Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – Gathering Manna in the City: Ministry in Lima, Peru

By Brian Langley
October 2008

The fear he expressed that night and the circumstances surrounding how we heard need to define the presence and work of the Church in this world. Underneath the violence in our hearts and the ways we abuse others is a fundamental desire to belong and have purpose. We all need real people to speak of God’s loving embrace to us and then to actually have someone put their arms around us as a very real sign of that love.

Sadly, much too often church congregations practice a judgmental way of life that doesn’t intentionally embrace people who live on the margins.

Sadly, much too often church congregations, which are called to be the Body of Christ in the world, practice an exclusive and judgmental way of life that doesn’t intentionally embrace those people who live on the margins of society. When Jesus says, “Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that lasts for eternal life” (John 6:27), what is at stake theologically, eternally, is our ability to recognize God among us. Like the ancient story of manna from Exodus 16, we are given bread from heaven to gather and eat, but we fail to recognize and appreciate it. We grumble and long for what had nourished us before. Can we see the bread we are given, which is God’s presence among us in the poor?

Choosing to See God
While riding in a bus through the crowded Lima traffic, I often pass a certain corner church building that never lacks for that freshly painted look. It catches my eye every time, because all the other buildings in the surrounding blocks are full of graffiti, caked-on black sludge, and stick-up posters for concerts that happened three years ago.

On this wall, every few meters is the message, “Don’t stick papers here, respect God’s house.” The message appears to be working. Maybe it’s because people are afraid that something bad might happen to them if they “mess” with God’s property. Maybe it is the latent, shared desire to respect the sacred that the message awakens. The country of Peru, while being more than three-fourths professing Catholic with one official language, is by no means homogenous.

There is actually a great variety of religious expression, as evidenced by the multiple and diverse regions and hundreds of spoken languages in addition to the official Spanish. And yet, regardless of creed, language, or region, the majority of Peruvians maintain a marked theological and practical separation between sacred and profane, not unlike most places in the world throughout human history. Religious systems have always purported to communicate the divine rules and norms that govern a good society, and so we have the message painted on this Peruvian church warning us not to mess with God’s house (one might wonder if we could inquire inside as to the divine punishment for transgressors).

Almost daily at this same street corner stands a man with an old cardboard sign. On it he has written in simple letters, “Hunger.” The walls of the church building within a stone’s throw of this man remain pristine, and everyone notices how nice it looks. In passing, they say a prayer of thanks that people finally respect God and all that which is sacred. Many would call it scandalous if someone were to paint and thus mar the wall of God’s house.

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Brian Langley has lived with his wife and two daughters in Lima, Peru, since 2000, working among street populations.