Lutherans Celebrate God Gathering the World's 'Fragments'

BALTIMORE (ELCA) -- Almost 1,100 Lutherans gathered Aug. 25-
28 at the Baltimore Convention Center for a Global Mission Event
(GME) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The
theme "Gathered by God's grace for the sake of the world"
inspired plenary sessions, "Global University" sessions, worship,
prayer, song, art activities and fellowship.
The ELCA has about 300 missionaries in more than 50
countries. During summer months many of those missionaries
return to the United States to visit family and take continuing
education classes. The ELCA uses this opportunity to invite its
4.9 million members to meet current and retired missionaries and
to learn how Lutherans are involved in the world.
The ELCA Division for Global Mission worked with local
volunteers to host two GMEs. The first was July 14-17 in Fargo,
N.D. Support for the events also came from other ELCA churchwide
units and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a nonprofit financial
services organization based in Minneapolis.

'Fragment' Stories from Around the World
The opening celebration mixed global Christian music with
"fragment" stories from around the world. Reading from the
Gospel of St. Matthew, participants heard that, after feeding
five thousand people, Jesus said, "Gather up the fragments left
over, so that nothing may be lost."
The event's general facilitators, Mary Cain, Ellicott City,
Md., and JMe Lowden, Pasadena, Md., introduced Joselito "Joseph"
Carlos, a seafarer from the Phillipines. He introduced three
other young men who were in port on the (cargo vessel) C.V.
Adventure.
Joseph spoke of the stresses of life on the open sea. "The
only thing that keeps us strong is our faith in God," he said.
He thanked participants for supporting the Seafarer center, which
helps him deal with the stress by providing communication with
his family back home.
The Rev. John Rutsindintwarane, general secretary, Lutheran
Church of Rwanda, spoke of the 1994 genocide in his African
country and his role in resettling displaced Rwandans in
Tanzania. He said he saw Jesus' miracle duplicated when Lutheran
World Relief and Lutheran World Federation trucks arrived with
food.
A teacher described the joy she experienced in her school in
Cuddalore, India. In a video presentation she said that joy was
replaced by fear and confusion after the Dec. 26 tsunami in the
Indian Ocean. Death and displacement cut the number of her
students in half, and she spent more of her time counseling and
working to restore the local fishing business than teaching.
Ray Ranker, a student at the University of Maryland, talked
about his time with the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mission
program in Argentina. "They felt like leftovers," he said, with
no way of breaking a cycle of poverty. While it was a difficult
decision to leave home for service in a place where he didn't
even speak the language, he said it was more difficult to leave
Argentina and return home.
Malik fled his West African home in Guinea under the threat
of death when he was 12 years old. Three years later he arrived
in United States and was immediately put in prison as an
unaccompanied minor. Local Lutherans moved him out of detention
and into the International Friendship House while his case is
being reviewed.
The 20-year-old Malik said, "I feel like I am not a strong
man, because I rely on so many people." In Guinea his family was
in a position to help others, he said. "I have lost the ability
to help," he said, but he has found another family that helps
others.
The Rev. Manuel Caceres, Peace Lutheran Church, Glen Burnie,
Md., spoke through a translator of his work with Latino
ministries (Iglesia Paz) and his background in El Salvador.
Discrimination and injustice leave people feeling like crumbs, he
said. The church gathers the crumbs together to make the bread
of life, he said. "We are the crumbs made to bring sustenance to
others."

Keynote Presentation
The Rev. Elieshi Mungure, a pastor of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Tanzania studying at Luther Seminary, St.
Paul, Minn., and the Rev. Mark Alan Powell, professor of New
Testament, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, spoke Aug.
26, building on the Gospel story of Jesus feeding five thousand
people.
Powell led participants in "an experiment in empathy,"
asking them to pretend they were various characters in the story
-- someone who was fed, a disciple, the boy with the basket and a
loaf of bread. The bread is at risk of being consumed, but the
miracle is that it grows, he said. "We are God's bread. We are
the body of Christ. We are gathered by God's grace and offered
to the world," Powell said.
Mungure described the problems of Africa, such as
malnutrition and AIDS, which seem as overwhelming as the task
Jesus gave his disciples to feed five thousand people.
"Sometimes we look at our resources and not beyond," she said,
seeing how little we have instead of how to use what is
available. "Sometimes we are standing on the solution, but we
are still looking around," Mungure said. "Bring a little boy
with a basket of lunch, and the Lord will do a miracle."

Middle East and Christian Zionism
When participants showed up for an evening session Aug. 26,
some were turned away by young people wearing black "Security"
shirts. Entry was based on the colors of one's participant
identification. Finally, as the program began, the doors were
open to all participants.
"You experienced what Palestinians experience each day when
they try to go to church, go to work, go to school, go to
hospital," the Rev. Said Ailabouni, director for Europe and the
Middle East, ELCA Division for Global Mission, told the
gathering. The humiliation of checkpoints is compounded by house
demolitions and a security barrier, he said, making it easier for
Palestinians to emigrate from their land than to stay.
People in the Middle East feel like they are living in a
prison, Ailabouni continued. "You feel safe within your prison,
but you are not free to go in or out," he said.
Lutherans in the Holy Land work with Muslims, Jews and other
Christians toward peaceful coexistence, Ailabouni said. "One
stumbling block is theology," he said, referring to Christian
Zionism.
The Rev. Barbara R. Rossing, professor of New Testament,
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, said Christian Zionism is
not the traditional Zionism that formed the State of Israel.
Christian Zionism is a belief that Christ's second coming depends
on the rebuilding of Jerusalem's temple and must follow years of
death and destruction.
Christian Zionism is anti-Jewish and anti-Palestinian,
Rossing said. Some Christian fundamentalists support Israel's
dominance in the Middle East, but they also believe all Jews must
convert to Christianity or die, she said. Most evangelical
Christians don't support Christian Zionism, she said.
Rossing is the author of "The Rapture Exposed." She told
the gathering that the last book in the Christian Bible,
Revelation, was long ignored by scholars because of its complex
metaphors and imagery.
The concept of a rapture was "a flim-flam" pieced together
in the 19th century by interpreting various Bible passages,
especially in Revelation, as predicting a time when all believers
in Christ will be lifted from the Earth to heaven before Christ's
second coming, Rossing said. Rapture theology "poses a heretical
challenge" for Christians, she said.
The book of Revelation has been "hijacked" to finance a
lucrative "Left Behind" industry, Rossing said. She said she
wanted to reclaim Revelation and demonstrate that it is more a
message of hope and peace than death and destruction. She called
the book "God's vision of a holy city in which we all live
together in<