Plain and Beautiful

I was cleaning up after Christmas Eve communion.  The mess was pretty substantial.  But communion mess doesn't bother me.  I think about communion and remember the mess.  That first time in a room with 12 disciples was pretty messy.  It was presented as a different covenant ... a new promise sealed by Jesus' blood.  In fact, it is what "New Testament" means.  It was framed by great passion from Jesus, great confusion by the disciples, and great betrayal by Judas.  Messy!

We are pretty messy too!  While some of us think highly of ourselves, we, as a group, are tarnished, dirty, and (the old song says) poor and needy.  We are carrying the dirt and dust of the world. And though some of us look shiny and pristine, down deep we are all as plain as a ball of clay.  Messy!

It is only appropriate.  The story of Jesus is messy too.  He walked through the dust and dirt of Israel and surrounding areas.  He encountered filthy and demon-possessed people.  He had a run-in with pig farmers.  He ate with sinners and tax collectors.  He met a Pharisee in the dark of night to answer questions, and he talked one of those tax collectors down out of a tree.  He was beaten, jailed, schlepped from one palace to another, and then asked to carry His own cross up a hill.  Messy!

That is one reason why I love our time of communion.  It reminds us of our messiness and the messiness God (in Jesus) endured for our salvation.  One song says it like this ... "It is true we are as fallen as an angel, but you and me, we're also holy as a prayer."  I think God likes it that way.  And, in our communion this Sunday, we will gather with messy people who are bound together by plain wood and simple nails, put together in the shape of a cross.  It was the messiest of deaths.  As two very common substances come together to become a cruel cross, I am reminded of the good and bad uses of plain things.  Some become cruel.  Some become beautiful.  Maybe the choice is ours, as we either become haughty, demanding, and proud, or obedient, submissive, and moldable.  Isaiah pondered this (45:9) when he said, "Does the clay tell the potter, "What are you making?"  The implied question is, do we (the plain, messy ones) tell God (the one we call Lord) what to do and how to do it?

So I will begin this year with an attitude that acknowledges what I am ... a big old mess!  I wonder ... when we meet with our Church Council at NOON today, will we, collectively, have that attitude?  Will we, as leaders here at Abbeville Methodist, see ourselves as plain wood and nails, usable as building materials for something very good?  In the song "Wood and Nails," Audrey Assad ponders the uses of wood and nails.  Will they build little crosses that crucify Christ again?  Will they build coffins, becoming the whitewashed tombs of Scripture?  Or ... in the hands of the great carpenter, will they/be be used to build an unshakable kingdom that will become a blessing to all people?  That would be beautiful, wouldn't it?  We have the capacity to allow either of these 3 options.  What will our choice be?