...carry me

"Momma...carry me." Parents the world over know that the time you are most likely to hear this refrain is when your arms are already full, home or the car is still blocks away...and you yourself are weary and staggering just to stay upright. It is the time you are probably wishing for someone to carry you. 

One of the remarkable aspects about life on this round earth seems to be that things were not created for isolation. Creatures flourish in herds, prides, flocks, litters, and packs. And people seem to flourish in community, too. In one of the creation stories from Genesis (this one from the second chapter), after assigning place and occupation to the human, isolation begins to seem pretty overwhelming. Matter of fact, it is the first pronouncement of "not good" amongst all the "goods" of creation. Company, and community, is created as the remedy for the "not good" of isolation.

In community, we hold each other up. We celebrate, and we mourn, in solidarity. We lean, and we prop up. We are strong, and we are weak, and we are not ashamed. We bear each other's burdens, and let others close enough to bear ours.

We trust each other to be the hands of God, to bear us up, when we just. can't. even. 

When we whisper, "carry me."

...beloved, and loving

All who hunger, sing together; Jesus Christ is living bread.

Come from loneliness and longing. Here, in peace, we have been led.

Blest are those who from this table live their days in gratitude.

Taste and see the grace eternal. Taste and see that God is good.

---Sylvia Dunstan, 1990

Communion. Union. Community. From the Latin communio, ‘sharing in common’. This word, communion, speaks to the deep loneliness and longing for fellowship settled in the souls of so many of us, waking faint stirrings of…hope, maybe? There are so many periods of isolation and sequestration in this busy, noisy life---many of them in the midst of the noise and busy-ness of everyday life. So many days which stretch from end to end with no real human interaction breaking through workaday, rote communication, or days of solitary pursuits.

Into this lonesome landscape shines the chance to gather at the table of our Brother Jesus, eating and drinking of love and sacrifice, telling each other the stories that bind us to Christ and to each other. The table draws us---not strangers but family, not hurried and harried but grateful and blessing, not fearful of rejection but cherished and welcoming. This table calls us empty, and we feed each other. This table draws us, and sends us. This table makes of us beloved, and loving.

Oh, taste and see…

...little things

The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is his new creation, by water and the Word:

From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride,

With his own blood he bought her, and for her life he died.

---Samuel J. Stone, 1866

I’ve heard the stories, and you probably have, too. Churches that split over what color the new carpet will be, or whether to sing the Amen at the end of hymns, or whether to play drums in the sanctuary. And I am sure that, in the midst of the discussions, each of these issues seemed important to their adherents. We could make a list of bigger, more theologically-based issues that divide Christianity into denominations, factions, sects, and even warring camps. Emotional issues, and closely-held; the sort that draw tears and raise voices and blood pressure.

I always come back to this hymn’s first line. Jesus is the one foundation of the Church. Jesus --- his teachings, his life, his example, his leading --- is the strong base on which we build all that our community of faith is. The little things are just that…little things. And while there is a place in life for the little things, let us never forget the one foundation, the big thing that holds us all up. Let us remember Jesus, our foundation.

...transformed, not done

In the bread of life here given, we become what we receive.

In the cup of love here offered, affirm what we believe.

In the word of God proclaimed here, the good news of truth is heard.

In the telling of the stories, be open to God’s word.

---James Chepponis, 2002

Been there. Done that. I admit it. I am the first to make the jaded comment, or, on choking it back, to think it. This again? Or maybe, like Yogi Berra, It’s like deja-vu, all over again. And it’s kind of true.

Each time we gather and take communion, there is a familiarity to the elements, a sense of ritual in the setting. If I’m not careful, I can coast through the serving of the elements, the doing this in remembrance, on autopilot. If I am not present in the moment and attending to the story of my friend Jesus’ sacrificial love for me, a high holy moment can be, instead, just another holy snack pack and some pretty mumbling.

And those Bible stories? For heaven’s sake, I’ve been coming to church now for, well, for a long time. I have heard them all. Twice. What good does it do me, really, to be here with you, listening to the stories again? To sit and listen to the same old words and phrases over and over, till they are so burned into my soul that I could tell them myself? To know them so well that the words spring, unbidden, to my mind at unlikely times during the week? What good are a bunch of stories?

I have to be careful. I wouldn’t want to mix up being transformed with being done. Because being transformed? That could take a lifetime.

...you've gotta be kidding me

Christians all, your Lord is coming, hope for peace is now at hand.
Let there be no hesitation, walk in faith where life demands.
Bear the word that God has given; share the birth that stirs your soul.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ will come and make you whole.
---Jim Miller, 1993

Prepare the way of the Lord. Wait...prepare the way of the Lord? It's struggle enough some days to prepare dinner tonight, or to prepare the presentation for the staff meeting tomorrow, or to prepare to hear the lab results from that medical exam you took last week. But to prepare the way of the Lord? What does that even mean, really, and how in this world are we supposed to prepare for something we haven't experienced and don't really understand?

Prepare? You've gotta be kidding me.

But wait a minute. I can hope for peace: real hope---the kind that puts feet to wishes, and real peace---the kind that surpasses the absence of discord to become wholeness and wellness lived out in whole and well community. And I can listen for the call of life on my life: what is it that calls out my gifts and passions, and who is it that needs the time and efforts I'm capable of? I can share my story with people who want to hear---a love story still in the making of brokenness and healing and pain and joy, and how the God whose best name is Love whispers keeping-on words to me, enough to share.

I can do these things; and you can, too. And in the doing, we may just find we are visited by God born in us, among us, like us. And in the doing, and in the visiting, we may be made whole.

It's a baby. And we prepared the way of the Lord.

...in the face of this cold

Praise to you from the beloved community,

rising to you from your own!

For you do what is needed 

for us to dwell secure,

for our community to continue 

after our own time is done.

You grant freedom from anxiety

and freedom from need, 

filling the fields with lovely wheat.

You let your word be known,

like swift-flowing water.

The snow you send is like a 

fine wool blanket,

the frost like ash,

the hail like crumbs---

how are we to stand 

in the face of this cold?

But your word, that swift word,

is sent from you,

and melts them away in an instant;

you breathe the gentle wind into being,

and the frozen waters flow again.

You make your word known to your people,

in a relationship shared by none other.

Praise to you from your own!

---Psalm 147:12-20 (para. laca)

...full of grace

I lift your name,
you who will not be named.
It is good to let praise rise to you;
for you are full of grace,
and a graceful song is fitting.
You build up your beloved community;
you gather us, outcasts all.
You heal the broken hearts,
you bind up the torn places.
You number the stars,
you name them.
You are great in mystery,
abundant in strength,
measureless in understanding.
As you cast the wicked mighty to the ground,
you lift up the lowly downtrodden.
I lift your name,
you who will not be named.
---Psalm 147:1-6 (para. laca)

...I sing you

I sing you,
with all my soul I sing you!
I seek to give my spirit wing
with each new day,
with rising song lift you 
for my ever.
I've found gladness in knowing 
your help is my sure footing,
your hope is my soaring,
maker of under and over,
the blue all around.
You are faithful:
you pursue justice for the innocent accused;
you fill hungry mouths by your provision.
You grant freedom to the bound,
clarity to the unseeing;
you carry the burden of the bent as if
it were you own;
you rain down love on those 
consumed with law, drown us in love.
You keep watch over the unnoticed;
you stand for the underserved and neglected,
you shake your head as the wicked 
bring about their own destruction.
The community you dream for us 
will be forever. 
I sing you.
---Psalm 146:1-2, 5-10 (para. laca)

...fear find no quarter

Rejoice, rejoice, take heart in the night. 
Though dark the winter and cheerless,
the rising sun shall crown you with light; 
be strong and loving and fearless.
Love be our song and love be our prayer
and love be our endless story;
may God fill every day we share
and bring us at last into glory.
---Marty Haugen, 1983

The calendar tells me we have passed the turning of the year, but my bones don't yet believe it. Something in me isn't convinced the light has begun creeping back into the day, reclaiming minutes from the dark and cold with each revolution of the planet. Funny thing, though --- I know it's coming. I've been here before. I've heard this story. I can 'take heart', even before I see the evidence. And because I know, I can rejoice. I am far from fearless, but I'm working on it.

And working on the fear? That's all about the love, I think. In 1 John, we are told that perfect, or complete, love casts out fear; there is just not room for mature love and mature fear to co-exist. So maybe, in hearts where love is song and prayer and story, fear finds no quarter. Perhaps it even works in communities, where ---God knows--- fear runs rampant, turning us into enemies and paranoiacs rather than allies and supporters.

May love, in the end, usher us into the very presence of God.