A Year Ago…

Lifting the bread and cup. Photo from UMNS

A year ago, I broke a loaf of bread.

A year ago, grace again was shortchanged, voices again were silenced, division again went unnamed.

A year ago, hearts broken and sealed and scarred over were broken again in places familiar and new.

A year ago, the Body of Christ was broken.

And so I broke a loaf of bread.

I wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t my action.

It was the action of a body, a community, a family, a Christ. Wounded and hopeful, hurting and despairing, fragmented and one.

A year ago, as we always are, we were broken.

And we broke bread together.

And I was broken open.

Somehow, some way, this breaking of bread– something I do at least once a month, something I  participated in thousands of times– somehow this changed me.

I found, in the breaking and sharing of bread, in the reflection on the chaos and frustration and agony and fragile hope of General Conference, a deeper sense of my calling.

A year ago, I was broken open. A year ago, I was called anew.

I set my feet on another path. A path running parallel, or nearly so. A path to someplace deeper.

I found a depth of passion I didn’t know I had. I renewed a sense of vision and purpose that had dried up and hardened, like our scarred-over yet fragile hearts.

Lifting the broken Body of Christ, tears in my eyes. Photo by UMNS

From that place of brokenness, or broke-open-ness, life could never be, entirely, the same.

Seeping up from the cracks was a need to advocate for deeper justice, to live with deeper conviction, to delve more fully into faith an ministry and compassion and peace.

I spoke out when injustice happened. In my denomination. In my church. In my home.

I spoke my true heart. I said the hard things. I let myself feel what I was feeling.

A year ago, Someone broke down my defenses, demolished my protections and stumbling blocks (and made it harder to tell which were which).

And in the past year I have watched a new movement grow. I have witnessed the elation of church doing it right and the crushing betrayal of getting it so wrong. I have relived the pain of the past and envisioned hope and purpose for tomorrow. I have been a better pastor, and Methodist, and person of faith. I have struggled more deeply and trusted more fully, or really, really tried to.

In the past year, I have found my truer self, uncovered pain and vulnerability I didn’t know I had and tapped a depth of strength I didn’t know existed. I have seen my children grieve, and let them surprise me with their resilience. I have mourned the loss of love. I have celebrated it in new and beautiful places. I have seen cruelty in ways I never imagined, and received compassion from unexpected sources. I’ve made friends who changed my life. I’ve lost friends who had touched it deeply. I have shattered all my understandings, and learned from life what grows out of that rubble.

All because of a loaf of bread.

A year ago, Christ’s Body was broken.

And when we take hold of that reality, it takes hold of us. When we lift up the pieces of the bread, the body, the world, broken and wounded, we are lifting up parts of ourselves. When we live into the broken places, we find ourselves in them, seeking transformation and new birth and needed healing.

A year ago, I broke a loaf of bread.

A year ago, I didn’t know how broken I was, or how broken open I could be.

A year ago, I broke the Body of Christ. And Christ broke me open too.