早些時候，他已開始理解，也如此地教導人──感恩祭宴可以做為信眾與基督合一的模式。在感恩祭宴當中，我們看到主、看到麵餅被拿起……被祝福……接著被擘開……然後又給出去。這些感恩祭宴的動作，全都是耶穌生活的寫真。當主耶穌被天父召叫時，祂被拿起；同樣，祂在領洗時被祝福了；在十字架上被擘開；接著給了這世界。盧雲引導我們到那一刻，去想想這個奧秘與我們自己的生活有什麼關係。我們也再次看見，同樣的模式如何發生在我們身上：我們也同樣被拿起，天主也揀選了我們；祝福了，天主認得我們、愛我們；擘開了，我們都因負傷和不幸而受苦；我們也被給出去，因為我們的生命也是要呈獻給這世界的。這是個既深奧又美麗的教導，將我們置入了感恩祭宴的核心、福音的核心以及盧雲給基督徒訊息的核心。
There is this about a story: when we get caught up in a story, we don’t know how it is going to end. Nor do we know who else is going to be part of the story. … Noting in a skillfully told story is predictable. But also, nothing is without meaning—every detail, every word, every name, every action is part of the story. … That means we can’t know the details of how it will look, who will in it, or how it will end. The only thing we know for sure is that it is the story of Jesus bring retold with us being the ones listening, responding, following, believing, obeying—or not.
[Psychology] clarified what I was not: I was not primarily dealing with people as problems. I was a pastor calling them to worship God. … but congregation is not defined by its collective problems. Congregation is a company of people who are defined by their creation in the image of God, living souls, whether they know it or not. … But their work [counseling] is not my work. … And my work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life. … I will find ways to pray with and for people and teach them to pray, usually quietly and often subversively when they don’t know I am doing it. But I’m not going to wait to be asked. I am a pastor.
Day by day, he invites us to follow him—not Marduk, not Batman, not Caiaphas or Pilate, but him—the one who would not resort to violence, not even to save his own life—the one who fought back by refusing to fight back and who replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of indestructible love. Here, then, is another way to redeem the world: not by killing off the troublemakers but by dying to violence once and for all. Because he did, we can. He died to show us how. We live to show him we got the message.
Today we look on the one whom we have pierced. More important, we listen. To the silence. To the howl. What is the gospel, in the land at the foot of the cross? When God is silent, people of faith cry out. When people of faith cry out, it is God who speaks. Amen.
Without romance, we might never bind ourselves to one other person and learn how to negotiate a life together. Without romance, we might never decide to bear children and find out what it means to give our life for the life of another. It is a kind of trick in which the object of our desire is swapped in midair. We reach for our illusions. What we lay hold of is the truth. It can be shocking, sometimes, but it is also salvific, because without the ideal, we might never grasp the reality. So I have this budding theory that romance is how life gets us where life needs us to be. And by extension, that the romance of ordination is how God tricks us into servanthood.
But that was not the only choice they had. Instead of surrendering themselves to their fear, they could surrender themselves to God. They could deny the panic-stricken voice inside of them—the one that kept ordering them to play it safe—and listen for that other voice instead, the one that says, “Wake up. Follow me. Do not fear.” That voice has never promised safety. It has always promise life. It has never offered freedom from pain. It has only offered freedom from fear.
It is how God works, now and forever—not by protecting us from death but by bringing us back to life again—because life, not death, is God’s will for us. Every moment of our lives carries the seeds of that truth. Those who miss it are of all people most to be pitied. And those who believe it? Our hope shall never die. Amen.
