Timothy Stoner

Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Host Lynne Hybels

Posted on 09. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner in Blog, Screening Tour

There is some additional information about Yonatan Shapira’s adventure today. It is becoming clearer why he was out of contact and unable to join the tour. His small boat has sailed from the island of Cyprus with a crew of eight on a southeasterly heading into the teeth of the Israeli military blockade. It is a day and a half journey. With him are a Holocaust survivor, 82-year old Reuven Moskovitz, a founding member of the Jewish-Arab village Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace), and Lilian Rosengarten, a peace activist and psychotherapist who fled Nazi Germany in the 40’s.

Lynne Hybels, wife of Willow Creek pastor, Bill Hybels, invited us to join about 30 close friends and church leaders in her home. Her spacious living room was a nice change of pace from the college auditoriums we’ve been in every night for the past week. Clearly, Lynne is a woman on a mission. She met Sami at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. several years ago and took some friends with her to visit him in Palestine. It revolutionized her perspective on the Middle East. I’m beginning to think that maybe I need to make the pilgrimage.

Up to this point I have not been all that keen on queuing up for the well-oiled tours and treks to the Holy Land. I will admit, my lack of interest has, frankly, troubled me. But I think I may finally have figured out the reason for my reticence. I have an aversion to playing follow the leader and swallowing what smells like the company line. There is this slick sheen of touristy artifice that doesn’t sit well. Plus, though I’ve always been pro-Israeli, the unquestioning obeisance before their national flag seems to border on the idolatrous.

Some will conclude that I have rejected the conservative line for the liberal line—that I have resisted the cant from the right only to fall prey to the propaganda on the left. That may be the case, but I doubt it, for my perspective is being altered not by the rants of a radical antitheist but a Palestinian Christian who loves Jesus and the people of Israel as well as his own people. Putting it simply: Sami Awad is a trustworthy source with a bias toward the kingdom of God not the politics of man—no private or public agendas there, in other words, a very credible voice.

The guests watched the film together before we arrive. After consuming some highly caloric but delicious desserts we gather in the living room and Lynne introduces Sami. Her opening words are, “I want to introduce you to my hero.” On paper this is may sound like hyperbole from a host buttering-up an important guest, but, you will have to trust me on this–it wasn’t. This was real. You can feel it in her tone and see it in her eyes. After spending a week with him, I understand what she is saying.

This mild, balding, Palestinian of modest height who speaks in soft tones, has the gravitas of conviction, wisdom and courage. And there is steel beneath the gentle exterior. What else would one expect from a man who stands in front of tanks and bulldozers with nothing in his hands but faith, hope and love?

It is clear that Lynne has been deeply moved by Sami’s life and is delighted to be able to share his journey with her friends at this intimate gathering. She speaks honestly about her fears that the three faiths: Christianity, Islam and Judaism are going to propel the world into a global war. As I reflect on her comment I can’t help but wonder at the heart-breaking irony of the religion founded by the Prince of Peace being a historic catalyst for violence, oppression and so much indiscriminate bloodshed throughout the ages.

Lynne expresses great hope, however, in the nonviolence movement represented by the three protagonists in Little Town of Bethlehem and Sami in particular. It is encouraging to witness a growing recognition among evangelical Christian leaders that they can and should extend blessing to Palestinians as well as Israelis.

Sami explains his goal in training Palestinians in acts of resistance is to prepare activists who oppose injustice from a posture of compassion rather than anger and judgment. He then makes a point that is hardly ever heard: “When you demonize the other, treating him as enemy; as not worthy of dignity–as inhuman, you are using violence even if you have no weapons in your hands.” 

When people dismiss nonviolence as a cowardly and passive accommodation to injustice he explains that just the reverse, “it is direct action engaged in by the brave and the strong.” He continues, turning the tables on his detractors,”It is easy to stand 100 yard away with a rifle,” he tells them. “It is much more difficult when it is you and your wife and children, unarmed, standing in front of the tank, willing to sacrifice your life to stop it. This is not easy,” he adds in a quiet understatement. What he doesn’t say is that he takes this huge risk not to protect his own property but that of others he may barely know who are most likely Muslims. 

After the dialogue Lynne asks her son in law, Aaron Niequist, a worship leader at Willow Creek to lead us in an old Negro Spiritual: I Want Jesus to Walk with Me. Like so many of them, it is haunting and sad, yet filled with this indomitable hope carved out of grinding pain. It is perfect, for it unexpectedly helps this gathering form a circle of solidarity around a people who are strangers to us but need Jesus to walk with them—though them may not even know it themselves. 

I speak with Aaron afterward. He is enthusiastic about the documentary: “It is the most moving film I’ve ever seen about the nonviolent peace movement in the Middle East,” he tells me. “The film helped me grasp an overview of this messy conflict–but more importantly, it gave me names and faces of people who are actually living through it. I hope everyone I know watches it.” 

Later I read his blog about the effect of the trip Lynne helped organize in January of this year to see the conflict first-hand. “This Israeli/Palestinian conflict is one of the most complicated, emotionally-charged and important issues on earth,” he wrote. “The pain and fear on both sides is overwhelming. And we Americans are more deeply tied to the problem—and potential solution than most of us realize” I think this last point is what the tour is reducing itself to for me: a growing recognition of the importance of us linking arms with those suffering injustice, in order (in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.) to help free not only the oppressed but the oppressor from his oppression.

If I were in South Africa 15 years ago would there not be a Christian imperative to stand for the blacks against the dehumanization of apartheid? If I were in the South 45 years ago would that not also be the case? I am living today and a similar concentrated injustice is taking place today, it just happens to be really far away—six time zones. But, given the reality of the global village, if I can justify a cruise to the Caribbean, a vacation in Ireland, or a trip out West, how can I not justify a trip to Palestine to stand in Jesus’ name in support of those who are being crushed and oppressed and denied basic human rights?

Lynne has also been moved by it: “We Americans hear about the ‘intractable problems’ in the Holy Land,” she tells me, “but we don’t hear about the peacemakers who look beyond religion, culture and history and into the eyes of human beings made in the image of God. Little Town of Bethlehem has challenged me to ask on a deeper level, ‘What does it mean to follow Jesus into the brokenness of this fragmented, hate-filled, fearful world?’” She hopes its influence can be extended: “I think every American—certainly every Christian—should watch this film!” 

Next stop is Wayne State University in Detroit. I am surprised at how my perspective has changed in less than 10 days. This tour is having a greater impact on me that I had anticipated.

Tags: follow Jesus, Israel, justice, Lynne Hybels, nonviolence, Palestine, resistance, sami awad, violence, Willow Creek, Yonatan Shapira