Abstract
Last summer, I participated in our parish’s mission trip in Guatemala. One day, we met with students and families who benefit from a scholarship program that enables them to attend school, and we heard about the subjects they liked and didn’t like. Turns out the young people from our parish and the young people from Guatemala have something in common: a dislike for math. Surprise, surprise! We honored three graduates and then we played a little football. First, the American variety. The Guatemalan children were good sports, and they gamely joined in the scrimmage, but they seemed rather bemused by the whole thing. Using arms and hands to pass an odd, oval shaped ball seemed unfamiliar and somewhat silly. When someone finally produced a proper football–the spherical kind–a game of soccer broke out. The dust kicked up and the ball was crisply and confidently passed, dribbled, and driven with the children’s skillful feet . . . just as God intended!
The highlight of the trip for me was the community-wide celebration in Chucalibal, where we had an outdoor celebration of the Eucharist in thanksgiving for the completion of a stove project. Outside the local Episcopal Church, fresh, green pine needles were spread on the ground creating a welcoming, fragrant space in which we all gathered. Beautiful orange and yellow flowers adorned an outdoor altar area. A group of men played traditional music on guitars and accordion. And hundreds of children, women, and men, dressed in vibrant colors, welcomed us into their community, and then into many of their homes where new stoves had been installed. The smiles that greeted us were both delighted and proud as they showed us their new stoves, many of which were burning, warming their homes, cooking food, and, here’s the really amazing thing, the smoke was being vented outside. This is a big change from the older method when an open fire burned in the middle of the room, filling the place with smoke, caking the ceiling with decades of black soot. Dr. Armas, an Episcopal priest and physician who leads the public health program, told us in the last two years he’s seen a significant decrease in respiratory illness in the communities who have received new stoves. It was a wonderful celebration of our shared ministry.
But believe it or not, as positive as the stove program has been, it was not met with overall enthusiasm at first. Because it meant making some changes, and as we all know, change is hard, perhaps especially in traditional communities. I got some sense of this when we attended the health training with the local midwives, when Dr. Armas was talking about the prevention of the transmission of HIV/AIDS. The presentation was in Spanish and K’iche’, so I could not understand what he was saying, but I could tell from the reaction of the midwives that this was not easy for all of them. At one point in the presentation, some of the midwives covered their faces with their shawls. One exercise involved learning to use a condom. Placards with words written in Spanish describing the steps in condom use were randomly passed out to people who were to stand facing the group. The group then had to arrange the people in the proper order. Of course, everyone thought it would be good fun to have the American priest hold one of these signs. I couldn’t understand the words written on my sign, but I was still very embarrassed. I blushed, and the midwives giggled. I was asked to move a couple spaces to the left, and the midwives laughed hysterically. Our youth, who could speak Spanish, took pictures of me holding my sign with their smartphones and threatened to post them on facebook. I threatened to ban cell phone use for the remainder of the trip. By the end to the presentation, there was laughter and conversation in K’iche’ and Spanish and English. But I’m not so sure that the information the midwives bring back to their communities will be met with universal acceptance. I expect some will embrace the new information and others will not.
Which leads me to our Gospel lesson for today, surely one that shows up on all lists of Jesus’ hard sayings. Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” Come again? What about the heaven-born prince of peace? What about the one who will guide our feet into the way of peace? What about “blessed are the peacemakers”? There seems to be some conflict here between Jesus as the one who brings peace, and Jesus as the one who brings not peace but division. What do we make of this?
Perhaps it would be helpful to remember that Jesus did not come into a world that was all sweetness and light. The first century world in which Jesus lived, especially in the apocalyptic imagination of the New Testament, was a world in which there were already deep divisions. There were practices and powers that were deeply marred and death-dealing, and they had come to affect even the people of God, who were supposed to share in God’s peace. Jesus’ urgent proclamation of God’s kingdom, his healing of the sick, his casting out of demons all illustrate that Jesus’ message of peace was also met with resistance by the principalities and powers of the age. Proclaiming God’s peace meant disturbing the peace of the old order. And, as we all know, Jesus did not die peacefully in old age, but rather endured the horror and violence of the cross.
So yes, on the one hand, Jesus is the prince of peace, but also, on the other hand, as the one who proclaimed and enacted the coming of God’s kingdom, he also created a conflict between the people and powers that welcome God’s peace and the people and powers that resist God’s peace. Think about all those stories of Jesus extending healing and forgiveness to sinners and outsiders, and think about all the people who kept telling him you can’t do that, you can’t heal on the Sabbath, you can’t eat with tax collectors, you can’t forgive people their sins. Some people welcomed Jesus and his message as good news, and others did not, and this was bound to cause divisions, divisions that we may presume even affected families: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother. Remember when Jesus called James and John? They immediately left their father in the boat where they were mending their nets. I wonder what their father thought of Jesus?
I think many of us know what a blessing our families can be. Many of us have indeed been blessed with good and loving families. But I also think we know that this is not always the case, that families can also be the sources of pain and division. And I think we know that in really dysfunctional situations, families can be places where violence, abuse, and hatred are learned and passed on to future generations. And, as many a family counselor will tell you, when someone in one of these dysfunctional systems tries to break the cycles of abuse and violence, often times other members of the family will gang up on that person. Ironically, the one who tries to incorporate the ways of health and wholeness, might we even say, peace and reconciliation, into the family system are met with hostility and division.
Again, I don’t think it takes too great of an imaginative leap to see how a similar dysfunction can affect whole communities and neighborhoods. Yes our communities can be great. But I think we all know from reading the news and studying a little history how communities can also be places where people learn to hate others rather than to live in peace with them. Think about the deep divisions that still mar the Holy Land. Think about the bullying that goes on in so many schools. Trying to introduce the ways of justice and peace into such places will not always be welcomed as good news. Just think of a few recent martyrs: Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Oscar Romero. So yes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” But remember, in the very next verse, he also said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Sometimes being a peace maker will involve disturbing the peace.
In the community of Chucalibal in Guatemala, I was privileged to see signs of the kingdom. The stove project was initially received with some hesitation and suspicion. It is part of some public health initiatives in this community that will continue to meet with opposition. But on one day last summer, the positive impact the new stoves were making on the health and well-being of families was really taking hold, so much so that women from two surrounding communities, who had witnessed the positive impact of the new stoves came to share in the celebration and to see how they might install new stoves in their communities.
The most memorable moment for me that day came when we celebrated holy communion together, all sharing the one loaf and the one cup. The service was in Spanish and K’iche’, but it was also according to the Book of Common Prayer, so even though I did not understand the words, I knew everything that was going on. And I picked up enough Spanish phrases to know that the priest who celebrated kept referring to us, and the whole parish of St. Anne’s – Santa Anna– as brothers and sisters – hermanos y hermanas - because we all worshiped the one Lord, and we all were recipients of Christ’s compassion. Brothers and sisters. Indigenous Mayan Communities. Guatemalans of Spanish descent. The people of St. Anne’s, Annapolis. Brothers and sisters.
And herein I think lies the deeper truth of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom. Yes, sometimes it will be met with resistance, even within families: father against son and son against father. But ultimately, Jesus was creating a new community, a new family, that includes all people. A new household of brothers and sisters – in which there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, no longer slave nor free, no longer male and female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Chucalibal, in the fresh scent of pine needles, in the strumming of the guitars, in the colors of flowers and textiles, in the hospitality of the people, in the smiles of children, in new stoves in ancient homes, in God’s new family, the church, and in the bread and the wine of the Lord’s supper, I tasted the presence and the peace of Christ.