On the Bethlehem Call

by Rick Ufford-Chase

Two years ago Palestinians published Kairos - a cry to be seen and heard by Christians around the world. During the second week of Advent, I had the privilege to watch as their initial call morphed into a Kairos Movement for Justice around the world. This conference wasn’t just a plea to support the Palestinians, it was an invitation to contextualize the work of Kairos in new places around the world. It was a call to South Africans to awaken the S. African church from what one of our colleagues from that part of the world called a “Kairos siesta” - a complacency - which has overtaken them in the years since Mandela took office. It was a call to the Philippines to reflect theologically on their own struggles and to craft a Christian response. It was a call to India to examine the ways in which Dalits are still on the underside of a caste system that is supported by the dominant religion and blessed by the State.

It is a call to western European countries to re-examine their own complicity in Israel’s ever-expanding occupation of Palestine, and to insist that the church will step-up. Finally—it’s a call to the churches in the U.S. to own-up to the ways in which our timidity has emboldened the U.S. to embrace it’s growing identity as the Empire - in Palestine and in many other places around the world.

Together, more than sixty representatives from fifteen countries around the world agreed this week that they will take on the work of building a Kairos Movement for Justice. Click here to read “The Bethlehem Call” that they wrote together. The call is bold. It is part prophetic word, part poetry, and part pastoral word. For me, this year, it has become the center of my reflection on Christmas. It lifts up a concern for oppressed and for oppressor, insisting that neither can live as God intends while systems of injustice remain. I think it is a remarkable effort, and I commend it to you. Perhaps you’ll want to join me in reading it repeatedly as a spiritual practice during these last days before Christmas.

Peace to you in these final days of preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus,

Rick