Wrestling with the cross.....again

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."  Luke 14.27

Mention a cross and Christians think Good Friday with its unbearable image of a suffering, dying Jesus nailed to a cross, arms outstretched, chest bared to the world, stripped of everything.  But it is not his naked form which causes us to avert our eyes, but his powerless vulnerability and the wrenching violence of the scene.  For people of faith, the Good Friday cross is deep mystery, other worldly power, and - somehow - a promise.  When Jesus speaks of us carrying the cross, it is also frightening.

Our fear is not grounded in our death; our fear is grounded in the possibility that this cross is calling us to a particular manner of living.  We fear that we are called to live with arms outstretched, vulnerable, and powerless: stripped of the masks behind which we hide, the defenses we have built to protect ourselves,  and all of our resources including bank accounts and storage units.  Our fear is that faith in the Jesus who was crucified in some manner demands that we, like him, are emptied of power and solely dependent on the Creator God.  I think it does.

"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Yet, it will not be soldiers who nail us to our modern cross of faith but love: that deep love of God which we have come to know through Jesus.  It will be the love that has transformed us by crushing our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh.  It will be the love of Jesus which has opened our eyes to our neighbors - no longer categories and labels and judgments - but wounded and gifted children of the Creator God.  It will be the love that builds relationships based not on family connections but on forgiveness and reconciliation which will bind us to this path.

It is this love which draws us to follow Jesus and calls us to carry our imperfect version of this life giving love with us - wherever we go, whomever we meet, and whatever the consequences.  As it flowed from Jesus to us, it now flows from us into the world.  We cannot put it down because we have discovered that the life we live inside this love is our most valuable possession. 

If we look closely, this cross of life-giving love for every corner of creation is the same cross Jesus carried, loving the haughty and the low, healing the broken, inviting the outcast.  His cross is our cross.

So now I must confess that my fear is real; I am afraid to do it; I am afraid that I cannot.  I struggle to release old patterns of behavior, old prejudices, and all the privileges I enjoy.  Luther was right when he wrote, "I cannot by my own strength or understanding come to faith in our Lord Jesus".  I fear what I will lose, most especially I fear that in the end, I will lose my grasp of this precious gift of grace which is Jesus.

So Jesus sits down at the table and holds up a loaf of bread and says to us, 'Whenever you gather together with bread, remember!  Remember!'  Breaking it he reminds us 'This is my body, broken for you.  Every time you raise a cup together, remember!  This is my blood poured out - in love - for you.  Wherever you go, I am there.  Remember!' 

Fed and nourished, we walk the way of cross together, you and me and Jesus, out of love, and for the sake of the world. 

When truth is not truth

We live in a time when government leaders tell us not to believe what we read and hear.  We live in a time when 'alternate facts' is somehow a 'thing,' and 'truth is not truth'.  (a quote from attorney Rudy Guliani on national TV).

So we won't find it hard to stand with the crowd around Jesus who is claiming that to eat his flesh and drink his blood will grant them eternal life.  We've heard some outrageous claims in recent history; this is a 1st century whopper.  Yet, Jesus is dead serious as we wind our way through the 6th chapter of John.  "the one who eats this bread will live forever" and "the bread that I give to the world to eat is my flesh".

I don't want to water down this promise of  'eternal life' with some fanciful picture of people with wings living in the clouds.  Our picture of 'heaven' makes for good comics but very poor theology.  I don't want to water this down to 'grandpa is looking down on us' wishful thinking which eases our grief but doesn't provide any vision for living today.

I want us to believe that because Jesus lives, we live too.

.....that, our life, when hidden in the life of Jesus, is likewise hidden in the Divine Creator for all time.

.....that eternal life is not an endless stretching out of days and months and years; it is not a endless succession of seasons but rather it is all time and no time, it is before time and after time, it is eternally now, beginning today.

.....that to abide in Jesus is to enter into the deep mystery of God where our earthly powers of reason and understanding are not useful.

There is nothing out there in the world which will explain this to you.  In fact, I think it is the stuff that is out there in the world that drives us to seek God, to listen for an answer beyond the talking heads and loud politicians.  Hope that is linked to the economy or our personal work ethic or politicians or doctors or even (in this age of rampant sexual abuse) in clergy is hope which will disappoint and betray.  Only hope in a living Lord Jesus will prove faithful beyond this temporary world.

Come to the table to eat and drink.  Come to meet the living Lord.

This bread and wine can be a source of strength and hope or it can be a stumbling block because in this meal we come face to face with Jesus..........

the Jesus who is either strength and hope ..........or a snake oil salesman.

the Jesus who is either full life, all life, with no qualifiers......or he is nothing.

Here there is no compromise.  There is only covenant; relationship; intimacy and trust.

Eat and drink trusting that the living Lord will now become the center of your being, the north star of your life, the one who will hold you and never let go.

"I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith."

I am in the midst of preparing for a funeral for one of our oldest members.  We will be listening to this passage from Paul's second letter to his disciple Timothy who was a pastor to community of faith.  Paul was in prison and the only way he was leaving was to travel to the executioner.  Thus he writes.....

"I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day....."  2 Timothy 4.6-8

I often recommend this passage. It reflects the truth for many: those who have battled long and hard against an unseen enemy and those who have lived very long lives. "I have founght the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith...."

When folks have faced the pain and loss and exhaustion of fighting against forces which are robbing one of health or happiness this passage can be a moment of release - a blessing on the deep truth that it is a gift that the end has come.  Loved ones have been 'poured out' as a libation (which is an offering to God), drained of strength and often they have lost their very sense of self.

For those who have lived a long life, it speaks to the endurance needed to cling to God over long distances and through multiple obstacles.  They are ready to rest in the arms of their Savior, to be received into the heavenly places in ways only God can know.

"I have kept the faith......"  These are the words that capture my attention.  I'm in the faith business and sometimes it is a challenge for me to keep the faith.  The ethereal business of faith is practiced in the rough and tumble world of sin; the demands of discipleship are layered over the demands of making a living and keeping afloat.  When one recognizes that being a person of faith means bringing the teaching of Jesus out of the clouds and into the present, the work gets harder.  Sin is not an abstract concept; we run into it everyday and it often makes our days more than difficult.

Faith in Jesus is a relationship, and a relationship with Jesus will transform.  With each authentic encounter with the truth of God's love for the world in Jesus, we are opened to newer vistas: new ways of thinking, new ways of being, and new content for our confessional conversations with God.  Authentic relationship with Jesus brings peace, while at the same time, it brings every part of our lives into a bright light/

Trusting that God is in charge, that Jesus reigns, that tomorrow can and will be different than today because it is all in God's hands - the God who through the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead - to trust that promise is no small feat.  To trust in that God while experiencing chemo or watching a loved one disappear to dementia, or commending our 21 year old grandson into God's hands.....that is hard work.  Allowing God to push and pull us into a deeper faith life, allowing ourselves to be open to the Spirit's call to both action and repentance, listening for God today when you are in your 90th year of todays is also hard work.

What can we do?  How can we be strengthened for this difficult journey?  We can come to the table to encounter the risen Jesus.  We can study and listen to God's Word in the old stories of faith in the modern examples of it.  We can travel among the lost and lonely so to be God's hands at work in this world.

I need to do this again and again and again.  Otherwise I will lose sight of the Jesus who has claimed me for life.  Otherwise, I would become one of the lost ones.

What about you?

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.

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.