Day 2 at House of Bishops was a field trip. My group visited
Good Shepherd Church. I chose Good Shepherd randomly but it proved a fortuitous
choice for three reasons. First, it turns out my good friend and seminary
classmate, the Rev. Maggie Hanson Taylor, was the musician there for a number
of years back before our seminary days. Small world.
Second, Good Shepherd runs a delightful kindergarten for the
community and they have a strong program of pastoral support for elderly people
in the neighborhood. They enlist the kindergartners in the care of the aging.
It is a fantastic example of a church connecting with the actual real life
needs of the community outside its walls. That’s what living, thriving
congregations do.
But, third, and most importantly, Good Shepherd, Taipei has
been one parish with two different ethnic/ linguistic groups worshiping and
serving together for over 50 years. There is an “English-speaking congregation”
and a “Mandarin-speaking congregation.” (The quotes are because a lot of people
in each congregation are to greater or lesser degrees bi-lingual; and because in
Nevada we would prefer to say these different groups are part of the same
congregation – just different terminology.) They portray the situation as one
of great harmony, cooperation, and partnership. Today it truly is.
But coming out of our experience in Nevada, where different
ethnic/ linguistic groups in the same parish sometimes eye each other with
distrust and even hostility, I asked if the situation had always been so
harmonious. The answer was decidedly “no.” So I asked how Good Shepherd had
negotiated the rapids of racial and cultural difference. I was hoping to learn
something helpful. They had a lot to say about their struggle to get along and
some of what they said strikes me as potentially helpful indeed.
The first major answer is that the natural divisions of
race, culture, and language were surmountable because of – drum roll –
Christianity. The challenges of getting past those natural divisions were their
opportunity to actually practice (as in do it badly until you can do it better)
the teachings of our faith. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,
male nor female for you all are one in Christ.” Galatians 3: 28. If our Holy
Communion is not a lie, then these divisions are overcome by our connection to
Christ. “There is no Latino or Anglo, Black or White, straight or gay for we
all are one in Christ.” If we are one with
Christ (which is our only hope of salvation), then we are one in Christ. That is already true in our
souls. If we are to align our lives with our souls, and so live authentically
and coherently, then overcoming the divisions prescribed by the world – not by
God – is essential spiritual practice. It is our path of sanctification.
The second major answer was “partnership in mission.” The
New Testament Greek word for it, used over and over by St. Paul, is koinonia. It means something akin to
what community organizers call “public friendship” Public friendship does not
mean we are intimate buddies. It doesn’t mean we laugh at each other’s jokes.
It doesn’t mean we necessarily choose to watch baseball and drink beer with
each other. But it does mean we trust each other and can work together for a
common goal. We cross the divides in order to achieve a common mission. So, in
order to bridge the ethnic/ linguistic barriers in our Nevada congregations,
what we need is sense of shared mission.
I have noticed that where a congregation is not
energetically engaged in a goal, particularly one of serving the community
outside the church walls, such a congregation is apt to squabble over the
smallest things. The differences that separate us matter when we don’t have a
project important enough to set them aside. Where there is such a common
mission, the differences don’t seem to matter.
Third, and most realistically, not everyone is going to be
on board with bi-lingual/ bi-cultural church to the same degree. A majority of
people in each group will prefer to stay in their comfort zone, worshiping and
having fellowship with people more like themselves. Trying to force them into
relationship will be counterproductive. What we need in each congregation is a
critical mass of people who see the diversity of the parish as a plus and who
intend to take on the project of relationship building. Such people will be the
bridge. The others will come along slowly over time. Good Shepherd has been at
this for 50 years. Naturally they are way ahead of us in Nevada. But even at
Good Shepherd the project of Christian faith transcending cultural difference
is still a work in process.
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