Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2023 Blog #38
September 25, 2023
A Multi-Cultural Party/Fiesta
Yesterday our congregation celebrated our “Welcome Home Party.” Our congregation goes virtual in August through Labor Day, and we give people a few weeks after Labor Day to get back from vacations and settle back into our routines. Therefore, we celebrate our “Welcome Home” a few weeks after Labor Day.
It is a rather festive celebration with a DJ, grills, and a potluck sharing of dishes to pass. Anyone who has grown up in church knows how wonderful potluck meals are. We taste flavors that we usually don’t experience and learn recipes that most of us never would have thought of. There is always an abundance of food, and we eat to excess. After a few years we tend to know which people are bringing which dish. We are, after all, creatures of habit.
This year, our Welcome Home party was different. It included new recipes from our newest worship participants, immigrants from Latin America. Nine months ago, we hired a Seminary student who immigrated from Columbia to begin a Spanish Language worship service that is nested within our congregation. Now we have between 7 and 14 Latin American immigrants who are part of our Church fellowship. They, of course, joined in our party and brought food from their native countries. Our potluck has expanded to include Latin food. At our party I could hear many people speaking in English but also a number speaking Spanish.
This party reminded me of my first parish in Hoboken. The membership of this congregation was recent immigrants from India as well as older Germans who had immigrated from Germany as children or who were born here but had parents who had immigrated from Germany. The potluck dinners there were an interesting mixture of German and Indian cuisine. At fellowship time we heard a mixture of Hudson County, German, and Indian accents. Communication was interesting at times, but we worked through it. The Holy Spirit was there.
I am reminded of the Biblical account of Pentecost. People from many nations were gathered but spoke many languages. When the Holy Spirit descended upon the gathering, they were able to communicate and understand one another despite their language and cultural differences.
I can’t help but wonder if the Holy Spirit is coming upon us, although less dramatically than at Pentecost, as we gather from different cultures have different languages and foods, but we share Christ. Those filled with the Holy Spirit celebrate this. I pray for those who don’t embrace it, that they will receive the Holy Spirit, and join in this celebration of diversity.
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