I
grew up in my first years as a Presbyterian who hated Sunday School. Oh I like the crafts but I hated when we had
to read the Bible. Oh I liked the stories;
it was the reading I hated. I did not
know what it meant then to be a dyslexic but I knew the experience of going
round the circle and knowing I would read with so much pain and falter and
snicker. It taught me to pray, “Let the
lesson be over before it gets to me.” or “Let me only have one line I can know
before it gets to me.”
I
liked church better because I never had to read aloud and the hymns I could
memorize or be pulled along by the choir.
And since my father sang less, less was expected.
I
liked church best until Communion Sunday and there I sat shorter than the adults
and over my head would pass the bread cubes and the grape juice. I knew I wanted some. I wanted to belong in the way I never did in
Sunday School. That is why when I was
ten, I think, I went to work on the minister. Could I go to the classes now and
not when I was twelve? How deeply I wanted
to be worthy. And he was kind and let me
be taught and memorize the Catechism.
God was strangely kind and on the day I had to go before the Session: I was ill. So the
President and Minister came to me and I was less afraid. Was this an answer to
a prayer only my child heart knew? I passed and from then on I belonged, younger
than my peers. And I knew grace as a
gift that says, “Here is my Body. Here is my Blood.” I knew it as longing satisfied, as the plate is
lowered and you are allowed what has so long passed over your head and now
nourished your sensitive self.
As we have been reading John Chapter 6, I realize that I always hear it from
this dyslexic child’s longing met. To
make sense of today’s lesson one needs to cobble verse 60 to verse 59.
When many of his
disciples (followers)
heard him say, (“the one who eats this
bread will live forever,") they said, "This teaching is difficult;
who can accept it?"
I
know the answer, “I can!” It is like the joy of that hopeful proud child
included.
Of
course the disciples do not yet know about His death and resurrection. Though the author of John does and I do. I know what it is to die in Sunday School as
the Word of God approaches and you must read it. I know what it is to also know the hymns a
little by heart and the choir who will pull you along. I know what it is to have the plate lowered
and you included and for a moment you are as close to heaven as you will ever
be in this life. Things that hurt for a
moment are but shadows.
When
some choose to leave and find Jesus' teaching all too hard, I am not with them; I am with Peter.
So Jesus asked the
twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom
can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are
the Holy One of God." (V: 67-69)
Even
today I don’t always “understand” the Eucharist, communion. I don’t always
appreciate the behaviors that go on in church. Rather I understand the beckon, the desire to
be more whole, the balm of God’s inclusion, the child-like quality of “May I have
some.” All these years later I know I have
been graced to see the child-faces on so many at so many ages which say, “May I
have some, I have come to believe and (somehow) know You are the Holy One of
God.” Something divine has been lowered
into my hands, my life. Here, the balm of inclusion. It is enough.
Carr: That was so like my father! I remember in the 60's after the famous Sit-In at Woolworth's began the fight for racial equality, when Daddy said in his benediction that anyone regardless of race, creed or color was welcome to worship in our church how the phones rang all day long with people both in support and totally not in support of his views. He handled it all with his humble way and eventually turned the tide his way! Thanks for remembering him in this way.
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