Daily Devotion

Eucharist is food for our life’s journey, a tiny meal that somehow fills us up to pour out for others.

Eucharist is literally the Great Thanksgiving, the most thankful prayer we can make for God’s good Creation, for Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and for how we are transformed for love.

Eucharist is a physical act using the ordinary things of the earth—bread and wine, our bodies—to connect us to each other and God.

Eucharist is the story of our life together with God. And we haven’t been able to tell that story for weeks.

At the Edge House during Holy Week and Easter, we ate our dinners and worshipped as is our tradition but over Zoom, and we read the following in place of our normal Eucharistic prayer:

“The first time this story was told, they gathered around a table, a ragged collection of people—sinners, betrayers, power-hungry, fragile, lost, lonely. The first time this story was told, Jesus promised that it was for all time, that whenever the bread was broken and the wine was poured, whenever and however the people gathered and ate, wherever the story was told around the table he would be there. Today we tell the story as its been told a thousand times over, sure, as we do, that we belong at this table and that Jesus is here with us. And we break and pour and eat while distant from each other. Like our siblings across the centuries who could not gather to bless Eucharist but were still a community, we remember and celebrate the communion we already have with each other and with God. The dinner you’re eating or will eat later tonight and tomorrow and every day we are apart are signs of Jesus’ presence in all things and between all people.

Eucharist, you may not be surprised to hear, is not magic. It doesn’t immediately or permanently make us into good people, worthy of God’s love. It is, however, effective, that is, it does something to us and in us when we receive it in community. And that’s kind of the question right now, isn’t it: what is “in community”? When the Edge House students gather around Ye Olde Zoome for Nosh each week, are we not in community? When Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered, I will be in the midst of you,” he may not have conceived of digital communication, but when we use Good Shepherd’s worship resources or call into a Nosh Zoom call, are we not gathered intentionally, physically in our own space, and spiritually directed towards each other and God? Is Jesus not present in those moments? Of course he is, that is the nature of God, never not present with us.

What we are tapping into in any scenarios we practice going forward—requirement of a priest, lay leadership, distance blessing—is the communal nature of all of our worship and the communal nature of God’s love and salvation. Every single one of us is beloved by God, is filled by God’s breath and presence, is saved and invited into new life by the Christ. And all of us together as one body are saved and invited. So, while it’s not magic that Pastors Pat or Heidi or Alex or I can officially bless the bread and wine and make them somehow more than bread and wine, it is effective, it is transformative, because we do it together.

1 comments on article "Daily Devotion"

Sandi Wearne

This week's Daily Devotions from Pastors Heidi, Pat, Alice & Alex have been exceptionally meaningful & reassuring. Much appreciation to each of you!

5/29/2020 8:27 AM

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