The Reverend Barbara K. Briggs
August 30, 2009
The 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17, Year B

Last weekend at a cookout I overheard my husband telling a friend of ours to come to Trinity Church in Hartford.  He said something like, “If you really want to experience a parish that is alive, you should check out Trinity Church.”  It’s true.  You can feel it in all the details.  There is energy here:  enthusiasm coupled with a desire to keep on becoming who it is that God intends us to be.

Yesterday forty people from around the diocese and beyond came for a day of training in Godly Play.  Fourteen of those who came for the day were from this parish.  Fourteen people from Trinity Church gave their Saturday to come together to listen, learn and experience how God’s Word can come alive in all of us, children and adults alike.  We brought a piece of the desert with us into the library and gathered in a big circle, some of us on the floor, some in chairs, and we listened to stories about the Exodus and about Moses.  We watched as the storyteller moved the figures of the people of God through the sand from slavery into freedom.  We lamented that the firstborn children of the Egyptians died and we rejoiced with Miriam when she led the dancing after the people of God had reached the other side of the water in safety.  We took time to wonder about the events in these stories and to find the connection that they had in our own life experience, in our own stories.

When God’s Word comes alive in us, it affects the whole community.  Moses went up the mountain and came close to God.  When he came down, his face shone.  It was radiant with the light and love of God, not just for him, but for the whole people of God.  Your faces shine, too.  I see in them a desire to come closer to God and to each other: a desire to belong and to be a part of what God is doing in our midst.  Since we are all different, and since we are in different places in our journey of faith, we don’t all shine in the same way and at the same time.  That is the gift of community.  When our own light grows dim and when we don’t feel close to God, there is bound to be someone else in whom we see God’s light and joy and by whom we can be inspired, and encouraged.

A few days ago I saw the movie Julie & Julia.  I learned that it took Julia Child eight years to get her cookbook published.  She worked on it night and day, revised it and edited it and rewrote it too many times to count.  She persevered with an astonishing optimism.  The thing that sticks with me, though, is how infectious it is when we pursue what gives us life, even when pursuing it comes at great personal cost.  Julia Child cooked for love.  She didn’t just love to cook.  She cooked because she loved, and it influenced a whole generation of Americans.  Her cookbook is now in its 47th printing.

Not to belittle Julia’s book, but someone once said that when it comes to preparing food, we need more love and less recipes.  That is what the Gospel is telling us today:  More love, less recipes.  When we prepare food with more love and less recipes, we are brought into relationship with those who grow the food, pick it, pack it, ship it, bring it to market, sell it and then eat it.  We are also brought into relationship with all those who are hungry.  Food sustains us all.  Even a little bit of food when shared becomes a feast.  It is not the quantity or variety of courses at the meal that make the feast, but those who share the meal.  The feast is born in the sharing.

So, it is no wonder that Jesus is not satisfied with the rules about hand washing.  Hand washing and other rituals are important.  We need them.  The traditions and rituals we have here at Trinity are beautiful and necessary.  They give us a common language in which to worship.  They are not enough to make a feast.  The feast is in the heart.  It is in the loving.  It is in the place where God’s Word comes alive in us.  Yes, in the Bible and in our lives there are rules to follow – rules that are designed to lead us into fullness of life.  But there is more than rules.  There is love and there is acting on that love.  St. Augustine said love and do what you like.  The feast is in the loving.

Today, those age 21-39 were invited to bring a friend to church and to share a feast, both in the Eucharist and then later, at lunch.  We called it “bring a friend to church day.”  Any of us can and do this at any time.  We can also extend this into the days of our week and outside the walls of this church.

So, how shall we make a feast this week?  How shall we go beyond our customs and rituals to find the place where we can really make a feast?  Who will we invite?  There seems to be no limit to the possibilities other than the limits we ourselves put there.  A feast is in the sharing.  It goes beyond the mere sitting down to a meal.  There are the people we think of when preparing it.  More love, less recipes.  Bon appétit.

Copyright © 2009 by The Reverend Barbara K. Briggs