Come, have breakfast

Third Sunday of Easter

John 21:1-1  “Come, have breakfast.”

Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them and in like manner the bread.

Sounds familiar.  Like in the Road to Emmaus story, there is something essential about ‘mealing’ with the resurrected Christ.  And we…we humans…we get that because no matter how often we eat on the run, grab through the window, or let a bar suffice…we still understand that certain sacredness that accompanies any meal worthy to be called a meal.

I have to think that Jesus picked the meal as THE place to be remembered for the best of reasons.  That is why I wish we did a better job of speaking ‘meal’ as we celebrate Eucharist.  We have a table where few dare get close. And, DaVinci aside, I’ve never had a meal where everyone was on one side of the table. And typically the food is recognizable as nourishing. And I have never participated in preparing a meal while on my knees.

We are great about emphasizing sacredness and sacrifice.  But in all that emphasis we have lost the most vernacular; the most ordinary.  And that has been the key for me to translating the Eucharist into my being…into my life. My life, my image and likeness, is sacred.  The model I follow WILL invite sacrifice.  But it is the meal where I encounter, and taste, and see, the faith that tells me so.

“Come, have breakfast”

the ground of my being

Thursday of the 2^nd Week of Eastertide

Acts 5:27-33

The chapter so far:

-Ananias and Sapphira and the case of the the hidden real-estate (not a lectionary choice;)

    Don’t lie to God!

-Wining believers…at the Temple of all places

    Sanhedrin gets upset

-Heal the sick

    Sanhedrin gets upset

-Arrests and imprisonment

    God gets upset, Angel manages a Jailbreak

-More preaching and teaching and healing

    Sanhedrin gets REALLY upset

They just keep going.  We are witnesses of these things.  These things refers to all that the Apostles have seen and heard and come to believe.  They give an account and confess that being witnesses is not a choice but a response (fortified by the Holy Spirit) from the very ground of their being. 

I am a witness to the composition of the ground of my being every minute of every day.

Now, I’m not going to get all over-scrupulous about that.  The ground of Jesus’ being, no doubt, contained humor and joy and the pleasures of living in the created world. 

But there is both Awe and Terror in that thought…

N’est pas?

IN or OUT

Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

John 3:7-15*

NICODEMUS...a character investigation

Found only in John

In 3:1-10

He visits at night

He gets a private tutorial

In 7:51

He sorta-kinda mildly hints that the religious powers-that-be just might be overstepping with their zealousness to kill Jesus

In 19:39

He brings 100 pounds of COSTLY myrrh and aloes for anointing Jesus’ body

He’s tentative.  He doesn’t want everyone at the office to know that he’s drawn to this man Jesus…to his life and his teaching.  He is unwilling to commit social-suicide.  He has a lot to lose.  He steps into the water one toe at a time.  Even the costly perfumed oil smacks a little of a guilt-payment.

Nicodemus is not all wrapped up in John’s Gospel.  The jury is still out. 

I am an heir to Nicodemus. 

I misunderstand

I hold my tongue

I stay comfortable

No judgment from me.  It is challenging.

*the lectionary wants to highlight the "born from above part" that Nicodemus misunderstands;)  But I don't think the whole pericope ever shows up in the Sunday lectionary so...

Living With Questions

Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

I too would want to examine the flesh.  What if the others had missed something?  I have my own questions.  If I am to believe it must meet my own criteria.  I am no fool.

The story of Jesus’ resurrection must become real and fleshy and experience-able.  It is easy enough to see it in the lives of others…the addict who is returned to wholeness, the “black-sheep” of the family returned to the fold, the cancer…dare I say ‘cured,’ the broken marriage healed and given new life.  But the challenge is for me…right now!  What darkness in my life, what hidden dysfunction/pathos/sin have I been “locking behind doors in fear?”

This Easter story of risen-ness and new life must jump off the page and speak to me.  Call to me.  Challenge me.  Change me.  NOW!

I love this from the poet Rilke:

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

--- Letters to a young poet

it is impossible

Easter Saturday

Acts 4:13-21

..they ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus

Mark 16:9-15

...he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised

In Acts, the Sanhedrin confers and all they can come up with is to demand that Jesus' followers stop speaking 'in His name.'  But that is 'impossible.'  I love how this is joined with the Marcan reading about Mary Magdalene "Apostle to the Apostles."  MM believes and witnesses and speaks in His name.  The boys don't believe.  They are rebuked.  

What changed is their 'hardness of heart.'  With a hard heart, it is possible to not speak or teach in HIS name.  We can do so on our own...in our own voice...to our own ends.  But that won't contribute much to the flourishing of the human family.  But with a heart soft enough to invite being taken over by the love of God, it is impossible not to be on mission...led by that love.

And the paradox seems to be that the more I chip away at my hardened heart the more I can come in "His Name" and the more truly I am myself.  

For me to be a saint means to be myself.  Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.  Trees and animals have no problem.  God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied.

With us it is different.  God leaves us free to be whatever we like.  We can be ourselves or not, as we please.

-Thomas Merton

I please to be soft of heart

I please to be a home for God's love

I please to be a member of the Body of Christ

I please to speak, not in my own name

I please

Please God, help my unbelief.