The Eucharist and Hospitality

Lots of thoughts--some pretty disconnected--about the readings for this week:
First, the word Eucharist--I so like the thought that this meal we partake of is our Thanksgiving meal. We gather as the family of God, brothers and sisters of Christ, and are welcomed and fed. It is a welcoming Table--a Table opened to us by the sacrifice of Christ, to be sure--but a Table which, I think, says less of that sacrifice and more of the welcome, the tender open-arms of God toward us.

I am so struck by that tenderness of God. God accomplishes salvation by mercy and grace toward us--transforming the cruelty of the sacrifice on a cross into a sign of His tender mercies. Jesus' self-sacrifice is the Way He conquered--not by coercion or force, but by the deepest love. It is, indeed, that raising up of Jesus on the cross that draws all people to him--not in the way people are drawn to blood and gore and accident scenes, but the way children are drawn to people who love them deeply and tenderly, taking them very seriously...

One of my favorite movies is Places in the Heart, which begins with scenes of families gathered around their Sunday dinner tables and quickly moves to a dead man ( a murdered man) laid out on his family's dining room table and ends with a Communion Sunday scene in a tiny Church--a scene where the sacrifice of forgiveness is made visible and where the Communion of the Saints is made plain. I think that movie so well captures the meaning of this Meal in the life of God's people--who live simply day-by-day in ordinary time, sinning, supporting, confessing, suffering, holding, coming together, eating, dancing, working...

I like Peterson's linking of the Eucharist with hospitality. Just as the Communion meal is a sign of God's generous openness to us, so hospitality is our opportunity to be generously open with others. Genuine hospitiality--whether for "company" or toward our families--is a kind of sacrifice of the self, of my own "druthers," for other people. Truly welcoming hospitality seeks to care for the other, to provide for the other. The Biblical image of the Great Feast in Isaiah 25--the Feast of which provides "a foretaste of glory divine"--is again such a welcoming image in which God cares for the whole of humanity, wiping away all those things which cause tears and grief and division.

When my son Matthew was very sick and needing to be fed through a feeding tube, I remember the sensate similarity between holding up the Communion chalice and holding up that feeding tube. It was a powerful moment for me as I reflected on the nurture and the grace proffered by both. It certainly relieved the very real drudgery of those tube feedings for that moment.

On the controlling of rituals--do we try to control them? Do we think we are in charge of them--we pastors?

Christ Plays in History

I think it's fairly easy to "see" God in creation--even creation which is "red in tooth and claw" as some 18th Century poet put it, even nature with its hurricanes and tornadoes and floods. But, so often, it is hard to see God in history--to see the sovereignty of God in history--both the BIG HISTORY of the world and in our personal histories. Yes, things really are a mess, and it makes us wonder where God is in all that.

So to affirm that God has come into history in Christ is to affirm something astounding. God did not come in to history in Christ to "magically" change history, but to live, as we do, in history, with all the limitations we expereince there. Jesus weeping at the death of Lazarus is revealing of how very much he was immersed in the day to day history we all live, how much he experienced all the griefs we experience. (And, though we don't have much reporting of this in the Gospels, I believe he likely also experienced all the quiet and ordinary moments of joy we also experience.)

The Jesus' history, as Peterson points out, is not an "heroic" history, a history that is triumphant in the way we usually think of triumph--it's not a success story. It is a salvation story--a saving of us (and the whole world) that takes us and our immersion in history seriously. We can't escape the nitty-gritty of our lives--we are saved in the midst of that nitty-gritty. (And, the nitty-gritty becomes sacramental...)

I love these lines from Peterson (p.139): "Reading our way through these history-saturated pages of Scripture, we gradually get it: This is what it means to be a woman, a man--mostly it means dealing with God, God using the authenticating reality of our daily experience as the stuff for working out his purposes of salvation in us and in the world." I have to admit there are times I'd really opt for less authenticating reality in my life! So often, I prefer "the ideal"--in relationships, in my church, in the Church...And, I can get terribly "moralistic"--it sure beats laying down my life and my way and my agenda...

So, what do y'all think?

New Reading Schedule

Hello Charlenes! I'm not going to jump to the radical conclusion that I have in any way mastered this blog thing--the real test will be whether or not I can ever post anything again...

I did want to suggest a new reading schedule for our next couple of months. I thought Esther's breaking down our reading was very helpful. (I'll also post it via e-mail for those who don't check the blog very often) I believe I'm responsible to guide us through the Christ Plays in History section of the Peterson text (pages 131-222)--that would be Sessions 7-10 in the Santucci text. I'm going to suggest we give a period of two weeks to each of Santucci's Sessions, using them to set our schedule. So: Session 7 (Pages 131-147 in Christ Plays)--May 1-15; Session 8 (Pages 147-81)--May 16-31 [We have a Conference call scheduled for May 24 at 1:30 CT also]; Session 9 (Pages 181-99)--June 1-15; Session 10 (Pages 200-222)--June 16-30. I imagine we'll want another conference call near the end of June. [Please, let me know how we make an arrangement for that...someone...]

Blessings to all!
The Original Charlene--Faith