Luke 7:36-50 – Served by a Sinner

/ W. Keith Brenton / Leave a comment

52 Weeks at the Table – Week 39

A man named Simon invited Jesus to dinner at his home; a devout man known as a Pharisee. While they were reclining at the table, a local woman known for her sin began to weep at Jesus’ feet, and anoint them with perfume, and wipe them with her hair. Simon kept his thoughts to himself, but Jesus knew them anyway, and answered him with a riddle about debt and love. When Simon responded correctly, the Lord then turned to the woman, but continued to speak to Simon.

When Jesus entered Simon’s home, no servant had washed His feet; no traditional kiss of greeting graced His face; no gift of cooling oil was offered His head. She supplied all this out of gratitude for His power to forgive, and Jesus freely gave it. He said to her the words each of us yearns to hear: “Your sins are forgiven.”

A Prayer Over the Bread

Righteous and holy God, we greet our Lord as the host of this table with tears for our sin, and through grace bring this bread to our lips. As He was served hospitality by a sinner, we are served salvation by the sinless One. You have forgiven us much through the free giving of His body, and for us the answer to the question “Who is this who even forgives sins?” is clearly seen in this bread. He is Jesus, Your Son, crucified, resurrected, before us and among us and within us. Bless us, we pray, in the sharing of this bread. Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

This cup, our Father, we recognize as containing something more precious than any alabaster perfume box; it holds the blood of Your only Son. We owe more than we can pay in debt for our sin, yet this cup holds what forgives that debt. In our gratitude for it, we can only weep at His feet transfixed by the nails. Forgive us, God, as we share in this cup. Amen.

Matthew 9 – Dinner at Matthew’s House

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52 Weeks at the Table – Week 38

As Matthew relates his gospel, Jesus encounters him at the tax collector’s booth in the middle of traveling and miraculously restoring the paralyzed, the blind and mute, the internally bleeding ill and even a little girl who had died. Matthew invites Jesus to dinner at his house with some of his tax collector friends, and the Pharisees are scandalized that Jesus sits down to dine with them. John the Baptist’s disciples are scandalized that they fast and His disciples don’t.

To the Pharisees, He says that it is the sick who need healing; not the healthy, and He recommends that they discover the meaning of mercy over sacrifice — and he is the only gospel writer to include this detail from Hosea 6:6. To John’s disciples, He predicts a time of mourning when the Bridegroom is taken and fasting will be appropriate; when new wine will be poured into new wineskins – because old ones could not contain it. In the meantime, He shares the table with those who hunger and thirst; those whose spiritual health is in need; those who recognize that their long fast is finally over, and the Messiah is serving.

A Prayer Over the Bread

Our God, our Father, our Holy and Righteous One … we are in need of being restored as surely as the paralyzed, the blind, the mute, the bleeding and the dead. We are honored that You have chosen us to dine at Your table, though we have sinned as surely as any tax collector among Matthew’s friends. Thank you for Your mercy in providing the Sacrifice we needed in order to share in this table of Your Presence. Thank you for this bread, the body of Your Son. Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

You, our heavenly Father, have given a Bridegroom in troth to us, His bride, at the price of His very life. Make us new in order to receive Him; make us worthy to contain this new wine of Your mercy, Your healing, Your restoration of us to a relationship with You as children of Your grace. May it always be so.

Mark 6 and 8 – Five and Four Thousand

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52 Weeks at the Table – Week 37

Jesus sent his twelve out two by two to preach repentance to heal. While they were gone, his cousin John the Baptizer was arrested and beheaded. The twelve returned, excited to tell of the results of the authority He had given them – but He needed time away to mourn; and they to rest. Yet the crowds followed, and from the lunch shared by one boy, He fed more than five thousand.

After walking across a wind-choppy lake that night, arguing with Pharisees about what causes sin, healing a foreign woman’s child and a deaf-and-mute man, Jesus once again fed a crowd, and again from a little bread and a little fish. Once again, baskets full of leftovers are gathered – all because, as He told the twelve, “I have compassion on them.” Yet He also warned the twelve about the Pharisees’ leaven, which does not bring the blessing that the multiplying loaves could bring.

A Prayer Over the Bread

Lord of bounty and unbounded compassion, we recognize Your providence in this bread. It is the tangible expression of Your great love for us; unprepared in a lonely place, yet hungering for the words He speaks – just as He hungered only for Your sustenance in the desert where He was tempted (Luke 4:1-13). We remember His words to His twelve about the yeast that grows and spreads, compared to the bread which keeps on giving. This bread we also recognize as Your Word – Your Son – Jesus. Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

Father, we recall Jesus’ words to the Pharisees about washing and sin. Your providence, whether we think of it as ordinary or miraculous, was surely expressed in its fullness by the giving of the blood of Your Son – caressed now in this cup. Wash us from sin that corrupts from within us through this fruit of the vine. We pray this through Christ Himself: Amen.

John 6 – The Bread of Heaven

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52 Weeks at the Table – Week 36

By the sixth chapter of his gospel, John records Jesus speaking of Himself as the “bread of heaven;” that we should eat His flesh and drink His blood. Whether Jesus is foreshadowing His last supper with his closest disciples, perhaps we can’t know for certain. But all three of the other gospel writers agree (Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22) that Jesus said the bread was His body, and the cup was His blood. And His servant Paul would later add in his instruction to Corinth (1 Corinthians 11): “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

Still, at the time Jesus shared this great and mysterious truth, it must have sounded repugnant to those who heard it; like some sort of teaching that encouraged cannibalism. After His last supper, His crucifixion, and His resurrection, this truth makes the kind of sense that prophecy can only make when it is fulfilled. Not all of the questions we have about this proclamation may be answered, but it is certain that Jesus is the bread of heaven. Like manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16), He sustains us and fills the emptiness we feel. Like water from the rock, He refreshes and brings life that would otherwise eke out of us in the dryness of the Desert of Sin (Exodus 17).

A Prayer Over the Bread

Lord of life, as Your Son proclaimed His own identity as the bread of heaven, so we too proclaim it as we share these loaves. Nourish us. Sustain us. Empower us. Most of all, forgive us. Too often we have kept this great truth to ourselves, while others around us hungered for it. As Israel obeyed Moses by keeping the manna in the ark of the covenant for the generations to come (Exodus 16:32), may we always share this bread, keeping the Christ treasured and securely seated upon His throne in our hearts. Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

Praise and worship are due You, our God. Thank You for your providence in giving us these emblems of Your Son’s sacrifice: His body and His blood. May we always consume them while being consumed by His passion. May we always be filled and drenched with this His redemption. Grant us the courage and privilege to share our life-blood in service to You, proclaiming the power of Jesus’ blood in us: Amen.

John 1, Matthew 4, Luke 4 – Bread Alone and Wine Together

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52 Weeks at the Table – Week 35

We know nothing of the circumstances when Jesus left Joseph’s carpentry business and went out to the river Jordan near Bethany to be baptized by his cousin John. We know from the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke that the Spirit immediately drove him into the desert, where Jesus fasted forty days and nights and was tempted by Satan. We also know from John’s gospel that the next day after returning, He recruited followers … and the day after that, He went with them to a wedding feast at Cana of Galilee.

What happened during that extraordinary span of preparation for ministry was that Satan flung the first of three temptations at God’s Son: a challenge for Jesus to turn stones into bread that would assuage His gnawing hunger. And He resisted, because – as He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3 – “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” John’s gospel begins by telling us that Jesus was that Word (John 1); He was, therefore, self-sustaining and sustained by God.

John also tells us that Jesus was subtly challenged by His mother when the wedding party ran out of wine. The Son obliged … to the amount of, perhaps, more than a hundred gallons of what the wine steward called the best vintage. Jesus realized that the old was gone; the time when those set aside – priests of God, and Nazarites like His cousin John the Baptist (Luke 1:15) – would no longer be forbidden from receiving the wine that He would supply by virtue of His own blood. It was a new day; a day for the Bridegroom to seek His bride, to share His life with her, and to celebrate (Ephesians 5:25-33). Even at this early point, bread and wine were figuring prominently in His ministry.

A Prayer Over the Bread

Holy One of heaven, we adore Your Name and appreciate Your providence of this sustaining bread, the Word of God, the High Priest of Your temple, the Messiah set apart to give up His own life so that ours could be purchased with a dowry of unmatched value – His own body. That You would desire to have us brought into Your family at such price humbles us completely. Accept our own lives, we pray, as we accept this gift of bread and Your infinite hospitality through Jesus. Amen.

 

A Prayer Over the Cup

Father God: in praising You, we recognize that among us are children of Yours who have not had ideal marriages; the wedding cup holds only bitter dregs for them. Yet we also recognize that the we, the church, the bride redeemed by the blood of the perfect Bridegroom – Your Son – we have been washed in His baptism and this marriage has been made pure. And in sharing this cup, our hearts overflow with joyous gratitude for Your love shown to us in Christ. Amen.

Candor Ahead

/ W. Keith Brenton / 4 Comments

After all, if I can’t be candid with you folks after almost 14 years, I can’t be candid with anyone.

I don’t write much anymore.

This is tough for a writer to admit.

I know it’s a kind of writer’s block, and last night I figured out/admitted which one it is.

Fear.

Not fear of failure, but of unintended success. I’m afraid that once I start, it will all come tumbling out, burbling in words of anger and frustration and sorrow at the way the world is and shouldn’t be. I’m afraid I will successfully communicate the way I feel using the words I normally wouldn’t use and I will cause wounds and rifts and pains that would at least be minimized if I keep holding them in. I’m afraid the words will take on the power of incantations that alienate and destroy.

No, you’re right; keeping them in is probably not healthy. And I do share them in prayer, very candidly, but I don’t get a lot of response these days.

So I keep on not writing.

And that is probably not healthy either.

I fumbled along in a writing job graciously offered for several years, earning part of my keep by maintaining a web site as well, but pretty much incapable of writing to meet the needs of my employer and audiences. I will always be grateful for that opportunity, and saddened that I wasn’t able to live up to the challenge.

Sure, there are thousands of texts out there that say “You were able! You are now! Just try! Just do it! Be a Nike sneaker!” and people like me buy them thinking that somehow they will be the needed kickstart and magically boot the chockblock from in front of the wheels. But they don’t.

The old magic isn’t there, because unleashing it would level Hogwarts.

So it’s best to chain it in the dungeon with the three-headed dogs and gigantic spiders and monstrous serpents and just say it isn’t there.

At least for now.

Until the spell can be found to keep it disciplined and under control.

State of the Union

/ W. Keith Brenton / 6 Comments

Tonight, President Donald J. Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address.

He will tell everyone how great everything is in America, and how it has all happened because he is so great.

And all of his voter-fanboys will agree with him.

He will not say that the United States is perhaps more divided than it has been since the Civil War because of policies that support white supremacy, misogyny, funneling more wealth to the wealthy, religious bigotry, fear and paranoia.

He will not say that the United States is failing to respond to the threat of election encroachment by foreign powers.

He will not say that the United States cannot be protected by a wall or a military force with billions more to spend or by temporary immigrant ban after ban because the greatest threat to her is from within her — a citizenry with no self-control and total self-interest, virtually no moral compass, frustrated by the ongoing economic oppression of oligarchs and armed to the teeth.

He will not say that the United States’ hopes lie with freedom of information, a free press, a population united by concern for each other through charity and volunteerism and genuine faith … in each other; in our Constitution; in a real and actual God rather than just the invocation of a name.

He will not say that the United States becomes a stronger nation by maintaining good relationships with other nations and caring deeply about the issues which concern them as well, even if sometimes that means we do not monetarily profit by caring.

He will not say that moral purity and grace and kindness and humility and forgiveness are all key components of citizenship and a nation’s character.

He will not say these things because he does not believe them.

And a significant percentage of the country agrees with him.

Some even believe that God agrees with him.

And that is the state of our disunion.

Democrats: Here’s How To Win

/ W. Keith Brenton

You go ahead and do what you want to. But if you want to win the single-issue voters you’re losing over the issue of abortion, consider this.

Yes, I know this one only has 48 stars. Watch the Red Skelton video.Stop positioning yourselves as “pro-choice.” Stop supporting taxpayer-funded abortion centers, which is a violation of first-amendment rights of those who see abortion as murder for religious reasons. Stop playing into your opponents’ hands as they paint you to be baby-killers.

Start positioning yourselves as “helping make it easier for women to make better choices.”

Tell your story.

Tell voters you support a living wage, making it possible to have and rear children without having to have several part-time jobs.

Tell voters you support child-care, pregnancy leave and sick leave benefits, making it easier to have a child and return to work.

Tell voters you want to make good health-care affordable for all – including birth-control coverage for women – so that the cost of safely having a child or not having a child is not prohibitive for anyone, ever.

Tell voters that you support a culture in which all people are respected, and especially women – who classically have not been – and that sexual mistreatment and assault will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies due to rape.

Tell voters that you support equal pay for equal work, making it more economically feasible for women (as well as couples/families) to have and raise children.

Tell voters that you will support adoption efforts for those who want but can’t have biological children and women who choose to have their children but give them through adoption, so that this option becomes more streamlined legally and affordable generally.

Tell voters that no law criminalizing women who have abortions or abortion providers is going to stop or even necessarily reduce the number of abortions in our country; that women choose abortion out of genuine medical need, financial difficulty, personal desperation and a myriad of reasons. And that sometimes it actually is necessary, rare though it might be. It’s going to happen.

The best response to that fact is to help make it easier for women to make better choices by providing better options.

Fact is, you were already following a lot of these recommendations when your person was in the White House. And it was working. The abortion rate was down to 14.6 per thousand women – the lowest since Roe v. Wade.

And your opponents, the Republicans – though they run and win on the issue decade after decade – have not passed one law effective at reducing abortion in as many opportunities as they have had. The last thing they did – the Hyde Amendment, in 1976 – was good law, prohibiting federal funding of abortion. But there’s no data that shows it had any effect in reducing the number of abortions in the U.S. at all.

But if you want to go ahead by falling into the trap of just automatically opposing everything your opponent stands for, you go right ahead. It’s no skin off my teeth. The only reason I bring it up is out of respect for my late wife, a devoted Democrat, whose only hesitancy at supporting your party was this singular issue.

For me, it’s enough hesitancy to prevent me from supporting your party or any party.

But you just might be able to win me over this way.

Me, and a few million others.

What I miss about you

/ W. Keith Brenton / 2 Comments

Sweetheart,

I still don’t know if you’re someplace/sometime where/when you can read this, but I need to tell you these things, because I’m still not always comfortable talking to God about them and He’s pretty much just as silent as the grave, too. Of course, I expect that.

Angela BrentonIt’s been more than four years and I still miss you like I lost you yesterday.

And I just want to tell you (again) some of the things I miss about you when I miss you the most because I need to get them off my heart and off my mind so I can move on a little bit more.

Not so I can forget them; just the opposite. But so I can let them go.

So here they go. These are some of the things I miss most:

Those eyes.

The smile between us when words weren’t necessary.

Your funny, halting laugh. I used to do anything, say anything I could think of that might be remotely humorous just to hear it.

The way you planned and organized vacation trips for our little family, with all the things you knew we’d want to see and do, and you were always right.

Your version of the Eureka Memento sandwich from Victorian Sampler, and their chilled strawberry soup. Chicken spaghetti. Summer salad with walnuts and raspberry vinaigrette. Apple-stuffed acorn squash to bring in autumn. Your famous sugar cookies at Christmas that we all decorated together.

Hearing you sing alto at church next to me.

The way you got the kids to church on time without me those years when I was working first and second service and sometimes teaching class between.

Being with your side-of-the-family at holidays.

You spot-checking me before we went out together to make sure I looked okay. And me checking you out, too. Oh, my.

Your willingness to proofread my stuff; letting me pre-read yours before publication, and especially partnering with you to write.

The way you made it easier for introverted me to feel part of any group in any social situation.

Your unique perspective.

Your feminine feminism.

Your insatiable intellect.

Your compassion for others.

Your political acumen.

Hearing you (and your sweet mom) whoopin’ and hollerin’ for the Dallas Cowboys every time they played, from the last time they were champs on to every losing season after.

Date nights.

Watching a movie video at home with you tucked under my arm and a big bowl of popcorn on our laps.

Traveling. Driving. Your relief driving. You even made flying and airports and security less stressful for me.

Keeping me calm when I wasn’t. Soothing my overactive anxiety.

When you used to read stories with the kids when they were young.

The first name bet. I still can’t believe you called Harding and talked someone into telling you that the “W.” stands for “William.” But that steak dinner at Coy’s was great; you earned it; and it’s a wonderful memory as one of our first dates. So I miss all those times we went out to dinner together, because they were all as precious as the first.

House-shopping with you all those times we moved.

The days with you.

The nights with you.

The moments with you.

Hearing you say – to me, our kids and others you cherished – “I love you so much.”

I guess if you can read this, you already know that was the wording on Laura’s first tattoo, in your handwriting, from a card you’d signed, inked on her forearm, when she was still seventeen and too young for a tat in North Carolina, so we drove all the way to Kentucky ….

And you know I’m here in Eureka Springs now, and there’s still a whole lot of empty in my life where you used to be.

But I’m trying to move on a little bit more, a little bit closer to where I need to be that a place alone can’t be. Not even Eureka.

I’m not there yet. Not by a long shot.

But this is a few steps in the right direction:

Letting go of some of the things I miss about you.

The No-Win Scenario

/ W. Keith Brenton / 1 Comment

What do you do when there is everything to lose and nothing you can do about it? When there are no alternatives that will affect the outcome in your favor, and you will lose, and you will lose it all, and the ones you love will lose it all — including the loss of the one you love most?

You do nothing.

And you do it with the ones you love.

You do nothing with the one you are about to lose.

You suffer with them, though you cannot fully share in that suffering, because some of that suffering is physical, and some of it is because the relationships are different and all of it together is too visceral to bear.

You remain with them because it is your only alternative as the one they love most.

Angela BrentonCancer was the no-win scenario for Angi four years ago. Her family and friends, all who loved her and knew of her condition, did what they could to gather close; to suffer with; and finally to say goodbye.

Her cancer was the no-win scenario for us as well.

But losing her was not the tragedy it could have been, if she hadn’t packed so much life into the years she lived — especially those last ten years, when she had been given a glimpse ahead. That cancer scare, I believe, gave her what she needed to live out the rest of her life on her own terms.

At her memorial services in Little Rock and later at WCU in Cullowhee, I said that Angi wanted more than anything else to be as much like Jesus of Nazareth as she could possibly be.

This year, as I remember her, it occurs to me that she was given the rare opportunity to imitate Him in a rather unique way.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. ~ Luke 9:51

Not everyone has a sense for what the future holds for them. Not everyone gets a heads-up that the scenario ahead is of the no-win variety.

And not everyone who does would walk right into it anyway, just as if the lack of alternatives was simply the way things are.

The other thing that occurs to me is that — even knowing the stories of people who have had that glimpse — it’s not like we don’t all know what’s coming.

We may not like to face or acknowledge it or dwell on it long, but the same no-win scenario is ahead for each of us. The details will be different, for sure – the whens, hows, how longs, how much and the whys – but the outcome will always be the same.

Yet we all have alternatives now.

We can pack in as much life during our time remaining as we can.

We can surround ourselves with those we love and who love us.

We can walk right into the future knowing it is certain and that only the details are not.

There’s a good chance that I will never stop learning from my beloved Angi.

But right now, this is the lesson that is the most real and precious of all.