir, who was mentally disabled, may have been unaware of the danger.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a time when Palestinian fighters, running from advancing Israeli troops, took refuge in the church. They and 40 Franciscan brothers, four nuns and approximately 30 Orthodox and Armenian monks, were trapped in the basilica complex. There were also disputed claims about damage to the holy site, which was built over the manger \u2013 reportedly where Jesus was born.<\/p>\n This story about hatred, violence, and bloodshed in Jesus\u2019 hometown, perhaps over the spot where He was born, has resonance this Christmastide.<\/p>\n I shared with some friends that I would be writing this message. \u201cWhy make a martyr of an Islamic person, especially at this time of year?\u201d some responded. \u201cWhy cite a song that talks about \u2018Palestine?\u2019\u201d asked others. \u201cThat\u2019s provocative!\u201d However, Salman was an Arab, but not Islamic \u2013 he was a Palestinian Christian. How many Americans realize that Bethlehem was traditionally governed by a Christian mayor and majority Christian council; and that there is a higher percentage of Christians there than in Israel — or was, before \u201cChristian cleansing\u201d became the Mideast Mode? Concerning \u2018Palestine,\u2019 Bethlehem is not even in Israel but in the West Bank, under the Palestinian Authority with Israel\u2019s full sanction.<\/p>\n But I want us to return again, remembering the Christmas season, to Nativity Square in Bethlehem. Samir Ibrahim Salman lay there alone. He died in the pool of his blood, maybe instantly, maybe slowly\u2026 no one was brave enough (or simple enough, as he was) to go out in the open and tend to him. He had been beloved of the town, and special to the church, because he rang those bells as a volunteer every day of the year for decades, different bells for different occasions, serving Christ and his neighbors.<\/p>\n Let us not lament only the hatred that shatters the calm of Bethlehem, or the peace of Jerusalem. Christians today are being slaughtered by the thousands, and driven from Iraq, which the US has \u201cstabilized.\u201d Likewise from Syria; areas that ISIS touches; Christian parts of Africa, north and south of the Sahara. <\/p>\n In a brilliant but deeply disturbing report for World<\/em> Magazine a few years ago, my friend Mindy Belz provided details of the US military\u2019s (and NATO representatives\u2019) answer to a question about whether persecuted Christians would be pr rotected in Iraq. By us, the United States. Their answer even then was \u201cNo.\u201d Under Saddam Hussein, 1.5-million Christians lived in relative security; today, fewer than 300,000 Christians remain in Iraq, many in fear. Likewise, in Syria, the Alawite Bashir el-Assad was the Christians’ protector.<\/p>\n Protected by the US? By our military security? \u201cNo.\u201d Mindy correctly calls this \u201cextermination by any other name.\u201d If American Christians betray Christians in Iraq (and Syria, and Egypt, and Nigeria, and China, and Myanmar, and…) we are not merely ignoring the wrong, or decrying the wrong; we are on the side of the wrong.<\/p>\n Back to Bethlehem, where God chose to come in human form to reconcile ALL men unto Himself. This holy ground is where God chose to fulfill His promise from ages past, that through Him \u201call the nations of the earth shall be blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n Who pulled the trigger of the gun that killed the simple Christian Bell Ringer of Bethlehem? To those of us who are ignorant of the issues, who blindly perpetuate stereotypes, who support missions we don\u2019t understand \u2013 and don\u2019t support missionaries and aid workers we ought to \u2013 we can shudder at the thought that we might have been closer, in commitment of spirit, to the triggerman than to the Bell Ringer that morning. God forbid.<\/p>\n As children of God, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation, to be ambassadors to a fallen world \u2013 peoples of all faiths, and no faith. Now THERE is a peace treaty! <\/p>\n For the little town of Bethlehem. For everywhere.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n