Message from Bishop Rachel, 3 June 2025

Having only returned from Jerusalem the day before, it was poignant last Thursday on Ascension Day to recall Jesus Christ’s words to his disciples on the Mount of Olives, that they should wait to be clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49).

As we live these days between Ascension Day and Pentecost, I pray for us to have expectant hearts as we pray to be clothed afresh with the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray we may go on becoming the Church ever more fully, revealing the signs of the Kingdom of God amidst all that our lives hold, that we might live and share Christ’s life in all its fulness. I was therefore sorry to miss the ‘Thriving Church’ event last Saturday, organised by Kate Stacey, Collaborative Lead for Life Long Learning.

I am looking forward to hearing about what will have been an inspiring day as people engaged with a variety of input, including from George Lings (author of Seven Sacred Spaces), and as people spent time together within the context of the deanery strategic pathways being developed and implemented.

A thriving Church is good news. Yet that language of ‘thriving’ is so stark as I reflect on my days in Israel-Palestine.

I saw people strong in their faith, and Christians willing to stay present and be courageous light in places of struggle, darkness and fear, but no one I met would have used the word ‘thriving’ to describe their lives.

Last Sunday in Ramallah I watched a moving piece of footage of young people at their graduation the day before singing ‘we shall overcome some day.’ In the surrounds of Ramallah and in the hills of Hebron, I sat with young people who’d been arrested and imprisoned, and I heard and saw the evidence of settler violence, and the misuse of power by the Israeli army and settlers alike, seeking to instil fear and exert their dominant authority.

The Palestinians (Christian and Muslim) under occupation in the West Bank are being strangled of life. Illegal Jewish Settlements grow, and tactics of fear and power are part of everyday life. I saw land where olive groves and vegetables once thrived, now abandoned and desolate as huge gates have been erected across entrance roads, and people can only access their crops and trees at certain times when the gates are unlocked. Israeli roads which Palestinians cannot access, are severing connection between Palestinian communities and villages, and people are being dispossessed of their land and homes.

Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are not thriving. The Church in the West Bank remains faithfully present but the Christian population is diminishing as many of those who can, decide to leave. Many of those who remain are hanging on by their fingertips as their children ask them if they will be safe and if the conflict in the West Bank will become like Gaza.

Gaza is being obliterated. People are starving and families forcibly displaced from their homes — places of thriving and healing such as schools and hospitals, have been systematically destroyed.

It was horrifically enlightening listening to the insights of a young father who is part of the organisation, ‘Breaking the Silence’ — veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military and have taken it upon themselves to bring into the light the hidden reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.

It is of course important to say that Israeli hostages and their families and traumatised communities are not thriving either. All aggression and inhumane actions must cease. The rise of anti-Semitism and hostility towards Jewish neighbours and communities in the UK is abhorrent and is also to be called out.

On numerous occasions during my visit, in the midst of the pain and suffering of broken human relationship, I was struck by the beauty of thriving jacaranda trees, flowers and olive groves, defiantly singing God’s unchanging love and glory. In other places the dying crops and abandoned olive groves bore witness to desolation and reminded me that creation is groaning (Romans 8: 22) as people and land long for liberation, and yearn for the establishment of justice and peace, and the shalom of restored relationship.

This week, I look forward to hearing about the Thriving Church event, and what people valued and want to explore further, as we seek to be the Church among the people and places of daily life across different local contexts. I am hopeful that there will have been many resonances with our vision of LIFE Together and our five spotlight areas. One of those is a commitment to be ‘advocates for flourishing through initiatives which combat injustice, environmental destruction, exclusion and isolation.’

As we walk towards Pentecost, and as many people engage with the initiative of ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ and the focus on the Lord’s Prayer, may we remember the seemingly forgotten places of our world where there is a lack of thriving, in body, mind and spirit, and may we be advocates for flourishing and justice, both locally and far away, yearning for God’s kingdom to come on earth as in heaven.

For me, what I have seen and heard in Jerusalem and the West Bank remains very present, and I am committed to bearing witness ever more strongly to the injustice of all that intentionally suppresses the thriving of people, each of us created in God’s image. I will be sharing my thoughts and reflections on my visit in different ways over the coming days and weeks.

Today, I pray ‘Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful people and kindle in us the fire of your love’.

With my thanks and prayers as ever,