Monday's thoughts

"Cleaning Up the Table"
It has never been a particular interest of mine and I really never thought of it before. Someone had to set the table for the Last Supper and someone had to clean it up. I have preached numerous sermons on the set up for the Passover Meal. I have spoken about the owner of the Upper Room. I have given time in sermons to the Disciples who fetched the room owner as he was carrying water in the town. I have reflected on the generosity of the Upper Room owner. I have wondered if we would have been willing to open our homes to Jesus and his friends.

What I am looking at this week is the clean up of the Upper Room after the Passover Meal and I am more interested in what the meal symbolizes than I am concerned about who cleared off the table. I am wanting to reflect upon the nature of the sacrament and the way in which it intersects with our lives.

Communion is messy. Anyone who doubts that might want to take a look at the kitchen at the church on a Sunday after we have served communion. Communion is messy. It is a sacrament that takes a clean up committee. Grape juice on the floor and broken pieces of bread along with the chalices or the little cups all bring the need of a level of administration. Someone has to clean it up.

Life and communion have this in common. The Last Supper is not unlike any supper. The sacrament is not unlike life. Life is messy. We have all these loose ends and unfinished projects. We have moments of awkwardness and strangeness. We pick things up and then we drop things. We build things and then we break them.

Interesting to me is the parallel between the way life is and the meaning of the sacrament.

Where is life especially messy for you? How does life break and how do we pick up what is broken? This Sunday I want us to look at life the way it really is, and I want to see how our faith helps us deal with it.

If you have thoughts on this subject write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to have others read your thoughts click on the box below. I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles