remembering guatemala

Santa Catalina Arch in Antigua, Guatemala

In early December, I had the great opportunity to travel to Guatemala.  We spent less than two full days in country, intentional because of the nature of our trip:  we were taking gifts and supplies to Casa Shalom an orphanage our church supports just outside of Guatemala City (you can read an up-to-date blog about Casa Shalom here) and were headed to Nicaragua the following week with a similar objective.

More or less, we served as pack animals (in a good way) but were rewarded with a plethora of memories.  Here are but a few:

• We were told a story of a certain woman on a mission trip who was attempting to understand Spanish.  Having evidently no training in Spanish, she asked one of the staff members at Shalom for some “porko”.  “Don’t you just add an “O” to the end of words?” she asked?
• Another team who helped them had a fantastic idea to have the children in their church write cards to the orphans living at Casa Shalom.  Unfortunately, no one proof-read the cards before handing them over to the staff.  Two stick out in my mind:  on the front of one card simply said, “To Orphan“.  Classy.  Another had a picture (no lie) of a UFO on the front.  Inside was written (evidently by someone in the same considerate family as the child above):  “Someone wants you somewhere“!  Brilliant.
• When going into a Guatemalan Wal-mart (they’re really owned by Wal-mart, though they don’t go by that name) and looking for a refreshing drink, read the labels as carefully as possible.  Don’t simply go by the pictures.  Small pictures of unshucked coconuts look suspiciously like limes, and when you’re expecting a refreshing swallow of lime-infused water, coconut water tastes awful.
• Showerhead water heaters.  The good news:  as long as the electricity is on, you’ll never run out of hot water.  The bad news:  if you accidently touch the professionally-wired showerhead during a shower, you may need resuscitation.
• 

  Get your Christian music and fake ID's here!

  Antigua.  Antigua (not the island) is the oldest city in Latin America.  It’s also surrounded by several volcanos.  Yes, several volcanos.  The architechture is beautiful; walking around it is a must if you visit.

• Antigua markets.  My two favorite experiences:  J running into and knocking an old woman down (ok, to be fair, he didn’t knock her down, he only knocked the huge back of sticks off her head and spent an awkward minute trying to help while I stifled hysterical laughing.  And in his defense, this woman was only about 4 feet tall.); and finding a vender who specialized in two things:  selling Christian CD’s, and fabricating fake Guatemalan ID’s and driver’s licenses.
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  The Jesus chair. Lots of questions on this one...

  The Jesus chair.  Really, I have no explanation.

• Airport toilets.  Guatemala City’s airport is very, very modern.  It has a clean industrial architecture feel without being cold.  Even the bathrooms were clean and very modern.  Well, almost modern.  In both bathrooms that I attempted to utilize, only one of the toilets had a toilet seat.  Guess which stalls were occupied when I was in no small emergency…

keep christ in…

Let’s be honest.  People are not going to decide to follow Jesus because of our merchandise that say, “Keep Christ in Christmas“.  That just offers one more opportunity to pigeonhole Christians. I mean, seriously:  do we really need to gift-wrap  ammunition for people already antagonistic towards Christians?

In fact, it seems that the more one publicizes pithy little sayings and reduces the gospel to “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven” soundbite (or my personal favorite, “In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned” [are women not included?!  Ok, that was a cheap shot]), the more the Gospel (that is the good news of God’s love!) gets diluted.

Yes, we water down the Gospel, this phenomenon that has changed the world and still holds hope for the world.

Christmas wasn’t instated by Jesus Christ.  In fact, his birth was not central to many early Christians’ faith.  The fact that only two books in the Bible (Matthew and Luke) begin (or include) the story of Jesus’ birth certainly doesn’t mean that His birth was not important; on the contrary!  But it does mean that many thousands (at least) of people trusted in Christ without political ambition, without trying to coerce people who are not “called by His Name” to celebrate Him.

In fact, I wonder if Jesus cares as much about the arguments we make.  We often say it ourselves, that Jesus wasn’t born on Christmas.  So, why do we get all bent out of shape this time of year when people who aren’t Christians don’t want to celebrate his non-birthday?  Why is it that only one day in the year we remember God who came to be human?  Should not the advent of our Lord be celebrated and shared more than during the winter?

How many abuses have been done to others by Christians?  How many in the name of the babe in the manger?  How many have we, today, participated in, excluding others?  How often have we Christians been unloving or indifferent?  Not just to those who do not believe as we do, but to those who are our brothers and sisters, those who also claim the name of Jesus?

I’m all for celebrating Christmas.  This is probably my favorite time of the year.  But I can’t help thinking we’re fighting the wrong battle by trying to “keep Christ in Christmas.”  After all, is it really our job to keep Jesus somewhere, all neat and tidy?  It’s like we’re trying to appease the gods, relegating Jesus to His one time of year.  Maybe we should be trying to get Christ out of Christmas and into the rest of the world.

Perhaps instead of fighting to “keep Christ in Christmas” (or prayer in schools, or the 10 Commandments outside courthouses, or God on our money or in the Pledge – insert your Christianese battle here), let’s do something that really will impact our world:

Let’s put the Christ back in Christian.

That’s something we can control a bit more.  And it’s something surely more pleasing to God than trying to “take back” Christmas.  After all, what are Christians supposed to be known for, fighting and winning political battles over our rights, or pursuing justice and mercy for the oppressed, setting the captives at liberty, loving their neighbor??

Should we be known for making enemies by making the Gospel as offensive as possible, or realizing that the whole Gospel can be reduced to one statement, “to love your neighbor as you love yourself“?  To be sure, the Gospel is scandelous – who else’s god is celebrated as coming through an unwed teenager?  It can be offensive.  Unfortunately, Christians today have taken that job upon themselves, making ourselves offensive in an effort to claim the right to our own “pursuit of happiness.”  Christian has become a descriptive of culture instead of transformation.

Let’s decide to put Christ back in Christian.

That seems to be a better use of our effort.