When I had the privilege of studying in Israel, it was during the rainy season, but in that dry region, the hills were still brown and barren. That was back when I needed to wear glasses -- but usually didn't. As I gazed out across the landscape as our van traveled the countryside, I was amazed at how many sheep were scattered among the fields. I remarked on the serenity of the scene and how Jesus' identity as the "good shepherd" was reflected in the quantity of sheep we were passing; my colleagues responded, "What sheep? Those are rocks!"
So my theology of sheep and shepherding was replaced by a theology of rocks and solidity -- amid the teasing of my fellow students. Which isn't so bad, because Jesus is also the "chief cornerstone" whom the builders rejected, God is our "rock and our redeemer" and Peter was the rock upon whom Christ built the church.
A stone grounds the starting point of the Easter Sunday story, too. John writes (20:1), "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw the stone had been removed from the tomb." It is easy for me to imagine how the large boulders that jut out of the earth around Jerusalem would be used to seal a tomb. The very size of a stone large enough to fill the entrance of a burial chamber shouts of the impossibility of a single human moving it.
During spring break, I went with a group of Presbyterians from Northwest Arkansas to another country in which rocks were a prominent aspect of the trip. Fifteen of us traveled to Honduras to research installation of solar panels and water-purification systems in regions of the country that have no safe water and no reliable, sustainable power source. In addition to meeting with church and city officials and visiting other water-purification systems installed by Presbyterian Church USA groups, we were involved with community development efforts with Presbyterian missionaries who work for Heifer Project International.
Every morning we traveled to La Cumbre, a village in the western mountains of Honduras near the Guatemalan border. It was the dry season, but the countryside was anything but dry in this region where coffee is grown. The beauty of the lush greenery of the mountains was a stark contrast to the abject poverty of many who lived there. Mud and stick huts were common. Homes might have electricity but no indoor plumbing. Clothes -- and bodies -- were washed in concrete basins outside the homes using unpurified water. Some people owned cars or trucks, but many rode horses as their primary means of transportation. It was common to see a bundle of sticks carried on the back of a horse traveling down the dirt roads -- firewood for cooking.
Heifer Project -- through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- was teaching community leaders to help themselves. They applied and received assistance in installing a water-purification plant, so the people could fill bottles with safe water for drinking and cooking. More recently, the people of the community had been trained in basic home-building techniques and how to work together so their whole community could benefit.
While there, we worked side-by-side our new friends in the first stages of their home-building project. For some, this was the first home for their family, but, for most, the concrete-block homes were replacing shacks of mud and sticks. We had the privilege of building our own foundation for this ministry by working on four to five -- out of the 20 -- new homes in La Cumbre. We dug with pick-axes and shovels; we carried stones; we separated sand from gravel; we mixed concrete on the ground; and we "poured" the foundation with buckets and shovels, laying handmade concrete brick upon brick.
We also laughed as we attempted to communicate in Spanish. (I called the little chicks running around the job site galletas one morning, earning snickers by the Honduran men in our group because I'd called them "cookies.") The work was hard, but the hardest work was done by our hosts -- not to mention when they tried to teach us their culturally bound building techniques.
I'm not very strong so most of my tasks were either "run-and-fetch" jobs or bringing mas piedras pequenas (more small stones) to be used as filler rocks between the larger stones of the foundation. I lived out, and took more seriously, what our faith teaches us: God uses us as we are, and each person's contribution is valued, regardless of how meager or significant that contribution is. It is not up to me to judge what is significant.
What was abundantly clear was the distinction between "poor" and "rich" is not only economic. While the people we traveled to serve were very poor in terms of economic resources and power, they were very rich in their faith, their love and the abundance with which they gave what little they had to one another and to us. While we came with our American dollars to help purchase supplies, we received so much more than we gave. Their example of how to prioritize relationships and time spent together demonstrated a richness we seem to have lost in the busyness of our lives and in the abundance of our resources.
The Easter story, which we heard last Sunday, is God's promise of hope in the midst of the darkness of despair, of faith in the context of the unbelievable and of life emerging from death. A huge stone that hid the ugliness of death is moved to reveal the emptiness of death's power. Even before Easter, our group experienced the miracle of God's power of hope in stones -- both pequena and grande -- as rocks dug from the earth were used as the foundation for homes that represent a better future not just for the people who will live in them, but for their whole community.
I brought home two piedras pequenas to remind me of my time in Honduras. One is a crystal I found while sifting rocks and sand to make concrete. It reminds me of the hope that shines in the midst of the mundane and hopeless. The other is a small, broken piece of pottery that was among thousands of small pieces littering the ground at Copan -- the Mayan ruins in the same region as La Cumbre. It reminds me of how fragile a great civilization can be and that we are all God's creatures -- wherever we reside on God's earth and whatever our circumstances. My theology of rocks grows.
NAN Religion on 04/26/2014