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Life Ways The Eucharist Gathers
Us All I had a friendship once which ended sadly and with bitterness. My friend and I had shared many happy hours together. We knew each other well, the delightful parts, the dismal parts, and the ordinary things in between. We walked a long piece of life's road together. The relationship strained and broke. It could not bear the scrutiny of self-criticism. Hurt feelings erupted and so did mistrust. Then distance and time finished the job. In struggling to understand the fracture, especially when it was still recent, I tried to place blame. Of course I wanted to blame my friend, but I knew I had a part to play. I even made an effort to blame my parents. Maybe it was their fault for raising me to be a person who had difficulties. Then there were moments when I shouldered the whole responsibility myself, magnifying the harsh things my friend had said to me. At the center of trying to lay blame was the belief that one of us was right and one of us was wrong. God must either be on my side or on my friend's. I just couldn't figure out which. I couldn't bear to think that God was on my friend's side, not mine. What occurred to me after some months was the possibility that God is large enough, merciful enough and generous enough to embrace both my life and my friend's, together with our broken relationship. I had thought there was only room for one of us. I'm reminded of my mother's story of my then-two year old sister Chris running to occupy the chair in which my mother hoped to sit and feed my then-infant sister Ruthie. Like me, Chris thought there shouldn't be room for both of them. Tonight the refrain of the Church might be "There's room enough". We've all known alienation and conflict, but there's room enough in Christ. We've all used the arrows of judgmentalism as a way of protecting ourselves from attacks, real or imagined, but when we do that we deny the vastness of God's promised mercy. In Christ we do not have to survive by isolating or labeling each other. There's room enough for us all in His world. Wherever we are, physically, emotionally or spiritually, he is there. This is true for us and for those with whom we have our differences. Jesus manifests the wideness of His mercy through the actions of the Last Supper. First, to show the extent of His desire to share all of human life, he bends to the ground and cleans the feet of His disciples. He takes their tired, soiled and hardened feet in his hands. No wonder Peter objected. The washing of the feet was a powerful expression of realistic humility. Christ tended to His followers, even to the betrayer. Even knowing what Judas would soon be doing did not offend Christ to the point of excluding His companion. In Christ, there is always room. We are always welcome. We're always in the sphere of his love, no matter how misshapen we might have become or feel we have become. Next, the Lord established the sacred meal by which we remember His sacrifice and encounter His true presence, even to this day. The betrayer shared in this as well. Christ could have waited until Judas had left, but He didn't. God's grace is offered to all. The Eucharist answers our prayer that we be given our daily bread. The Eucharist involves us, together, in the awareness of our radical dependence on God above all things, and it involves us in the deep relief on having that dependence fulfilled. Christ's humility and His generous love assure us that we belong. They also stand as patterns to be imitated. Jesus said "I have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow." Christ's humility invites us to be tolerant and caring for our brothers and sisters whose callused and soiled exteriors offend and repulse us. There is no right and wrong in the presence of need, only response and no response. There is no blame in the presence of the disfigurement of a human spirit, because God available love embraces all woundedness and failure. Jesus also said, in sharing the gift of His body and blood with the Church for the first time, "Do this in remembrance of me." We take and eat, we take and drink. We do not do so in the peaceful company of only those with whom we feel harmony. The Eucharist gathers us all together, family, friends, neighbors, partners in business, natural and learned opponents, those who have hurt us and those who we have hurt. The Eucharist is given to all. The gift of presence is not earned nor is it won. Neither is it a reward for being right. Nor is it withheld from those who seem wrong to us. It is for all of us, tonight, tomorrow, forever. Who but God could be the source of this? For related reading, check out:
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