Luke 22:14-23
On Thursday of Passion week, which is called Maundy Thursday, we remember the Lord's Supper. As I sit here and reflect on the passage above, this picture of the Lord's Supper comes to mind--nice and neat, solemn and reverent, the disciples just filled with awe as the Lord shares the bread and the cup, explaining the complexities of each. (Surely they each had a small square piece of dried up bread and a plastic shot-glass of grape juice.)
At the same time, while reflecting on what must have been the scene, I'm babysitting Isaac. I'm reflecting on this most reverential of occassions while sprinkling a continuous flow of Cheerios onto Isaac's high-chair to keep him from throwing a fit (the kid loves to eat!). And I wonder--have we made religion so nice and neat, solemn and reverent, that it doesn't fit into real life?
My "DaVinci" mind-picture of the last supper surely wasn't reality. The disciples weren't nice and neat. They didn't even get what was going on. Yet, we make the Christian walk all about being nice and neat at a Sunday service.
Christianity isn't nice and neat. It's not to be kept in a safe-box and taken out on special occassions. Our relationship with Jesus has to get dirty--it must touch real life. Christianity isn't a Sunday suit and tie affair; the Christian life is for the mother with three screaming kids whose husband just left her--that's not nice and neat. The Christian life is for the school teacher, sleeves rolled up and chalk dust all over his fingers. The Christian life is for the nurse holding down a patient in detox. The Christian life is for the student deciding what he will do with the offer of sex. The Christian life is for the daddy who's doing his best to babysit and honor God at the same time.
I'm afraid that far too often the lost have left our presence without even desiring what we have as Christians. The reason? Because what they observe in us is a nice, neat, Sunday religiosity; not something that will help them through a day on the job, or on the ball field, or in the classroom, or through a morning of babysitting. Perhaps it's because they saw us on the job or ball field or classroom or babysitting--having left our Christianity in the closet at home.
We can worship on Sunday all we want to, but if we don't take Christ with us everywhere we go...well...
I'd be interested in your comments on how we can make our church get beyond a Sunday-suit-and-tie witness of Christianity and into an everyday-life witness of Christianity.
