A Prayer for Holy Week

(in response to the terrorist attacks in Brussels, March 22, 2016)

Lord, so many of us will gather later this week
with the primary purpose of remembering
an act of violence.

And to that remembrance we regret we must add
so many more examples--
yea, even from
this week.

So as we gather
As we remember
As we grieve
Forgive us, once again,
for we know not what we do.

And Lord: remove from us
any vanity or shallow misbegotten reflection
which would prevent us from understanding
that you do not perpetrate violence
ever

and help us learn
and help us teach
that the killing bombing maiming hating
that still happens here
is killing bombing maiming hating
somehow done to
You

Amen.

To my god-daughter on Maundy Thursday

My oldest god-child will be receiving Holy Communion on Maundy Thursday this year with her fellow fifth-graders. Like our own daughters, she has actually been receiving the bread and the wine since baptism, but her parents want to mark this milestone for her and underscore, once again, the importance of this sacrament for her life of faith. To do so, they have asked each of her god-parents to write something (a reflection, a story) which explains what the Lord's Supper means to us and to include a word she might learn to associate with the meal. Each word will be painted onto a chalice they plan to make with her.

All of our god-children are special to us, and I know Thursday evening will be special for her. God bless her and her family!

Dear S-------,

Thirteen years ago when I became a pastor and began serving a congregation, it quickly dawned on me that part of my job was going to involve handing out bread every week. I don’t know why this caught me so off-guard. Holy Communion has always been important to me, but I hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to break a loaf in front of a bunch of people so often. It’s kind of a odd part of our job, if you think about it! I guess I was concentrating so much on preaching and learning to feed people with sermons and Bible studies that I never realized that I would also literally be feeding people real bread! I thought I knew what it took to create a sermon, but I had no idea what it took to create bread. I figured that if I was going to be handing out bread all the time and talking about how important it was and how much it reminds us of Jesus, then I figured I had better learn what goes into making it.

That is when I learned to make my first loaf of bread leavened with yeast. It was thirteen years ago. I got a recipe from someone in that congregation, Vickie Wiegand, who also turned out to be the bride in the first wedding I ever officiated. I tried her oatmeal loaf and quickly learned that bread-making is not easy! It takes a lot of time and a lot more patience than I typically have! But I got better over time and with lots of practice. I ended up throwing out a lot of loaves that didn’t rise or didn’t taste right. What else did I learn? I learned that it makes the house smell amazing. I learned that dough is basically a living organism that needs to be tended.

I also learned something that is essential about baking bread: a good loaf MUST be shared with someone else. In fact, tearing off a piece of a fresh loaf that is still warm from the oven, savoring it, and then handing it to someone else so that they, too, can break off a piece is maybe the best part of baking bread. Bread, therefore, is essentially about community. There is no such thing as a personal-sized loaf. Some of my favorite memories of you, S------, have been the times we’ve made baguettes and cinnamon rolls together—and savored them—on our summer trips.

I think this process of bread-baking has helped deepen my understanding of Holy Communion. Yes, it has helped me appreciate all the time and precision and patience that goes into the loaves that I hand out at the communion rail (which are actually just purchased from the store—but someone made it somewhere! And someone still had to go to the store and buy it!). More than that, it has helped me understand that God is most nourishing when God is shared with others. It has helped me understand that if Jesus is the bread of life, then God must put a lot of time and skill and patience into His care for us. The cross, of course, reminds us of that.

Overall, Holy Communion for me is about ASSURANCE—assurance that God loves me, assurance that God cares for me enough to prepare something so delicious as the life of his Son, assurance that God really does want to draw each of us close, even though we’re so undeserving. This meal is assurance that God’s love is better when we draw more people in to it. And, as the pastor places a torn-off piece of bread in my hand each week under the shadow of that cross, it becomes assurance that, despite my many imperfections, the good gifts of Jesus’ forgiveness are really meant for me.

Eat up!

Much love,

Uncle Phillip