Sunday, March 18, 2018 Dr. Jan Rivero, preaching
Will you wait with me in prayer? In you, O God, we live and move and have our being. With you we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and with you we soar above the trees with eagles’ wings. Speak to us now in the stillness of our hearts. And lift us up by your love that we might live fully and love unconditionally. In Christ we pray. Amen.
Jesus was never one to kick someone when they were down. He lifted up the blind, the prostitute, the demon possessed, the lost. He affirmed the value of each life that came to him. And yet, when the Greeks came to seek him out, he made it clear: discipleship was not a cake walk. He gave them fair notice that it was a life of sacrifice, of dying to self, an all or nothing decision.
As I pondered the story I just read from John’s gospel, I was reminded of a little book that packs a punch. In his book Can You Drink the Cup? Henri Nouwen tells his story of the cup of salvation. He starts with the question, “Can you drink the cup?” the question Jesus posed to James and John in Matthew’s gospel. Nouwen moves through the book in nine short chapters, from holding the cup, to lifting it and finally to drinking it. This morning I want to share with you a bit of chapter four, “Lifting.”
Nouwen begins, “Good manners were very important in our family, especially table manners. In the hall of our home hung a large bell. Ten minutes before dinner, my father rang the bell loudly and announced: ‘Dinnertime, everybody wash their hands.’
“There were many ‘table sins’: elbows on the table, heaping up food on your spoon or fork, eating fast, making noises, chewing with your mouth open, not using your fork and knife while eating meat, using your knife to cut spaghetti… As I became older I was allowed to have a glass of wine. It was a sign of adulthood… In France and Italy, wine was part of daily life, but in Holland it was a sign of a festive occasion. When we had wine there were special rituals: tasting, approving the wine, pouring it into the glasses, and most important, lifting it for a toast… No one would ever drink from their glass before everyone had been served and my father had lifted up his glass, looked at each of us, spoke a word of welcome, and emphasized the uniqueness of the occasion.”
Nouwen explores the tradition of toasting — lifting the cup with cheers, skol, l’chaim — words that heap wishes for health and life on one another. “Lifting up the cup is an invitation to affirm and celebrate life together,” he writes. “As we lift up the cup of life and look each other in the eye we say: ‘Let’s not be anxious or afraid. Let’s hold our cup together and greet each other. Let’s not hesitate to acknowledge the reality of our lives and encourage each other to be grateful for (and celebrate) the gifts we have received.”
Nouwen expands from the family to underscore the value and importance of community. “Nothing is sweet or easy about community,” he writes. “It is a fellowship of people who do not hide their joys and sorrows, but make them visible to each other in a gesture of hope. In community we say: ‘Life is full of gains and losses, joys and sorrows, ups and downs, but we do not have to live it alone. We want to drink our cup together and thus celebrate the truth that the wounds of our individual lives, which seem intolerable when lived alone, become sources of healing when we live them as part of a fellowship of mutual care.’
He likens community to a large mosaic. “Each little piece seems insignificant. One piece is bright red, another cold blue or dull green, another warm purple, another sharp yellow, another shining gold. Some look precious, others ordinary. Some look valuable, others worthless. Some look gaudy, others delicate. As individual stones, we can do little with them except compare them and judge their beauty and value. When, however, all these little stones are brought together in one big mosaic portraying the face of Christ, who would ever question the importance of any of them? If one of them, even the least spectacular one, is missing, the face is incomplete. Together, in the one mosaic, each little stone is indispensable and makes a unique contribution to the glory of God. That’s community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.”
Jesus never kicked anyone when they were down. He saw each person as indispensable, with a unique contribution to make to the world for the sake of God. When we speak or act, do we speak or act in ways that make our lives lives for others? Do we lift people up as Jesus did us? When we stop wondering whether our life — that is, our cup, the earthen vessel which we occupy — is better or worse than others, then we start seeing clearly that living our lives for others, in community, is a way of making God’s beautiful mosaic of the human family more complete.
Lifting up the cup of our lives allows others to feel safe lifting theirs. Great healing is possible when people no longer feel isolated. When we share ourselves fully in community others find comfort in knowing we share similar fears, apprehensions and preoccupations. Is Wesley a community that is safe enough for us to be vulnerable with one another? Do we share our selves, our lives? And in our sharing, do we celebrate the realities of life with one another? Or do we simply exchange pleasantries and go our separate ways until next Sunday? Lifting the cup in community that is the church takes more than one hour on Sunday morning. Can we lift the cup?
Nouwen closes his chapter with these words. “When we do want to drink our cup and drink it to the bottom,” — in other words, when we want to live life to the fullest — “we need others who are willing to drink their cups with us. We need community, a community in which confession and celebration are present together… When we lift our cups and say ‘to life,’ we should be talking about real lives, not only hard, painful, sorrowful lives but also lives so full of joy that celebration becomes a spontaneous response.”
Jesus was never known to kick people when they were down. And in allowing himself to be lifted up, it opened the possibility that all would be drawn to him. As we strive to be the church, I pray we will continue to be the vulnerable community that this world needs: one that respects the weak, honors the wounded, heals the sick and embracing every face as part of God’s beautiful mosaic.
In the name of our Creator, our Savior and our Holy Comforter. Amen.