Feb 26 - Lenten Devotional

"The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Jesus answered, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.'" (Luke 5:30-32)
　
It's rather amazing to go through the gospels and see just how many times Jesus is eating with people, or using meals as teaching stories. Literally it appears at times as if Jesus ate his way through the Bible. On this past Wednesday night we had our first of five meal worship services that we will continue to do throughout Lent. Each week we are gathering to engage in the idea that when Jesus broke bread and offered cup saying, "Do this in remembrance of me" he meant at EVERY meal we eat rather than simply the ritual moments of Holy Communion.

Our first attempt to live into worshiping, eating, and communion together and with Christ all at the same time had its bumps and confusions. It wasn't a polished service... and we'll work on it and try to make it better - that is only right. And yet I think in some ways it was also exactly what it ought to be. Our efforts are never going to be perfect. Our lives are full of bumps and confusions - and maybe our worship ought to look a lot like our lives. Jesus has a habit of taking the ordinary and putting it to sacred usage... to take our fumbling, bumpy, confused lives - and put them to work as the light of the world.

"I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance"

I have come not to offer holy, perfect worship in order to show just how perfect God is. I have come to gather in the broken, the hurting, the wayward, the odds and ends of this world - and make them whole... make them holy, and show just how much God loves and cares for creation.

I come not to pull you out from the world and make you set apart from it. I come to seek you out and to send you into the world as a part of it.

I come not to find righteous partners to stand above the world. I come to the ordinary people of the world asking them to stand with the least, the lost and the lonely - and offer them healing love.

I come not to set up sacred times and sacred meals.
I come to make all things, all time, all places sacred.

When we break bread - all the times we break bread - do we remember Christ?

When we sit at meal with each other, do we do so as ordinary people living sacred lives?

Are we seeking not to be a church on the hill... whose light shines as testament to our righteousness, but as messy, bumpy, confused and dirty lives in a ministry of sacred servants seeking simply to please God in all we do... in all you do?

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Sanctifying God - you have called us in all our brokenness. You gather us to offer us healing and wholeness. Infuse our lives - muddy earthy lives that they are - with your holy spirit that our lives might be broken in remembrance of you.
Amen.