Newsletter 15 June 2008
The Baggage We Carry
The Rev. Dave Barnhart
It's the little things that first got my attention: the chilly nip of the
Jordanian weather, blood-red poppies growing in a field, the contrast of white
iPod earbuds against a brown hijab on a Muslim teenager. I became aware of
tiny, half-formed prejudices and assumptions that chafed against reality.
Traveling to the Holy Land forced me to turn out my pockets and get rid of
some preconceived notions I had carried around.
After we deplaned, I marveled at the weather. In middle school I had learned
about the "Fertile Crescent," and I had read Biblical references
about farming and grazing. I'd read scriptures that made reference to water
falling on a "thirsty land," and springs "pouring water into
ravines." But I'd also grown up seeing Americans shake their heads and
roll their eyes at whatever latest news came from the Middle East, and I'd
heard them wonder, "why would people fight over a desert or a pile of
rocks?" In Sunday school, I'd seen cartoonish drawings of Jesus or Moses
set against generic backgrounds, as if the land were not important. So I wasn't
prepared to see a place so lush, with such varied microclimates and such diverse
flora. I hadn't realized that my brain contained two completely inconsistent
ideas about the land.
As we toured, I became aware of my cultural preference for "unspoilt"
archaeological sites over religious sites. We contemporary Americans venerate
things by placing fences around them, declaring them "historical,"
passing laws to keep them as they are. "This is the very log cabin Abe
Lincoln was born in," we say (even if it's not true) and we get a thrill
out of walking the same streets Jesus walked, trying to see things "as
they were." But for 2000 years people have venerated sites in a different
way: by leveling the surrounding area and building a church on top of them.
At first, visiting the Churches of the Holy Sepulchre, the Nativity, the Flagellation,
I felt very alienated from the historical events they commemorate. All I could
see were layers of gilt, marble, and oil. But I gradually became aware of
a spiritual landscape— the layers of history that get plastered over
the places and events of the Bible. And I realized that even when I stare
at the original foundation of a building, or see a road where Jesus walked,
I'm still looking through layers of history. Trying to get under those layers
at the historical Jesus is still an important exercise, but to ignore the
spiritual landscape around it and the layers that generations of pilgrims
and religious seekers have put on top of it is to miss knowing something about
what it means to be human, to worship, to go on pilgrimage.
Finally, I was forced to confront my contemporary prejudices. I realized that
we've been surrounded by a rhetoric of despair about the Middle East. "They've
been fighting for thousands of years" is an off-hand remark I've often
heard in churches about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It's
a convenient despairing myth that gets passed around, like the "fighting
over a desert" trope, which allows us to shrug our shoulders and get
on with not caring about U.S. foreign policy. But these statements are lies,
and distort not only history and geography, but also our response. Driving
from Jerusalem to Bethlehem under a 30-foot high concrete wall, topped with
barbed wire and machine guns, while a giant tourism banner that said "peace
be with you" fluttered in the breeze, I felt exactly how complicit I've
been in perpetuating war even though Jesus asks me to be a peacemaker. I will
no longer repeat conventional wisdom that forecloses on the possibility of
peace.
Going to the Holy Land was a spiritually cleansing experience. I wish all
American Christians could have the same experience of bringing unconscious
prejudices into the light so that we can name them and leave them behind.
When we do, we receive an incomparable gift of understanding and a passion
for peace.
The Rev. Dave Barnhart is from Birmingham, Alabama
