Reflecting…


“So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” (1 Corinthians 11:33 NRSV)

It was getting to be a problem. When the church at Corinth got together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, they weren’t all that “together” about it. Some were digging in, eating voraciously, hungrily. (After all, it was a meal, wasn’t it? A banquet, a feast!) But the haves and the have-nots were not equally served.

So, Paul makes another note on his list of corrections and explanations to send them. They have misunderstood what the Supper is all about. They aren’t “discerning the body,” he writes. And that’s important, important enough to take set aside some time beforehand to review their own lives and to make amends. Important enough to warn them to take this seriously. Important enough to refocus their attention on the body of the Lord Jesus, given over to death on the cross for their forgiveness, and then, to challenge their limited assumptions about what that means in terms of community. In fact, not wanting to leave room for any excuses, Paul uses that word, “body,” to name Jesus Christ and, at the same time, to name the group of persons who eat the bread and share the cup at this table. The body of Christ is the church.

This is a personal meal, but not a private one. Relationship with Jesus is both deeply personal and, then, necessarily public. They cannot choose the first without receiving the second as well. It’s a package deal, we might say.

The well-to-do were accustomed to eating what they wanted when they wanted. Scholars note that the words Paul uses here imply that they are gorging themselves in front of those who have little by comparison.

Once Paul has their attention, when they are listening to this letter being read, Paul will make it absolutely clear: those with more personal power, who are able to do things their way, must make different choices. Eat before you get here, for example. So you can see past the food, so you can see past your own plate. “Wait for each other.” Remember you are here to eat together, so the rich need to be intentional about eating a simple, ‘poor’ meal. For good reason. In order to see Jesus. In order to be the church.

The letter still arrives today whenever we gather to take the bread and the cup. We hear the verses just before this: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is broken for you.’” We hear, “In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

And, maybe we might listen more intently and ponder the importance of these next words for our own choices, “Wait for one another.”

“Much Grace,”
Pastor Shirley

How satisfied are we? or How are we satisfied?

Why do you work for things that don't satisfy?
Listen to me...

It's a paraphrase of Isaiah 55:2. 
Makes me wonder...
How satisfied am I at the end of the day or week or project or unit or semester?  How satisfied am I with my accomplishments?

What does it take to satisfy me? 

Do I let work mask another, unsatisfied part of me --
a part that work cannot address because it has nothing to do with work. 

Do I find the daily grind unsatisfying? 
Am I unsatisfied with the way I replied when asked a question? 
With the particular things in the pile on my desk or the list or my daily planner? 
Or the routine?  Or the unwanted feedback?  Or the embarrassment, or failure? 

But what if I am satisfied? 
Enjoying my life.
Filling my time with activities that remind me I am competent and in control,
activities that make up for other areas of my life where just the opposite is true.

Satisfied for now with what feels good, looks good. 
Telling myself this is satisfying enough; if only things would stay this way.
When life is good, there's always the chance that it could be better, isn't there? 

What if I hear this question as a time to ask what it was all for, what difference it made?

What if I listen
To God   
About what satisfies? 

As if He knew
something about that
that I don't.

Or just because
He asks me to
listen.

Would I hear  
how deep satisfaction can really be,
even better than I've ever hoped for?

Why do you work for things that don't satisfy?
The question implies a life that is much better than I've settled for, for sure.

But accepting a free handout, even from God, 
sounds beneath us somehow, I think. 
Could we be holding on to a twisted impression?

What if, in truth, accepting brings satisfaction far above
anything we could get by working?

What if we were to hear God's question as an invitation?
Good instinct...
because the next word texted from God in Isaiah 55 is
Come.

"Much Grace,"
Pastor Shirley

Reflecting…
God, the Lord, is my strength. Habakkuk 3:19
What a lot of value we place on tracing things back!

• Tracing symptoms back to the cause of our pain or infection.
• Tracing syndromes back to a specific gene that set them in place.
• Tracing family lineage, even tracing DNA, to find our roots and connections.
• Tracing favorite family recipes back to Great-grandma.
• Tracing our fingertips along the strong family resemblance in the soft face of a newborn.

     When a bill seems too high, we phone the company and ask some questions. We press 1, press 4, press * for the company directory until we are able to connect with someone who can give us the answer or, at least, hear our complaint.
     When there’s a clunk in the engine, we lift the hood and take a look or find someone else to do that.
     When there’s an oversight, we follow the investigative news reports to see where things went wrong.


Tracking down evidence. Searching for clues.
Looking for some aspect that will confirm our hopes or fears.


Tracing requires us to sort important details from unimportant ones. To prioritize and keep focused on what’s important. Tracking means taking action day after day, doggedly hounding the problem until we wear it down.


All those daily choices demonstrate that we not only value the results we get when we track things down, but that we are usually capable of getting the results we need. In other words, the process of tracing things back works for us. It’s a pretty essential practice to learn if we are going to live well in our society.


Some trace wounds and frustrations back to God. Why is there no justice? Why do I have to deal with this? What else do I need to do? Where are you when I need you?


Others -- those who know him -- also trace life’s experiences back to him. But they gratefully claim that he is the source of their strength.


Strength…
To deal
With it all.


You might want to trace what Jesus teaches in Matthew 6:32-33.  I especially found "The Message" to be helpful, but perhaps you'd prefer to track it down in a couple of different bible versions.
"Much Grace,"
Pastor Shirley