FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022, LOVE WINS /. SPIRITUAL

 FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2022 LOVE WINS /. SPIRITUAL

On Friday, I write about spiritual things.  BUT, today, I am using a blog by Father Richard Rohr.  Father Rohr is a leader in the Center for Action and Contemplation - which has theologians from different backgrounds and viewpoints.

This blog talks about the concept of “Eucharist” or “Communion” and in particular about the “Eucharist” in the Catholic Church.  I will interject my comments with brackets [comment].

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A Welcoming Table

 

Father Richard understands Jesus’ eating habits as a model for the kind of “open table” fellowship we might practice as Christians:

God’s major problem in liberating humanity has become apparent to me as I consider the undying recurrence of hatred of the other, century after century, in culture after culture and religion after religion.

[hatred of the other - we foster hatred - I’m trying to write about LOVE WINS]

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Can you think of an era or nation or culture that did not oppose otherness? I doubt there has ever been such a sustained group. There have been enlightened individuals, thank God, but seldom established groups—not even in churches, I’m sorry to say. The Christian Eucharist was supposed to model equality and inclusivity, but we turned the Holy Meal into an exclusionary game, a religiously sanctioned declaration and division into groups of the worthy and the unworthy—as if we were worthy!

[Some Christian groups have ‘open communion’ where anybody can receive the elements, Catholics and others (I think Lutherans) have ‘closed communion - as in a child at a certain age with certain teaching can receive the elements.  That also applies to adults - a non-Catholic is not to receive the Eucharist in a Catholic Church]

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Before Christianity developed the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist, Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. It seems Jesus didn’t please anybody by breaking rules to make a bigger table. Notice how his contemporaries accused Jesus: one side criticized him for eating with tax collectors and sinners (see Matthew 9:10–11). The other side judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or dining with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36–50; 11:37–54; 14:1). Jesus ate with all sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a poor reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36–39), and he even invited himself to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1–10). How do we not see that?

[Jesus seems to say “hey - I want to be part of society by eating with tax collectors and sinners, poor people, prostitutes, and others.  Jesus would probably have eaten with gays, lesbians, transgender, Muslims, Hindus, and others.  This is more in the sense of a traditional lunch or dinner meal.  He ate with five thousand once and four thousand another time - (and those numbers were generally only counting men)]

It seems we ordinary humans must have our other! It appears we don’t know who we are except by opposition and exclusion. “Where can my negative energy go?” is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and also creates that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. Seeing takes the foundational conversion from the egoic self and most have not undergone that transformation. We can only give away the goodness (or the sadness) that we have experienced and become.

[(laughing - ha ha ha …) I can get communion and you can’t - ha ha ha.  I’m part of the elite - and you’re not.  Or - I’m a white, Christian male (and maybe even a member of a certain political party.  We love to EXCLUDE others to make ourselves bigger!!!]

Eucharist is meant to identify us in a positive, inclusionary way, but we are not yet well-practiced at this. We honestly do not know how to do unity. Many today want to make the Holy Meal into a “prize for the perfect,” as Pope Francis observed. 

[St. Paul - writing in 1 Corinthians 11 says for the worship version of a meal - communion / Eucharist -, that we need to examine ourselves.  

 So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup.  For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself.  That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.]

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 Most Christians still do not know how to receive a positive identity from God—that they belong and are loved by their very nature! The Eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: we are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus still and always “eats with sinners,” just as he did when on Earth.

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So this Catholic priest suggests that humans want to isolate themselves in their own elite groups.  They want to hate others - put a label on them - (maybe even “infidel”, or “pagan”).  

I am an American - therefore I am superior!!  I am a white American - therefore I am superior.  Those Russians (or Ukrainians or Muslims or Chinese or <whoever> are under me - I am superior.  

We love to put others down and build ourselves up - and labels and hate do the job!!!

So, love wins - even the unlovely, the tax collectors and sinners, the outcasts of society are to be my friends!!!  

God help me to be kind and loving to all people as I can only love you as much as the person I love the least!!!

Karen
Friday, January 28, 2022