I have often said that walking with the ILAG is to encounter the early church in Acts. This fall, I decided to teach the leaders the journeys of Paul hoping that they would see what I was seeing and learn from Paul how to faithfully approach what they were living in their communities.
During the first journey of Paul, I began to draw the parallels between Acts and the ILAG, but when we reached the Council in Jerusalem the leaders began asking questions and the dialogue began. One of the leaders centered in not on the issue of circumcision but on drinking of blood. In his community, but not in his church, people drink animal blood and he wanted to know if it was a condemned act. We ended up having a very interesting discussion about why people drink the blood, if it is to receive some sort of strength or power (some people believe that here in Guatemala), in order to be out of control, for health reasons or if they simply liked the taste. I brought in Paul’s discussion in Corinthians about eating meat sacrificed to idols – if it causes your brother to fall--which opened up yet another avenue in the conversation. It turns out that there is a ritual in some rural churches—another Christian denomination allows—in which images of saints are placed on the altar and a bowl of food (usually soup of chicken or beef with tamal) is placed before each image. The elders come forward to place the food as a sacrifice and then to drink the broth. We had a great discussion about the line between tradition and giving thanks to God and idol worship as well as sacrament vs. sacrifice.
This was not the first time this year these issues have faced our leaders. Earlier this year one of our ILAG churches had their anniversary and invited members of other neighboring communities in order to have a bigger celebration and share the joy of the church with others. The problem was that by bringing the marimba or band from another community to play that the guests, in turn, wanted to have part of the service to lead. Horacio, my husband, arrived for the anniversary. The guests wanted to sacrifice a chicken by the altar in the church in order to make an offering the following day. Horacio did not allow them to do that stating that there was one sacrifice for all time on the cross. He reprimanded the leader for selling their faith in order to have more guests and louder music at the anniversary instead of making it a time to proudly teach the Lutheran confession.
The ILAG allows many of the indigenous rituals but modified. For instance bowls of chicken soup, corn and other elements of the harvest and their daily life are often placed on the credence table on the day of their anniversary. This is done in order to thank God for providing for His children all that they need and to bless the coming planting or harvest. We also allow incense rituals both in the church and in the jungle – since the ceremony is begun in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and finished with the Lord’s prayer. In the ritual, the elders lead the congregation in prayer for the crops, for the health of their families, for their church, etc. It is a very meaningful ceremony—and not done in place of the word and sacrament.
It was that spirit of thought that our conversation centered on in our conversation at the last retreat. As we went through the other journeys of Paul many parallels to our ministry here came up in our conversations. Our leaders are facing many of the issues that the early church needed to address and thankfully they can look to scripture to find guidance. They want to lead faithfully and share with their neighbors the gospel using local tradition when it aids in the preaching of the Word of God and teaching those they are called to lead when culture or tradition cannot co-exist with the gospel. Many opportunities to proclaim the gospel within the culture exist if you are willing to listen and to take a stand when needed.