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Trinity Voices

Week 5:  Musical Response

3/27/2015

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Josh Garrels' "Bread and Wine"
I know we've already listened to one Josh Garrels song this Lent, but I like his music.  Partially because of the meditative qualitites and partially because his music crosses between genres - especially secular and Christian.  When I came across this anecdote in an NPR article, I knew I had to post another song:
Garrels is playing a sold-out concert at Portland's historic Alberta Rose Theatre.  He's sitting on a stool wearing a white skullcap, a work shirt and work boots and resting a Gibson guitar on his knee.  While the venue is decidedly secular - his fans are sipping craft beer - Garrels does a little preaching toward the end of his set.  "The song is called 'Bread and Wine,' because we're invited to eat the body that's broken for us and drink the blood that's spilled for us, to enter into literally the suffering so we can receive something that is way beyond us and be healed."  He seems to connect with his listeners.  They not only tap their feet; they nod their heads in agreement.  Read more from NPR here.
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Week 5:  Devotional Response

3/25/2015

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Food Fights Among Christians
By Rev. Dave Schmidt

I never got into the big food fights one might see among the three stooges or maybe the students at Hogwarts.  Oh I recall a few minor scrimmages in my high school dining hall, but nothing that ended up in the principal's office.  However, I have experienced several food fights around the table of the Lord.

Christians often get into disagreements about Holy Communion - especially about who can share at the Lord's table.  When I was growing up, we had Communion once a quarter and the number of people in church declined on those Sundays.  Why?  Because some weren't sure they were worthy of coming to the table.  Yet this was a Methodist Church where the invitation given invited all who wanted to lead a new life before God.  Perhaps too many sermons about the dangers of going to hell scared people.  Perhaps we didn't really grasp being save by grace instead of by our lawful good deeds. 

As I came to grasp the awesome invitation given by Jesus, I was glad to participate in the meal that was Holy Communion.  I heard the invitation to the Lord's Supper as welcoming all.  But I have experienced "food fights" with other Christians about this welcome. 

In a lab school where I joined several other Sunday school teachers learning to work with persons with handicapping conditions, my partner and I chose to teach a lesson on communion to the class of teens with Down's Syndrome.  We decided to end the lesson by serving communion.  I never saw a whole class of teens so caught up in the mystery of the sharing of communion.  However, after the class (as is the case in a lab school) we gathered with the other teachers in training to be greeted with a challenge.  How could we serve communion to these "children" who could not possibly understand it?  They seemed to have missed the looks of the students that clearly said they were caught up at the table of the Lord. 

In another instance, some of my students at the Wesley Foundation at NIU elected to accompany their friends from the Roman Catholic Center on a retreat.  These students often came to some of our events and a few had even shared communion.  As the students reported back to me, it had been a great sharing event until the end.  At that point the priest came to them and told them they could not participate in the Eucharist with their friends.  They were crushed. 


As kids, we thought food fights were funny and didn't really hurt anyone.  However, in the history of the church food fights turn out to be painful and disruptive of the message of Jesus who invited people from the highways and byways to break bread together. 

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Lent Devotional Week 5

3/23/2015

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The OPEN Table
By Pastor Tracey Leslie
Read:  Luke 5:27-32; Acts 27:33-38
The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"
-Luke 5:30
In the ancient world, it was important to take care with whom you dined.  By eating with someone, you demonstrated your desire to be associated with that person.  Meals were often the context for people to forge alliances.  And so it is surprising and disturbing to the religious leaders that Jesus so frequently chooses to dine with “sinners and tax collectors.”  Why on earth would he choose to associate himself with those kinds of folks?  From their perspective, through Jesus’ lack of dining discretion, he shamed himself.  But Jesus finds no shame in breaking bread with those whom society would reject.

In Matthew, Mark and Luke, on the night before Jesus is put to death, he celebrates a meal with his disciples.  It is the meal the Church continues to celebrate today.  Some call it communion; some call it the Lord’s Supper; some call it the Eucharist.  It is a meal intended to unite Jesus’ followers to him and to one another.  Yet it is often a source of division among his followers.  Some believe it is a meal reserved for church members.  Others say only the baptized may commune.  Some believe that the bread and wine literally become Jesus’ body and blood.  Others believe they only represent Jesus’ body and blood.  And so, debates rage:  exactly who is the table open to?  Who is welcome to attend this very special meal?

Sometimes, in our debate over Holy Communion, we forget all of the other meals Jesus ate with his disciples.  Although his final meal with the disciples was shrouded in the sorrow of his impending death, many of the gospel meal stories are distinguished by joy, abundance and inclusivity.  Likewise, the early Christians loved to eat together.  Acts tells us “they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts.”[i]  

One of the most curious bible meal stories is found near the end of the Book of Acts.  The apostle Paul has been arrested and taken into custody.  He is being transported by ship to the city of Rome where he will stand before the Emperor.  On the journey, they encounter a horrible storm at sea; a storm that rages on for days.  Those on the ship are sailors, soldiers, and fellow prisoners.  They are so overcome with fear, they have stopped eating.  Fourteen days in, an angel appears to Paul in the night to tell him that neither he nor any on the ship will perish.  All their lives will be spared.  Paul communicates this good news to them and informs them that they need to eat and take nourishment.  We have no indication that any of them are disciples of Jesus and so it is surprising, one might even say astonishing, that Paul acts as host for their meal.  Our bible writer tells us:  “he took bread: and giving thanks to God in the presence of all; he broke it and began to eat.”  And those on the boat also began to eat.  But, did you notice those very special words Paul said?  Like Jesus on that night with his disciples in the upper room, our narrator says Paul took the bread, gave thanks and broke it.  It almost sounds as if Paul is celebrating Holy Communion with a bunch of heathens on a ship.  How peculiar, how welcoming; how open is God’s table? 
[i] See Acts 2:46

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Questions to reflect upon this week:
-When guests come over for dinner, what are some things you do to express your welcome to them?
-Have you ever sat down to eat and fellowship with a  stranger, someone in need, or someone who was lonely?
-In the early Church, "holy communion" was celebrated within the context of a communal meal.  Is it important for church folks to eat meals together?  Why or why not?  What is the benefit in sharing in a meal with one another?

Prayer:  God, your table of grace is open to all and yet, too often, I seek fellowship with those who are like me, familiar and comfortable.  Open my heart, O God, to feed those who are hungry… hungry for mercy, hungry for bread, hungry for fellowship.  All this I ask in Jesus’ name.  Amen.        

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