What does it mean to have the presence of the Karen people among us?

Sometimes I sit back at the sound booth of my congregation just in awe of this amazing congregation.  The older English members in their 80’s are watching the speaker intently but not understanding a word that is spoken.   After the service everyone is smiling thinking of what a great service they just experienced.   How could this be?

            I grew up in this congregation as did my father and grandfather.  This is where I was planted so this is where I was to bloom I believe.   But our small country church always seemed to be feeder congregation for other larger congregations.  It seemed we were always the beggar congregation just hoping someone would might come and walk with us.  We always prayed and hoped but even my 8 year old son proclaimed at one point “the only new people who come to our church are the ones we pay to come” referring to a pastor who was hired who brought his family.  How desperately I wrestled with my pillow praying somehow testimony of this church could bear fruit and a community of faith could bloom and prosper once more at Habecker Mennonite.  

             A burst of hope did bloom at our church.   When our children were in high school a coffeehouse was started.  Some community young people came and even joined our morning service.  I was excited that younger and older could mix together in a service and enjoy each other.  The congregation was quick to incorporate contemporary songs and include the gifts of these new arrivals in our congregation.  Many young people were assisted in their interest in extended mission trips.   The entire leadership was put in the hands of our young people as we sought to make our church their church.  We believed this movement was the work of God as we sought to overcome the generational and theological differences between us.   We believed it was happening.  We loved our young people intensely.  They could do no wrong.

            But a wedge came as out of blue within our body.  Differences were described between us.  Sin was identified within our extended body.   Overt displays of passion in worship were identified as marks of spiritual maturity which some did not demonstrate.  So it was recommended by leadership that our congregation divide.  

            We who were left were mortified.  As a jilted lover who gave all they had and had it all torn away we were left with no energy at all.   We tried hard to smile but we were weeping inside.   Even though I could not say it I just wished the bishop would close our doors.    This was 8 to 6 years ago.

             It is now 5 years ago our Pastor came saying “There’s a lot of love here”.   One recommendation she offered was that we sponsor an immigrant refugee family.  So we did.   This family invited other families who did not have sponsors.   Amazingly they seemed to enjoy coming to church.   Can you imagine the heartthrob of an 85 year old woman who walked around the church for years praying for children….to see children in the church?  The energy returned to our service.   Our hope was born from these people.  To have love reciprocated toward us is not something we expected.   Can you imagine how it feels to have people 35 years younger from church come out to visit you?   We feel like we are living the resurrection. 

            I also feel like we are living the New Testament.   We had an empty banquet table which needed to be filled.   We believed everyone was busy and had no interest in the banquet we served …..But the refugees came.   Every Sunday we drive to town I feel like we our filling our banquet table bidding them to come.   Our theology gets really simple when the heart of care is food on the table and a roof over one’s head.   It is no chore to sit with people in the medical clinic when we feel that what we are doing is “as unto Jesus”.  We joke we go to church to get our job list for the week.  Everyone in the church has something to do whether it is tutoring for school, shopping for Wic groceries, being taxi, assisting with green cards, or managing the congregational garden.   When one is part of the body every gift is important.   I like to say our spiritual giant in the congregation is one who never sings a song or says a word in church, but he’s always there and everyone knows he loves them and feel respect from him. 

            I like to think of our church as a Home of Refuge.   Certainly this fits for our refugee population.  But as the church is a covenant body of Christ when the Church divides everyone is a refugee.   The church is just like a family.  Only when Mom and Dad love each other do the children feel safe.   When our people first arrive many times they have these big eyes and you know they are really anxious even fearful.   As they come to church it is so fulfilling to see those eyes relax and they feel safe.  I want everyone to feel safe when they come church.

I wish I could say we are a people without sin.   We wrestle with sin probably almost as much as Jesus did.  We probably are as sinful as the people Jesus invited to be his disciples.  But love does cover a multitude of sins.   Jesus sat with sinners, ate with sinners, lived and died for sinners because he loved them.   Certainly this is what he calls us to do too. 

            I always dreamed of a congregation that could demonstrate that God has broken down all walls that would divide people.   Differences between rich and poor, generations, education, national identity and culture normally divide people.   In the kingdom of God those walls are all broken down.  Even the older people who listen intently to a sermon not understanding a word, makes me believe God is reversing the tower of Babel of the Old Testament and we are experiencing Pentecost.   They sense the Spirit.  

            But it was not for us alone that God dropped these “strangers and aliens” among us at Habecker Mennonite Church.  I believe from the bottom of my heart that God worked this work of Grace and Mercy among us not for those present in our assembly but those not present.  For truly this experience is a demonstration that God is no respecter of persons. It is Jesus who is our shepherd and we together are the sheep.  The love Jesus recognizes is the love we show toward each other.   Our most passionate worship is our care for each other and not the song we sing.  We give our strongest sermons when we listen.    It is the prayer of the broken and contrite and not the demanding which God hears.  The most significant mission we have is sitting beside us and not the trip afar.   Our strength comes from our church wide and global connections and not from our independence.  Our authenticity is rooted in the messiness of who we are willing to sit with and not our purity.  The truth, that God is and that God is love, which God understands to be true is not what I believe or teach but what I enable the one beside me to believe.  The faith baton most easily passed from one generation to another is the faith visible when all generations are present.  The older demonstrate faith, grace and mercy to the younger and younger give strength and hope to the older.  Sometimes what we reject is closest to the heart of God and who we walk away from are the people we need the most.   The greatest sign and wonder of all is that what was given up as dead is alive because someone had the faith to believe.