Pentecost: Hope in the Spirit

5/20/18

Back to Oakdale

Oakdale Presbyterian Church is a congregation in a small town that is part of the fast growing expansion of the airport business, commercial and residential development.  

Time for my  annual  visit to the Oakdale Church where I rediscovered my call to parish ministry 14 years ago. It's hard to believe it was that many years. But visits these last three years have renewed my relationship with this resilient community. I am profoundly moved that they have weathered the storm of theological ideological controversy and division  and have come out the other side with new spirit and hope. Their feeling of community and acceptance is easily felt and the congregation is visibly growing in its diversity, a true expression of God's embracing love.  I'm also glad that I have another chance to play and sing with my friend Dan Hanczar who helped me bring music back to my life again during my time there. A new set of guitar strings was his gift when I left for New York City. 

I look out at many congregants wearing Pentecost red. 

After the reading of the scriptures,(see below)  Dan and I play "Blowin in the Wind" and I said that when I was in high school, my pastor had explained that the song was a good expression of the Holy Spirit and Pentecost. That has always stayed with me. (Though my pastor called him Bob DY-lan.) But as I have been doing since the Parkland shootings, I pause at the end to say that the students have shown is that maybe Blowin in the wind isn't enough. Maybe it has to be the answer is not blowin' in the wind, but the answer is in our own hands...and so I have us sing that together.

And then it was time for my reflection...

Red is the color of the day...

It's great to be back here again.  Especially on the Sunday of Pentecost. Which is ,you know, the birthday of the church. (Not you Oakdale guys, I mean the church.) One year the Presbyterian Church (USA) tried to make it a big event--called it the party. Sent out packages with noise makers and decorations and...well, it didn't go over so well. Presbyterians don't really roll that way much.

This year's' kind of special because we have a convergence of the Christian Pentecost, the Muslim Ramadan and the Jewish Shavuot. (Now Shavuot and Pentecost are always connected because Shavuot is the original pentecost...what everyone in Acts was coming to Jerusalem to celebrate. Shavuot...the feast of weeks.(7 weeks +1 day) ..50 days after Passover...like for us, Pentecost is 50 days after Easter.  Shavuot was at first an agricultural holiday.  Then later became a celebration of the giving of the law on Mt.Sinai...and for us, the visitation of the Holy Spirit...we might want to reflect a bit on why God (or Luke?) chose to bring in the Holy Spirit on the day that was set aside to  celebrate the giving of the law on Sinai. In both cases, we have this fire and smoke imagery...BUT...the Law, the Holy Spirit, how are they connected?

The last several days have impacted my sermon. I mean we always preach in the context of what's going on in the world around us.  And this year's Ramadan was ushered in with the US moving its embassy in Israel, massive protests in Gaza, at least 60 dead and hundreds wounded. That was on  my mind.  Then after an all night bus ride to Pittsburgh, the TVs in the Greyhound Station greeted me with the news of yet another school shooting.  The 22nd this year. Think about that. 

I was so angry. Like why even bother to report this? It's not really uncommon anymore. It's not like anything is going to change. By now we can all almost write the script. Starting with "thoughts and prayers." 

And then yesterday, to my surprise,  I found myself mesmerized by the Royal wedding. And I wondered, whoa, what's up with that? And wondered why Americans got so involved with this event in England.  Is it old memories of where we came from? (I remember Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude saying, Oh, I don't miss kingdoms so much, but oh, the kings....)

Bishop Michael Curry's sermon blew me away....he truly spoke of the power of love...both interpersonally and societally...

He said:
When love is the way, unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way, then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way, we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing brook. When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary. When love is the way, we will lay down our swords and shields, down by the riverside, to study war no more. When love is the way, there's plenty good room, plenty good room, for all of god's children because when love is the way, we actually treat each other well, like we are actually family.

And he spoke of Jesus' response to the question as to the most important commandment; to love God with all your heart soul and strength ...and to love your neighbor as yourself..

NOW...this leads me back to my main concern today...HOPE...certainly the Israeli -Palestinian conflict and gun violence challenge our sense of hope. But to be honest, I don't think too many of us spend too much time each week worried about issues like that. Most of us are just trying to do the best we can to get by the best we can and be decent to others in the meantime...

I love that image in ACTS that creation has been groaning with labor pains. That the stressful and painful things we see around us are the birth pangs of something new coming into being, being born . Even if I can't see it. Jim Wallis always said that hope is believing despite the evidence and having the courage to work to make the evidence change. 

And I was moved to learn that those Parkland students have accomplished a lot in Florida. New minimum age, requirement to buy from a licensed dealer, etc. It's a clear sign that things are not always as hopeless as they seem. 

I've come to believe that hope is one of the two most important spiritual qualities, the other being joy..but that's another sermon....

Look I know that usually  when we use that word its like this...
At lunch yesterday, I said, I want to go to the Pirate game...I sure hope it doesn't rain. 
Do you think they'll win?
 I hope so...

But hope so much more profound. It's not optimism, like everyday in every way everything is getting better...because you know what? It's not...Hope is an active commitment rooted in your willingness to believe that you know in whose hands lies the future...

Hear Paul again because this is what I'm after...

For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

We all know what that's like...to feel we have no words sufficient, but only sighs. And sometimes even moans. That's where the Holy Spirit is, alive within our deepest emotions. 

And I want you to see the Holy Spirit as our agent of  hope, as our defender, our advocate. By Biblical tradition, Satan is the accuser, the prosecuting attorney, the one who tells you you're no good, you can't make it, so why try?..The Holy Spirit is our advocate, the one who stands up for us, strengthens us, sustains us. 

When I lead worship, I use those words about prayer every time...sighs too deep for words...friends, yes most of us do know sighs like that....

The fifty days of Easter are about the Risen One's presence with us between Easter and Ascension. Pentecost is all about  What do we do  without Jesus' physical presence...
Today we celebrate Pentecost...the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, not just to inspire, but to sustain us...

I remember the words to this old hymn...
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
  On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
  All other ground is sinking sand.

So today we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and give thanks for the Hope we bear, the hope we share...And for this we say, Amen.

Love to play with Dan and Jamie

Following the sermon, Dan and conga player Jamie Frey and I do Eric Bibb's "Don't let nobody drag your spirit down..."

There are hugs. And good words. Enough to last until the next visit. And then the gift of tickets to the Pirates. An opportunity to practice hope. (Insert smile emoji here.😄)

It has been good to  be here...as always....


   



First Reading Acts 2:1-21

1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes 11Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 
17  ‘In the last days it will be,God declares, 
     that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, 
          and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 
     and your young men shall see visions, 
          and your old men shall dream dreams. 
18  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, 
          in those days I will pour out my Spirit; 
               and they shall prophesy. 
19  And I will show portents in the heaven above 
          and signs on the earth below, 

Second Reading Romans 8:22-27

22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? 25But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Godwrestling 4: Gaza. Ferguson. Staten Island. And a challenge....

8/24

Witnesses: Stephen, Hugo, Arcadia, Lilly, Stephen, Samantha

The empty days of late August. And we gather for worship. Our 4^th in the series on godwrestling.

Good to see Russ back again. And Stephen W. And Rachel, who always lifts my spirits. We use Lead on Oh King Eternal as a musical reflection. And our main scripture this morning is Exodus 1:  8-2:10, which we do as a reader’s theatre, different voices, different parts. The story of a new pharaoh who knew not Joseph, the quasi genocidal project against male children and the rescue of baby Moses.

This time I do more talk at the beginning than I usually do. Much on my mind and heart.

Talk about wrestling…There’s the continuing siege of Gaza. The murder of loosie salesman Eric Garner. The protest march on Staten Island. Michael Brown, shot down in  Ferguson. We’ve now added to our common language, I can’t breathe... (Garner) and Hands up, Don’t shoot…(Brown). Foley's brutal beheading by ISIS. Feels like a world aflame.

Did you notice that last Monday on Monday Night Football the Washington Redskins  secondary entered the field with their hands up? Did you notice that our friend Osagyefo Sekou was sent to Ferguson as a representative of the Fellowship of Reconciliation? (http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/19/pastor_in_ferguson_police_crackdown_i) He commented that in Ferguson he needed  a gas mask more than his clergy collar. Turns out Brother Sekou grew up around there and graduated from Ferguson high school.

Our PCUSA officials released a statement that urged prayer and calm…..my son Micah  saw this on my Facebook and commented …seriously?....Micah’s point was what is called for is not calm, but a loud cry of outrage....

So we turn to our story…

First…how did we get into this situation?

* Jacob settled where he wanted, not where God wanted…setting it all in motion. He chose the security of a gated community over the wilderness where reliance on God is the only security.

* Joseph, sold away by his brothers,  put his fate in the hands of pharaoh, not God. Served the pharaoh. Manipulated a food crisis to rob the people of their property, enslaved the country, the lower class Egyptians as well as the Hebrews.

* The new Pharaoh manipulated  up resentment against and fear of the Israelites to distract from his culpability. It’s an old common story…lower class whites encouraged to blame the blacks, not those who control the economy. Lower class whites blaming immigrants. Jews driven out of one country serving the rulers of a new country until the people arise.  An old story.

Now…a new pharaoh…who did not know Joseph…arises ….(and even if he did know Joseph, his strategy could have been the same…)

The message is simple: when you buy into the empire you are lost…

There is also the reality of the more powerful fearing the larger population, Pharaoh afraid of Hebrew demographics,  Israel fearing being outnumbered by  Palestinians…

There is new scholarship suggesting that revolutionary war was not just about self determination but also about slavery…That the British Empire was preparing to end slavery and the colonial economy was dependent on slavery and so the drive for separation…the roots of today’s trauma run very deep….

The story of baby Moses and the bulrushes   has a sense of Bible story nostalgia.., a gentle glow of memory. It’s easy to forget that underneath this story is a genocidal plan…

Again, familiar…Gaza,(shooting fish in a barrel, as one of us says…),mass incarceration, drug laws, (remember again our West-Park overture, the disproportionate rate of stops, arrests, incarceration…with about 12% of the population blacks are 65% of drug arrests and 75% of incarcerations…)  and now with these shootings, is there any wonder African-Americans feel like there’s an outright war on black youth…(Deacon James, shakes his head. Remembers serving his country in Korea. Why? he asks,  Just why? You pay your debt. Why do you lose your vote forever? Seems like a plan… )No wonder they call it the new Jim Crow…

And so our midwives, Shiphrah and Puah had to wrestle. Note they get names. Actual names. How would they respond to their commands? Would they risk their own security for their people? They resisted where they were….did what they could where they could. With cleverness they outsmarted pharaoh.

And so Moses is pulled out of the water…(in Cairo they’ll show you exactly where…) Thus setting in motion a new story…..

So for us?.... A world on flame. A time of reckoning… a time for us to discern what we can do where we are…

The church cannot just look outside and speak a prophetic word. We must look inside. As last summer’s General Assembly showed, as our struggles over lgbtq inclusion are resolved, the real struggle over race and class will begin to emerge. We in New York City Presbytery have already been wresting with that for awhile now.

What we can, where we can…that’s what we must discern…

Arcadia is moved just by the death of so many children. Others by the inequity of power in Gaza. Or the newly militarized police forces across the US…

We struggle. We wrestle. What we can, as we can, where we can…

Today for our prayer preparation, Jeremy and I do Amazing Grace Hank Williams style. To the tune of So Lonesome I could cry…As his musical offering, Jeremy sings his original Walk with me on the winding road....a song written for a mother who lost a child. In honor of mothers and lost children.

Anna meets with the session to announce her interest in officially joining the church. She's dressed up for the occasion. And we are happy that she is ready to commit. 

                                                                    * * * *

aftermath

The service ends. And then it’s time. Last week the West-Park Angels softball team did the ALS  ice bucket challenge and then challenged me. (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10204276568972543&set=vb.1177956430&type=2&theater) So this is my time. I know about the push back. Wasted water. Shallow analysis. Viral video. All that. But I also have read the comments of ALS survivors and families and know that thee has been 5.5 million raised as opposed to 32000 during this time last year. So I’m down. I go to the steps, make my challenge. To Gale Brewer. Presbyterian colleagues, clergy colleagues. And from Samantha’s suggestion, Amanda in Oregon. People gather around. Including people in Barney Greengrass brunch line. I raise the bucket, feel the ice and water pour over. Catch my breath…and laugh….

the challenge

Too many Gargantuan tasks: from police violence to Gaza

8/6

To church after lectionary. TK is there, putting things in order although today he won’t be here all day long as he has a funeral to tend to.

Jason H from Occupy has come in  for conversation. He’s living on Staten Island now. Of course, he’s passionate about the case of Eric Garner who was choked to death for selling loose cigarettes. And he’s also consumed by the gentrification of his neighborhood. Staten Island is the borough we always forget about. Kind of like  New Jersey. And the black parts of the Island are the worst of all. The problem of course is that Jason gets it. The interconnection between everything. That race alone is not what its about. That racism is used to distract people from what the system is doing. Charging the choker cop with murder is not enough. Sensitivity training for police is not enough. He gets the limits of Iiberalism. He sees how unemployment, mass incarceration, red lining  and repression all support gentrification which expands the power of the empire. And he’s frustrated that you can’t go after all of it at once.

We talk about that. Sometimes you just have to just get a street light added and the garbage picked up. That’s ok. But the basic understanding, awareness that drove Occupy was right. The problem is building a sustainable movement. We talk about what the church could be. We talk about what I’ve come to understand about Peter Seeger, that his songs were a means of sustaining people over the long haul. That those songs, the sing-alongs, had existential political power.

Amanda has gotten him interested in the light tower project. But he’s way beyond the beacon of hope or commemorating the religious Stonewall aspects. What he wants is a sign that this is a safe space where conversations can taken place about the emerging issues for queer youth and the trans community. A safe space for conversations.  A safe space for any who have been excluded. I share with him the frustration of knowing where it needs to go but not being sure how to get there. And the sense of urgency burns within me.

Urgency….people are starting to arrive for tonight’s emergency meeting for Gaza. It’s being sponsored by an ad hoc group of neighborhood people, Upper West Side for Gaza Aid. All proceeds will go to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. (http://www.pcrf.net/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwx4yfBRCt2rrAs-P5vtkBEiQAOdFXbacuLS9-bT5bSAI16PANfryXacoIGR8O0MX14suVK4kaAiTW8P8HAQ) We’ll be showing a film we previously showed during our Palestine Film Festival, Where Should the Birds Fly, by Fida Qishta. (http://whereshouldthebirdsfly.org/) . Film maker Fida Qishta was to be with us, but she has been detained at Heathrow so she has to join us by Skype. (Thank you Marc…) Before  the film, various solidarity groups tell us of their upcoming marches and plans. And tonight’s organizer tells how she put flyers up on evety telephone pole in the Upper West Side only to find them all torn down. In this neighborhood, this is still a taboo topic.

Russ helps us get everything set up. I give a pitch for next week’s book study of Goliath : Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal. (http://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Life-Loathing-Greater-Israel/dp/1568586345) I’m happy to see Hugo and Arcadia here. As the film begins and I see the mammoth Caterpillar bull dozer tearing down and crushing houses in its path, I’m once again proud that our church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to divest from them at our Assembly this summer. I can’t get over the feeling that it’s all gone too far, past the point of no return. That economic pressure is the last non-violent option left. But we are till shrouded in so much myth, myth that I would love to believe, that turning the American public is a gargantuan task. Maybe it’s just so blatant this time it’s no longer possible to hide. Maybe.

Too many gargantuan tasks. Back to Harlem to meet with Mili and friends and tslk about music.

It's been a hard week in the world

7/20

It's been a hard week in the world.  A Malaysian aircraft goes down over the Ukraine. Israel enters Gaza. The 2000 years old Christian community in Mosul, Iraq is over., driven out by ISIS. And it is estimated  that in 20 years, one out of 5 the world's species will be extinct. Tough time to bring good news.

Jeremy and I start the  morning  by working on Jacob's Ladder. And I may even try Precious Lord, take my hand. (where's Andre when I need him?)

We've got a new visitor from the neighborhood.

This week we read all the passages first before any conversation. Genesis 28: 10-19A, the Jacob's ladder passage. Psalm 139, God everywhere. Romans 8: 12-25, creation groaning in birth pangs. And Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, another sower parable with wheat and tares. But we pause first to do Jacob's ladder, quasi Springsteen, quasi Seeger style.

First, I talk about that rough week. How disturbing it's been. We start with Genesis. We remember that last week, we had the Jacob and Esau story. Jacob winning the birthright through trickery. And that here we have Jacob being told that he will be a blessing. Point being, our blessings do not always come from whom or where we expect. Jacob is far from exemplary as a human being. But will be the patriarch of Israel. My favorite line is verse 16: Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it! Sometimes we don't recognize the presence of God in  the place where we are. 

A point made clear by Psalm 139, which presents a no place you can run, no place you can hide image of God. I remembered with a laugh when Jim Costen, former President of the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta, was Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. We kept running into each other all around the country, then in Mexico and finally in Jerusalem. In the Holy City, he threw up his arms, laughed and said,  Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? and then we both laughed.

Romans speaks of the suffering of this present time (18) and a creation wait(ing) with eager longing (19) and that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains (22). What we know when we look at our present world is that things must change. Things cannot remain this way. If this  is indeed a groaning, let it be for the birth of something new

Ultimately, the passage leads to a discussion of hope. . (24-25) and as I have so many  times before, talk of hope as a radical theological  category, not optimism.  It's King saying that the  arc of history bends towards justice. Or Jim Wallis' classic definition, Hope is in believing despite the evidence and having the courage to work to make then evidence change.

Finally, Jesus' second sower parable. Admittedly, it' a tough one with it's talk of wheat and weeds. (Tares, in the King James version.) If there is a  Good News point, it is that we can't go trying to tear out weeds because they're so similar to the wheat, it would destroy the wheat too. (Like Israeli smart bombs taking out 4 children on a beach...) It's not our job. We're all a mixture of weeds and wheat. And if there is this weeding out at the end, that's God's job, not ours.

Marsha quickly points out that issues with this passage. The fire and brimstone angle. But more, even in my good news version, there's a movement towards passivity. Certainly the Wallis quote about hope asks us to have the courage to work to change the evidence...And the wheat and weeds imagery has dangerous repercussions in the real world.  Israelis and Palestinians demonize each other. And Jeremy is deeply disturbed by the  death of Eric Garner. A large African-American man, Garner was a victim of Police Commissioner Bratton's broken windows law enforcement policy in which small crimes are aggressively policed inn order to prevent larger ones. Garner was a well known loosie (as in loose cigarette) salesman, an inevitable business in a city where packs of cigarettes can run $13 a pack.

Police were attracted by the commotion of a fight Garner was breaking up, he had that reputation in the neighborhood, a peacemaker. But the police went after  his stash of loosies. He held up his hands, resisting cuffs. A choke hold was applied. He went to the ground, died shortly later. He was a married father of 6 children. Something has to change.

                                                                 Eric Garner video

Martha, our visitor, talks about journalism and control of the news and how can we judge wheat and weeds without information. And I recall visiting with my son when he lived in Ramallah, his highly watching of BBC, AL Jazeera and Russia Today and realizing how uninformed we are as Americans. And how ironic it is that our most reliable news sources tend to be comedy shows, eg, last Sunday's John Oliver Show focusing on income inequality. 

Can we get back to the Good News?

Marsha mentions our American obsession with end times, the rapture, etc. So I talk about the new TV show, The Leftovers. A scenario in which, in one moment, 2% of the world's population vanished. The show begins 3 years later, while people are still trying to deal with it. Understand it. A celebration has been planned to honor our heroes, a statue commissioned. A slightly unhinged Episcopal priest with a small, dwindling congregation (I'm sympathetic already) has taken on the task, is obsessed with the task, of researching those who disappeared and proving that this was no rapture. How this one abused children, this one cheated on his wife, this one sold drugs. He is clearly not popular. If we can't separate out the good from the evil, then all meaning is lost, he says.

And he's right. There is that which is clearly evil. Even though discernment can be difficult, we are called to resist. The message would appear to be that it is our means of resistance that makes all the difference. That's what we'll leave with today.

Jeremy had persuaded me to try Precious Lord, take my hand. And I do.Not my best, but I keep working on expanding my range. 

The Session meets. Approves a job description for our administrative position. Sadly, Danielle will be leaving in the middle of August. It's hard for me to imagine doing this without her. 

Where should the birds fly?

3/6

Anna comes in for a long conversation. And brings chocolates.

Marc is running the movie, making sure that everything is set for tonight’s screening of Where Should the Birds Fly?

Danielle and I are working hard to get everything ready for the film and Rachel keeps wanting to help. An early arriver for the film wants to help too. Rachel of course attaching herself to the volunteer.

After our shopping, I break away to join in a national conference call with my PHEWA colleagues, working on maintaining our place in the natural church. (http://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/phewa/phewa-networks/)

Soon it’s time for the movie. Tonight is special because we have the filmmaker, Fida Qish with us. It’s a devastating movie about the siege of Gaza, and especially the Cast Lead operation which killed over 500 Palestinian combatants and over deaths of 900 unarmed civilians as opposed to 3 Israelis. The story is told through the eyes of 9 year old Mona as she is witness to the deaths of her parents and other family members.

I remember my own visits to Gaza, first in 1979 following the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and then in the 1980’s after the Sinai had been returned. I remember the hulking Israeli watching towers ominously looming over the urban centers, container after container of rotting oranges prevented from being exported and the sense of being in a constricted prison in one of the most densely populated areas globally.

The film shows the effects of the giant militarized caterpillar bulldozers crushing homes, even with people in them. After the movie, as I led the q&a, I talked about our denomination’s intention of bringing a motion to its General Assembly this summer to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlitt-Packard for their tactical and material support of the occupation. (http://pres-outlook.org/2012/02/mrti-recommends-targeted-divestment-in-3-companies-for-nonpeaceful-use-of-their-products-in-israel-palestine/).

This is also the week  the New York Times broke the story of new mayor Di Blasio’s secret meeting with the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and his promise to do whatever he could to help them.(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/nyregion/de-blasio-in-private-speech-to-aipac-stresses-commitment-to-israel.html?_r=0).

Our neighbor rabbis at B’nai Jeshurun wrote a letter of protest that Aipac did not speak for them or all Jews and the predictable firestorm of threats and reprisals followed. What was encouraging was the letter of support from over 100 rabbis. (http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2014/03/01/rabbis-defend-colleagues-against-aipac/)

Sometimes from our audience after screenings, voices arise accusing us of not showing a balanced view. Stories like this demonstrate how difficult it is in the US to get a perspective sympathetic to Palestinians presented in public.

Russ and friends

The question for us as Americans, is of course, what is our responsibility? What would the situation be like if Israel did not have the 4 billion dollars a year in aid from the US? The fact is, the occupation is primarily funded by our tax dollars publicly and our investments privately. To hold our elected officials accountable, including Mayor Di Blasio, is a daunting challenge. But we can’t criticize Israeli policies without looking at our own responsibility.

I visit with Palestinians who have come. An Armenian Christian hair stylist. A woman doctor from Ramallah who has come with an Israeli colleague and of course, the filmmaker Fida. We’ll be back again, next week. 

Bob Brashear, Fida Qish and Russ Jennings