Dear Friends in Christ!   

Thanks to those of you who helped me with my Spanish spelling (or "misspelling" of "Cinco" in my E-News article of May 11th). I now know and appreciate the spelling of cinco. As always there's a learning here. In an attempt to appropriate part of a culture not my own, I took the short and easy way and failed to learn as much as I could about that culture before using part of it. Hopefully, the word I used cinquo isn't something offensive in Spanish, if in fact it exists at all.

In the church as we try to be faithful to our responsibility to reach as many people as we can as quickly and authentically as we can with the life-saving message of the gospel, we are likewise compelled to apply as much industry and integrity to the process as we can. No one expects me to become Spanish. However, I have a responsibility to be sensitive to the nuances of any culture I try to cross over into.

The model, of course, is Jesus. He didn't just brush past humanity and seem to be a part of who we are. He became one of us, tempted as we are, fully human and fully able to experience our hurt and hope and pain and joy. St. Luke talks about the time that he "went in and out among us." We was with us, not in a casual way, but with us, to the flesh and blood. And so was able to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

While we can't become for others as Christ did, we can be what Christ makes us in that culture and among that people. Giving up ourselves and putting on Christ is the key. As we prepare for the festival of Pentecost when we celebrate the gift of the Spirit from Jesus to us - let this be our joy, we are clothed with power from on high, and are sent to be his witnesses to all peoples and nations.