Why I Love My Church

By almost any definition, my church would be labeled as a failure.

We are located directly across the street from a large and prestigious college.  Our church is minutes from downtown Atlanta - a hop from the Aquarium, the Fox Theater, and perhaps most importantly, Octane Coffee Bar.

We were once a prestigious church featuring the who's who of Atlanta.But, in a typical Atlanta story, the neighborhood changed, people got scared, and moved out of Atlanta and out of our Church. 

So on a really good Sunday morning, we have thirty-five people attending our one worship service and six people attending our only Sunday School class.  Our United Methodist pastor is not a seasoned veteran of the appointment system, but a part-time student who has not yet completed seminary.  

But around 11:40 this morning, none of that seemed to matter.  

Because our church is not too far from downtown, we also get our fair share of homeless men and women to show up.  Our church has a relationship with one man in particular - I'll call him John (the same name as Jesus' friend and beloved disciple) - who often hangs around our church, sleeps on the steps, gets his mail delivered and is one of our most faithful attenders on Sunday morning.  

Well this Sunday, John missed Sunday School for the first time this semester and missed the entire sermon and most of the Sunday service.  He showed up about five minutes before communion, hair disheveled, speech slurred.  In short, he was late, he was drunk, and he was loud.  

One of our members walked John up the line to communion, where she helped him with the bread and then helped him dip it into the cup. Our pastor, the young seminarian, greeted John with a smile - "John, this is the body of Christ, broken for you.  We love you and we're glad to see you."

After communion, the pastor stood up and preached his second sermon of the day.  

"Sometimes I think that the words we say and the things we do here aren't all that real.  But then Jesus shows up in the forms I wouldn't expect - like a man walking in drunk, or high or God knows what.  John is a challenge to us and everything we say and we do.  He reminds us that while we may not be as outwardly broken as a drunk homeless man, inside we're just as broken.  And somehow God invites us into fellowship with Him and each other."

Afterwards we all went downstairs, and we shared another meal.  A potluck with the best chicken, vegetables, and dessert Southern church ladies can put together.  There were four tables, all full, and John was there, eating and drinking, laughing and smiling.  

We all had smiles on our faces too.  Because somehow we all knew that by the odd timing of the Spirit, God had given us a gift. A so-called failed church has been transformed - by a wild-eyed and raving Jesus disguised as our drunken friend. 

Feeding on the Word

As we’ve crisscrossed the country with Jesus over the past few weeks, we’ve found ourselves in a traveling classroom - walking with the Messiah in the school of the Kingdom. In the recent Gospel readings we’ve seen Jesus doing all sorts of teaching to all sorts of people. He intimately addresses his twelve disciples. He speaks to the large crowds who follow him. He even tries to teach his enemies.

His course of study is widely varied yet strangely focused. He lays out commands for discipleship – take up the cross and follow him. It will be a few chapters before we figure out just how hard this cross business is. Jesus tells us just who to fear –not the one who can kill the body but the one who can kill the soul. He announces that the people are to welcome the ones their leaders have historically rejected – the weak children and the worrisome prophets. And over the last three weeks Jesus has spent an awful lot of time trying to explain the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom, it turns out, is like a sower who extravagantly sows seed. It’s also like a mustard seed, and a treasure in a field. It’s a woman working a little leaven into a ton of flour, and a pearl of great price, a net that catches fish to be sorted later, and it’s somehow both weed and wheat.

But in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tries to leave the teaching behind. He’s actually trying to mourn – he’s deeply moved when he gets word that Herod had executed his friend and colleague in kingdom work - John the Baptist. Jesus flees the city and we find him way out in the country, miles away from anything but the Sea of Galilee. The crowds won’t let him get away, and like the prophets warned, descend upon him from the North, the South, the East and West. It’s late, well after dinner time. They’re hungry, and to make matters worse, they’re miles away from anywhere where somebody could get something to eat.

Jesus’ disciples, like that ornery housemate or annoying co-worker I imagine some of you might know about, are always the one who seem to catch the blame for everything. They are the ultimate scapegoats for those of us with more than two thousand years of history on our side. If I were with Jesus, we say, I wouldn’t doubt like Thomas. I wouldn’t deny like Peter. But this time, it seems, they just might get it right. They have taken all of Jesus’ wisdom from the teaching they have heard and have tried to apply it. They are, it appears, perfect students.

Using excellent common sense they turn to Jesus and say, “Look man, it’s way after dinnertime. We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and these people are hungry. We don’t have near enough to feed them, so let’s get them home before it gets too late.” The disciples would win a medal for crowd control, Christian hospitality, and good housekeeping. But Jesus doesn’t quite see it that way.

As he tends to do, he blows them and us away with a simple line –

“Don’t send them away. You feed them.”

You feed them.

But Jesus, we’ve got five loaves of bread and two fish, and there is no way we can satisfy this crowd. There’s five thousand men and at least a few thousand women and children here. If we don’t get them out of here, they might not eat and they just might turn on you, and more importantly, on me.

But Jesus, being Jesus, wouldn’t flee. Oh no, instead he began a pattern that we continue in the church today - He took food, bread and fish, thanked his Father for it, blessed it broke it, and fed more anywhere between 10 and 20,000 people if you dare to count women and children.

It was, as we say, a full-on miracle. Jesus took meager proportions and turned them into a meal that really fed a whole bunch of people. Jesus turned five loaves and two fishes into a meal that satisfied. The Gospel writers leave us no doubt that this was a feast to be remembered – the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle story that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all write about. Nothing else caught their attention that much – not walking on water, not calming storms, not even healing a man born blind.

Like most miracles, the feeding of the five thousand leaves us with all sorts of questions. The one that I’ve been asking is this - Why were the disciples so surprised? What did they miss? They had been following Jesus for a real long time, they had seen him do all sorts of things before. They had seen him perform plenty of miracles and healings. He had exorcised demons and even gotten the best of the Pharisees. I mean, after all, as Jimmy told me last Friday at his house, anything’s possible with Jesus. Thousands of books have been written about the faults of these disciples, but I don’t think we need to read them all to figure out how the disciples messed up this time - they didn’t know their Bibles.

That’s because from the beginning of God’s saving work with his people to the present day, God has been in the business of miraculous feeding.

- Remember in Exodus - When the Israelites were wondering in the wilderness, hungry and desperate for food, God dropped Manna from the sky. Out of thin air, the God of Israel fed an entire nation.

- And remember Deuteronomy when we found out that God’s promise wasn’t only about milk and honey, but “a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity in which you will lack nothing.”[1]

- And remember how it isn’t just God who miraculously feeds, but those charged with doing God’s work. Elijah had the audacity to tell a starving widow and malnourished son preparing for their dying meal together to fix him some dinner. He promised that God would provide and God did, to the tune of food for days.

- And remember Elijah’s partner in prophetic miracles, Elisha, who took twenty loaves of barley and some fresh grain and made it into enough food to feed 100 hundred people with plenty left over.

Yes, in the feeding of the five thousand, we see that Jesus has gone beyond teaching. Jesus is revealing that he is not only a prophet of God, but is God himself. Elijah and Elisha miraculously fed people, but not to the magnitude that Jesus did. This is no mere prophet - This is the Messiah.

We won’t get Jesus’ full identity for a few more chapters, but we’re starting to see glimpses. Jesus feeds four thousand more in another miraculous feeding. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, surrounded by the symbols of empire at Caesarea Philippi in chapter 16. He’ll manifest his glory in front of Peter, James, John, and of course Moses and Elijah, on the mount of transfiguration in chapter 17.

I’ve been here at Holy Comforter for just about two months now. Like many of you, I wasn’t sure quite what to make of the place when I first showed up and just what Father Mike, you all, and God had in store for me. But what I’ve found in visiting you in your homes, sharing coffee and getting a contact high on the Smoker’s Porch and making a joyful noise to the Lord in noon prayer (although I imagine God might be the only one who finds the noise that comes out of my mouth joyful) is what a whole lot of others have – that Jesus Christ is in the midst of us. Do you remember that time when Jesus told us how when two or three are gathered in his name he will be there? Well, he seems to show up in this place all the time.

Jesus also tells us that in the Gospel of John that he is the bread of life, that those who eat and drink of him will never die. Jesus sure did a lot of eating and a lot of feeding in his ministry. One of the worst charges directed at Jesus never seems to go away – the man ate with sinners. He joined them at table, and he also fed them – in miraculous feedings where he turned loaves and fishes, the ordinary meal of the First Century peasant, into food enough to feed a bundle.

His greatest feeding took place originally in an upper room, and he does it every Sunday in churches all over the world. Jesus took bread, he blessed it, gave thanks for it, and broke it, giving real bread to real people in real places. This is my body, broken for you. He ate with sinners, Judas was there after all.

He added wine this time and blessed it, poured it, gave it to his disciples, and told them to drink it. Real nourishment for men, women and children of all ages, stations and locations. This is my blood, the cup of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many. And we’ve been doing it for more than two thousand years.

I don’t know about you, but I’m never quite sure what to do when we’re invited to this table. It almost feels like too much – coming to eat at Jesus request. But if I’ve learned one thing from being fed again and again, it’s this - Jesus Christ is right here, right now. And he’s calling us forward, begging us to receive him and his life-giving bread. So, as we like to say at Holy Comforter – come on up, its time to eat. Thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.

---

[1] Deut. 8:9-10

Matthew 14:13-21

14:13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.

14:14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.

14:15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."

14:16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

14:17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."

14:18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."

14:19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

14:20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

14:21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

The Angel's Couch

Her name is Jess.
She is a girlfriend of a friend of my roomates, and one morning about a week ago, I woke up to find her sleeping on our couch. And there she has been, every night ever since.
I've gotten bits and pieces of her stories over the past week. She has graduated high school and is planning to attend college in South Georgia, which will begin next week. A little while ago her mother decided that she would not allow Jess to attend college and refused to sign the loan she needed for school, for reasons unknown. Undeterred, Jess went out and got the loan anyway, and when she told her mother, her mom kicked her out of the house.
Needing a place to stay, she ended up on our couch, and she's been a part of our community ever since.
One of the great things about our house is that we are always entertaining guests. A roomate's sister is doing an internship and has been occupying the guest bedroom for about a month now. When Shane Claiborne came to Atlanta, his film crew threw their sleeping bags on our floor.
All our guests have left an impression, but none like Jess. She is a living reminder that the world outside our house is not always as kind as the one we try to make inside our home. Every night I drive home and see the problems - the street walkers and corner loiterers, the drug pushers and the prostitutes, and the despair and desperation that waits around every turn.
Then I come home and wait for Jess to show up. She usually arrives well after I have gone to bed, but in the morning there she is. She is a living reminder of the despair, how family can let us down. But she is also a reminder of the power of hope and faith. She is an incarnate testament to not being defined by circumstances.
This weekend Jess will leave for college and we will miss her. She is not much of a talker, but despite her quietness she has left an impression. There's a lot of talk these days in Christian circles about the recovery of hospitality as a vital practice. Its not only a vital practice but has been a great gift to our community.
That's because in offering a lumpy couch to this strong and beautiful woman, I know that we've entertained an angel, whether we were aware of it or not.

I'm Alive - An Update from the Monastary

So, its been a real long time since I posted. We just got internet in our house on Friday, so as I promised my two readers, I would post an update. I actually have quite a few things to blog about, so will try to do that in the coming days.

As many of you know, I have begun living in an intentional Christian community here in Atlanta - we're about a mile from Turner Field in a community littered with crime, joblessness, drugs and despair. But it also has its fill of love, hope and faith. I live with three wonderful roommates who are doing their best to be faithful and make a difference in our community. I serve as the community chaplain - my role is to help my roommates connect what they are doing in our neighborhood to our faith and discipleship.

Mike, the youngest of our group, is trying to start a coffee shop in our neighborhood. Community Grounds will open at the end of August. Andra works twenty hours a week at Barnes and Noble and twenty as a youth director for Community Fellowships, a church just up the street from our house. Katie has been taking a well-earned summer off but will begin working as a teacher in a startup middle school. We'll add another member, named Zack, to our community in about a month.

While I have been living in community, I have been doing CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education), which will come to a close in two weeks. Many students have to do CPE for ordination in their respective denominations, and most choose to do them in a hospital setting. My program is a little different in that my ministry settings are in the urban context.

I have spent my mornings at two mission parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. The Church of the Holy Comforter is not a synonym for Bedside Baptist, but a congregation whose congregants are mostly mentally ill. The Emmaus House is a community center located in Peoplestown, right next to Turner Field, that serves the residents of a community that was devastated by Atlanta's concept of urban renewal. CPE has been incredibly exhausting (I usually go to bed at 9:30 during the week), but has been a wonderful way to learn how to be a more faithful pastor. The lessons I have learned this summer will go with me wherever I do my pastoral work.

I will finish CPE on August 8 and then take a week off before I begin my job as the program administrator for Mission Year. My summer has been filled with a lot of work, but I have been doing plenty of reading (one of my friends commented that fiction is, "like crack for you.) I've enjoyed life without cable, although I have to frequently check the internet for Cubs scores, and read about a book a week.

My CPE supervisor said this next year will probably change my life, with the urban living and Christian community that I have placed myself into. No TV. Sharing resources. Yes, even sleeping in a bunk bed. Living with neighbors not like me. Lots of reading. Yes, it's only been a couple months, but so far, I agree with Sheryl Crow that, a change will do you good.

A Life in Books

I just finished reading Paul Elie's wonderful biography, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, which chronicles the lives of four Twentieth Century American Catholics: Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy.

Elie reveals that the four authors were well aware of one another and often came into contact with each other. Merton and Day shared lively written correspondence. Merton and Percy met at Merton's famous hermitage. Percy and O'Connor met briefly as well. Even more than sharing correspondence, Elie makes the point that the authors were shaped by similar books along their journeys.

The books, not surprisingly, were not all theological, but some were. Percy, Merton and Day were all mesmerized by Dostoevsky, most famously the Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov. Merton and Day had their hearts pulled by The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A Kempis. Finally, O'Connor, Merton and Percy were all shaped in some way by Jacques Maritain's Art and Scholasticism.

Sneaking a peak at the libraries of these modern day saints piqued my interest and it forced me to consider the books that have influenced me the most. Some are theological, some are academic, some are personal and some are merely good fiction. They follow in no particular order.

The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I read this book while I was trying to decide whether to attend seminary. It made me think plenty, but like many before me, it challenged me to be a more faithful Christian.

Take This Bread, by Sara Miles.

Christianity is not a philosophy but a lived way of live. Sara Miles' moving memoir of her conversion and ministry that it inaugurated not only helped me think about the mission and nature of the church, but is powerful testimony about the way the Gospel still moves in radically unexpected ways.

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving

You know what's coming but you still can't help but being moved by the ending. A wonderful tale of friendship and the power of love.

It Is Finished

By it, of course, I mean my MDIV at Candler. For the past three years my life, in one way or another, has been defined by my schedule as a masters student who studies theology. I have about a month now where my life won't be scheduled as much, which I am going to enjoy.

I don't really know what to make of the fact that I have finished, but I'm sure it will hit me soon or later. Graduation is Monday, so I'm sure that will change my perspective on things, but for now, I'm just starting to catch up on reading some things I want to read and taking seriously my vocation as a bum.

I move in with the monks on June 1st and then start CPE June 2 here in Atlanta. So, do not worry my friends, a schedule and vocation will emerge soon enough. For now, I'm enjoying my break, going to the pool, reading, and spending time hanging out and re-connecting with friends that I neglected during the school year.

It is finished. God is good.

The Character of a Priest

It is this familiarity with the face of humanity and this fidelity in prayer that equips us for the most demanding aspect of the interpreter's task. We can't uncover the face of Christ in people unless we have the habit of real attention to human faces in all their diversity – but also the habit of familiarity with the face of Christ. How do we recognise him, let alone help others to do so, if we are not spending time with that face, in the study of Scripture and in adoration and silence? Faithful and persistent looking into the face of Jesus is the essential condition for connecting people with each other; without that, all we can offer is human goodwill, human shrinking from the cost of conflict, our own limited skills of sympathy and listening. But if we try to remain familiar with Jesus, we believe that our listening and mediating has a sacramental dimension, mostly imperceptible to us, but real and energising. We are allowing some fuller reality in to the situation, the reality in whose climate we live: the priestly mediation of Christ.

- Rowan Williams, 2004