Mosaic Mennonites
Missional - Intercultural - Formational
As Pentecost approaches and we talk of hospitality, we must remember the importance of language and communication. Check out what Steve Kriss, Director of Leadership Cultivation & Congregational Resourcing for the conference has to say about communication in Spirit’s Strange Words, published in Mennonite World Review.
By Barbie Fischer
As we begin this journey of diving into the subject of hospitality, it seems fitting to start at the beginning. The origin of the word hospitality can be traced back to the Hebrew/Aramaic word הכנסת אורחים (hachnasat orchim) which literally translates to bringing in of strangers. Something that nowadays may give many of us pause, if asked to bring a complete stranger into our home. Yet, this was common practice in the days of Abraham and Sarah. We see the first record of hospitality in the Bible as Abraham and Sarah welcome three visitors.
The story is recorded in Genesis 18: 1-8, and states:
“Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. 2 When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth, 3 and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by. 4 Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; 5 and I will bring a piece of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; after that you may go on, since you have visited your servant.” And they said, “So do, as you have said.” 6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, “Quickly, prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it and make bread cakes.” 7 Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a tender and choice calf and gave it to the servant, and he hurried to prepare it. 8 He took curds and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed it before them; and he was standing by them under the tree as they ate.”
To understand this story one must look at the cultural context. During this period people were seminomadic and there were no hotels or inns, no hospitality industry. It was deemed a social obligation of people in cities and encampments to care for travelers. Abraham and Sarah would have been accustomed to welcoming strangers.
It reminds me of our Mennonite Culture, as we are known for our homestays, and also of my time in Africa, I was never without a place to sleep. Yet, this is not common in our broader culture here in the states and nowadays even as Mennonites we might pause welcoming someone who happens upon our front door with no knowledge of who they are or where they came from. There was a time I was traveling and needed a place to stay here in the states. I mentioned to my friend, Bahati, from the Congo, I was looking for a place. He looked at me and said, “If we were in Africa, I would say come and stay with my wife and I, but we are in America, so I must say, let me check with my wife.” A sign of a respectful husband, but also of our culture, as perhaps his wife would not want a guest. Inviting a guest into the home is not a given in our culture. Yet, for Abraham and Sarah, it would be unthinkable to allow a person in need to pass by without offering them hospitality.
It makes one wonder, what is it about Abraham and Sarah that made them so open to being hospitable? Was it their upbringing and culture? Or something deeper? And what keeps us from being hospitable at times? Is it our upbringing and culture? How can we show hospitality like Abraham and Sarah in this day and age?
Stay tuned for more on Abraham and Sarah with the three visitors, in the next Intersectings edition.
By Jenifer Eriksen Morales
My 4-year-old daughter invited me to join her picnic, complete with plastic fruit. I looked at the stuffed animal guests, “Wow, you have very different friends. Aren’t you afraid the bear will eat the dogs or the dogs will eat the cats?” She patiently responded, “No Mommy. That is not going to happen because Jesus is with us.” She pointed to a doll wrapped in white lying on the edge of the picnic blanket. “See?”
What a prime example of hospitality according to Henri Nouwen’s definition, quoted in last week’s Intersectings. “Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place…”
My role as a LEADership minister offers me many opportunities to witness hospitality at its finest within Franconia Conference. Here are just a few ways in which congregations or members of congregations are “creating space.”
West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship is partnering with Redemption Housing to purchase a recovery home in West Philadelphia that is designed to encourage and support returning citizens. Not only are they collaborating in ministry with this organization, but the congregation will spend the next year preparing themselves to better understand, welcome and build relationships with citizens returning from prison to the broader community and congregation. This will happen through trainings, Sunday school studies, and guest speakers who will help them grow in understanding the prison system/mass incarceration, and intercultural competencies.
A year ago, a man in the Spring Mount congregation told me about multiple new neighbors who are Muslim. He asked me to recommend books he could read to learn more about this faith tradition. Recently, he returned a book I lent him and told me about his on-going learning about Islam and the comfortable friendships he is forming with his neighbors from Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh.
Souderton Mennonite Church recently turned an extra Sunday school room into a warm, living room-type space where parents can retreat and connect with each other. I spent some Wednesday evening club nights there drinking coffee and visiting with others. I was able to get to know a woman from the Congo. Thanks to the provided space, our family has new friends.
Plains Mennonite Church has a beautiful park which often serves as space for people to connect. Members of the congregation hang out at the park to have conversation and build relationships with neighbors who gather there for basketball, soccer, disc golf, or just to play at the playground. One member of the congregation carries dog treats in his pocket and takes a couple minutes to greet people and their pets. This summer the congregation is hosting Art in the Park. They will hold concerts, movies, and line dancing. This July, a simple meal will be served each week in the pavilion followed by an art of living class on different topics such as gardening, or cooking/preserving in season foods. This is all free and open to the community. The goal is for all to feel welcomed and comfortable, including those with special needs. To prepare for this time, the congregation will devote June Sunday school classes to raising sensitivity and awareness and learning how to embrace and reach out to the special needs community.
5 years ago, the Perkasie congregation received a Franconia Conference grant to aid in their endeavor to create a safe place for people from the community to gather with faith-related questions or to talk about different ways of understanding the Bible. The friendships formed there have been lasting. This group of people still meet and are currently studying Phyllis Tickle’s video series around the theme of Emergent Christianity.
I could write pages about the different ways I see congregations and individuals intentionally creating space where strangers can come together. As followers and worshipers of Jesus, we live in Jesus’ promise to be with us always. The space we create in the name of Jesus, where lives and love are shared and transformed is ordinary and sacred. Because Jesus is with us. See?
Jenifer Eriksen Morales is Minister of Transitional Ministries and a LEADership Minister for eleven congregations in Franconia Conference.
by Mike Clemmer
As a young boy, I enjoyed going to my grandparent’s house to explore the many knick-knacks that were displayed around their home. Of all the fun items to see, the one that intrigued me more than any other was my great grandfather’s tuning fork. I would spend countless hours repeatedly striking it against the heel of my shoe and then holding it to my ear to listen to the sound of the vibrations – a concert A – over and over again. I would then attempt to match the pitch that I heard in my ear with my own voice while imagining myself as a chorister leading a hymn. The inscription pressed into the metal on one of the tuning fork’s tines stated “A = 440 vibrations guaranteed,” meaning that the sound in my ear would always be the same – guaranteed! But although I always heard the same pitch in my ear, somehow my ability to match that pitch with the sound of my voice was less than a perfect match.
Years later and still having the tuning fork in my possession, listening for the perfect pitch has become both a labor of love as well as a conduit for lessons of faith. As an Anabaptist follower of Jesus, I hold Jesus at the center of my faith – he is the “perfect pitch” on which all of my life is centered. Indeed, as Hebrews 13:8 states, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Yet, just as I often struggle to match the musical pitch perfectly with my tuning fork, so I too often fail to match the way that Jesus set forth as the center of my faith. Maybe I am simply not listening close enough? It also gets tricky at times – both in life and music, that is – because all songs do not start in the key of A. Some are written in a minor key and some in a major key. Some songs even use the same words but have a different melody. In those cases, I need to begin with the perfect pitch and work at deriving the correct starting note from that center place. This takes work and practice. In fact, I find that often times, I need to go back and strike the tuning fork again and again just to hear the Concert A clear enough to find the correct pitch needed to start the song that I am leading or living. In both music and life, I believe I would be further ahead if I would take time to listen to the guaranteed vibrations of Jesus and allow his perfect pitch to resonate within my heart, mind, and soul.
Mike Clemmer is Lead Pastor at Towamencin Mennonite Church, and a LEADership Minister for Franconia Conference.
by Barbie Fischer
Hospitality is a word used often in church, yet, how often do we stop to contemplate what it really means to be hospitable? The Greek word translated to hospitality in the Bible is philoxenia, literally: love the stranger — philo meaning love and xenia stranger. How do we love the stranger? Is it simply sharing a meal, or acting kindly?
Henri Nouwen states in Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life,
“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”
Over the next several months, Intersectings will be diving into biblical and everyday stories of hospitality. Digging into the story of the good Samaritan, Rahab and the spies, Abraham and Sarah with the angel of the Lord, and many others. The goal is to explore and uncover what it means to truly be hospitable as Franconia Conference strives to be a place of Christ-centered hospitality, a space where change can take place, and lives transformed for the Lord.
You are welcome to join in on this conversation. Submit your stories of hospitality, reflections and thought on your favorite biblical story on hospitality, or questions you wish to explore to BFischer@FranconiaConference.org.
As the month of April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the conference hopes that you and your congregations will join other religious leaders and government officials around the country to encourage all to take steps to prevent child abuse. Franconia Conference continues to be committed to helping to end abuse and neglect of all people within our congregations and communities. This month with the focus on children Dove’s Nest, a nonprofit organization working to provide information to faith communities for the protection of children and youth, has developed a tool kit for congregations to use.
This kit includes bulletin inserts with information on prevention, prayers and responsive readings, and includes information on how individual members and congregations can protect children and youth and work to end abuse and neglect in their communities. In addition there is a children’s story for use in Sunday School or worship, promotional information about educational tools, and a list of internet resources.
by Barbie Fischer
Often when items are donated to a ministry, the recipient of the donation is unknown. The Vincent Sewing Circle ladies are well aware of this fact as they have been making comforters by hand since 1934 and donating them to people in need, in recent years mainly to Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Having donated numerous handmade comforters over the past 82 years it was exciting for the ladies of the Sewing Circle to discover one of their comforters in a photograph in the New York Times.
On March 22nd, in the LENS Blog of the New York Times appeared an article entitled, “Dilley, Tex., Home to the Nation’s Largest Immigration Detention Center.” The article is about a multiplatform project known as “Welcome to Dilley” by a creative cooperative known as Black Box. As explained in the article, the project dives into a town at the heart of the national immigration debate, Dilley, Texas. Through the project, Black Box tells the story of immigration detention in the United States by sharing the stories of the detainees and the other residents in the small town where the largest immigration detention center in the United States is housed.
One of the woman featured in the project is Yadira López Lucas. Flipping through the slideshow in the New York Times article and appearing in a New York Time post on Facebook one can see Yadira and her three children sitting on a bed in a Mennonite House in San Antonio. The house is run by Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), in partnership with San Antonio Mennonite Church. The caption reads, “After being released last spring from the Karnes detention center about an hour and a half from Dilley, she [Yadira] had become the Mennonite House’s de facto caretaker as she waited for her case to wind its way through the system. With her were her sons, David and Daniel, and her daughter, Melany.” The comforter that appears on in the lower left-hand corner of the photograph of Yadira and her children was made by the women at the Vincent Sewing Circle. (Click here to view the photo.)
Linda Lindberg, of Vincent Mennonite Church and a member of the Vincent Sewing Circle spotted the photo graph and says, “My reaction to seeing it wasn’t anything special. I just recognized it (the corner of the comforter on the bed at bottom left) and was thankful that I could see the end result of our labor.”
She goes on to say, “I looked further at the picture for my own “proof” to see if it was ours and recognized several pieces of the printed fabric–especially the black with printed flowers on the band around the outside of the patches. I remembered trying to decide what color of thread to sew the fold over with because of the contrast of black and medium blue (I went with blue). The blue backing is part of a very large bolt that we found several of at Goodville Fabric Outlet for less than a dollar a yard and an unusual 110 inch width, so I recognized that also. The pattern of the patches (diagonal stripes where there was enough of one color/print) is typical of the many, many tops Marjorie Benner, of Souderton Homes, has stitched over the years. She also cut smaller patches than is typical for these “refugee” comforters. I have become familiar with the prints/colors of material used in many of our comforters from knotting them, sandwiching them, pinning, and hemming them. So I was quite sure it was one that we had worked on!”
The Vincent Sewing Circle started in 1934 as a place for women to use their skills to help others. Women from several Mennonite Churches in the Pottstown area came together to form the group. Currently the group meets in a home owned by Vincent Mennonite Church every second Wednesday from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm and breaks for devotions and lunch. If you are interested in joining the group please contact Vincent Mennonite Church at office@vincentmc.org.