Lebanon/Syria #11: Reformation Sunday
In 2015, Rev. Boutros (Peter) Zaour, pastor of Damascus Presbyterian Church in Syria, was in San Diego, preaching at Rancho Santa Fe Presbyterian Church, where Rev. Dr. Jack Baca is pastor, and as the key international guest for a Presbyterian Fellowship Community Gathering. While there, Pastor Boutros received terrible news from Damascus that his church in Damascus had been hit by stray mortars. Many of us on this team were with him when the photos of the devastation began to arrive from church members, showing the gaping hole in the church ceiling, damage to the chancel area, and the complete destruction of his pulpit. He and his wife Wafa were in deep shock and grief, and far away from their congregation, but they were with family, and Jack’s church along with The Outreach Foundation promptly pledged and followed through with help in renovating the sanctuary. This past Sunday, Reformation Sunday, we gathered to worship with the congregation in that beautifully renovated holy place.
Outreach Foundation Board Chair Rev. Dr. Jack Baca was the preacher for the day, and delivered his Reformation Sunday sermon for two congregations – live on Sunday morning for the Damascus Presbyterian congregation in Syria, and the same sermon pre-recorded for his own congregation in California from that very pulpit in that very sanctuary! Reformation Sunday commemorates Martin Luther’s posting of his ninety-five points of grievance against corrupt church practices and the onset of the Reformation in the 16th century. Preaching from Matthew 23:13-26 (the ever-popular “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” passage), Pastor Jack called both of these congregations to keep the main thing (faith in the mercy and grace of Jesus) the main thing. A church centered in anything other than the gospel is pointless – like a house without a kitchen, bedroom or bathroom. How could such a home welcome guests?! When that is the condition of a house, it is time to renovate!
We sang the classic Reformation hymns together, blending Arabic and English, and we were refreshed by a saxophone solo of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” that took our breath away. I was grateful to be invited to bring a greeting for the congregation from our team and The Outreach Foundation…to stand in that renovated pulpit and thank these members of our family for their encouragement to us and our churches by persevering through the war and preserving their witness to God’s faithfulness in that historic place. The sanctuary was packed, including the balcony, which the church had taken the opportunity to add as part of their wartime renovations in order to accommodate the increase in worship attendance, in spite of so many people having left Syria (more than 25% of Syrians).
As Jack had preached, when we allow God to renovate our hearts, we become a house of God where we can welcome others. We were welcomed with all the richness of Middle Eastern hospitality! Following worship, we enjoyed not a few minutes, but a couple of hours of greetings, photos and fellowship together. While joyous and celebrative, there was also opportunity for one-on-one sharing of burdens, fears, hopes, and grief. In each of my three visits, I have felt the burdens of Syrian mothers whose sons were drafted or killed or whose grown children left Syria any way they could and remain scattered across the globe – one daughter in Norway and another in Canada, a son in Australia and so on. Fathers have missed helping with their daughters’ weddings; mothers have missed out on hugging their grandchildren. I wept and prayed with one woman whose sister is dying of lung cancer in the U.S. and has only two months to live. Having lost my mother and a brother to the same cruel disease, her pain hit close. It was a special joy to get to know Assia more, the displaced Sudanese woman who works for the church with her husband, and a few other Sudanese who are stuck in Syria without papers to return or legally work or establish their families anywhere. My biggest surprise was meeting Saousan, a Sunni Muslim woman who attends church regularly in her hijab (headscarf); she shared with some of us about her research and intention to help Sunnis better understand Middle Eastern Protestant Christian history, practices, beliefs and community life. A highlight was comparing notes with some church members who have helped welcome and provide fruitful labor for some displaced women who have landed in Damascus.
Between fellowship time at the church and a more intimate fellowship dinner with the elders, pastors and spouses, there was an interlude for a Syrian television interview with Pastor Boutros and four of our team; by now it has been aired on Syrian national television. A lovely and very professional journalist and her full staff set up in the church courtyard for the forty-five minute interview, which would then be edited down before being aired. As one of the team observed, Associate Director Marilyn Borst and others “spoke frankly from their hearts without blah blah blah.” The half of us who were grateful to have been left out were proud of them.
A few sound-bytes:
Tony: Such trips are important to promote understanding.
Jack: God cries when people suffer.
Boutros: Syria is a mosaic. Outreach helps support the church to stay.
Julie: We are all one people – someday we will understand that.
Mike: Jesus came to redeem and to restore. Our denominations speak with our U.S. government to lift sanctions, which hurt people.
Marilyn expressed her great love for this country and its people—especially the Church—which has brought her here 21 times.
I have felt a special closeness to the Zaour family, since two of their grown children, Zikar and Miray, had come to live in Washington, D.C., to be safe from the war. They had quickly become part of both my own and our National Presbyterian Church extended family, joining us for worship and sharing holidays at home. Miray, who now lives with her husband Bassel Daoud in Qatar, was in Damascus for this visit, having come a few weeks earlier for the baptisms of her two beautiful children. Roy was four months and Miriam 18 months when these grandparents were finally able to meet and hold them. The crown of our Reformation Sunday was a final visit in our hotel from Miray, her children, and her parents.
Thanks be to God for a long day of worship, fellowship, and sharing – all part of the renovation of our hearts.
by Rev. Dr. Nancy Fox, National Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C.