1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 (links validated 3/19/25a)
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Maundy Thursday (C)(2025)
In Alex Haley’s classic novel Roots, there is a marvelous scene of remembering. Kunta Kinte, the young man who has been brought in chains to America and placed into slavery, goes through months and years of confusion, not understanding what is happening to him. Trapped in a new world, there is no one who speaks his language, no one who looks or talks or dresses or acts in a familiar way, no one who cares for him. He is forced to work for strange-looking people who beat him and whip him. Everyone calls him “Toby,” and despite his insistence that his name is not Toby, they still call him that. Then one night he drives his master to visit a neighboring plantation. And as his master disappears inside, where a party is going one, Kunta Kinte suddenly hears a familiar sound—a drumbeat. He frantically runs toward the sound and sees an old man, sitting in the slave quarters, beating his drum with a particular rhythm. And suddenly Kunta Kinte remembers! He remembers his homeland, his people. He begins to speak enthusiastically in his native tongue, and the drummer excitedly answers him. He remembers who he is! All this time his master and even the other slaves have tried to make him forget, tried to tell him that the way to get along is to go along, to forget the past and just concentrate on the present situation. And he had almost believed it. But now, this music has made him remember. He is not Toby the slave, he is Kunta Kinte! He remembers!...
Resources from 2019 to 2024
This Is My Body
Exactly thirty-six years ago, almost to the day, I set out with a good friend on a pilgrimage by bicycle from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in the top right hand corner of England to Land’s End, in the bottom right hand corner of England. So the whole journey was the length of England - a journey of, according to the route we took (for which I was not responsible), more than a thousand miles from the top to the bottom of England. It was a good trip, but we had a lot of tough days. And the toughest of all came in the Peak District. Now, my friends, I ask you as fair minded impartial judges, if you were asked to plan a cycle route through the length of England, and you came to a place on the map called the Peak District, don’t you think that’s something you should be going around rather than over? I mean, the clue is in name, right? Well, my friend, if he thought at all, thought differently. So over the top we had to go. So, on this dreadful day, after about ten hours hard riding through what felt like a wall of cold bitter rain, we came to a little village high in the Peak District called Matlock to stay the night. We were tired; we were miserable; we were cold; we were wet; we were hungry; we were thirsty; we were unhappy; we were bickering; we were arguing; we were fighting – for two lads who were supposed to be on pilgrimage, that is just not a good look. And neither of us could remember why we were doing this stupid pilgrimage in the first place. But it was an important feast day - Corpus Christi – the Feast of the Eucharist and at that time they always had it on a Thursday and it was a Holy Day of Obligation. So, just about the one thing we could still agree on was that the first thing we wanted to do was to go to Mass...
Resources from 2009 to 2015
Living in the Vineyard
("In the kingdom of heaven is my end and my beginning And the road that I must follow night and day. Travel on, travel on to the kingdom that is coming, The kingdom will be with you all the way...")Eucharist as God's Physical Embrace
("There's a story told of a young Jewish boy named Mortakai who refused to go to school. When he was six years old, his mother took him to school, but he cried and protested all the way and, immediately after she left, ran back home. She brought him back to school and this scenario played itself out for several days...")Eucharist as New Manna
("A friend of mine, an alcoholic in recovery, likes to explain the dynamics of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting this way: 'It's funny, the meetings are always the same, the exact same things get said over and over again...")