Padre Nuestro

Parson Tom's Tomes for July Trumpeter
Padre Nuestro
The very small group of volunteers walked into the nursing home last month, 20 minutes early to do our church’s turn at the Sunday afternoon 4:00 service. Our music people were not able to be with us and I was a little discouraged that we were missing them. The dining room was crowded as a music group of five men playing guitars, one man playing an accordion and all of them singing in Spanish while at the side were some wives, girlfriends and small children. They had been singing strong since 3:00. None of the residents understood Spanish but they sure did understand the spirit in which the group, called Amistad (Spanish for friendship) was performing. Yet, they were not really
“performing” they were giving their gift in praise of our Risen Lord by their friendship. They kept on singing and my small group of volunteers wanted them to keep on singing and so they kept on
singing even after their time was up. I was fine with that since I knew we could never match their singing. Finally the group led an upbeat, spirit filled sung version of the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish
and many of the non-Spanish speaking residents and volunteers joined in lustily on the refrain of “Padre Nuestro”. While the music was unknown to me, I could follow some words, but the spirit
spoke as clearly as Pentecost.

When they were finished and I exchanged some broken Spanish with their broken English as we and the people gave thanks. Then most of the room cleared out as they had as much stimulation as they could take. So now it was time for our group to speak to the residents that were left and I was a bit anxious because I was thinking that I had to match the previous group. We went around greeting each of the remaining residents. Those quiet individual conversations reminded us of why we were
there: to share friendship. We were not able to do it in the same way as Amistad, but we were not called in that moment to give their gift, but the gift that God had given us. This is the basic truth of ministry, we are to give what we are through the power of God’s spirit living in us- not what we aren’t when we are not trusting in God’s power.

That was the theme of the message I shared with this small community as I used the passage from 2nd Corinthians where Paul shared that God’s grace is sufficient for God’s power is made perfect in weakness. We had communion together as we all realized that there are many things we cannot do but the Grace of Christ is always present if we can just get our egos and agendas out of the way.

La Paz sea con tu
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