Closing worship services at conferences are meant to be the meaningful culmination of our whole time together. What people want at the end of a NEXT Church gathering is no different: prophetic, inspirational and truth-telling words, illustrations of a world transformed and a sending from the community that has been built.
But one time, God began laughing at the table Christ had set.
It started during the words of institution. “Take, eat, this is my body given for you.” But when we, the officiants, both held up the matching loaves of gluten-free bread, they broke apart along the neatly cut dry line. The dry halves left little flecks on the crowded table before we handed them to the other two servers, who were now drawn into the worshipful anxiety of what would happen as more and more crumbs fell to the carpet …
The bread was breaking. Disintegrating. Scattering.
The bread was soon crumbling before everyone’s eyes. It was like confetti bursting from the loaves made for all. Gluten-free and whole, yet scattering farther as every single set of fingers reached out for nourishment. Crumbs between fingers eagerly yearned to dip into the cup now before them.
This meal is meant to be solemn, holiness exalted through the simple, final meal of a man facing death.
But on that day, a roaring joy spread quickly throughout the sanctuary. Soft giggles from the front soon became belly laughs in anticipation of the act we were to undergo together.
Can I step on the crumbs?
Should I walk around them?
What will hold it all together?
There really were no answers. But nothing stopped, either. You could see waves of recognition moving through the space. A smirk from one to another. Just wait for it, said colleagues or newfound friends. Eager eyes looked up and left and right, trying to find out what would happen when they arrived in front of the servers. What began as the co-officiants’ words and acts of institution unfolded into an inside joke that we would soon all be in on.
We were not just acting out Christ’s last meal, as we had done repeatedly over our lifetimes. We were struggling with it, failing at it. Trying our best while spreading countless crumbs all over the sanctuary floor. Over and over again. One after another. Until everyone was filled.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? The disintegrating loaves did not dissuade anyone in the room. Our awkwardness and questions did not keep even one person away. And it was with full, thankful, joy-filled hearts – not heavy ones – that we walked toward our own opportunity to live into the sacred messiness of this meal. We each anticipated what our own fractured breaking of the bread would feel like until we lived into the moment itself.
No matter our best-laid plans or liturgical movements.
In the midst of sacred ways of being present through ritual.
Our proper behavior exploding into uncontrollable laughter.
God’s kingdom comes. Every. Single. Time.
We were left with crumbs on our fingertips, floating in the cups of grape juice, sitting on the red carpeted floor of the sanctuary, even sticking to the soles of our shoes. It wasn’t the meal we had planned, but it was the nourishment we needed.
The kingdom of heaven is like a table set to feed all who come. It is an abundance so fragile that it cannot be contained in muscle memory for an all-too-familiar ritual. People clamor forward, eagerly awaiting their own taste of the joy bursting right before their eyes. It’s bread that will not be contained, a cup that catches whatever falls into it.
Bread and cup, life and blood, silence and laughter. All of it covered us as we prepared to leave that place.
