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This is a very short videop of Fr. Benjamin and me on Sunday May 17 at San Andres mission – it is on the far north side of Lima and can only be arrived at via a very steep unmade path.

Polly and I were discussing an aspect of our time here in Peru while at language school.  While here we live at a huge language disadvantage. Things are improving, but we are far from bi-lingual after nine weeks of class!  We live in a seventh floor apartment that has no kitchen to speak of – microwave, refrigerator, electric kettle, hotplate and coffee maker.   The quiet and tranquility of Vermont is the opposite of the noise, smell and bustle of Lima. A house plant and potted herbs by the window serve as our garden.

I find that in the midst of language learning we have become church attendees rather than leaders, ministers and pastors.  I have preached twice, for which I am very grateful to Dean Parke at the Cathedral; but that used to be a primary activity and one that I love.  Life is different.  Polly and I describe this as a fast from the usual.

This passage speaks to me from Oswald Chambers’  “My Utmost for His Highest,” on July 6:

God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. … The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be.Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.

Our experience here in Peru these last ten weeks has been very much like being taken away from the usual.  I find that the reference to the potter’s wheel especially apt.  We are being reshaped.  The experience is – to say the least – both difficult and yet invigorating.  We cannot simply revert to the usual as we are in an unusual place.  The times are not usual, at least politically, economically and in the Church.  There is woe, decay and dismay all around.  A respected English Church newspaper has suggested that Christians in the west are on the verge of being persecuted.   The Anglican world descends into further disarray.  The tearing asunder that was begun by the American Church is rippling through the whole Anglican Communion.

What is happening here?  What are we being prepared for?   Have we placed the emphasis in the wrong places?  The renewals and revivals of the seventies were such a blessing as they led to a renewed commitment to Jesus as Lord, baptism in the Holy Spirit, to the Scriptures as “God’s Word Written,” and to the renewal of mission societies as we sought to bring the Gospel to the lost.  I fear that we put too much faith in Church structures and not enough in Jesus as the real head of the Church.  I believe that we are being prepared for a new form of Apostolic Church in which the emphasis is not on buildings and structures, hierarchies and accommodating the spirit of the age, but rather a renewed emphasis  on the Great Commandment and Great Commission.  We will have to revert to a simpler and more ardent Gospel way of being Church. And what will this look like?  Not easy and not comfortable, but surely exciting—a grand adventure!  Is that not what Jesus promised us as disciples?

Join us in a conversation.  What are you hearing and seeing? What is God telling you?

Here we are, being shaped and made new.  What God has for us is exciting.  Stay tuned.

For some reason this will not hyperlink so you will have to cut and paste – sorry about that –

I have had success adding it to my links on the lower right side of the page – It is “Bela Fleck in Africa.”  ENJOY

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8002762.stm

Lima is officially now a city of nine million people.  There are probably many more as the slums and shanty towns are growing ever bigger as the “invaders” come in from the country and settle on a scrap of land.  There they build their house out of whatever they can, usually matting, plywood scraps and poles.  Later these houses will be better built using more wood or eventually bricks and concrete.  They are in areas above any existing water tanks, have only dirt streets and their source of electricity is questionable.  Here they live and eke out a living, raise families.  The men are mostly absent, certainly working hard at whatever they can (see my earlier post) so the women run the home and raise the children.  They are refugees, both economically and socially.  To these folk a major part of our Anglican ministry is directed.  We seek to combine social and spiritual transformation.  Our clergy are dedicated and often travel long distances to bring care and ministry to the many different “pueblos jovenes.”

I am including pictures with this post from the mount of San Cristobal.  You can see how huge is the city.  You can see its economic growth.  The Pacific ocean is on one side and the hills surround the city.  Up these hillsides grow the shanty towns.  The labor required to build on these hillsides is huge and it is done by the women.  They make terraces using either stones of car tires.  Thus they can have a flat surface.  Water is generally purchased by the community and strategic water barrels are filled from which the people draw water by the bucket and carry it to their homes – to be used sparingly.  Later on as the area becomes more settled the city will give title deeds, a road, electricity and eventually, possibly, a water tank that the people must pay to get filled.  Water is not unavailable, just expensive.

Over the next few weeks I will be taking trips to the various mission stations.  I visited many last year but was unable to communicate without an interpreter.  Polly and I hope that with two month’s worth of classes we will better be able to communicate.  This will be Polly’s first trip to these places.  For me these places are holy because of the dedicated work done there by the faithful men and women, clergy and lay,  of the Anglican Church here in Peru.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them

I think it is time to show the language school students at work and play.  To this end I am including a picture of three of us studying hard with our teacher Carol.  In the class with us is Steve, a young missionary from Canada.  Then there is the picture of our mid morning break where we are joined by folk from Canada, Italy and Switzerland.  This week we have been joined by a Dutch woman who is enamored of a Peruvian and a gaggle of Brits and Australians taking a week of lessons so as not to feel helpless.  This is a great little school.  They work us hard.  They are ever polite and understanding of our halting progress.  Never critical and very understanding.

One of the things that we have done is take a weekly trip or a cultural/culinary foray into Peruvian and Limenois life.  We have learned how to use Peruvian fruit – amazing stuff that makes apples and strawberries look really boring.  We have learned to cook (actually cold cooking in lemon juice) both cerbiche and tiradito.  Today we learned Causa Rellena – look it up as it is wonderful, especially as a summer meal.  We also learned to make a passion fruit (Maracuya) drink – amazing

This week we took a trip up San Cristobal and upon our return stopped at the Plaza des Armas – the main square, very historical and beautiful.  There on the sidewalk was the most amazing chalk sidewalk art.  See for yourself.

San Cristobal is the summit of a 400 meter tall hill in the middle of Lima.  From it you can see the whole city.  The road up is narrow and winding and is set with crosses so that people can make it a pilgrimage, stopping and praying at the stations of teh Cross.  The cross at the summit has candles and such for people’s prayers.  I am reminded that this is both a Christian and a religious country.  It is also a country that inspite of being mostly Roman Catholic we are welcomed as Anglicans, especially for our ministry to the poor.

Enjoy the pictures!  Click on them to enlarge

I’ve been ruminating on things.

This has been a very different Easter.  For the first time in nearly thirty-five years I have neither been in charge nor simply doing my ordained thing.   I have been reflecting on the resurrection and upon “new life” as we are now experiencing it.

It is not that I have not been busy – I have been.  I was able to do things over Easter simply because I wanted to.  I washed feet on Maundy Thursday.  I prostrated myself before the Cross on Good Friday.  I sat in the pew for the vigil and then was able to just assist and be a server/acolyte on Easter Sunday.  This Sunday I was the preacher so as to give a friend a rest after a very busy Easter season.  I think it has been such a blessing for me to be able to help.  Of course the answer is that I am not in charge!  I wish I had realized that years ago.  God is in charge.  I have not until this week been able truly able to see this truth.  May God be more in charge!

A few weeks ago a friend commented on my pictures on this blog and elsewhere.  He commented that at last I was free and it showed.  I did not realize that for so long I had a protective shell around me.  Part of that was carrying the load of the congregation and being its “covering.”  Part of that was the protective armor needed to deal with the toxic politics of the Episcopal Church, which while they seem to get worse, nonetheless they do not affect me here in Peru as I am simply doing ministry as Jesus told us to.  We witness to Jesus and seek to let Jesus transform the lives around us.  We work with the clergy and with the poor.  Life is simpler and life is more blessed – I feel blessed and free.

I want to comment briefly on today’s Gospel.  Last Sunday we heard how Mary heard Jesus say her name – she recognized him, clutched his feet, and then went and told her story – her witness to the risen Jesus Christ.  This week Jesus comes to answer Thomas’ questions.  He stands before Thomas.  Thomas drops to his knees, worships Jesus with these words – My Lord and my God.  Somehow the reason we all follow Jesus is because we have at some point heard or felt him come to us.  Part of why we are in Church is to experience Jesus in a fresh way and yet in ways celebrated for nearly two thousand years.  Worship, Word, Sacrament, Prayer and Presence, these are gifts to us.  Thanks be to God that God is not silent.  Hearing the voice and following it is the Grand Adventure.  Being Spirit-filled makes the impossible possible, as we are part of God’s new creation.

This Good Friday morning I was reading the passage where Jesus and Pilate are speaking;

I was reflecting on the way in which we have traditionally taken Pilate’s remark.  We usually assume a cynical shrug of the shoulders and a throw away line.  However I am not so sure.  I had a conversation this Holy Week with a young Italian (descendant of Pontius Pilate I think not, but at least close enough for me).   He only knows the Church from the outside and has not really been impressed.  However, he is genuine in two areas.  He does not know the Truth who is Jesus, and rather more importantly, he is not sure what truth is since he has only known situational or relative truth.  Might this be true for Pilate?  After all, the Coptic Church believes that he was converted and is regarded as a saint.  http://mb.com.ph/articles/201803/who-was-pilate

This is Good Friday.  I share with so many the horror of what was done to Jesus on this day so long ago.  I want to blame those who delivered Jesus to this death and to malign those who clamored for his crucifixion.  Surely these people from Pilate onwards were lost in the miry clay of the world and its presuppositions?  They were caught up in their sinfulness as well as their lost-ness.  To them all Jesus says, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” As Jesus forgave so must we – especially those who might cause us suffering.
What about my young Italian friend?

My mind shifts to Pentecost when Peter preaches the sermon of all sermons.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, he gives witness; God turns the hearts of the multitude to Him.  May we do so too, humbly, contritely, remembering who we were.  What God has done for us this Good Friday is a new beginning.   What happened to Pilate?  What will happen with my young Italian friend?

Holy week is taken very seriously down here.  I cannot tell you what a joy it is to find a society that takes Christian truth and tradition seriously.  Our first hints came with the question regarding classes during Holy week. The school is closed for Good Friday and indeed Holy Thursday and Good Friday are holidays with everything closing down for Good Friday.  This means that an individual can participate in the observances and services offered by the various churches.  What a joy to be in such a society where there is neither rivalry nor contest between society and people’s religious lives.  This is clearly a dominantly Christian society.  I have not lived in such for a very long time.  This puts me in mind of the article written last week by the retiring Bishop of Rochester, England, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali.   It is worth a read.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5109443/Ignore-our-Christian-values-and-the-nation-will-drift-apart.html

In the same week the new RC Archbishop Elect of Westminster, England had decried professional football being played on Easter Sunday. http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/04/vin-nichols-kicks-some-ball.html#more

In the US we are finding that Church as secular activity compete for Sunday mornings.  In the interests of diversity, pluriformity and diversity we are being asked if not told to make our Christian Faith private and not to “impose” it upon others lest they be offended.  So in the US, as in Europe even more so, we are in a post-Christian country.

The greatest blessing here came this Palm Sunday.  We are attending a very small mission that gets maybe thirty people a Sunday.  It began last November.  We spent 45 minutes singing and in procession around the streets of the area around the Church.  As we passed people we waved, they waved and crossed themselves.  Somehow it felt very Apostolic.  We then worshiped in Church.  We went forth rejoicing and will celebrate this Resurrection Sunday that Jesus is Alive, we are alive because of Him.  This is the Gospel,  Jesus, crucified, risen and returning we proclaim.

Polly and I went to Church this morning at a small mission.  It is using the chapel of the new Diocesan Center in Surco and is led by Fr. Alberto a hugely engaging, compassionate and fervent pastor.  He was assisted by a seminarian, Fr. Allen Hill and Deacon Rachel Hill.  Fr. Alberto led worship and preached and Fr. Allen celebrated.  It was emotive and engaging all the way through.  In spite of our limited Spanish we could understand the love and the presence of Christ.  Following the celebration many came forward for prayer ministry and healing.  What  difference to back home where usually only a few people avail themselves of this ministry.  Here it was most of the congregation.  While ministry continued the rest simply prayed for and worshiped with each other.  Nobody was heading for the door.  In my parish ministry we used to talk of “God showing up.”  These folk were waiting, expectant and God met them powerfully.  What a delight it was and a privilege to be there.

I asked this question and was asked the same during several deputation visits at the beginning of this year.  When you look at the pictures from last May that I am using there are very few men to be seen.  This week I toured parts of Lima looking for the men.  They are for the most part hard at work and seeking to earn a livelihood.   Their jobs take them far from their homes each day.  The men that I saw all over the older parts of Lima were working very hard at whatever they could do.  Some were selling things on the corner or the side of the road.  Some were stevedores; some were working to cut grass, clean yards.  One man was riding his old bicycle with a push mower tied to the back.  Another was cutting grass using hand shears.  They are not idle, but they are absent from the homes in the shantytowns.

I need to add that in Peru people employ people  to do jobs that might be beneath someone’s dignity back in the States.  People are always looking for work and a bit more income.  Peruvians, like most, are a proud people who expect to be treated with dignity whatever their lot in life.  Appearances are important.  If one has a maid – many do – then the maid is part of the family and often sits with the family for lunch.  There are no old people’s homes; you hire a nurse or aid who will live in.   People here are inveterately polite and caring.  Oh yes, they can be self centered, and their driving habits are certainly “me first.”  However, I have not yet met a Peruvian who was ugly in either behavior or mien.  They are an attractive and gracious people.

Society here is much more stratified than in the U.S., and concepts of equality and equal opportunity are not so apparent.  Having said that, it gives us a Gospel opportunity.  Was not the Gospel originally crafted and lived in much the same sort of society?  They could be “all one in Christ Jesus.”

So now we have found the men – how to reach them is the challenge.
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