September 7th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE HOLY PEOPLE OF GOD,

Over the weeks I have been giving you bit size pieces of my experience in Israel.  Last week and this week, you have been offered communion bread that was made with olive oil and honey brought back from Israel.  The olive oil was made from the over 500 hundred olive trees that surround the Tantur Ecumenical Institute.  This is the place I called home for 4 weeks and I walked by these trees daily. The honey has a more complicated history.  The honey was purchased at the Resurrection Church, also known as the Church of the Crusaders in Abu Ghosh.

Abu Ghosh is an Arab village located about 9 miles from Jerusalem and one of three sites that claims to be Emmaus, the place where the risen Lord revealed himself to two disciples in Luke 24:13-35.  It is also the village that is mentioned in the Old Testament as a mountain village on the boarder between the territories of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah.  It was the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant for 20 years between its restoration by the Philistines (1 Sam. 6:21 – 7:2) and its removal to Jerusalem by Kind David (2 Sam. 6). 

This site is favored because a caravanserai, a roadside inn was discovered here.  For the medieval pilgrims it was easy to imagine this place as the place where the risen Jesus broke bread with two of his disciples and in 1140 a church was built by the Knights Hospitallers probably over a Roman fortress.  In 1187, after the defeat of the Latin Kingdom at the battle of the Horns of Hattin, this village lost its importance because travelers took a different route to Jerusalem and Emmaus was then thought to be at Qubeiba.  Between 1350 and 1400, the Mamlukes restored the roadside inn, and used the church as a mosque and removed the faces from the frescos as their tradition required but the faceless frescos proved to be too much of a distraction, and they built a new mosque next door and used the church as a stable.  France bought the church in 1873 and was rededicated as a church in 1907 and used by the Benedictines. Today this church is part of a complex mixed monastery for both men and women.   This is a big step for the Roman Catholic Church. 

This is where the honey was purchased and where we were given time to roam, pray and then sit under the trees and have our weekly sharing times. Thanks to Eric Vigil’s request that I bring honey back from the Holy Land, I can also share with you the sweet taste and complex memory of the Holy Land with you.

Now I have the daunting task of trying to put something together in two 45 minute sessions to give context to my impression of the Holy Land. As I have given you a taste, I too know what our Tantur leaders were up against in designing a program for us and they had four weeks but yet so much ground to cover. 

I give thanks to God for the beautiful Tantur team made up of Jesuit Father John Paul who is the Rector and overall director of our program.  His parents were from Lebanon/Syria and immigrated to the US and lived in the Sioux City area. Before serving as Rector of Tantur he was in Minneapolis.  JP as we called him understood the culture of the US and Christian ecumenical community.  Nizar Halloun, our program director before coming to Jerusalem was in Mt. Carmel and Galilee, has a masters in comparative literature, BA in Hebrew and French linguistics and served as a tour guide in Israel.  When Nizar was not serving as our tour guide, he provided guides that were Jewish, Muslim or Palestian depending on where we were touring.  He was a wealth of information and wonderful resource. Sister MariaFarouza Maximos is the program coordinator and is from a growing order of nuns, known as the Sisters of the Way that focus on being ecumenical and being together in a different way.  This was a dream team and I have yet to introduce you to my traveling companions. 

So pray for me.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will help me to sift through all that I have experienced in a way that communicates the impression that has been left upon me and continues to shape and form me.  It is a daunting task.  I am not good at sorting through and distilling the most important because it all carries memory and meaning for me.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will help me to tune into what you most need to experience as well.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

August 31st, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE HOLY PEOPLE OF GOD,

On Monday our nation will celebrate Labor Day, a long weekend for many, an extra day off for workers and extra pay for the hourly workers who don’t get the day off.  Labor Day began 141 years ago as a response to poor working conditions.  Workers came together to fight for better wages and working conditions. The “Labor Day” parade brought together more than 10,000 workers in New York City to march for their rights on September 5th, 1882. Two years later, “Labor Day” became an official American holiday to commemorate the labor movement and laws were created to support and protect workers. 

As I continue to integrate my continuing education experience, I find myself very grateful for how our nation supports and encourages the values of my Christian faith with laws and even celebrations that help us to remember to love our neighbor as ourselves. Spending a month in Israel gave me the opportunity to experience being in a country where Christians are the minority and not supported by the laws of the nation.  The weekend is very different.

In Israel, Sunday is a workday, a business day.  Sunday in Israel is like our Monday.  Friday at sundown the Sabbath begins and there is great hustle to get home before sundown and the celebration of the Shabbat meal for the observant Jew. Friday is the day of community worship for Muslims.  In the Old City of Jerusalem, Christians gather on Sunday. 

For us, Tantur Pilgrims, it meant we had to work more in our planning of our time off and the destination where we wanted to go.  It had to be open on Saturday and we had to make sure we could get to the place.  Museums were open but not much else. There is limited public transportation and taxis and get (their uber) charge more because they know that transportation is limited.  In Israel, every taxi or uber ride is negotiated before you get into the vehicle with payment on arrival of your destination.  So we planned ahead and traveled in small groups of 4 or we stayed at Tantur and rested.  Our attendance at Sunday worship was countercultural.  When we got on the bus on Sunday morning, dressed for church, we stood out among the workers.

These small things of participating in another country structured differently than ours helps me to be thankful for our country and our labor laws and how our nation supports the love of neighbors.  I also wonder if we did not have the encouragement of the weekly structure if we would continue to survive as a Christian community that gathers for worship and I am grateful that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers and enlightens us. God is faithful and I am grateful.  

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

August 24th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE HOLY PEOPLE OF GOD,

Who do you say that I am?  That is the question Jesus asks his disciples (Matthew 16:15) in the district of Caesarea Philippi.  It is an area that I visited in Israel.  Banias, named after Pan the half-human, half-goat flute playing Greco-Roman god of shepherds and flocks.  It is an area in northern Israel that had a reputation of pagan worship at the time of Jesus and is now not even a village but a tourist destination.  This is where Jesus also tells Peter that he is the rock upon which Jeus will build his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  And the gates of Hades did not prevail as I walked among the ruins.

Where is Jesus asking you, “Who do you say that I am?”  Jesus comes into the context of our lives and invites us to join in God’s kingdom building efforts where we are.  Jesus empowers us, give us the authority to be ambassadors, representatives and witnesses of what God is doing and promises to work with us where we are.  Our youth this Sunday will share with us how they discovered Jesus in the midst of their mission work in Milwaukee in July.  Our Women of the ELCA will be exploring the Holy Places of Israel and their holy places in their fall bible study.

Now I’m back and still thinking about places and the context and holiness of those places I walk among the ruins in my own environment as I grieve the loss of my brother in-law, Dale, and change hits me from more angles than I like. It is a strange place to be. I wonder if the disciples thought about the strange place that Jesus brought them to and asked them about what others were saying and what they were thinking.  Who do I say that Jesus is? 

On that same day of walking amongst the ruins, we also took a hike to the spring and stream that was diverted by an earthquake in 1033.  The spring and stream that once flowed out of the mouth of the huge cave that now sits in ruins.  We could see the trout swimming and the paths of animals that made their way to quench their thirst.  And we were refreshed as we hiked along the stream with all its waterfalls.

Who do you say that I am?  Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  What do we say?  You are Jesus, God’s Son who keeps coming to us in the midst of our ruins, the changes, the grief, the earthquakes and fires and new beginnings. Jesus, you are the source of life and I find refreshment in the diversions and changes I encounter as I keep turning to you and trusting you.

What do you say when Jesus asks, “who do you say that I am?”

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

July 27th, 2023

GREETINGS FROM THE HOLY LAND,

Wednesday is our desert day.  We are not going into the desert, but this place Jerusalem and Bethlehem sit on the edge of the desert with the dead sea, the lowest place on earth just a ridge of hills away.  This is a day where we have been given the gift of time to “savor and relish”, to attempt to digest all that we have taken in.  It has been a month-long feast and my mind whirls attempting to let this nourish me for I am one to take a fantasy journey with all that has been given and this holy place is indeed a place of dreams and hopes amidst harsh history and heavy realities of current living conditions as a new nation that is only 75 years old take shape in a land marked by many rulers. As one of our tour guides said, even though this is a hard time, it is the best time as this time we are not being ruled from the outside.

Shukran!! To my ear it sounds like a form of sugar, sweetness that means, “thank-you” in Arabic.  Shukran is a way to communicate appreciation to another for their kindness.  Kamal Mukarker, one of our guides spoke of his love for the Arabic language, it’s beauty and poetry so that when you say, shukran (thank-you) we follow it up with more words, picture words that map out more clearly the thanks we are giving.

When I read the Psalms with that in mind, one line feeding off of the other, giving more of a picture, I will now have more than what a picture can give for I have seen the places, the landscape.  My feet have touched the ground.  I have felt the heat of the sun as we scurried for shade whenever we could.  Psalm 121 comes alive in a new way – “The sun shall not strike you by day.” and “I will lift up my eyes to the hills”, hills that I have seen and walked for a brief time.  These people are a hardy bunch to live upon this land and thrive with all its conflict and history.  They have much to teach us.  Us, whose lives are not built upon such history or harshness.  There is wisdom to be found here.  I pray that God will help me to peel back the layers of what I have feasted on, giving me the ability to articulate what I have feasted on for you and the community where we find ourselves.

As we prepare for hosting National Night Out, you might try to add this Arabic word to your greetings to our neighbors, many of whom just might speak Arabic.  Go to the internet and listen to the sound of it and become familiar so that we can thank our neighbors for coming.  For God is working through us, patiently waiting for us to lift up our eyes knowing that our help comes from the Lord.  God will help us to reach out and walk with our neighbors and so much more.  For God is all about helping us to live together, loving one another and loving God.

After our desert day we will head to Jericho, Jordan River for an affirmation of our Baptism, Dead Sea float and farewell dinner.  Friday, we head to Tel Aviv and will spend time in another body of water, the Mediterranean Sea and travel home on Sunday.  I hope to see you at National Neighborhood Night Out. I’ve missed you all and look forward to seeing you again.  Shukran!!!  Thank you for this amazing time of continuing education.  

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

 Pastor Connie Spitzack

July 20th, 2023

GREETINGS FROM THE SEA OF GALILEE,

This week we are on the road, staying a couple of nights in Nazareth and a couple of nights at the Sea of Galilee.  It has been very hot here with temperatures reaching 100 degrees.  Good for us that we are at the sea for not only a boat ride but also swimming.  What a delight it is to be in the land and on the waters where Jesus lived, to see the ruins and imagine his life among the people.  There is a saying here that Jesus spent 30 years in Nazareth, 3 years in Capernaum and 3 days in Jerusalem.

The 30 years has been referred to as the “hidden years”, the years of common, everyday life that Jesus lived in his hometown with his family, relatives and friends in a town of about 200.  He knew everyone and they knew him.  Think about how hard it is for us to hear a new thing, a different thing from someone we know well.  Jesus is rejected by his hometown folks when he makes claims about his relationship with God.

It is thought that Joseph and Jesus would have sought carpentry or stone work in Sepphoris which would have been a large city at the time of Jesus.  Jesus would have had access to Torah scrolls through the larger synagogue as well as exposure to a larger culture. This was part of his preparations for the 3 years of ministry.

Those 3 years of ministry are done in the region of Galilee, a beautiful and lush area.  Calling fishermen, teaching and healing and bringing good news to all the people. And meeting the disciples after the resurrection giving them the command to love and tend God’s people.  And that is what we do together in community – love and tend to one another following our good shepherd, Jesus who shows us the way.

Thank you for your prayers.  I pray for you as well.  I pray for our youth on their mission trip and for the final preparations for our hosting of national night out.  God’s peace and presence surround and keep you all in his loving care. 

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack