Common Table

A Writing Exercise from the Service on Sunday, October 9

So, this past Sunday at Common Table, the liturgical team led a service based around a simple liturgy from Iona.  As part of this liturgy, we meditated on scripture and also on our past week, and were encouraged to share a short anecdote from our past week, incorporating our response to the scriptures in that.  We were particularly encouraged to make our anecdote visual… to try and capture a particular moment visually.

The texts we were meditating on, taken from the Lectionary, were difficult (Exodus 32:1-14 and Matthew 22:1-14).   These texts emphasized the wrath of God, and in particular, I found the questions posed by the opening verses of Matthew 22 disturbing.

So I wrote about my cab ride from the night before.

Doubt

The cab driver’s skin is the color of a Hershey’s Special Dark bar. His collar is up, against the mild cold of the evening. “You are smart,” he says. “You go home early, beat the traffic.” I laugh. “You bet, man. I love my sleep.” Pause. He looks at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes are the same Hershey Dark, with arched, thick eyebrows, giving a vaguely Sean Connery effect. His face is creased with lines, particularly around the eyes and forehead. Worry lines. This man is a thinker.

I decide to say it. “Plus, I gotta be at church in the morning.” Arched eyebrows fly skyward. “Church!!”, he says. “What kind church?” Ahh. What kind church. “It’s hard to say. Let’s just say Protestant. We’re a mix of denominations.” I hold up my hands, with interlaced fingers. “Somehow we make it work.”

He nods. I dive in again. “You’re Ethiopian?” Slight crease between the eyebrows. “Yes, I am Ethiopian.” “Ethiopian Orthodox, then?” The crease smooths. “Yes… I mean I was. But now I am little bit confused.” He switches lanes. He’s a competent driver, knows these roads, knows where he’s going.

I say, “Well, a new culture, another country… it’s easy to be confused.”

And the dam bursts.

20 minutes of questions, challenges, one arm waving, one hand on the wheel… eyebrows raising, furrowing, dancing on his forehead. “If God is love, why did He kill His Son??” “If Jesus was God, why was He afraid to die??” “All the churches, they teach different things, who to believe??” “Why so many versions of the Bible??”

We’re hurtling down 14th Street: lit shop windows, darkened office buildings, shadowed doorways, pedestrians, crosswalks… a stream of vari-colored images: the secular world, material, embodied, and a thoroughly unhelpful visual landscape for contemplating answers to these questions. Not that I really intend to answer them, though. He’s not giving me space for answers… occasional pepperings of “Yes?”, “You see??”, and “You know???” appear to be there for verbal ornamentation alone.

So I nod. I say, “I see your point,” and a couple of times, when he stops for breath, I offer a short response to the couple of things for which I feel I have a response. Some of his questions I just don’t have answers for… they’re things that bother me, too, but not enough to chuck my faith. Plus, it’s late, I’m tired, I just want to get home. I end up having to talk over him in order to give directions… otherwise, it appears he would just speed on on on into the dark night, driving as long as his questions last, hurtling us both forward into the bottomless pit of his doubt.

In front of my apartment, he turns to me, intent on continuing. I mutter something about how he has more fares to collect, hand over my money (with a healthy tip), and pat him on the shoulder. “Keep asking the questions, buddy.” Pathetic. But a bright smile flashes across his face, worry lines around his eyes smooth. “Have good night!!”, he says brightly.

Is that what he needed? It was a pointless thing to say, but maybe better than anything else I could have said. He wasn’t looking for an answer… he just wanted a confessor for his doubts. I walk up the front steps of my building, tired and heavy with my own silence, but unable to think of anything more Christ-like than bearing witness to his struggle and answering gently and briefly where I could.

LORD, have mercy.

—Amy Moffitt—

A Rather Overdue Submission from the Common Table 10th Anniversary Retreat

Once upon a time, there was a people who did not know what God sounded like. They read stories about Him and sang songs, and talked about His Voice, but in truth, they weren’t sure what it would be like to really hear Him.  They had large ceremonies in big buildings, and many people came.  Sometimes, the people were helped by pretending they’d heard God, and sometimes they were hurt… but still, no one really knew… what would it sound like if God spoke?

Some of the people who claimed they heard Him said that He sounded like thunder. Others said he sounded like a whisper.  Still others heard His voice as singing. People divided themselves accordingly, and some loudly criticized those in the other groups.  The leaders of these people did not discourage the criticism… they were afraid that other people would know that they had never really heard God.

One day, a Person Who Was Different began teaching in the city square.  This person was a stranger and spoke in a strange sounding voice, but was nevertheless pleasing to listen to.  Many people came to the city square to listen to this person as they spoke new ideas about justice and love and beauty.

After some time, the person said, “What is the sound of God’s voice like?”  The crowd began to murmur.  People’s eyes widened and their shoulders grew tense, anticipating a fight when the stranger said that God sounded like a whisper… or like thunder… or like song.

The stranger raised their hand and gestured toward the crowd: “God’s voice sounds like all of your voices.  All of you, all together, in your thundering, your whispering, your song.  God sounds like all of you, together.”  And the stranger smiled.

The crowd erupted in shouting and cries.  They rushed upon the stranger, and rained blows on them, silencing the voice of God.

—Amy Moffitt—

Grande Dame

on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of her lady, Common Table Church

the lodge rises up beside the highway
at the foot of misty mountains
three looming stores of substantial structure

wood, everywhere
of every species and use

columns suspending balconies
porches and walkways
massive stringers receiving strong steps
delicate muntins surrounding wavy glass
wide, smooth floors that roll underfoot
wainscoting climbing to chair rails
curving staircases with fat railings
plain doors and thin siding

carved bed frames
dressers and chests of thick drawers
dovetailed together, forever

tall baseboards, delicate moldings
and even behind plaster
sturdy studs stretch
twelve feet to floors above

we are supposed to call this ‘waste’
an unwise use of resources
a grand forest reduced to a single building
these trees should yet stand
unmolested and serving their ancient ecosystems
but I’d say they gave their lives
for something grand

— Mike Stavlund

Flash Fictio on Exodus 12

Once upon a time, there was a tiny church at a large conference center.  The church sitting all around them at dinner was so big that they hardly noticed them.  One lady saw the sign on their table—  ‘Common Table’— and said she thought it was a table for everyone.  So she sat down and didn’t even notice that she didn’t know anyone there.  They were The People Without Nametags, so overly familiar with one another that they couldn’t forget anyone’s name if they tried.  And at least one of them mused that if they all joined this larger church one Sunday en masse and attended there faithfully for 5 years, the larger church would not even notice. 

They were a family.  A small family, too small to have their own lamb.  So they banded together to make a collective ‘we’, just enough to eat one small yearling lamb. But they flavored it, and fussed over it, and feasted on it, and savored every bite.  They left nothing until morning, and laughed loudly together as they washed the dishes afterward.

They were being passed over, barely noticed by the larger world.  But they were too busy teasing and debating and loving each other to notice. 

— Mike Stavlund

Live Lectio/Flash Fiction - Exodus 12 - Response by Mike Croghan

This is a fictional response to a reading of a passage of scripture during our Sunday morning worship service on retreat at Shrine Mont on 4 September, 2011.  Please see the first post in this series for context, as well as the biblical passage being responded to.

Brief note:  Stav sort of set us up to think about community and anniversary and remembrance, since this was our 10th anniversary retreat, and because the text has those overtones.  But I ended up going in a different direction, so my response is in some ways not typical of many of the other awesome responses that will be posted here soon.  (Right, guys??)  :-)  Anyway, just FYI.

Disobedience

It was only an hour before the appointed time, when the Lord would send his angel of death - the angel with the flaming sword that would cut out the heart of each Egyptian family.  Rachel snuck out while her father was bundling their few possessions, and her mother was cleaning the remains of the tiny leg of lamb they’d been given by their next door neighbor.

She moved quickly down the street, careful not to slosh the blood in the bowl she carried.  At each Egyptian home she reached, Rachel dipped her rag into the bowl, and hastily dribbled blood on the doorframe.

She kept on running into the dark, painting hope on as many doors as she could reach, until the dawn broke, and Rachel heard the first wails of anguish from the homes further on down the street.

Live Lectio/Flash Fiction - Exodus 12

Our service yesterday morning centered around a Lectio Divina/Flash Fiction exercise using Exodus 12.  Very simply put, we listened to Exodus 12 read aloud twice, and then let the words of that text lead us to write short pieces of fiction inspired by the text.  The idea is to engage in a Spirit-led activity that will generate a new idea or word, rather than to exegete or meditate directly on the text itself.

We’ll be posting some of our offerings here, but before we do that, here is the catalyst text:

Exodus 12

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.  Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.  If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are.  You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.  The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.  Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.  Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs.  That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.  Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire— with the head, legs and internal organs.  Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.  This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand.  Eat it in haste; it is the LORD’s Passover.

On that same night, I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  I am the LORD.  The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.  No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD— a lasting ordinance.”

Pre-Eucharist prayer by Moff

LORD Jesus, there is so much we don’t know about You. Did you have light or dark eyes? What did Your voice sound like? What did your laugh sound like? When you cried, did your nose turn red like mine does? Were you tall or short?

So much that we don’t know about what you looked, sounded, smelled like… but we know a little about your hands. You were a carpenter. Those hands worked, and they undoubtedly saw injury from time to time. I imagine thick, calloused fingers, with strong muscles in the forearms… probably a few scars, too, from poorly aimed hammers or other such accidents.

Those hands healed, too, but in a very earthy way. They drew lines in the dirt when a woman caught in adultery was brought to you for judgement. They rubbed spit and mud on a blind man’s eyes so that he could see.  You laid them directly on the bodies of lepers and dead people, and skin was regenerated and stopped hearts started beating
again.

Those hands that worked and healed tore a loaf of bread on the night before they were torn. Those hands gave food to your friends the night before they were tied to a wooden beam and driven through with spikes.

And here is a paradox: Those hands, scarred, dirty, and covered in blood, were clean. Pilate’s hands, uncalloused and washed clean with water, were covered in blood.

Things are not always as they seem.

Just because we can’t see you doesn’t mean we can’t see you. Without seeing your hands with our eyes, we see your hands in the world, and in us, moving our hands in your service as we live and work.  Those who saw you on earth, those who could actually touch you, didn’t understand who you were. Thomas, putting his fingers through the holes in your hands, only barely understood even then.

These symbols of bread and wine represent you, whom we cannot touch with our hands. Touch us, LORD, through these sacraments, which we take in remembrance of you.