Dear friends in Christ,
I know I’ve talked about my friend Naomi in the past, but I was thinking about her as we began this summer’s Connect Meals. Naomi was a co-worker of mine during the year my wife Erin and I served as missionaries in Taiwan. One weekend, she invited us to her home to learn how to make baozi. We knew only parts of her story: that she suffered partial paralysis connected to treatment for brain cancer; that her husband was unable to work owing to significant back injury; that she also had an adult daughter with significant developmental challenges, needing round-the-clock care.
Naomi lived in a typical tiny Taipei apartment, cramped further by the additional tables she had set up. Food was everywhere: platters of dumplings and stir fry, bowls of noodles and rice, trays of fresh fruit, and all the ingredients to make baozi. It was clear that our cooking lesson was a formality— the main event was us, her honored guests, and feeding us in abundance. It was almost overwhelming to receive such generosity.
What sets this particular experience apart was not only the quantity of food, nor the generosity with which it was given, but also the very real vulnerability Naomi showed in inviting us into her home. She brought us into closer proximity with both her joy and abundance, as well as her pain and struggle. Medical equipment took up residence next to serving platters, and couches doubled as storage for displaced home goods. This was not a magazine-worthy dinner party with an emphasis on appearance. This was scruffy hospitality, given from a place of genuine care.
During our recent Instructed Eucharist, we repeatedly used the word “discern.” We talked about how the gathered church believes that somehow Jesus is present in the Eucharist, in the readings, the bread, the wine, and in the connections we share as a community in that service. Part of the task of making Eucharist is for us to “discern” Jesus’ presence. Where is Jesus showing up? The ritual acts of Word and Table are forming us into people who can discern Jesus in the world. That teaching finds deep resonance with me as I look back on that shared meal with Naomi and her family. Through the lens of Eucharist, I can now discern Christ present in that meal. Naomi was sharing more than baozi; in her vulnerability and abundance she was sharing Christ, broken and given for the world.
Sara Miles writes about her conversion to Christianity in a somewhat unorthodox manner, receiving communion before ever considering “being Christian.” She came curious to church one day, where communion was shared person to person, and she found herself inexplicably converted as she reached out to take the bread. The Jesus she came to believe in is the one made known in the bread and wine. Her faith “proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn’t promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life.”
This summer we are given many chances at St. John’s to be with one another in Eucharistic community, in a community that is defined by this kind of faith. I encourage you to sign up for a Connect Meal (visit tinyurl.com/SJEmeals19) if you haven’t already. These meals provide a place to bring our whole, authentic self, to share our story, and hear others. For our hosts, I am so grateful you are making these moments available. I encourage you to lean into scruffy hospitality, trusting that you too can give abundantly and vulnerably, and in so doing, make Jesus known.
Happy summer one and all! Enjoy eating together and sharing stories! I will see you in worship!
Faithfully,
Jered+
Originally published in the July/August 2019 Evangelist.
