Communion

Re-Examine Before Communion—I Kings 17: 8-15; Luke 22: 14-20

Communion is one of the most powerful elements of our worship. Rachel Held Evans writes, “The first thing the world knew about Christians was that they ate together.” Faith was a fellowship centered around this meal they ate together. According to church historians, the focus of the early communion services was not Jesus’ death, but on Jesus’ friendship, his presence made real again among his followers by the tastes the sounds and smells of food, of bread, of wine of all that Jesus shared. Jesus said to them, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” 

I love communion in the service because it calls us not to think, analyze, overthink, swallow any hard pills. It calls us to remember and do. rev. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Jesus did not give [his followers] something to think about together when he was gone, he gave them concrete things to do.” We are to eat this bread, drink this cup, and remember what Christ did for us. That act is truly more holy and potentially more powerful than any sermon you can hear, any prayer delivered, or any hymn we can sing. Why? Because instead of other people delivering things to you, Communion is the one point you can stop everything and be at one with God. 

Evans writes, “The elements and the meal are identified in different ways: the body of Christ, broken; the blood of Christ, shed; the Bread of heaven, cup of salvation, they mystery of faith, supper of the Lamb. But in every tradition I know, someone, at some point says, ‘Remember.’” We remember that Christ gave us life, that break and cup are reminders of both physical nourishment, but also saving life in Christ. Look at the story of Elijah. Here, he, the widow, and her son, were all at the brink of starvation. She was prepared to cook her last bit of bread, eat it with her son, then die. But simply by trusting what God’s prophet said, she sacrificed her last bit of food to share with him first. 

I struggle with this story. How do you do this? How do you trust some stranger that it is a good idea to feed him and magically you’ll have enough. How do you feed him first before your son? Perhaps logically she thought, “Well I’m gonna die anyway, might as well feed him too.” But I think, instead, we see her faith knowing that bread gives life and in sharing the bread of life with God’s prophet, God would be faithful to care for her too. There is a depth of power in this concrete act, of taking communion. 

Sara Miles was a 46 year old woman who wondered into St. Gregory’s of Nyssa Episcopal in San Francisco one day. She came with her friend. She had never attended church, never had interest in it. She was liberal, traveled, secular, and deeply skeptical of all things of faith. She was the last person you would expect to participate in ancient and sacred traditions of church and communion. But something happened. She was invited to the table, and I imagine with great concern and shock she found herself walking up to take communion. That might be shocking to us for someone to take communion who is an unbeliever, even antagonistic to the church. But something happened. 

Sara Miles writes, “And then something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.” Sara felt dizzy, overwhelmed, charged with life, filled with something powerful. Suddenly she believed. She couldn’t reconcile the experience with anything else she’d ever done. And she could not pull away. She writes, “It was a sensation as urgent as physical hunger, pulling me back to the table, [pulling me into faith].” She went on to create a food pantry at St. Gregory’s, a massive one, which feeds the poor, elderly, sick, homeless, and marginalized in the community, giving them food, giving them life. “Do this in remembrance of me,” says Christ. Just as Christ IS the bread of life, so we ought to share this meal that gives us spiritual life, and the food which gives physical well-being with the community. 

For us sometimes though, communion is tough. We like to give to others, to earn things in life. We are a culture of achievers, sufficiency, can-do, winners, leaders, do-it-yourselfers. Held writes, “With giving I can maintain some sense of power, some illusion of control. But receiving means the gig is up. Receiving means I’m not the boss of what comes into life—be it trial or trouble, or unmerited good.” Robert Capon goes on to say, “Grace cannot prevail until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.” For Communion is a free gift from God. Communion calls us to remember Christ and his grace for us, and that is something we cannot control, or earn, or win over. We have to accept it, undeserving as we are. 

But that free gift is something offered to all. “The gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, ‘Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us.’ This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy; it’s a kingdom for the hungry.” Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Jesus’ own words tell us this. Christ was eager to eat this meal with his followers, we are told in Luke. It was the teaching of something new. That instead of sacrifices, veils, walls, and temples, Christ, symbolized in bread and cup, was right here, right among the people, and is right here with us too as we remember. 

Bishop Michael Curry, who is the head of the Episcopal Church in America, yes, the VERY one in charge of that denomination, tells a story of young woman who joined the Episcopal church in the 1940s in the South. She invited her fiancé to church one day. Both of them were African American, but the church they attended was all white and right in the heart of segregated America. The young couple felt tremendous fear as they walked up the aisle to the rail to take communion. In the Episcopal tradition, everyone drinks from the same cup. Both were terrified of drinking from the same cup as white people. This had never been seen or done before by either of them, I mean, goodness, even the water fountains were separate…and here the same cup? 

As they knelt, the priest tilted the cup, gave them to drink, and said, “The blood of of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, to preserve thy body and soul into everlasting life.” They knew immediately they had found something powerful, unmatchable, Christ-like. That couple was Bishop Curry’s parents, and they raised a powerful preacher and servant of Christ. 

The bread of life; the cup of salvation: free gifts given for you so that you may have grace, love, and abundant life. You don’t have to ponder on it, analyze it, decipher it or even mathematically add it up. Instead you merely have to come to this free gift, accept it, and let Christ transform your life. Do this, in remembrance of me. 

Purpose

Re-equipped for a Purpose: Deut 34: 5-12; II Tim 1: 1-9

The philosopher Thomas Hobbes once said, “Outside of society, life is nasty, brutish, and short.” That idea has developed into quotes from authors like David Gerrold, which say, “Life is hard, and then you die.” Now, my young idealistic self sitting so pretentiously in my political theory class with Dr. Stroup nearly had a meltdown at this dark and difficult idea. Just over a decade later, when that alarm goes off at 5:30 am, “approaching-middle-age” me much more thoroughly and deeply understands this idea of things being nasty, short, and difficult. 

In many ways, we see a lot of suffering in life. As I drove through Albany the past couple of days for work, I realized that many people live every day in a type of suffering we don’t know or understand, and that we certainly don’t comprehend as being in our own country. That is why a community of faith is important both for us as individuals and as a group. We need only look at the scriptures for today to realize that importance. The Israelites travelled as a group together. Here we read of the transition from the leadership of Moses to that of Joshua. It was very simple. Moses laid his hands on Joshua, Joshua was filled with wisdom, and now he was in charge. We read how Paul wrote letters to others for comfort, encouragement, and to keep the communities of faith together. 

Why? Why is this idea of community so important? Paul gives hints: he will be filled with joy when they are together and God has given us s spirit of power, love and self-discipline, not fear and timidity. These things come from our togetherness, from our encouragement of one another, from our excitement and encouragement as God’s people working together in hope and in grace. And, because in order to do our purpose, we need the talents, skills, and calling of everyone in God’s community, working together. 

In talking about how we are all ministers and called to serve, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “To be a [minister] is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are.” That means surrendering our cynicism, attitudes, and pride to take up the cross, to take up Christ’s call and follow. Rachel Held Evans expands on this idea by saying, “Whenever we show others the goodness of God, whenever we follow our Teacher by imitating his posture of humble and ready service, our actions are sacred and [pastoral]. To be called…as all of us are, is to be called to a life of presence, of kindness.” 

The problem is we are human and we get, as my Granny would say, where something “aggravates the stew out of us.” I have yet to figure out the full meaning of that, but it’s bad, I suppose. Paul, who is in prison, writes, “never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord…and don’t be ashamed of me, either” even though Paul is currently in prison for his preaching. And yet we all get aggravated and irritated. I have repeatedly this week as things came up, life got busy, and I travelled from the coast to Albany, to Americus, to Macon, tomorrow to Columbus, to Marietta as well. I’m tired, grouchy, and oh so human. Things seem a bit short, nasty, and brutish, and most likely that’s an apt description of my personality in those moments. 

But I was reminded of a call by Rachel’s book, “Through touch, God gave us the power to injure or to heal, to wage war or wash feet. Let us not forget the gravity of that. Let us not forget that call.” This week I listened as a man told his story of living in an abuse personal care home, not licensed or controlled by the State of Georgia, but just hidden away from society by a true criminal. Now let me prepare this with, the level of horror I deal with on a weekly basis is beyond what many of you may see in a lifetime. 

He told how the lady put him in a home with no water, a/c or heat in Albany, and left him there. She took him off his anti-psychotic meds which, of course, caused him to act out wildly. When he became too gross, wild acting, and unprofitable, she and a couple of her help drug him kicking and screaming out of the house, slapping and hitting him, and threw him out at a hospital. When I am tempted to be difficult, irritable, and snarky, I remind myself that I am too blessed to have that attitude. 

Paul writes, “I remember your genuine faith, for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois, and your mother, Eunice, and I know that same faith continues strong in you.” Timothy was strong in his faith, his love, and service because he had a foundation both in himself and in the communities he served. As Mark 7: 15 says, “It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.” So what comes up out of our heart? What comes up out of our mouths? What good and Christlike things do we put into the world around us? What words and thoughts of anger and hatred and unkindness do we spread? 

“Ultimately,” writes Evans, “all are called. All belong to the holy order of God’s beloved. The hands that pass the peace can pass a meal to the man on the street. The hands that cup together to receive Christ in the bread and cup will extend to receive Christ in the immigrant, the refugee, the lonely, or the sick and dying.” So then, just as we are all called, we are all equipped for a purpose. A friend of mine, who is a long-time church musician, told me that one time she was playing quiet organ music for a service of healing and anointing. Her back was to the congregation, and she felt so removed and apart from them. Later, she told the pastor, “I feel like instead of being behind the organ, I should be out there laying hands on people, helping them, healing them, doing the same work as others here.” The pastor replied, “Oh, but you are, from your hands on the keys of the instrument, you are healing just as powerfully as my hands laid on their shoulders in prayer.” 

“There is a power in touch—a connective energy—a bond, for the Son of God healed with his hands.” When Moses laid hands on Joshua, he was filled with the spirit of wisdom. And when Paul laid hands on Timothy (in verse 6) it fanned the flames of the spiritual gifts God gave him. We are all called by God, and we are all equipped for a purpose by the same God who gives all power, all healing, all strength, and all love. Many say life is short, nasty, brutish, that it is miserable then you die. But in faith we say, “God gave us the power to injure or to heal, wage war or wash feet.” Let us not forget the power in that. Let us not forget our call. 

Confession

Rethinking Confession: Psalm 103: 11-18; I John 1

Many times, church folk get a little nervous about that word “confession.” The first question is usually, “exactly what am I supposed to tell?” I’ll never forget a friend inviting me to his church’s Bible study years ago. At the end, they all confessed their sins and prayed over them. One by one around the room, they talked about whom they’d lusted after, the extra drinks they’d had, certain photos/magazines/books they may or may not have looked at. It got pretty lurid. I looked at her and said, “I’m about to take a bathroom break, and not come back, because this is ridiculous.” At a Catholic church I visited once, there was a sign that said, “Please do not go into extensive detail during confession.” 

And yet we still hear the old saying that “confession is good for the soul.” And we read in I John 1: 9 that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and, essentially, fix us. Theologian Walter Brueggemann says, “Churches should be the most honest place in town, not the happiest place in town.” But I believe we’ve been more concerned about happiness and appearance than honesty. Anne Sexton’s poem “Protestant Easter” says, “Jesus was on that Cross./After that they pounded nails into his hands./After that, well, after that, everyone wore hats on Easter,” as if that has become the focal point. 

Confession should be the point at which we stop to be honest with ourselves, to be still and converse with God, not as if everything is alright, but as if we understand that sometimes we need a bit of help. Confession is when we are honest about our doubts, honest about where we have made mistakes, honest about where we are too intoxicated with certainty to even allow God to speak and teach us. Psalm 103 reminds us that God knows at times we are weak and vulnerable. We have to be willing to be vulnerable or we will be unwilling to learn. 

In her book, Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans talks about how she stopped going to church. First she began with questions, very tough questions that came forth uncontrollably. And the church, instead of honesty, offered platitudes. There is a very deep difference in saying, “praying for you!” or telling someone they need to have a little more faith, try a little harder, and actually showing up and walking a difficult road with them. Perhaps even at those times we’d have to confess that we also struggle, worry, and doubt. So Rachel became loaded with questions and doubts, and her church family recoiled instead of embracing honesty. And that is because we’ve come to believe church is for good people, not resurrected people, not the beloved but still messy people. 

Confession means we come into this place to say, “sometimes the truth is we’re hurting because of another person’s sin (yes I said it), or as a result of forces beyond our control. Sometimes the truth is we’re just hurting, and we’re not really even sure why.” Confession should be the time where we have the chance to admit that in some ways we’re not okay, and then to seek healing and reconciliation, together, in a community. “So we are lying,” says I John, “if we say we have fellowship with God, but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.” 

What is truth? Rachel writes, “We come [to this place] with our addictions—to substances, to work, to affirmation, to control, to food. We come with our differences, be they political, theological, racial, or socioeconomic. We come in search of sanctuary, a safe place to shed the masks and exhale. We come to air our dirty laundry before God and everybody else because when we [all] do it together, we don’t have to be afraid [of not being perfect].” Faith reminds us that in order to be made whole, to be healed, we must begin with admitting that at times we are not okay. Even those who have been saved, believed, baptized or however you call it for even fifty, sixty years, at times we are not okay spiritually and need help and healing. The spirit is no different that the physical here. You get an infection, you get an antibiotic from your doctor. You get a spiritual infection, you need healing as well. 

And so, to fix this problem, Rachel writes, “We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, God got back up.” 

We could not become like God because we have not worked on healing. I John says, “But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other,” and we are, essentially, healed. I have seen churches where no confession and healing, and restoration took place. They usually attack one another to preserve their precious comfort. Billy Graham once said, “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.” 

I have watched and been present with friends abused by church and church notions: a friend who is a fabulous musician whose church insulted and fired him for being gay…he left the church and his faith; a friend and her daughter were ridiculed for an improper divorce (from her abusive husband)…she left her church and her faith; a friend who used to work in ministry who told me once that she found meaner people in church than in groups of atheists. None of that will do. Church should be a place of healing, not a place of hopelessness, not a place where we practice nice words to say to people in need. 

When we are attempted to see the evil worked from the inside and abandon all hope, there is a moment where we stop. There is a litany of things done wrong: when Christians became the Roman empire and reveled in the combat games, when crusaders murdered the innocents in the Middle Ages, when people were tortured and hurt in the Inquisition with signs of Soli deo gloria, defending slavery, standing against equality, and hating/fighting anything that interrupts comfort. But for every bad story, Ambrose, John Huss, Teresa of Avila, Maximilian Kolbe, William Wilberforce, and others who loved, welcomed, who died for others, and made the church a place of healing and restoration and hope. 

God is light, and there is no darkness in God at all. Kathy Escobar, a pastor in Denver, founded a church called “The Refuge” where people from all walks of life come together to be healed from their spiritual struggles. Their mission statement says this at the end, “At The Refuge, everyone is safe, but no one is comfortable.” So the church should invite: come with doubts and questions, come hurting, struggling, uncertain, worried, angry, and even hurt. Instead of being drug to the foot of the cross kicking and screaming, let’s have a conversation, a confession, about where we are, what we need to help us, and where to go. Come in faith to place where you should be never comfortable, but always safe. 

Baptism

Baptism: Psalm 51: 1-12; II Peter 3: 1-7

“Wade in the water, children, wade in the water…God’s gonna trouble the water.” This hymn was chosen with a purpose. For many of us, it was an old hymn used at baptism time, particularly in the days when a baptism might have been done in a river or small lake by a country church. But historically, this African-American Spiritual was a song about freedom from slavery with words designed to help those on the Underground Railroad find their way to freedom just past the Ohio River. 

The Spiritual is powerful in that it testifies both to a real sense of freedom from a literal and brutal slavery, but it also testifies to the freedom that comes when we wade into the spiritual waters of baptism as well. Based on the book Searching for Sunday  by Christian author Rachel Held Evans, the sermons for the next few weeks will be look at and maybe even re-define the fundamentals of our faith including confession, purpose, Communion, and healing and anointing, but today we start with a remembrance of our baptism, where we wade in the water that washes us clean and leads us to freedom from sin. 

We start out with the very beginning of what calls us to baptism to faith and to our journey with God—this idea of mercy and cleansing. We hear it in the old hymns such as, “are you washed in the blood of the lamb; now wash me and I shall be whiter than snow; see if there be some wicked way in me—cleanse me from every sin and…set me free.” They pick up on the words of Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sin.” 

Water is fundamental to our Old and New Testament Bible lessons: Water carried Moses to his destiny down the Nile…water carried another baby [Christ] from a woman’s body into an expectant world; God’s spirit hovered over the face of the waters; Jesus was plunged beneath the baptismal waters himself in the wilderness by John the Baptist. After the government washed their hands of Jesus, he was hung on a cross and pierced where blood and water poured out. 

And just as water is fundamental to our Biblical lessons, so too, is water fundamental to our faith. “When Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan [River], a voice from heaven declared, ‘This is my beloved son, with whom I am well-pleased.” But God’s love wasn’t effective only at baptism, “Baptism simply named the reality of his existing and unending belovedness” says Evans. 

Just as those words echoed for Jesus in the wilderness, they echo for us too—this is my beloved child, with whom I am well-pleased. We wade in the water to be free from that displeasure, that sin, that separation from God that can only be fixed by faith. As Psalm 51 says, “For I recognize my rebellion, and it haunts me day and night.” 

Our faith, our baptism is a public declaration that we are beloved of God and that our trust is in the Lord Almighty. “The Christian life begins,” says Evans, “with the public acknowledgement of two uncomfortable realities—evil and death—and in baptism, the Christian makes the audacious claim that neither one gets the final word.” The Psalm tells us the words of healing—“Create in me a clean heart, O God,…restore me to the joy of your salvation.” Baptism is a public announcement that we have a new heart that we have been restored to a good relationship with God, the creator, sustainer, healer, and yes, even the great cleaner of humanity. 

But we get a warning in II Peter, “More importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires.” Listen to Peter who wishes to stimulate wholesome thinking and refresh the memory. 

One of the more uncomfortable stories in the book is that of Andrew. His story of faith was one of pain and bullying from a place of faith and worship that should have been safe and nurturing for him. He says, “I was always denied baptism and communion growing up. My [pastor] told me I wasn’t manifesting enough fruits of the Spirit in my life. He told me to wait until I was good enough, and holy enough.” What makes the story all the more heartbreaking is that the pastor of the church was Andrew’s dad. He has since severed ties with his family and childhood place of worship. 

It is tempting when we face rejection by our church family, by our faith leaders, and by our own personal family to set our faith down as something too hurtful in life. Many of you have told stories of churches that turned their back on you, robbed you of activities and programs you held dear, declared you heretical, cast you out, and bruised the precious gift of faith and belief. A church is somewhere where we should feel safe, not a place where we fear getting “churched” as we called it back home. 

But in every harsh treatment, we have to remember that once we wade into the water, we find freedom and sometimes that is even freedom from the evil lurking in our places of faith masquerading as good policy or church rules. Andrew went on to say, “I put off baptism because I felt like I was in a state of sin, like I wasn’t good enough, fit enough to be baptized. But then I realized…you don’t have to have everything together to be baptized…you just have to grasp God’s grace. God’s grace is enough.” 

“Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;” says the Psalm, “wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” The words of the Spiritual “Wade in the Water” warned the escaping slaves to avoid the main roads where they could be tracked and caught. It is not so easy for the wickedness pursuing to track a scent or a trail through the water. By wading in the water, those seeking freedom could avoid the perils that followed them and find safe passage into the free states. 

We, too, seek freedom. Perhaps we have dealt with old sins and haunts. Perhaps we’ve dealt with the idea that we are not good enough for God’s family, that there’s something too inherently wrong for a good relationship with God. Perhaps we’ve been bruised and battered in our past faith communities and are afraid of what God’s own supposed people can do and the cruelty they can bring.Listen again to Andrew’s words, “You just have to grasp God’s grace. God’s grace is enough.” 

If you want to find freedom, then you must first accept that God’s grace is enough, not just for the beginning of your faith, but throughout your entire faith journey. The Spiritual finishes with these words, “look over yonder, what do you see…the Holy Ghost a-coming on me; if you don’t believe I’ve been redeemed, just follow me down to the Jordan’s stream.” The Holy Ghost coming down on them…that sense of freedom from the past. And now, redeemed, from slavery and bondage, and into freedom both physical and spiritual. Wade in the water, children, wade in the water, where God’s grace is enough for you and for me. Amen.