Cutting through Misdirection: Getting in Touch with Real Sacramental Vitality at the Table – Rev. Marc van Bulck

Several years ago, I was on vacation when a friend of mine invited me to guest preach at his church one Sunday while I was in town. I was reluctant, at first. Selfish as it may seem, this arrangement sounded an awful lot like being asked to spend my vacation back on the clock. I started to politely decline the offer when my friend offered me the following pitch: “Listen, I know you’re going to be worshipping in the neighborhood on Sunday anyway.” He wasn’t wrong about that. “If you’re already going to be spending that Sunday morning in church, why not dust off an old sermon of yours and preach while you’re at it? You’d be doing me a huge favor. You won’t have lost any vacation time, and the church will offer you an honorarium. You’ll have a few extra bucks in your pocket while you’re in town on vacation.”

It wasn’t the worst pitch I had ever heard. I thought about it for a minute and finally agreed. “Oh, one other thing,” he said, “Would you consider doing a magic trick during the children’s sermon?” I should probably explain that part. One of my hobbies is that I am an amateur magician. In seminary, I used to perform magic shows as student fellowship events and occasionally during prospective student weekends, and he had seen me perform before. “I don’t know,” I asked, “Don’t you think that might be a little  hokey?” “Aw, come on,” he said, “its the children’s sermon. They’ll love it.” Against my better judgment, I agreed to this, too. It did not end well.

Fast forward to Sunday morning. After preaching my dusted-off sermon and performing my cut-and- restored rope trick during the children’s time, I decided to hang around the fellowship hall for a few  minutes for some lemonade, cookies, and conversation. As one of the parents was leaving, I overheard her ask her eight-year-old daughter what she had learned in church that morning. She shrugged and said, “Eh, I don’t know, but the minister’s rope trick was pretty cool.” The other parents chuckled and agreed. Just as they made their way to the parking lot and the glass doors slid closed behind them, I overheard her 12-year-old sister murmur under her breath, “I guess, but what exactly did any of that have to do with Jesus?”

She had a point.

I can vividly remember the trick that I did during the children’s sermon. Here’s a length of rope. Here’s the center of the rope. The center of the rope goes into this hand just like this. Here I have a pair of scissors. The rope is apparently snipped in two. Now, there are two pieces of rope. A little something shifty with my hands, and then BOOM! The rope is back together again. Ta-da!

I can remember the entire routine, beat-by-beat. Unfortunately, however, if you asked me how I managed to somehow tie this rope trick back in with God, Jesus, or the lectionary passage that morning several years ago, I could not tell you what the actual lesson behind it was to save my life. Apparently, neither could that little girl, and for her, it had only been twenty minutes. Maybe that’s saying something.

For worship planners, the scenario I’ve just described probably has a ring of familiarity to it. Not all of us can pull a rabbit out of a hat or wriggle our way out of a straight jacket like Harry Houdini. However, as worship leaders, we do share something of a similar struggle every Sunday morning. We are constantly striving to worship in ways that are engaging and authentic as we seek our own audience with God. It’s a delicate tightrope that we walk every Sunday morning between reverence, vitality, and authenticity – and the superfluous, the distracting, and the…well, frankly ridiculous.

The act of presiding over worship can often feel like an unpredictable bit of conjuring. Even the most thoughtful, well-laid, detail-oriented plans sometimes fall flat, and the most unprepared moments can sometimes become holy encounters. An outside-the-box liturgical dance can induce groans for some, while for others, the artistic expression can be deeply moving. We all bring our own stories, experiences, and contexts to the sanctuary, and each of us experiences worship differently.

So, where does that leave us? If we can’t always control the experiences and contexts of others, then what do we have control over? The triad that I propose we discuss for the purposes of this conversation consists of intention, focus, and courage.

Let’s take a look at the rope trick. Why did the rope trick fall flat? The whole reason the magic trick was introduced into worship in the first place, according to the pastor in this story, was that (according to him) “the kids will love it.” Let’s take a look at the intention behind a statement like that.

The assumption my friend made was that a magic trick would hold a young person’s attention and would keep them entertained throughout the duration of a children’s sermon, and who knows? Maybe it did. However, it does raise the unavoidable question: is that really the central purpose of worship in the first place? To keep us entertained? If the answer to that question is “Yes,” then I propose we, as the Church, go ahead and just give up now. The demand for entertainment is very high in our culture, and there are plenty of outlets that are willing to supply it: music, movies, theater, the internet, etc. The list goes on and on, and – let’s face it – they’re all way better at it than the Church will ever be. No matter how large your worship budget, no matter how many video screens your sanctuary has, no matter how good your praise music may sound, a church is never going to compete with outlets of entertainment that are otherwise available to our media culture.

Nor, I put to you, should it. I suspect that when we walk through that sanctuary door, we’re looking for something more than simply being entertained; otherwise we all could have gone somewhere else. It seems to me that this style of worship resembles an opiate or a distraction from real life rather than a prophetic engagement with that real life. I suspect that, as Jesus told Simon Peter before us, the calling of God is one that beckons us towards deeper waters, indeed. (Luke 5:4) However, perhaps our anxiety about following God further into those depths is that, like our brother Jonah before us, we might fear what we discover when we do…

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A few years ago, I was serving as the interim youth director at a Presbyterian church in Florida. Summer vacation was winding down, and youth group was gearing up to start up again in the fall. I had organized a meeting with our committee of adult Youth Advisors. Our goal was to answer that very same question: what is our central focus? When the youth of this church walk through this door on Wednesday night, what is it that this youth group and this church will offer them that they are not getting anywhere else?

The floor was opened to ideas. Danny was the first to speak up. “I just feel like our young people need a place where they can rest,” Danny said, “they just have so many things going on in their lives between school, and extracurricular activities, and family. They have no idea how they are going to be able to juggle it all for much longer.”

Full disclosure: Danny was a young, single dad in his late 30’s who was juggling a full-time job, on top of going back to school, on top of raising two kids by himself, on top of teaching the senior high Sunday School class for years. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was no coincidence that Danny had a desire for rest on his mind…

Sue spoke up next. Sue was in her early 50’s, married with two kids: an eighteen-year-old daughter who had been the “star youth” in her youth group class and who had just begun her freshman year in college. Her second child was her 12-year-old son who would be starting confirmation class in the fall. “It’s so important to me that my son get involved with this youth group,” Sue said. I asked her why that was. “I know what a difference it made in my daughter’s life. I just want my son to grow up to be a good person.”

It’s hard to argue with that. However, as Sue listed off all of the scholarships and accomplishments her daughter had earned during her “glory days” as a former youth of the church, I noticed Gary’s eyes beginning to narrow. Gary was a retired pastor, himself, although he had never preached in the pulpit of this particular church.

Gary had made a career of his own in Presbyterian churches in the Midwest, and after retiring with his wife to the warmer climates of Florida, he decided make our congregation his place of worship. On Sunday mornings, Gary volunteered his theological background as one of the teachers in the confirmation class. After a year or two, Gary found himself serving on the Youth Advisor Committee.

I could tell Gary had something on his mind. “Well, who wouldn’t want that for their kids, Sue?” Gary spoke up, “I think anyone can understand why a parent would want something like that for his or her child. But what exactly does that mean? ‘Being a good person.’ I’m not sure I understand what you’re talking about.”

The air in the room got real thin all of a sudden. “What exactly does being a good person even mean? Does that mean being a good citizen? Behaving? Is a good person someone who shows up at church every Sunday? Does it mean having the best grades or getting into the best schools? Does it mean staying away from the proverbial sex, drugs, and rock and roll?”

Sue thought about this for a moment and finally said, “I guess I just want my children to be happy?”

“I can understand that” Gary replied, “My wife and I have three children of our own, and they’re all grown. However, I’m not sure that I can say in good conscience that the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers any of those things to us or to our kids. “I’m not sure the Christ of the Gospel says, ‘Follow me, and I will make you a model citizen.’ I’m not sure that Jesus would say, ‘Follow me, and I can offer you the best grades or the best colleges or even the best future.’ I’m not sure that Jesus would say, ‘Follow me, and I can protect you from the edge of danger.’ I’m not even sure Jesus would say, ‘Follow me, and I promise you that your kids will always be happy.’”

I started to raise my hand to jump in, but Gary continued: “Mary and Joseph risked their reputation, their lives, their marriage, everything to follow the calling of God. Paul was imprisoned and beaten several times. John the Baptist was beheaded. And Peter, who denied Him three times, would devote himself so completely, so passionately to the witness of Jesus Christ that he was eventually willing to be crucified upside down and die for it. That is how important this was to the followers of the Christ. These were not individuals who believed in ‘good ideas.’ To them, the stakes were so much higher than subjective abstract philosophies.

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ is far more specific than just ‘being a good person.’ You can ask ten different people what ‘being a good person’ looks like, and you’re likely to get ten different answers. The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls for something else entirely: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is radical love, compassion, and justice in the name of the Resurrection event. The resurrection event that challenges, that subverts, that unhinges, and overthrows all power arrangements, all settled assumptions of entitlement, privilege, and status quo. The resurrection event proclaims God’s will for life that overcomes any and all powers of death – God’s will for life that is actively at work to overthrow the powers of oppression and injustice.

“Jesus looks into the eyes of the ones who choose to follow Him – knowing good and well the stakes involved with such a risk and says, ‘I offer you the opportunity to be transformed. Forever. And you will never be the same again.’”

Gary’s face was deadly serious. “That is the life that is really worth living,” Gary said, “that’s the life we were created for. The life that God put us on this earth to have, and that’s what we hunger for when we walk through that sanctuary door.”

I wish I could say that Gary’s words set the tone and the direction for the remainder of the meeting. However, as I looked around the room, I could see the horrified looks on everyone’s faces. Gary was right, and we all knew it. But there was something else, too. Fear. Pure, raw fear.

Gary was speaking a radical and prophetic truth of the Gospel: the life that Christ invites us into is risky. It’s dangerous. It was also humming with reverence and vitality. The fullness of what Gary was describing hung in the air for several uncomfortable moments. It was Diana who finally broke the silence and said, “Why don’t we just come up with something fun?”

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In his article, “Feasting on the Bread of Life in the Reign of God Now and the Yet-to-Be,” author Harold M. Daniels writes: “From a biblical perspective and early church liturgical practice, the breaking of bread is…a sacramental act of receiving Jesus Christ – the bread of life – to be embodied in life, a sacramental embodiment of the very essence of all that Jesus was and means as the Incarnate Word…[and] in every Gospel account of meals with Jesus, including the last supper, the act of breaking bread was to enable it to be given to others to eat.”[1]

When I think about the parents in that room, it’s easy to imagine why the idea of breaking that bread and offering that very essence of Jesus might give someone pause for second thoughts. A magic trick during a children’s sermon probably feels like a much easier pill to swallow than the path that leads to the cross. However, while magic is the art of distraction and misdirection, Christ called His disciples to be the exact opposite of that in their neighborhood. Without the cross, we have no empty tomb, and without an empty tomb, what is it exactly that we’re doing here in the first place?

In a filmed interview, Walter Brueggemann said the following about art: “An artist has to seek an audience…and I think they are to be found among the wounded. I think the wounded in our society are everywhere, but we are schooled in denial. So, I believe the hard task is to break the denial so that people can get in touch with their own pain. I believe that art both ministers to people at the point of their pain but may also be a way of penetrating the denial to have a conversation about it in the first place… if we can get access to our pain in our community that we trust, our pain almost always is bearable because the trustworthiness of our brothers and sisters will hold, and is reliable, and will not let us fall through.”[2]

This is why we walk through the sanctuary doors on Sunday morning and approach the Table. The liturgical practice of breaking bread with one another is not simply a funeral observance of Christ’s death – it is also the eucharist – the great “thanksgiving.” When the bread is offered to us, and we offer that bread to others to eat, the invitation that is being extended is not just made up of wheat and yeast baked together but of also the promise of eternal community in the Body of Christ bound by the Holy Spirit that will hold and will not fall through.

The promise is that this life for which we were created, brimming with reverence and vitality, is worth living and can endure and survive even the shadow of the cross. That is what is offered to us as we approach the Table, and that is what we are invited to pass on and extend to others. If the Table is, as the ancient tradition confesses, an invitation to an alternative life and community of real sacramental vitality, then perhaps the doors to the sanctuary are, indeed, worth walking through after all…