Spiritual Lessons I Learned in Honduras

Last updated on: July 6, 2011 at 5:35 pm by Alyce McKenzie

9,139 Comments

Spiritual Lessons I Learned in Honduras 2011-07-06T17:35:38+00:00 Alyce McKenzie

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Loving the Body

I just spent a week at “House of Hope” in Puerto Lempira, Honduras. House of Hope (Casa Esperanza) is a clinic/school/orphanage that meets the needs of the children of the Mosquito Coast of eastern Honduras. It is sponsored by a ministry called Send Hope. Send Hope was founded about 20 years ago by Dr. Tom Brian, a dentist in Allen, Texas. He started out fixing teeth, and gradually the ministry has expanded to include a school, a milk program for malnourished children, and an orphanage for disabled children. I went to Honduras with Dr. Tom, Laurie Hosack, a registered nurse from First United Methodist Church of Allen, and my 22-year-old son Matt McKenzie. We spent the week painting children’s rooms, playing with them and holding them.

It was hot. It was sometimes buggy. We Texas folks who are used to living in our air-conditioned ice box houses and offices had to sweat and sweat some more. We ate beans and rice and plantains. The electricity went out several times, always at night. To people used to a level of comfort and convenience, values around which life in suburban North Dallas is built, the week involved a level of physical discomfort. I worked hard not to get fried by the sun or bitten by mosquitoes. I was glad for the Spanish I had learned and determined to know more by the time I returned.

I spent a lot of time holding young children that week. That’s one of the most important roles of volunteers who go to the House of Hope. As I sat in the heat holding one, then two, sometimes three young children at one time, I couldn’t help but think of Paul’s beautiful image for the Church as the Body of Christ. For one thing, La Mosquitia is cut off from the rest of Honduras, with no roads and few natural resources. The rest of the country seems to say to it: you are a part of the body we don’t really need. For another thing, I was aware of a level of discomfort in my own physical being and of the level of the need for affection of the children clambering onto my lap. I felt love for these children and felt surrounded by their need for love.

Says Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” He continues, “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”(1 Cor 12:27)

What made Paul think of this body metaphor for the divided church at Corinth? Paul had a splinter or a thorn in his flesh, a persistent affliction that had not let up for 14 years. He doesn’t specify what it is when he talks about it in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. Scholars have varied theories: migraines, a struggle with depression, pain caused to him by his opponents’ criticism, or a persistent weakness of his eyesight (See Galatians 4:12-15). Whatever the thorn was, maybe he woke up one morning and it hurt worse than usual. And maybe on top of that, his eyes were bleary and his joints ached. And he said to himself, “When one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers. “ “Why don’t the Corinthians feel that?” Paul must have asked himself. “They’re a body!” What made Paul think of this body metaphor for the divided church at Corinth? Maybe later that day he decided to escape the heat and crowds of Corinth and went and sat by the pool at the shrine to Asklepios. Asklepios was the god of healing and there was a shrine in his honor in Corinth. If you had an infirmity, you presented him with an offering of honey cakes, and then slept overnight in the shrine. The god would appear to you in a dream and heal the affected body part. Then you would have a terra cotta model of it made and place it on display at the shrine next to the bathing pool. (Williams, 89) Maybe, as he sat by the pool at Asklepios’ shrine, Paul contemplated the body parts on the wall, replicas of all kinds of body parts supposedly healed by the god: heads, hands, feet, arms, legs, eyes, and ears as well as other body parts not normally displayed this openly. And maybe he thought, “What life do any of the members have unless they are joined together in a living body? Why doesn’t the Corinthian Church get that? They’re isolating themselves from one another, which will surely lead to spiritual death.”

Whatever made Paul think of it, the body is the perfect metaphor for baptismal unity! It’s perfect because in the body no member can say it is more important than any other. We are all imperfect members, but we all belong to Christ. And we are all in the process of becoming more like Christ as we go out into the world in his name. “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” (1 Cor 1:18; 15:1,2) Becoming more like Christ (being saved) is a process in which we gradually come to feel the sufferings and joys of others as keenly as we do our own. As Paul says, “When one member suffers all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” (1 Cor 12:26) The restoration of health to one part of the body is felt throughout the body. 1.

As I sat with children in my lap, melded together by our sweat, I remembered that we are all being held by God. I remembered that, when God’s Son came to earth, one of his favorite things to do was embrace the children who came to him for a blessing. I pray for the work of Dr. Tom Brian and Send Hope at Casa Esperanza in Puerto Lempira, Honduras. I give thanks for the ways it ministers to children’s bodies, minds and spirits. Having the privilege of holding, comforting and playing with the children there reminded me that, as Paul knew long ago, “We are the Body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Alyce McKenzie is a Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology and blogs at her Patheos Expert Site.

Works Cited:

David J. Williams, Paul’s Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999). Anthony C. Thistleton, 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical and Pastoral Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006).

Uncategorized

Previous Post

July 5, 2011

A Conservative at the Wild Goose: Part 2

Next Post

July 7, 2011 Wild Goose, Ecumenicity, and the Future of the Christian Church

Recent Comments

9,139 Comments | Leave a Comment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Author Interviews Battle Over the Body and Blood of Christ Bearing Beauty Book Reviews Christian Education christian spirituallity christianity Christmas Church Church Leadership Contemplation Creation Care Death and Dying Death Penalty Disruptive Change Disruptors Series Easter Education Evolution and Faith Future of Progressive Christianity Gun Violence Health & Wellness Holy Week Interfaith Israel-Palestine Leading Differently Lent LGBTQ Living with Cancer Meditations on the Cross Mental Illness millennials Mimetic Mondays Monday Meditations Movie Reviews New Monasticism Pando Populus Parenting Patheos 10+1 Q&A Series PC(USA) Politics Pop Culture Practical Theology Series Prayer progressive christian Race Relations Reformation religion Religion and Politics Religion in America Rethink Church Social Justice Spirituality Spirituality of the Body Stump a Scholar Technology and Faith Thanksgiving Theodicy Trust Me Church Uncategorized Why I'm Still Christian Youth Ministry

Select a Month December 2025 April 2025 January 2025 September 2023 September 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 November 2021 October 2021 May 2021 February 2021 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 June 2019 March 2019 January 2019 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who led the Israelites into the Promised Land?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Caleb Joshua Aaron Moses