The Power of Community

Yesterday I celebrated at a Eucharist for a group of Episcopal women I am a member of, at the end of a three-day conference on empowering women for social justice work. I asked all the women (about 75 who were present) to come stand up at the altar with me during the prayer of consecration.

As I was praying, I felt like superwoman--a feeling of great power and a kind of empowerment beyond myself. The spirits of all those women ringing the altar were extraordinary. There were more than just my prayers being said at the altar, there were the prayers and power of all those women with me. I felt as if I were floating a little above the floor, that the words of prayer were being sent into God's own mind at that moment.

This is the most powerful and wonderful, and awe-filled moment I have had as a priest. The community surrounding the altar were truly the consecrators of the bread and wine.

I believe this is how Eucharist was meant to be--the community praying together to bring the Holy Spirit in our midst. We all were co-creators with God at that moment, we all made the bread and wine Christ's body and blood to us--we all as an entity, not our separateness, but our oneness, were conduits of the Holy Spirit.

May all of you reading this today be able to have this kind of community where you can go--a place of such love and power, of oneness in Christ.

Christian community

This week our lection from Acts gave us a model of the first Christians living in community.

They broke bread, shared in the apostles' teaching, fellowship and the prayers. They held all things in common. They rejoiced and brought many new members into their fold. The did signs and wonders.

How does this model look next to your community of faith? Where can you take a page from the first Christians' community to learn how to be in communion with your fellow Christians? Does your community of faith look anything like this?

Meeting the Risen Christ

As we continue to meet the risen Christ in our readings during Easter, be mindful of the risen Christ meeting you on the street, in your office, classroom, home. Wherever people are on the margins--the poor, the outcast, the homeless, those in the throes of addictions—all are the face of Christ crying out for the gospel that promises that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. This “scandalous gospel of Jesus”, as it is termed by Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes in his latest book of this title, makes us uncomfortable because it challenges our own place at the table. It takes us out of our comfort zone, to reach out to those whom Christ cried for, healed, loved. Love is never diminished when given away, paradoxically, it grows. Jesus’s love for “the least" showed us the way. And his power over death made death nothing to fear, so now we have nothing to fear by giving away our love.

Encounter the risen Christ this week, live the scandalous gospel in your little corner of the world.