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for Trinity Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, August 31, 2008 In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – Amen. It is very good to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings from All Saints-by-the-Sea in Santa Barbara. Mother Liz and I have been friends since we were ordained together three years ago, and I have been interested to learn from her about your parish ever since she arrived here. I understand that Trinity is a truly diverse community, something which is unfortunately very rare for most churches. But after all we are here in the midst of Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities in the world. And much more importantly, diversity reflects the nature of the Kingdom of God. I believe that your church community must have a lot to teach the rest of us! I also understand that a major piece of the diversity here at Trinity is from Salvadoran culture. This excites me because I have been to El Salvador twice in my life. Both trips were very brief, but they were experiences where I encountered holiness and light that took me by surprise. *** El Salvador is a country that has seen profound suffering and darkness. When I was there, we took a trip up to a town called Suchitoto. It is a very beautiful town, but it had been one of the most dangerous places to be during the civil war in the 80s. We had become friends with our driver, Victor, who was a native of Suchitoto. When we arrived at the town, he told us a story about how his father was mistakenly designated as an enemy of the guerrillas. A family friend warned Victor that people would be coming for him, and so the whole family had to pack up in the middle of the night to escape for their safety. We also had lunch in the home of a woman who described how her family had to endure bombings from military planes when she was a little girl. The government was severe on this region because of its guerrilla presence, and innocent families were caught in harm’s way. Her family would huddle inside a hollowed out tree for safety when the bombings would start. We walked in the ruins of the grand old hospital of Suchitoto that was destroyed in the fighting. It is now being overtaken by jungle flora. Victor and I walked through the hospital ruins together, and he shared that he had been born there. He then told me that his cousin used to work at the hospital and was actually inside the building on the day it was bombed. His cousin died in the bombings. Click here to see pictures of my visit to El Salvadore. We heard many, many stories like this. I could not believe what I heard, but these stories are in fact very common. I imagine that the people of Trinity have many of their own stories to share as well. In the reading from Exodus this morning, the Lord appears to Moses in a burning bush. The bush burns with a flame that does not consume it, and Moses learns that the Lord knows the suffering of His people. God has seen the oppression and injustice that they are facing. The light of this flaming bush reveals the truth of God in a dark world. It gives God’s people hope. Moses has to take off his shoes because the place where he is standing is holy! I felt that way when I stood on the soil of El Salvador. I could feel God’s presence in the midst of the people we were with—the people who had not returned evil for evil, but who had stayed true to the call to be loving and peaceful in spite of what injustice came to them. It gave me hope. I felt like taking off my shoes because to walk with them was to walk upon holy ground. *** In today’s epistle reading, Paul writes these words to the early Christians in Rome: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor…. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer…. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” You might hear these words of Paul and think that he is a crazy man. It sounds crazy to ask anyone to bless those who persecute them. But Paul is not crazy. Paul is writing to people who are living in the shadows, and he tells them that the light of God exists, and if you trust in this light it will dispel the darkness. *** I feel that I experienced the light of God most especially in one very special person that we met in El Salvador named Chencho Alas. Chencho has a remarkable history. He had been a Roman Catholic priest in the 1970s, ministering to the campesinos in Suchitoto. This was before the civil war really began, but the government already felt threatened by his reaching out to the poor. They decided to make an example of him. He was kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and left for dead, naked in a trash heap. (This was a pattern that the government later repeated with other priests.) To the dismay of his kidnappers, he didn’t die. He was found alive and brought to a place where he could recover his health. And when he was ready, he returned to Suchitoto to continue his ministry as a priest for the people there. Soon after that, Chencho’s friend, Archbishop Oscar Romero, advised Chencho to leave the country for his safety. Chencho went into exile for many years, and as you probably know, just a few years later, Romero himself was shot to death while standing at the altar, saying the Mass in March of 1980. Since then, Chencho has lived in various parts of the United States. He is no longer a Roman Catholic priest, and is now married with grown children. But he is still known as Padre Chencho. And he has never stopped working for peace in El Salvador. He has been able to return since the war has ended in 1992. Recently, he has been working to build up communities in the poor coastal region called Bajo Lempa. These communities support themselves with farming that is environmentally sound, which honors the land and lifts up the people with dignity and self-sufficiency. When I first met this great man, he was standing in the middle of a muddy road in Bajo Lempa, wearing a bright yellow shirt. His hair was pure white, and he had a light shining in his eyes. Chencho spent time with us, and he told us that over the years of his ministry for peace, he had come to focus on a theology of life. Through this focus he has seen people turn from being makers of war to being makers of peace. That is why he seems to glow with God’s presence wherever he goes. *** The world today is probably not very different from the world two thousand years ago. We are still surrounded by darkness. Thank God the civil war in El Salvador is over, but there are other senseless wars still taking place in other parts of the world. Yet we know from the very beginning of the Gospel of John that the light shone on the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. This light is not a stranger to us. We have seen this light. We have known it in people like Chencho. I am sure that all of us here have seen it in one way or another. There is hope for our dark world, because darkness is no match for light. A shadow does not exist in and of itself. A shadow is really nothing except for the absence of light. Its only power is in causing fear and disorientation. When we walk in shadows, we tend to lose our way, and as we know sometimes people do unthinkable things when they can no longer see the light. But as soon as light shines on a shadow, there is no more shadow; it cannot exist anymore. God has made us to be mirrors for that light. There are two ways that Jesus tells us we can go. There is the way of the world, and there is the way of light and life. Those who seek the power that the world offers will gain the world, but what good is it to gain the world but lose one’s life? When we turn toward the light of God that we have known, we will increase this light in the world. We will overturn the darkness of the world, and taste the Kingdom of God. Amen.
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