Jesus was Known in the Breaking of the Bread

This is a reflection from Adrienne, whose work for Union includes Communications and these days, helping out with our food ministries.

Last Sunday, the Gospel Lectionary reading was Luke 24:13-35 — the story of the two disciples heading to Emmaus. Their world had just been turned upside-down, much like our own. Though they took time walking and speaking with Jesus, “he had [only!] been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (v. 35). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to truly see and know Jesus, broken open in something as common as a shared meal, a source of sustenance. This feels especially poignant in the Church’s current season of fasting from gathering and sharing in the Eucharist together.

In the midst of this pandemic, I see Christ resurrected in the embodied and relational gifts of Union: broken open abundantly for our community. Eastertide or not, it is clear that we care deeply about (yummy & nutritious) food accessibility and the interrelated communal web that we get to practice food justice with.

Though we aren’t able to do our usual 4th Sunday SCCA brunch or provide the chicken fingers and egg rolls at snack time for Compass House’s Café Club kiddos, we are finding ways to play to our strengths and tangibly feed our neighborhood:

• People are packing dozens of sack lunches every week that we distribute to LUV & ICS. Others are cooking one or a few extra meals for those in our community and for Compass House by carefully preparing, labeling, and dropping off. Last week, we estimate there were about 80 main meals, with a few desserts and baked goods thrown in!

• Other exchanges touch all corners of our web, like our legendary burritos! On Fridays, Theo and I visit the U-District Food Bank to see what produce or prepared foods we can rescue from the hundreds of pounds of excess they have had lately. We have lowered costs and reduced food waste by using lots of veggies for burritos (and soup!), in addition to sending many boxes of great quality fruits, colorful veggies, prepared foods, and bread to Compass House. (I love food waste & reclamation patterns of resurrection!)

• After we purchase the remaining burrito supplies, our famed 4th Sunday kitchen crew (Ian, Kelly, & Jeff) cook up the goods and so far, a different group each week shows up — masked, gloved, and far apart — to roll upwards of 175 burritos every Saturday. Theo then delivers these to Compass House, LUV, and ICS later in the week.

• Theo also heats up coffee pots and more burritos on Wednesdays for Street Youth Ministries to pick up and distribute…along with snacks, sandwiches, underwear, all types of hygiene products, and a hand-washing station that their ministry delivers twice-weekly to those without shelter in the U-District. We will start delivering burritos to New Horizons starting this week as well.

Theo & Andy at ICS (before masks were recommended)

Like any ecological system, we are enmeshed in a web of relations and mutually affect/are affected by our community partners. In this uncertain and disruptive time, we all have different capacities and for some, they must cook, or shop, or pray, or do nothing. And all of that is good and necessary.

It has been wonderful to experience the way Union has channeled all of its energy, prayers, resources (read: worship in action) with abundance. For me personally, this has been a gift and source of hope to see all the ways our partner relationships — which have taken time, care, and trust to build — are blossoming this spring. We are relying on our network to feed our network. And, we are reclaiming excess food that would otherwise be wasted! As we are broken open by the tangible needs of our community, may we continue to see and know Jesus and the power of his resurrection.

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Eco-faith Action Invitation:

Practice food re-distribution by making an extra meal this week for someone…bonus points for using items from your garden!

Prayers of the People: April 19th, 2020

We are grateful for Sayuko Setvik, who led us in this prayer on Sunday.

Let us pray together.

Dear God,

You are worthy of all our praise and worship.

We praise you for who you are, Creator of Heaven and Earth, you are full of love and grace.

We thank you Jesus, for Your life, death and resurrection.

As we ponder how the women found the empty tomb, encountered the angel, and then met you, Jesus, we hear the words “Do not be afraid” spoken to us as well. These are words we need to hear from you today, and we thank you for them. Lord, thank you for knowing every little detail of our lives, every thought and feeling that goes through our mind and heart. You know each of our specific situations and understand our pain, our anxieties, our fears, our loneliness, our hopelessness, our brokenness. Thank you for meeting us where we are.

Lord, the whole world is in your hands. You are in control. Nothing is impossible for you. So we ask in faith, that you stop the spread of this virus and all the suffering. We pray for those who are sick, that you would bring healing to them. For those who are caring for the sick, give them strength and rest. For those who have lost their loved ones, please be their comfort. Please provide resources for the healthcare providers, provide the necessary equipment and more workers, give them relief, protect them and their families. Please give wisdom, efficiency, and resources to the scientists who are trying to develop a cure and a vaccine for this. We pray also for protection for public servants, grocery store workers, and others who are risking their lives to keep life going as we shelter in place.

We pray for the leaders all over the world on every level, that they would have wisdom and knowledge to make good decisions for the people. Show them your truth and your path. Give them strength to do the right thing. We pray for those without a place to live, those who have lost their jobs, those who are struggling to keep their livelihood, those who don’t have a support network, those who are not safe where they are… Have mercy on them, O Lord. Be with them and provide for their needs. Please use us as your hands and feet. We pray for Union’s ministries. Thank you to those such as Ian and Bobby who are being the hands and feet for this Body of Christ. We pray for abundant blessings to those they serve through Immanuel Community Services and our friends at Compass. May they feel loved and cared for through these meals. Help us to continue to be a generous community, and to be creative and wise with our time and resources.

Help us to pray, help us to listen to You and to others, Lord. Help us to notice what you’re doing in our lives and in the world. Please continue to involve us in your kingdom

work. Thank you for your unrelenting, unfailing love. Please give us your spirit of love and kindness, compassion and grace, that we might have grace for ourselves and others. Help us to be more like you in these difficult times. Help us to remember that we are your beloved children.

And I close with these words from Isaiah 43: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. (Is. 43:1-2)

We lift up all these things in Jesus Christ’s name, Amen.

Made Like Him, Like Him We Rise

a post-Easter encouragement by Jeff Fisher

It was the first week the pandemic had hit Seattle in earnest and I was on a mission: find toilet paper. We had five rolls left at home, a comfortable enough buffer for a family of four, but certainly time to restock. I’d heard the rumors, but I still didn’t believe them to be true. Of course, I could find I was looking for. I piled the kids into the car and headed out.

Oh, how naïve I was. How very, very naïve. The household cleaning and paper products aisle of Safeway had a couple rolls of off-brand paper towels, but was otherwise bare. I half expected a tumble weed to roll past as a guitar plucked mournfully in the background. Target was the same. And Fred Meyer. And another Safeway. And Walgreens. Bartell Drug. Safeway again.

With each store my panic level slowly inched higher and pushed me ever closer toward the brink of insanity. “Ugh, they don’t have it here EITHER?” Everett sighed, his voice heavy with exasperation. No son, they don’t. They don’t have it anywhere. This is our life now: to wander this wasteland snatching up what little resources are left before the next guy does. Between the two of us Amy and I visited FIFTEEN stores in two days, none of which had a single shred of TP. I finally found some the morning of day three, when I got a tip from a friendly Target employee and waited in line for the store to open at 6:30am. I was euphoric, and there is no hyperbole in that statement.

Whatever else they do, times like these melt away the decorum we constantly adorn ourselves with and reveal the truth of who we are underneath. Hopefully they reveal something good: kindness, generosity, a genuine interest in the wellbeing of our neighbors. At times they reveal a darkness in us marked by selfishness, behaviors like hoarding, and the sheer panic that leads us to stand in line at 6:30am for toilet paper.

It seems fitting that Lent started right about the same time the coronavirus pandemic was redefining normal for us all over the country, that we were being asked to refocus on God and repent of our selfishness during the time when we were most tempted to revert to it. Rarely if ever do we have the chance to see the two paradigms available for us to live out presented in such vivid contrast: that of sin and that of Christ. Paul presents them so clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:20-22:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came from a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

The sinful, selfish nature within us longs to follow in Adam’s footsteps. It tempts us to hoard the forbidden fruit (whatever form it may take) and to trust our own scheming over the generous God who loves us but at times may feel absent in the quiet of the garden.

But Paul is telling us that post-Easter Adam’s story is no longer our story. Jesus’ story is. While the resurrection of Jesus was indeed a miracle it is just the first of many to come. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin, but invited to participate in the resurrection into life that comes through Christ. This is our paradigm, this is our example to follow now. Or as Charles Wesley so elegantly put it, “made like Him, like Him we rise.”

I have seen so many examples of people doing that these past several weeks. In the church, in my neighborhood, even on the internet. As we continue to swim in these troubled waters and even once we make our way finally to the other side, I encourage you to keep living the life of Christ. Keep loving, keep trusting, and as we were encouraged to do in the Easter message last Sunday, keep “practicing resurrection”.

“But Paul is telling us that post-Easter Adam’s story is no longer our story. Jesus’ story is. While the resurrection of Jesus was indeed a miracle it is just the first of many to come. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin, but invited to participate in the resurrection into life that comes through Christ.”

Thinking about kakáo

In March, we had to say goodbye for now to our beloved café, following food industry restrictions put in place by the Governor in response to Covid-19. Gary Cooke, longtime barista (and one of kakáo’s first managers!), reflects on this change.

2012. There’s a new café on Westlake (not a real neighborhood yet)--kakáo. Some of the baristas bring textbooks to work: the quiet stretches between customers are perfect for studying. There’s even talk among staff about seats behind the bar to make the interludes more comfortable! While a few staff members are accomplished baristas, most are beginners. But no worries: sparse customer traffic means plenty of time to learn drink-making. And should a customer want to linger, café seating is no problem.

February 2020. Kakáo is absolutely humming with a positive energy. Two hundred fifty or more people stop in on a typical day to enjoy coffee, chocolate, tea, pastries or more substantial food, beer or wine. They come as individuals, in two’s and three’s, friends, co-workers on break, as larger groups, or Amazon teams … to relax, work, attend a meeting, celebrate some milestone. While at kakáo, they check out the current art display, or occasionally discover a pianist performing during the lunch hour. There’s no quiet study time for staff now: two, sometimes three skilled baristas race flat-out to fill orders. Many customers are regulars; they and the baristas greet one another by name; the baristas know their “usual” drink, and maybe some of their backstory. These interactions are about more than coffee—these are relationships. This is community. The café is filled with a kind of joyous, living noise—laughter, conversation, music, coffee-brewing …. kakáo is the door joining Union and the neighborhood.

April 2020. Kakáo is quiet. The door is closed for now. I sure miss the place. I know my coworkers miss it. I believe the neighborhood misses it. Here’s hoping the door opens and the noise starts up again soon.

Kimi, baker- & barista-extraordinaire, serving up the latte goods!

Kitchen Table Conversations, led by Lydia Heberling (former barista), met every Wednesday to discuss topics surrounding indigenous communities. We hosted this discussion time through the café & had a great turnout with people coming in from all over!

R.I.S.E.N.

We’ve loved hearing about the creative practices and thoughtful reflections from you all during Lent/Easter 2020 — an unprecedented time indeed.

This is R.I.S.E.N – an Easter season reflection and invitation from David Owens.  

I reflected on the admonition to PAUSE / PRAY / PRACTICE amidst God’s unprecedented act of redemption and reconciliation. In response, I began to doodle with an acronym based on R.I.S.E.N. which I shared with the after-service fellowship group: 

• Redeemed by my Creator and reclaimed as God’s beloved 

• Inspired to remember God’s sacrifice and my worth in His sight 

• Sent out as a disciple and apostle of God to share his Good News 

• Encouraged that God is sovereign, not my circumstances 

• Neighbor, now to be pragmatic, available and faithful where and with whom God has placed me 

That last word – NEIGHBOR – surprised me as it jumped to mind.  This “N” seemed “out of context” with the “R / I / S / E”.   “Neighbor” is a pragmatic, specific, bounded definition/role that’s far simpler and humbler than what God has done through SACRIFICE and LOVE. Yet, being a Neighbor is a day-after-day calling and role that’s akin to being faithful and available.  It’s aligned with that Mother Teresa response to whether her humble ministry in the face of extreme and pervasive poverty was a “success”. Her reply that God had not called her to be successful, but rather to be faithful encourages me to be a faithful neighbor and fellow pilgrim. 

What’s your R.I.S.E.N. acronym?      

How will each of us live AFTER Easter?   

How will our lives be changes and focused going forward in the midst of, yet despite the current pandemic? 

An invitation to walk through the doorway of new life this Easter season

In this strange time, what if we are to view Easter not, as the end of the season of Lent – where we can now do all the things that we gave up— or as ONE DAY of celebration? But, as Easter is meant to be received…

As a doorway to new life.

A new beginning.

The old is gone; the new has come.

Will you walk through the doorway of Easter and believe that there is a different way of living every day because Jesus is the Resurrected Lord?
What does the empty tomb mean for you?
Will you allow the strangeness of this Easter, break open a new worldview for you?

EASTER is not dependent upon what we DO to celebrate; EASTER is about WHO IS RISEN and WHO WE ARE because of our RISEN LORD, no matter how we are able to celebrate.

EASTER is the beginning of a new season of LIFE
And, it is a disruption of the status quo.

NT Wright says “Who, after all, is it who didn’t want the dead to be raised?

Not simply the intellectually timid or the rationalists…It was, and is, those in power, the social and intellectual tyrants and bullies; the Caesars who would be threatened by a Lord of the world who had defeated the tyrant’s last weapon, death itself… This is the point where believing in the resurrection of Jesus suddenly ceases to be a matter of inquiring about an odd event in the first century – and becomes a matter of rediscovering hope in the 21st century. Hope is what you get you when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a world view in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not, after all, have the last word. The same worldview shift that is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus is the shift that will enable us to transform the world.” (through the power of Jesus Christ)

We invite you to walk into this Easter season with three Ps.

PAUSE. Spend time at the empty tomb with the women who discovered a Lord who did not need their spices. A Lord who gave them new purpose as witnesses of NEW LIFE.

In this unusual time, BE at home with Jesus, like Peter, who left an empty tomb -amazed. What does it mean for you to take time at home and be amazed that death could not hold Jesus? Jesus is alive, just as he said.

Rejoice, celebrate, give thanks. Reflect on the Jesus -- our Living Lord’s words for you, “be at peace”, “you are my beloved”, “love one another as I have loved you.”

PRAY – TALK WITH JESUS TODAY. You are not alone. Just as the women and disciples conversed with Jesus, their Risen Lord, we too can converse with Jesus because He is with us. In your time of being separated from others through quarantine, embrace the presence of Jesus with you. Share your fears, pain, struggles, hopes and desires. Listen to what Jesus, your Lord desires to tell you about His love for you and his desire for you to trust that your unique gifts are needed for people to flourish in his Kingdom of peace and reconciliation.

PRACTICE RESURRECTION* – HOW WILL YOU LIVE THIS WEEK BECAUSE THE TOMB IS EMPTY?

Jesus Christ – is the sign that new creation has begun. How do you want to be changed by resurrection?

Peter went home. But, he does not stay at home, of course. He tried to go back to his old way of life until he realized that his encounter with the living Lord changed him forever and he became a witness of Jesus’ grace and power throughout all his living days.

Many people wonder how we will be changed by Covid-19.

Let’s ask a different question: How does the good news of resurrection change how I respond to Covid-19?

Will we be willing to recognize places we settled and compromised? Will we even more seek justice for the welfare of others trapped in systems? Will we name racism for what it is? Evil.

Because of this pandemic…

Will we live in more fear?

Will we treat people with suspicion?

Will we try to go back to your old life as if nothing is different?

OR will we be willing to be Spirit-led people who say – we’ve learned from this and we trust a new way. In a time of uncertainty, Jesus is still our Risen Lord. Where is Jesus Christ inviting you into new life even NOW?

Resurrection is not a fairly tale or hollow promise but a reality around which we that we can shape our lives

Today begin a new season –walk through the doorway of new life.

Pause Pray Practice Resurrection

*From last line of Wendell Berry’s poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

**N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church