3 Easter Yr A April 23 2023

3 Easter Yr A April 23 2023

Acts 2:14a,36-41, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35, Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. From the moment my journey in the Episcopal church began, this is the scripture, the prayer, the action, that made the presence of Jesus Christ real for me. There is nothing about church, about community, about family, about faith, about compassion and justice, about baptismal promises, about a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is not contained in this little collection of words, if only we can recognize. Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

 

As a child, I lived in a community of people. I am five of eight. There were most always people around, and the liveliest times of the day were our dinner meal. We would scrunch around our kitchen table, someone would have to sit on a stool at the counter, actually, the bread board, remember bread boards? in order to get us all in. I wonder if then I recognized the wonder in all that chaos. When my extended family would gather for holidays, there were 23 of us grandchildren. We would enjoy a meal together, but not much quiet. Often many of us little ones would end up staying the night wherever we were, eating breakfast and lunch together the next day, and playing of course. I think the seeds of understanding Jesus’ real presence were planted in those gatherings.

 

In the summer of 2013, Rick and I, and Tom and Amanda, and Willie went on an incredible journey, and among many amazing things we did, we met some of our Norwegian relatives. They were as happy to meet us as we were to meet them. A cousin, Jan, took us to see the land on which our ancestors farmed. We were profoundly moved as we stood on that land, and felt the timeless connection to those who came before us, and those who will follow us. We recognized that connection, that story that joins us all together. At Jan's home, we ate a wonderful meal of Norwegian porridge, and pork, and cheese, and bread, of course. The next day we gathered with my cousins Kjell and MaryAnn and had heart shaped waffles with cloudberries.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

 

It makes so much sense, as we journey together through this life, that breaking bread together is the central activity for us, we come from farmers after all. The most radical activity that Jesus engaged in was to invite people to a meal. And everyone got that invitation. Not only were there religious leaders, there were tax collectors, there were women, single women at that, women who were protected by no one. At table Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. At table Jesus disrupted the social order. At table, Jesus nourished not only the body, but the spirit and the soul as well.

 

When we gather at the communion table we come from home and work and school; we come from far away and down the street, we come and we tell our story, and we tell the story of God’s activity in our lives; we tell the story of creation, blessing, turning away, God loving us back into relationship, repentance, reconciliation and restoration. We tell the story of life, death, and resurrection. We tell the truth.

 

The story that we know and we tell, is about how God saved God's people from the flood waters, and God freed God's people from slavery in Egypt. God brought God's people out of exile back into their land and God came to live and die as one of us, Jesus is in our midst.

 

We read and we study and tell these stories. We listen and talk about what God did and continues to do in this world. We tell these stories to our children. And we do because they help us remember who we are. We remember who we are and we recognize one another and we are recognized in the breaking of bread and the prayers. We give thanks for our blessings; we ask for healing for ourselves and others, we eat together.

 

That is what happened with the two in our story today, who were walking away from Jerusalem, dejected, alone, afraid. Wondering what it was all about, wondering how it all went so very wrong. And the One who told the story of Moses and all the prophets, who told them the story of Jesus, joined them. They invited him to stay, he did, they ate together, and they recognized him.

 

We recognize Jesus in the people with whom we gather to share and tell our stories, and the stories of our faith; we recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread, we see Jesus in the hands, and in the eyes, and in the faces of the people who are at our table.

 

But we also recognize Jesus in the stranger, and the alien, and the immigrant. We see and hear Jesus in those who are out there, those who continue to live in isolation, in loneliness, in hurt, in this broken world. We recognize the freedom, the peace, the community that can be theirs as well.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. But it's not just in the baking of the bread, or in the breaking of the bread, the bread broken for you and for me. Our wholeness comes from brokenness, our healing rises up out of broken hearts that are mended by God’s love. Humanity is made whole once more by the real presence of Jesus in our midst, in our lives, in our brokenness, the broken bread.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Help us to recognize you in word and sacrament, in story and in food, help us to see you in the midst of community. Help us to be agents of your new creation, standing on the ground that you have already won in your resurrection.

 

It is in the bread, broken for us and for all, that we recognize the Love that wins. Amen. 

11 Pentecost Yr B

The people of the world have been planting the seed, growing the grain, harvesting the grain, grinding the grain, making the flour, adding the yeast, letting the dough rise, punching it down to rise again, forming the loaves, laying the fire, and baking the bread, for as long as stories have been told around those fires.

Every ethnicity has a bread that arose from its particular place, the particular grain grown in its region, baked in the fire. From Mexico there are corn and flour tortillas, from the Middle East there is pita, from Italy there is foccacia, from Scandinavia there is flatbread and lefse. In all of these places people gather and break bread together. Breaking bread together is a powerful symbol of our commonality, our humanity, our unity.

Breaking bread together is one way we experience the presence of Jesus Christ in our midst. We gather here at this table and share a loaf of bread; we share a cup of wine. And something in us changes. We are transformed into the new creation that Jesus promises for us by eating this bread and drinking this wine, we are transformed into the beloved community. I think in this particular case, you are what you eat.

My earliest memory of communion was my first communion, probably when I was around six. I remember kneeling at the altar rail in my white dress and my white veil. I was a little scared, and I remembered that the nuns had told me to look straight ahead, it wasn’t polite to look around, and that I must not chew the host, that would be like crunching on Jesus bones.

As I got older, I attended the mass that was held in the church basement, it was the guitar mass of the liturgical emergence of the sixties and the seventies. It was there that I began to really experience community, I worshipped with those people every Sunday morning, I sang and played my flute in the music group. Our surroundings were part gymnasium, part cafeteria, by no means beautiful, and it is there where I knew I was part of the body of Christ. It was there where I learned that you know we are Christians by our love, it is there that mystical body of Christ became real to me in the breaking of the bread. I knew those people who gathered together, and they knew me. They knew the family I belonged to; they knew my brothers and sisters.

I have spoken about my years as a volunteer on the staff of the Minneapolis Catholic youth center. Whenever we gathered together for retreats, for trainings, for community time as we called it, we celebrated Holy Communion together. We sat on the floor around the altar, we sang together, we stood around the altar and held hands during the Lord’s Prayer, and we fed one another around our circle. We prayed for one another’s concerns, for the families that we were growing up in and leaving to make life on our own. We were nourished to go out and do the work we were called to do.

When Rick and I were married, we began our life together with communion. Our families and our friends gathered together in the rectory, we sat together in the living room in front of the fire, and we read the sacred stories and prayed together, and by then it was actual bread that we broke together. In that bread and in that place, in the power of the life that bread gives, we pledged to live our lives together for all time, no matter what. So far….. so good.

In our home church, St. Luke’s in Minneapolis, we had Tom and Willie, they were baptized in the midst of the community of faith that nurtured us, that held us up, and to which we contributed our time and talent as Sunday school teachers, Rick as a vestry member, and me as the Christian Education coordinator. The bread and the wine were central to what we did together. Our loaf of bread was delicious, it came from a local bakery, there were always leftovers, and the children clamored to get the leftovers from the deacon after we were sent out to do the work we were called to do. It was there that we really experienced what Jesus’ companions on the road to Emmaus said, “Risen lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

The bread and the wine that we share together are bread and wine and so much more. We gather together here in this place, we look each other in the eyes, especially in this wonderful sanctuary where we can really see one another, and Christ is made real to us. Christ is in us and through us around us and over us. We sing together the beautiful hymns of our tradition, and we sing together songs that are new to us, and Christ is made real. We pray the beautiful words of our tradition, and we pray the words that are on our heart alone, and Christ is made real. We share one bread, one cup, bread baked by the loving hands of our brother Ray Bulllinger, and Christ is made real. We are sent out into the world to do the work that God gives us to do, and Christ is made real.

You satisfy the hungry heart, with gift of finest wheat. Come, give to us O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.

In John’s gospel, we continue to hear about the living bread, the bread that is Jesus. John is making a claim about the radical presence of God in Jesus, essentially John is saying that in Jesus, God provides everything; God’s abundance is made real in Jesus. We are invited to be present in God’s bounty. We are invited to eternal life, all contained in this loaf of bread.

We are changed by the ordinary bread, into an extraordinary community. Through the practice of Eucharist, through the practice of Thanksgiving, through the practice of eating together around the table, we become the community God desires for us to be, filled with the Spirit, singing and making melody to the Lord and giving thanks at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus.

What was comfort food becomes radical presence. And we are filled with God’s soul food, rather than the fast food that only satisfies us briefly. We are filled with God’s radical presence in Jesus, and we are sent out into the world to practice God’s wisdom, we are sent into the world to show forth the Good News, we are sent into the world to live intentionally, sacramentally, as agents of resurrection and reconciliation. We are sent into the world to bear the good news, Love wins.

Amen