Prelude
“I wish I had your faith”, he said at one point.
You see, his young daughter had recently died. So we sat for almost half a day, sipping pinot grigio on the patio of the café and talking about, not death, but life.
Early on in my seminary days a professor said something to me which has stayed with me almost daily. “People need faithfulness, not cleverness”. In my mind I struggled against cleverness, praying. All the while we talked, and the universe shrunk down in size to the length and height and breadth of one particular person.
Interlude
St. Augustine recalls in his Confessions his many tears over the death of a friend. Augustine was at that point in time the follower of a religion which did not hold that a person, as that particular person, would be “resurrected”. His friend was gone, as a person, forever. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, it really does come down to one question. The pain of answering no to that question is too great to bear, or at least to bear alone.
"So why do you believe?"
I wonder if the ministry of Jesus with wine and food was not always feasting. You get these images and pictures of Jesus laughing and living as he drinks wine at Cana, as he sits at table with the sinners and publicans. I wonder if sometimes the conversation turned, as it did the last time he drank wine on this earth, to other things.
Postlude
Truly I tell you,
I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine
until that day
when I drink it new
in the kingdom of God.Mark 14:25
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