Matthew 4: 1-11
“To love means to empower.”
“Communion makes us vulnerable."
-from Becoming Human by Jean Vanier
Just as there is daily bread, there is daily choice.
At the root of choice is to love and trust God or not. As well, do justly and love our neighbor or not.
When we love we create bonds – we enable communion. When we don’t, we inevitably create walls moving people from subject to object: from a person to a thing.
Be weary when the unction to prove something rises up in your person. Sometimes our necessity to belong clouds the reality that we are upholding a cultural absolute. Even with the best of intentions, we forego fidelity for an absolute that is our truth, not the Truth.
To prove is to protect, to control.
To love is to empower, to liberate.
“If you are…then…” is a rusty trap for humanity that lurks in the day-to-day wilderness of our lives.
Break your bread.
Pour your wine.
Choose to trust God.
Choose to love.
* * * * *
Response by Adit Gamble
given a glass of wine, it was cool in hand,
transparent, while deep red.
a sip revealed it was heavy, warm and salty in mouth,
she recognized the taste right away from the time she bit deeply into her lip and the blood filled her mouth.
understanding was immediate, she knew of the devastating injury that had forced it out of His body so profusely
but by what mystery did it find itself inside of her cup?
what crushing force...
what healing, and cleansing bitterness
word
truth
bread
broken
pressing of the Lord
greatest expulsion, expression
a new wine for a new year
the press rested on the word, and then labored over it...
until the whole of its contents had been expressed, revealed
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