Eucharistic Turkey

 

Blessed be God who animates our lives and calls us to be, simply be, the beloved community. AMEN

In the fascinating book Tattoos of the Heart, Father Gregory Boyle, the founder of Homeboy industries, tells story after story of the rehabilitation of gang members in LA and the attempts to change their lives and circumstances. While I have read this book at least three times, I found myself this summer listening to Father Greg, whom the homies affectionately call G, read his book aloud and it took me to a different place, a deeper, more real and poignant place, a place of reconciliation.

One of the stories which comes to mind as I ponder the lectionary into which love of neighbor and conflict resolution are woven, is that of Miguel coming into G’s office on a Monday after Christmas to chat. G asks what he did for the holiday?

I cooked a turkey

What else did you have? just that a turkey!

How did you prepare it? Ghetto Style he said

It was “proper”

He continued to talk about inviting 6 others to share the turkey including several rival gang members…enemies.

Trying to contain his amazement Father Greg asks how did that go

It was fine…we sat around the table and watched the turkey cook.

We didn’t talk or anything!

It was proper

Mortal enemies sitting elbow to elbow in a kind of cease fire…In the telling of many stories including this one G punctuates the end of this vignette with the Pentecost revelation: And awe came upon everyone.

I believe that in that awe, in that silence, there is something of reconciliation. something of the love thy neighbor stuff, something quite extraordinary!

Reconciliation may be thought of as the restoration of right (or righter) relationship. 

And it may be important to remember that God is always reconciling and restoring creation drawing us closer to Godself.

As written in the letter to the Ephesians: For He is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the diving wall, that is, the hostility between us.

the story of the shared turkey is a sacred story and like all sacred stories it speaks of love and grace. moreover like many sacred stories it speaks of love and grace in unlikely and unexpected situations. 

Just imagine it! rival gang members whose lives are fraught with violence and terror, sitting together at Christmas watching a turkey bake, and then eating together at a table. 

like a creche, like a eucharistic pastoral tableau

It is not so hard to imagine when we realize that this is gospel communion; this is a eucharistic moment where in silence for some brief moment we too might gaze in all our diversity and differences of being and perspective on the love of Christ in bread and wine infused with the Spirit of compassion and reconciliation, infused with the love of self and neighbor and God. 

I struggle with the Gospel for today; I struggle with sin and conflict and seeming prescriptions for behavior in the face of such difficulty. I especially struggle with the conflicts facing us in today’s world not to mention the debates and anxieties expressed about the state of the Church. 

It is hard to find the beauty, it is hard to find the Good news; it is hard to realize a hope…until one peels back the prescriptive lens and puts on the lens of Christ, the lens of compassion always, the lens of love always, the lens of mercy always…

Drawing back and refocusing then, today’s good news is about the power of the process of reconciliation. It is less about results and answers.

It is important to remember here that reconciliation is not the same as resolution and that reconciliation describes a process in relationship not an edict from a power or privileged place.

Returning to the story of a proper turkey on Christmas and laying the Gospel of Reconciliation over it, perhaps one can see something of the power of love in a gathering in which words which previously hurt and threatened and separated were set aside for a silence in which all could simply be. 

Did they think about the birth of Love come into the world? Did they remember Emmanuel God with us? 

Perhaps

But I wonder whether what they were thinking about was less important than how they were being

They were for one brief shining moment in communion

Enemies were in communion

Something was more important and more life changing than violence and power

That something was a realization of a common need, call it companionship on Christmas. Incarnate Communion.

I believe that is what Jesus is calling us to be in calling us to be a beloved community. 

I believe that in the midst of the anxiety of today’s conflicts, of violence, politics, and the institution of church there is a call to return to the very being of the Body of Christ…elbow to elbow gazing at a love so deep and so pervasive as to melt enmity, and fear…albeit for a nanosecond.

Wherever two or more are gathered…this ghetto style feast is not so different as our eucharistic banquet…there is a real presence passing over and through us and creating an exhale when we have been holding our collective breaths not knowing what to say about deep disagreements. 

In that exhale we release our divisions and can breathe in love and compassion and grace.

Reconciliation in community with Christ’s presence and assurance can begin.

Silent awe of communion is reconciliation

in some liminal space between war and peace, love and hate, all is goodness and grace.

I invite us into the process of reconciliation. I invite us to love our neighbors and to restore the kinship to which we are all called.

To love no just our likable neighbors

To Love our challenging ones

To Love as though the blessed Oneness to which we are all call depends on it.

Because it does!