A Painful Epiphany

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By Kieran Lin Rich – KRich13@bellsouth.net

Something happened to me last Sunday that has never happened before.  Jeff and I were visiting the next contestant in our seemingly ever-present quest to find a new church home.  Nothing unusual there.  We were enjoying the experience, although the church was on the smallish-side, thus making Jeff and I stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.  Some people may love the extra attention a situation like that generates; but, Jeff and me, charter members of Introverts Anonymous?  Not so much.  Everyone was so genuine and friendly though, it was hard to feel uncomfortable.  Mostly.

The youth pastor/children’s director/utility infielder gave a very thought provoking devotion before Communion and then they began passing the trays.  I have never had a problem taking Communion in a church that was not my own because I understand the concept of open Communion being just that — open to all believers, regardless of church affliction…I mean affiliation.

That wasn’t the problem.  The problem was, of all things, God.  As the tray was passed to me, a little nugget of Scripture popped into my head with a little ding — like an email popping into my in-box — and it caused the “Holy Chiclet” train to come to an immediate and screeching halt.

The scripture was from Matthew 5 – after the Beatitudes…after Jesus talks about being salt and light…oddly, when I looked up the scripture later Sunday afternoon, I found it right smack in the middle of a paragraph on murder.  An interesting topic for a personal Communion meditation, don’t you think?

 The scripture that popped into my head was Matthew 5:23-24. “”Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” 

So I passed the tray to Jeff without taking Communion and I looked at the floor rather than meet his questioning gaze.  “Have you already written off this church?”  He whispered.

“No, my heart hurts,”  I sniffled.  “Communion…I can’t…I’ll explain later.”  And I did.  Or at least I tried.

This was one of those times when I felt decidedly female as I tried to explain my emotions and the conflict of my heart to one who is decidedly male.  Don’t get me wrong…Jeff is an unusually good listener but he is also about as male as they come.   It requires serious effort and restraint on his part to not have my problems solved before I’ve even finished telling him about them.  If it is true that women are from Venus and and men are from Mars, then Mars and Venus aren’t nearly far enough apart. 

But I gave it my best shot and tried to explain to Jeff about all of the conflict and confusion and anger and pain in my heart.  And he listened and tried to understand as I told him how a very personal situation had caused this pain and anger of mine to absolutely explode and how the aftermath of destructive debris was still continuing to rain down.  I tried to explain how hard it’s been to even pray about the issue because each time I do, old wounds are re-opened resulting in raw, mind-searing pain.  I hurt for God.  I hurt for all of the people that are involved and yes, I hurt for myself too. 

Hurt is nothing new though.  I’ve taken Communion plenty of times with a heart full of hurt.   At those times, I have found the act of Commuion to be a comforting invitation and a time of sharing my hurt and sorrow with the ultimate Healer.   It has always been very soothing.

The difference this time was that attached to the hurt was a lot of anger and malice.  That is something new for me.  And there’s so much anger to go around, it’s hard to even keep up with who I’m angry at.  Myself?  Yep.  My friends?  Probably.  My family?  Uh-huh.  God?  Absolutely.  Some kid that I don’t even know.  Yeah.  I’m angry. 

So granted, there has been a lot going on in my head and my heart but I’ve managed, until this point, to compartmentalize very nicely, thank you.  But when God tells you not to take Communion?  That’s a pretty serious wake-up call and well…you sort of begin to notice these things that until then you’d been able to ignore.

I mentioned last week that the default theme for February seems to be “living with courage.”  And again, this week’s blog has fit nicely into that theme without any planning or preparation on my part.   Coincidence?  I think not! 

So where do I stand now?  I have no plan of action on how to solve this problem.  I could just not take Communion ever again; but you know as well as I do that the Communion issue is only a symptom of a greater disease.  And now I am left with this blossoming sense of dread that I’m entering into one of those painful, lonely periods of Godly growth.

Courage aside, to be completely honest, I’m not really interested in growing right now.  I kinda liked where things were.  But God has made it painfully obvious to me that some change needs to take place — not on the surface but deep in my soul where the salt burns. 

One of my favorite movies in the world is “Remember the Titans.”  For me, it has all the markings of a great movie.  It has football, it has a good story-line, it has humor, and it was based on a real moment in history.  There is a quote part way through the movie when the head coach is trying to get his newly-integrated, racially charged, football team of 1971 to come together.  Coach Boone takes the team on an early morning run through the woods.  A run that ends at Gettysburg.

As they stand panting and gasping for breath, watching the pre-dawn fog rise over the battlefield, Coach Boone tells his boys, “This is where they fought the battle of Gettysburg. Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fighting the same fight that we are still fighting among ourselves today. This green field right here, painted red, bubblin’ with the blood of young boys. Smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls, men. I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family. You listen, and you take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right now on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were…”

I’m not playing football.  I’m not fighting the segregationist fight.  But I am in a battle.  I do have malice in my heart and that malice and hatred is threatening to destroy my family.  I take that pretty personally.  However I’ve realized, through the course of this week, that at its very ugly heart, the malice and anger and hatred that I’ve been feeling aren’t as nebulous as I first thought.  All of those feelings do have a focus.  It’s not directed at God or my friends or my family or even that kid I don’t know.  It isn’t directed at anyone but me.

Somewhere along the line, I have become the enemy.  And in the midst of my anger and utter loathing, I’m rehashing the same battles that Jesus fought over 2000 years ago.  

And now I’m at a crossroad.  No pun intended.  I can either accept the victory…the one that Jesus bought with His own blood or I can keep fighting a fight that I will never win.   Seems pretty pointless, doesn’t it?  And yet I fight…

Later today, I will go to church and I will worship.  I probably won’t take Communion because my gift is unacceptable until I’ve found a way to be  reconciled with God and with myself.   That hurts; but, there is comfort in honesty and in knowing the truth.

I guess the only question that remains is which I love more — My God and my Father, the One who knit me together in my mother’s womb, or those comfortable, familiar parasites of anger and malice and loathing that I wrap around myself like a cloak.

The time has come to make a choice.

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