Breaking bread with broken people
The disciples were shocked when Jesus said, “One of you will betray me.” Judas’s story is told in different ways in the gospels, giving us some insight into how the disciples and gospel writers came to terms with the betrayal of Judas. In John’s gospel, Judas is mentioned five times, and every single time the…
A prayer for impossible peace
The gulf appears impossible to bridge. As bombs continue to fall onto Gaza and rockets somehow continue to fly out of Gaza, a conflict nearly as old as time and as entrenched as the Jordan River spirals to depths unthinkable. To listen to people on either side is to hear vastly different narratives about the…
Jewish perspectives
An interview with Gustavo Zentner By Will Braun Gustavo Zentner will never forget visiting areas attacked by Hamas. “We walked into the homes where you can still smell the smell of burned flesh,” he recalled. “That smell will always accompany me.” Zentner travelled to Israel last November as part of a solidarity mission comprised of…
Understanding absolutist views
On October 1, we launched our book, The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know about Each Other, at the Charles Pachter Museum in Toronto. Guests included Jews, Palestinians and others who are interested in overcoming the enmity between the two sides that for so long have been in conflict. There was music…
Mideast dialogue programs fall short
“Deeply rooted in our Mennonite psyche is this idea that peacemaking is as simple as sitting across the table from someone and hearing their story,” says Joanna Hiebert Bergen, chair of the Mennonite Church Manitoba Palestine-Israel Network. But Hiebert Bergen, along with a significant number of Palestinian academics and other former civil society workers in…
Lord, hear our prayer
We asked people who wrote for Canadian Mennonite in 2023 to share their wish and prayer for the church in 2024. I’m easily afraid. So is the church. I pray that we will listen for, and joyfully embrace, Christ’s “fear not, I’m here” in 2024. – Dora Dueck, Tsawwassen, B.C. God make us a shelter…
To thine own self be true?
Baptism rates among teenagers and young adults who grew up going to church have plummeted. Why? In response to this drop-off in baptisms, I could talk about what faith formation is, the role of ritual or how to make baptism feel less like graduation, but I think that would just be rearranging the deck chairs…
Scar of Bethlehem
What will Christmas be like in Bethlehem this year? What can we learn about the birth of Christ from those who live where he was born and where he lived? Below, we share reflections on Christmas by Palestinian Christians. We asked them about Christmas in general and the words of Mary and Zechariah, from Luke…
Called to the work of the church
It might seem unlikely that young women would be drawn to church leadership and feel compelled to enter pastoral ministry. As young people, they are part of an underrepresented demographic in the church, one that is leaving organized religion in increasing numbers. As women, they have been barred for generations from leadership roles in the…
As he lay dying
There were nineteen beds in the hospice, that’s what I heard, most of them occupied, but I paid no attention to them. When we first arrived, yes, I’d glanced into the room next to his and saw a tiny woman in the bed, tucked up like a newborn, and the next morning the bed was…
