You are a sacrament

Heart-of-gold redbud planted in memory of Carmen Randle Quirk, 1969-2015.

“Woman, why are you weeping?” (Resurrected Jesus to Mary Magdalene, outside his vacated tomb on the first Easter morning as described in John 20:1-18)

Last Sunday afternoon I stood in my front yard feeling sad about a tree that we planted in May. We planted it on the anniversary of the death of my best friend, Carmen: a heart-of-gold redbud, fitting for a friend with a heart of gold. Last week it looked like a bare tree branch jutting out of a small donut of mulch. I worried that the dry spell last fall did it in. To my eyes, nothing was going on - it was dead.

A few days later I saw that unmistakable spring color of a redbud blooming! One clump of hot pink buds, the ends of each twig on that dead-looking branch enlarging with life into paisley-shaped packages about to burst. As I stood in the yard feeling sad about the dead little tree last Sunday afternoon, its roots were busily pumping water and minerals up its little trunk, and four layers of tree tissue were transporting life-giving ingredients to its periphery in order grow leaves, which will then return the favor by converting sunlight into food to share. I thought nothing was happening, and yet life was in full throttle.

Now, if the little heart-of-gold redbud had died, it would not have changed our 42-year friendship in the least. The tree was planted as a symbol, a reminder - not to be confused with the friendship itself.

So much of the life of faith, of trusting in an indescribable being many of us call God — so much of it eludes our ability to express ourselves that we rely on symbols to give some shape to the experiences and ideas. The symbols at the heart of Christian faith are called sacraments: actions that are set apart from other actions in order to be outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. 

Baptism and eucharist are the two main sacraments of our faith. Baptism by water washes us in the love of God, names us as recipients of all that life-giving love, unearned and unmerited —recipients of the gift of God’s love for humanity.  Baptism shows us in an action that we can see and feel what is already true underneath everything else: that God loves us from before we were born, and promises to be our companion and guide throughout life. In our tradition, baptism happens one time per person, and we renew our baptism promises every time there is a baptism in the community.

The other main sacrament of our faith is eucharist- a meal of thanksgiving that happens over and over and over again… we regularly gather with grateful hearts to share bread and wine as an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of knowing the presence of Jesus. The meal feeds the love that is in us, and grows it, sends it out to our far-flung edges to pop out in hope-filled buds and paisley packages bursting with life. The meal nourishes parts of us that will leaf out and then nourish us back again.

St. Andrew’s first in-person worship service in the pandemic— August 2, 2020.

When St. Andrew’s gathered together for outdoor worship and eucharist for the first time during the pandemic in August of 2020, I was nervously focused on the logistics of transporting each wafer to each person without physical contact. I was hyper-conscientious as I distributed the bread, with a spoon, into containers for each family. And then, at the end of carefully distributing, before I received the bread, I scanned the scene like I usually do to be sure that I had not missed anyone in the crowd of camp chairs and picnic blankets. The pandemic fear fell away and was replaced with hope as I was overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s people gathered, their faces half covered by masks and face shields, their hair a bit shaggy.

Then I placed the wafer in my own mouth, after all those Sundays without gathering for the eucharist, and the tears came. The overwhelming sacramental beauty of that moment- of our sacramental action together, giving thanks to God even as we prayed for a vaccine, for a way forward, hoping for tomorrow, trusting in God to do the under the surface life-giving work that nourishes us- the stunning beauty of seeing each person as a walking, breathing, life-giving sacrament was powerful… homecoming and gratitude, resilience and lament, solidarity and hope. It was a sacrament-rich moment, each person a symbol of God’s grace. The gathered community is a living, moving, breathing symbol of hope.

You are a sacrament- an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. You bring all of the growth and life and love of your experience into this place of relationship with God and with one another. And we are fed by eucharist and by relationship with one another to go out these doors and live sacramental lives, lives that are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. 

Sacramental living is renovating an empty three-bedroom house for a family seeking refuge. Twelve days ago, a family of Afghan refugees moved in to begin a new life in this community after chaos and suffering in their home country. St. Paul’s offered this home as a sacrament, an outward-looking symbol of the inward and spiritual grace they know as God’s beloved community.

St. Paul’s & St. Andrew’s welcomed A, H & Z into their new home on April 5, 2022.

The world is hungry to feel and taste and see life, to understand how to live well with God and with one another so that all may flourish. The world longs to know that what appears dead and lifeless may be in the process of becoming.

In Jesus we are reminded that the nature of God is to love, to create, to heal, to bring life. Through Jesus, our lives serve to remind one another of that love.

Love that is so powerful it bursts forth from a tomb. 

Love that is so tender that it asks a friend:

“Woman, why are you weeping?”

And then, calls us by name so that we turn toward the sound of such love, believe in it, and carry it to others as did Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning.

—

Click links below to hear versions of this reflection preached on Easter Sunday at:

St. Andrew’s, Glenwood -the 9 am service

St. Paul’s, Poplar Springs - the 10:15 am service