Hello, Friends!
On Sunday we celebrated the miraculous breakthrough of Pentecost, when faithful people from many communities were able to speak and hear God's good news, with language and culture barriers no longer a problem. If we see this as an event, recorded in spiritual history, we miss out on its great, potentially vital value for us.
The truth is, God's grace accomplishes daily miracles, constantly creating ground for peace-making, insistently working within human lives to support and sustain new understandings of our common humanity, and our call to treat each other as neighbors.
Two creative enterprises currently underway remind me of some dimensions of this creativity, for which we can give thanks. Some of you know John and I journeyed to Amarillo to see our friend Matt (oh, yeah, and that Ray guy and his little up and coming band "Asleep at the Wheel") in their traveling production, "A Ride with Bob."
Ray Benson and two other writers crafted a play, interspersed with songs, that tells the story of the life of Bob Wills. In the play Bob Wills' ghost appears as a busdriver who tells his own life story, punctuated with his best-known western swing tunes. The show is touching, delightful, thoroughly engaging, and leaves one with "San Antonio Rose" embedded in the consciousness for days.
Benson created the show not only to honor Wills' memory, but to continue his career-long dedication to preserving western swing as an art form, and to draw new generations of fans into the fold. I, for one, never would have imagined myself a fan, but I suppose this is just the deepening of my identity as a naturalized Texan. (I realized the other day that I have now spent exactly as many years in Texas as I did in my native state of Mississippi.)
The "Pentecostal" message in this work is that we can honor tradition, appreciate the wisdom of past generations, and even set about intentionally to craft new ways to give creative expression to time-tested wisdom, so as to communicate with and engage all kinds of new people. In that way we stay connected to our roots, while giving new and fruitful expression to timeless essentials.
On another front, Dave Steakley and Zachary Scott Theater have undertaken an ambitious project, in order to reach a new audience.They are currently staging a bilingual production of "Jesus Christ, Superstar," that features Hispanic actors in all the major roles and includes Spanish-language as well as English lyrics, and Latin- flavored arrangements of the familiar music. Aware that the theater had staged a minimal number of productions drawn from Latino culture (and no Spanish-language plays), Steakley determined it was time to honor the constituency of Austin's actual population, and try to represent that population on the stage and, he hopes, in the audience.
In this case it's not hard to translate the Gospel relevance of this enterprise. The creators of this particular production are literally bringing Jesus Christ into the parlance of a new culture, to reach a new audience, and create new enthusiasm. What I recall about the play that made the deepest impression on me as an adolescent was that it emphasized the complete humanity of all the characters. From Jesus to Judas, everyone portrayed is seen as struggling on some level to "get it right," and along the way Jesus manages to change lives, and open hearts, by his example of honest, grounded,
unselfish wisdom.
Who needs the Good News? Everyone. Who has access to the Holy Spirit? Anyone. In whose language does God speak? In every language of our world, and in wisdom beyond words. How we access and channel this energy, how we honor the old and make room for the new, how we say yes to all of our God-blessed creative, compassionate capabilities--that will determine our "Pentecostal" power, the amazing gift of Grace, intended for all God's people.
I look forward to being Pentecostal with you this Sunday, and all our days to come.
Shalom,
Sarah