An old Ash Wednesday homily

This is one of my favorite Ash Wednesday messages, written in 2013, and I thought it deserved to be bumped to the top again.

Matthew 6:1-6 (NRSV)
Concerning Almsgiving
6 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Concerning Prayer
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Homily: A Projected Image

Ash Wednesday is a pretty weird holiday. In preparation for the most joyous day in the Christian year, we’ve got a day of mourning and repentance and a season of fasting. We do this ritual tonight with ashes on our foreheads that alludes to our Baptism and to our death all at once. And then we come to this weird piece of Scripture tonight talking about all the wrong ways to do all the right things. So, what’s the deal?

A few years ago, I played in the praise band for the contemporary worship service at First Baptist. And a group of us in the band began a young adult discussion group. We would meet after the service and go out to eat and talk about something different every week, sometimes the topic of the service we’d just left, or something controversial in the news about the political or religious world around us.

And this one Sunday night, sometime during the summer, about as far away from Ash Wednesday as you can get in the calendar, Mason Smith, the pastor at the time, did a really meaningful service of Imposition of Ashes. It wasn’t Ash Wednesday, but it went with what he was teaching that night. And after the service, our group met and decided we were going to go to Applebee’s that night for our discussion. My friend Adam said he was going to stop at home for a minute and he would meet us there, so the rest of us went ahead to the restaurant.

It was past dinnertime on a Sunday night and football season hadn’t started yet, so the place wasn’t very busy when we walked in. And our hostess had some time to talk to us and to notice the crosses, so after she’d gone through asking how many were in our party and seating us, she stayed at the table for a moment to ask about the funny marks on our faces. We were all actually a little embarrassed and self-conscious, which is ironic considering how many future missionaries and church staff were in that group. But we were self-conscious. We had put on those crosses as part of a deeply personal worship experience and had left them on out of nothing more than forgetting we were headed out in public. We weren’t asking for any attention with them, we just hadn’t realized we were inviting it.

But once the surprise wore off, it became a chance to talk with her, and then our waiter, and then even the cook who came out to see what was going on. It became this missional opportunity in which that they were eager to participate because they realized we weren’t trying to be obnoxious about our faith, we were just trying to live it out.

The most memorable part of the evening was when Adam, who had told us he’d meet us there, finally showed up. We’d expected a call to ask where in the building we were. But he just appeared at our table. Another of our group said to him, “Oh, you found us!” to which he replied “Are you kidding? I walked in with this cross on my forehead and the hostess just said to me ‘Your friends are in the back.’” Our discussion topic that night became “Wouldn’t it be great if our faith was that visible all the time?”

And yes, yes it would. If that’s what is really visible. Our faith, our love for God, what’s in our hearts. Because that’s what Jesus is getting into in our passage from Matthew. Not the rules for what we’re doing. But the “why?”. We’re not told “Don’t practice your righteousness in front of others.” We’re told “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”

Ash Wednesday is all about the why. The symbols matter. The service matters. Our participation matters. But our hearts matter more. This past weekend I had the opportunity to go on a ski trip with 7 other adults and 30 youth from our congregation and from Christ Episcopal Church. Now our youth for the most part have spent at least a year and a half with me. They know me, they get my sense of humor; they understand my expectations for them. Some of the kids from the other group spent the weekend still trying to figure me out.

After snowboarding all day Saturday and leading vespers Saturday night, I was in my bed pretty early reading and watching movies on my iPad just waiting for “lights out” to roll around at 11:00. At about 10:55 I got up to walk out to the living room to give the boys in my house a head’s-up that they needed to be in their rooms in just a few minutes. They were watching ESPN and listening to music at a pretty low volume, which was fine.

As I came down the short hallway, one of the boys from the other group (who shall remain nameless) heard me coming and he scurried across the couch and hit the “pause” button on his iPod. And so the room was now really quiet and the boys were staring up at me expectantly. I knew he hadn’t been afraid the volume of the speakers or the TV would wake me up, so I correctly guessed that he was worried about the content of the music he’d just turned off. So I gave him a couple of heartbeats to freak out, and then I asked him, “Are you worried you’re going to offend me?” And he looked up me with these wide eyes and said, “…yes.”

I appreciated his awareness that his choice of music was not necessarily appropriate. I would have been prouder of him if he’d just not been listening to it in the first place. But I also wasn’t going to pour out wrath and judgment on this student who was both repentant, and otherwise functioning completely within my will for him.

Sometimes we just need to get busted like that. We need to realize that the image we’re projecting isn’t the one we want, or what God wants of us. We should be reminded that our hearts and our actions should match.
The other scripture for Ash Wednesday is from Joel chapter 2. It says 12“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” 13Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Rend your heart and not your garments. Because as we return to God with fasting and weeping and mourning, it is the sincerity of our actions that He sees and values.

We are a sinful and broken people. And in repentance tonight we are here tonight to recognize it; to put on ashes, a symbol of death and mourning. But we put them on in the form of the cross, a symbol of Christ’s defeat of death.

You probably won’t get this entire blessing as you come forward this evening, because it’s a mouthful when there’s a whole line of people. But in the traditional words of the Ash Wednesday service, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Repent, and believe the Gospel.”

Amen.

Would Jesus Hang Out With This Group?

We gathered for all-block debrief today, beginning with breakfast, worship, and book study at Dani´s house. Our interns are reading When Helping Hurts this summer and one of the questions Thomas asked as he taught the group this morning was “Would Jesus want to hang out with this group?” He didn’t make anyone answer out loud, but even as the conversation moved on, I think we all kept coming up with answers in our head to that question.

  • Yes, he would, because we are the people who want to follow him.
  • No, he wouldn’t, because we aren’t the poorest of the poor.
  • Yes, he would because we’re pretty sinful.
  • No, he wouldn’t, because we’re the religious leaders.
  • Yes, he would, because we are building his church.
  • No, he wouldn’t because we quite often defile his temples.
  • Yes, he would because we’re pretty dumb sometimes and need to be taught.
  • No, he wouldn’t because we aren’t always ready to let go of our idols.

I want to be the kind of person Jesus would want to hang out with. But at the same time I want to be so much better than I am so he doesn’t have to waste his time with me. And what’s funny about that is that both of those goals are accomplished by being the kind of person who hangs out with Jesus.

What are you doing these days, Danny?

People have joked around with me for years that they can’t keep track of what country I’m in. But it seems like I can hardly keep track of where I’ve been lately myself.

In February I left my job at First UMC in Elizabeth City. I came back to Ecuador to host two short-term teams and hang out with a bunch of people I love. And those people convinced me I should come back to Ecuador this summer as the Maestro for the Education=Hope program. So I’ve been doing just that, helping to train and supervise both the E=H interns and the Quito Quest interns who are serving with E=H sites and teams.

But in the midst of my preparations for Ecuador, God dropped another crazy opportunity in my path, and after weeks of calls and texts and emails and Skype calls and plane rides, I accepted the position of Director of Family Ministries at Soapstone UMC in Raleigh, which I will be starting in August.

It’s been a crazy few months. It has been hard sometimes telling people what’s next for me, especially because since January, I quite often haven’t known beyond about the next two weeks what was really next for me. It’s about to be a crazy few months as well, because I need to finish well here with Quito Quest and Education=Hope, and dive immediately back into Conference Youth Events, moving to Raleigh, and starting a new job. I won’t be back home in Elizabeth City until about twelve days after I return to the United States, and “home” won’t really be home after that anyway.

I’m excited. I’m terrified. I’m actively trusting God to give me the ability to do all the things that He’s called me to do. And I can’t wait to tell everybody about this whole new adventure.

Maestro-ing

Over twelve summers, I have had a lot of roles in our short-term program. I’ve been a team member, a team leader, a Quito Quest host, a site host and an additonal staff member on teams. I even once helped train a couple of hosts who would both the next summer become my maestros. But I have never actually done the Maestro roll until now.

Since 2008 I’ve been telling people that Quito Quest is the most work not the least sleep you’ll ever get, and I use that statement to make a point of just how much I love this program, because I keep coming back and doing it again and again. And while my perspective has slowly changed over time about how much sleep you actually need to do this job (I’m old… I need way more sleep now than when I was 22), my perspective has changed dramatically this summer on who it is that really has all the work to do.

When you’re a team host, you are responsible for all the people on a short-term team, for their food and housing and schedule and translation and cultural acquisition, and their medical needs. You’re there to take care of them from the moment they walk out of the secure section of the airport until you drop them off right back there eleven or so days later.

When you’re a maestro, you’re responsible for all that stuff, except for the interns, and for three months instead of a week and a half. And when seven of your eight hosts have never hosted before, you wind up being responsible for a lot of their job too, because it’s simply impossible to learn how to do this job perfectly in the two weeks between intern arrival and the start of Block 1 of teams.

An intern asked me after my Basilica orientation, “How much of that are we supposed to remember?” She had this seriously worried look on her face, and I just laughed, and tried to compassionately explain that I’ve been doing Basilica orientations for 11 years, and I’ve been there with all kinds of people, so I have learned a lot about the place. I dumped it all on those unsuspecting interns, hoping they’ll be able to regurgitate 40% of it or so this summer. I want give them all the information and experience and wisdom I have, but I certainly don’t expect them to know cold in one summer what I’ve been compiling since 2007.

Cameron has been laughing at me all summer as I ask deep questions to the interns and then press for answers. She remembers exhausted 2008 Danny who had to be forced to give more than one-word answers. I hadn’t figured out back then that it was okay to be an introvert and an internal processor. But I also hadn’t quite figured out back then how much the staff needed me to get out of that comfort zone and verbally let them know how they could take care of me. She also remembers 2008 Danny who would debrief teams until 11, get home at midnight, blog until 2am, and get up at 5 or 6 to do it all over again, because he thought you had to just run yourself into the ground to lead a team well. And now she’s watching me tell interns to hide out in the book bag room and take a nap or catch up on finances so they don’t have to stay awake so late at night.

It’s also a lot of work to put team hosts together as a pareja and to match those parejas up with teams. Figuring out how to compliment people’s gifts, and how to match them up with projects and team leaders and teams and ministry sites is a giant puzzle. And just as it’s impossible for the hosts to do their job in a perfect way, we (maestros and directors) will never quite get this part of our job perfect either. But I can tell you we talked about it and processed together way more than I ever thought would be necessary.

I love being here for summer, and I love getting to train and oversee all these hosts. But as I jump in and out of teams’ schedules and ministry sites, and do my best to care for our hosts who are caring for them, I have a lot more appreciation for Bryan, Dana, Darío, Christy, Manuel, and Kristin, who were all maestros for me at various times.

Soccer Match

We don’t have sports, plural, in Ecuador, we pretty much just have soccer. And in Quito, for the most part we don’t have fans of different teams: everybody here is a Liguista. So when you are invited to a soccer match, it’s a Liga game, and you had better be hyped for it, and you had better have your jersey.

A number of our team hosts are off this weekend, so they joined the staff and the site hosts tonight for Liga vs. Emelec at Casa Blanca.


Pablo got our tickets this morning, but he clearly didn’t trust the gringos to know how to act at an Ecuadorian soccer match, so he sent us all instructions before he would hand them out.

Blue is actually one of LDU’s colors, but not when they’re home against Emelec, so Pablo was actually trying to make sure we don’t start a fight. And people will definitely fight when it comes to soccer.

It took forever to get on the bus this afternoon because each one that came by was already so full, and everyone at the station was wearing their Liga jerseys, so we knew we’d be crammed in like sardines all the way to the stadium. The general admission seats in Casa Blanca were packed out as well, but it was a ton of fun to participate in singing and cheers and listening to all the fans in the stadium heckle the referees… and the other team… and sometimes our team.

Liga scored a goal early in the second half, but Emelec got a penalty kick to tie, and the score stayed like that the rest of the match. One of the players on the other team passed out due to altitude, which sucks for him, but at least we were reminded that doesn’t only happen to team members. All in all, it was a great cultural experience, something I haven’t done in seven years, and a really cool day off with some of our staff.

Notice who is the only one wearing a Liga jersey.

 

Celebrating

Last night we got to celebrate a little bit that I got a new job. What’s really cool about this is that most of the people celebrating were somewhat disappointed that I won’t be coming back to Youth World full time, and yet they were living out our summer motto of “People over Projects” by joining me in my excitement over what’s next. I’m really pumped to be joining the Soapstone UMC family, but I am truly going to miss this group of people that dives fearlessly into life and ministry together, knowing that the kind of people who wind up at Youth World are only ever here for a season.

And by the way… sometimes “celebrating” in Ecuador just means going to the BK Lounge.

 

 

Ecuadorian Day

There are some characteristics we ask our short-term teams to have or adopt. Flexibility is a big one, and one I needed today. And by today, I mean yesterday because it’s technically Monday now, and I’ve been awake since 6:30 Sunday morning.

Our plan today was to go to Emaús and for Ezechias to preach, and then to do his Africa/Rwanda presentation for the kids at the church. In the broadest sense, that did happen. But things started to get off course all the way back at “going to Emaús.”

Pablo (who was translating), Ezechias (who was preaching), and I (who was the only one who knew how to get to Emaús) left the house shortly after seven this morning. That seemed like plenty of time to walk down to the Trole, catch a Trole that wasn’t packed, and ride for about an hour down to Terminal Morán Valverde near the church. It took a while to get on a Trolebús, but eventually we were on our way.

And then suddenly we weren’t.

It turns out the newspaper in Quito was sponsoring a huge race today. So the Trole was only running in the north of town, down to El Ejido, and the roads were closed farther south. So everyone on the Trole had to get off seven stops down the road, before we were even truly out of North Quito.

The three of us walked a ways, and finally managed to catch a taxi. But it turned out it wasn’t just the roads around the Trole stops that were closed, it was every main road we needed to get across the city. Our driver kept saying “I’ll just get on that road and then we’re home free,” (I’m paraphrasing) but we would immediately run into another metal barrier on the road. What should have been a 20 minute, $3 taxi ride took 45-50 minutes and cost us $8. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a large amount of money. But I’ve been taking taxis in this city for 11 years and I’ve never paid $8 for one. Ever.

The other issue with an $8 ride is that instead of reaching for my change purse to pay the driver in Sacagawea coins, I reached for my wallet to pull out a 10. At which point I realized i didn’t have my wallet. After thinking all day, my best guess is that somebody snagged it from my front pocket as all of us had to pile out of the Trole at once. Fortunately I had eel over $8 in coins, because that’s as much a reality in this city as getting your wallet stolen on public transportation. And after twelve years coming to Quito, and as many hours as I’ve spent on the Trole, a total of two wallets taken isn’t really a bad statistic.

We got out at the Puente Guajaló and I showed the guys a sliver of my old neighborhood. They laughed when I told them what funny looks I used to get, because gringos don’t generally go to Guajaló. Part of that may have been the Ecuadorian and the African laughing that even this morning, I was still the only white guy for miles, and yet I was the one who was able to guide them around this section of the city that feels so like home to me.

We arrived at Emaús at almost exactly 9:00. Which is the time painted on the wall outside at which the service starts. Most of the congregation got there around 9:30, and we actually started then. But as they trickled in, and we three greeted everyone, the other guys were surprised when almost everyone greeted me by name. Pablo finally said “man… you know everyone here. Why are you so famous?” Ezechias preached, and it was wonderful. Pablo translated, and did a fantastic job, made even better for me by the fact that I wasn’t the one doing it. I also didn’t have a guitar with me, so for the first time since 2010, I just got to be a part of the service at Emaús from the congregation without needing to lead.

Ezechias was also supposed to do his Rwanda presentation right after the service for the kids who are in the Education=Hope scholarship program. But it turns out it was Día del Niño and there was a children’s program going on outside after the service. So the expectation was actually that he would do his presentation for the parents. His very kid-friendly Powerpoint was basically useless, but fortunately he was flexible (and prepared… he had the presentation he’d used for Youth World Staff meeting last week with him as well) and jumped right into what needed to happen.

Our time at Emaús ended up lasting much longer than we expected. Even after the Africa presentation, there were snacks, and a birthday party upstairs for two of the youth. We were finally able to excuse ourselves with the true story that we were supposed to be at Alliance Academy back up north to play soccer with the Casa G boys at 3pm. So we took off, and way too impatient to ride the Trole or bus again, Ezechias paid for a taxi all the way back home.

Soccer went about how you’d expect it. We got to hang out with the boys and some of the staff from Casa G, which is always fun, and then headed to Chelsea’s house for dinner. We intended to watch a movie until the hosts and I needed to go pick up a team from the airport, but we ended up just sitting on the roof with a bluetooth speaker, having a sing-along for several hours.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is the team that was scheduled to come in at 10:13pm. Then they were delayed an hour. Then they were delayed another hour. Our bus driver was not happy with us that he had to wait, not that we have any control over Delta’s schedule or the weather in Atlanta, since that was the actual culprit. Finally at 10:45 we left for the airport. Grace and Bleu (the hosts) slept all the way there. I watched half a movie and slept for a while myself, on what should have been about a 40 minute drive at that time of night. There was no traffic whatsoever, and somehow it still took us an hour and twenty minutes to reach the Quito airport. I think our driver got lost while we were all asleep. We arrived around midnight, but our team (not surprisingly) didn’t get out until ten minutes after 1am. With 24 people, they are usually at the back of the immigration line, and take an hour after landing to actually walk out the door. So it wasn’t any big problem to us, but certainly didn’t help our driver’s mood. And again, he took twice as long to get home as we thought, but this time I knew for sure why, because he missed our exit from the highway and had to drive all the way to Central Quito and turn around to come back North. He really should pay more attention, but in his defense, the city of Quito should really build more exits on the Oriental. At any rate, 3am was when we finally left all those gringos at the hostel and headed for bed. Or for me, to a computer to record all the ordinary unexpectedness of this crazy Quiteño day.

Photos from Training ’18

I haven’t stopped for a moment to write down all the things I wanted to about Quito Quest training this year. But here is a photographic glimpse of what has been happening for the past couple of weeks.

My guitar didn’t quite make it in one piece all the way to Ecuador.
Liam (4) decided where all the toppings should go on the pizza.
The Youth World team (mostly Casa G) made it all the way to the Finals in the Quito Cup.
A good-looking team and their cheerleaders from Youth World.
Cameron translates Ezechias’s presentation on Africa to the Youth World staff.
A fish farm, as seen from the overlook at the restaurant outside Baños, Ecuador.
The bridge was only a couple inches wider than our bus.
No, really, this bridge was tiny.
Jorge Luís pouring us some Guayusa in Tena, Ecuador.
The canoe that took us 30 minutes up the Napo River to Bella Vista, Ecuador.
And look at that, our canoe was named “Guayusa” too.
Organizing games with the kids in Bella Vista, Ecuador.
Francis helped make dinner when we got back to Quito.
Italian food during Quito Quest’s traditional “Fancy Dinner”
Fancy Dinner. Absolutely the nicest this group will look during our entire 78 days.
We must be official, now that we’ve got T-shirts. D-boss thinks she’s cool with her mustard “I’m in charge” shirt.
The Education=Hope staff for the summer. Interns Ezechias and Morgan, Director Cameron, Administrator Rocio, Maestro Danny, and Roberto… who may or may not do any actual work.
Ecuadorian intern Pablo… who is frowning because he couldn’t figure out how to change the gas despite living his entire 19 years in this country.
Ezechias and Grace were no help changing the gas tank either, but offered their encouragement.
Día del Niño at Emaús. The kids ministry leaders dressed up as characters from shows and movies.
Marthita’s 19th birthday party during youth group at Emaús.
Up on the roof! Morgan, Pablo, Danny, Grace, Bleu, and Ezechias having a sing-along with photographer Chelsea on her apartment’s roof.
Rawr!

Headed back to Ecuador

If you know me at all, it probably won’t surprise you to hear I’m getting on a plane to Ecuador. And it probably shouldn’t surprise you, because it will be the 13th time I’ve done this since 2007. Through Quito Quest, I’ve been a team member, a Team Host, a Site Host, and a team leader, but I am taking on a new role in a new department over the next couple of months as the Summer Maestro for Education=Hope.

This means I’ll be using my administrative skills to help organize all that our four E=H teams will be doing, and I’ll be training and supervising interns. In the midst of that, I get to hang out at some of my favorite places with some of my favorite people doing everything from ministry with teams to maintaining relationships between Youth World and our partner ministry sites to probably more than a little babysitting of Vivanco children.

Quito Quest has always been my favorite excuse to blog, and I expect working with teams this summer will be no different. So keep an eye on it for my adventures.

Bonus pic:I always love it when I make the Youth World Monday Memo.

This Place Breaks My Heart

Since Saturday night Roberto and I have been hosting a team from South Carolina. It’s a fascinating group because it’s centered around a couple who is getting married on Tuesday. Part of the team only thought they were coming on a mission team and didn’t even know there would be a wedding while they were here. Part of the group only thought they were coming for the wedding.

Having worked so long with an organization that focuses so much on doing short term missions well, there are some things about this that I struggle with. But this group has had particularly fresh eyes for the things around them. I think little-to-no preparation on the part of the team members was in this case better than bad preparation, because they simply didn’t have time to have any preconceived notions. This struck me the first time when a 50-something team member said during our orientation at Carmen Bajo “This place just breaks my heart.”

I initially wanted to push back on that, to tell him “no, this is a place that’s full of joy,” to argue with him what a difference it makes in the community. Knowing that I have served at Carmen Bajo for almost 10 years and whatever was going to come out of my mouth was going to be an emotional response, I held my tongue. And I’m glad I did, because while all those thing I thought are true, that doesn’t mean we can’t all (myself included) be heartbroken at the underlying need for a place like Iglesia Carmen Bajo and it’s school and social project to even exist.

We heard Pastor Fabian’s story of being called to the neighborhood. I’ve heard it many times before in orientations or at dinners at his house. We heard testimonies from church members and stories about the students from the staff. Most of those stories were things I’ve heard before. Tough, terrible stories of loss and hardship, but familiar problems in that area just with new names and faces to go with them. Those stories are shared so we can give glory to God for what he has done in the midst of it all. For healing and wholeness found in His Church, for hope that has come through educational opportunities, for a generation that is giving back to their community because of grace and mercy encountered through people sharing love, and for there being enough resources to solve social and economic problems because basic needs like food are being met through the compassion of teams and a church and a people who care.

But the relief that comes through that place doesn’t mean all the problems are gone. There is still endemic abuse and neglect in the neighborhood. We met a woman who is fighting to give four of her sons with disabilities a better life, but whose son’s disabilities were caused by fetal alcohol syndrome. There was a kindergartener who is happy and healthy and learning, whose education is funded through the scholarship program and whose lunch is funded by Compassion International, but who has to walk an hour and a half each way, each day between his home and Carmen Bajo. A kindergartener.

There are times when I’m listening to a story or translating on a home visit when I just sort of turn off my heart and only use my head. I change the words from Spanish to English and regurgitate them for the team so they get the information. But I do it with a certain sterility, not letting the emotion effect me in the moment. I become the task-oriented North American with data to get across rather than the missionary, the minister, the brother in Christ who should be broken-hearted by what I see.

And what I see is injustice. Brokenness. Sin. Those things are why we need the church. We we need missionaries. Why I’m here at all. I’m very rarely shocked at a story I hear in his place anymore. But familiar as this brokenness is, and optimistic as I hope I continue to be about all that is going on to fix it, my prayer is that i will continue to be as broken-hearted about it all now as I was the first time I came here.