Pastor Neil Earle with U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Click to enlarge. See YouTube video below
describing "Our Hispanic Heritage."
By Neil Earle
Here we are today observing our 13th annual Hispanic Heritage Day, timed to coincide with Cinco de Mayo here in Southern California on May 5.
As most of you know, the 5 May commemorates a battle outside the city of Puebla in Mexico in 1862. The Mexican army won an unexpected victory over French forces who had invaded Mexico under the ruse of debt collection but actually to further the designs of Napoleon III. The French tried to carve out an empire while the Americans were distracted by the great Civil War (1861-1865).
Today Cinco de Mayo is celebrated with great gusto by Spanish-speakers and not a few other groups across this vast land. Sixty per cent of America’s Spanish speakers are of Mexican descent and some of them have been here for centuries.
So this day, like Martin Luther King Day in January for African-Americans, gives us as a church a chance to pay tribute to our Latino members and to enjoy in return their famed hospitality – the music, the bright costumes, the children smashing the piñata and the food – yes, especially the food!
But on a serious level there is so much to learn about each other in this vast country, a point that becomes more and more important as ethnic and other frustrations erupt to fray the ties that bind. Our church is committed to the proposition that learning more about each other and understanding each other, reaching out across the stereotypes and barricades we have all unconsciously erected in our minds and spirits – this can aid the cause of “UNIDAD” both in the church and in the country as a whole.
Our church, Grace Communion International, has been learning these past years that the Godhead itself is composed of three distinct but not separate entities – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of these hypostases (to use the technical term) have differing roles and emphases but make up the one true God and we see that reflected in the human race, God’s creation. Diversity is everywhere. Really, we are such a diverse human race, a marvelous human palette of complexions and complexities that we almost defy analysis. “God made of one blood all people to dwell on the face of the earth” the apostle Paul taught the intellectual Greeks 2000 years ago and Peter learned that this great Creator is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34).
So in that spirit we meet together today and take our stand once again for unity, respect and appreciation against the forces that seem to be eager to divide America.
U.S. News led with that tile in 1995 as immigration was heating up as an issue. We have to be careful, watchful of our own attitudes. Lawyer-activist Morris Dees, who makes a career out of taking neo-Nazi groups to court, has reported that there are now more than 926 documented hate groups in the USA, a 54% jump since 2000. He laments that far too many TV “talk” shows and radio powerhouses fuel the free-floating frustration and rage over the economy by such irresponsible statements as “FEMA is building concentration camps to jail us.”
Wow. What a statement. But even this is mild. Dees feels that the demographic shifts in the country are dragging out some ugly attitudes. “By 2040 America will be 50% non-white…feeding fear, hatred and paranoia,” he says.
So what can we do?
What is the church of Jesus Christ supposed to do? Sit around and let this go unchecked and bury our heads in the sand?
No. In God’s ideal plan, the church Jesus founded is supposed to be the most multi-cultural, broad-based group on earth (Ephesians 4:1-10). Did you ever notice how on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, the church in Jerusalem attracted the most diverse audience – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Persians, Judeans, Cappadocians, people from Pontus, Phrygia, Pamphilia, Egypt and Libya, Rome, with Cretans and Arabs.
That’s quite a mixture of peoples, all of whom were to be one in Christ.
The Church didn’t always live up to that back then and it doesn’t always live up to it now. But it seems a very timely moment to be once again doing this special Hispanic Heritage Day at a time when Latinos may feel singled out by state action.
So today we launch a happy counter-offensive. One way we do that is to remind ourselves that the first Christians in America were priests and friars pushing up from Mexico with Coronado in 1540, that California was named after a queen in a Spanish novel, that Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in the United States (1610), that young Congressman Abraham Lincoln vociferously protested the Mexican War (1846-1848) and that the singing cowboy is a direct Hollywood borrowing from the Mexican vaqueros and gauchos – those wiry outdoorsmen who taught the lasso and the lariat to settlers pushing West. From Caesar Chavez to Ritchie Valens and from Roberto Clemente and Sammy Sosa to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis to Sonia Sotemeyer on the Supreme Court we enjoy and benefit from a lively Hispanic presence in this country.
Blest be the ties that bind and days such as MLK Day, Hispanic Heritage Day and July 4 play a role in recognizing and appreciating our unity in diversity – a small reflection of the God we serve who calls us to work together (1 Corinthians 1:10).
Hispanic heritage Day is also a chance to learn again some of the first principles of effective evangelism, of how to reach out to other people, tactics Paul the Apostle outlined in his address to the Greeks on Mars Hill back in Athens centuries ago.
Let’s unpack Acts 17:22-312 as an exercise in effective evangelism showing how Paul addressed a tough, non-Christian audience on the subject of the great God who made the world and all people in it.
At least three evangelistic principles are at play here in Acts 17.
First, well begun is half done. Paul was disturbed by the numerous idols in Athens (Acts 17:16). Nevertheless he did not begin with castigating his audience but by making neutral, bridge-building comments: “You are very religious.” That’s not a bad opener for any Christian invited to a Buddhist temple or a Muslim mosque, is it? Be polite. Be respectful. Be non-threatening. Why shoot yourself in the foot from the get-go? You don’t have to agree with your dialogue partner but why begin with division? Paul learned from the Greeks and the so-called “barbarians” (Romans 1:14). Why not postpone controversial areas till later. That was Paul’s tactic.
Second, the more you know the more they glow. Even as tourists we’ve all had that experience of people in other countries lighting up when we attempt to speak their language or make an effort to communicate. Paul did that with those intellectual Greeks. He quoted two Greek poets to move on to his main point. “We are the offspring of God” the poet Aratus had written two centuries before and the Athenians must have been surprised that Paul could pull this out of his evangelistic pouch. Paul was the patron saint of education among the early apostles and he could range over such subjects seemingly at will (Philippians 1:12-13.
On Mars Hill Paul makes connections, bridges gaps, showing these thinkers he has taken the time to study their culture, to learn where they are coming from. This usually causes people to keep listening. Today’s missionaries and Peace Corps workers are usually fully briefed on the country they are entering and especially in the host country’s language. Check that in Acts 2:11. We don’t have to be experts on everything but knowing some basic facts about the people you are seeking to influence can go a long way in building bridges. That’s one reason we cover a little Hispanic History on Cinco de Mayo. Did you know that Coronado reached as far as Wichita? Or that chewing gum came from Mexico, for example? The longest journey begins with a single step.
Third, meet people where they are. Did you ever notice that Paul, the man who said “to live is Christ,” this ace missionary didn’t mention the name of Jesus on Mars Hill? Instead Jesus comes into the discussion as “that man” (Acts 17:31), a very tactful and smart approach to take for philosophers who were already suffering information overload. Maybe Paul learned that point earlier from debating and discussing with the Greeks in the agora or market – we would call it the Mall today (Acts 17:17). Either way, he shows immense good sense and tact here. He had already preached over their head a bit by motioning the “resurrection from the dead.” The Jew would relate to that but the Greeks – while having no problem with spirits alive in a grim place called Hades – found the resurrection of the physical body to glorified life a bit too much.
They stopped the interview, but Paul had not offended them. In fact he was invited back (verse 32).
The Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes once said that the universal question of the coming century (the 21st) is “how do we deal with the Other.” This will challenge all of us. But there is hope. “Americans are not a narrow tribe,” wrote Herman Melville years ago, “they are a world.” Our world needs all the unidad, communidad and familia it can get. This is why taking time out to observe this fiesta of the soul should appeal to all of us. As well as have fun!