in the breaking of the bread

yesterday was ascension sunday.  i did not grow up in a tradition that paid much attention to the church calendar (read: completely ignored it except at christmas and easter), and i’m really enjoying my new adopted home in a liturgical tradition.  it makes me feel much more connected to history and to people all over the world who are part of the catholic (little “c”) church.  it’s making me sort of grudgingly pay attention to the bible again, because the lectionary really wants you to read a particular passage of it every week, and since all the christians all over the world who participate in liturgical branches of the christian tradition are reading those same passages that very same day, it’s sort of cool.

here’s one thing i like about my new community of faith: they don’t really care so much if you don’t buy into it all.  they’re just happy you’re there.  which is why i loved the message i heard yesterday on ascension sunday.  the ascension is one of those things that can be a touchy subject in a crowd of faithful skeptics and seminary students who kind of know better.  the new testament reading was from acts 1 (you know, the ascension scene).  basically, jesus gets sucked up into heaven by a cloud, and the disciples are staring up at the sky wondering what the hell just happened.  whether it happened or not, in the text the disciples are extremely confused, and these “messengers” come to ask them why they are standing there staring at the sky.  the interpretation was this: “why are you wasting time looking up for god?  that is not where the action is.  that is no longer where you look for god, now that this whole incarnation business has been taken care of.  look out.  look around you.  look into each other’s faces and into the faces of every person, every creature, that you encounter.  that is where god now resides (or, if you’re particularly into jesus, that is where to find the christ these days).”  i like it.  i like incarnation, transcendence in immanence, namaste, the divine indwelling the human, all that.  i’m a bit of a broken record about it.  i like it wherever i can find it, and yesterday i found it in christianity, so that was cool.

at another point yesterday, someone read from the 24th chapter of luke, when two disciples encounter the risen jesus on the road to emmaus.  here is the part that struck me: they have no clue who they’re talking to until they eat with him.  they go and tell the other disciples “what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”  until they share this very basic human experience of one person giving another person food, they don’t recognize that they have been walking with the divine.  chew on that.

also yesterday i attended the ordination service for the significant other of a very dear friend (so, by default, the ordination service of a potential very dear friend!).  the service was beautiful and touching and inspiring and i cried through a lot of it (sign #237 that i’m slowly but surely turning into my mother).  the main reason i was so touched, though, was that i could see so much of what i might have become in lisa during her ordination.  the service took place at the church she had attended since birth, a church that nurtured her and fed her and drew her gifts out of her and caused her to flourish as a leader and as a woman–a church that demonstrated throughout her youth that “spiritual leader” and “woman” are not mutually exclusive identities, and that offered her images and words for god that affirmed that she too was created in the image of the divine.  they supported her during her time in seminary, and they are so excited that this newly ordained reverend is a product of their community.  

i kept thinking, if i had been a part of a tradition that taught me that, if i had seen examples of women in positions of leadership–if i had known that was a possibility–would that be me?  would i have taken a path that would have led to ordination?  if i had not felt the need to make such a decisive break with the tradition in which i was raised and, at times, with faith altogether, would i have found myself in those robes one day?  lisa is now a minister in a branch of the christian tradition that works for peace, for social justice, for equality for all, for creation care, and that invites all people of all faiths–or of no faith–to the communion table, literally and figuratively.  i am grateful to have found such a tradition these days; i just wonder what my journey would have looked like if that was the way faith had always been presented to me.

i actually don’t think i would be a very good minister proper; probably i’m too selfish and i like my personal boundaries too much.  it just seemed like for a while there in late high school/early college i might have been tending that way, if i had known it was something to which i could have aspired.  i am grateful for the way i was raised and the choices i’ve made and the person all of that has turned me into, and honestly i do think i am much better equipped for the classroom than the pulpit.  i just couldn’t help wondering.  and the experience made me think of my dear friends who are most certainly called to ministry; i hope you women will find the support and encouragement and empowerment that i saw people give to lisa yesterday.  in fact, i would recommend not doing it unless you do find a place that offers you all of that.  and there are places like that, don’t worry.  i saw one yesterday.

in closing, i would like to highly recommend the book take this bread by sara miles.  it’s a conversion story but not an annoying one.  it’s mostly about the redemptive power of food.