I’ve mentioned our upcoming trip to Brazil a couple of times (here and here). Well, the time has come and we will be on our way in just a few days. We visited Brazil last fall, thinking it might be a last trip to see a place and a people so important to us. But now we are going again (one more time?). The occasion is the 30^th anniversary celebration for Igreja Presbiteriana no Jardim América, the congregation to which our lives have been so deeply bound for most of those thirty years. As I have said before, we were at IPJA for its 10^th anniversary and for its 20th anniversary. It seems right to be there for the 30^th.

The photo in the header is a view of the church’s community taken from the church and looking uphill towards Favela da Ventosa. I share the photo not to commend ourselves for helping poor or disadvantaged people, but as a reminder of a place dear to us and the home of friends who are a gift from God.

Officially, I have been invited to preach at IPJA on Sunday, May 10. It is a great honor. The text given for the day is 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 where Paul likens the church to the human body – many members, one body. I will add Romans 12:5, “So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Assim nós, que somos muitos, somos um só corpo em Cristo, mas individualmente somos membros uns dos outros.) We will look at several of the “one another” (uns aos outros) passages in the New Testament – (encourage one another, love one another, exhort one another, greet one another with a holy kiss [abraços!!], forgive one another, and more).

IPJA is not a perfect place. Its thirty years include conflict and sin, misunderstanding and confusion. IPJA is a church. But it also a place where we have seen and experienced encouragement, love, exhortation, warm embraces, and forgiveness.

I am not reluctant, then, to celebrate IPJA’s thirty years of being a “uns aos outros” church, and to encourage it to be all the more so as it moves into another decade, another season of living as the Body of Christ in the place where God has placed it.

In some ways this trip is an unexpected gift. Perhaps our last to Brazil – but that’s what I said in October. We may not make the 40^th anniversary celebration in 2036. For now, though, our great joy is to celebrate with friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, who have been for us gifts of “uns aos outros” for nearly 30 years.

Becky and I are heading for Brazil in about twelve days’ time. More on the trip next week. We’re not quite at the suitcases-out stage of preparations, but both of us have to-do lists in our minds. One of the things I need to do is to call the bank and buy some Brazilian reias. The real (plural – reais) is Brazilian currency, and I should be able to buy about five reais for a dollar.

Brazil is a highly digitalized country, and we won’t need to use our reais often, but we are going to spend a few days near a small village, and we might want some paper currency in our pockets if we visit one of its shops or restaurants. A dollar may buy five reais, but the shopkeeper or the restaurant owner in Florestal won’t want our dollars and may not have internet access to process a credit card payment.

The currency in Brazil is the real, not the dollar – almighty as we may think it is. We call the process of exchanging one currency for another “conversion.” Hm. Continue reading →

In last week’s post I complained about using Easter as a metaphor for the cycle of the seasons or a kind of vacuous spirituality. But then I talked about a potted Easter flower already drooping on our kitchen table. I wrote, “Perhaps it serves as a metaphor for the danger of Easter faith drooping as Sunday turns to Monday and a new week too much like the old week unfolds before us.”

Several of you were kind enough to respond. Reflecting on the danger of drooping faith, one of you wrote, “Maybe next week you can write about not allowing that to happen.”

Hm. So how do we keep our faith from drooping? The new week gave another metaphor to help as I pondered the question. On Good Friday I ordered a needed item from a seller in Wisconsin, but the need was not urgent. No next-day delivery needed, and no next-day delivery promised. Good enough. The Monday after Easter I received notification that the package had been placed into the keeping of the US Postal Service and that  I could expect delivery by Friday, April 10.  Good enough. Still a week or so before I would need it. Continue reading →

There’s nothing like a good metaphor to brighten a note or letter. A metaphor well used jolts the sleepy reader to life. To a good writer, the use of an effective simile is like the use of just the right herbs and spices to a master chef. A clarifying analogy explains the meaning of our words as a pair of reading glasses sharpens the letters on a page.

We need to look no further than the words of Jesus to validate the use of figurative language. Jesus spoke of a city on a hill, of a lamp under a bushel, of vines and branches, living water, easy yokes, logs in our eyes, white-washed tombs, and lost sheep.

Any of us hoping for our language to satisfy like a cup of cool water on a hot summer day, or to cut to the heart of an issue like a sharp two-edged sword could do worse than listening for the ways the Bible uses metaphors, similes, and analogies.

But we Christians are, at times, guilty of metaphor abuse, and no more so than at Easter time. Some things are not meant to be taken figuratively. Some things are what they are. So it is with the Resurrection. Continue reading →

The headlines caught my eye. As I was going through the newsfeed last week, two links on the same list got me thinking. The Mother Jones writer responding to reports of abuse by the late United Farmworkers organizer, Cesar Chavez, acknowledged the accuracy of the charges, but shifted blame from Chavez to American culture that allows and even celebrates such abuse.  The same day, a New York Times opinion piece appeared under the headline “It’s Not Trump. It’s America.” Distraught over Donald Trump’s policies and personality, NYT columnist Lydia Polgreen blames our country and culture as much as the president for the emotional distress she is experiencing in “these dark times.”

Both the Mother Jones and the New York Times lean left in their perspectives, but that is not the point. I am certain I could find more right leaning perspectives likewise blaming culture and country for the woes of our time. Maybe American tolerance and generosity are our problem.

The point is that we humans like to fix blame – sometimes as a prelude to finding solutions, sometimes as a pretext for anger.

We like to fix blame. Agnostic/Atheist (his self-description) New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman blames Jesus for Judas’ betrayal. I’m pretty sure I disagree with Ehrman, but Judas as victim does fit our cultural moment. Blame culture! Blame Jesus! Blame someone! Continue reading →