Today we gather to celebrate the ministry of Padre Roberto Arciniega and to give thanks to God for him. We pastors spend our whole lives trying not to be the center of attention and only point to Jesus, so this may be a little uncomfortable to translate, but this good work of God in the life of Padre Beto deserves to be celebrated and we won’t forget to point to Jesus and keep him at the center even as we celebrate. One of our beloved Episcopal Lutherans at Trinity was adamant to correct me that Padre Beto is not retiring, he’s changing his ministry. He has a call to care for his parents and we know he will be doing God’s work in Mexico.
The
Olympics closing ceremony has just wrapped up and so I present a gold medal to
Padre Beto for a marathon of good work.
Jesus started this good work within him when he was baptized, and since
then God has been working through Padre Beto to show God’s love and grace in
everything he does. God has been working
through Padre Beto, from his days in the Roman Catholic Church, to his time
among the liberation theologians, to his work amongst the farmworkers,
countless bedsides where he has kept vigil and prayer, baptisms, weddings,
quinceneras, confirmations, vestry meetings, sleepless nights trying to find
the way, sermons preached, communion celebrated, hungry stomachs filled, and
hearts touched by his kindness. And we
have been recipients, too, of God’s love through father Beto, witnesses of the
power of the Holy Spirit in him.
Today
I am experiencing a complete mixture of joy and sadness. I feel grateful to God for my colleague and
my friend, my chance to learn and our chance to experiment about how to bring
together two congregations speaking different languages, but loving God the
same, Episcopalians and Lutherans dreaming together of what is possible in the
body of Christ, hearing each other’s stories, appreciating each other’s gifts,
celebrating together with food and song and finding Jesus at the center with
the Holy Spirit taking us in directions we never thought possible.
And
at the same time that I feel such joy, I feel sad. I will really miss you. I have enjoyed our preaching together. There is nothing quite like hearing your
words and ideas in another language, feeling heard and understood and then the
little side notes offered, the deeper meanings reached upon reflection from a
colleague with such faith and experience and love of God and God’s people. I will miss this. Even though I may get the chance to co preach
and preside, it will be different. So it
pains me that this part is coming to an end.
My
son reminds me that life is pain. So
then we ask what we do with this pain and grief. We turn to Jesus who brought us together in
the first place and who spent about half of the book of John preparing his
disciples for the fact that he wouldn’t be with them anymore. We turn to Jesus the bread of life. We must be nearing the end of the six weeks
of bread scriptures that come up every three years in mainline churches. Jesus talked about bread a lot. I eat bread every day of some kind, tortillas,
toast, English muffins, crackers, banana bread.
In the same way, we need Jesus, our daily bread. He teaches us many things through the
bread. He teaches us to trust him to
provide—like in the manna. He teaches us
to come together in community like family around the table. He teaches us to share so that all can be
fed. And he teaches us to remember.
There
are times that we will be in pain, maybe even today. Jesus felt that pain. But not even that pain turned him from his
mission to give life to the world. So we
go forward in the mission to share life, to let God work through us to give
life to the world. Jesus used that pain
to bring people together.
His
words today are startling because it sounds like cannibalism. It’s pretty fun to teach first communion
class to 6 year olds and hear what they have to say about eating Jesus. Many of us adults have heard it so many times
we don’t see how shocking it is. But the
truth is that at the time the Roman Empire, the oppressive rulers of Rome, used
cannibalistic language to show power over weaker entitites. They used words like “consume.” They actually fed people to the lions and pit
them against each other in death matches to show power. They used this language to divide.
We
can relate to a divided world and violent language of control. But Jesus co-opted that language of eating
flesh and drinking blood to bring people together. He will absorb the world’s violence in his
own body and he will rise again, because that kind of oppressive power will not
have the last word. We will not let it
divide us. We don’t have to fear pain or
death, because we have something more powerful, love and community and abundant
life. Jesus used that language to bring people
together in resistance to the world’s division and violence, to stand up for
those who were in harm’s way, to say to each other “We are one body in Christ
despite being of different races, different genders, different denominations,
different languages. Nothing can divide
us or destroy us because we are one in Christ.”
So
although we are in pain, we know we are always connected in the body of
Christ. Although Padre Beto will be far
away, he will not be far away from our hearts and memories. As we remember Jesus in the meal, We will
remember Padre BEto’s voice reminding us “El Pan De Cielo” “The Bread of heaven.” We will remember Jesus encouraging his
disciples. We will eat bread, coming to
the communion table we will celebrate the meal that unites us all. We will share bread, feeding the hungry,
serving those in need, making offerings to God.
We will be bread, the one body of Christ bringing life to the world.
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