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.