on not giving beans to dogs, coffee miracles and incarnational eating and drinking

To my shame, I  once stealthily stuffed the "excess" breakfast beans into my pocket (in bags)to avoid offending my "mama" in Mexico. (story at this link, and pic here of the dog that my roommate and I visited every day on the way to school...to pet ....and deliver beans).


I once secretly stashed the unending supply of rolls into my pocket to "honor" our amazing Peruvian hosts
(story and video here).

At times I have been brave enough to trust God and the local food and drink...

But most times I need to be as cool as Papa
Francis, who "smoked" some  terrere (yes, I did a bit of that in Paraguay).

More of the time, I am called to be like my American roomie in Mexico, who ate all the beans  set before him (It all came out in the end).

And at all times I should be as bold and faith-filled as Leslie Leyland Fields.
Do read her delightful post from a recent trip around the Sea of Galilee.
Even though there is a McDonald's on the shore  (my video here),
the real story...and the real food and drink.. is found by the faithful who venture off the tourist path:

The Coffee Miracle+Why You Don't Need to Visit the Holy Land

Landfillharmonic

Having spent time just three miles from here (Cateura section of Paraguay, see Who's Jesus?,

 the pope's pipe, : U2 can pastor the city and Mary Rocks! from some of my Paraguay stories) helped me appreciate this even more:

The Landfillharmonic

Landfill Harmonic | Facebook

Landfill Harmonic: An Orchestrailt From Tras

the pope's pipe

Luis Palau is right...and anyone who has been to Latin American knows it:

Why It Matters that Pope Francis Drinks Mate with Evangelicals

Yes, I admit to smoking..i mean, DRINKING this stuff...on Paraguay, with some other saints.
(may be some pics here)

"this is only a test"

I was dumb enough, when called upon to preach in Peru (you can watch a snippet of the sermon on the YouTube clip at bottom), to retool a sermon I had done at home.

Don't do it.

If I had to do it over again, I would preach:

1)> in Spanish (though Ken is amazing..he is the only one I know who can translate for me...Once I was speaking in the Dominican Republic with him translating...see photo here...and see the see the look on Rev Kev's face...and arms... as he listens...he's waiting for the translation, which took longer than my original..and he kept up with my Spiritaneous coining of words..he's the man).

The risk I took in Paraguay paid off (I stepped out preching en espanol...Ken wasn't there)..and the risk was hilarious and huge (see this story, and photo of me doing it below)

2)>another message, a fresh one.


I have learned a lot about preaching by teaching preaching..
...and by not doing it so well.
...and by not practicing what I preach or practicing preaching.
---and by what I learned the other day about my Spanish translation skills (see "Eye See Two Gringos")

What called to mind the Peru sermon today was Dan Siver's post, which was titled the same as my sermon:

"This is only a test."

One of my illustrations in the original (North American) sermon was the old Emergency Broadcast System's "This is only a test" TV/radio announcements. I was not dumb enough to
use that story in
South America...where they had obviously never heard that broadcast.

But to even ask "Who REALLY likes taking tests"...to a congregation among whom many had never taken one...I just need to practice what I preach and be more culturally sensitive, incarnational/indigineous, centered-set; and less accidentally ethnocentric...it didn't "translate."
(Even though all translation is betrayal..)

Watch me preach from 4:58-6:51...if only to see some masterful and hilarious translation moments by Ken.


BESIDES...check out (6:16 in the video) Tarzan Tom's comment (from the peanut gallery/pews) as he is filming the sermon..He's right ("they look like Thing One and Thing Two up

there")

I feel like a dork watching myself



preach on video/listening to my bad self on radio.

But then I read Siver's post (Gee, how many pastors link to Sivers' blog on their blogroll...but that's not the only "unobvious" link you see on my sidebar!) , and I am ready to try again:

This is only a test. See what happens:
Growing up in America in the 1970's, the TV or radio would often turn into a long warning BEEEEEP. At the end, an announcer would say, “This is a test. This is only a test.”


Remember that phrase when pursuing your career.


It often feels like everything is so serious - that if you make one mistake, it will all end in disaster. But really everything you do is just a test: an experiment to “see what happens”.


My favorite times in life have often started with a “see what happens” spirit.


Let's see what happens if I run my vocals through my guitar pedals.


See what happens if I invite that famous producer out to lunch.


See what happens if I call that radio station to ask their advice.


There is no failure. There can't be, if your only mission was to “see what happens”.


This is a test. This is only a test. There is no downside. Try everything.

link

Graham Cooke often says something like, "You don't flunk a test from God. You just get the grace to take it over, and over, and over..."

Gee, how do you say that in Spanish?

U2 can pastor the city

"the city's alight/ 
With lovers and lies/
Oh, the city's afire, a passionate flame/
It knows me by name ...surrender!"

Cities in Scripture (see Ellul) are both satanic and Spirited, harshly human and hugely holy.

Every city (including ours) is called and destined to be a city of blinding lights.
Sometimes it takes prophetic guests to plug in the lights, that the redemptive gift of the city can be spotlighted and spotted

Whenever intercessors take on a road trip to take on resident principalities, I would venture that something happens that blesses the city; perhaps not as dramatically as we captured on video here, but something surely happens and Someone surely shows up every time.


On the previous tour, Pastor Bono was intentional about blessing each city; reversing the curse of each city ...especially in "Yahweh," as the lyrics would become "Yahweh..bless this city's heart..," in his benediction at the close of (Psalm) "40," (May God bless you..stay safe in the city of Chicago..watch out for the traffic.."

(Of course, anytime his security lets a girl onstage, even if he prays for her..."Yahweh, take this girl.."... he takes the risk that a non-Yahweh-oriented gal will attempt to grab some booty right in the middle of a "church song." Watch it all here, as Bono concludes as he brushes off the advances, "Yahweh's got a sense of humor, too"... I witnessed a version of this in Sacramento)

This tour, the new and evolving intro to "Beautiful Day"..some call it Celtic, some Arabic..may be taking on this place in the liturgy/line up; as you can see below in Milano. The man sings/speaks to the city, with typical worship/prophetic hand motions. On the previous tour, it was the closing of the song that sometimes served mightily this way. See this incredible clip (3:33ff) ".rise up, with wings like eagles..Chicago!...Higher, higher than the Hancock Tower." It feels like we are eavesdropping on a Call rally,or Pentecostal prayer meeting.

 I shared a sunrise in 1998 at a monument/"high place" overlooking Asuncion, Paraguay, with local believers praying blessing over the city below.
All I can say is it was the same vibe..It's just that U2 are planting the monument/cathedral/claw/tabernacle smack in the middle of each city's stadium/heart/public square.

Bono has captured, likely intentionally the biblical construct of speaking to/calling out the spirit/soul of a city..The letters in Revelation 2-3 are even addressed to the "spirit" (or "angel") of each city. And I dare to believe, somehow, that each city's spiritual atmosphere has been changed once the boys and the portathedral have moved on to the next town..

Of course, the video for "Magnificent"(watch below , and read commentary here) would seem to be a call for the city to take off the graveclothes and "look up".

It may be inspired by Christ and Christo.


Or maybe it's just a video (:


And this is only rock and roll.

"i don't believe that rock and roll can really change the world
as it spins in revolutions, spirals and turns.."
Bless my city, Lord...and start with me..
but it would help if the Irish travelling preachers could come to town with their tent revival and sacred spire.

"I just want to go home," (keep clapping)

Sometimes we just may have to say it/pray it/preach it/sing it.
Psalm 22 style.
Romans 8:26 style.
Or paraphrased, as Bono has said elsewhere,

"How can I be a spokesman when all I've got to say is...Help!?"

Or sung elsewhere:

"Jesus help me. I'm alone in this world; and a f*#%ed up world it is, too"


Then, and only then..

Then, ironically, we often get the peace and power to carry on.
There's a second wind to sermons if we admit midsermon we are winded.

Bono found out.

Very often during that era, in the next verse, Bono has the character Julie say something
also a bit off the printed lyrics...In Berlin it's pretty vague;
but on the deluxe October version recently released, Bono has the "Julie" character sing:

"My heart is on my sleeve/
I've got this hope/
I've got this faith/
you know that I believe."

I myself heard him say something similar in New Haven (1983),
"I am a believer...I have the Spirit...I've got faith, hope love...I can believe....(God) will pick me up..."
That audio is linked here.

It sounded like a word to the church that might claim that Bono/U2/Julie are not bona fide believers. Beth has commented on this here.

In this version, Julie/Bono says she has a problem. I can't make out what it is (Beth?);
maybe she/he wants to go home; has to go potty...or is just tired of falling down
and having Christians keep you there. (1:58ff):




Either way, the crowd/congregation doesn't miss a beat.

Maybe that is okay;
it may even be the healing power of lament.

Who's Jesus?

An angel told me I would return to Paraguay sometime in the next few years.

I have learned never to argue with an angel.

Especially when it is Angel Hernandez, who along with wife Malia and kids (pictured here) are missionaries with our network in Paraguay.

Since that word is already a few years old now;since Angel H. is no small caliber of angel, and since a trip is inevitable, I have begun thinking and praying that way.

In the process, what a joy to find online this photo of a church/school in Paraguay that I had a

small small small




part in constructing. In 1998, a team from the church I was pastoring at the time was commissioned to help with this project, in the Lambare barrio; Zulma area outside of Asuncion. It has been called one of the poorest neighborhoods in Latin America; 70% extreme poverty. Most of the houses that Carl and I visited had no water; some had no walls.


I have always been cautious about the "pride" (or uh, let me baptize it as "contentment") in realizing that you had "accomplished something" on a short term mission trip (see Tim's excellent article on that topic here, and my response here.)..but it is gratifying to see this photo and read all about what God has done in the years since then.


Jamie (who befriended the Bread Nazis) and Harry (who became a dentist on that trip, steadfast and straightfaced even when finding maggots among the kids


teeth) are are laughing at this point, remembering that my part in actual "construction" was small indeed (though I did paint some of those
tiles on the roof you see there). I mostly played with the neighborhood kids ..


like the one who ruined me for life;


the Julio of the toothless grin who broke my heart, and taught me how to pray.




He (photo, on left) had latched on to me, as I spoke Spanish to him...and was a big
kid myself .





"What are you building here?," he asked.




"A church."




"What's a church?"




"A place where people can worship Jesus."


Of course, I know now...well, knew then (but didn't take time for theological distinctions)... that is decidedly the wrong answer: church as a place, edifice complex, etc...)





I gulped. I was guessing, dreading/hoping what his next question would be.


It's one thing to hear that billions around the world have never even heard of Jesus, but I had just met my first.




Yep, he said it:




"Who's Jesus?"




I am not sure what I said, but I am sure it was evangelically correct (I might have even "prayed the prayer" with him).

And I have since heard that answer from kids in the first world;

                                      even here in the US.




It's the only question any of us has.


Even "after" we have given our lives to Jesus
(As my hero Pastor Ellis put it...so liturgically correct..."Who the hell are you, Jesus?")




The church( Fuente de Vida" )and school ("Nuevo Horizonte" )complex down there is now called seems to be thriving.

Check it out here  and here   and here (Hi Mark and Jo) and here if you read Spanish , and thank God it is still helping folks ask that question.

Google map it

https://www.facebook.com/c.e.metodista.py/photos/pcb.858416550932461/858416367599146/?type=3&theater