Encounter with the Living Christ

by
Rev. Msgr. Raymond East
Pastor, Nativity Church, Washington, DC

July 6, 2000

First we give all honor and praise to our God, Father and Creator of all, who sent us Jesus Christ, our savior so that we may not perish but have everlasting life, who poured out the Holy Spirit that forms us in one faith, one Church and one baptism. I greet you sisters and brothers, 20,000 strong who represent the "Many Faces in God's House."

Dios es bueno1 !Todavia! !toddavia, Dios es bueno1
God is good - all the time1 all the time, God is good1
It is with much joy that I have the privilege to share my encounter with the living Christ. Y con mucho gusto quiero compartir mi experiencia que dios no es muerto - dios vive ya!

The following story takes its shape from the original vision for this historic gathering echoed in the vision statement and theological reflections for Many Faces in God's House. So I want to give a shout out to the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs and all the hermanas y hermanos who opened their Jubilee Year conference up to us so that all of us, Hiscpanic and non-Latino could intentionally gather together in this part of God's house. You see, Church, the devil doesn't want us to gather like this. He would much rather have us fussing and fighting with each other, all divided up into our separate groups, each one thinking they were the whole body of Christ all by themselves, and nobody sharing with one another. But I tell you, Church, when Jesus comes back for His bride, the Church, He ain't coming for just a African American bride, a Latino or Asian bride, a Native American bride or bride any more than he's coming back for just a catholic, Baptist or Methodist bride. He's coming back for His bride, the Church, one without any stain or wrinkle of division1 Amen? And that's where my story begins…with my encounter with Christ through my family.

I am an African American catholic who is the grandson of Baptist missionaries on Dad's side and black and Cherokee grandparents on my mother's side. Like most black folk in America we have Native American (in my family, Cherokee) ancestors we don't know about, some European-American ancestors we don't talk about, and West African ancestors we are just beginning to acknowledge. Like most black men my age - and I'm almost fifty, I grew up colored, became Negro before evolving into an Afro-American and finally - or for now - African-American. Like one of the workshops this weekend will explore, I've spent years discovering how to live between the hyphen that joins African with American. While some of my friends can point to long genealogies linking them with continues and relatives in Europe, my roots blur after the fifth generation - but it is most likely that I am the surviving son of African prisoners of war who were brought to this land hundred of years ago, not wearing the brightly colored mothercloth that I now wear, but stripped naked of clothiers, dignity, religion, culture and language, were chained together, were sold like animals on the slave block. My first encounter of a living Jesus came through a loving black family who taught me that God was my Father who loved me enough to send his son Jesus who died for me so I might live. They taught me that there was a sweet, sweet spirit in this place, and I knew it to be the Spirit of the Lord. I grew up quote-unquote "born catholic" but like many black Catholics in an ecumenical family; mine was Baptist-catholic. We became Bapto-Catho-Methodist when Dad, born on the Baptist missions of South Africa, heard Martin Luther King say "eleven o'clock was the most segregated hour in America'" and went out and joined Chollas View United Methodist church, an integrated church. Negotiating faith in an ecumenical family (before the Vatican Council) meant that we always went to Mass, not other churches, that we heard Negro spirituals at home and sang Latin hymns in church; that we said the rosary as a family, especially in May and October, and said Catholic grace with Baptist bible verses at meals. But we knew Jesus. I knew Him for myself at an early age. And even though I would have to wait until adulthood to see an image of Jesus who looked like me, I knew He loved me, died for me, and called me to a deep friendship with Him. And at an early age I knew He heard Baptist, Methodist and Catholic prayers!

Second, I enocuntered Jesus in the Catholic parish of my childhood and youth. I'm so glad this Encuentro 2000 has made an effort to welcome youth, young adults and children here because we aren't really church without their dynamic presence. Amen? Growing up in a San Diego parish meant that I would encounter Jesus in and among the many faces in God's house. I didn't grow up in the Black Church, per se. We were Black, and Italian and Irish and German-American, Mexican-American, Filipino, Guamanian and Japanese and Chinese-American. Our pastor spoke with an Irish brogue and the priests and sisters looked like all the statues in church. Yet because we were all parish family, I had a profound encounter with a living Jesus who called me to be a member of His family. I encountered Jesus daily in the Eucharist, and in my walking the mile to St. Rita's to serve 6:30am mass. I encountered Jesus weekly in confession and knew personally of His forgiveness and unconditional love for me. I grew in a saving knowledge of Him though the School Sisters of Notre Dame who taught us about Jesus at St. Rita's School in school. I encountered Jesus daily in the priests and sisters who served us in the parish; in the parish secretary and the sacristans and in all the lay people who made the parish run. Jesus was especially present in my scoutmasters, in the parents that worked with us. Every camping trip to the mountains or the desert was a special encounter with the majesty and handiwork of Jesus' Father. That youth and adolescent encounter with Jesus in the life of our parish really formed me and made me what I am. Because there were already many faces in God's house, it was the experience of many families becoming one family who followed Jesus that anchored my identity as a Catholic Christian following Him. Whatever was lacking in cultural sensitivity was more than made up for in the friendships with my peers in the parish, (several who were called later to ministry) and in the adults who were "play Aunts and Uncles" Aunt Bea Hameister, Uncle Bob Santos, and Uncle Bunny Bunuan Aunt Peg Jordan who were my extended family, and who showed me the face of Jesus.

[insert Marty Haugen's 'Within the reign of God"]

Today, as an adult working in Washington, DC, I encounter Jesus everyday in ministry and mission. For two and a half years I have been pastor of a vibrant urban Black parish with eleven hundred families. Let me conclude with three ways my encuentro with a living Jesus in my neighborhood is converting me, and leading me form communion to solidarity. I came from a parish where I was loved and supported to a larger parish where I was unknown and yet was warmly welcomed. The honeymoon lasted only two weeks; I made lots of mistakes, mostly with my big mouth, as I confronted the ethnic tensions that come from offering hospitality to one group while trying to make the old-timers feel loved and supported. My encounter with Jesus has been in my weakness and lack of gifts. In my weakness I have had to find His Strength; in my many administrative and interpersonal blunders I have had to find His forgiveness. Most of all, I have been called to conversion as I confront the many prejudices I have I didn't know I had. Say "amen!" somebody - or say "ouch!" I confess that my supposed option for poor folks left me cold and indifferent to the upper-income professionals in my parish. My years of experience working in a poorer parish and left me chilly to folks who had striven and risen above obstacles and were proud of their achievements. My own educational background left me feeling inferior to the Ph.D.' s, DD's and LLD's who sat in the pews on Sunday. My first encounter at Nativity was with a Jesus who challenged me to preach Good News to all regardless of income or social status. Jesus, who is a heart fixer and a mind regulator,

Next, I am encountering Jesus in the faces of immigrants and those newly arriving to this country. My first week in the parish had me answering the door and speaking my broken French to refugees of the the war in Congo - Zaire; That same week I was again speaking French to frantic parents from Rwanda trying to find space in our school for their children who were staying with friends in Uganda hoping for a visa. In our parish we have refugees like Mrs. Warllita who speaks no English and has come from Ethiopia to take care of her sick daughter, or another parent whose newly arrived children form Eritrea are getting beat up by the Black kids in public school because they are different. Or the Muslim parents from Sierra Leone and Liberia who work three jobs to keep their kids in our Catholic school because education is such a value for their children. I encounter Jesus in the faces of these newly arrived African families.

For five years our parish has given hospitality to the Nigerian Catholic Community, a 200-family congregation of new arrivals and long-time residents. It is easy to encounter Jesus in their lively worship, heartfelt prayers, danced offertory processions and a cappella songs in Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa languages. It is a little more difficult to encounter Jesus as Reconciler when there is not enough meeting space, or when masses, weddings and baptisms run overtime, or when differences between tribes leave the community divided. It's harder to encounter Jesus when cultural misunderstandings cause tensions between the old-timers and Sometimes it's like your brother-in-law who moves in with your sister and the kids for a few months until they find their own place. But what if they don't find their own place - or if this is a permanent arrangement? Can we live as family, sometimes apart, sometimes together? It's strange to see tensions between the children of Africa who came here 400 years ago, and those who came to the United States in the last 25 years, but that's the reality in the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian parishes in my neighborhood. They are all black, but filled with continental Africans and Christians of the African diaspora - from South and Central America, the Caribbean - and the old U.S. of A. It makes for a great mix, especially when the faces in God's house speak the many languages of Africa, and Spanish, French, Portuguese and English. I'm sure glad that the Jesus we encounter can understand all of us! But wasn't that what Pentecost was all about?

Just so that mixes it up a little more, our neighborhood is changing. (How about yours?) We encounter Jesus in what used to be an all-white parish, with restrictive covenants on houses forbidding them to be owned by black people, Jewish people and Native Americans. In just thirty years the parish turned from white to black, and the neighborhood is now transitioning from center-city 'hood to barrio. Now we are home to hundreds of Central American families, most of them Salvadorian. "You shall love the lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, Jesus said … and your neighbor as yourself. 'and who is my neighbor? We ask1 We haven't solved the quote-unquote "African problem" and now you want us to open the doors to the Salvadorians? Well this year God sent a special solution - the El Shaddai prayer group from the Philippines. Not only have they joined the parish and fully participate in all our parish activities, but their Spirit-filled joyful singing shows us the way to a new Pentecost at Nativity Parish. And the Jesus I encounter opens my eyes to see the stranger ad my neighbor. He helps me see the "Other" as my sister and brother. He heals me of my prejudices and gives me a ministry of compassion. The Jesus I encounter shows me there is "Plenty Good Room" in my Father's house - just take your seat and sit down. And that's why I came today - to look in your faces, and see the face of Jesus.

[song] Plenty Good Room, Plenty good room, plenty good room in my father's kingdom.
Plenty good room, plenty good room, just take your seat and sit down!





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Encuentro 2000
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3413