February 24, 2013: Second Sunday in Lent

 Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent

Preacher: Pastor Paul Cannon

 Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18

 "Ancestors" 

"Sarah and Abraham" by Marc Chagall, 1887-1985

Good Morning everybody!  For our first reading, we heard one of the most central texts in the Old Testament – so I hope you were paying attention because that’s the text that I am going to preach on today.  The story is about a man named Abram – who God later renames Abraham – and his wife Sarai – whom God later renames Sarah. 

Abraham might be the most influential figure in the history of religion.  Three of the major world faiths trace their ancestry back to him: Islam, Judaism and Christianity.  Of course, each religion comes back to Abraham with their own interpretation of events, but what each religion recognizes is that the defining moment of our text today is when God comes to Abraham to give him this one simple word: a word of promise.

First, you have to understand that Abraham and Sarah were living in a time and a culture where having children was everything.  Everything you worked for in life, you did for the sake of passing it on to your heirs.  Families and lineages were at the center of Israel’s world view.  This is why the Bible so often takes valuable time, ink and parchment to trace the paths of descendants throughout Israel’s history.

But Abraham and Sarah were getting up there in age.  And not having children was a huge deal to them!  Their community, their tribe, their people – would have looked at them and wondered what they did wrong.  They would have whispered about sins allegedly committed to cause their predicament.  They would have been scorned among their people. 

And in the midst of all this, God shows up to give Abraham a promise.  “After these things” our scripture tells us, “the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great!”  In his response to God, you can hear Abraham’s skepticism.  He says “What will you give me?  For I continue childless and the heir of my house is one of my servants!”

And here is the part that those three religions will trace their history back to.  God leads Abraham under the cold, clear night sky.  And as they stood there, God said “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.”  And then God turned to Abraham and said, “So shall your descendants be.”

So shall your descendants be.  God makes a simple promise to Abraham, and from that promise springs three world religions. Muslims will eventually trace their lineage back to Abraham’s first child Ishmael who was born to a servant woman named Hagar.  Jews will trace their lineage back to Isaac who was born to Sarah – Abraham’s wife. Christians will trace their lineage to this story as well, but our lineage will be traced back not to a person, but to the promise tied up in the story. 

The New Testament is full of references to this passage.  Both Matthew and Luke quote John the Baptist who is scolding the Pharisees – The Jewish leaders of the law saying, “Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

For a culture that is so focused on genealogies and birth rights and first born children and heirs – this must have come as a shocking statement to the Pharisees at the time.  All kinds of laws were set up to make sure that proper succession took place in society.  Such matters were paramount. 

Think about it for a moment.  A wealthy man owns 100 acres of land and he has 5 sons.  Who gets the land?  Do they divide into 20 acres a piece?  Well then what happens when each of those children grow up and have 5 sons of their own?  Does each son get 4 acres for himself?

Well this clearly doesn’t work out for anybody, in the long run.  To keep the family strong there had to be clear rules of inheritance, which is why the first born son is so important in Biblical and historical records. Without laws to determine who gets the inheritance, wars would be fought between brothers and tribes and nations. 

And here comes John the Baptist to tell the leaders of the Jewish Law, saying “You fools!  Bloodlines don’t matter to God!  This rock over here could be a descendant of Abraham if God just said the word!”  Well that flies in the face of the entire social political structure of the time. 

These structures were so powerful that they still exist to this day.  Think about this for a minute:  How many of you like to follow gossip about England’s royalty?  It’s all about succession right?  Back in November, Prince Charles made the news when a reporter asked him if he was impatient to take the throne when Queen Elizabeth died.  He responded jokingly to the effect that he thinks he might be the one to go first.  The Queen is one tough cookie.

But John the Baptist says that none of these family laws matter when it comes to receiving God’s inheritance – his promises!  You could be a rock – heck you could be as dumb as a rock; you could be as passive as a rock and still be a descendant of Abraham.  There’s nothing you can do to prove that you are worthy before God!  There’s no way to justify yourself.

One of my old seminary professors was a fisherman and his wife would ask him “How can you waste an entire day just sitting in a boat and doing nothing?”  And his reply to her would be, “I’m not doing nothing, I’m practicing my justification!” 

I suppose that I could use the same excuse when I’m playing video games while my wife is around.  “Honey, I can’t do the dishes because I’m practicing my justification over here…I’m sorry babe – this is the Lord’s work.”

So I think we can conclude that husbands are indeed about as useful as rocks.  But that’s the point that John the Baptist is making.  You don’t have to be anybody special to be a recipient of God’s inheritance – you don’t have to do anything to earn God’s promise.  Being a descendant of Abraham isn’t about who you are related too.

You could imagine how upset the Pharisees might have been when this wild-eyed preacher from the sticks was telling them how unimportant bloodlines and works righteousness is to God. Those very things were the glue that held society together.

Well, years later, long after John the Baptist passed away, and after Jesus was crucified, comes the Apostle Paul – a former Jewish leader and a man who considered himself to be blameless before the law. He was a man who persecuted Christians until one day he suddenly had an encounter with the risen Christ on the road.

And what Paul realized when he encountered Jesus, was that even he didn’t deserve the gift that Christ gave him on the cross.  Even he was unworthy to inherit God’s Kingdom.  And so Paul turns back to our text today, and he hangs on to a certain phrase that helps him to reinterpret the entirety of the Jewish law. Paul remembers that God makes a promise to Abraham – that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars – and then the passage says this: “And Abraham believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

And it’s on this phrase that Paul realizes the entirety of his life was spent devoted to the wrong thing.  He had thought that he was righteous because he was a Jew.   He believed the thing that made a person worthy of inheriting God’s promises – was the law.

But Paul turned back to that phrase “And Abraham believed the Lord, and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” And what he realized was that Abraham was righteous because he believed.  God gave Abraham his promise because Abraham had faith that this God would come through – despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“For this reason” Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham.”

And that’s how Christians trace their ancestry back to Abraham.  We are not all relatives of his son Isaac.  We don’t share bloodlines with Ishmael.  We trace our deepest connections to God through the faith of Abraham.  That’s what we share: An uncommon belief that God can create life even in the barren womb of his wife Sarah.  We believe that through a cross – an instrument of torture and death – God can save the world. 

And during this season of Lent, we remember this is the promise given to us through the cross of Christ.  We know that God walks with us in the messiness of our lives because he did it.  He didn’t hold back.  His journey leads him to eat with tax collectors and prostitutes.  He walked among the sick and dying.  Ultimately, his journey leads him to the cross – not for the sake of the righteous church going folk – but for the sake of sinners: people who make mistakes in life.

It is faith in the cross of Christ, that links us to Abraham.  It is faith that connects us with the grace of God.  And thanks be to God for all these gifts.

Amen.

1st Sunday in Lent: February 17, 2013

1st Sunday in Lent: February 17, 2013

Luke 4:1-13

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Tuesday of this week, my calendar had one word written on it: BAPTISMS. That’s because I spent a good part of the day calling, emailing, and writing to the sixteen families and individuals who have indicated they are ready for baptism in the next months. That’s right—SIXTEEN! Thanks be to God!

As Pr. Paul and I made plans for an upcoming baptism workshop, I got to thinking about the most awkward part of preparing families for the rite of baptism. For me, it’s the point in the rite when parents of beautiful babies and children—and the adults who have made leaps of courage and faith to stand before the church and commit their lives to God—must answer these questions:

• Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?
• Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?
• Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?

Especially when I’m sitting with young parents to make plans for the big baptism day, I find myself apologizing for these words. Lutherans don’t often talk about the devil in regular conversation, and somehow it seems awkward, scary, or even offensive to be suggesting that parents need to renounce “the devil and all his empty promises” on behalf of the adorable baby sitting in the car seat next to us. Other times, I worry that folks who have made their way back to church after experiencing judgment and condemnation from other Christians will be turned off by such open talk of the red, horned one.

But of course, this portion of the baptism rite is essential, and not just because it has been included in the liturgy since the earliest days of the church.

This portion of the baptism service—rightly called an exorcism—is nothing to apologize for, because when we turn toward the life God desires for us, we necessarily turn away from an alternate one. Whether we conceive of the devil as an entity or a force, as our own sinful nature, or as working through systems of oppression at work in the world—or all of the above—what we know for sure is the devil is the enemy of God’s kingdom. And we also know that from Creation until this day, the enemy has been tempting us with his version of a life well-lived. In today’s Gospel lesson, we hear how he even tried to tempt Jesus to choose another path.

Speaking of temptation, it is tempting to read Luke chapter 4, the Gospel text for the first Sunday in Lent, and think only of our excessive desires for chocolate, coffee, donuts, or Facebook. It is tempting to conflate Jesus’ experience of forty days in the wilderness with our own forty day opportunity to lose a few pounds before swimsuit season, to lower our cholesterol numbers, or to be more consistent in prayer. In other words, it is tempting to read the account of Jesus being tempted by the devil and make it all about us.

On the one hand, there is much we can recognize in the account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. Each of us probably has personal experience with the three temptations he faced: the temptation to think only of our own stomachs, our own needs, and our own desires; the temptation to gain power over others; and the temptation to achieve fame and glory in the sight of others.

But when we read the Scriptures this way, picking apart the devil’s dirty tricks and studying the way Jesus had a quick biblical comeback for each punch, taking notes for the next time the devil comes knocking at our door—then the story becomes all about us. Suddenly, Jesus facing off with the enemy becomes nothing more than a morality tale, teaching us how we, too, can overcome temptation, if we only try hard enough.

The problem with this scenario is that I’m not Jesus. And neither are you!

Rather, on this first Sunday in Lent, we hear the story of how it was Jesus, the Son of God, who was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. We remember that it was Jesus, fully divine and fully human, who ate nothing for forty days. And we hear how it was at that very moment, when Jesus was famished and exhausted, that the devil entered the scene and pulled out all the stops, trying as hard as he could to get Jesus to change course.

The devil offered him food, he offered him power, and he offered him fame. He even took Jesus to Jerusalem and placed him on the very highest point of the temple saying, “See! Here it is! You can have glory and honor right here in the holy city. Just throw yourself down from here and let the angels catch you! You’ll win an Oscar for sure for that performance. Everyone will be talking about you. The whole world will hear your message.”

It was right there before Jesus—an alternate path. A shortcut. An option he hadn’t considered. Here was the perfect way to avoid the cross.

Today, on this first day of Lent, we remember that this story isn’t about us. It was Jesus, the Son of God, who renounced the devil and all his empty promises, choosing the path of the cross.

But sisters and brothers, while this story is not about you—the Good News is that it is for you.

Jesus chose the way of the cross for you and for the world.
He chose to speak truth to power for you.
He chose to heal the sick and raise the dead for you.
He chose to eat with the outcast and welcome the stranger for you.
He chose to preach the coming of God’s kingdom for you.
He chose to stand before Pilate for you.
He chose to walk to Calvary for you.
He chose to suffer humiliation and death for you.
He walked out of the tomb and appeared to the disciples for you.
And he is present here today—in the water, the Word, and the bread and wine—for you.

My dear people, Jesus chose the path that led to the cross, thereby granting all people the free gifts of grace, forgiveness, and eternal life.

And that’s why for this Lenten season, Bethany will keep the cross as the focus of our prayer and worship. On Wednesday evenings we will gather here to pray around the cross, contemplating the suffering of our Lord and the free gifts of grace, forgiveness, and life we have received. We will light candles and sing, and we will sit with that dangerous memory of how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, chose the way of the cross for us.

I invite you to join me in this Lenten season of confession and repentance, as we turn back toward God, seeking forgiveness and hope. May our time at the foot of the cross transform us into a people who will boldly choose to follow Jesus, wherever he leads us. Amen.

Transfiguration of Our Lord: February 10, 2013

Transfiguration Sermon – Transforming Through Prayer

Feb. 10^th 2013

PREACHER: Pastor Paul Cannon

Exodus 34:29-35

Luke 9:28-43 

Good morning everyone!  I’m glad to see your smiling faces here this morning.  In the Church season, today is Transfiguration Sunday, so we’ve heard two stories about people going up mountains to pray and then being transformed in some way.  And both of these stories, of Moses and Jesus with his disciples, mark the beginning of something significant in faith lives of the people. 

The first story tells us about Moses hiking up Mount Sinai to talk with God.  And whenever he came down from the mountain, his face would be glowing from his encounter.  When Moses journeyed up there, he would come back down with instructions or laws or messages from God to the people.  In this particular part of the story, he’s bringing back two things: new tablets of the covenant and instructions on how to build God’s new Tabernacle.

But as anybody who was on the building committee for this worship space will tell you – the construction of a new building is a pivotal moment in the life of any community.  A place of worship isn’t just a building.  It’s is a statement about who you are and who your God is. So what you have in the story is essentially Moses coming before God in prayer – and God transforming the faith lives of his people.

Jesus transfiguration moment also began with prayer.  Jesus hikes up a mountain with Peter, James and John and the three of them begin to pray.  And in this moment, Jesus face starts to shine and his clothes turn into a dazzling, blinding white.  And then Elijah appears with Moses and the experience is so moving - it’s so incredible - that Peter states that he wants to pitch some tents and stay up on this mountain top! 

Then as Peter suggests this, a cloud comes and envelopes everybody on the Mountain, and from that cloud comes the voice of God who says “This is my son, my chosen.  Listen to him.” … Listen to him … And after God spoke those words everything flashed back to normal, and they were alone again. 

And that’s pretty much the whole bizarre, incredible story – a story that starts with prayer and ends with a command to listen.   But instead of instructions to build a temple, when Jesus walks down this mountain, it’s towards Jerusalem – the place where he is crucified.

Now, both of these stories are pivotal moments in the history of Christianity and Judaism. They are stories that mark that something dramatic is about to happen. Not only are Moses and Jesus transfigured, but I think it’s no exaggeration to say that the entire course of human history is changed by these events.  And today, I want to suggest to you that the catalyst, the spark, of all this renewal and transformation begins with prayer.

At this point, I think that we all have to confess something.  Not a personal confession – I’ll spare you that much at least – but a confession that we need to make as a whole.  And what we need to confess is this: we are really bad at prayer.

I hate to paint with such broad strokes, but I think that in general, that statement is true. If you don’t believe me, just get a group of Lutherans together and ask if anybody is willing to say a word of prayer and listen to the crickets that will inevitably follow. Typically in a group of 100 Lutherans together, you might find one person willing to speak up – unless the Pastor is on vacation.

And I think we’re uncomfortable with prayer because few of us take time out of our busy days to actually practice it! The same could be said for any number of things that we struggle with. For instance – and this might come as a shock to hear this, so I’m glad you’re all sitting down – I am not good at break dancing …  And not to stereotype, but I’m guessing none of you are either.

Now, there might be some of you that are thinking to yourselves at this moment, “Now wait a minute Pastor, don’t we pray every Sunday?” And my response to that is that yes, we pray every Sunday, and it’s usually the second most slept through part of the service…I’m glad that there are some of you awake to hear that joke. 

But if you allow me to get on my soap box for a moment, I often wonder if our time for prayer during the service – the prayers of the people – end up being the prayers of the pastors, or at the best, the prayers of the people who speak up.

And too often, I think our personal prayers – our daily concerns, our joys, our guilt and our praises – I wonder if they too often go unspoken because we have no idea how to pray or even why we do it.

It all starts with that question “Why?” Why do we pray?  At Theology on Tap the other night, somebody asked that very same thing.  This person was wondering if we pray more for what happens here on earth or for God to save our souls for heaven.

And after thinking about it for a moment, my response was “Neither.”  The reason we pray is relationship.  We pray because in prayer, God opens us up to encounter him.

And the more you dig into the Bible, the truer this seems to be – that prayer is about entering into a relationship with God. Right before our story of Moses today, I came across a passage saying that Moses would speak to God quote, “face-to-face as one would speak to a friend.”  And if that’s what prayer is about - being in a relationship with God like you would be with a friend - then I think that changes everything.

With a friend, you can be honest – you let them in on what’s really going on in your life. Which means that in prayer, you can be real with God and not pretend that everything is perfect.  So if your child isn’t doing well in school, your prayer might be “God, I’m so anxious about their future.” Or if you’ve lost a loved one, your prayer might be “God, why did you take them from me?” Or if you received a promotion at work your prayer might be one of joy and praise, “God, thank you for this opportunity!” 

And just like in any relationship, it’s not all about what you have to say.  Part of being a good friend is being able to listen.  On the mountaintop, God addresses Peter, James and John saying, “This is my son.  My chosen.  Listen to him.” Sometimes it’s easy to forget how important listening is. 

At our annual council meeting for instance, we had a visioning session.  And we asked the question, “Where do you see Bethany 10 years from now? How do you want to see Bethany transformed?”  Council members were throwing out really awesome suggestions like “We should have a community center!” Or “I’d really like to see Bethany’s community garden grow into a project that could really feed people who are experiencing homelessness.” 

And as we broke down the steps to achieving each of these dreams, we realized that the first thing to do in every single case was to first listen to the needs of the community and to where God was calling us.  So before we decide to build a community center, it might be good to first ask, “What does our neighborhood need?”  Or before we decide to feed people experiencing homelessness, maybe we should ask them if they are hungry.

Maybe in asking those questions we realize that Crystal Lake is more in need of supportive job programs or low-cost day care. It could be anything. The point is, that you’ll never know until you ask and then actually listen for the answer.

So here we are. We’re in the midst of the year of renewal, where our theme verse from Romans tells us “Do not be conformed but be transformed.”  We are three days from Lent where our Lenten theme will be transformation. 

And today, on this Transfiguration Sunday – a day where God set about changing the faith lives of the Israelites and all of Jesus followers, we find that this process of being changed by God begins with prayer.  It begins by entering into relationship and encountering the living God. 

And that brings me to a very non-Lutheran challenge: I want you to do something.  Take time every single day during Lent to pray.  Pray out loud.  Pray with your family.  Talk to God like you would talk to a friend.  One thing we often do in Confirmation is to lift up our roses and thorns (highs and lows) for the week or the day, and I think that would be a great place for you to start.  Tell God what’s going on in your life.  And then ask him where he wants you to go next.    Or if you don’t have the words, then simply say the prayer the Lord’s prayer.

And finally, listen to what God has to tell you. Listen to the people and the community around you, and discover the kinds of change that God has in store for you and for this church this year.  It won’t make you a holier person, it won’t make God love you any more, but it will draw you into a closer relationship with the living God – and that, we know, has the power to transform the world.

Amen.

4th Sunday after Epiphany: February 3, 2013

Global Mission Sunday
February 3, 2013

 

PREACHER: Seminarian Sarah Rohde

 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Good morning! I’m so grateful to be here this morning to celebrate Global Mission Sunday with you. Five years ago, I served as a missionary in Mexico with one of your own—Katie Gavle! Katie and I served through the Young Adults in Global Mission program of the ELCA. Young Adults in Global Mission sends, every year, around 50 young adults to live and serve in 8 different countries around the world, giving us a chance to experience God and humanity in a place far from home. The words you have chosen for your theme this year, renewal and transformation, are certainly words that resonate for me as I think back to my year of service. Here I am, five years later, in my final year of seminary, and I still refer to my experience in Mexico as the experience that renewed my hope in the church and transformed my sense of call to pastoral ministry. It was a life-changing year for me, and I’m excited to be here today to tell you about it. 

Before I say anything more about my experience in Mexico, though, first let me say thank you to all of you for being a church that’s involved in God’s mission here in Crystal Lake, in Illinois, and all around the world. I fully believe that we can do and be so much more as a church when we’re in this work together, so thanks for all you do!

If I were to have selected a bible passage on my own to help me talk about Mexico, I don’t know that I would have ever thought to go to Paul’s words to the Corinthians read this morning. Every time I hear that passage about patient and enduring love, it only takes a couple phrases before I think I’m at a wedding. These words are no doubt powerful words for a couple beginning life together. But it was helpful for me to be reminded this week that Paul didn’t write this letter to two people head over heels in love; Paul actually was writing to a new church community that was struggling mightily to get along. The church at Corinth included people from different backgrounds and social classes; they brought a variety of gifts and opinions. I imagine that, at first, this was exciting! People were coming from all over the place to be a part of this new church! But then they started to talk about things more serious than the weather. They started to share opinions, and they tried to make decisions. People talked over one another and refused to compromise; they boasted of their own expertise, while they scorned the knowledge of others.

It’d be nice if we could just say these were problems of the past, but you and I know that these sort of realities bubble up when we encounter people who are different than us. It’s not easy to figure out how to be authentic to who we are, and yet still be open to being changed by people we don’t understand or people with whom we disagree. My time in Mexico helps me empathize with this first-century church in Corinth; in many ways, I could sum up my year in Mexico with precisely this theme: learning how to practice love in the midst of difference. Paul’s words were poignant back then, and they’re poignant today, helping me put into words an experience that is still hard for me to summarize.

Paul writes, “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and knowledge, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

Moving to Mexico meant saying goodbye to a lot of what I hold dear. Independence. Confidence. Punctuality. Comfort food. I still remember that sinking feeling in my stomach the first day I arrived at my host family’s home. Soledad, my host mother, showed me immediately to my room and talked at what felt like a million words per minute. I couldn’t understand what she was saying to me, I was glad she seemed excited to have me, but I was using all my strength to fight back tears out of a sudden sense of loneliness and insecurity, and I couldn’t get the right words to come to me. This surprised me. I thought I was up for an adventure; I had majored in Spanish and had kind of assumed that the language wouldn’t be the most difficult part of this transition. It turns out that textbooks teach us a language that’s different than the way people talk in the street or in their homes. Something I thought I already knew how to do became one of many things I had to learn how to do differently.

That afternoon began an entire year of learning what it’s like to live as a stranger in a foreign place. I let go of so much of my identity. No one in Mexico had heard of Concordia College, my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, or of Lutherans! No one in Mexico knew I got good grades—or cared! They didn’t know that I played piano or liked to bake chocolate chip cookies. Instead, people knew my first name; they knew I came from the United States; and they knew I needed help with just about everything. I needed a host mother to cook for me. I needed people on the street to tell me which way to go. I needed bus drivers to be patient with me when I didn’t do what the locals do, which is to jump off the bus before it completely comes to a stop, so as not to waste too much time. I needed people who had the time to have conversation with someone who spoke their language imperfectly, sometimes even offensively.

We live under a definition of giving and serving that most likely would have seen me as the one who had more to teach and give. People of my skin color and education level have power in this world, but the truth is, I was powerless without the love and generosity of the Mexican people. Far away from everything I knew, suddenly the only things that mattered were that I had a safe place to be, food to eat, and people to call me by name. If I were to translate Paul’s text, I might say, “Even if I speak clearly in English, and if I have a U.S. passport and a college degree, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

It was the first time in my adult life when I realized the vulnerability that sits right beneath my sense of confidence and control. In our highly-individualized culture, we are so tempted to believe that we can and should do it all on our own, but Mexico took me to a place where my language, my money, and my knowledge fell short of my need for love. I realized in a pretty raw way that there are things far more important than being successful or self-sufficient. My sisters and brothers in Mexico taught me what it really means to be loved for who I am, not for what I do, own, or accomplish.


Paul writes, “Love is patient. Love is kind.”

One of my volunteer placements for the year was in a rural indigenous community called Cuentepec. I accompanied a social worker named Maria Luisa, who, at that time, had been working with a group of women in this community for over a decade. Now, let me set the scene … Cuentepec is a small community about two hours away from the city. It is nestled in rolling hills of corn and peanut fields, and it is the only community in this part of Mexico that still retains most of its indigenous roots; they speak their indigenous language, wear traditional dress, and practice ancient rituals for healing and worship. For the most part, families in this community live off the land, cook over open flames in their small huts, and walk to a river about a mile away to bathe and wash their clothes. The women stay home to cook and care for the children, while the men work long days in the field, in construction, or across the border as migrant workers. There are animals of every size, shape, and smell running through peoples’ yards…it wasn’t a bit abnormal to be eating a meal in company with roosters, birds, pigs, dogs, horses, and goats.

The first months in this community were quite a challenge for me. I remember telling people that I felt as though I had gotten plopped down into the middle of a PBS documentary on indigenous life, and then was asked to build community. I knew I was there to form relationships and learn about a different way of life, but those ideals became a lot more complicated when I actually got there. I struggled to know how to connect with these women. I wondered how they felt about a random Norwegian woman just showing up to be present and learn from them? And what did it mean to be in solidarity with people whose cultural, economic, and religious identities were so different than my own?

The changes were slow. We certainly didn’t develop trust and understanding overnight. For the first several months I was there, we communicated mostly by doing things together. The women invited me to go to the river with them to get water or to take the kids to school; they also taught me how to make fresh tortillas. We didn’t do a whole lot of talking; mostly, we shared smiles and lots and lots of gestures.

One day, several months into my time there, I was helping my friend, Felipa, make corn tortillas over the open fire. We had been silent for awhile, slapping the tortillas back and forth in our hands, and then she turned to me and, with helpful gestures, asked, “Do you shave here?” We both broke out in a laughter that makes your belly ache for minutes, but it was more redemptive than I can describe. It was such an unexpected moment that opened a way for our relationship to deepen; talk about shaving our armpits turned into talk about our identities as women, turned into talk about our families, our cultures, and our faith.

Felipa eventually shared with me that she and the other women didn’t really know what to think of me at first. She told me how pieces of my identity raised questions for them. They knew I was from the same faith tradition as missionaries in the past who had come to try and replace their indigenous customs with Christian confessions. They knew I called home a country that didn’t allow her husband, who’s lived here for 14 years, to become a citizen.

These conversations made it hard to claim who I am. They made me want to cover up the pieces of myself that make people question my integrity. But spending a year with these indigenous women taught me that living in solidarity was not about us becoming the same people, but about us living authentically with each other, being open to ways of understanding each other that complicated some of our assumptions and stereotypes.

Toward the end of my time in Cuentepec, Felipa said, “Sarah, I’m sorry you’re leaving, because we were just getting to know each other.” Felipa spoke a truth I hadn’t yet put words to, namely that it takes time and courage to see people beyond the labels and categories we place on them. It’s so much easier to live as though we have people figured out. It’s also easy to write off relationships if they don’t gel the first time. I kept showing up; they kept showing up. Difference didn’t go away, but judgment and fear did. 

Love is patient; love is kind.

 
Lastly, the apostle Paul writes, “Love does not insist on its own way, but rejoices in the truth…For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part.”

I could talk about the fact that Mexicans often show up an hour late.
I could talk about the mixture of lime, baking powder, and coke that my Mexican host mother offered as remedy for nausea.
I could talk about the way the Mexican people greet and say goodbye to each other—every single person in the room hugs and kisses every other single person in the room. I thought Midwesterners were bad for long goodbyes, but this was something else.

Suffice it to say that my year in Mexico was filled with my way meeting another way. At times, it was an exciting adventure to explore a way of life very different from my own; at other times, it made me so mad.

I think these clashes of ways should happen. They happen because something we feel strongly about is being called into question by another way. Who we are or what we think is being challenged by another way of being or thinking.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wasn’t trying to get them all to agree on one right way of life. He didn’t think that one skill or idea was better than all the others. Rather, he was trying to help them see that the way of love is a way that acknowledges more than one way of being human. “We all see through a mirror dimly,” says Paul, and because of that, we need each other to help us better understand ourselves and the God who has created us all.

One of the most important things my time in Mexico taught me was that mission work doesn’t require crossing a national border. It’s not just work that gets done by really adventuresome people in faraway places. We call it global mission because every relationship, every conversation bears the potential to transform some corner of our broken and beautiful world. We are called missionaries, because we are all called to be a part of the boundary-breaking mission of God—wherever and whoever we are. I’ve heard it said before that “it’s not the church that has a mission; it’s the mission of God that has a church.” And so it is in the name of a God whose mission is global that we journey to places we might not otherwise go, trusting all along that God’s love will meet us there and transform the world through us.

Amen.