Acts revisited Part I

Today Robert is on his way to Yuvinani, a remote Mixtec village some of you have visited with us. It is a special place on God’s map because here, Metlatonoc Mixtecs responded to Jesus, as a group, for the first time. They had known his name for hundreds of years, but he had meant nothing more than one more statue in the line-up of saints along the church wall. Other statues were far more powerful. Now Jesus was coming off the wall and into their lives.

I wish I could have been there, but if I had, my presence would have ruined the moment as any outsider would have ruined it. (Kind of like that experiment with the cat, checking whether cats have feeding rituals. And so it seemed to the scientist that they did, for every time the scientist gave the cat food, it turned round and round and massaged the bars with its tail and rubbed its cheek against the cage. Come to find out, when the food appeared without a scientist attached, the cat got up and ate with no nonsense at all. It was the Experimenter the cat was celebrating, not the food.) So I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, or closer still, a flea on the dog in the town square where Juan Mercenario preached his first sermon and brought just about the entire village population to Christ. Now it’s been 25 years, but the people still tell the story.

The Mixtecs of Yuvinani had boarded buses along with thousands of other Indians from southern Mexico to work in the vegetable fields of northern Mexico, where we had met them. One of the migrant workers was named Philip, and while he was away, working, he met Evangelical Christians. He was impressed with their singing, their joy, and their claims of knowing Jesus who saved them and healed them. Philip did not speak much Spanish, still doesn’t, but somehow from the songs and fervor of these Hispanic Christians, Philip became convinced of the love of Jesus and His power to forgive and heal. He gave his heart to Jesus, who immediately healed him from alcohol addiction and filled him with the joy of knowing he had a heavenly Father and a heavenly home, a new hope he’d never known was possible. Philip came back to Yuninani and started working on his extended family. For two years, no one responded.

But his brother-in-law John was listening. John was a political figure, the mover and shaker in town. He was innovative and charismatic, a Type A figure that led the town. When he gave his life to Jesus, he did it in a big way. He used the town’s public sound system to gather everyone on the town square for a meeting. There he preached this sermon. In Mixtec: “You all know how far away we all are from God. We are on a road taking us very far from God. We need to turn back. We need to start walking back toward God. I have discovered that Jesus, the one who died on a cross and came to life again, can forgive us and put us back on the right path. This man heals and forgives and listens to us when we pray. Let us commit together to find someone who will tell us more about Jesus and help us understand what He says in His Word. Here is a sheet of paper for us to sign. Form a line now, and put your name or your “X” on the paper if you want in.”

I have somewhat transliterated Juan’s sermon, and I was not there, but this is his story as it is passed down by the people who came to Christ that day. Most of the village signed that paper. But throughout the evening, the murmurs started, “You know this means no more money from selling alcohol.” “You know this means a break with the Catholic authorities.” “You know this means a break with those who consult the spirits.” “This is a break with all our traditions.” “This cannot be.”

By the morning, half of the community had repented of their signatures, but the rest stayed firm as the first church ever to be born in all the Mixtec mountains of Guerrero.  I wonder if it’s only once in a community’s history you can preach Juan’s sermon and see the Gospel take hold like it did that day. Do we miss the opportunity for cultures to hear it straight, hear it in their own tongue, hear it in a way that makes disciples, and starts churches, and transforms communities forever?