CARRYING THE CROSS/CARRYING A CUP OF COLD WATER

Text: Matthew 10:40-42

Jesus is talking to his disciples and making the most challenging demand of all his teachings: “…whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Doesn’t your heart quake when you hear those words, fearing that in fact you are not capable of carrying the cross? Mine certainly does. But not to be hopeless: I believe that when the time comes, God gives us the courage and the capability to do what we are called upon to do…emphasis upon “when the time comes”. We don’t get a sort of generic ability to carry the cross; we only get a specific ability to carry the cross, when it becomes necessary. So don’t worry about whether you can do it. When the time comes, you will be able to do it.

And then Jesus speaks these strange words that form our Gospel text today. What on earth does he mean? My trusty Bible commentary suggests that this passage reflects the structure of the Christian community to which Matthew belonged. It is comprised of “little ones” – those who are uneducated and in need of assistance and leadership, of “righteous persons” – possibly those who have suffered persecution and who remain in the community as honoured witnesses, of “prophets” – those who are entrusted with the responsibility to teach, and Jesus himself, representing God who is also present in the community. All truth and authority in this community derives from God, through Jesus, to the prophets, to the witnesses who have laid their lives on the line – that is, carried their cross – to the little ones…the young, the needy, the sick. The disciples, presumably, fit into the category of prophets.

The function of the Christian community is to welcome – welcome the witnesses, welcome the prophets, welcome the little ones, and by so doing, welcome Jesus, and by so doing, welcome God. How can it be this simple? I don’t think it’s simple to welcome anybody. It takes openness, being willing to contemplate change. It takes generosity, looking beyond yourself and your own interests. It takes preparation and hard work, offering hospitality, sharing your space and your goods. Mostly it takes understanding of the value of community and willingness to build that rather than your own little empire. It takes trust, letting go of personal control of your environment and allowing others not only to come in but to use it and occupy it. Can’t you feel your mind and your heart being painfully pried open at the thought? Wouldn’t you prefer to use and occupy your own space, enjoy privacy and protect your own belongings? That’s individualism, one of the highest values of the western world. It’s not a value that Jesus would have held, nor the disciples, nor much of our present world – occupied by the “little ones” who do not have the luxury of privacy or individualism. I thought of that often in Peru while riding on a local van or bus, crammed in with the farmers taking their goods to the market. I was just glad there weren’t any pigs or chickens on the bus – at least not as far as I knew. Or if there were, they were likely in crates or sacks on the roof. Inside the bus, there certainly were loads of vegetables, pails of milk, and fodder for animals. And on the way back to the village there were pails of slop from restaurants being taken home to feed the pigs. Aren’t we fortunate that we don’t have to put up with that kind of invasion of our comfortable private space on a daily basis?

But maybe it’s not the way it should be. This week on the radio I’ve heard discussions about banning any more “drive-throughs” in Calgary. The city alderman who is promoting the idea says that drive-throughs are a menace because they make it unnecessary for people to encounter one another – we order giant cups of coffee and go on our way. Social contact is practically nil – we don’t even have to see the face of the person who pours our coffee. It seems like a minor concern; while we’re at it maybe we could also ban automatic teller machines, parking lots where you pay on your cell phone, self-check-outs at the grocery store and any number of automated processes that no longer require human presence. Or if the church were to get into the act, what would we automate in our Christian communities? We already have automatic withdrawal for the offering. I’m sure someone has designed a drive-through church: drive up, insert your membership card, register your attendance, request a prayer, deduct your offering, download the sermon (maybe, maybe not), select a blessing and leave. We could get by with a smaller parking lot, operate out of a small office, and rent out most of the church-building for indoor soccer on Sunday mornings.

But I guess not. We’re not trying to facilitate convenience and efficiency; we’re trying to build a community; we’re trying to follow Jesus. We believe in meeting each other face to face, even when we’re not getting along. We believe in the value of each person, not for the purpose of promoting individualism, but for the purpose of receiving each person’s gifts for the benefit of the whole community. I don’t know about you, but I find this a very big challenge. It’s so much easier to look after one’s own interests and let other people look after theirs. And when we allow this individualistic process to continue to its natural conclusion, we end up with a whole lot of individuals more or less isolated from one another, doing their own thing. Alienation sets in. Emotional deprivation sets in. It’s everyone for himself or herself, and the devil take the hindmost.

When I was in Peru, I met a woman who works for a non-government agency in Lima. Her name is Doris. She’s a Peruvian. She’s a lawyer and she has studied in Peru, the US and the Netherlands. She speaks good English – lucky for me, because my Spanish is very rudimentary. Although Doris, being a Peruvian, has very good manners and she said my Spanish was good; she even said my pronunciation was good. Doris doesn’t practice law any more because when she lived in the south of the country as a young woman, she was asked to do a consultation about a mining company operating on the top of a nearby mountain. I don’t know why mining companies operate on the tops of mountains, but all the ones I heard of in Peru are at the tops of mountains. That must be where the gold is. Doris did this study and managed to prove that the company was polluting and tearing up the local watershed. She discovered a great passion for this work, and pursued the project to its conclusion, and was able to stop the company from ruining the watershed. That experience changed her life. She became an advocate for justice – which is what lawyers are actually supposed to be – and an activist on environmental issues. One day early this month I went with Doris to a small town in the Andes Mountains where the school children were having a fiesta – it was Environment Week and their subject was water. Doris the lawyer, the environmental activist and rather sophisticated city-dweller, was delighted to see the signs that children had made. The signs announced in various ways that “water is life” and Doris told me several times how much she appreciated the thinking that created those signs. We paraded all around town carrying banners and signs promoting the responsible use of water. I was pleased to be part of it because one of the organizations behind this environmental project is Canadian Lutheran World Relief.

Doris is a Christian, a Roman Catholic, though she objects to the reactionary form of leadership in her parish in Lima and she refuses to go to church these days. However, I suspect that even as a reluctant church-goer, she still manages to be a serious follower of Jesus, because she takes to heart Jesus’ command to give “a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple”. My Bible commentary on this passage includes this statement: “…if God will reward one who gives a cup of cold water…how much more will [God] reward one who installs an entire city water system.”[1] It is evidence of righteousness to be concerned about the quality of drinking water. Jesus promises to reward those who care about the quality of drinking water and take steps to make sure the little ones get good water. To care about water is to care about life. To care about life is to serve others. It’s the work of prophets to tell the truth about what’s happening in our world. It’s the work of witnesses to lay their lives on the line for the truth; it’s the work of disciples to do the practical work of caring for the little ones, to offer a cup of cold water to those who are thirsty. This is the Christian community at work: face-to-face encounters between those in need and those who have the capacity to help. This is what I think Jesus means by taking up the cross: ordering your life to meet the needs of those around you. It’s not rocket science; it’s not a great mystery - it’s discipleship; it’s service.

[1] The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Geoffrey Chapman, London: 1989, p. 652.

Risk-Taking with Jesus

Text: Matthew 10:24-39

Jesus is giving instructions to his disciples - instructions which are radical and rather frightening for any of his followers to hear. The disciples to whom he is speaking in the Gospel lesson already know about the hatred Jesus has generated in the religious authorities. He has been called “Beelzebul,” he says - “prince of demons”. Jesus suggests that his followers will suffer similar or worse treatment at the hands of those who hate him. But “have no fear of them,” he says. Speak up boldly regardless. Proclaim the message, even if it costs your life. And he continues to insist that they must take the risk of declaring their loyalty to him. Their reward will be that Jesus himself will speak to God on their behalf. But this is a life-and-death effort on their part: Jesus recognizes that violence and destruction will come from the conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. He demands absolute loyalty; he demands to come even before one’s natural loyalties to family.

We know that in the world of first-century Palestine, during the Roman occupation, this loyalty was likely to be punished with death. Life was cheap and the threat of death came easily. How do we in our carefully organized communities oriented toward security understand or identify with the world of the early church? In our situation, we assume that security is the norm. I recently found out that one of the outstanding things about a society such as that of Peru is that personal security is not guaranteed. Walking up a steep street on the side of a mountain in the city of Cajamarca, I was aware that I needed to step carefully. The sidewalks are crooked; the edges are sharp and dangerous; there is no handrail or guardrail; dogs and children are constantly underfoot. In the busy streets, dogs and children - as well as foreign tourists - learn to be quick and careful. Crosswalks are painted on the streets but they mean nothing. Nobody looks out for your welfare; you need to look out for yourself.

Jesus is saying that life in the kingdom of God is dangerous. How does this line up with the notion we have that the church is a place for nice people who treat each other with kindness and consideration, where one doesn’t even hear bad language? I think Jesus might find our Christian communities to be pretty bland places where no one dares to do or say anything challenging or risky, where anything unpleasant is suppressed in order that we don’t upset each other with radical opinions. And Jesus might be somewhat critical of our national preoccupation with safety and comfort. There is nothing wrong with safety and comfort, but if it’s our main concern, then I think he has something to say to us. What does he say? He says it three times in this passage: “…have no fear…”, “do not fear…”, “…do not be afraid….”

It seems to me that some enthusiastic Christians in our day believe they must create conflict for themselves, thinking that this is the way to be obedient to Jesus. They generate a lot of argument and irritation with their insistence on some particular interpretation of scripture, and I suspect they think of themselves as Christian martyrs when they receive a fair amount of resistance from those around them. Is this the way to follow Jesus? Not necessarily. I doubt that Jesus wants us to be in trouble, even though he was constantly in trouble. We find ourselves in a different situation than he and his disciples were in. We don’t have to contend with a brutal military regime, and that’s a good thing. There are many Christians in the world who do live in such dangerous situations, and Jesus’ reassuring words in this passage are no doubt of great comfort to them.

Our Synod of Alberta and the Territories is very fortunate to have a missionary in El Salvador, Central America, Pastor Brian Rude. Brian grew up in Alberta, and he graduated from our seminary in Saskatoon. He worked in a parish in Calgary back in the 80s, and then accepted a call to serve the Lutheran Church in El Salvador. It’s a tough job that he does, and he does it with a great deal of creativity, imagination and humour. The rest of us benefit from Brian’s experience because he is a good thinker and writer and he sends messages and stories which are a huge challenge to us here as we fritter away our time trying to stay safe and comfortable. Here’s one of his stories which came on email last week:
Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Hot coffee in hand…reading Amos…”Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream….”

Soon enough…the voice of the President of the Republic…as usual at 9:00 a.m….As usual, we are reminded of all the wonderful things he has done, and continues to do, for his dear country, especially for the poor. In fact, he tells us, he is on his way to the UN in New York City to receive the “Path to Peace” award from the Vatican, in part for having addressed the problem of poverty so effectively in El Salvador. I don’t need this morning’s reminders to convince me of the suitability of the Jesuit University (University of Central America) radio commentator’s reaction of incredulity and indignation, and the Base Christian Communities’ declaration of disagreement [with the President‘s statements], for being totally out of line with the reality in this country.

The phone rings. So now what do I do? Do I answer my phone while the President is addressing the nation?

I do. It’s my hemophiliac friend, calling from Rosales Public Hospital (some patient…had lent him a phone card), where many of the “humanitarian” President’s poor beneficiaries agonize much of their lives. He’s been sitting on a bench in the emergency ward for two days and two nights - no bed, no sleep, no food, no medications (including factor 8, without which the long, arduous journey to the capital is pretty much futile). He feels dizzy and faint. Could I please bring him something to eat?

I do. Amazingly the guard at the hospital door lets me in (unlike last Christmas Day). We finally find a little hospital diner that’s operating on Sunday morning. At twice the price of what I would normally spend on a diner breakfast, we break his fast….I leave him with a Telecom phone card….As he returns to his bench, to continue waiting (for what?), I head off to our base community worship/reflection. One of the pre-reflections shared by email prior to our gathering, which I had just re-read before re-reading Amos, struck me as particularly apt: “The bread which they do not have calls us together to be with You, their daily bread.”

Another small reason to be grateful: the hospital exit is swarming with Transit Police. I half-expect that my car, which I had left on the street (no public parking closer than the nearest shopping mall, about one km away--Rosales Hospital patients and their visitors travel only by bus - if they can afford it - including me, normally), has been towed away, in a sudden crackdown on parking violations, as has happened to me before at this spot. But no, my car is still there, where I left it.

I hope the President has a nice time in New York City on Tuesday, accepting his award “in the name of the people”. And I hope his health people will have found some factor 8 for my friend by then - and a bed, so that he won’t still be sitting on that bench in that emergency ward, waiting…waiting…waiting….

And the letter is signed:

Peace,
Brian Rude
Pastor/Missionary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, waiting on/waiting with God’s people in El Salvador…waiting for justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.


Well, why does a man born in Alberta, a man with a good education and lots of skills and the prospect of a comfortable job in Canada go to El Salvador to suffer with God’s people there? And Brian has done some of his own suffering as well, back in the days when there was terrorism in El Salvador and he spent some days in jail while his family and friends in Canada prayed fervently for his release. He does it, I suppose, because as Jesus himself says: “A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master.” And also because Jesus says, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

We can’t all go to El Salvador or anywhere else in the world where there is suffering. There’s even a certain level of suffering here in Canada. And maybe Jesus isn’t calling us to leave the country. But I do think he’s calling us to spend our time doing more than trying to be safe and comfortable. I think he’s calling us to dare to do something that is a challenge for us; I think he’s hoping we will take on some of the troubles in the world - especially in our immediate world - and find solutions for the sake of our friends and neighbours who need help. I think he’s asking us to face our fears and take some action. The God who notices even the sparrows and who knows the number of hairs on our heads will pay attention to our needs. Our ultimate safety is guaranteed - in the interim we can take some chances.

Sherpherdesses for the Sheep

Text: Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23)

In a village in the mountains of northern Peru there’s a small Roman Catholic Church. It’s called the Parish of San Lucho – Saint Luke in English – partly because there is a great need for healing in that district and Saint Luke is known in the Bible as a physician who followed Jesus. There are no doctors in the immediate area – they are in the nearby city and sometimes a doctor comes to the local health centre and sees patients. Mostly, however, the local people get by with health-workers who have limited training but a lot of experience, and people are grateful for whatever medical attention they can get. The local people live simple and hard lives: their homes are adobe and brick sheds; they have few amenities – their only plumbing is a tap in the yard, the only electricity one or two light bulbs; the sewer is an open ditch; they wash their laundry in the creek nearby or in a plastic tub in the back yard. Their livestock – cow, pigs, sheep, dogs, guinea pigs – share the space with the family. Their lives are conducted mainly outside and they go indoors only to sleep. Are they unhappy with their difficult lives? No, they’re not. This is all they’ve ever known. In fact, the people of this village are more fortunate than many others in Peru because they live in a beautiful river valley surrounded by green hills; others are worse off because their surroundings are bleak, dirty and infertile.

The people of Otuzco have grass and water for their animals, nearby markets for their produce, transportation to the city, schools for their children. And they have the Parish of Saint Luke which offers salvation, healing, assistance and hope.

The people of Otuzco may lead hard lives…they may be harassed and helpless in some ways, in a country where the government fails to protect and support its poor citizens…but they are not without shepherds. Or rather shepherdesses…. In a large brightly-painted adobe house across from the health centre live two Canadian women. They are nuns and they’ve lived in Peru for almost 40 years. They speak Spanish fluently, of course. They also live simple lives, though they have a larger, safer, cleaner house, they have indoor plumbing and electric lights in every room, they have a kitchen with a sink, stove and refrigerator. But they still do laundry by hand and have no telephone, only a cellular which works intermittently. They have a four-wheel-drive Jeep which one sister drives like a trucker; the other sister rides the local “combi”, a sort of van which passengers pile into in order to be hauled in an uncomfortable manner to destinations a few hundred yards or a few miles down the road.

The Gospel reading today describes Jesus’ everyday ministry. How does he spend his time? Going about all the cities and villages, teaching…proclaiming the good news, curing every disease and every sickness. It’s a hands-on, front-line ministry. Why does he do this? Because he observes that the people are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. They need help. They need care. No one else is offering to do it. Jesus feels compassion for them and takes steps to see that they are cared for. He recruits some helpers. He gives them spiritual authority: to cast out unclean spirits and to heal disease. There are twelve of them: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, another James, Thaddaeus, another Simon and Judas. They’re all men, but we tell ourselves that that’s a cultural thing. Women of that time couldn’t wander around the country with no home and no male protection, even though there are examples in the New Testament of women who did just that. Chances are that women did lots of things that theoretically they were not supposed to do. But because it was not socially acceptable, the scriptures were likely edited to exclude most of those examples, so as not to upset people who think women should be controlled and dependent.

Jesus is the leader, the giver of authority, the source of power, but notice that he still does the hands-on, front-line ministry. Is that what happens in our church? Not most of the time. The leaders are in their offices and somebody else does the front-line ministry – if anybody does it at all. And certainly in rural Peru there’s not much front-line Christian ministry being done. Not on a daily basis. On buses and planes I saw groups of American young people who were clearly on Christian missions of some sort. But their purpose was not everyday ministry; it was proclamation, preaching, give the message, create some excitement and then leave. Who does the everyday ministry? Women, that’s who. Women who came and assessed the needs, moved in and began to build a parish. The local bishop didn’t have money for them, so they got it from outside the country, wherever they could, and they built a church which grew out of the local setting, made of adobe, painted with murals showing Jesus with the campesinos – the country people. And the two women do the work of leadership – planning, building, maintaining, teaching – and at the same time they do the everyday work of ministry....There was not a single day when we sat in the sisters’ house for morning prayer that they were not interrupted. Somebody is always at the door. There are many needs and the people know where to come when there is a need: for a ride to the city, for advice, for comfort, for money for medicine, for prayer, for the sacraments, for assistance with documents. The sisters also built a parish centre, a building next door to their house, in the middle of the village, and that is where a lot of front-line ministry takes place. There is a kitchen and a room where a group of local women meet to arrange visits to the sick. There is a room for the youth, where they have meetings and plan activities. One evening while we were there they had a video on addictions in the Andean region; these young people know first-hand about addictions – it’s a common problem in their own homes. The challenge for them is to speak honestly and recognize the reality of the situation; the tendency is to keep silent and to deny the problem.

There is a large room for public meetings. When we were there it was Environment Week and there were several village meetings to talk about the problems with water supply. The companies mining for gold at the top of the mountain are using a lot of water and polluting it as well, and the people are having discussions about what can be done to protect their water. There is a library in the centre and the sisters go regularly to villages up the mountain to take boxes of books for the children to read. Otherwise they have no books except a few workbooks provided by the Ministry of Education. There are supervised sessions for children doing homework after school – in their own homes many don’t have tables and chairs and lights. The staff for this centre is made up of local students; it gives them an opportunity to earn money which enables them to attend high school and college in the nearby city.

There is no priest in this parish. No priest wants to come here, apparently, even though there is a house, a church and a community centre. All there is here is sheep in need of a shepherd, those who are harassed and helpless, and nothing but work for the shepherd, relentless everyday ministry for those who need compassion and care. That’s what these two dedicated women do – every day, year in and year out. There is little glory in it. Things change very slowly. They are now working with the second generation of campesinos – the children of those they knew when they first came to this village 20 years ago. There is still poverty, still sickness, still need. It has been difficult. There was a time in the 1990s when they themselves were like “sheep [in] the midst of wolves”…in the “time of terrorism”, they call it, when it was hard to trust anyone, when the military and the police harassed anyone who dared to be a community leader, when the paramilitaries – the rebels seeking social change by means of violence – threatened everyone in positions of authority. People disappeared, never to be seen again. But the sisters stayed, even though Peru is not their country and even though their religious community gave them the option to return home to Canada. They stayed because these are their people, this is their community. They stayed because the labourers are few; there is no one to replace them.

On May 29, while we were visiting the sisters, we joined in the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi. It’s a big Roman Catholic holiday and there was a huge gathering in the nearby city. We went to Mass at the cathedral; there were thousands of people in attendance. We got there early and found seats near the front of the church. Women – some of them nuns, some of them lay people – were busy making preparations for the service. When the service started, the women all sat down. The grand procession came in, a long parade of bishops, priests and seminarians: all men, all arrayed in special bright garb for the occasion, satin and silk and lace, with gold candlesticks and silver crosiers and incense and formal music. Where do you think Jesus was? Not in the grand procession, I imagine, but sitting in the crowd with the people, among the women and the children and the other ordinary folks, ready in case anyone needed anything. And somebody did: a man had a heart attack at the end of the pew where we were sitting. And who took care of him? The sisters and the lay people…those sitting with Jesus. It’s not about being important; it’s about being ready to help.