Where do we meet God face to face? And what kind of God are we expecting to meet? These are questions that has revolved in my mind all week as I have contemplated these words from Richard Rohr’s book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality.
We wil not trust spiritual power until we have experienced a God who operates in the same way, a God who is willing to wait, allow, forgive, trust and love unconditionally. p89
He goes on to say
Before encounter God is perceived as omnipotent power; after encounter God is perceived as humble love. p93
No wonder throughout most of human history people were unable to meet God face to face. Moses did and he was radically changed, but the children of Israel were unable to face God even the reflection of God that was evident in Moses face. For them God would always be a punishing, powerful God who brought them out of Egypt to let them die in the desert.
Jacob wrestled with God and was also changed. His self made strength was torn apart and he was able to greet his brother with love, humility and vulnerability instead of with deceit and fraud. (Genesis 32 & 33)
In the New Testament we do of course meet God face to face in the person of Jesus but again so many rejected this encounter. A king born in a stable, raised as a refugee, despised and rejected by the authorities? A God who ate with sinners, welcomed prostitutes, healed the unclean? How could this possibly be? But for those who did turn and face Jesus gazed into the face of God and were so radically changed that their lives changed history forever.
Meeting God face to face is the most earth shattering and life shattering experience imaginable, not because it reveals to us the power of God but because it overwhelms us with the love and humility of God. And in that encounter we are changed forever too. A true encounter with God leaves on us an imprint of the living God, an image that enables us to reach out to others with the love and compassion that is who God truly is. In meeting God face to face, we too become the face of God to others.
Many of you know that Tom and I are very keen on Celtic Christian spirituality. One of the highlights of our life has been the opportunity to spend Holy week on the island of Iona several years ago. During that pilgrimage I was given a copy of what is known as Columba’s prayer. It is still one of my favourites for quieting my soul and helping me to become attentive to the voice of God.
Sometimes in a lowly cell, in the presence of my God,
I stand and listen.
In the silence of my heart I can hear his will,
When I listen despairing people flock to me,
They expect that I can see the answers,
They ask my advice, they say I am wise.
I answer that nothing can deceive me,
If I stand alone and silently listen.
For I am but a servant who is guided by his king, when I listen.
Sometimes in a lowly cell in the presence of my God
I stand and listen.
The popularity of my posts over the last couple of days on community, hospitality and food made me realize how many people are looking for resources to help them form community in this way. As well as that today is the celebration of the Celtic saint St Brigid of Kildaire who was known for her generosity and hospitality. Like many of the early Celtic saints she believed that hospitality was a doorway into the kingdom of God.
So here are the resources I would recommend as a starting place.
Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition, by Christine Pohl is the best and most challenging book I have ever read on the Christian art of hospitality.
Friendship at the Margins by Christine Pohl and Christopher Heuertz. This is a great complement to Christine’s book and just as challenging. They contend that when we welcome those on the margins of society by practicing hospitality and we create communities where righteousness and justice can be lived out.
Take This Bread, by Sara Miles is a delightful look at what can happen when we take remember Jesus when we share the bread and the wine of communion.
A Year of Plenty by Craig Goodwin. I love the way that he talks about the connections that were made in their church parking lot as they established a farmer’s market there.
A Meal With Jesus by Tim Chester. This book is a great look at how the sharing of a meal can be an opportunity for mission and community.
Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices by Julie Clawson. This book is not directly related to the topic but I found it challenged me to as many of the justice issues Julie looks at are related to food.
Babette’s Feast. If you have not yet seen this film then I suggest you start here. Get some friends together, share a meal, watch the film and discuss its images of the kingdom
Obviously this is not a complete bibliography but I gives a good place to start. If you are aware of other must read books in these areas I would appreciate your comments. As you can see I discovered more that address issues of community and hospitality than community and the growing of food so I would be particularly interested in any books that talk about this. To be honest I hate the word self sufficient that is the cry of the sustainability movement. Our goal should not be self sufficiency but interdependence.
This beautiful video on gratefulness makes a wonderful meditative reflection for the day. Thanks Greg Abell for making me aware of it.
Yesterday I posted on the forming of community around the preparing and eating of food. Coincidentally Tom also posted on community yesterday Did You Ever Consider That God Might Want You to Start A New Community In A Parking Lot?. This is so central to the gospel and to the kingdom of God that this morning I thought I would share other stories that speak vividly of this aspect of who God calls us to be and of the eucharistic power of shared meals.
First this beautiful story from Turkey that Jeri Bidinger added as a comment to my post.
I don’t garden, though we have recently taken up residence in a Turkish village where home food production forms the fabric of life. Yesterday my neighbor found me to show me how they are making olive oil from olives collected from my trees and hers. As I left, her rooster attacked me when I got too close to the hen-house to photograph their small son. Yes, much community around the sharing of what we grow (my lemon tree is also an amazing producer and her husband showed me a pine-nut sapling he prepares for my garden) and the tending of her chickens and another neighbor’s cow. And then there is my bread-baking.
The stuff of hospitality, though, resonates very deeply. In this place of very few believers (I was the only one last Sunday), we share the Lord’s table every Sunday night and it IS a meal where we consciously celebrate Christ’s body and blood in the elements as we share and pray together. Whether we are two or six, whether we speak a common language or not, these times are rich fellowship.
Beyond food, in all its beauty and simple goodness, the offer of a safe place, of thoughtful converse, of space apart from life’s battering and stresses, where one can listen and be listened to, and play a bit–joy that leads to worship.
Second another very moving story that I used a couple of years ago from a post by Lisa Carlson co-director of Aurora Care Continuum
This month my husband and I shared meals with a handful of women that are prostituted in our neighborhood. We are grateful that they trust us enough to enter our home. As I reflect on the faces of each woman- one stands out to me the most, and this is the story that I must share: her name is “Rose”. I met “Rose” on the corner of Aurora and 95th street.
When I met her she was practically slumped over onto the fast paced street of Aurora, she could barely keep herself awake. I touched her on the shoulder and she looked at me as if she did not know where she was. She told me that she was in pain and that she had not slept in four days. She went on to tell me that a “john” had busted out all her teeth on a trick a few days ago, so that is what caused the pain. Her teeth were all knocked out and she hobbled as we stepped. I invited “Rose” to walk with me to my home where she could take a much needed, much deserved nap in a safe place. She agreed and this began our 24 hours together.
“Rose” slept on the couch, and as she slept I prepared a meal of chicken, potatoes, bread and salad. I lit candles and put out our finest plates and napkins. When “Rose” woke up, I invited her to join us at the table. And as we sat together, she asked if she could pray for our dinner. Her prayer was beautiful and yet it held a harsh reality: as she prayed she shared with us that she is 40 years old and that she has been prostituted since age 13 when her dad started feeding her crack. In this prayer she thanked God for a warm and safe place to sleep and then she shared with us and with God that this is the first time that anyone has ever invited her into a home to eat.
My goodness, “Rose” is 40 and has been out in the streets for 27 years and this is the first time she has shared in meal fellowship! I could not believe my ears. As she ate, she shared that this was the best meal that she could ever remember having and then later on in the meal as she talked about her love of singing, she bust out into song! “Rose” spent the night at our home that night, and the next day I accompanied her to the methadone clinic and then to lunch at Recovery Café.
This is certainly not the first time that I have had neighbors eat at my home or sleep on my couch but this was the first time that I gave myself permission to experience the table fellowship in light of Christ’s words, “Whenever you do this, do it in my memory.” We shared Eucharist with “Rose” that evening; I have no doubt about this. “Rose” was at the table with us, sitting in the position and place that she deserved…fine linens, candles, a warm meal, singing and fellowship with the Mystical Body of Christ. This is the work of God, for the people of God. Amen. Read the entire post
And finally a story I shared a couple of years ago about an Ethiopian feast prepared by our good friends Melody and Gil George.
Several months ago our good friends Melody and Gil George cooked a wonderful Ethiopian meal for us. The delicious hot and spicy sauces were spooned onto platters spread with layers of the Ethiopian flatbread injera. More mounds of injera dotted the table waiting for us to tear off pieces with our fingers so that we could scoop up the wonderful berbere flavoured wots. By the end of the meal all that remained on the platter were broken pieces of injera soaked with the remains of the sauces.
As we gathered the empty platters I was struck by how much this meal must have resembled meals Jesus ate with his disciples and those other friends of his – the tax collectors and prostitutes. Bread was far more than an adjunct to their meals, it was the very heart of their shared life together. The bread was broken so that people could share together the nourishment they needed to sustain life. And as the bread was broken there was implicit in the act, a sharing of hospitality, of togetherness and of community. Anybody who ate from their table, friend or stranger, rich or poor, young or old would enter into this shared community. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling that in eating together in this way we had shared in the communion of Christ’s body.“To the Middle Eastern mind-set bread is not just a source of nourishment.” Says Ravi Zacharias. “It is the bearer of much more… It is the means of friendship, celebration and pleasure.” Read the entire article
Friday and Saturday were community garden days at the Mustard Seed House. Afterwards I reflected on what wonderful times of fellowship and fun these were. It started me thinking again about the importance of community and how we form it.
Gardening and hospitality, I thought. These are two of the most important places for forming community. Other shared activities like shared worship practices and shared ministry are also important for forming community, but sometimes they create rather than break barriers. And the best worship and ministry are deeply enriched by the sharing of food and its production. The phenomenal growth of the community garden movement is a good example of this.
In the creation story we find God forming a community around gardening too. It is God who plants the garden of Eden and asks human kind to tend it. And it is God we hear walking in that garden in the cool of the evening, not just enjoying what has been planted but looking for Adam and Eve so that they can enjoy it together.
In gospels we are introduced to the risen Christ as the gardener of the new creation. To be part of God’s new creation we once more walk in fellowship with God and with each other, fully mindful once more of our call to tend God’s garden and make it flourish.
Gardening breaks down barriers that can destroy community. Barriers of race, social strata, and age. In the garden we are all one. We wear our oldest clothes, so no one can tell the rich from the poor. We listen to the wisdom of grandparents who had their hands in the dirt long before we were born. And we rub shoulders with people of every tribe and nation because to get the big jobs done we need every will hand and every able body.
The other place most important community forming practice is hospitality and the sharing of food together. In the gospels we find Christ constantly sitting down to table to enjoy community around hospitality and food. Even after the resurrection, hospitality plays an important part in his interactions with the disciples. One of my favourite bible stories is the resurrected Jesus making breakfast for friends. (John 21:9)
Like gardening, the sharing of food can break down barriers as we see profoundly portrayed in the wonderful film Barbette’s Feast.
It is no wonder that the central sacrament of our faith is the breaking of bread and wine, something that was once more than the symbolic sharing of a rice wafer and a sip of wine or grape juice. The last supper must have looked a little more like what Sara Miles does in her book Take This Bread. The bread and wine at communion becomes tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away and in the pages of her book we find the most unlikely people sitting down to dinner together – church ladies, bishops, schizophrenic street people, thieves and millionaires.
What do you think? Where do you find community? What for you are the most community enhancing activities?
This is a summary of the prayers that I have posted on facebook and twitter in the last couple of weeks
Still my mind O God, calm my spirit,
Draw me to a place where my soul finds solitude,
May I listen to the sounds of silence,
And hear your quiet whispers.
_____________________________
God transform us
May our blindness become sight,
May our zeal become faith,
May our hate become love.
_______________________________
God we are hungry to see your face,
Jesus we are thirsty to hear your words,
Spirit we are longing to know your presence,
Feed us, quench our thirst, dwell within us today.
________________________________
May the gospels be ever new to us
May the word of God be ever fresh
May our eyes and ears be ever open
To the Christ revealed as we walk the road with him
____________________________________
When Jesus says don’t be afraid, may we listen
When Jesus says I am with you always may we believe
When Jesus says in me there is no condemnation
May we be set free.
________________________
Let us breathe in the wonder of this moment
Let us look at its beauty and savour the essence of God
Let us touch its glory and know the love of God
_________________________________________
May we seek to know the will of God
And listen to all the voices through which God speaks
May we walk forward without fear into God’s kingdom ways
___________________________________________
Let us sit in the presence of God
Confident of his goodness and mercy
May his love surround us
His Spirit fill us
His truth guide us
_________________________
God is good and loving and kind,
May we share God’s goodness,
And celebrate God’s love,
Till the whole earth shines with God’s glory
__________________________
The beauty of the snow covered landscape outside my window reminded me of this prayer I wrote last year:
Beauty beyond words, creativity beyond imagining
God bathed, son drenched, spirit infused
May we dare to believe
God is here, transforming, redeeming,
Making all things new.
____________________________
A prayer for Martin Luther King Day
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we shout for justice,
And as one we fight against oppression.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we seek God’s righteousness
And as one we sing God’s praise.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we climb God’s mountain,
And as one we enter the promised land.
May we dream of a world made new,
Where together we proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom,
And as one we enjoy its peace, and abundance and love.
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