Tickets

I have airline tickets.
Leaving May 19 for Tel Aviv, returning August 29 from Hamburg!
Whoopee!!!!

The Jesus Trail

Photo by David Landis from www.jesustrail.com.

He left Nazareth and settled in Capernaum, which lies alongside the sea in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali. (Matthew 4:13, CEB)

So Jesus had a home as an adult (Mark 2:1), and that home was in Capernaum.   He grew up, and presumably his parents more or less stayed, in Nazareth (though after Joseph's death, Mary could have followed him.)  Which means that the distance between Nazareth and Capernaum was likely crossed multiple times by Jesus' feet.

The Jesus Trail is a 40 mile pilgrimage trail that takes the pilgrim from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, to Capernaum, on the shores of the sea of Galilee.    Along the way you pass a number of important 1st century sites: the Roman city of Sepphoris (Zippori), the town of Cana (Kafr Kanna), the opportunity to walk on 1st century Roman Roads, Magdala, home of Mary Magdalene (Migdal), Ginosaur, where an extant first century boat still exists.  And in a fairly easy day of walking within Capernaum, the ability to see the Bay of Parables, the Mount of the Beatitudes, the site of Simon Peter's house, Tabgha, where the loaves and fishes were multiplied.    And, I hope, take a boat trip on the Sea of Galilee.

According to the Synoptic Gospels, this area of Galilee, and a little further west, into the Decapolis, is where the majority of Jesus' ministry was done.  Even John, who has him spending more time in Jerusalem than the other three, only has him going there for festivals, then returning north to his home base.

For my spirituality, Jesus life, Jesus very human life, is central.   And to walk in the places that he walked, sail on the Sea he sailed (and walked) on, be in the places he taught, is a great opportunity.

When I was beginning to plan this Sabbatical, I was thrilled to find the Jesus trail.   And I was glad to adjust my plans to include it close to the beginning of the Sabbatical, to set the tone for the entire trip.   After 2 days in Akko (Acre), and Caeseria Maritima, I'll head for three nights in Nazareth, hopefully giving me enough time to see this place where Jesus grew up as well as nearby Mt. Tabor, and I will set off on a four day, 40 mile journey, with all my things in a single backpack, staying in hostels and other pilgrim accommodation (both Israeli and Palestinian) along the route.   While traveling I plan to listen to the Gospels, especially focused on the Galilean ministry of Jesus.

For more on the Jesus Trail, look here.

Doing a Lilly Endowment Grant Application

Google Maps rendition of the major stops on my journey.
You can continue to view the evolving map here. 

One of the reasons why I have done so much planning already is that I early on made the decision to apply for a 2019 Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Grant.   You can read about the program from the Endowment's point of view here.   As a part time pastor, a sabbatical of the scope that I was thinking of was simply not feasible.  I knew I wanted to travel, and that I wanted to do so as a pilgrim, but three months of travel is not cost free, even when done as simply as possible.

When I looked at the application, however, I was severely daunted.  The detail required was pretty high, there were a lot of pieces, and it looked like any missing or not up to snuff piece would automatically result in not being considered.   But as I thought about it, I began to see the grant process as a huge opportunity.

First it required both my community and me to talk and think about where we were, what we'd been about in our ministry together, including both my journey and theirs.  It made us look at how our faith had developed together, how my theological education (which was my only experience before coming to them) my previous church as a layperson, and their needs and direction had interacted with each other.  And it helped us discuss concrete hopes for what this sabbatical can bring to both of us.
For us, it was all about context, as I wrote in the narrative portion of my application:

"In Seminary my eyes were opened as I discovered so many contexts to apply to my understanding of scripture: historical context, context of original audience, literary context of the individual books and the books as they related to each other, the concerns of the time, even the context of the language across time and across translation.    Moreover, as I chose to go to a seminary outside my personal cultural context, I found that the experience of studying and deeply listening to people who had very different life experiences, very different contexts than I, was transformative.   My time as a white student at Howard University School of Divinity was a rich and wonderful time for me.  In addition to learning exegesis, it changed me deeply and helped me to understand more fully the struggles of others, and to think about the experience of others when trying to process my understanding of scripture from an ancient context into a contemporary context.   

This focus on context, both on the historical context and personal context, is something that the churches have appreciated in my preaching and teaching.  We have a book group that has read a number of books about context, including Marcus Borg’s The Evolution of the Word,  and Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus, which engages the parables within the context of Jesus’ first century Judaism.  For the last three years we have been using the Narrative Lectionary, which presents Scripture within the larger context of the biblical narrative.   I love this approach and the community has responded enthusiastically, applying the lessons to their own context, and to talk about how context shifts happen.  This renewal will let me gather a kinesthetic, special, and visual context of the bible and my faith." (from my Lilly Endowment Clergy Renewal Grant Application)

So once I knew that context was what was going to be the overriding theme I thought through what kind of contexts would be helpful, and we finally decided that travel to the places where the bible happened, and where the church grew, and where important church history happened would allow me the chance to get visual, experiential and kinesthetic context of the places that Jesus, Paul, the church,  the reformation, and the predecessor denominations of the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America grew up, in Europe.   So this trip will take me to Israel, to Greece, to  Italy, to Germany and Switzerland, to Strasbourg France, and to Leiden in the Netherlands and Scrooby Hall in England, to look at the origins in Europe of Christianity, Evangelical Protestantism, Reformed Protestantism, and the Puritan movement.   The map above traces the locations that I will be visiting.

Service Component of Sabbatical at Brot und Rosen.

Logo of Brot und Rosen (www.brot-und-rosen.de)

I feel like I should be writing this entry in German!

My sabbatical plans have always included a service component, and I am excited today to have finalized those plans. 

I am very thrilled to have made plans to work with Brot und Rosen, a community of people supporting refugees in the Hamburg Germany area.  Although I'd hoped to spend all of August with them, it looks like it will be more like 3 weeks, due to the school holidays at the beginning of August.  In any case I will be doing this as a service component of my sabbatical.

Brot und  Rosen is modeled on the Catholic Worker movement started by Dorothy Day, and people who work there live communally along with the refugees they serve. Their service is a commitment to hospitality, room, food and shelter (they do not provide social services.) 

Brot und Rosen does not receive public or corporate money; they are entirely funded by donations.  I will donate my salary for the time I am with them.  I urge you to go to their English language website, here, and read more about them. 

I picked Brot und Rosen in part because of their ethic, which I admire, and in part because they work with refugees.  Europe, and Germany in particular, has shouldered more than its share of the refugee work in the last decade, while America has put up barriers, including an extensive and difficult screening process that may leave the most vulnerable refugees out, and most recently draconian reductions in the number of refugees admitted.  Lest anyone think I'm picking on a politician, this has happened under both Republican and Democratic administrations.   Because we lack the will to work on comprehensive immigration reform, which is desperately needed, we leave too many people in terrible situations.   God loves deeply every one of his children, and as Christians we are called to do the same.   This opportunity to work with Brot und Rosen is my opportunity to express as part of my sabbatical my own commitment to see every person as a beloved child of God.

Beginning the booking process.

Fauzi Azar Inn in Nazareth, from their Facebook page.  

It is so exciting to start booking things for my SabbaticalI  I have the travel advance from my congregation, now that they have the check.   I'm booked for a week at at the Citadel Hostel in the old City in Jerusalem, and three nights at the Fauzi Azar Inn (pictured above) in Nazareth.  That gives me two full days in the city that Jesus grew up in, and will allow me time to get out to Mt. Tabor, where the Transfiguration is traditionally thought to take place.

Luke 10:4 The Message (MSG)

“Travel light. Comb and toothbrush and no extra luggage.

I'm in a female dorm room, which I think is the one in the picture.   Pretty place, huh?  Other places I enquired via email, and began hearing back on this morning.

My accommodation preference is hostels, like Fauzi Azar.    One place where that will not happen is in Caparnaum - I arrive on Friday, and I think the hostel there is closed Friday night.

One location seems to be full the night I need, so I'll email and also look for alternatives.   Otherwise I am excited.   I've also found a good set of flights and am watching them via a couple of flight booking sites.   Hopefully I'll find a good price on them in the next month or so.

I've added a couple days onto the beginning of my trip to explore a location that a friend recommended: Akko, so that I will have 3 days to explore Akko and Caeseria Maritima at the beginning of the trip, also giving me some time to adjust to the new time schedule, before heading out on the trail.

It is exciting to book things, even though some (like the inn above) require prepayment.    I think this is where it begins to become real.  I'm working down through my itinerary, starting with places with fewer options and going to some with more options.    Next, I need to work out the rest of the Jesus trail and Bethlehem accommodation.   Then I can start booking Greece.

Who Am I?

Julie in front of two of her three churches.

I'm a second career pastor of three small rural churches in central Pennsylvania.   I was called to ministry in my 50s, attended Howard University School of Divinity for seminary and ended up in a part time pastorate in central Pennsylvania starting in February 2012.

The Brush Valley Fusion of Faith consists of three churches: St. Peter's UCC, on the left in my picture, St. Peter's Lutheran (ELCA) on the right in the picture, both located in Rebersburg, PA, and Christ UCC in Madisonburg, PA, four miles down the road.

I had a 30 year career in IT, as well, including 20+ years focused on machine reasoning of a variety of sorts, especially helping business people figure out technologies related to Artificial Intelligence.   In 2017 I retired from IBM, which I had been working for half time, and now am just the part time pastor (not that there are part time pastors).

I started in 2012, and I love my ecumenical, beautiful, mission-oriented congregation.  And together we have spent a lot of time revisiting scripture with a real focus on the context.   For us this means the context of the time that it was written in, and the context that we bring it to in the twenty-first century, as well as it's context in the library that is the bible.  Attending to the last, we have for the last four years followed the Narrative Lectionary, which follows scripture from beginning to the end, and follows a gospel from beginning to end, every year.  This has really given us new ways to think about our holy book, and about Jesus and our Creator.  It has breathed the Spirit into us.

But it is time for me, and for my community, to find new understandings.   I hope to do that during this sabbatical, to walk in the context of Jesus, to see the places where things happened, to experience a contextual depth for my scripture that is kinesthetic, visual, and situational.    More information about the contexts that I will explore in my next post!

Headed to the Holy Land

So I can now announce that my church community and I are recipients of a 2019 Lilly Endowment Grant (Link is here to the official press release.)   I'll leave sometime around the 21st of May and return the 1st of September for a dream sabbatical, and my community will journey with me via reading, study and prayer.

My plan is to do a pilgrimage, walking in the steps of Jesus, Paul, the early church, the Reformation (both Evangelical and Reformed) and the pilgrims, to experience more deeply the context of the scriptures I love and the church I also love.   I will spend a lot of time walking where Jesus walked, including walking the 40 mile Jesus Trail from Nazareth to Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus did most of his ministry.   I will, literally, walk where Jesus walked, as I follow first century Roman Roads on this endeavor.

While I will do a report, do talks to everyone when I get back, and keep a journal, this blog will be the primary place where I share, as it is happening, what is going on: the planning, the experience, day by day, and my initial reactions.   So if you want to follow me, this is the place to follow.

In the next couple of days I will share my feelings on the grant and on starting my journey.  Between now and May I will try to blog at least weekly, while on the journey I will do my best to blog daily.

Join me here for my journey of a lifetime!

Julie

Photo Credit: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash