Beloved, I have just spent the most amazing week with our mission partners from the Cuba Partner Network of the Presbytery of South Louisiana and the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba! I can’t thank you enough for allowing me the time and for the donations of OTC medicines, crafts for Sunday School, and supplies for jewelry making. A lot of these items also came from our neighbors in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
In case you did not see it in the email, I want to assure you that Pastor Josué inventoried and appreciated every item. He assured us of the care that would be taken in distributing these items and made sure to safeguard them.
I can also tell you that even though each item was received with joy, the things that will help them care for their children had a special weight. Feathers, foamboard, and glue are hard to come by. Stickers and ribbons are rare.
Before we left New Orleans, Pastor Josué messaged us through WhatsApp with a picture of the women of the church making jewelry to sell to support a women’s ministry meeting on November 4.
Along with these stories I want to have a moment of recognition for the work that we have been doing in partnership with the church in Sabanilla. In most countries, Living Waters for the World partnerships last about three years and then become self-sustaining. Cuba is a different story because they can’t sell the water. Even so, I think we need to recognize that our partners in Cuba from Living Waters and the Iglesia Presbiteriana-Reformada en Cuba have developed a warehouse for supplies and are capable of supporting one another to a certain extent.
We will still want to support them as we are able – and we may need to help replenish items they receive from the warehouse – but our focus is probably going to shift to focus on our relationship as siblings in Christ rather than developers of a project.
We’ll still need to raise funds from time to time, and it would be great to get someone else trained on the technical aspects of the water system, but the center of this is our relationship. The center of this is learning from one another and encouraging one another in faith.
Let me tell you, there is great faith in Cuba! There is also great despair, and Pastor Josué noted in his sermon that people can live in poverty as long as they have a sense of care for one another. When that breaks down, they descend into despair. The work of the church in Sabanilla is bringing hope to people who despair, and I want you to know that it matters to them that we come. They don’t need our approval. They don’t need our gifts. They can use them, and they are thankful for them, but what they need is to be loved and to have the chance to express their love for us.
Love and grace are the waters that flow from the rock like in the story of the Israelites. Moses and his people were undeniably held by God’s grace, and the same is true of the church in Sabanilla and the church in Lafayette. In Cuba, we experienced it firsthand as Pastor Josué led an Agapé Feast. Cubans and US Citizens dipped bread in honey and fed one another as siblings in Christ, and it was amazing and holy and wonderful.
Yet, I wonder how many of you stood before rocks with elders this week. I wonder how often God calls us, and who we call (and how often we call on them) to discern God’s presence together. Thankfully, we get a shot at it every week – right here.
As we gather, not unlike the church in Philippi, we ask ourselves if anything remains sacred in the world. Paul answers that question with, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
If following the way of Jesus does anything for you, let it be this: be unified in agapé (selfless love). Paul follows all of this by unpacking what it means to “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” by quoting a hymn. Some scholars say this might have been their Amazing Grace or Lord of the Dance. It doesn’t really matter what the tune was, but it was a song that resonated deeply. It was a song that sang about sacrificial love. It was a song that encouraged communal living but acknowledged the responsibility of the individual to “work out” their life of faith before God with “fear and trembling.”
That line always gets me. Does God want me to fear and tremble? Does God want my choices to be made out of fear of punishment? I don’t think so. Do I fear anything but the loss of God’s presence? I hope not. Do I, because of the example of Christ, tremble at the idea that I might not have shown the gratitude that others deserve from me? I hope so.
I must say that Pastor Josué humbled me in this regard. He serves three congregations and two mission sites (what we would call new church developments). I don’t wish that on anyone, and his hope is to empower other leaders to take on these other congregations. The good news is that, amid these strained resources, new fruit is being raised in a very literal sense.
I’ll come back to that after we talk a little more about the gospel, but bearing fruit is a common thread in both. The story we have in Mathew’s gospel is set just after he enters into Jerusalem. He came in like a literal messiah, cleared the money changers out of the temple, did some teaching and healing, and called it a day.
The next day he cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit and it withered, then he went back into the temple to teach. The Temple Authorities then ask him by whose authority he has done these things. I imagine them saying, “I don’t recall giving you permission. Levi, did you? No? Mordecai? No? Yeah, none of us are ok with this. Just who do you think you are?”
Jesus answered with a question, as he often does, about the authority of John, and they were stumped – because they really didn’t know. They were also scared of the repercussions of their answer, so they played it safe, “We don’t know.”
Then Jesus told them the story of two brothers who are asked to labor. One says “no” and does it. The other says “yes” and does not. Clearly, the first son is the one who did his father’s will, and Jesus tells the temple authorities that sex workers and tax collectors understand this better because they are the ones who repented when John called them to repent.
Jesus goes on to talk about producing fruit, and we’ll talk about that next week. For now, I want to circle back to the potential of fruit in Cuba, and in Lafayette, but first I need to tell you about Carl and Mila, two “laborers” who came with us from the LSU Ag Center. They specialize in small farm cultivation, and they have activated community gardens all around the world.
Milla is the kind of person you want with you if you ever need to survive in the woods. Everywhere we went, starting in the airport parking lot, she was pointing out vegetation you can cultivate and eat. I was so excited to have them with us, because every time I’ve gone I have wanted to talk with them about the garden space behind the pastor’s house, and I thought, “Who better to talk about it than these guys?” Guess what? They were already using it! Carl and Mila gave them some advice, and Carl volunteered to help them get an irrigation system going if they want his help – but they are already growing fruit and vegetables!
The really beautiful thing is that this is happening alongside another decline. While Mercedis Cardenis is still going at 94, she can no longer trade and barter like she used to for the foods they use to feed those in need – particularly the elderly community members who are all younger than her – and this will provide relief in another way.
While these are good and wonderful things all on their own, I hope what you hear from them is more than just, “We did a good thing for those people in Cuba.”
What I want you to hear is the proclamation of the gospel that goes both ways. I want you to hear the example of their faith and the wellspring of joy in being known, seen, and heard through our common unity in Christ. I want you to hear that and know that God is active and present here and now and moving us toward wholeness and peace.
I want you to see their work, and ours with them, as an act of resistance against despair that shines the light of hope that does not care about the politics that divide. I want you to know that the example of Christ’s sacrificial love they display calls us with the same hope – that we might bear fruit together!
Before I left Lafayette, a community member I know said, "They really need the word of God." I replied, "Actually, I really need to hear it from them." I need you to know that I heard it from them, loud and clear, and If anyone’s arms are wide enough to hug you from Cuba it is Pastor Josué Montejo. Of course, he would tell you that it is the arms of Jesus stretched wide on the cross that unites us, and in our celebration of this love at the table of Christ we truly become as one.
On whose authority do I say these things? On the authority of my mother, Mercedis; my brother, Josué; my sisters, Tamara and Santa; and all those in Cuba who follow the way of Jesus – for they have been as Christ to me – I tell you that there is still work to do in the vinyard, and that’s a good thing. We’ll talk more about that next week. For now, let us give thanks and praise that we have heard the gospel proclaimed – in Sabanilla and Lafayette – and that we may yet respond; and to God be the glory, now and always. Amen!
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