The Breaking of Bread

My favorite resurrection story is Luke’s telling of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The story begins with the two disciples “talking with each other about all these things that had happened” (Luke 24:14) and ends with their telling the disciples “how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” (Luke 24:35) Between those two markers, an amazing story of defeat and despair morphs into the joy of knowing that the Lord has been raised!

One of the things in the story – in addition to the obvious joy of Jesus’ resurrection – that draws my attention and makes it a favorite is the phrase “the breaking of the bread.” Even more intriguing, in the earliest description of the Kingdom of God after Pentecost (Acts 2:42), Luke uses the same language as one of his descriptors of what life in the earliest, early church looked like. If you know the text, “they devoted themselves to . . . the breaking of bread . . .” And just a few verses later, again using the same vocabulary, Luke tells us “. . . they broke bread at home. . .”

The burning hearts of two sorrowful disciples were renewed and reinvigorated by “the breaking of bread.” Perhaps the “remembering” of “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) is more than merely a recollection of a man named Jesus. As Paul would remind the disciples of Christ at Corinth, “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) For Luke, Paul’s companion, it was the “breaking of bread” that was the motivation for believers to gather on the first day of the week. (Acts 20:7) Almost incidentally, Luke mentions that Paul preached a rather long sermon on that occasion – but the meeting together was “to break bread.”

Think about that story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The yet unidentified, but risen, Jesus began “with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” (Luke 24:27) That sounds very much like “proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.” Their eyes were opened to the risen Christ as together they ate the bread that Luke describes with these words: “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” (Luke 24:30) It is hard to read this story without thinking that it was in “the breaking of the bread” that the veracity of the stories of resurrection was made real.

Having grown up in a tradition of weekly “breaking of the bread,” I do not remember ever thinking that communion (as we called it) was not important. It was so important in my little country church, that it was unheard of to think that grape juice was an appropriate substitute for wine. I remember one discussion of that subject when my grandfather (with the rather authentic sounding Christian Church name of Thomas Campbell Huxford) declared that if they changed to grape juice, my grandmother, who had been washing the glass communion cups for decades, would no longer “fix communion!”

What I am not sure about is whether or not our emphasis on “weekly” has not somehow disrupted the emphasis of the New Testament on the “passion play nature” of the Lord’s Supper. Is it possible that the weekly focus – in some sectors of our Stone-Campbell tradition a test of fellowship – has somehow made us less likely to focus on the reminder that even with Jesus as the teacher, it was in “the breaking of bread” that the two forlorn disciples headed to Emmaus had their eyes opened.

In a class I was teaching last night, a part of our discussion reviewed all the statistics that come out of groups like the Barna Group suggesting that the moral behavior of Christians in western cultures is not particularly distinguishable from non-Christians. Our discussion revolved around the need of good preachers to find ways to make better, more appealing, more compelling application in sermons.
This story makes me wonder. Is a part of our challenge here in the tendency of western Christians – even those of us who insist on “doing communion weekly” – to not pay enough attention to “the breaking of bread?”

I am not sure I know the answer to that question, but I am sure it is a question we ought to think about!

Who Would Have Thought?

What can I say? If thinking that as a follower of Jesus I should be concerned about the poor, even to the point of being willing to invest my own resources in making a poor person’s life better – if that makes me a socialist – count me in! And while you are counting, don’t forget Jesus.
The uncomfortable reality is that for many of the followers of Jesus in the world of American Christianity, we have far more than we need. I don’t say that in the sense that if you have more than one suit, or you are a two-car family, or you actually own a Kindle and buy books to read, etc. that you are somehow beyond redemption. I’m all of that and more, but will gladly say I follow Jesus. I have friends who whose possessions make mine look meager, and I gladly describe them as followers of Jesus.
But it seems to me that thoughtful Christians will always wonder about not only the more appropriate use of our resources, but also about how we might help alleviate the awful circumstances into which some children are born, grow up, and die. For the sake of eliminating some of the protests I hear, let’s forget about the adults who are lazy, the adults who are criminals, the adults who have babies as single mothers, and all the other road blocks that seem to be placed in the way of helping the poor. Let’s just think about the innocent children who are born in that world and have little or no chance of becoming anything but lazy, criminal, unwed mothers who will repeat the cycle over and over.
What are we doing about them? How can we do something that would make it less likely that such children will grow up in what seems to be the destiny of futility? Only the most casual of glances at statistics will inform us that “once in poverty, always in poverty” is more often than not true. Not unlike “once in prison, always in prison.”
It seems to me worth noting that in the earliest picture of the church in Acts, Luke says things like “there were no needy people among them.” Remember, we aren’t talking about a little country church with 13 people as members, all of whom are cousins. The first number Luke uses is 3000, and that is followed by 2000 – and most likely in both cases he is only counting the men. The preaching of the gospel at Pentecost created a mega-church in one day and their taking seriously the gospel created a community of faith where there were no needy people.
It makes me wonder, especially when you read stories like that of Barnabas at the end of Acts 4, if perhaps they didn’t take that story from Jesus’ life where He tells the rich young ruler to sell all and give to the poor more seriously than we do! Words like “having all things in common,” again found in the earliest picture of the church in Acts, would suggest a kind of commitment to the gospel that saw that story as one to implement.
If suggesting that concern for the poor at a level that makes my resources available makes me a socialist, then what will those people call the apostles and early Christians who managed to create a community of faith in which there were no needy people?
Who would have thought we would become so entrenched in our own capitalist world that to dare call the church out for not caring for the poor as we should might move us to attach pejorative labels to those who call us out? That might be the best reason in the world for us to reject all labels – and simply say, as Luke does so often in Luke, we are simply disciples of Christ.
Whenever it actually happened in American culture, the day we gave the government the responsibility to do the job of the church in caring for the poor was permission to be taxed in ways we now complain about. We can continue to complain – but the only real solution is that we become so committed to being Jesus to the world – the poor included – that the government has nothing to do! We could solve the deficit and lower taxes at the same time!
If being concerned about the poor, even to the point of being willing to invest our own resources in making a poor person’s life better makes you a socialist, then we ought to welcome the term. Of course those who throw it around in such pejorative fashion are most often thinking American politics more than biblical theology. But that’s a blog for another day!

Palm Sunday

It all began that week with a simple man, riding a simple donkey, surrounded by simple men. Those men would later be accused of being nothing more than “uneducated and ordinary men.” (Acts 4:13) It was those kinds of people that this supposed King of the Jews chose as His companions on this first day of the week – the beginning of the week that hell itself broke out on earth.

The simple man, of course, was Jesus. So simple that He would say of Himself, “foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20) That statement, all by itself, reminds us that following this simple man requires some simplicity on our part. It actually is said in response to a bold claim of “I will follow you wherever you go.” Are you sure? Perhaps that is the point – we aren’t talking about a path to health and wealth, riches and glory, living the so-called good life.

He came riding on a donkey. A little one at that. What’s going on here – kings rode great horses, sometimes white ones. Kings worked hard to make sure that people understood issues like power and authority, importance and place. Yet riding on a donkey – the foal of a donkey – would have been viewed as anything but that. Yet this simple man, with a simple approach to life, has continued for centuries to change the world. He makes our complex world yearn for His simplicity.

The simple men around Him had a hard time “getting it.” But, once they did, they preached a simple message that declared “this Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made him both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36) When that simple message is proclaimed, change breaks out in ways that are more than amazing and ultimately beyond human explanation.

As the days of Lent grow shorter, and Palm Sunday approaches only to give way to celebrating resurrection, we ought to rejoice that this simple man from Nazareth would ride into the city of God on a donkey, surrounded by a band of simple men. That He would do that – even the simple men thing – is a reminder to me that I’m welcomed as a part of His ongoing parade that has defeated the power of sin and death. Like those simple men, I am invited to be a part of advancing His kingdom. Like them, I do not always understand what it all means – but that doesn’t mean I cannot be a part.

As we worship the man who came to Jerusalem on our behalf this Sunday, may we celebrate the invitation He offers – even to simple men and women of every race, of every place, of every station in life.

More Than “One More Time”

Yesterday was Spring Ministry Day at Atlanta Christian College. In the Spring Semester, 2007 we began what has become an important part of our process of spiritual formation by closing down the academic program of the College for the day and going out to actually put in to practice the idea that we are called to help advance the Kingdom of God.

Our first Ministry Day was held at City of Refuge (www.cityofrefugeinc.com) in Atlanta. City of Refuge was just moving to 1300 Simpson Road (now Joseph E. Boone) near the heart of the City of Atlanta. The two warehouses were, to put it mildly, a wreck. Our first ministry day included cleaning portions of the warehouses, attacking a hill overrun with kudzu, discarded beer bottles, and just about every other piece of litter imaginable and lots of other grunt work. We did the kind of work you imagine a judge might assign to a criminal for community service!

We have continued to make City of Refuge a part of our ministry day every semester since that first Ministry Day back in 2007. To see what has happened in these five years at City of Refuge is nothing short of amazing. Today those “wrecked warehouses” have transitional housing for about 150 mothers and children, a place where the Mission Church meets for worship, the 180˚ Kitchen – which includes a training program for chefs, a gymnasium and workout area, and the soon to open Medical Clinic which will serve 1500 people a month with primary care. There is also a community resource center where hundreds of people in need are served in the name of Christ. One of our students who participated in our very first ministry day is now a full-time member of the ministry team at City of Refuge and organized our activities yesterday.

The team I worked with yesterday went to the home of a wonderful older couple – Elbert and Dot Sims. We spent our day working in their back yard – cleaning up leaves, trimming overgrown plants, mowing, and other similar tasks that are beyond the ability of this couple, now married 67 years. Mr. Sims insisted that we take a break for Krispy Kreme donuts and Pepsi! He thanked us a million times and every time he did, big tears were rolling down his cheeks. Miss Dot hugged us all as we left, telling us that she couldn’t remember when her back yard looked so good. We didn’t do anything unique or particularly hard – we simply decided that as believers, we would be helpful to this older couple. Watching the ten students I was with work so well together and to be so determined to make this the best looking back yard on that street confirms why I love being with ACC students.

This year we expanded our ministry day to include more opportunities than ever. We were not only at City of Refuge, but a group went to Woodland Christian Camp, another group to God’s Farm, a group to each of the cities of West Point, Valley, and Lanett, and another group worked in the community around the College. If the emails I’ve received and the Facebook comments I’ve seen are any indication, we made an impact – in the name of Christ – in lots of places yesterday. It makes me think that the idea of Point University as a place that points others to Christ is not waiting on the official date of 1 July 2011 for the name change!

I’m so grateful for places like City of Refuge, Woodland, God’s Farm, the three cities we visited, and other places who welcome our students to do ministry. Oddly enough, in my first effort to expand Ministry Day beyond City of Refuge, the first contact I made replied with a “no thanks, it’s too much trouble to plan, we prefer people who will volunteer regularly.”

I know it takes a lot of planning to prepare for volunteers. Yesterday we sent out around 250 volunteers and lots of work went in to making that all happen. Thanks to those ministries who are willing to invest in young adults who want to discover new and exciting ways to be Jesus to the world around them.

Equally odd, City of Refuge has an outstanding member of its staff – Seth Lingenfelter – at least in part because of what he experienced on our very first ministry day there. And lots of students and staff have volunteered over the years – because of what they experience on ministry day opportunities.

Perhaps investing in young adults isn’t such a challenge after all! What I know for sure is that I’m more than willing to do it “more than ‘one more time.’” And so are a lot of other Point University students!

A Redeeming God

In a brief conversation with a friend recently, I heard the story of how she happened to get to the church she had been a part of for years. The story included an explanation for why she and her husband left one church for another. In short, they left one church because, in her words, “We left the Sunday morning service angry with God every week.”

It’s a sad commentary on the preaching that some Christians endure that God ends up looking as though it thrills Him to know that people are going to end up in hell – some kind of eternal damnation from which there is no escape. Not to discount the reality of the error of living apart from God. I just can’t find a way to think – and neither can Scripture – that such reality makes God happy.

One of the lectionary readings for this coming Sunday is Psalm 130. One of the songs of ascents, Psalm 130 was used by ancient Jews as they made the long journey to Jerusalem for feasts – like Passover. It is sometimes called a penitential psalm, because at the heart of its words is a cry of despair. That despair is rooted in the psalmist’s own recognition that he is a sinner. “If you kept a record of our sins” is recognition that our need for God is ultimately beyond description.

The psalm ends with a picture of God my friend apparently never heard from the pulpit of the church she once attended. “Israel, trust in the Lord, because his love is constant and he is always willing to save. He will save his people Israel from their sins.”

If scholars have judged correctly, these words were sung as faithful Jews entered Jerusalem. One can only imagine what would have been in their minds and hearts as the Day of Atonement came and Israel’s high priest would sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat. Compare that to what you and I have experienced because “once and for all” the Lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world.

How do some Christians get off track and somehow think that God rejoices in condemning? Even the psalmist – who could only dream of what you and I have experienced in Christ – understood that God’s “love is constant and He is always willing to save.”

God pursues us like no other. Every time I think about God as a “pursuing God” I think about Jacob. He seems to be such an unworthy character when it comes to being loved and used by God. Yet God never gives up on him!

The season of Lent reminds me that when I looked in the mirror this morning, I was looking at a Jacob of sorts. For I, too, am such “an unworthy character when it comes to being loved and used by God.” But the story of my life is that of Jacob – “yet God never gives up on him.”

It’s heartbreaking that my friend did hear that about God – but a source of joy that she knew that kind of God wasn’t the one who revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. It is equally sad that such false witness to God – the God whose “love is constant and He is always willing to save” – still gets spewed from place to place.

Lent is convicting – we cannot help but remind ourselves of our unworthiness. But, in that conviction, we discover a God who forgives even us!

Children of Light

The lectionary epistles text this week includes that powerful admonition from Paul that suggests who we are must impact what we do. In Ephesians 5:8 we read, “For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light.” (NIV) Light is never neutral – it always dispels the darkness.

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, Life Together, he begins his wonderful reminder of what living in Christ must look like by saying “It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes.” (page 17)

Most of us who have been a part of the church for a while recognize how easy it is to live “in the seclusion of a cloistered life.” I’ve heard it said that once an outsider becomes a believer, he or she will quickly have only “insider friends.” The safety and comfort of being among insiders is both a blessing and a challenge. The blessing, of course, lies in the fact that it is in that fellowship of the body of Christ that we have opportunity for what Paul describes in Romans 1:11-12 as “the mutual encouragement of our faith.” The challenge is that such fellowship can become so addictive that we end up isolating ourselves from the world that so desperately needs what we have discovered. But the world that needs what we have discovered is increasingly less likely to simply wander into the fellowship of a church building to discover it.

Light needs to be light. We are “light in the Lord” and our commission is that we “live as children of light.” It isn’t that Paul wants us to participate in what he describes later in this paragraph as “deeds of darkness” but without the light, those deeds can never be exposed. The model for our life, as Bonhoeffer so eloquently describes, is Jesus – who typically lived life “in the midst of his enemies.”

All of this seems helpful in the context of learning to speak more clearly with “we” instead of “I” in describing our efforts to “live as children of light.” It is in the mutual encouragement of our fellowship with one another that our strength, our courage, our commitment to being “light” can find its strength. Exposing the “deeds of darkness” is never a one-person job. And even if, in some circumstances, an individual happens to be the source of light that exposes darkness – the strength of the light is never “I” but “we.” Of course, that “we” includes Jesus who has declared that we are “children of light.”

In this Exodus-like journey called the Christian life, we live in the paradox of knowing that we have been set apart as the body of Christ, yet we have been called to expose the deeds of the darkness. In that body we find strength, and in our efforts to expose darkness we risk our safety and comfort.

We can’t do that alone. It will always be “us” together.

Shoveling . . . A Lesson in Ministry

My grandfather was, in my mind, the quintessential southern farmer, whose lifetime spanned the twentieth century – from 1902 to the early 1980s. When I first read Ferol Sams’ triology that focused on growing up in the poor, rural south in the Great Depression years, I felt like I was reading about the world that my father grew up in as one of six children in my grandparents’ home.

Until I was in my early teens, my grandfather was a dairy farmer. As the oldest grandson – I was privileged to spend many days with him and at the dairy barn. There were about 60 Guernsey cows and everyone had a name. Among my favorites were “Themesong,” who got her name because she was born during Vacation Bible School when I came home singing the “themesong” for that two week summer trauma for boys who would prefer to be on the farm than in a Bible School classroom all morning. Then there was “April,” named for obvious reasons, and whom I can still see in my mind the morning I discovered that she had died during the night in giving birth to a calf.

The dairy barn that my grandfather used was equipped with electric milkers, and a huge refrigerator tank where the milk was kept until Coburg Dairy’s truck came by every other day to haul to the processing plant. I grew up drinking milk out of that tank, and to this day, refuse to drink milk out of a plastic jug!

The dairy barn itself was my favorite place to be. Eight cows at a time came in the barn. Over the years they had perfected their own pecking order – and you could just about make a roll sheet and check them off in order – early every morning (I didn’t always make the 4 a.m. call) and every afternoon (I seldom missed the 4 p.m. call). The cows would come in the barn – Queen Mary was always first – and put their heads through a stanchion – which was then closed so they would stay in place while being milked. Eight cows at a time – who were being fed “sweet feed” as we called it – a special blend provided by Purina for milking cows.

If you’ve been around farm animals very much – you won’t be surprised to know that once they were in place putting food in one end, inevitably something would happen on the other end. But dairy farmers had that figured out and right down the middle of the milking room was a trough in the floor. It was about four inches deep and twelve inches wide – and was right at the most appropriate place. As soon as that action began, there was a square faced shovel that was used to push the problem out the end of the dairy barn, where it would be collected and hauled off to fertilize something later.

My grandfather wasn’t just a dairy farmer – not that to be that would be a bad thing – but he was involved in county politics. He served on the gas rationing board during World War II, was on the county’s agricultural committee that met monthly, and other similar activities. He was well respected as a gentleman, a farmer, and a wise counsel.

I remember the afternoon, just after 4 p.m. when the first round of eight cows had just entered the barn, that Mr. Goodyear, the County Extension Agent, stopped by the dairy barn. In effect, he worked for the county agricultural committee and made regular visits to see its members, my grandfather included. He was a graduate of Clemson University with a degree in agriculture and was quite impressed with what he knew about farming, though he had never been one.

Sure enough, no sooner than he walked in the barn, the eight cows eating that sweet feed began to do what cows always seem to do in those circumstances. My grandfather picked up the square faced shovel and began to shovel the manure out of the barn.

When he finished, Mr. Goodyear seemed a little frustrated by the whole scene and said to my grandfather, “Mr. Huxford, a man of your stature shouldn’t be pushing manure out of a dairy barn. You’ve got workers who can do that.” I can’t say in here quite as directly as my twelve year old ears heard it originally, but my grandfather, whose vocabulary could be a bit salty at times, said, “Mr. Goodyear, if you want milk at the end of the day, you’ve got to be willing to shovel a little manure along the way.”

Sometimes in my 32 years of working at ACC, and certainly in the 20 year journey of preaching at First Christian Church in Tyrone, I’ve thought about that saying. I’ve shoveled a dairy barn or two full of manure – but that’s okay, for I’ve also seen some cold, Grade A milk put up on the shelf. I could spend all day telling you stories of ACC students whose lives I have been privileged to influence in one way or another, “cold, Grade A milk” – that makes me forget about the manure I had to shovel to get the opportunity.

As young Christians with a life time of real ministry before us – this is not a bad life lesson to remember. None of us can afford to think we’re too good to shovel a little manure occasionally and none of us can afford to focus on the manure and forget about the milk!

We’re in good company if we take this lesson to heart. Perhaps my grandfather learned it from Paul himself. Listen to his words in Philippians 3:8,9 – More than that, I regard everything as a loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, . . .”

The Greek word I translated rubbish is skubalon. In Greek, it was not exactly “mixed company vocabulary.” My grandfather would have loved that word – he used an English equivalent we would consider impolite vocabulary in key moments – like his response to Mr. Goodyear. Here’s how the standard Greek lexicon defines it – “useless or undesirable material that is subject to disposal, refuse, garbage, manure.” In their comment on Philippians 3:8 (the only place in the NT this word occurs) they suggest a paraphrase “to convey the crudity of the Greek – ‘It’s all crap’.”

So, in the spirit of my grandfather, and more to the point in the spirit of Paul’s admonition in Philippians – if we want fresh, cold, Grade A milk at the end of the day – we’re probably will need to be willing to shovel a little manure. But that’s okay – the end product is well worth the effort.