chosen, blessed, broken, given
Back to this:
When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, he summarized in these gestures his own life. Jesus is chosen from all eternity, blessed at his baptism in the Jordan River, broken on the cross, and given as bread to the world. Being chosen, blessed, broken, and given is the sacred journey of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ.
When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words “This is the Body of Christ,” we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world. ~ Henri Nouwen
I love how Nouwen puts this - Christ was chosen, blessed, broken and given and if we are incarnations of Christ on the earth now and if we are to live as Christ then we too are chosen, blessed, broken and given and partaking of the elements of the Eucharist should remind us of this in a very tangible way.
Fleshing it out and living it is another matter though isn’t it?
For example, what does it mean to be chosen? David and I were talking about this a little this morning in the context of another conversation. The notion of being called, being chosen for something in particular, being set on a path by God is deeply ingrained in much of our Christian teachings. There is this notion that we need to figure out God’s will and do that thing otherwise we won’t be blessed, it won’t go well for us.
But is finding this one single vocation or hobby or friend what it means to “be chosen”?
And “blessed” - wow, what a loaded word.
Fleshing out and giving legs to this concept of being “Christ-like” seems tough but as a Revolution person said on Sunday - maybe we make it too hard. What say you?
Related posts:
- chosen, blessed, broken When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave...
- treasure of the poor Courtesy of Henri Nouwen The poor have a treasure to...
- friendship: the other side we cannot be good Christ followers if we do not...
- Advent Reflections: Day 3-4 Mt. 24:36-44 I’m enjoying reflecting on the second coming parallel...
- I totally dig Solomon’s Porch I’ve never been there but this is a totally neat...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
- Posted by Mak at 09:08 am
- Permalink for this entry
- Filed under: scribe
- RSS comments feed of this entry
- TrackBack URI
Imagine putting all of those concepts together at the same time… It may wreck our theology! Chosen to be blessed and broken by what we are given. Good thoughts.
[...] “When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words ‘This is the Body of Christ,’ we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.” — Henri Nouwen Makeesha has more… [...]
My brother remarked to me the other day that any time faith becomes complicated, then it misses the point. I scoffed, but thought about it, because Jesus said that the faith of a child is enough, and childlike faith, while not shallow, is certainly simple, I think.
I used to pray frenetically that I wouldn’t “miss the will of God,” begging with tremendous fear and shame, afraid that I wouldn’t be worthy to receive divine direction to the will of God, and then would face certain unhappiness. What a vicious circle of misery that was.
I think we are chosen; we were chosen in the act of the atonement. Everyone was. Discovering it isn’t always so cut-and-dry, clear and simple. But I think the small things matter–making eye contact, giving a smile, listening a little extra long to a boring conversation when it means that the talker will feel less alone (but, good lord, let’s not get crazy–we don’t have to let her blather on through the night.)
I wrote an essay (yeah, you saw it coming) about how profound the explaining of the Eucharist was to my daughters, and it hinged on what is said in our liturgy: “As this bread is Christ’s body for us, send us out to be the body of Christ in the world.” Well, thanks for the meditation.