The Nazareth Diaries

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Third Week: 24-28 September 2003

Wednesay 24 September

(Monday - Thursday were spent in Jerusalem, but most of the time was spent of personal pursuits. However, the best part of one of the days was spent in Bethlehem, and should be of interest to readers of these Notes)

Clarence Musgrave (the minister at St Andrew's Church of Scotland in Jerusalem) took me to Bethlehem. We got through the checkpoint without any difficulty at all, though it was clear that one or two vehicles ahead of us were being turned around and sent back where they'd come from. Everywhere in the city there is evidence of the Israel army's "invasion" some months back:

• the road is blocked at Rachel's Tomb on the way in (a settlement about to be built?) so you have to make a big detour;
• burnt shells of houses and hotels, some of them targeted for no obvious reason;
• various tracks and roads dug up to stop people getting through;
• a house demolished as a punishment for a suicide bombing (it had been the person's home);
• the main road from Bethlehem to Hebron is blocked, to stop through traffic. Presumably it's a protection for the new Jewish settlements (on appropriated Arab land) between the two cities. The sight of people with donkeys on the Bethlehem side manually loading up with produce from a lorry on the other side was pathetic.

I went to the House of Hope, which a group from St John's had visited in 1996, and met Rhoda David, the director, and widow of Michael who had met us at that time. I gave her 50 dollars of the money donated by Kettle's On, and she showed me round. The olive wood workshop is closed because of the collapse of tourism, but they are still making brushes to sell in local markets, and seem to be doing very well. There are currently 29 children, several elderly residents, and 6 volunteers. A speech therapist makes the tortuous journey from Hebron (it can take him two hours to travel the few miles) three times a week. It was lovely to see the work continuing.

Clarence collected me and introduced me to the directors of the International Centre for Bethlehem, a Lutheran project which grew out of the Bethlehem 2000 initiative. They have a beautiful building, paid for by Finnish Lutherans, with a cultural centre, theatre, workshop, gardens, café. I spoke with the deputy, a worker at a new Christian centre for serving the people of the area, who has I understand a PhD gained in USA. She came back to this job, because of her faith in the vision of developing Palestinian identity through Christian service to the people - raising standards in education, health, employment. Among other things an artist connected to the centre collected broken glass left behind in the streets by the army, and used it to make angels! The market for these has grown so much that they now use discarded beer and wine bottles. I bought five, and will sell them at St John's when I return. Who knows - maybe there will be a demand for lots more? Unemployment in Bethlehem is around 70%

It is difficult it is to travel from Bethlehem. You now need a permit to exit through checkpoints, to get into Jericho, to leave Ramallah. She was in Switzerland recently, and had to travel by "special vehicle" (4x4 I guess) through the desert to Jericho, and from there to Jordan. Even so, she said it was easier for her to get to Switzerland that Jerusalem!

After popping into the Church of the Nativity, which looks as dilapidated as ever, but at least shows no signs of the siege, we went to look for Hanna, (who had been on Iona in May) but he was not at home. From there we visited friends from 25 years ago. The husband is very depressed about not being able to get to work at the St Andrew's Guest House, where he took over from Hanna as cook some years ago. He pled with Clarence to try to get the manager of the Centre to help him get a permit so he could cross the check-point. He and his wife have five children, and though she has a job at the Lutheran school, they are in debt for school and college fees to the tune of about £1000.

On the way back we turned off the old Jerusalem-Hebron road to the new (Jewish) one. It heads south in a great sweep to the west of Bethlehem, with new settlements visible everywhere. (On whose land? It's all appropriated) I also saw the office to which people have to go to get their permits. It's beside an army base and must be extremely difficult for local people to get to. And no doubt they are kept waiting for hours.

Altogether it was an instructive and deeply disturbing day.

Friday 26 September

Today I gave the last $50 from Kettle's On to Radia one of the social workers at the Hospital, for use in their discretionary fund. It's used to help poor patients pay for their drugs from the pharmacy, to assist abused women who come in distress, and in whatever way seems right. So I've now distributed the full $150 (£100) equally to:

• the Nazareth Village
• House of Hope
• Hospital Social Workers' Fund

Saturday 27 September

In the evening was collected for a meeting of the board of an organization called The Harbour. They're a group of people who have a vision for lots of things, particularly bringing people of the different churches in Nazareth together, and also want to establish a Christian counselling service. Fareed Shehadeh, who translated for me at the House of Light, is really the moving force here, and is on the point of giving up his job as an educational psychologist to launch into this. They wanted to ask me about possible links with the hospital. Among the members of the board is Becky Frank, who with her husband Daniel has in fact recently moved from Nazareth to Netherlee, Glasgow, where Daniel is associate minister (with Tom Nelson, formerly of Stonehouse). It's a small world! Becky is back here for just a few weeks.

Sunday 28 September

Went to the Greek Orthodox St Gabriel's Church this morning with Dr Nakhle. It is built over the spring which supplied water for Nazareth in NT times. So there's every likelihood that Mary drew water from here (not to mention with Jesus at her side). whether the angel Gabriel appeared to her at the spring as one tradition has it or at home, is another question! The service began at 8:30 am and lasted till nearly 11:00 am. The outline of the liturgy is written up in The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware (chapter 14), where he describes the aim of Orthodox worship as being to provide "heaven on earth" and to lift the worshipper up to the heavenly places. Anyway, I'm just recording some impressions of it here, in a fairly unsystematic and very personal way:

• The service began with the reading of about 6 psalms (2 readers), with few people present at this stage. They arrived gradually over the next hour or so till the place was filled with well over 200. Nearly half were men. However, Nakhle informed me that there would be many more Orthodox worshipping in other churches in the city.

• Much of the service was led by the cantors (of whom Nakhle is one) and the priests spent lot of the time behind the iconostasis (solid screen), only appearing at odd times when they had some role to perform. The idea is that the worship is the people's worship, and does not belong to the priests. An excellent philosophy, but it seemed odd that the priests took so little interest in what the people were chanting and singing. Through the gap in the screen I could see them wandering around, adjusting their robes, talking with the man who was a sort of "church officer". The people themselves weren't paying much attention either, though most of them did join in the hymns.

• The whole service was chanted or sung, except for the announcements(?). All of it was unaccompanied, and some of it was inspiring even to me, who understands less than a little Arabic. The liturgy is very ancient, dating back to very early times (some of it even written by James, the Lord's brother, it is claimed). There are 8 different books, each with several different services, so there is loads of music for the cantors and choir to remember - a lifetime's work, it seems. The stress is always on the resurrection, never merely the Cross, with readings every week from compilations of the Easter narratives.

• Everything reached a climax of course with the Eucharist. The incense was ever more liberally shaken around, the singing became louder and more intense. An interesting tradition is that 40-day old babies are brought for a blessing. There were about 5 of them today, and one of the priests, after blessing the mother (no dads in evidence at this point) took the children in turn for a tour of the church, bowing at various points and making the sign of the Cross with two candles, which he carried in his hands along with each child. I was hoping the babies' clothes were fire-retardant!

  After drawing a curtain across the entrance to the iconostasis during the consecration (Greeks believe in transubstantiation) the priests then brought the elements on parade round the church, and the people were eventually served. One priest spoon-fed (literally) the wine into people's mouths, and they then went to help themselves to the bread from a stand. I noticed that a number of people took several pieces, and it was explained afterwards that they would be taking the extra home to their families. Upstairs in the choir loft with Nakhle by this time, I was intrigued to find that the choir distribute bread (no wine) among themselves from nothing more than a plastic carrier bag! I was offered and took bread - it tastes like sweet cornbread, and the pieces are quite substantial. Maybe this is because the tradition is to fast from Saturday night before taking the Eucharist on Sunday morning. Only a minority of the congregation went forward to receive Communion; this is due to the belief that only those who have confessed their sins and cleansed their hearts should partake.

• After all this the service seemed to end quite abruptly with much chanting, blessing and signs of the Cross. After the service was finished Nakhle explained some of the interior design of the church eg:
  • the bishop's throne is in the heart of the nave, because he serves a function within the body of Christ, rather than being someone set over the people
  • the pulpit is only used on occasional feast days. Most of the time there is no sermon
  • behind the iconostasis are paintings of the Fathers of the Church. On the iconostasis are various biblical icons. On the walls of the church paintings of saints surround the congregation, to encourage them to aspire to holy living. Those pictured holding crosses were martyrs. Above are frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Jesus.

  • in icons the infant Jesus is always shown with an adult face, the emphasis being laid on his role as Saviour, not as a baby.

    The main icon is this church is of Madonna and child. Mary is perfectly still, inactive, passive, while Jesus has his hand raised in active blessing. So the role of Mary is much less than in RC tradition.

• Further points about icons, which are intended as a window into the kingdom of God:

  • the artist must be a believer and fast for 40 days before starting to paint

  • the figures are always motionless

  • the eyes are always deliberately large and other facial features unnaturally small

  • worshippers kiss the icons

What to learn for worship in Scotland?

• It's funny how we cling to traditions that are probably less than 200 years old. Here is a church that can trace its liturgy more than 1200 years back, and could hardly be more different to the observer than that which we've cobbled together since the Reformation.

• Yet is the ancient necessarily the good? Nakhle reckons that most of the congregation don't really understand or think about what is going on. Those who want and feel they need a more contemporary and comprehensible experience of worship are deserting their heritage and going to other churches. I guess the majority just stop attending worship altogether. Many of the inherent concepts are great in themselves, but they are not actually touching the hearts of the people. It's the same problem that all historic denominations - like the Church of Scotland - face, only more so. Will it be possible to bridge this gulf? At least in the Church of Scotland our philosophy (if not our practice) is supposed to be reformed and always reforming.

• It's striking how many men attend the churches here compared with Scotland. Why? Hard to tell, but it is obvious how in at least the Orthodox church, the men are still clearly taking the leadership role. Men stood/sat separately from the women and children, and it was the men who had pride of place at the front, nearest the iconostasis.

• The length of the service is an interesting issue - nearly 2½ hours, without a break. There was much more coming and going and moving around. Tourists walked through the congregation to get down to Mary's Well, but no-one minded. There was an unhurried informality about it that was attractive. No-one seemed to be clock-watching, and in fact there was no clock in the church at all. In St John's, and in most Scottish churches, we have two, so we are slaves to time twice over.

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