Ashes and rubble
Photograph by Emad El Byed via Unsplash
Rev. Ryan Lindsay Arrendell
This year, Lent and Ramadan overlap, drawing together the sacred practices of fasting and seeking deeper intimacy with the Almighty among two Abrahamic faiths that are far too often pitted against each other, especially in times of war. And yet, in this unholy year, Christians are being killed alongside Muslims. As I’ve fasted from fried food and sweets, I’ve wondered how the people of Palestine could possibly commit to going without food when they’ve been forced into a de facto famine because Israeli forces continually block humanitarian aid, allowing “not even a grain of wheat” to enter Gaza. As I’ve fasted from soda, I’ve wondered how the people of Palestine could possibly commit to going without water when their water sources have been contaminated by bacteria and the human carnage of their loved ones and neighbors and their access to clean water restricted by Israeli authorities.
It seems as though the living water and bread of life that ought to quench our thirst and compel us to action have been contaminated by Christian Zionism and white Christian nationalism. In his book Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible, Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb contends that Christian Zionism “cannot be confined to evangelicals or dispensationalists, since it is found in different shades among political actors, liberal theologians, and mainline churches.”[i] White Christian nationalism prevents too many Christians from even imagining Jesus as a “dark-skinned Palestinian Jew,” an embodied ontology that Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III utilizes regularly for the enfleshed figure of Christian faith that doesn’t erase aspects of Jesus’ of identity and personhood.
On Palm Sunday, an Israeli air strike destroyed al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, the last major hospital that provided essential and critical healthcare in northern Gaza, turning its pharmacy, labs, and emergency department into smoking ashes and rubble. It is the fifth time Israel bombed the hospital, one of 33 hospitals attacked and damaged in Gaza since October 2023. As we approach the resurrection of Christ in the ash of this Lenten season, my mind returns to Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac’s “Christ in The Rubble: A Liturgy of Lament from Bethlehem in Occupied Palestine.” As Rev. Isaac stood behind a pulpit, a tiny Jesus doll swaddled in a keffiyeh, with his infant eyebrows raised and mouth agape, lay in the staged rubble of a sanctuary next to a candle.
“We are angry, we are broken…we are fearful…thousands are still under the rubble. This is an annihilation. This is a genocide. The world is watching. Churches are watching,” Isaac said. “We are tormented by the silence of the world.”
As Easter approaches, I am sitting with the silence of too many Saturdays where my Palestinian sisters and brothers have held ashes in one hand and rubble in another. When will we as Christians resurrect the courage and commitment to live like Jesus did?
Much of the Christian world remains silent, even in the midst of a breached ceasefire that killed more than 400 Palestinians in less than 24 hours in mid-March and more than 1,500 total since then. More bodies in the rubble, more ashes to come. The 400 children of God killed add to the more than 50,000 Palestinian women, men, and children killed in the latest round of a long and drawn-out genocide. Of the more than 50,000 lives taken, more than 17,000 were 18 or younger. The mourning and lament for Palestinian lives — Christian and Muslim — are missing. Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb writes, “For Christians in the West, Palestine is an imagined land…” And Christian theologians, Raheb asserts, “use language and theological ideas that support current Israeli settler colonialism, causing great harm to the people of Palestine.”[ii]
It is not blasphemous to say that Christians ought to repent for choosing silence at such a time because silence directly opposes Jesus’ lived ethic that compelled him to engage and empathize with those who were persecuted and deemed pariahs by the powers that be. Those stories are recorded in the Bible as critical examples of how Jesus did not turn away from the oppressed. And in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus warns of the consequences of neglecting and turning away from those in need of help — be it hunger, thirst, or other dire, basic needs. Somehow, there is a disconnect between our professed faith and our lived religion, even when it comes to the Bible.
“In Palestine, the Bible is weaponized against us. Here we confront the theology of the Empire — a disguise for superiority, supremacy, ‘chosenness,’ and entitlement,” said Dr. Isaac. The Bible, Dr. Raheb contends, is weaponized “for an imperial Western project intended to eliminate the native people while confiscating their land and exploiting their resources.”[iii]
It is time to crucify the theology of the Empire and all that comes with it. For some, it may look like no longer viewing the plight of Palestinians with apathy or ambivalence. For others, it may look like speaking up and out against the genocide in their congregation or leaving their beloved church where their pastor has co-signed the “conflict.” For some, it may look like seeking ways to hold elected officials accountable. For others, it may look like taking the time to listen to the words of Rev. Dr. Isaac and read the words of Rev. Dr. Raheb.
As Easter approaches, I am sitting with the silence of too many Saturdays where my Palestinian sisters and brothers have held ashes in one hand and rubble in another. When will we as Christians resurrect the courage and commitment to live like Jesus did?
Rev. Ryan Lindsay Arrendell is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, preacher, writer, and entrepreneur. She believes in storytelling as a powerful tool for healing & change. Whether she’s in the pulpit, the streets, the classroom or on the stage, Rev. Ryan leads with love to connect with those around her.
Her forthcoming book, Mine the Unseen, explores abortion as a pathway to healing while navigating the reality of choosing to have an abortion as a Black Christian woman in America.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
[i] Raheb, Mitri. Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, the People, the Bible. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023, p. 49.
[ii] Ibid., ix.
[iii] Ibid., 72.
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