This past week I accompanied officials of Living Waters for the World (LWW), a mission organization of the Synod of Living Waters. Rev. Wil Howie, LWW Director; Rev. Todd Jenkins, Moderator of LWW’s Guatemala Network; and Jeff Wagner, LWW Operations Director came for 4 days of meetings and visits. We discussed with leaders of the Presbyterian Church of Guatemala (IENPG) the fine-tuning of a formal covenant. Later this month, this covenant is to be proposed at the IENPG’s yearly Synod meeting for adoption. The covenant’s aim is to work more closely as partners in bringing sustainable water purification systems to more Presbyterian churches across the country.

We stayed at Guatemala’s Presbyterian Seminary near Retalhuleu, where an international LWW conference will be held in October of this year.  Plans were made with seminary efficials for this week-long conference, which will bring together 50 participants from nine countries are expected at the conference.

While there, we visited six sites where LWW systems have been installed in Guatemala’s coastal region. Two of them were especially impressive. At a fire station in Las Delicias, Colomba in the Quetzaltenango Department, 5 gallon jugs of purified water are sold to the community for 5 quetzals each, considerably less than the Q16 charged by commercial water vendors.  Free water is distributed to local schools and to families in need, while proceeds from water sales have enabled the station to pay staff and make improvements on the fire house. (See photo) This system was sponsored by First Presbyterian Church in Tupelo, MS.

At another site, a church in Retalhuleu called El Shaddai, a purification system installed with help from Fox Valley Presbyterian Church in Geneva, Illinois, has developed an extensive water ministry that mixed entrepreneurship with social outreach, with bottled water provided to feeding centers and schools, and water is sold at a low price to the public.

Given the dire needs in Guatemala for access to clean water, the expanding ministry of Living Waters for the World is good news for many struggling communities.

Back in Guatemala City, our 3 kids attended a 3-day children’s church camp on the outskirts of Guatemala City. They had a ball swimming, learning songs, skits, and games about how Jesus is our “lifeguard.” I got back in time to watch Manuel win a dance contest during the closing ceremony (see photo).

Soon after returning from La Tinta, I joined a 3–day mission team to the Ixil triangle in northern Quiché Department. Guatemala City’s Central Presbyterian Church, the organizer of the trip, invited me to serve as the team pastor. Part of our team held a worship service along the Poyocá River outside Chajul on Saturday morning in Chajul that included twelve baptisms and the Lord’s Supper (see photos). In the afternoon we joined the rest of the team in San Juan Cotzal to help with a pediatric clinic and children’s ministry (see photo). I was asked to pray with patients after they saw the doctor and before they received medications. That evening several of us met with church elders to discuss plans to build a temple and an upcoming visit by a youth group from their partner church in Williamsburg, Virginia.

On Sunday morning at the church in Chajul, I preached again and officiated at a wedding. After the service, we joined the newlyweds, their families, and a host of well-wishers for a wedding procession to the bride’s home for a celebration (see photo). It’s a gift to be invited to the special moments in the lives of God’s people, and it’s a joy to imagine that in some way these simple visits around Guatemala might serve to enlarge Christ’s kingdom. 

Guatemala is trying to come to terms with a gruesome past. The trial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity is moving forward, with gripping testimony from victims of atrocities by Guatemala’s army in the Ixil region during the early 1980’s.

At the same time, Guatemala struggles to deal with a gruesome present. Each day’s newspapers reflect widespread violence, though crime statistics are improving slightly. It might be assumed that narcotrafficking is behind much of the killing, but crimes of passion, assaults, and assassinations by extortion rings seem to be the primary culprits. In any case, Guatemala suffers from deeply-seated culture of violence.

So, how does gun violence in the U.S. compare to Guatemala? First of all, the U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world—an average of 88 per 100 people. Guatemala ranks #49.

Despite its high gun ownership rate, the U.S. doesn’t have the world’s highest firearm murder rate. That award goes to Honduras, Guatemala’s neighbor, with 68.43 shooting fatalities per 100,000 habitants. The U.S. has 2.97 gun-related homicides per 100,000, ranking it #28. Guatemala ranks #5 in the world, with 34.8. In the U.S., 60 % of homicides involve a firearm. In Guatemala, it’s a startling 84%.

According to GunPolicy.org, gun regulation overall in the U.S. is considered “permissive,” compared to Guatemala where it’s considered “restrictive.”

When I first came to Central America as a student in 1981, cigarettes were a dominant part of the culture.  Smoking was commonplace in movie theaters, busses, lines, and most businesses. People were expected to tolerate second-hand smoke virtually everywhere. Today, habits are much different. In Guatemala, a law went into effect in 2009 that bans smoking in workplaces, just like in the U.S.  At the same time, the glamor attached to cigarettes waned. This was achieved through campaigns to encourage quitting, as well as curbs on advertising by cigarette vendors. Sure, there are still smokers in Guatemala, but their numbers seem to have dropped sharply, and they’re much less noticeable.

So, what does this have to do with gun violence?  While gun rights and restrictions are being debated in the U.S., why not also address the glamorization of guns in U.S. culture? The entertainment industry makes large profits from TV shows, films, and video games that attach sex appeal to murder and mayhem. Yet this industry downplays, or even denies, a relationship between their product and the high popularity of guns in society. Hollywood downplays these ties, just like the tobacco industry once downplayed ties between smoking and cancer. Sure, graphic violence is a cash cow for Hollywood, but is it really that much of a sacred cow? Are we in the U.S. so spell-bound by celebrities that we won’t second-guess their industry’s reliance on gratuitous killing to make money?

My hope is for a movement to gain strength across the U.S. to de-glamorize violence, to make non-violence more fashionable, and to improve gun laws so that it’s harder for firearms to end up in the wrong hands.

I think Guatemala, like the rest of Central America, was influenced by the example of the U.S. in its steps to change its culture of smoking. How great it would be if the U.S. also set an example regarding gun deaths by changing its culture of violence.

As for family outings, we’ve kept them simple—swimming near Lake Amatitlan on Tuesday, and hiking in the mountains of Jalapa on Wednesday. (See photos)  

Today, Maundy Thursday, we went to Central Presbyterian Church. Preparations for the Lord’s Supper kept Bacilia and other deacons busy, and I preached at the morning service. Afterwards, we walked to lunch as a long Catholic procession passed by. (See photo) We were amazed by the sight of an unusual alfombra (processional carpet)  on Sixth Avenue. It’s a tradition in Guatemala to carefully fashion these carpets out of colored sawdust and pine needles. They’re often 20-30 feet long. The alfombra we saw today, however, stretches for 12 blocks—over 4,000 feet! The local diocese organized over 1,000 volunteers from the city’s parishes to construct this elaborate alfombra as an invitation to Pope Francis to visit Guatemala. They also hope to be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. (See photo)

On Sunday, I’ll preach at the sunrise service the Bethel Presbyterian Church at 4:30 AM. (Isn’t that too early to qualify as a sunrise service?)  Then it’s off to Central Church for their annual Easter parade and worship. Finally, we’ll drive Kristina and Katalyna to the bus station for their return trip to Cobán.  

My sermon this morning dealt with the slave Malchus, whose ear was sliced off by Peter during the arrest of Jesus. It’s based on Luke 22:47-51 and John 18:10-11. Here’s the essence of the message:

Jesus’ miracle in the Garden of Gethsemane was the last one he performed before his death. This miracle tells us plenty about the kind of Savior he is. It happened when the Roman soldiers and Temple guards came to arrest him. Peter quickly drew his sword to defend Jesus, and he took a swing at one of the Jewish guards. Either the guard had quick reflexes, or Peter didn’t have very good aim, for the guard lost only an ear in the scuffle.

The guard’s name was Malchus, which means “king” in Greek and Arabic. Ironically, this “king” was an enslaved Jew. He was owned by Caiaphas, the High Priest, and whatever animus Malchus felt toward Jesus was likely caused by hours of overhearing Caiaphas badmouth Jesus and his followers. Malchus had no inkling that Jesus came to proclaim release to the captives and to let the oppressed go free.

While everyone else lost their cool, Jesus kept his.  First, he had Peter put up his sword. While Peter was well-meaning and brave, he also was wrong. Jesus didn’t use traditional weapons. At times using physical force might be the lesser of two evils, but it’s still an evil, and Scripture shows a strong preference for non-violence.  And especially in the case of advancing God’s work, the sword has no place.

For Jesus, it wasn’t sufficient to just stop Peter’s sword fight. Amidst the chaos and brutality, Jesus managed to pick up Malchus’ ear from the ground and restore it to its proper place. Even as he was being dragged off to prison and to Calvary, Jesus paused to heal a wound and touch a life. And of all people, he touched Malchus, a slave worth so little in the world’s eyes, an accomplice to Jesus’ arrest.

Why, we might wonder, would Jesus be so concerned about Malchus? Perhaps it’s because if anyone could relate to what it meant to be a suffering servant, Jesus could.  Philippians 2:7 tells us about Jesus, “who, being in very nature God… made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a slave.” Not only did Jesus and Malchus have slavery in common, they also shared something else—the designation of “king.” Indeed, Jesus was mockingly called a king by his tormentors, while Malchus was jokingly called a king by his oppressors. The very next day Jesus would hang on a cross underneath a sign that read in Hebrew, Latin and Greek “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” This means that Jesus was crucified under a sign that included the Malchus’ very name. Perhaps it was meant to be that way, with Malchus somehow representing all of us who are persecuted, hurting and confused, the people for whom Jesus gave his life.

We can’t be sure what happened to Malchus afterwards. Surely he was one of those people who Jesus had in mind when, on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they’ve done.”  Christian tradition has it that he became a believer.  But, as in the case of all miracles, its purpose wasn’t only to change one person’s life, but to give witness to the power of God for all life, the Savior who continues to touch lives, heal wounds, and restore people who get caught up in the ways of our fallen world.