Today we are on part three of four-part
series on gratitude which is based on reflections on the lectionary in
conversation with the book, Gratitude – The Transformative Power of Giving
Thanks, by Diana Butler Bass.
As a reminder of where we have been, we
started out talking about the feeling of gratitude and the way it is a natural
response to God’s grace. God has freely given to us, and when we recognize God’s
gifts of providence and forgiveness and powerful sustaining presence, we feel
grateful. Last Sunday we talked about what to do about that feeling.
We talked about the way in which
gratitude can help us see more clearly and love more dearly and even order the
pattern of our days. Today, we are going to talk about a more collective
response to God’s grace. Today we are going to have a bit of a fête in worship,
if you don’t mind.
Maybe we’ll even have a bit of a ruckus.
That happened to me one time at a coffee shop downtown. I was meeting with a
few college students that were attending here at the time, and a man sat down
at the piano near us and said, “You mind if I start a ruckus?” I have never
felt so hipster, and rarely have I felt so much a part of a community.
So, I’m going to start a ruckus in here
with a little game called word association. I’m going to say a word, and I want
you to say the first thing that comes to mind. If someone beats you to it, then
say the next thing that you think of based on the word the first person said.
If we get stumped, I’ll throw out a new word. Your first word is “Peanut.”
(other words: Simple, Wisdom, People,
Eat, Flesh, Drink, Blood)
Well, that was fun! Thank you for
playing.
I wanted to start with a game, because
reading Diana Butler Bass reminded me that play is something that shifts our
focus. Play pulls us out of isolation and into connectivity. We were already on
our way to greater connectivity because we are here together. We are here doing
something that is different than anything else we do all week, and what we are
doing is grounded in the idea that there is a God who loves us and calls us
into celebration again and again and again!
We are called together so that we can figure
out how to – in the words of Paul – live as wise people, who make the most of
our time because the days are evil. It’s sad and strange that the days still
seem to be evil. We could probably look back to the time of Paul and talk about
oppressive governments and abuses of power, but that’s just so abstract.
What really matters in our lives today
is that we still have racism, fascism, and people groups we like to hate. We
still have disagreements over how to treat our Christian brothers and sisters
that live on the other side of invisible lines. We still argue over how to love
those who do not conform to our social mores of gender and sexuality, and yet
they are the ones who keep telling us that love is love is love is love. What
matters today is that we are still trying to work out what it means that God
was pleased in flesh with us to dwell and that we must eat of that very flesh
in order to live.
Whooo! Now, that’s a party. Jesus was
flash mobbed by people that he had just fed with bread and the meat of fish,
and they wanted seconds! They were even OK with just being told how he did it,
but Jesus had to spoil the party and say, “If you don’t eat my flesh and drink
my blood, you have no life in you.”
Now, as gross as that sounds to us,
imagine how they must have felt. They argued about it with each other in the
same way the church argues to this day but notice that they didn’t argue with
him. In fact, if you keep reading you’ll see that not only the crowd of Judeans
but also some of those who were disciples would stop following him after this.
Jesus did not literally want to go full “Walking
Dead” here, although it seems that some may have thought so. You have to
remember that this Jesus – as portrayed in John’s gospel – is the one who told
Nicodemus to be birthed a second time. Jesus is the one that told the Samaritan
woman that she would never have to drink water again. He is also the one who
told his disciples that he was so satisfied by her testimony to others that he
did not need to eat. So, yeah, he spoke in hyperbole – except that he really
meant it.
You see, Jesus is the Word, the Logos,
the creative force of God in human form. What he is offering them, and you and I
is to realize that we are connected in a way that matters today and echoes
throughout time and space. What Jesus offers is life that is really living – abundantly!
God’s grace is abundant and overflowing.
It’s wasteful and silly and even playful sometimes, and of course we remember,
and we taste, and we see God’s grace in the celebration of Holy Communion.
For those that may be new to our
tradition, we celebrate communion monthly in the Presbyterian Church. Primarily
that’s to acknowledge the sacredness of it, but also to recognize that God’s
love is not given through the sacrament. God’s love is celebrated through it.
We do believe that in sharing the bread and the cup they are not only a symbol
of the body and blood of Jesus, but they become what they symbolize – not
literal flesh and blood, but a means to recognize that we are both consuming
and consumed by – or perhaps immersed in – the love of God.
If that was little too, well,
Presbyterian, let me say it this way. We are brought into a more common union
with God and one another through normal, physical stuff that serves a sacred purpose
when we come together in God’s name.
Nobel Poet Laureate, Seamus Haney, who
was born a Roman Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland said it this way:
“Like
everybody else, I bowed my head
during
the consecration of the bread and wine,
lifted
my eyes to the raised host and raised chalice,
believed
(whatever it means) that a change occurred.
I went
to the altar rails and received the mystery
on my
tongue, returned to my place, shut my eyes fast, made
an act
of thanksgiving opened my eyes and felt time starting up again.”
In that act of thanksgiving we ready
ourselves for time to start up again, but if the only way we can experience it
is in a feeling of personal salvation, then we have missed the boat. If we are
truly to experience the life-giving presence of God, then we have to realize
that we have been invited into a party that does not wait for our flesh to be
worn down and sown into the earth. It is a party that starts up in every time
and place where we take the opportunity to make a ruckus – a joyful noise that
connects us one to one and all together.
When that happens, we will truly see the
humanity in others as a reflection of our own. We will truly see all of
creation as the abundance of God’s love, and we will truly become the blessed
community that is both transformed and transforming the world around us through
our gratitude and awareness of God’s grace and mercy.
Think on that. Pray about what it means
to be the blessed community in service to others. That’s where we’ll pick up
next time. Until then, may the grace that binds us move us from you and me to
we, and from us and them to everybody’s in – and to God be the Glory now and
always. Amen!
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