Early June in Minnesota is graduation party season. As a youth pastor, I have the honor of receiving many invitations to graduation parties around this time every year, and it is such a joy to celebrate the accomplishments of the bright young people whom I pastor. Each gathering has its own distinct elements, tailored to the experiences, interests, and cultural contexts of the student. At graduation parties over the years, I have enjoyed cookies made from generations-old family recipes, locally made bagels and hot coffee, home-cooked West African food, and more cups of lemonade and fruit punch than I can count. These gatherings always include many people I have never met, with a guest list that includes extended family members and friends from all corners of a student's life. But there are always church friends nearby, too, a reminder of the enduring power of Christian community.
This year as I make my way around the graduation party circuit, I hope I might remember the words of hymn writer Percy Dearmer in his hymn, Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether, which we hear on our June 7 Sing For Joy program. Dearmer took as his inspiration the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." The final hymn stanza speaks to the sacramental nature of gathering in community:
All our meals and all our living make us sacraments of Thee,
That by caring, helping, giving, we may true disciples be.
Alleluia! Alleluia! We will serve Thee faithfully.
Indeed, if we open our sacramental imaginations, all our meals might remind us of the presence of God in our midst, not only the meal of bread and wine at Communion. Even seated at a card table with strangers at a student's graduation party, sipping lemonade and eating chips and salsa, the grace of God is made known to us. And that same grace equips those students as they journey on to whatever the Spirit has in store for them in the next chapters of their lives!
SFJ friends, as you move into the summer months, I pray that God's grace will be made known to you in the breaking of bread and sharing of meals. May you catch glimpses of God's justice at ever-widening tables, and may that nourishment sustain you as you share God's love with your own community.
Peace to you,
