Do This In Remembrance of Me

As we approach the week before Easter, called Holy Week, things get out of control in the church.  We have some sort of event happening every day from this Saturday's early egg hunt right through Easter Sunday eight days later.
Part of the preparation includes planning for the services we will have.  Some services have communion, others do not.  As the person in charge of communion supplies, I have been privy to some situations people could only imagine. It's why I write this blog!
Our church normally serves the little white wafers on Sunday. We experimented with bread for a while, but the bread has to be unleavened bread and so that means you can't just buy a loaf of Sunbeam bread from the grocery. You can buy Pita bread but it doesn't break nicely.  We had a volunteer make it for us. Well she didn't want to make the bread every week so she began to bake 4 loaves at a time. The first part of the month was great, but by the end of the month we were serving stale bread. The final straw was when we found mold. Wafers tasted great after that incident.

You should know that the wafers aren't exempt from staleness either. They will take on a "flexible" texture after some time. As a kid I thought this was the normal texture, but fresh wafers are crisp like a cracker.
Recently I was looking at our inventory and discovered a large supply of wafers. More than six months. Concerned for freshness, I asked about them.  I was told there were some from a store that had gone out of business. What? A store that sells the little communion wafers went out of business? Well lucky day for us. Or was it? Upon inspection of the wafers, they were two years old. Is that bad? We tasted them.
I think it's ok to eat them if they aren't blessed by a priest. Without the blessing it is just wine from the grocery store and little styrofoam wafers from a store that sells them. But after the priest says the blessing, they somehow become Holy. I am not making fun of that, it's true. Don't ask me how or why I believe that. "Do this in remembrance of me." Like Nike says, just do it. We threw out the stale wafers.
Wafers come in all sizes too. We have some that are so big they have perforations so they can be broken easily into 24 pieces. Nobody knows how we got them, but we decided to keep them and use them anyway.  We served those at our early service at 8am. Normally a crowd of 24 or less. Mostly older folks. They didn't like the broken wafers. Why? Because they had sharp edges. I can't make this stuff up. They preferred the round individual serving size wafers.
As a kid I used to play church with my grandfather. We ate Necco wafers for communion. I have often thought how great it would be to have those at church. But take out the pink ones that taste like Pepto Bismol and the black ones that are licorice. May as well remove the white ones too because they are a bit spicy.
I heard recently that churches that don't use real bread get made fun of by the ones that do. What do they call our little communion wafers that we serve? Jeezits. I suppose I should be offended, but my first thought was it's a little bit funny and kind of clever.  After all, we are a church that uses a small plate of wafers that has a tiny cup with the wine attached.  Very sanitary.  The person takes their own wafer and dips it in the wine.  I have heard this referred to as chips and dip. I am pretty sure this departs from the "do this in remembrance of me" command.
Almost to Easter, we re-tell the story of the crucifixion this week.  This is the time of year where we hear the words of Jesus say "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".  I say ditto.   

Tastes Like Chicken...or Horse

My oldest daughter just returned from a trip to China. She told me stories of her travels, and most always when people tell stories of their travels, it includes food. She didn't disappoint. One of her first stories was how she was served a 100 year old egg. Not the whole thing, because an egg that old needs to be shared. You can't just have 100 year old eggs every day. I'm not sure if you actually need to age an egg 100 years to get the taste. I would think after about 50 years it's all the same.
She also told me she tried donkey at a meal. Donkey? When asked if she had ever tried donkey she told them no. "Well", they explained, "it tastes just like horse!"  Oh.  No more explanations please.
In my travels I have had llama, snake, insects, parts of animals I'd rather not know about, as well as so many other unidentifiable foods. It usually is best not to ask what you are being served, unless you want to tell stories about it later.
One of my favorite stories is while visiting a pastor's home in Africa. They served us tea with milk. Since there was no electricity, there was no refrigeration. Without refrigeration the milk was...well...odd. And a bit lumpy. We sat in the main living room of their house as everyone on our team reflected on their good manners and desire to be gracious guests. Because I am a quick thinker I also reflected, but much faster. I decided as a good guest to take a look at the beautiful surroundings of the home. As soon as I stepped out through the front door my tea found its spot on the ground to nourish the bushes. It soaked into the dry ground rather quickly leaving behind very little evidence.
I smiled, walked right back into the house and complimented the pastor on the beauty of the land, almost oblivious to the glares of my fellow travelers. I sat down and asked them how their tea was. Mine was so good I had finished it, but had no room for more.
Just like a 100 year old egg, there really wasn't a taste to compare that tea to. We like to compare. Everyone hesitates to experience something new without knowing what it will be like. We have expectations and then we measure our experience against it. Unless it's like eating donkey. Never tried that. Never had horse either. Is it like deer?
As Easter approaches, I can only imagine what it was like 2000 years ago. People had never seen the sick healed, the blind made to see, the crippled made to walk. They had no expectation and so they believed. Today if Jesus came we would compare him to David Blaine or David Copperfield. Our expectation would be that it is somehow a trick because we have that experience of being tricked. 20/20 and other investigative shows like that have exposed many false preachers on TV.  We wouldn't believe.
The fact is, there is not a way to compare Jesus to something we know of. Every time people feel they can explain God we have ten more questions we cannot answer. Why does God allow suffering? I don't know, but its ok by me not to know that answer.
Here's a question for you. Would you try the 100 year old egg if nobody told you it was edible? I wouldn't. I want someone to tell me they have tried it and it is good. We have thousands of years of testimonies telling us God heals the sick and still does miracles today. Psalm 34:8 says "taste and see that the Lord is good".  That works for me.

Osama Bin Laden in Heaven?

Is he? Probably not, but really that isn't the point of this blog post. The truth is, a title like this one shows up in search engines so I am fishing for some accidental readers. If you are one of those, welcome!
I recall looking at our prayer book in church a few years back. In one of the prayers every week in our service, we would say "We pray for all who have died, that they may have a place in your eternal kingdom".  Someone had written in pencil right under that prayer "Too Late!" That stuck with me for quite some time.  Not the response, but the prayer.  The response made me look again and think what a funny prayer that is.  Are we letting everyone in without any kind of requirement? The only stipulation to get into heaven is to die. We all will do that sooner or later.  Is that really what the Bible says happens?
This past weekend we had two funerals at our church. Neither one was for a parishioner of ours. I played the music for the second funeral.  The first one wanted Bob Marley on iPod.  Not the strangest music request I have ever heard, but it goes in the top 10. I am pretty sure neither one who died had a home church or if they did, rarely attended.  
What do you tell a family who walks through your doors and asks for a funeral service at a church?
If we were like the person who wrote in the prayer book we could tell them it's too late.  If you never went to church in your living days, why would you want to visit now? Isn't it like taking your car to a car wash after you totaled it? Who does that?
My favorite part of planning for the service is when one of our members asked me about the second service. She told me they wanted several people from our church to be there because the people in attendance were not only non-believers, but many were addicts.  "Oh" was all I could think of to reply.  People in need of good news is where I thought she was going.  She asked me "Do you know why we are wanting many of our parishioners to come?" "Um, to witness to the non-believers?" was my guess.  That was an incorrect guess. Apparently some people (who are some people?) were worried the addicts...mourners at the funeral, would steal stuff from the church.  I looked around to take quick inventory.  A few of my CDs, some 12oz bags of coffee, some candles were all anyone could carry off if they wanted.  I would be happy to give anything away that someone needed, but that wasn't a comforting response to her concern.
Sure we have stuff.  But the great things we have as Christians are faith, hope, and love.  Faith; to believe the promise of God. Hope; to anticipate our place in heaven. Love: to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Love our neighbors enough to support them in time of grief.  Hope they won't take our stuff? I don't think so.

Maybe everyone gets into heaven.  If they did, would it make it any less better?  Challenge your faith like the workers in the field from Matthew 20:1-16.  If you are there, is that enough?  Is it fair?