Inclusion and exclusion

Today we started by traveling to the Dome of the Rock, which sits on the Temple Mount. Then, after lunch, we went to the Mount of Olives, began the Palm Sunday Walk, going to the Pater Noster Church, and ended in the Garden of Gethsemane and celebrated the Euchrist.

For me this day, more than anyhing else, was a study of inclusion and exclusion.  

On the Temple Mount is the Dome of the Rock, one of the three holiest places to Muslims.  Since 2000, it has been closed to everyone except Muslims.  Yet this is the place on which sat the Holiest of Holies, and the Ancient Temple.  It is the place Mary and Joseph presented Jesus after his birth, and the place he probably visited  numerous times in his life.  Many of us felt excluded because we could not go inside.

We then went to the West Side of the Temple Mount, known as the Wailing Wall.  The men and women in our group  needed to separate, because the women and men could not pray at the wall together.  More exclusion.  

Women were crowded five deep at the wall, since they had so little space  in front of the wall in comparison to the men.  Yet I felt surrounded by the prayer of these mostly Orthodox Jewish women. Many sat in plastic chairs for long periods of time and never moved the whole time we were there. I was able to wind my way to the wall slowly.  When  a space opened up, I saw a woman who I assumed to be Orthodox standing next to me, and I signaled her to go to the open space at the wall. After standing in that one spot for what seemed like a long time, I began to think I would never leave my space that was so close to, but not at the wall. Then I saw a hand signaling me.  It was the same woman, dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, who smile and pointed me to the space at the wall that she just left.  Feeling welcomed washed over and through me.  Inclusion had come at last.

Later that day, as we walked the  Palm Sunday Walk, we arrived at a church that I hadn't known existed, the Pater Noster Church. It sits on one of the three sites of churches  that date from Byzantine times: the others are the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the site of the Crucifixion).  On this site, in the church and on all the walls surrounding it are large placards of The Lord's Prayer in over 100 languages, including languages I had never heard of, like Doric.  Everywhere we looked, in every direction, was language after language, alphabet after alphabet.  This church felt like a center of inclusion,  welcoming all, 

As the day ended, I thought of my experience this far.  Messages of inclusion and exclusion swirled around me day after day.  Churches open to all, others walled  with locked metal gates.  The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, at which Orthodox  and Roman Catholics fight each other over space.  The wall between Jerusalem and the West Bank, keeping out Palestinians.  I remembered the history of my father's side of the family, the Jewish history of pogroms and being walled out of Christian cities. I also remember the history of Christianity in Israel, who when in  power excluded Jews.

And then I remembered the stories of inclusion, which mostly occur one on one, in the signaling of a hand, or by the graciousness of a host at lunch.  I know that this is what God calls us to do: to welcome each other and to love one another as God has loved us.  I only hope that this city, the City of Peace, can find a way to peacefully welcome and include everyone, Christian, Jew and Muslim.

Rose