Living Voices, Broken Bread – A Communion Reflection

As you might have noticed, I paid a visit to the hairdresser the other day – traditionally for me a time to shut off and enjoy all the attention. And in that context I’m never the conversationalist; a brief instruction (which I can never clearly express) and then just close the eyes, glancing up now and then to see what’s happening.

Well, on Thursday, I never had the chance to zone out. The woman behind me who I could see in my mirror, resplendent with a new colour setting in her hair, and even her eyebrows I noticed, felt very free to express her political and social opinions (and analysis) to all and sundry in the salon. Many of which I concurred with by the way, but so loud, intimidating and uninvited it was, that the young woman cutting my hair became quite perplexed, and wanted to know my opinion on these vexed issues. I didn’t come in here for this, I thought, and then pathetically said, “I don’t really have an opinion on all that. “Oh”, she replied, “I don’t understand much about politics, but I just want peace in our world.”

There are ways and means of communicating what is most precious and true to us, aren’t there? In this case, an unbridled passion that actually did a disservice, I think, to the strong views of anti-discrimination, acceptance, and social justice that were being clearly expressed.

It occurs to me that evangelism, that is, our communication of the good news of Christ’s love, or our forth-telling of the hope that lives in us, as bold and beautiful as it may be, can ill-afford to be unbridled. Rather it needs to be integrated or very much a part of the person or people we are.

Raimond Gaita, the Australian philosopher, tells the story of a nun who visited on the psychiatry ward where he was working as a young man- Kew Cottages in fact, in Melbourne – and who unlike all the well-meaning and devoted health professionals, brought something more to the wards then mere good intention. He writes:

“Of course her behaviour did not come from nowhere. Virtues of character, imagination and sensibility, given context and form by the disciplines of her vocation, were essential to her becoming the sort of person she was. But in another person such virtues, and the behaviour which expressed them, would have been the focus of my admiring attention. I admired the psychiatrists for their many virtues – for their wisdom, their compassion, their courage, their capacity for self-sacrificing hard work and sometimes for more besides. In the nun’s case her behaviour was striking not for the virtues it expressed, or even the good it achieved, but for its power to reveal the full humanity of those whose affliction made their humanity invisible. Love is the name we give to such behaviour.”

Here was the power to reveal the full humanity of those whose affliction had made their humanity invisible. Profound, and I think for me, a good working definition of what evangelism is and a corrective to what it is not. For in many ways, and this is hinted at in our text when Jesus talks of casting nets in the deepest water, the Nun is or becomes the good news by virtue of a life given over to love and formed progressively by love; A love which does not and cannot impose itself without violence being done, a love that affirms and ennobles the human spirit because it has first affirmed and ennobled her own. She is no mere messenger then, an actor with lines to learn and say; she is the broken bread for others, she is the living voice of God.

Evangelism, mission, outreach, community development; whatever word we use to describe the outpouring of Christ’s compassion and mercy, is always contingent upon or proportionate to, what resides in our heart of hearts. Raimond Gaita saw it in the Nun as a “goodness beyond virtue.” I really love that phrase. A conscious and yet non self-conscious stance toward the world. Conscious in that, yes this our intent and hope, but non self-conscious because it is not forced, it is not put on; it simply arises and is offered as a true, simple and authentic expression of who we are.

To be fishers of humanity, then, however loaded that metaphor is, or has become, is about being a part of the whole, and from that common place, gladly sharing the hope and vision of a full humanity with all. Critically, it is sharing out of one’s own depth and breadth of the human experience, albeit one touched by sheer grace and goodness.

Friends, again we gather around this table, to be touched, to be renewed, to be filled. Bread to be received, so that the living bread may be broken and liberally shared.