[Propertalk] Proper 13 b 2018 - part 2 of 3

[Robert P Morrison]

Well, let's try part 2 again.

	 Sara Miles, eleven years ago, wrote a book which Anne Lamott, the
well-known writer of both fiction and non-fiction, described as
“_The _most amazing book.” 

	 Sara grew up in a home where there was nothing one could and should
not discuss or question. Her parents encouraged her to think, to
explore wherever her thoughts took her. They brought her up to be
passionate and compassionate about every human being and the needs of
each one. Yet, she wrote, “My mother nursed a grudge against
Christianity for more than fifty years.” 2  She was the daughter of
the manse and had seen and heard the worst as well as the best of
Christian life. 

	 THIS was Sara’s upbringing and education. Having travelled the
world, she was exposed to poverty, to violence, as well as to great
kindnesses and generosity. Still, religion was without meaning to her,
as often as not being the cause of so much grief and pain in the
world.  

	 It is incredible, therefore, to see the very opening words of this
book: 

	  “One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a
church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday
activity for tens of millions of Americans – except that up until
that moment I’d led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent
to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This
was my first communion. It changed everything. 

	 “Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me
against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d
never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a
symbolic wafer at all but actual food – indeed, the bread of life.
In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to
reach for and become part of a body, I realized that what I’d been
doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed
people.” 3 

	 Notice that Sara Miles didn’t say, I made a terrible mistake.
I’ve wasted forty-plus years of my life. Instead, she said, “I
realized that what I’d been doing with my life all along was what I
was meant to do:” 

	 This is the Power and Love of Jesus. This is the Power and Love
which is transmitted through the Bread, however small a fragment, and
the Wine, however small a sip. This is Jesus, coming alive not just in
the life of Sara, but in the life of every single one of us who comes
forward, having been invited by Jesus Himself, and who takes the Bread
and the Wine in the hand of each.  

	Who knows how the Bread and the Wine may change you and me. You might
be six years old. You might be forty-six. You might be ninety-six. It
doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter if this is the first or the
thousandth time you have taken Jesus into your life and body. The
transformational Power of Jesus can and does work anywhere and
everywhere, and at any time. And the transformational Power of Jesus
can lead us into life and ministries we may not even imagine. __

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20180803/20864225/attachment.htm>