Uncharted Waters

Thursday, October 17, 2013

"Sacred"

As many of these discussions often begin, I have been reading an interesting book. This time I am reading a book entitled: take this bread, written by Sarah Miles.
As I have been methodically working my way through this woman's biography, which is basically what the book is, I have came to this chapter "Crossing II". In this chapter Sarah is reflecting how her partaking of the Lord's Supper (Communion) is changing her life. She also senses that just as she has been fed at the Lord's Table, so too God wants her to feed the poor in her community. However, the interesting thing about where she feels God would have her to feed people is upon the very altar in which she receives the Lord's Supper each week. Only one problem with this idea...what will her Episcopal Priest say about this idea? Then she remembered Jesus' own actions of "inviting notorious wrongdoers to his table" and then how Jesus basically ignored the "religious rules" of his day, and did it anyway (92-3). Well, she did get her priest's permission to serve the poor in their church building and even upon their communion table. Soon after this ministry started Sarah opened similar food kitchens all through her city. If you want to find out more about Sarah's story you should read her book and it is a great book. However, this experience has got me thinking about something not completely unrelated...and here it is. How often do we Christians close ourselves and our religious rituals off to outsiders? Now don't get me wrong...I am well aware of the "sacredness" of the Church's religious rituals, namely the sacraments that we recognize as Protestants (The Lord's Supper and Baptism) and that all who partake of them should be fully aware of what they are participating in and accepting when they receive them. However, the question still remains in my mind, "Who are we offering them to?" For those of you who I am about to lose in this discussion, because it is getting into the technical details of Church Theology, just wait a minute and you will see where I am going with this. I think the way we treat the "sacraments" and who we offer them to has a direct affect upon the way that we see the outsider among us and how we treat them as well. If we feel the most sacred part of our worship is just for those of us who are insiders and maybe are even "worthy" of these "gifts of God" (That's what the word sacrament actually means) than we have forgotten the very purpose of these "gifts of God". Namely they are "gifts" like everything else that God has offered to us and none of us are worthy of them. All of us have done wrong, just like Judas did wrong, you know the one that betrayed Jesus to his death, but the one who Jesus still offered fellowship and acceptance at his last meal. Sort of surprising isn't it? You know if Jesus would offer fellowship to Judas who could we possibly think of that should be denied this same "gift of God" and fellowship at the Lord's Supper today? Yes, I struggle to answer that question myself, but greater still...how does our lives reflect Jesus' openness to saints and sinners in our everyday lives? For truly all of life is "sacred" and so is every life.