It was my turn to preach this past Sunday but when I sat down to write, my mind was flooded with images and emotions of the week. Then I thought about a brief exchange I'd had with Gilbert Oxeroek, the lay pastor in Wales, when we were both in Nome this past week. He had been at a pastor's gathering. When I asked him how it was, he commented that a lot of pastors wanted to talk about what they'd read in books. Gilbert said he'd rather talk about things the Eskimo way. When I asked what that meant he responded, "We begin with our own experience." (See below!)
So that's what I did on Sunday. Instead of writing a manuscript, I preached from my own experience. I told four stories from Brevig Mission. The stories were: the body, the whale, the fire and the banquet. The first three you can read about in previous blog posts. The fourth, the banquet, is the story of our Vacation Bible School program that we held in Brevig, where children sang with delight and shared their memorized Bible verse. The banquet included a meal, too, as we served spaghetti for the whole community. I mean that almost literally; we went through at least 200 plates (before we lost count) in this village of less than 400 souls. We ran out of spaghetti noodles several times (I tried praying over them to no avail-- kidding) but managed to cook more. People were in good spirits even though they were waiting in line. We shared a lot of conversation with our table fellowship.
After the meal and program, there was a wedding. Or at least a renewal of vows. Chris and Bruce, from Central, were celebrating their 10-year wedding anniversary this year. They never had a church wedding, so they asked if Pr Brian and I would do it in Brevig. So we did. Chris asked the oldest man in the room (he wasn't that old!) to walk her down the aisle and the couple stood before Pr Brian and I, who were decked in kuspucks. We took turns praying, I did the vows and Brian preached a good and short sermon. The children watched closely and then hooted with delight when Bruce kissed his bride.
In the sermon, I contrasted this banquet with the gospel lesson for July 15, which was the story of Herod's feast where John the Baptist ends up without a head, literally. Then I contrasted Herod's feast with the very next story in Mark's gospel: the feeding of the 5000. At Herod's feast, only the elite are invited and manipulation and violence rules. At Jesus' feast, all are welcome and even though there's only 5 loaves and 2 fish, everyone gets enough.
When I was in seminary, a professor told me that sometimes the gospel isn't in the assigned reading for the day. That was true for me this past Sunday. Instead, I found the Gospel in the Eskimo way. I found it in my experiences in Brevig Mission. I found it in the stories people there told me about how their faith helped them through tough times. I found it in conversations with members of our group and with Pr. Brian. I found it by sharing in the joys and sorrows crammed into one week in Brevig and Teller. I found it, or, to be exact, the Gospel found me.
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