Writer Anne Lamott says that the most powerful sermon in the world is two words: “Me too.”
When you’re struggling,
When you are hurting,
Wounded, limping, doubting,
Questioning, barely hanging on,
Moments away from another relapse,
And somebody can identify with you –
Someone knows the temptations that are at your door,
Somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling,
When someone can look you in the eyes and say, “Me too,”
And they actually mean it –
It can save you.
When you aren’t judged,
Or lectured,
Or looked down upon,
But somebody demonstrates that they get it,
That they know what it’s like,
That you aren’t alone,
That’s “me too.”
… “To the weak I am weak.”
At the heart of the church, in the soul of the Eucharist, is identification with the suffering of another human being. The church says to the world, “ Me too.” (???)
A church is where peace has been made. (???)
Because in the Eucharist, in Jesus’ body and blood, everything has been reconciled to God.
Paul calls this the “new humanity.”
The Eucharist is about the new humanity.
People who had nothing in common discover that the only thing they now have in common is the one thing that matters.
People who had previously found themselves on opposite sides of a wall find out that the wall has been destroyed.
People who had fought over an endless array of issues realize that peace has been made and there is nothing left to fight about.
You learn that your labels for different people groups are insufficient, because people are far more complex and unpredictable and intelligent and creative.
You used to have a rigid stance on a particular issue, but now you’ve heard the other side and it’s impossible anymore to categorize them all as stupid and uninformed and heartless, because you realize that they have thought about their position and they have weighed the consequences and they have some good points that you must consider.
In the new humanity our world gets bigger, our perspective goes from black-and-white to color, our sensitivities are heightened, we’re rescued from sameness and uniformity, because the wall has come down and peace has been made.
Them becomes us,
They becomes we,
And those become ours.
This is why it is very dangerous when a church becomes known for being hip, cool, and trendy.
Or when a church is known for attracting one particular kind of demographic, like people of this particular age and education level, or that particular social class or personal type.
When everybody shares the same story,
When there is no listening to other perspectives,
No stretching and expanding and opening up – that’s when the new humanity is in trouble.
Its written in the letter to the Hebrews that they shouldn’t give up meeting together because they should “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”
When the goal of a church is to get people into church services and then teach them how to invite people to come to church services, so that they in turn will bring others to more church services – that’s attendance at church services.
Church is people living a certain way in the world.
People who have authority in the world, but authority that comes from breaking themselves open and pouring themselves out so that the world will be healed.
That authority doesn’t come from how right, cool, or loud it is, or how convinced it is of its doctrinal superiority.
This is why when Christians organize politically and start flexing that muscle, making threats about how they are going to impose their way on others, so many people turn away from Jesus.
When you give unconditionally, you will be reminded of the God who gives unconditionally.
When you extend grace to others in their oppression, you are reminded of the grace extended to you in yours.
Addiction, suicidal thoughts, anger, rage – we’ve all got darkness and slavery in our hearts somewhere. Prejudice, hate, envy, lust, racism, ego, dishonesty – we each could make our lists.
Even deeply antireligious people affirm that something is seriously wrong with our world and that wrong is nowhere more present than in the human heart.
In a world in which 840 million people will go to bed hungry tonight because they cannot afford one meal, in a world in which one million people commit suicide every year,
Jesus wants to save our church from the exile of irrelevance.
Walls isolate. So can gates, freeways, school systems, grocery stores, health clubs, shopping malls, homes and office buildings.
But when we hear the cry, everything changes.
The Eucharist is about all of us taking the next step out of Egypt, doing the next right thing, being open to whatever it means for us to be a Eucharist, right here, right now, with what God has given us today.
It isn’t just about trying to save the world. It’s about saving ourselves.
From the kingdom of comfort. From the priority of preservation. From the empire of indifference. From an exile of irrelevance.
Jesus wants to save our church from thinking that the priests are somebody else.
God is with us when we go, when we respond, when we hear, when we listen.
What if the Eucharist is something beyond the ritual? What if it was about following Jesus’ whole way of life?
He has chosen a path of descent; he comes into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a horse, with children, not soldiers, weeping, humble. And he dies, naked, bleeding, thirsty, alone.
Maybe that’s what he means when he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”
(Excerpts from p.151,152,154,155,156, 160,161,172,174,176,177,178 & 181 of Rob Bell’s book, Jesus Wants To Save Christians)
“Ask, and ye shall receive.”
