There Was the One

Here at Table Church every week we are experiencing the gospel in a living tableau as we remember Jesus telling the little children to come, and we challenge ourselves to mean it. And we remember what it means to honor our elders and challenge ourselves to realize that they should go to the food line first, and it will mean others wait, but they can be fed too, and there is a plate for all. And we sit close in the shape of the cross and recognize that we jostle each other a little, but we also serve each other with the body of Christ and the blood of Christ, for you as our hands, young and old, cradle what we share as we turn and face our neighbor amidst the timeless truths.
The most important thing I celebrate is how we are becoming in all its diversity and even chaos, the beauty of incarnational living centered in the good news of the cross of Christ.
Last night there were many things happening but just as I was about to lead us into the sharing of communion., there were folks at the door peering in. A man and woman and then two little girls, tentatively lurking, not sure. And I stopped to encourage them to come in, and sit and join us. We waited for a moment and without my saying much, people got up and made sure they had seats, at an added table, and cups for communion and worship sheets to follow as I reminded our now slightly larger group, on the night he was handed over, Jesus shared a meal with his friends. He blessed the bread and the wine and said, "Do this and know that I am with you."
The power of those words and our gathering spills over into our shared meal, and our time in community as we listened to a visitor tell us of ministry in Canada where pilots carry people to villages and share the good news, where one year the Bible camp was called FLY-Forever Loving YOU as an expression of God with us.
Earlier with our Bible Club kids we talked about this Sunday's gospel, the story of the ten lepers healed and the one who returns to thank Jesus and to praise what has happened. And we took time to write our prayers of thanks and our prayers for healing. The kids are so incredibly open and risk it all believing that we have a space where they can talk candidly. For this I give thanks and am in awe at the trust. As we believe that healing is real and learned that Jesus had already healed the men, even though not all stopped to say thanks, and maybe not all would go on to live faithfully. Because it is out of that love God has for us. Healing and blessing are signs of God's love for us.
At Table Church in so many ways it is evident that we are touched by who God in Christ is for us, and with us-you simply cannot be here and remain ignored! And I celebrate the beauty of our diversity and our challenges and our willingness to risk being authentic.
Being mainly introverted this takes much. The place too far is that we are not comfortable sharing our prayers out loud. But many will accept the invitation to later post them on the prayer wall. Or bring them to me. Last night, after some time in prayer where no one spoke thanks or prayers for healing out loud but it was evident that much was being lifted by the light of our candles in prayer, and in the inviting call of our music, we concluded to be sent forth.
And then came the one- the woman who had appeared at the door late. Wanted to hand me her prayer of thanks- Thank you that I finally have a home.
Just like the leper now healed. Who now had a home. Not only a physical home, but in Jesus.
For the woman, until this week she had been homeless. Now they had a home. And she wanted me to know how grateful to God she was for a roof over her head, just a couple blocks from the church.
Even more important, she had walked into the place where Jesus was moving us, and recognized a change. A liberation, a relief, and hope. And as I was speaking to her, one of our folks was coming to tell her about our afterschool ministry, and someone else wondered if she wanted food to take home, and one of our kids was telling me she is friends with the daughters, and yet another person said she had a lead for a job.It was exactly what had happened in the gospel- healing and thanks and restoration.
Community. Incarnational. Good news in the flesh. Experiencing the "with-ness" of Christ.
And I looked around again as they all were leaving- the gathered dispersing, the ones who know just how vital hospitality is, how much we need Jesus and each other. If we think about us, and if we remember that we have all been healed and restored, when we allow ourselves to embrace that part of us, the blessings God brings are beyond our imaginings. And every week I am profoundly moved to be in such a place where good news takes root in us and with us. Again.

Ref-Lectionary Musings: Not What We Expect

“If you do not believe the words of Moses, how will you believe my words?” After this stinging indictment Jesus has left the Jewish leaders. He goes away across the water to Galilee, and up the mountain with the disciples. Perhaps he has gone there to have time away, time with the Father, time for teaching the disciples. What we know is that he is soon thereafter aware that a large crowd is coming to him. They are not coming to him for what he has said. We are told they are clamoring to be with Jesus for the miraculous signs he has performed for the sick. For the restoration of lives that this healing has brought. In the lives of the Hebrew people, there was not a bright line between life and death, but a continuum in which one who was chronically sick was seen as not really among the living. For many this sickness placed them outside of the temple community- one would give anything to be restored, to be made whole, to be reinstated into life in community. And one would give anything to be free from whatever pain and suffering life involved. Jesus perhaps was the latest of those who the people followed desperately seeking relief, and many before had proven to be charlatans. There were in excess of five thousand people, a number as large as or larger than a lot of the towns in which we ourselves live today- Over five thousand people swarming to get to their hope for healing.
If I was one of the disciples I would have been wondering how on earth would this throng of people be able to be organized into a manageable system. We would need to triage the situation and determine who had the greatest needs. We would need crowd control. We would need a “take a number” system. We would need more than 12 of us disciples to keep this all from becoming a chaotic mess. So many people to be healed. How long would it take? Out of chaos will come order, and God will provide, but not in the way the people ask.
In the face of this massive influx of needy people, Jesus is not focused on their physical ailments. Instead, he asks how they will all eat. What? Imagine that you have been crippled since birth, or have sores that won’t heal, would the first thing on your mind be- I am hungry? Jesus asks where will they get the bread- he already knows the miracle that he will perform.
The miracle of the feeding is even more stupendous in the multiplication. Nothing was wasted. And seemingly out of nothing God creates something. Everyone has not just a crumb and pretends they are not hungry. Everyone is satisfied. We don’t know how much they ate- maybe it was just a crumb-but the bread from God is sufficient in a way that the bread from the labor of our own hands can never be.
Phillip has been hearing Jesus’ words, and seeing Jesus’ signs and yet, he has not yet taken that quantum leap to fathom that for Jesus, son of God, nothing is impossible. In the days of yore, the manna, bread from heaven, would have seemed impossible. Yet it would be enough. Now the source of the bread was in our midst, creating in ways that seemed impossible, and yet it was enough.
And by not only joining in community but inviting these unclean masses to eat together with Jesus and the disciples, this breaking of bread and sharing of a meal functioned as purification, and restoration into community, the thing their sicknesses had prevented. They were made whole in community, welcomed by God and fed.
There was no picking and choosing of the worthy, no words of limitation, but sufficient abundance for all- no questions asked. No litmus tests, no separation. Everyone sat down- together. Everyone was fed. Everyone was restored. Everyone was satisfied. We don’t know if they were physically healed. But I think they were rescued from a world that was overwhelming and given peace.
They were overwhelmed with it all. They responded the only way they knew how- to try to acknowledge Jesus with earthly power, to make him the king. They wanted to overthrow the system that had failed to help them- they wanted a king like this. It is really pretty treasonous to think such thoughts, much less say them. But just as Jesus provided not what they wanted but what they needed in the breaking of the bread, so he left them now. It is for another day that he will give the people what they really need in a kingship that looks nothing like what they imagine.
So many times we can make things far more complicated than they need to be, with rules and trappings and procedures. Yet it doesn’t get much simpler than this. People gathered right there on the grass. Nothing fancy. There were no cadres of ushers who marched down aisles at just the right time. No one telling antsy kids to be quiet. No one seemingly concerned with sitting in their “usual spot.” Just people who were glad to have Jesus in their midst, to share and be fed and be satisfied. And to dwell just a moment in the awesomeness of this wholeness, this community and in the extravagance of God in our midst.
After the miracle, Jesus again withdraws to the mountain and the disciples and crowds go on their way. Soon enough the worries of the world return, the storms on the water return. The disciples are not sure what THEY can do. Jesus comes again to them, showing that our hope is not in what we can do, but what God does. They want Jesus in the boat with them, but instead the boat is suddenly at the shore. Not what they asked for, but what they needed. This time multiplying speed to safety instead of bread. Out of chaos, order and rescue from a world that is overwhelming.
The disciples thought they were alone, just as each in the crowds probably felt alone in his or her sickness. Jesus provided presence and restoration, for the crowds when they sought him; for the disciples, he came to them even before they asked.
Whether we are in worship because we always come, whether we are here today because we seek an end to chaos, each of us is seeking something more than our daily labors alone can bring. Each of us is hoping to encounter Jesus. Presence, restoration, wholeness, healing and peace are here, for each of us, in ordinary things, in the bread and wine. No matter who we are or where we have been, God’s extravagant abundance is here for all. We can believe these words. Come.