Grapes and Bread
Atualizado: há 21 horas
Christian spirituality invites me to be a grape, not a pearl; bread, not a stone.
Pearls and stones, however beautiful, however precious, are sterile.
In medicine, sterile describes life that is unable to reproduce life. In nature, it is like a lake that receives no fresh water and releases none of the old. Eventually, it dies.
It becomes harmful.
It begins to stink.
Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within... (John 7:38)
But grapes and bread can fail to fulfill what they were made for too.
What is a grape that is never consumed, or bread that is never eaten? Little more than a still-life painting, or a vase of plastic flowers on a dining table.
Beautiful, perhaps.
But unable to nourish anyone.
There is a rhythm in nature: night comes before day; winter before spring.
So it is with Christian spirituality: death gives birth to life, the cross comes before resurrection, suffering before glory.
If anyone wants to follow me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross each day, and follow me. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit (John 12:24). I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
Mystery.
Paradox.
For there to be life, life must be given away.
And the cost of giving life away is the surrender of life itself.
To reproduce life, we must face surrender, loss, pain.
Voluntarily.
This matters.
Christian self-giving is not the passive acceptance of whatever suffering others choose to inflict upon us. It is the willing surrender of a life that has chosen to love and serve.
Once the process of grinding and breaking begins—the process of discipleship—resistance can make us bitter. We become stale. We harden. What was meant to nourish others can cease to give life.
Bitter grapes and moldy bread do harm.
They do not nourish. They bring sadness and sickness instead.
Let me say it again.
This surrender must be freely given, so that a life broken and shared may become life for others.
Christ gave his life for us. He gave it willingly (John 10:18).
He was wounded, yes.
Crushed, yes.
He suffered, yes.
But at no point did he rebel against the will of the Father. Nor did he allow bitterness to define him in the process of being broken.
Were there moments of tension, doubt, weariness, disappointment?
Yes.
And there were many.
In those moments, we find Jesus climbing mountains, entering the darkness, rising before dawn, seeking in solitude and in the wilderness the communion with the Father that would give him strength — life — for one more step, one more day, one more city, one more act of self-giving.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you... (John 20:21)
Christ calls us to be grapes willing to be crushed, bread willing to be broken.
Life and grace, shared.
Christ broken in us, in service to the world, to our neighbor, to those in need, to those who suffer.
There is a glory, a particular radiance, in lives that have given themselves in this way: Moses, Jeremiah, Mary, Christ, Paul, Barnabas, John, Francis of Assisi, Wesley, Martin Luther King Jr., Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa...
They showed us something other than the glitter of pearls or the shine of celebrity.
Through lives of service and self-giving, they dirtied more than their hands and aprons. They bled — physically, mentally, emotionally.
And in that process, whether they realized it or not, whether they sought it or not, the glory of Christ — Emmanuel — shone through them.
And all of us, with unveiled faces, contemplate as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. And we are being transformed from glory to glory... (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Before us today, Brazilian church, stand two spiritual frameworks, two paths, two radically different spiritualities.
Both claim to be biblical.
Only one, however, is Christian.
Pearl or grape; stone or bread.
Which are you?
Pearl or grape; stone or bread.
Who is your God?
See, today I set before you two ways. Which will you choose? (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Will you choose the path of the god who beckons you with the glitter of pearls and precious stones, red carpets, luxurious auditoriums and offices, pomp, and servile deference?
Or will you choose the way of the God of the manger, of small and forgotten Nazareth in Galilee, of the carpenter with rough hands, of the rejected rabbi who had nowhere to lay his head?
Will you choose the way of the God who became human and touched lepers?
Who walked with rough-edged disciples, exploited women, and people whose names history never recorded?
Will you choose the way of the God who was so great that he knelt to wash the feet of the least?
Yes—the Messiah of the basin and the towel, who gave himself to be crushed, who gave himself to be nailed to a cross in your place...
and in mine?
But he was wounded for our transgressions and crushed because of our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we were healed... (Isaiah 53:5)
The love of God within us, when our lives are freely given, broken, and shared, becomes wine that brings joy and bread that nourishes.
This is Christian service.
This is ministry.
This is Christian life.
Broken, poured out, served, nourishing.
This is life.
This is joy.
This is strength.
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