El Santo Niño Comes to Church

Sermon Text for Oct. 22: Deuteronomy 26:1-11

Juan Medina hurt all over. The muscles in his shoulders and back screamed out in protest as he eased himself down onto the bed. And his hands, hardened from years of working in the fields were like claws, bent so that the handle of a hoe would fit nicely in the groove between palm and fingers.

He closed his eyes and reviewed the days work in the fields, the irrigating, hoeing, stringing new fence line, and he felt proud because his sons had had worked with him all day long without complaining. They were becoming men. But Juan was even more nervous than he was proud. He was always nervous this time of year, just before harvest, so many things could go wrong. He ran a few head of beef and grew corn and alfalfa in addition to helping his wife in the kitchen garden. If they were lucky the kitchen garden would provide his family with enough food to last through the winter.

Still Juan worried, what if the harvest was not good this year? What if despite all of their efforts, the crop was not sufficient? Or the price of beef went down. Everything depended on producing enough to feed his family and then to sell some for cash money.

He knew that he had done all that he could do. His aching body was a testimony to his hard work. But he was at the mercy of things that he could not control: the weather, animals (both the four legged and the six legged kind.) Late that night Juan rolled out of bed and walked barefoot across the floor. He had to see if his children had done it this evening. He had been too tired to participate in the ritual, and now he had to see if the children had been faithful. He looked at the mantle over the fireplace and there was El Santo Niño standing in his place as if he were keeping watch over the family. And on the floor directly below where El Santo Nino stood were the children’s shoes. This night El Nino would select a pair of shoes and would walk through the fields, just as he had always done. He would keep watch in the fields, bless the work that the family had done this day, and he would join them in their labor to complete the day’s work.

Juan was moved to a feeling of deep gratitude. He and his family were in a partnership with El Nino. Together they would create the miracle of new life in the fields. And because of El Niño’s help the Medina family would have food for the coming winter. He picked the statue off of the mantle and held it close to his chest. The gratitude Juan felt at that moment was indescribable. The miracle was happening. El Nino would do for Juan’s family what they could not do for themselves.

“El Santo Niño” means “The Holy Child” in Spanish. Usually I think that the phrase refers to the baby Jesus lying in the manger. But in the story of El Santo Niño we see Jesus as a young man or older boy. He always wears a hat to protect him from the sun, and carries a staff to help him walk through the fields. Agrarian Roman Catholics in the Americas believe that El Santo Nino borrows the children’s shoes to walk through the fields at night, creating the miracle of life, finishing the work that the family put in during the day.

As Protestant, urban, twenty first century Christians we could dismiss the story as being simply charming. Or maybe as a myth of a simple, unsophisticated people. But if we listen to the story, we will hear a living prayer of a faithful people. For weeks now we have been talking about making “a miracle together” or making “a miracle happen together”. The story of El Santo Niño is a prayer of a people who believe that miracles happen when we partner with God, and allow God to take us beyond where we can go by ourselves. Maybe for us the image is of The Child completing our efforts when we are tired. Or through our investment of love and money, extending our love to people in far away lands while we sleep. When we partner together with God, miracles happen.

The writer of the Book of Deuteronomy understands the power of divine human partnership for making miracles happen. Our lesson from Deuteronomy is the story of the divine human partnership which when repeated helps the believer feel a part of the story. The ancient story begins with instructions about what the believer is supposed to say when he brings an offering to God. “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, … you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you and you shall place it in a basket.”

Everything the believer has is a gift from God – the land, the harvest, everything. Since it has all come from God the commandment is for a gift of the first fruits of the harvest. The “first fruits” is the first ten percent of the harvest. God requires a gift of the first ten percent of the proceeds generated by the partnership. We get to keep ninety percent and God gets ten percent.

The story says, “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor: he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien few in number, and there he became a great nation.” He tells of the suffering in Egypt and how God saved them with power and miracles. And then he says, “And now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you O Lord have given me.” After reciting the story the believer presents his offering and bows to the Lord.

The farmer knows that he is the one who put in the back breaking work to ensure the harvest but he is also clear that without God’s participation, he would have nothing. When he tells the story it is his way of locating himself in the story of Salvation. “All of these things happened Lord and you saved us by your power and now here am I standing in line with Abraham and Sarah, with Moses and Joshua, and Miriam. You were in partnership with them and I with you. I offer my gift as a way of affirming my place in this great community of faith.”

I want you to leave this worship service today pondering two thoughts. The first is that by faith we participate in making a miracle happen. The miracle does not happen only because of our efforts, but because when we work faithfully, El Santo Niño, The Holy Son of God, joins us in our labors and completes our work.

The second idea is that when we give to the church it is different than giving to any other organization. When we give for the work of the Kingdom the biblical story is our story as well and we stand before God with Abraham and Moses, Sarah and Miriam, Peter, James, and John. And we declare to God, “I know your work in creation and in salvation, and by my gift I am standing with you in all that you do.”

Copyright © 2006 by Dwight R. Blackstock