FROM THE PASTOR
Giving from the heart
“Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come.” (Prayer for Advent I) “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” (Isaiah 64:1)
A memory from several years ago animates my heart and the mission we share at St. Luke’s this Advent: A crash language course in the narthex. Tell me how you say “In the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit in Arabic.” Pastor Khader El Yateem whispers something unintelligible. I take out a pen and ask him to repeat it slowly. The incense is swirling to the heavens. The opening hymn, “Love Divine, all love’s excelling,” has begun. The kids wearing the Church Reeboks are lifting up the cross and torches to lead the procession. I scrawl on the back of the bulletin, in wobbly English, a transliteration: “Bism’el ab; wal eben; waroah el qudus; el elah; eluahied; Amin.”
As we process into Salaam Arabic Lutheran Church for the midweek Advent liturgy of the Southwest Brooklyn Conference we pass beneath the Scandinavian wooden ship suspended from the ceiling. In a previous life Salaam had been Salem Danish Lutheran Church. In a previous life incense would have caused a heart attack in this church. This procession, led by a pastor from Bethlehem in Palestine, is a living parable of the solidarity of the church with immigrant new neighbors. In the way of Jesus Salem begets Salaam.
I seek out the faces before me as I begin my homily. They are from Baghdad and Beirut, from China and Jamaica, natives of Brooklyn and immigrants from Moscow. The liturgy is in English, but some of the Arabic speakers in the host congregation speak little English. So, I seek out their faces as I struggle to speak God in their language: “Bism’el ab; wal eben; waroah el qudus; el elah; eluahied; Amin.” Smiles of delight, nodding heads, radiant and amused faces (my Arabic is wretched) reward this small effort to join heart to heart. Mission today: struggling to speak and hear God in the context of our life in Park Ridge, in the midst of mission strategy discernment as we prepare to call a new pastor. Mission today: joining heart to heart all of the wonderful ministries of our congregation-member care, global links, library, youth and family ministries, compassion kits for the homeless, music and Bible study and many other ministries and local ecumenical partnerships as ways for God to come among us in our battered, hopeful world.
Advent is that longing to understand and be understood, for connection, for peace, for rescue. I think of the testimony of Werge Wakoko at the ELCA African National Leadership Summit several years ago: “I was born in South Sudan. At the age of 10 I was forced to leave my country after my parents were killed. I was abused and neglected. Life had no meaning at all. I hated everything including myself until I found a church home, Grace Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska. The pastor helped me find a new hope based on the power of forgiveness. I forgive all who wronged me. The gospel is mainly about forgiveness and reconciliation. After listening to the leaders in this summit I feel better equipped to go into the world and to make Christ known and to make a difference. I’m glad I came.”
So much longing around the world, contained in that small Brooklyn church and in the mission we share today, articulated in broken Arabic and English. This Advent with mission longing we cry out with Isaiah “Oh that you would open up the heavens and come down!”
“Bism’el ab; wal eben; waroah el qudus; el elah; eluahied; Amin.”
Come, Lord Jesus.
Stephen Paul Bouman
Advent, 2020
Park Ridge, Illinois
