Articles I wrote for the Mount Olive Messenger last month...en toto...

I serve a congregation that has graciously allowed me to make an annual pilgrimage to Israel for the last two years. My first trip was with a church member, and as we toured the land where Jesus walked, we were initially concerned about any potential threats of terrorist activity. Perhaps these anxious thoughts were the product of the thorough security check we experienced at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, or by the constant sight of armed soldiers with large rifles standing on what seemed to be every street corner.

When we traveled to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, we marveled at the ancient stone courtyard leading to the small entryway into the building.

It had been shortened in the past due to the fact that the original doorway was large enough for a horse and rider to fit through, and opponents to Christianity took advantage of this in order to ride their horses into the facility and do damage to its interior. The shortened entryway was a clever way to alleviate this problem because it also forces visitors to respectfully bow down before they enter.

 If you look back as you bend over to go inside, you can see in the distance a mosque sporting a large crescent moon and star, the symbol of Islam.

In order to reach the spot where Jesus was allegedly born, you must step downward into a chamber that leads to a small shrine where a silver star with fourteen points sits perched on the stone ground.

Visitors are encouraged to touch the star, so we all waited for our turn to do exactly this. As we made our way downward, we could see two ladies wearing black burkas, and I ignorantly wondered why any Muslim woman would want to see the spot where the Lord was born.

Before I was even able to move downward to the star, the Muslim women quickly slid over to it, and I was shocked to see them literally lie down on the floor, arms outstretched before them in sheer reverence. They began to weep, and their tears spilled from their faces onto the star. Emotion nearly overtook me as I realized that, despite their religious affiliation, they had a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ. It wasn’t until later that I understood why.

As I walked through the streets of Jerusalem after a full day of touring sites in the Holy Land, I couldn’t help but ponder what I’d witnessed at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. I was completely unaware that the left side of our hotel boasted a large population of orthodox Jewish families, and on the right, a large population of Islamic families. The only thing that marked the right side as different was the fact that there was a large Muslim prayer tower above what appeared to be a very small convenience store. During the day, about every three hours, Muslim prayers could be heard echoing over the city from this tower, starting around 6 a.m.

After dinner I talked my roommate into taking a walk with me in search of some cheaper soft drinks. Even a single cup of coffee was nearly three dollars in the hotel, and I wanted to see what the local folks were paying. We made our way over to the convenience store beneath the tower, and peeked inside. It wasn’t overflowing with customers, but there were a few, mostly buying falafel, and other Middle Eastern food items. We were about to move on when I spotted a small refrigerator with assorted soft drinks, so I decided to go inside.

Completely aware that I was being eyed with suspicion as I walked inside, I was wholly unaware of the elderly man seated atop a bar stool beside the small fridge. He was wearing a turban, and he had an extremely long, grey beard. As he watched me reach for my wallet, I saw his hands begin to tremble, and his entire body shook as he slowly put a hand to his mouth, and tearfully began to say to me, “Bless you! Oh, bless you! Bless you!”

I purchased a diet soda for a fair price, and nodded my acknowledgement of the elderly man who never once stopped wishing blessings on me. Tears were flowing down his ancient, weathered face, and there was sincerity in his tone that spoke volumes. It was very clear to me that I had just entered his little shop, and times were hard, and apparently he was being shunned by those who did not share his Muslim beliefs. The mystery deepened.

As my roommate and I continued our exploration of the Muslim sector of Jerusalem near our hotel, it didn’t register with either of us that we weren’t among the Jewish folks that we assumed made up the bulk of the population in the vicinity. We muttered “Shalom” to nearly every person who passed by us, and wondered why they didn’t respond in kind, but fairly early on during our trip we noticed that most people in Jerusalem had a tendency to look down and away from us as we walked the streets. We spotted a convenience store a few blocks from the hotel, covered with images of local cooking, most of it falafel and Middle Eastern fare.

Surprisingly, the shop’s interior wasn’t too far removed from the convenience stores that surrounded our church near Seven Springs, and we stocked up on diet soda and a few snacks.

The clerks in the shop weren’t overtly friendly at first, but loosened up as we started making small talk with them. They asked us where we were from, and over the course of the next few days, we became semi regulars to their store. The more friends we brought in with us from our tour group, the friendlier the clerks became, and by the end of our journey, we felt like we’d forged pleasant albeit casual relationships with the locals, still oblivious to the fact that they were Muslim. By that point, however, this revelation was made irrelevant because of the affection we felt for our new friends.

On the last day of our trip, we made a final stop to the little store, and the clerks began to introduce us to some of their regulars. Knowing we’d just visited Bethlehem a few days earlier, they introduced us to a Shepherd from Bethlehem, and I ignorantly said “Shalom” to him. He turned his gaze away from the clerk and looked at me sharply, and the clerk whispered to me, “You don’t say ‘Shalom’ here…” and I looked at him blankly. “What am I supposed to say, then?” I asked.

“You say ‘Assalamu alaikum’ here,” he replied, and it was like a light switch went off in my head. I looked around me and realized there was Arabic writing on nearly all the products in the store, with very few items in Hebrew, and I felt like a complete fool. I also felt like laughing at how gullible I’d been. I returned the traditional Muslim greeting, which means, “Peace be with you,“ and left the store. I knew when I returned to the States, I’d be doing some serious research. Nothing seemed to be as I’d expected it to be, not when it came to the Muslim people of Jerusalem.

Before I went to the Holy Land, even though I’d studied the tenants of Islam in seminary, I have to admit that I harbored mostly negative attitudes and preconceptions about Muslims as a general rule. In my mind, I thought they all hated Americans, especially Christians, and I simply could not grasp the notion that some might actually respect Jesus Christ. Sure, I knew the Koran made references to Jesus, but Jesus is described as merely a prophet of God in its pages, and there’s even one passage that - as a Christian - I find particularly distasteful: “Far be it from Allah to have ever had a son.”

When Muslims enter the mosque on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, they cannot help but see a blatant diatribe against Christianity written in Arabic across the circumference of its walls; the words repeatedly state that God could not have had a companion and, therefore, could not have had a son. Furthermore, it even tells those who enter the mosque to “pray for your prophet and servant Jesus, son of Mary.” Why, then, did everything I witness in that Muslim neighborhood in Jerusalem seem to stand in opposition to what I assumed was the general Muslim attitude towards Americans and Christianity?

One of the first things I did when I came back to the United States after my initial trip to the Holy Land was track down as many books on Islam as I could. I already had a handful from my seminary days, even a copy of the Koran that I keep on hand for research purposes, but I wanted material that wasn’t limited to a strictly Christian perspective. I wanted to know what Muslims thought as well, but the book that I appreciated most of all my new acquisitions was one that spoke in depth about Muslim thought in regard to Jesus Christ, with a particular emphasis on some of the more positive references to him in the Koran.

From what I gleaned from the book, Christ’s divine nature comes across plainly in the Koran, despite the fact that he is relegated to the status of prophet and the Christian belief in his divinity is denied. For some Muslims, according to the author of the book, this is a philosophical and theological conundrum, because Jesus and Muhammad are diametrically opposed to one another when it comes to how they regard those who oppose them. Even in the Koran, Jesus tells his followers to turn the other cheek, whereas Muhammad sometimes indicates that it is acceptable to kill one’s religious opponent. The author went on to claim that many Muslims are drawn to the Christian concept of Christ after reading the Koran’s depictions of him. Whether or not this was the case with the Muslims I met and interacted with, I do not know. But I do know this: It’s possible for Christians and Muslims to meet on mutual ground when it comes to Jesus, and perhaps the positive depictions of him in what both sides regard as their sacred texts could serve as a stepping stone for our two communities of religious faith. Christians and Muslims may not agree with one another as to the ultimate nature and identity of Jesus Christ, but I see no reason why we can’t interact peaceably with one another and engage in friendly dialogue, or even try to work together for the betterment of mankind in general.

As soon as I returned from my first trip to Israel, I began to study Islamic beliefs and teachings with great enthusiasm. While, as a Christian, I didn’t agree with their basic theology, I felt it was extremely important that I at least understand it. How else would I be able to maintain my friendships with these individuals whom I had come to care so much for? And how else could we have dialogue with one another should the differences in our religious beliefs ever come up in conversation?

On our way home after an out of town hospital call one night after my return, my church’s lay leader and I stopped off at a restaurant for a late dinner. Being the comical character he is, my lay leader kept asking our young waitress if she found it odd that he was out with his pastor, having a meal so late in the evening. She seemed a bit curious by his question, but in such a way that we soon began to realize that she clearly had no idea what he was talking about. Finally, she asked him if he wondered if she found it odd that he was out to eat with his “priest,” and we told her we were Protestant Christians, and I was the pastor of his church. My lay leader then asked her what church she attended, and her countenance immediately changed. She didn’t want to answer the question.

“Please don’t hate me,” she said.

“Why would we ever hate you?” we asked.

She paused and replied, “Because I’m a Muslim.”

“We would never hate you for any reason,” I assured her, and then added, “I was in Israel just a few weeks ago, and I got to know some of the Muslims in Jerusalem; they were wonderful people.”

We made small talk for a bit, and then I told her that I had recently been studying the passages in the Koran that made reference to Jesus, whom we believed was the Messiah and the Son of God.

“My father told me about him,” she said with a smile, and admitted that she wasn’t a practicing Muslim, she was actually more of a Muslim by birth, and was working her way through college.

I encouraged her to compare notes between the Jesus of the Koran and the Jesus of the New Testament when she got the chance, and left it at that. We didn’t argue, and we didn’t debate. We ended our conversation with the acknowledgement that it was a good thing to be aware of what we each believed and, even more importantly, why.

Romans 14:5 - “Let [everyone] be fully persuaded in their own mind [what it is that they believe].”