(RNS) — Lent is a time of reflection for many Christians, and each year a host of devotionals are published to bring insight and inspiration to the 40 days of contemplation leading to Easter.
For the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a liberal denomination of close to 3 million members, the Lenten offerings this year include one focusing on the plight of Palestinians. The devotional, called “Sumud,” an Arabic word meaning “steadfastness,” offers churches and individuals a six-week study with videos and reflections to raise awareness of and advocacy against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands and its military rule over Palestinians.
More than many other U.S. denominations, the ELCA has spoken boldly on the issue of Palestinian inequality and dispossession in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip. That’s in part because the denomination partners with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and its six churches. The 2,000 members of those churches and their leaders have been especially vocal in opposing Israel’s war in Gaza — none more so than the Rev. Munther Isaac, pastor of Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, who has emerged as one of the leading champions for the Palestinian fight for justice and liberation in Gaza and for the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is one U.S. congregation heeding the call.
“It just seemed like if we were gonna focus on something that was faith-based, that was really listening to grassroots voices with intentionality during this penitential season, we would just sit with this,” said the Rev. Clint Schnekloth, the pastor.
Over the course of Lent, members of Good Shepherd Lutheran will gather for a parish meeting before services each Sunday to watch a video and read a reflection about seeking justice for Palestinians.
Schnekloth explained that ELCA Lutherans are in a unique position when it comes to Israel and Palestine. “We see the impact on our brothers and sisters who are Lutheran there, and that can sometimes convince people who might otherwise be pro-Israel that there’s another way of thinking about this based out of that experience.”
The Palestinian fight for freedom is beginning to resonate more broadly. On Sunday (March 2), “No Other Land” won the Oscar for best documentary feature. The documentary, jointly produced by Israelis and Palestinians, focuses on the Israeli military’s forced displacement of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, a group of hamlets in the occupied West Bank.
Residents of the West Bank refugee camp of Nur Shams, near Tulkarem, evacuate their homes ahead of a bulldozer as the Israeli military continues an operation in the area on Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed, File)
The Palestinian plight has become front and center because of Israel’s 16-month war in Gaza following Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel. The assault has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians and leveled the oceanfront strip. But Israel has also been waging numerous raids across the occupied West Bank, accompanied by house demolitions, detentions without charge and near-daily attacks on Palestinians that have killed nearly 900 people since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023.
A Gallup poll conducted Feb. 3-16 found that less than half of Americans express support for Israel, the lowest percentage in 25 years of Gallup’s annual tracking of this measure. According to the poll, 46% of Americans expressed support for Israel and 33% of U.S. adults now said they sympathize with the Palestinians, up 6 percentage points from last year.
The ELCA has long advocated for its sister churches in the Middle East through a program also called Sumud.
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Maddi Froiland, Sumud’s program director, said the ELCA initiative is intended to help U.S. Lutherans better understand what their faith counterparts are experiencing, not the least of which is extinction.
“I think we’ve had reports of 146 Christians who have left since Oct. 7 of two years ago,” she said. “This is something that is a dire circumstance in the Lutheran experience and the wider Palestinian Christian experience.”
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Middle East Ready Bench gathers in Chicago in February, 2025, to discuss Sumud and how the church can mobilize for justice in the Holy Land. (Photo courtesy of ELCA)
The ELCA offers other Lenten devotionals, including one called “Dismantle: An Anti-White Supremacy Lenten Devotional.” Like many offered by other Christian communities during Lent, the devotionals speak to a theme of resistance against oppression and advocacy for the marginalized.
The Sumud Lenten devotional’s first video focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus, who remains an inspiration for Palestinian Christian women today as a sister in sumud, or perseverance. Others focus on the need for Christians to speak the truth and challenge society to fight injustice.
Bishop Meghan Johnston Aelabouni of the Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA said she was encouraging the use of the Sumud Lenten devotional.
Aelabouni, who until last year served as co-pastor for the English-speaking congregation of Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, is particularly close to the issue. She said the Lenten resource can provide an opportunity for those who have not traveled to the region to better understand Palestinians’ lived reality and potentially take steps toward advocacy of justice and peace.
“As faith-based communities, part of our work is engaging in civic life as citizens, and it is also in raising the deeper questions of humanity, of what does justice look like? Why do we believe it’s important? And yes, why do we believe it is biblical?” she said. “I think we need an increase in awareness that there can be another way, that there can be a different way.”
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