Breaking Barriers

This morning we worship just three blocks from Don Mario Hotel at Iglesia Santa Ana.  A hymn is in progress when we arrive. The song leader has a trained and resonant voice. Three grade-school children read today’s Scripture with slow dignity. We recite the Apostles’ Creed. Several children are baptized.

And when it is time or the message, the pastor speaks slowly, clearly, and more softly than the rapid-fire, loud-voiced pastors I’ve been hearing daily since I arrived. Today’s message: Jesus taught differently from the prophets. They received God’s messages and told them to the people. They had no authority of their own.  But Jesus was different. He had authority. He was the Son of God. . .

When this pastor preaches, for the first time in Nicaragua, I understand the Spanish message. It is ironic, Calvinist Protestant that I am, that this better understanding happens at a Catholic Mass. I know, I know, Central American Catholicism has its share of shortcomings. But this morning I am grateful to be here.

Last week, when I ranted about two overly-zealous North American Evangelicals, John Schuurman responded with wise words. I am reminded of his words today, that the church is a “finely cut jewel with a million facets -- OK some parts crudely cut and annoying in the extreme -- but part of a big, big thing.” And this service is one part as well.

Of course that “big, big thing” is bigger than the church as well. I think of the loud circus of North American politics I’ve been watching from afar the past three weeks.

I know less of the language of politics than I do of Spanish. In Spanish I’m a todder; in politics an infant.

But I wonder if perhaps we would be wise to read Scripture—again and again--with the slow and careful dignity of those three children in this morning’s mass.

And then to speak more slowly and more softly.

I wonder.
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P.S. Half an hour later.
We return to our hotel after Mass, and Iliana tells us she normally attends Santa Ana, but with her sister went to Mass at a different church this morning. "The priest speaks very vast and the acoustics are bad," she said in Spanish. "I didn't understand a single word."

Note to self: beware of hasty generalizations.