On this Sunday, I did two parts of the worship service which I had not done before at Orange UMC: the prayer over the offering and the benediction. At the 8:00 a.m. service, the prayer over the offering went better than at 11:00 a.m., in which I mixed up my word order and had to correct myself when what came out of my mouth wasn’t what I had intended to pray. (That was unusual, usually I feel like I mess up more at 8:00 than at 11:00, when I’m leading my third service and the adrenaline is fully flowing!)
The benediction is the final blessing by the pastor over the congregation at the very end of the service. (In Spanish, bendición means blessing.) I didn’t want to copy the senior pastor’s benediction and yet I didn’t know what to say. My lay leader told me that I was welcome to do it in Spanish and use the one I used to give Unidos por Cristo UMC. So, I did, with a brief explanation that it would be in Spanish. My husband attended the 9:00 a.m. service and suggested I add the English translation after saying it in Spanish and make it a bilingual bendición. That is what I did at the end of the 11:00 service and I received lots of positive feedback afterwards. Folks like to remember that we are part of the body of Christ that is much larger than just us, here in our spot on Hwy 86. The people like to be reminded that our brothers and sisters across the globe worship the same Christ in other languages. I was happy to do the reminding, because for me it was an instant of uniting my two worlds, the English one and the Spanish one, in church. It was a glimpse at this vision from Revelation:
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” Revelation 7:9-10
I may have just found my benediction for Orange UMC:
El Señor te bendiga y te guarde,
El Señor haga resplandecer su rostro sobre ti y tenga de ti misericordia,
El Señor alce sobre ti su rostro
y ponga en ti paz.
The Lord bless you and keep you,
The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be merciful to you,
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
and give you peace.
Amen.
