Next week you will be given pledge cards. I will, of course, preach a magnificent guilt-free sermon about stewardship and everyone will be moved to pledge enough to Grace Church that we can actually grow and move forward. Today, however, you just need to understand why we give back to God in our giving to the church. The prophet Sirach says simply, “Give to the Most High AS he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford.” Today I want you to sit back and listen to a true story.
About ten of us packed into the back two rows of the little church in the mountains. Built out of concrete block and painted white inside and out the little church that seated perhaps a hundred was a castle by local building standards. At 8,000 feet in November, the weather outside drops below freezing at night, 40s in the daytime. We are less than a thousand miles from the equator yet it is colder in the Guatemalan highlands than in Washington DC. The people of the village shuffle into church barefoot, and, as it happens everywhere, a few minutes after the bell. There are no roads and no cars. Everyone lives within a thirty minute walk from church. There are lots of children of all ages.
Someone in front of us notes that there are yanqui visitors this morning. They scurry off to a corner cabinet and return giving us brand new copies of El Libro de la Oración Común and the himnario. The church can only afford a dozen copies of these books. The villagers know the service by heart, AND they know ALL the words to all the verses of every hymn sung. The books are reserved for visitors and are rarely used. The people sing heartily because they know the music by heart. I think to myself, “Now this is the way church should be everywhere.”
The sermon is bilingual, running back and forth between Spanish and their native Mayan tongue of K’iche’. The prayers of the people are loud and long. Many names and situations are prayed for in the community. When we first saw this third world village on Saturday, most of us were in shock. I have been in the barrios of Tijuana, the slums of the Gaza Strip, as well as rural and urban poverty areas across North America. None of that prepared me for Bronze Age people living with sparse electric lighting in the mountains. They have lived here for thousands of years.
The women die in their 40s of respiratory diseases because they spend most of their time in their kitchens with a fire ring on the floor and a hole in the ceiling for the smoke. Women and children spend their lives covered in soot and smelling like a campfire. Although the floors are dirt, at least the kitchen has some warmth. The living quarters are all at outside temperature.
Everything a family consumes for food is grown on the mountain slopes within two hundred meters of the back door. The sophisticated norteamericanos survey the scene taking in the smell of ever-present wood smoke and we think to ourselves “Dear God, can’t we do something to help these people?”
The mission group from the parish in Annapolis, Maryland, has been working there twice a year for fourteen years. Healthcare and education have been markedly improved for this village of 1200 people. I was invited there to help celebrate the first high school graduations ever. Still those of us “first-timers” spent the first day or so thinking that we were there to help them.
In the Eucharist the priest emphasizes that Christ abides in us and we abide in Christ. Prior to that I had drifted off thinking how glad I was to return home in a few days to a warm shower, comfortable bed, and all the creature comforts of North American society. The priest’s words shook me. The love of Christ dwells in each one of these people the same as the love of Christ dwells in rich North Americans. (North Americans are all rich by comparison) We are equal in God’s eyes.
Of course we all understood this intellectually, but when we come face to face with people living in enormously different standards of wealth and consumption, everyone is tempted to draw comparisons and set up distinctions of superiority. And when we divide the world into two groups, us and them, even the thought of our relative blessing when we see someone else down on their luck – making these divisions means that WE ARE DOOMED.
Unwittingly we have entered the world of the Pharisee who says, “I’m glad I am not like that Guatemalan peasant.” … “I’m glad I am not like that guy who lost his job.” … “I’m glad I am not like …” and on and on it goes.
Back in Chijulimul Guatemala, Felipe and Pedro adopted us. Eventually the entire village would be on their feet smiling and clapping for our presence with them. We were accepted in spite of the fact that we simply could not walk up and down the rocky trails as fast as the locals did without shoes. We were accepted not as conquering Euro-Americans, not as rich norteamericanos but as part of the body of Christ. We came bearing the love of Christ and we left feeling like we had been immersed, baptized into the love of Christ. Forget about us helping them. We were transformed by the radical hospitality of people who by the world’s standards had nothing. But by God’s standards they had everything they needed.
God is ready to accept us not for what we have accomplished in life, not for our net worth, not even for our faithfulness, but simply because we have accepted God into our life. We know beyond human knowing that there is something bigger than our own egos. We know that love of God which surpasses human understanding LOVES US.
This love of God is right here at Grace Church. We learn to make no distinctions. We are transformed by this amazing grace and THAT is why we must give back to God and give to our church.