God’s Mission Matters
The PC(USA) has started a monthly podcast series called “God’s Mission Matters.” It has stories from folks working around the world, reflections from mission trips, and some great biblical commentary. I wanted to share an episode here.
One of the great things about our time in Colombia is working with Alice Winters. She’s in the podcast, or at least her reflection is. It begins at the 6:20 mark. It’s definitely worth the listen – and if you want more of this, you can sign up for her mailing list, or better yet, come on down for a visit or take one of her classes!
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Naming the Wonders of God on Pentecost
Yesterday, for Pentecost I had the opportunity to speak at 9th Presbyterian Church here in Baranquilla. The area in which 9th is located is called “La Ceiba” (a type of tree) and one of the three churches in the city located in barrios populares (lower-income neighborhoods). Richard and I like visiting 9th Church a lot. We seem to know a lot of people there, they are always incredibly friendly, and though the music is loud (always, and everywhere) it is good, well-grounded, and a nice mix of upbeat and reflective.
I have found that my preaching style here is a bit different as I try to involve the congregation more in the sermon. Often there are about 50 people in attendance, so it makes less sense to do a sermon that doesn’t include them. And, since I am still pretty wedded to the printed page when I preach in Spanish, I like to have at least a few moments when we all get to talk a little more together. At any rate, though you aren’t hearing any of this, I hope it “translates”…more or less.
“Las Maravillas de Dios”
Good morning brothers and sisters. First, I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to be here with you at 9th Church on this Pentecost day. I should also tell you right from the start that I am going to need your help during this sermon, so let’s get started right now.
I like this text in Acts a great deal, and I see a lot in it, but I want to know about what you think. What parts of the Pentecost text catches your attention? What parts fascinate you, and why?
Certainly a great focus in this text is in the part where everyone is speaking in different languages, and when I read it, I always think of a dream I have had since I was a kid. When I was a little girl, I loved the television. Each day I sat
in front of the screen watching one program or another, and even more so on Saturday mornings when cartoons came on from early in the morning until lunch time. I especially loved any program that had people with super-powers because it always made me think about what powers I would want to have (as if this were possible). My ideas about what power would be the best power have changed over the years, but one of them has managed to stick at number one for a while.
Before I tell you all what I chose though, I want to hear what you would choose. What power, or better said, what SUPER-power, would you like to have if you could choose any one?
As for me, I want the power of languages. That is, no matter where I go, or what language the people speak, I would love to be able to understand and talk to them in their tongue, as if it were my own. Wouldn’t that be spectacular? Quite frankly, part of what I like about this text in Acts is that exactly that miracle happens on the day of Pentecost.
How interesting and powerful this experience of the Spirit! What a great blessing to celebrate the diversity and communication between different people! I have no doubt that God wants us all to communicate better, and that what has happened in this text can teach us that difference and variety are not anything to fear but rather an opportunity for people to talk to one another in the language of their hearts. There is much to learn from a lesson like that. But it is not what I am really going to talk about so much today.
I do think the message of diversity and celebration is important, but after reading the text again this week what captured my attention was no so much the moment in which all the people were talking but rather in what they all were saying. They weren’t sharing stories about their youth (like I just did) or discussing what they would eat for lunch. Tell me, according to the text, what were the apostles talking about after the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them? [the wonders of God]
“Beginning Again” – John 21
Below is my sermon from this past Sunday. Though the sermon itself does not speak about the Days of Prayer and Action, we talked about them afterwards as means of education, service, and evangelization. For those of you seriously dedicated bloggers, you will note that this is the second time you are reading something about the miraculous catch of fish, but this time the story is from John, and – always – John is a little bit different.
(I may not always get to translate my sermons, but since I had a moment I figured it was easier (and clearer) than Google translate. All due respect to The Google.)
I have always said that I never preached a sermon I didn’t need to hear. So once more I too am trying to begin again.
Peter and the Miraculous Catch of Fish, Fresco by Bertrand Bahuet, 1995-1996.
“Beginning Again”
Good morning brothers and sisters. I want to thank you all for the opportunity to be be here with you all to share the word on this beautiful day. Surely the Lord is here in our midst, amen? Now we just wait the message that God has for each one of us, because the word of God does not return empty, even if it is preached by someone who does not fully speak the language in which she is preaching.
Well, this morning we have a pretty big text that has a lot to say, so let’s go back and look at the passage again to place ourselves within the story that John is telling us. I warn you now that I am going to need your help during the sermon, ya’ hear? All right… (more…)
Domingo de los Ramos – parte 2
And now for another look at the Domingo de los Ramos. This time from Mamie, and this time in Spanish. No, she doesn’t use those sticking translation tools! (but you can here if you want)
~~~~~~~
Muy buenos dias hermanas y hermanos. Muchísimsas gracias a ustedes por la invitación de estar aquí esta mañana para celebrar el Domingo de Ramos – el principio de semana santa. Para mí, tener la oportunidad de predicar hoy me da una alegría especial porque han pasado muchos años en que no he celebrado el Domingo de Ramos en si. Pues, sí era una pastora en una iglesia en Chicago, y sí celebramos de una manera este día, pero ahora muchas iglesias allá (incluyendo la mía) tienen el costumbre de celebrar lo que le llaman “Domingo de Ramos Y Domingo de la Pasión.” Es decir que en un solo culto, empezamos con la entrada triunfal a Jerusalén, con toda la bulla y esperanza que hay en ella, pero terminamos andando más en el fin de la semana cuando la esperanza ya se ha disminuido y la celebracion no existe más. Creo que lo hacemos así porque hay muchas personas que solamente asisten a cultos en los domingos, aún en esta semana, así que pueden ir de celebración a celebración (de Domingo de Ramos al Día de la Resurrección) sin pausar ni un momento en las dificultades del jueves, viernes y sábado que vienen. Entonces, para darles un momento de pausa – para ayudarles a sentir un poquito de la emoción de toda la semana – ponemos todas las hosanas directamente al lado de los gritos por la crucificación de Jesús. Funciona bien para el propósito que tiene, pero extrañaba la oportunidad de disfrutar la esperanza, de disfrutar la bulla, de disfrutar el gozo, de disfrutar la fidelidad que está mostrado en el pasaje de Lucas que hemos escuchado ahora.
Palm Sunday // Domingo de los Ramos
Friends - Here is a copy of the sermon I delivered yesterday celebrating Palm Sunday at the Novena Presbiteriana (Ninth Presbyterian Church) here in Barranquilla. Engligh first, followed by Spanish. (And before you ask, I offer a slightly guilty thanks to the google for the translation…)
Sermon – Novena Iglesia, Las Ciebas
March 28, 2010
Luke 19.28-40
Palm Sunday / Domingo de las Ramos
Some Things You Cannot Stop
There are some things in this life that you cannot stop. We may want to try to stop them. We may want to try and change their direction, to nudge the outcome just a little bit. But in the end, there are some things in this life that you cannot stop.
Our Scripture text today tells us a story of something you cannot stop. All of the action, from the finding of just the right donkey, to the people´s spontaneous reactions to Jesus´passing, even to the doubting and worrying of the Pharisees, all of these are actions that could not be stopped. They cannot be stopped because they are a part of the grand plan of the Spirit – to bring this world into a just and right relationship with God our creator. (more…)
Epiphany Reflection – Deep Waters
This past Sunday I attended church in Cartagena – a town about 2 hours from Barranquilla, and one of the pearls of Colombia. In many ways it reminds me of Charleston, SC. They are both towns of great contrasts – with beautifully kept old city sections geared toward tourists and historic quaintness, and dilapidated areas filled with such dense poverty as to take your breath away. They are both port cities, and as such were slave trading cities, with Cartagena serving as the entry point for virtually all slaves brought to Spanish South America. Both continue to have a large African-descended population which is also over-represented in poorer neighborhoods.
At church on Sunday, the preacher reflected with us on the opening passage in Luke 5 in which Jesus calls his first disciples and tells them they will from here forward be “catching people”. As he pointed out, this text is used most often as a rallying cry for evangelism – to go and spread the good news among all the nations, as it were. His take, however, was different and it has kept me thinking ever since.
"The Miraculous Catch" from www.visiblekingdom.com
Unlike Matthew and Mark (which tell this same story differently), in Luke 5:1-11 the call of the disciples happens as Jesus takes Simon, James, and John out into the deep water (in Spanish, “lago adentro”). The pastor yesterday argued that this text is less a call to go knock on doors and bring folks in the doors as it is a call to really examine your own faith and see what kind of life you are living. After all, the text says Jesus was beside the lake with a whole crowd of people, but he leaves them behind to go out with just a couple of people we come to call his disciples. If this is a “bring in the masses” evangelization strategy, you have to admit it is a kind of weird one.
So what if it isn’t.
What if it is really meant to make you reflect on the path Jesus is calling you to? After all, you can stay on the lakeshore in the crowds and just listen to Jesus – watching him as he sails away with a few folks who were brave enough to really follow him while you discuss the merits and reservations you have about his sermon choice for the day. Or, you can get in the boat and go “lago adentro” – to deeper places that may offer you a greater fill of what you are looking for. Perhaps it is a choice between religious tourism – bathing on the water’s edge – and diving into the slighly scarier, certainly less predictable waters of faith. I think that is a harder message than just “go catch you some people,” and as I said, I have been thinking about it ever since I left church on Sunday. I have been asking myself:
- Where am I just standing and listening (fine for a time, but not for forever)?
- What keeps me from going “lago adentro”?
- At what point do I stop arguing with Jesus and just throw the nets over?
Those are my questions, but maybe they could be yours too…
Epiphany Reflections – Clanging Gongs Edition
(A reflection on the upcoming Sunday’s lectionary, January 31)
Psalm 71 and 1st Corinthians 13
Our passage this week from 1st Corinthians is a sacred text. Not in the holy, reverent way, but in the don’t touch that text way. It is the wedding text, mostly because it is a great reflection of the give and take of love in a relationship. But it is so much more…
The Iglesia Presbiteriana knows that the bible is often most powerful when it is read outside of its normal environment. When it is read not from the high pulpit in the church, but rather read in a farmer’s small house, or in the street at a protest against violence against women, or at a Christmas party with tons of screaming kids -that’s when you hear the the bible saying things you don’t hear in church.
Below, the text of 1st Corinthians 13 is placed beside a glimpse of the reality of violence in Colombia. What is love when it lives next to violence? How are we patient and kind amidst the destruction of life on an enormous scale? How is one to live as a full human when faced with raw inhumanity?
And in the passage from the psalms, we find answers that people here offer to these questions:
In you, O Lord, I take my refuge.
Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress.
For you, O Lord, are my hope.
The psalms don’t take away any of the pain or anger or bitterness of life, but they do give one company in those feelings. Through them we know that we are not alone; not the only ones with our eyes toward God as everything else around us seems focused on death, destruction, and denial.
God – Be with me this week, as I seek to see your world as you would have it, rather than as it is. Give me strength and courage and wisdom, and yes, most of all, love, to be who you created me to be. My praise is continually of you. Amen
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Psalm 71:1-6
71:1 In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
Advent – Hearing
Advent Reflection – Hearing Isaiah 12:2-6 & Luke 3:7-18
John starts out swinging. You brood of vipers! The axe is at the root of the tree! It is a strong message – emphasizing repentance and justice as the basis for living in God’s way. It is a message that Jesus will later echo and evolve, bringing God’s message of love and justice to all who would hear – Jew and Gentile, sinner and saint, alike.
What I love in this text is the last line – “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” Here we begin one of the central questions of this season of Advent, and of the New Testament narrative, and in reality, of the Christian life in general. What is the good news? What is good news in the hard and impossible places of this world, of your life? John preached a good news of repentance from wrongdoing – over-collecting, over-consuming, exploiting others – and turning towards a just life. What is good news for you and your community today? And – we are not only to hear it, which can often be enough work for our cloudy and sluggish ears, but we are to proclaim it…
I heard this question last Sunday in church (of all places…) What is the good news for us today? In particular, what is the good news to the battered women among us? What is good news among people who have been displaced – uprooted from home and sustenance? As youths from the church brought in posters of the faces of women beaten and abused, we starred at their faces, and we kept hearing that question. What is the good news here? And then people began answering – words of valor, iguales, solidaridad, comunidad con tú – (worth, equality, solidarity, community with you.) T
These words are the purpose of the church – to announce the good news of God’s kingdom – to this hurt and broken world. This advent, we are to hear it, then to announce it…
God – help me see your good news this week, in all the places I least expect it. And then, give me the strength to embody your good news in all of the places others least expect it. Amen.
Isaiah 12:2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid, for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.
Advent Waiting
Wait. Watch. Listen.
Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36 (texts below)
Our two texts to begin this season of Advent are remarkably similar. Written hundreds of years apart, in almost different worlds, when we read them together, they build a chorus of concerns that seems to be the essential tenets of the religious life. Wait. Watch. Listen.
In Luke, we hear Jesus’ warning to his disciples, in preparation for the time after his death. On the first Sunday of Advent we jump ahead in the story arc, joining with the early disciples in watching for what is next in God’s ever-unfolding story of saving love and compassionate justice. And that story is so important because, as Jesus’ words depict, this world is in desperate need of saving love and compassionate justice. It is a dangerous place for many, and an empty place for many others. War and greed have made this world their own, and the message of a prophet of peace seems hopelessly out of touch.
Which is why the perspective from Jeremiah is so important. Our hope – going back to the Hebrew prophets – is for this world, with all of its grave scars, to become “on earth, as it is in heaven.” Or as Jeremiah says, a place where God’s justice and righteousness rule. So in Jeremiah’s time, just as with the early disciples, and just the same with the people here in Colombia, we gather this season to wait, and watch, and listen. God is coming, justice and righteousness are springing up in the land. As people of faith, we are called to prepare the way.
God, in these days of Advent, prepare me for your incarnation among us. Prepare me as you are preparing this world for your justice and righteousness. When I fear what I see around me in this world, remind me of your presence. I pray in the hope of Jesus, the Christ, Amen.
_______ (more…)
Twitter
Facebook
Facebook - MB -