"Let's have a party!"

Sunday -- the first time that I've celebrated Eucharist in over a month. Vacation or no, sabbatical or no, it was good to be back at the altar. And it was really good to be back at the altar at Cristo Rey.

As you can see from the picture, the children generally sit separately from their parents, in the front, where Fr. Hipólito can scold them if they're not paying attention. In truth, very few of the children's parents come to church anyway, and very few of the children live in two-parent households. Most commonly, the father abandoned the children in search of better opportunity-- usually in the US, although sometimes in Spain or other European countries. I have the feeling that most of these men don't actually leave intending to abandon their families, but after living in a new country for a couple of years and not earning enough money to bring over wife and children, they simply become discouraged, and, feeling lonely, take up with a local woman. One thing leads to another and...before long they have a child together and he's building a new life for himself. I'm not defending this, of course, just noting it as one of the sad realities of a life of poverty. I forget which of Junot Diaz' books featured the preceding scenario, but if anything I'm saying in this blog sparks anyone's interest, I encourage you to pick up one of his books. Drown is his collection of short stories, while The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a full-length novel. Each book is disturbing in its own way, but nonetheless a realistic portrait of a people group most of us are unfamiliar with.

Anyway, back to the children and the church. Church didn't begin in the way which we are accustomed to. There's no organ, so obviously there's no organ prelude. Instead there is a sort of spoken prelude, which consists of Fr. Hipólito coaching, teaching, haranguing, and joking with the people. I didn't catch quite everything he was saying, although there were reminders to the children not to talk in church, encouragement to those unbaptized to be baptized and to have their children baptized, and, of course, an introduction for the man who needed no introduction -- me.

The service began with a lively opening hymn. Clapping, dancing in place, and a rhythm section of drum, guero, tambourines made for an explosion of joy to begin worship. EVERYBODY was singing loudly -- and, of course, from memory, as there are no hymnals. There are no Prayerbooks either, which is a bit more problematic, since the service is harder to memorize, especially the longer sections, like the creed.

After we said the Glory to God one of the music leaders -- I should say 'cantor,' but that seems a rather exalted title for what she did -- led a sort of 'call and response' style of song the gist of which seemed to be ' listen to the word of the Lord. Open our ears to hear/ our hearts to obey.' That's a very rough translation. But what was so striking was the purity of the song leader's voice -- she sang with clarity, and was answered with absolute sincerity. It was really very moving.

So I preached, and this was the first time that I offered a sermon without first having it corrected for grammar and comprehensibility by a native speaker (thanks for all your help in the past Mayra, Sal...) And of course this had to be one of the most difficult gospels in the whole lectionary -- the one about the Syrophoenician woman who asked for Jesus' help to heal her sick daughter. Jesus anwered her with that line about how it's not right to take the children's food and give it to the dogs. Not the most encouraging passage in Mark's gospel -- and what really gets me is that I -- as the humble servant of the Lord -- never get to talk to people that way. (Not that I wouldn't like to sometimes, but that's another blog...) So, after I had read the gospel the same thought occured to me that occurs to most preachers in such moments, namely Why didn't I choose to preach on the epistle? My Spanish is improving all the time, but since I'm still not ready for extemporaneous preaching I preached the sermon I had prepared.

What I really loved about preaching this time at Cristo Salvador is that I felt so deeply the emotion and the passion and was able to express it in words that are not my native language. The congregation was very encouraging -- smiling, nodding their heads, and letting forth with the occasional 'Amen' at critical points in my delivery. Although I did feel a greater confidence in Spanish than I have felt before, I still had worries about using words correctly, especially in the unique context of this gospel. You see, in that line about giving the children's bread to the dogs, there is some dispute amongst Bible translations about how best to render the word 'dogs.' To use the equivalent term for 'male dog' is apparently not quite accurate to the original meaning. But 'female dog' or 'mother dog' has the same connotation in Spanish as the equivalent terminology in the English language. Or worse, perhaps. Imagine the tension I was feeling hoping that I was not fracturing the words of our Lord and making them into something along the lines of 'it is not right to take the children's food and give it to b****es.'

I guess I avoided that pitfall since no one ran from the church screaming, "Heresy! Heresy!" Although a few people did run out of church to answer their cell phones. Or to use the bathroom. Which was one clue that I was really in an Episcopal Church.

Actually, the sermon was received very warmly. Including by Fr. Hipólito who gave his own personal commentary on my sermon after I was done. Not that he didn't like it -- he did. He just wanted to reiterate a few points for emphasis. I suppose that my sermon must have been relatively short by his standards.

The point in the Spanish language Eucharistic liturgy that I like best is the fraction. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us/ therefore let us keep the feast." In Spanish the line "let us keep the feast" becomes Celebremos la fiesta! Loosely translated: Let's have a party!

It was and we did. With energetic music, so much love, and so much enthusiasm, it really was quite a party. And we didn't even have coffee hour.