Food

A Reflection for Maundy Thursday

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Mark 14:17-25

When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, “Surely, not I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

 

communion.jpg

Who do you invite to your dinner table?  As Jesus approaches the hour of his death, he gathers around him his most beloved and trusted friends, the twelve disciples.  As the darkness gathers beyond that room, Jesus take the time to be present with those to whom he has taught everything he knows.  And as one of his final lessons, he breaks bread.

Scholars often point out that, before sex or any other form of “joining together”, meal-sharing has since ancient times been the central expression of unity and intimacy between people.  In the Psalms, trust in God is expressed when people gather at table, even in the presence of their enemies.  Abraham greets God’s messengers with a meal; worship in the temple is centered around the giving and receiving of God’s generous gift of food to eat and enjoy.

So it isn’t surprising that Jesus would tell his final lesson with the elements of bread and cup.  For the last few days, he has again and again told his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem, and that he will suffer and die.  Again and again, they have struggled to hear his words.  He has asked them to pick up their cross and follow him; they have argued over who will be the most powerful.

And so now, as he breaks bread and pours the cup, he reminds them, reminds us, that even at the table of communion we are challenged, for at the table we cannot ignore or pass over the reality of Christ’s suffering.  “Take; this is my body….This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to miss the connection between our communion at table and our participation in the journey of the cross.  See, it turns out that, when Jesus asked us to pick up a cross and follow him, he meant it. As would-be disciples of the Lord, he asks us to “get busy” doing what Christ did.  And as we stand on the edge of Good Friday, we are reminded that if we do as Christ does, we may be punished for it.  We may find ourselves abandoned, imprisoned, even put to death.

In their book The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan reflect that Jesus is incredibly consistent in the week leading up to his death.  Again and again, he will remind his followers that the Kingdom of God invites particiation–that as disciples, Jesus calls us to serve, to kneel, to follow, to tend.  That we cannot have the glory without the struggle that precedes it.  That if we are going to walk this path, we need to be willing to “drink the cup” that Christ drank.  In other words- if we would call ourselves disciples, then we will find ourselves where Jesus is: in opposition to the powers and principalities of this world, which would prefer that things stay the way they are. And when we place ourselves in the path of empire, we need to be prepared for the possibility that we may get run over. We may endure struggle, suffering, even death.

But when we follow Jesus, we must also remember: we are not alone.  We are with Christ.

Maundy Thursday begins with a meal, and ends with a conviction.  By the dawn’s light, Jesus will be handed over for a death sentence, his followers will have scattered, Peter will have denied him, Judas will have betrayed him, and Jesus will be alone.  The unity of the table will seem to be shattered.

 

But.

 

Even from these bones, God will breathe life.  For every time we gather at table, we rebuke the darkness and the fear that caused Jesus’ disciples to abandon him.  We remember that even those who were afraid were welcomed by Jesus, reconciled and redeemed on Easter morning.  We testify to the truth: that being a disciple is HARD work, that we WILL fail, but that God’s love in Christ can transform us.

 

A Prayer for Maundy Thursday:

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand, I am tired I am weak I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, take me home.

Holy God, as we stand on the threshold: between the past and the present, between your ministry and your death, between hope and fear, send Your Spirit to be amongst us.

To those of us who are afraid of the cost of discipleship, give us courage.

To those of us who are tempted to flee when the risks become high, console us with the knowledge that you welcome the broken and the fearful into Your arms.

To those of us tempted to sell you out, to give you up, either because we don’t understand Your Kingdom or because we have other ideas, remind us that even the enemy was welcome at the table, and that Christ loves us even at our worst.

To those of us who would condemn you, persecute and even kill you, break our hearts with the compassion that comes from God, and the courage to act humbly and righteously in the midst of a violent and broken world.

And to those who would stand on the fence, taking no sides, convict us.  Open our hearts to the knowledge that to do nothing is to choose.

Holy God, help us always to remember this truth: that as often as we love, help, hurt, fear, condemn, and ignore our brother or sister in Christ, we do it to you.  May we never forget: the drama of Holy Week is re-enacted every. single. day.  Give us eyes to see, and feet to walk the path your Son Jesus Christ walked, then and now.

 

Amen.

 

Poison Ivy: God’s Great Leveller

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For the lover of Nature, there is no end to the supply of theological and philosophical musings on the wonder of God’s creation.  Whether it is Ralph Waldo Emerson or Anne Dillard, Michael Pollan or Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry or Barbara Kingsolver or even Mary Oliver, one does not have to look far to find 200 pages or so of poetic verse dedicated to the intricate beauty of those who inhabit the land.

It is a secret delight of mine, I must admit, to linger over the pages of authors such as these, and to imagine in full color and with vibrant imagination the experiences that they detail on paper–the rush of the mighty wind, the cool waters teeming with dappled trout, the way in which words can transform even the obnoxious gadfly into a meditation on the holy, or a rotting trunk into a moral on the universe.

But there is a limit, it would seem to such musings.

Rarely, for example, have I seen an author turn their “reverent” gaze on poison ivy.  It is as though this persnickity plant, ubiquitous though it may be throughout the United States, has failed to register in the writer’s worldview.  It would seem that it is not worthy of the printer’s page.

Perhaps it is the visual humility of this plant that causes it to escape our notice.  For certainly it grows low to the ground, with only a few leaves to its name.  No wonder the plant at first glance–and even perhaps at a second and third–seems forgettable.  It is literally drowned out by the glory of the oaks and the buzzing of the arthropods, often hidden beneath its more majestic neighbors.

And so it is that we too easily forget this lowly creation as we turn our gaze to the grander aspects of Nature.  We write it off as base, a pest to be avoided, and we go about our business glorifying its neighbors.  But is this fair to poison ivy?  Is it not majestic in its own way?  If we wish to wax poetic over the majesty of God’s creation in the oak, ought we not also wonder at the cunning of this creature?

I found myself wondering at precisely this question last week, following my first encounter with this lowly little vine. As a Californian from the Bay, I grew up unfamiliar with ivy, for I lived in one of the few places in this country where the plant doesn’t grow.  And so it was that, when I moved to Philadelphia and began the process of amending the impoverished soil in my back yard for a small garden, it never occurred to me to familiarize myself with ivy.  The problem of ivy never even crossed my mind.

Which is precisely why, the day after a particularly vigorous weeding sans gloves, I was suprised to discover that my the space between my fingers on my right hand was becoming swollen with tiny blisters that itched the living daylights out of me.  Even then, it took me almost a day to discover the source of the blisters, and to begin to educate myself so that I would never make the mistake again.

Score one for the poison ivy.

In underestimating poison ivy, I had, like so many nature writers, dismissed it from my notice, and this is precisely what allowed this little plant to teach me a lesson.  For in underestimating its power, I succumbed to it.  In ignoring the plant, I made it possible for the ivy to hold my attention for at least a week, an unfortunate reminder to me that some plants know how to pay it forward in ways that we cannot imagine.  Some plants, like poison ivy, have a way of teaching respect to those who would offend them.  For certainly, the oak is majestic, but its beauty has never impelled me to scour the library and the internet for information on how it works.

It is interesting to me, in fact, that it is the more pesky plants and animals in God’s creation that inspire knowledge.  We are often much more keen to understand the mosquitos and the poison ivies of God’s created order than the gaudy and obvious splendors.  But rarely to we engage them with an eye towards the sacred.  Rarely do we speak of the sumacs and the fleas as God’s good creation as well.

As for me, I may have trouble seeing the fleas as beautiful, but I have gained an appreciation for poison ivy.  In the garden, I approach it with reverence, and I think twice before I deign to interfere with its turf.  It may look lowly, but even the highest of us all dress down once in a while.  And besides, it was in some of the lowliest creations that Jesus himself found beauty and God’s glory at work.

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I was digging in the dirt outside this morning to get things ready to plant my tomatoes, when I found this:

From what I can figure out, this is either a cottage cheese or a cream bottle from a dairy that once operated at 45th and Parrish Streets in Philadelphia… It certainly isn’t there now, but it was 80 years ago.  And it’s been sitting less than 6 inches under the dirt in my back yard for who knows how long!

The thing about goals…

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…is that they often become a chore.  At least, that is how I felt about running on this past Sunday, as I forced myself to get myself over the 20-mile marker for the week… I felt like crud, and running was the last thing I wanted to do, but I also didn’t want to fail my first week of my new goal, and, well, I had been the one who had left a few miles until the last day.  So I forced those miles in, and what do you know, it felt good to make it 10% closer to my goal!

Given my struggle to hit 20 miles at week 1, I wondered if this whole project might turn out to be more difficult than I thought… imagine my surprise, then, that this week has borne little resemblance to last week at all!  My runs have not been easy all the time, but they have been much more manageable, and what’s more, I had a record speed day last night, clocking 6 miles at something like a 7:10 pace per mile.  As of this afternoon, I am over 15 miles, which means that I basically need to run tomorrow and then I get the weekend off.  It is a good reminder that every day and every run is different, and a new opportunity to progress.

In other news, the garden is coming along.  I have had more than a couple losses, mostly cucumbers, which has taught me a valuable lesson about my plants:  something things aren’t meant to be started inside!  Tomatoes are looking great, though, and the strawberries and radishes are getting close.  The Kale is going nuts, and the chard looks as though it may be recovering from whatever was eating at it (literally) a few weeks back.  Only time will tell.

Okay, off to clean up and then meet the hubby for a dinner date!

I couldn’t resist…

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The beginnings of a delicious BBQ creation
The beginnings of a delicious BBQ creation

I couldn’t help it; mom my and I are making BBQ for dinner tonight, and the recipe for the sauce called for a delicious bundle of thyme to be bound in bacon and cooked into the sauce.  We went ahead and borrowed from my mother’s monster thyme plan, and here we are…. my kind of barbeque, if you ask me!

 

To come, some awesome photos of my foray into fruit preserves, basically a second installment, given last year’s experimentation with loquat.  Also, some of my own observations and reflections regarding God, etc.; long overdue.