Reprint from Come and See

Last week, around 1,000 pastors—mostly from the United States—entered Israel on a highly publicized tour. They came declaring solidarity, proclaiming blessings, and taking photos at holy sites. Yet in all their proclamations, one thing was painfully absent: any acknowledgment of the living, suffering Body of Christ in this land.

You walked where Jesus walked—but refused to walk beside His followers who are struggling to survive here. You prayed at stones—but ignored the living stones who bear witness to Christ today. You blessed a state—but looked away from the people being displaced, bombed, or silenced.

Here are ten questions I ask you:

1. Aren’t you ashamed to visit the birthplace of Christianity without meeting the Christians who still bear Christ’s name here?

   “If one member suffers, all suffer together.” (1 Corinthians 12:26)

2. Aren’t you ashamed to speak of “blessing Israel” while overlooking the biblical command to do justice? Or speak blessings over Palestine?

   “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

3. Aren’t you ashamed to stand where Jesus preached the Beatitudes while remaining silent toward those who mourn?

4. Aren’t you ashamed to teach the Good Samaritan while passing by today’s wounded along the road?

5. Aren’t you ashamed to celebrate ancient stones while ignoring the living stones whose communities are being erased?

   “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” (1 Peter 2:5)

6. Aren’t you ashamed to proclaim a gospel of reconciliation while embracing political narratives that divide? That’s one-sided?

Christ entrusted to us a ministry of reconciliation, not political alignment.

7. Aren’t you ashamed that the cries of Palestinian children—those whom Jesus welcomed—do not move you to speak?

Tens of thousands of Palestinian children have been killed or traumatized, and you stayed silent.

8. Aren’t you ashamed to preach love for your neighbor yet ignore your Palestinian neighbors?

9. Aren’t you ashamed to champion ‘religious freedom’ in America while ignoring the shrinking freedoms of Palestinian Christians?

10. Aren’t you ashamed that you came to the Holy Land and listened only to politicians—and not to the church that has carried the Gospel here for two millennia?

A Prophetic Word for This Hour:

Your visit could have brought encouragement, solidarity, and healing. Instead, it resembled a pilgrimage to political power rather than to the kingdom of God.

The prophets confronted kings. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. The apostles stood with the persecuted. Yet too many pastors today stand only with the privileged, the powerful, and the oppressors. 

Meanwhile, the land cries out with suffering—bloodshed, displacement, fear, and loss. Churches shrink. Families are shattered. Communities disappear. And the pastors of America came… but did not see.

A Call for all of us to Repentance:

Let us repent of selective compassion.

Let us repent of choosing political comfort over the Cross.

Let us repent of ignoring the suffering of your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Let us repent of using Scripture to justify silence and Complicity instead of justice.

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24)

The doors of repentance are open.

The witness of this land still calls out.

The Spirit still convicts.

And Christ still weeps over Jerusalem.

* Dr. Jack Sara is the President of Bethlehem Bible College and Pastor with the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in the Holy Land