One Holy Moment: This Is My Body…Take, Eat
Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, has always been a holy and solemn event to me, thanks largely to my grandfather.
I would not say that Pastor Bill Henager (my mother’s father) and I had a good many bonding moments. Ours was not the kind of grandfather/grandson relationship that led to many fishing expeditions or trips to the ballpark. He was a pastor, sure, but he was a working man. If he was awake, he was probably working. And, let me tell you, he woke up mighty early. Consequently, if you got too close to him, he would likely put you to work, as well. So, as a kid I steered as clear of him as was humanly possible most of the time.
Big Granddad, as we Strother kids called him, had been a farmer before he became a minister. He grew things. He raised cattle. He knew how to grow it, breed it, pick it, pull it, skin it, clean it, and cook it up. He never quit on such things. He carried them right into the ministry with him.
One thing my grandfather did that made an early and lasting impression on me was he baked his own unleavened bread. While other churches served little squares (or wafers, if you were Catholic or Episcopal) that were mass-produced in some factory somewhere, the members of our little congregation were served broken, uneven, homemade bits of unleavened bread, lovingly prepared by our pastor.
There was something ominous to me about that. Holding that broken piece of cracker with its jagged edges and irregularities, while listening to my grandfather read a portion of the passion of my Christ and then read the story of the Last Supper, where Christ reiterated to his bewildered followers the awful suffering that awaited Him only hours thence, always brought tears to my eyes.
I felt as if I were taking Communion under the very shadow of that Cross.
I confess that I made a conscious effort not to take many of my grandfather’s ideas into my own ministry when I became a pastor. I did not see eye to eye with him on more than a few things. That didn’t mean I didn’t love and respect him. I did. I do. I always will.
One thing, however, I did want to continue was the way he put a holy emphasis on the Lord’s Supper. I wanted my people to feel what I had felt as a boy. So, when I took a church in east Texas, only an hour from where he was pastoring the last church he would serve before being called to his reward, I planned a Communion for our congregation and then a personal trip to Mount Pleasant. Easter was just a couple weeks away.
In my grandmother’s kitchen, where her famous rolls were made and where her even more famous monkey stories were often told, my grandfather and I bonded. The sweetest moment I ever had with him was the day he taught me to bake unleavened bread.
I will never forget that Communion the following week. Easter was only days away. I stood behind the communion table. The deacons had served the people the bread and the cup. I read a portion of the story of the Last Supper, and then I picked up a rather large, uneven piece of bread from the silver tray on which it lay and snapped it in two. In the holy hush that had settled over us, that breaking of the bread could be heard all over the sanctuary.
I remember the way this one kid sitting near the front winced when the bread snapped in my hands. I remember hoping that holy moment would stay with him the way those moments from so many years before had stuck with me.
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. ~1 Corinthians 11:23-25
Broken. His body. Broken. For me. For you.
Merle Haggard, Barack Obama, Rainbow Stew, Utopia, and Easter
Eatin’ rainbow stew in a silver spoon,
Underneath that sky of blue.
We’ll all be drinkin’ free bubble-ubb,
An’ eatin’ that rainbow stew.
Not quite, Merle
Reading the news —and the divergent opinions— regarding health care reform and the general direction of the country, that old Merle Haggard tune came to mind. It reminded me to beware the governmental promise of Utopia.
For millennia, across oceans, on every continent, mankind has sought the best way to build a peaceful and prosperous life for himself. Every form of government imaginable has been tried, from despotism to theocratic monarchies to communism to democracy. Some have gone better than others; but none has been perfect. Each has been marred by failure. Most have trudged down a rough road to ultimate collapse and oblivion— a road paved with good intentions, high hopes, and empty promises.
America now stands at a crossroads. Two very different groups— each pointing in the opposite direction— say they know the way. If we will just believe, behave, and follow, we will find joy, peace, and prosperity. While I decidedly favor one group’s ideals over the other, I do not believe that either will lead us to a place free of conflict and crisis.
As much as I revere the men who founded and shaped America— men of vision, insight, and utter greatness; men with names like Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Washington— I do not place my ultimate hope for peace and meaning to my life even in the document they forged or the legacy they left.
As great as I believe the United States Constitution to be, there is a collection of writings as superior to it as the heavens are high above the earth. It is the Book that influenced the lives of most of those men so profoundly as to impact the kind of nation they envisioned, the kind of government they desired, the kind of freedom for which they yearned.
As we approach the event that separates the Founder of Christianity from every other religious leader the world has known, I am reminded that real peace only comes through and from the Prince of peace and true prosperity is measured by eternal measures and not temporal.
Nations rise and crumble. Governments come and go. Mouths that declare their own wisdom today are silenced tomorrow.
But Jesus lives…and because He does, hope and love will never die. And that reminds me of another tune…
Happy Easter.
Pretty Bubbles in the Air
There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; And one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches.
Prov. 13:7 (NKJV)
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Tim. 6:6 (NKJV)
Yesterday, an old tune my Dad used to sing came to mind. It is a lovely tune, one I thoroughly enjoyed hearing him sing when I was a small boy. But then one day I really heard the words for the first time…and they were fraught with discouragement and disillusion. So, I wondered if Dad just liked the tune or if he somehow felt the impact of the lyrics.
The song goes like this…
I’m forever blowing bubbles
Pretty bubbles in the air
They fly so high, they reach the sky
Just like my dreams, they fade and die
Fortune’s always hiding,
I look everywhere
I’m forever blowing bubbles
Pretty bubbles in the air
Honestly, most of us have felt that way at one time or another, like all our efforts, schemes, and dreams were so many pretty bubbles, enjoyed for a few minutes, ascending higher and higher, only to burst into nothingness.
Solomon surely went through a period of such despondency. Having searched out all that the world had to offer and finding that it left him cold and empty inside, he penned observations that became the most downbeat book in the Bible…Ecclesiastes. The catch phrase and theme of the whole book is, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” Solomon compared chasing riches and pleasure and all that the world can offer to chasing the wind. You cannot catch it…and even if you do, what have you got?
But Solomon was living life, as he put it, “under the sun.”
God intends for you and me to live on a higher plain. He urges us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, trusting Him that all these other things will be ours as well. Paul found that gain without godliness was fleeting and troublesome, but godliness coupled with contentment was real wealth.
I don’t want to burst any bubbles today, but acquisitions, accolades and accomplishments don’t last. Nor do they bring real satisfaction.
Jesus does.
A Prayer for Today: “Lord Jesus, I do not wish to spend my time here on earth chasing pretty bubbles. Help me, Lord, to live my life on a higher plain. Help me to order my priorities so that the things that thrill me are the things of eternal value. And may I be content with such as I have, trusting You to meet my needs and take me still to higher ground! Amen.”
Thoughts on Human Nature, Limitations, Predispositions, and Rising Above
The more I observe life and the lives of others and – when I am brave enough for self-observation – my own life, the more I believe that we are what we are by the force of our own nature, much more than any nurture we have received. Plenty of people have risen above their surroundings, their upbringing, their disadvantages to achieve greatness in some meaningful endeavor, but name the ones who have risen above their own innate tendencies.
Even regeneration (that is, salvation) does not change the essential essence of you. Your DNA remains intact. If you were lazy before you met Christ, you are probably now a lazy Christian. If you were dull-witted then, you are likely still drab.
I am certainly not suggesting limitations on salvation, so drop your stones. Nor am I saying that God cannot or will not change a person in a dramatic fashion.
I AM saying that we all have propensities. We have tendencies. Some are selfless by nature; others are selfish. Some are innately intelligent; others have to work hard to absorb every scrap of new information. Some burst with energy; others seek the shade and a soft place to land.
The worker bees need something to do.
The dreamers need something to fire their imagination.
The achievers need something to accomplish (which is not the same as something to do.)
Those who are not driven to work, dream or accomplish need something to occupy their minds and use up their time — they need to be entertained.
When thinking about these things, the easiest thing in the world is to recognize tendencies in others. The most difficult thing is to be honest with yourself. I believe, however, that the only way to be the best you can be and do the best you can do in this world is to really get to know yourself:
- Own your faults.
- Recognize your weaknesses.
- Understand your own essential nature.
- Identify your strengths.
Only then can you maximize your potential.
It is possible – though quite rare – for a person to become greater than the sum of his or her parts. While I am tempted to see each of us as a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, each equipped with a kind of governor that allows us to go this far and no farther, observation and faith tell me that just isn’t so.
Otherwise, how would you explain George W. Bush? Or Jerry Jones? Or (insert almost any rapper’s name here)?
The beautiful thing about what God wants from you is this: He just wants what you are, what you have, what you can (by His grace) do. Nothing more.
If you are like me, tortured soul, what you are may never be enough to satisfy yourself, but it is more than enough for your God.
In addressing a missions offering commitment made by the Corinthians, I think Paul hit on a principle that is applicable here:
Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving. Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. 2 Corinthians 8:11,12
God runs the ultimate lemonade stand. Even the best and the brightest of us bring him lemons from the weed-strewn orchards of our lives…and He makes lemonade.
Your nature is flawed; His is flawless.
Your strength is weak; Even His weakness is strength.
Your resources are limited; His are limitless.
Give Him what you have and what you are and see what He does.
Or, you could just pick up the remote and see what’s on.
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The JourneyMan by D. Gene Strother is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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