Tag: spiritual reflection

“Who Cooked the Last Supper?”

Perhaps we can decide to be changed—so that gratitude, justice, and grace become the primary tastes that we share at our everyday meals.

“Who cooked the Last Supper?”

This question caught my attention when I saw it as the title of a a 2001 book by Rosalind Miles—Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women’s History of the World.

The best bite of food I have ever had

I am reminded of a dining experience I had while attending a liturgical conference in Montreal almost a decade ago. Some friends and I visited a local restaurant where I encountered the best, most memorable, most delightful, most enchanting bite of food—just one forkful—I have ever tasted.

I have told the story of that one bite of food countless times—often while sitting a table somewhere eating with friends. That one taste has forever marked my tastebuds. Maybe even changed them. I wish I could taste that bite one more time.

Tastes that change us

Other tastes also linger in my memory. This morning as I write, I am remembering pieces of frozen chocolate pound cake that graced my dinner table for many weeks after my grandma sent them home with me when I was a pastor in Virginia. My goodness, I wish I had a piece of Grandma’s cake to eat with my coffee right now!

Lunches at Mrs. Alderman’s house come to mind too. Mrs. Alderman was a member of my Virginia church, and she loved to cook for others. Lunch was the big meal of the day for her, and she often invited me to share it with her. She and I sat at her table, just the two of us, and feasted on two kinds of meat, three vegetables, sweet iced tea, cornbread made in cast iron, and warm apple pie. And she always sent me home with a sack of leftovers. So did Beulah when I ate with her. And Katie.

And I can’t remember those good church folk without also remembering Donna at the Redwood Restaurant. She and the other cooks and servers at the Redwood nourished me with food and kindness and conversation almost every day that I lived in Lexington, Virginia.

Today is Maundy Thursday. Many people in Christian communities recall on Maundy Thursday the last meal Jesus had with his friends before he was killed. I wonder what those disciples remembered about that meal in the days, months, and years that followed. The foods they shared at that table. The tastes that clung to their tastebuds. The aromas that stayed in their nostrils. I wonder how that meal changed them.

What I haven’t given much thought to when sharing communion on Maundy Thursday is the question Rosalind Miles asks in her book title: Who cooked the Last Supper?

Blending together the Gospel stories of Jesus’ final days, we learn that someone provided a donkey for Jesus to ride into Jerusalem and that a woman in Bethany anointed him with expensive perfume. On this Maundy Thursday, I find myself wondering about the person or people who provided that final meal. Baked the bread. Prepared the recipes. Stirred up the aromas. Served the food.

Today’s towel-bearers

The COVID-19 pandemic is changing us. Our communities—our world—will not be the same now that we have experienced this viral threat together. We aren’t even aware yet of all the ways we are being and will be changed.

What I hope on this Maundy Thursday is that one of those changes will mean we hold and show more gratitude for some unsung and unnoticed heroes in our communities. They are out there right now. Heroes who didn’t choose the cloak and who don’t think of themselves as having super powers. People who are doing what they do every day, who are doing what they have been doing to make a living, to serve the public through often thankless jobs—and in doing so, to care for the well-being of all of us.

As we read the old, old story of how Jesus took up a towel at that last meal and washed his disciples’ feet, I hope we remember those in our communities who are taking up towels of many kinds to see us through this historic crisis.

A colleague of mine in Raleigh, Pastor Tim, writes about this in a blog post titled, “Scrubs, Pajamas, Aprons, and Towels.” Today’s towels, he says, are masks and latex gloves, hospital scrubs, restaurant aprons—all of the objects and accompanying actions that people are wearing and embodying to keep us going through these days.

The work these people are doing is sacramental work—revealing to us the presence of God-with-us. They are holding our lives in their hands. Keeping vigil at bedsides in our stead. Delivering nourishment to our homes. Teaching and counseling and offering words of care to our children.

A sad truth is that we too often overlook many of these folks. Underpay them. Vent our anger on them.

A new commandment

On this Maundy Thursday, we remember Jesus, one who fed hungry people and washed weary feet and touched lepers and ate with folks no one else wanted to eat with. We give thanks for one who showed us how to love, how to heal, how to redeem a wounded and hurting world.

Perhaps as we remember Jesus, we can also take a moment to remember the people in our communities who are showing us day by day—no, who are offering us through their own lives and bodies—the face and hands and feet of Jesus.

And perhaps we can decide to be changed—so that gratitude, justice, and grace become the primary tastes that we share at our everyday meals. Jesus’ own words at the holy meal invite us to this conversion of our hearts, minds, and actions:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

John 13:34-35

Bruised reeds and smoldering wicks

The second day of Holy Week after Palm Sunday is Holy Monday.

Varying traditions tell of several things that may have happened on the first Holy Monday in the Christian tradition. Jesus cleanses the temple on Holy Monday and curses a fig tree (Matthew 21). One of the lectionary readings for Holy Monday tells the story of a woman in Bethany anointing Jesus with expensive oil.

Holy Monday also includes a reading from the prophet Isaiah.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.

He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

Isaiah 42

Reading this ancient text on Holy Monday during the COVID-19 crisis, my focus was drawn to the prophet’s powerful images of bruised reeds not broken and smothered wicks not quenched. What do these images mean for us as we journey toward Easter on a week when headlines warn of COVID-19 deaths, overwhelmed hospitals and health care providers, and frightening economic vulnerabilities for far too many people?

Many of us see and hear present day human woundedness in these images. We are bruised reeds and smothered wicks. We are people who are faint with worry and fear.

We are indeed worried and afraid in these uncertain days. And one gift Isaiah promises is a Chosen One who comes to our lives to bring spirit-infused justice and tender care.

Another way to think about the bruised reed and smothered wick during this Holy Week comes to mind as well.

The Chosen One does not seek political clout or military might. The Chosen One comes to bring justice but not in the ways the world expects.

In Matthew, Jesus quotes Isaiah 42, and many in the Christian tradition associate Jesus with Isaiah’s Chosen One. On this Holy Monday, we can imagine Jesus as a justice-maker and life-redeemer who defies the ways of the world. Jesus will not stop until he has sown seeds of justice into every corner of the earth. He will see the work of redemption and resurrection through to the end–even through suffering.

But he moves through the world with such care and in such an obtrusive manner that

as he passes through the marshes, not even bruised reeds will break off. Not a twig will snap. His draft won’t have enough force to blow out even a smoldering wick.

Peter Krol

Hmm…what can that mean? Don’t we want to see the footprints–the trail markers–where Jesus has walked so that we can follow? Don’t we yearn for tangible evidence that Jesus has passed by this way?

Because I am spending much of my time distant from friends but close to the dirt in my backyard, butterflies come to mind. I saw my first butterfly of the season yesterday.

As I watched that butterfly dance on the wind, I was reminded of Isaiah 42 and the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect in chaos theory refers to the idea that small actions have a more significant impact than we realize.

The simplified explanation of the Butterfly Effect goes something like this:

A butterfly flaps its wings in Chicago and a tornado occurs in Tokyo.

What does this have to do with bruised reeds and smoldering wicks during this Holy Week?

Jesus models for us a way to change the world that involves recognizing the power and promise of actions that defy existing structures of power and prominence. Every action we take–even the small ones–matter and can make a bigger difference than we realize.

We are living in times of unsung and unnoticed heroes. Health care providers, public school teachers, ministers, and others are doing everything they can to keep fires of hope burning in all of our lives. Many of them are risking their own well-being to provide this gift.

On this Holy Monday, we can celebrate a Justice-Making Jesus who moves through the earth with tender care for bruised reeds and smoldering wicks even as he resists–and overturns–the unjust power structures that so readily toss bent reeds on the trash pile and extinguish struggling flames.

We can also offer a word of gratitude for those heroes who together in their quiet and often unseen ways are saving our communities. Perhaps without realizing it, we are those heroes too, doing our part to foster the well-being of our cities and towns by staying home. By doing that we are tending to bruised reeds and smoldering flames and in unexpected ways living the Gospel.

a butterfly prayed for me today
or so I imagined 
when I saw her fold her wings
and open them up again as she danced
over a fuschia azalea blossom
in our backyard

i wonder–

did the air around her flutter
as some scientists say though
i couldn’t hear the faintest whoosh

who even notices a bent stalk
in a tumultuous sea of reeds
and yet butterflies push through
cocoons to commune
even with wounded ones

we are dust and ashes 
smoldering wicks
straining to hold the light 

and a butterfly prayed for us today