Water in the Wilderness, Rivers in the Desert

Peace Lutheran Church sits on a very unique landscape.  From my office in El Paso, TX, I can see the mesas of New Mexico and the mountains of Mexico.  The “border” is close enough (8 miles) and the “fence” is tall enough that I can see that fence climbing the mesas and dividing me from those mountains and from my neighbors in Juarez.  The border is a landscape all unto itself.

The beauty of this landscape is marred not just by the fence, but also by poverty.  Imagine a person walking into my office and asking for drinking water.  I could respond, as would be normal in most places, by offering a bottle of water, ala Matthew 10:42.  But here, such a request is just as likely to be a request for potable water, something taken for granted in most places.  More troubling, such a request comes not from the landscape across the border, but from the landscape of the United States; in fact, just 5 or 6 miles as the crow flies from my office.  Even more troubling, that request has gone unanswered and ignored by the very governmental jurisdictions established to provide so basic a service.  This landscape can be very hard and harsh at times.

Such a landscape challenges the Church to discover different ways of doing ministry.  Here, charity is not enough, if it is sufficient in any place.  Here the struggle for justice cannot be ignored.  Here the poor cry out for good news.

One church cannot change such a landscape.  But a coalition of churches and other institutions can and are.  Through one, Border Interfaith, water and justice are given, to give drink to all without exception; so that God’s praise is declared.

For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people.

                           Isaiah 43:20b-c

Pastor Wayne Kendrick

Peace Lutheran, El Paso, TX