The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 16:13-20 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr
There is a community in Paraguay called Cateura. It sits beside a massive landfill, and for many of the families who live there, the landfill has been part of everyday life. People make a living sorting through what other people have thrown away, looking for things that can be recycled, sold, or somehow used again. Several years ago, a man named Favio Chávez began teaching music to some of the children who lived there. There was just one problem. There were more children who wanted to learn music than there were instruments. And buying instruments wasn't really an option. A violin could be worth more than a family's home. So they began looking around at what they had. And what they had was trash. Oil drums. Pieces of wood. Forks. Pipes. Old cans. Scraps of metal. Things other people had decided were worthless. But a local craftsman named Nicolás Gómez began taking those discarded things and turning them into instruments. An oil can became the body of a cello. Scraps of wo...