Hungering and thirsting......

There is a popular song playing on the radio right now with this line of lyrics "I didn't know that I was starving 'till I tasted you."*  This song might go places that I don't want to highlight, but this line is a powerful image of that deep longing that rests in our secret places.....that we cannot even put a name to.....until it finally finds its satisfaction. 

In the Old Testament, it is the psalmist who shares these same sentiments.

O God, you are my God, I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.  Ps 63.1

In the Sermon on the Mount, (Mt. 5.6) Jesus teaches "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

Augustine of Hippo, a theologian of the early church, wrote "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  (Confessions)

Throughout the ages, writers and poets have searched for the perfect  combination of words which describe the wholeness accomplished when one finds God ....and thus finds oneself.  Like water to a thirsty soul; food for the starving; a place of perfect rest.

*lyrics by Hailee Steinfeld and Grey

A Maundy Thursday reflection

Who is it that is working under the table tonight?

Kneeling in the dust, breathing in the stink of sweaty unwashed feet?

Doing the work that no one else would voluntarily stoop to do?  The work of the lowliest of slaves?

It certainly is not someone in middle management, a person with degrees and diplomas.  It is not someone looking for creative and fulfilling work.  It is not someone with investment accounts and IRAs.

No it is that class of workers who lack papers and fear a knock on the door from the INS.  It is those workers who are paid in cash and often fail to receive what has been promised, who have no protection from the law.   It’s the sex workers we distain and the garbage workers we are sure to stay upwind of.

Not just those who work off the grid, it is also those who clean our offices at night and work in the freezing cold and boiling summer sun.  It’s those car wash kids who forget to dry off that last window or the pizza delivery guy who has someone else’s order.  It’s those workers who know how to say, “Would you like fries with that?”

These are the folks who are out of sight and therefore out of mind, at least until something is late or wrong or lost.  They are the invisible ones, flipping burgers, mowing our lawns and washing the feet of the elderly at our nursing homes, and washing us in the hospitals.  They are the laundry workers and migrant farm workers.  These are the ones we don’t want our children to marry or our grandchildren to grow up to be.

We have worked hard to get where we are and we don’t want to put aside our honors, accomplishments, pride and comfort.  We don’t want to put aside our fancy robes like Jesus set aside his outer garment and  stoop under the table with Jesus to help him wash the feet of those who called him Rabbi and Lord….the ones who would abandon, deny and betray him.  It was all well and good for Mary to anoint Jesus’ feet – it was her place, her job.  But not us.

Yet Jesus says, “If I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet….I have come not to be served but to serve….If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.”

So at the center of our confession is this:  we don’t want to leave the table to wash the unwashed, to serve the outcasts, to bring comfort to the unmentionables.  We not only don’t want to do this work, we don’t want to be reminded that this work needs to be done.

Jesus breaks the bread at the table and tells his disciples, “This is my body given for you”   He wasn’t talking just about the cross.  He gave his body first under the table with the invisible ones, doing the dirtiest of the work. 

Those who join him at the table are called to join him under the table as well.

In all the wrong places

Remember that old song Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places? 

We [having deluded ourselves] think love will come with casual, intimate relationships.  We think love will come just by saying 'I do.' 

We think love will come....without us giving love; without us giving ourselves.

It never works out that way.
Those are the big lies of the post-modern age.

"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another."
 Give it away; it will come back fourfold.

Sabbath

Too often we focus on what we must give up when, in fact, Sabbath is about what you will gain when you embrace the gift.  God isn't trying to sell us something; God is trying to gift us with something: quiet, peace, reflection, renewal and possibly even joy. 

Start small (the time during that first cup of coffee in the morning) but be intentional; open yourself to the voice of the Divine.  Listen for God.  Soak up God's eternal love.  Even as your coffee wakes you up, this time with God will fill you up.

Shalom Shabbat.