A fire in my belly......

For Jeremiah, it was a fire in his belly...or bones depending on the translation.  Either way, it was way down inside of him.  The Word of God was more than story, more than white noise in his life, it was a fire and it was burning him up.  Called to be a prophet as a boy, Jeremiah was given a Word from God and it was his job to share that word with the people of Israel. It got him into all kinds of trouble with lots of powerful people.  His friends and neighbors plotted against him.  No one wanted to hear Jeremiah's Word from God.  Yet he had no choice, it was a fire in his belly and as much as he tried, he could not keep it in.

Now that's a Word!

God has planted a Word deep within you as well.  It is the Word which is transforming your life.  It is the Word that turns your face towards God again and again and the same Word which sends you out as a servant of God.  It is the Word which helps you see this world through the eyes of a loving Creator.  It is the Word which is also your vocation - your calling - your way of being in the world.

Am I talking about a literal word?  Like 'love' or 'compassion' or 'serving'?  Or is the Word more of the assurance of God's presence and my calling to live as a child of God?  Yes.  Both of these.

God calls us to live in deep relationship with the Creator; Jesus shows us how to do this (and in some very tight and difficult situations); the Spirit swirls around us with energy and life and power.  Add all that up and it equals the Word of God planted deep within you, calling you into the world.

But there is also a word that can describe how God calls you into the world, your way of being God's love in the world with friends, neighbors, and strangers.  I think it is worth the time to consider what that word might be.

Some are called to compassion (even when they don't want to feel compassion, don't want to see the other a sinner just like them).  Some are called to sacrificial giving, using the wealth they have (maybe large, maybe not) to bring about the light of life in Christ in lots of ways in lots of places.  Some are called to organize, making the ministry of others more efficient and effective.  Some are called to feed and are always 'putting some together' for the sake of the hungry or lost.

A Word from God, a Word of God, a word for you. The Word, our Lord Jesus.  The Word, the Bible.  A word for you?  What could that be?

Lord, keep us steadfast in your word;

curb those who by deceit or sword

would wrest the kingdom from your Son

and bring to naught all he has done.

(Martin Luther, ELW #517)

The miracle of feeding

"There's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle.  It speaks to a bigger desire.  The feeding of the five thousand....the miracle wasn't that Jesus multiplied the loaves.  It's that the disciples took the bread and did what they were told, got up and started feeding, and something happened." *

What is that bigger desire that is addressed in bread and fish?  Could it be a desire to be connected to one another?  Could it be the recognition of our shared humanity in the sharing of food?  Does the passing of the bread invite us to open up to one another, to give the other a second glance?

In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth he writes, "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves."  (11.29)  Many denominations have used this passage to insist on examining all who step up to the Lord's table, and therefore, refusing the bread and wine to any who are unable to pass the examination.  What is this bread?  The body of Christ.  What is this wine?  The blood of Christ.

I believe Paul was speaking of an entirely different body.  I believe Paul is speaking about the body of Christ formed by the sharing of the meal; the body of Christ which is formed by those who gather at this time and in this place to become once again a part of the great mystery of God's love for us in Jesus.

Paul warns us not to step up to the Lord's table while rejecting another who the Lord has invited.  When you look across the table to those who are gathered for the meal, you need to be able to see the body of Christ and every single person gathered there as a part of that body.  You don't get to choose who is worthy and who is not.  If you cannot look with love on all the others, then step back and save yourself.  Come back when you are ready to open yourself to those whom God loved before time and who through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus are offered new life.

But is the communion table the only table of the Lord?  Are not all our tables filled with the bounty that comes from God's hand?  Are we ever to step up to a table and not see Christ's body poured out for all humankind?  Are we to take of any bread while judging others unworthy?

Those canned peas you brought to the food drive.....they too are the body and blood of Jesus, a love poured out for all whom God created.  Are you able to see it now?  The body of Christ, formed and re-formed again and again in diner and dining room and rescue mission.  The body of Christ feeding our deepest, biggest desires.


*thanks once again to Sara Miles for her book "take this bread".  The quote comes from page 175.

What is Christianity about?

"So much of Christianity seemed to be about claiming sides, about making distinctions, about finding a set of beliefs to cling to that excluded other people or made them scapegoats for all the evil in the world."*

What is Christianity about?

Christ?  The one who was crucified for claiming that God directed his path, a path of forgiveness?

Love?  Even when it means inviting 'those people' to dinner and accepting them as friends?

Forgiveness?  Although accepting forgiveness requires that we have something that needs forgiving.

Compassion?  All the time?  For everyone?

Being faithful?  Keeping our eyes on God knowing we will stumble, fall, fail, and generally mess it up on a regular basis?  Knowing we will be walking in the dark most days trusting in God?

Worship?  Is worship a once a week occurrence or a lifestyle?

Generosity?  How much is 'generous'?  Are we talking time, talent or money?

Or, is it a set of rules that make us feel good and clearly identify who 'those people' are?

I know that faith in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, is a challenge on good days and nigh impossible on the bad days.  I know that the assurance of God's love, the very idea that I am called 'God's beloved' is powerful every day.  I know that without the witness of others, the communion meal and the richness of God's word, I would be shallow, lost and generally insufferable.

What are you thinking here?  Has it gotten easier or harder to live the life of faith? What story could you tell?


A quote from Sara Miles' book, "take this bread", page 161

The body of Christ...........

"I still can't explain my first communion.  It made no sense.  I was in tears and physically unbalanced: I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind.  The disconnect between what I thought was happening - I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else say was happening - the piece of bread was the 'body' of  'Christ,' ....and what I knew was happening - God, named 'Christ' or 'Jesus' was real, and in my mouth - utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything but cry."  

"And so I kept taking communion, unprepared and unreformed.  I figured communion would take me, too - wherever I was going." 

Yes.  That's it.  God's holy supper will take you - your life - wherever you are going.
Where is God taking you?

Thank you Sara Miles for sharing this wonderful description of your experience of  Christ in the meal.  How powerful it is to be invited into that place, around that table,  with Christ as host week after week after week. Quotes are from Sara Miles' book, "take this bread", pages 59 and 83.

In the breaking of the bread......

"I broke the bread, big chunks from Tom's round wheat loaf, and put a piece in the hand of the person standing in front of me, and looked at her.  Something happened......again."

There is power in the words "in the breaking of the bread," power beyond the simple meaning of the words.  Two travelers heading to Emmaus discovered that their dinner guest was the risen Lord Jesus himself in the 'breaking of the bread.'  Three of our younger members who come for bread lift their hands reverently, and even if only for 15 seconds they are centered, focused, ready to take and eat the bread that is broken for them.  Our older members who cannot come to worship with the fellowship will say, 'Be sure to bring communion when you visit."

There is power in the breaking of the bread because Christ is present. On the night in which he was betrayed (how often have we entered into those words and that story?) Jesus broke bread with his disciples - all 12.  Judas, the one we love to hate.  Peter, the one we love to redeem by overlooking his denial of Christ.  Some of the disciples fade away from the historic record, they become the anonymous ones sort of like you and me.  Together they broke bread.  Together....with Christ and with one another.

Thus they modeled the Christian life.  We do it together.  We do it with betrayers and deniers and behind-the-scenes workers.  We do it with strangers and disreputable folk.  We do it with enemies.  We live the Christian life in the midst of the life we know, yet breaking bread with all who come to the table.

When I traveled to Africa, I learned about a code of hospitality which welcomed, fed, and protected the guest.  Those with little shared their little with me.....and here's the real insight.....they rejoiced that they were able to give and to share.  We ate at the same table; we shared the same food.  We became family for that moment.

Just like the communion bread we share, we don't receive it because we are good or special.  We receive because Christ poured out himself into this meal of solidarity where all the hungry are fed.  The bread on the table of the Lord is meant to be shared with everyone.  It is not a private meal.  Jesus didn't choose only the holy, the deserving, the morally upright to invite to the table; he invited and ate with all.  He invited me.  He invited you.

Luther said, "We are beggars, all."  We are all hungry in a thousand different ways.  Jesus feeds all.  Jesus feeds all.

Thanks be to God.

How brave you are........

It takes courage to live in faith, in the spaces between knowing and knowing, in a world where critique is a national hobby and skepticism our regular pastime.

It takes courage to listen to that voice which comes to you claiming a greater power, a power that is life and love ..... when the constant messages of this world and the suspicions of our neighbors make us wonder if we aren't a little bit crazy.

It takes courage to allow that which is greater than we, God/Christ/Spirit, to be that which is greater than we.  It requires that we live in places of total unknown, allow the person of Jesus to actually shape our lives, and trust in the path of love and forgiveness.  It requires stamina and courage.  It all points to "a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompan[ies] people in the most ordinary of actions - eating, drinking , walking  - and stays with them, through fear, even past death."

All those stories about Jesus eating with his neighbors, friends, and enemies; those stories about Jesus healing strangers and teaching the most obstinate show us that the Jesus kind of love locates holiness in the human body.....and in human bodies....and the promise that people "could see God by cherishing all those different bodies the way God did."  Pouring yourself out for others, "emptying yourself to feed and live for others"  speaks of a communion deeper, richer, wider, stronger than even the precious meal Christ brings to us in each communion celebration.  It means a communion of all.

That is what the voice of God has been saying to us all these years.....don't just come to the table yourself, take the table to all who hunger and thirst.  It will look a little crazy to those who find themselves eating at God's table; some days it will look impossible to you.  That's where the courage comes in.....to live in love for the sake of the world.  That is where the strength of the faith fellowship sustains and emboldens each of us.

Go with God.  God goes with you.


*the inspiration and quotes for today's blog come from a spectacular book, 'take this bread' by Sara Miles, pg. 93.  Order a copy today, it's the best reading I've done in months and I'll want to share its insight with others.

God will bring you home............

"I will not leave you orphaned."  One of the most powerful words of reassurance Jesus spoke to his disciples in a long passage of reassurance.  They would need to remember these words because in a few days they would watch him die and believe that Jesus had done that very thing: left them orphaned.

But no, he says.  "I go to prepare a place for you........."  A place....for you!  You - the individual, and You - the whole people of God.  You are an individual before the face of God, named and claimed and through baptism made a part of God's great plan for YOU.  But this isn't a 'pick and choose, maybe you make it and maybe you don't' proposition.  The corporate YOU tells you that Jesus is about all humankind, the whole of creation, everyone.

We are out there, wandering around, wondering how to make it in this world and hoping, praying that the promises of God in Jesus are real.  We are out there, contending with the mundane and the evil, the furious and the compassionate, things major and things that numb the mind.  We are out there reminding ourselves that God's light is brighter than any darkness.  We remind ourselves that because we are loved by God in our most miserable and nasty selves, who are we to claim someone else cannot be loved by God? We are out there, clinging to the cross of Jesus, reminding ourselves that through that horrific suffering Jesus proved himself willing to go the distance to do one thing..........to bring us home.

Darkness descends on every life.  For some the darkness is deep and long.  For these our brothers and sisters whose lives are a constant challenge, we pray earnestly and support as we can.  In our own times of darkness we seek out other believers, to hear them tell their stories of a dawning light.  We seek out the psalms that carry exactly the right words to approach God with our pain and fear.

In all things, we remind ourselves and one another.....God will bring you home.  Amen