Preaching precariously: Seeing Jesus in the storms of life

Written by Gary Shogren, PhD, Rector for Evangelical Seminary for Pastoral Education (ESEPA), Costa Rica


In the province of San José, half of the residents live in shantytowns known as precarios (pray-CAR-yos), or literally a "precarious place to live.” Domestic abuse, alcoholism and drug use are rampant, as is hopelessness among teenagers and a high dropout rate from school. One shantytown, Los Guidos, is about 10 miles from ESEPA and has about 50,000 inhabitants. I had been invited to preach at a house church there by a former ESEPA student. The church is led by three ESEPA graduates who started it as a side ministry to their regular church.

We went in over a road that needed four-wheel drive and arrived in the "nice" part of the city – it boasts streetlights, mom-and-pop grocery stores, and of course, plenty of bars. The church preaches a strong gospel message and also pushes the kids to stay in school. It is making plans to give vocational training to the members: as is typical, dressmaking and basic computer skills. Church is an "event" – we arrived at the home at about 8 pm, and people came out to meet us – hopping over the open drainage ditch in the street. The church has 25 adults and 25 kids. The house is small but nice by precario standards: cinderblock construction, tin roof, a kitchen with running water, a living room and a bedroom. Extended families tend to cluster together for survival, and there are 16 adults and children living in two smallish rooms – everyone is a niece, brother-in-law or cousin of someone else, plus there are others from the neighborhood.

Citing Mark 6, I talked about Jesus walking on water. With a bathrobe on and a towel over my head, we acted out what it would have looked like to see Jesus approaching them in the pitch black and how Mark says the disciples were terrified, thinking it was a ghost. We discussed how Jesus scares us sometimes because life is already stacked against us, it's so complicated just to survive in the “storms” of life, and suddenly, here's Jesus with apparently one more scary thing to pile on. But He's not here to scare us but to tell us to be brave, to calm the storms and to take us where he wants us to go.

It's all too easy for someone like me to feel smug for having parachuted into a place of poverty, done my part and gone home to a nice house. But it's vitally important to remember that when Jesus started his ministry, he read Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” By this, he signaled that the true Gospel, the one that saves our souls, is inextricably wrapped up in helping in places of the greatest need.

Scripture reading: Luke 4:14-30
Prayer: Lighten our darkness, O Lord, that our fears may dissolve when we recognize your face through the storms of life. Amen.