He Gave Them a Meal (Part One)

(This series was initially posted on Tortilla Press. As that website will be offline for a bit, I moved the series here.)

He Gave Them a Cross (Part Two) He Gave Them the Spirit (Part Three)

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.’ Luke 22:14-16

As Jesus’ final hours approached, “When he wanted to fully explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory. He gave them a meal,” so explains N. T. Wright in his work, Simply Jesus.

And although this meal, Wright continues, was undoubtedly a Passover meal – it was a Passover meal with a non-Kosher twist. The people of Israel celebrated the Passover to commemorate the Exodus event when God miraculously delivered the Israelites from centuries of bondage in Egypt. To partake of the Passover was to recall and celebrate the events of the past. Yet this evening, this last supper, Jesus turned his followers’ attention from the past to the future and retells the story to point toward a deliverance much closer at hand.

Amidst the evening’s festivities, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you.”

Then in the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

To receive the bread and the cup Jesus offers is to embrace and celebrate the new life Jesus gives. Likewise, it is important to share the meal together as the community of faith, for it is a practice that reminds us of Christ’s victory, as well as our share in it. Therefore any behavior or attitude that devalues another and subsequently disrupts the unity Christ died for is to partake in the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner.

Paul accused the Corinthians of partaking in the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner when they neglected to discern the body of Christ. But how, specifically, did the Corinthians neglect to discern the body of Christ? By selfishly disregarding and mistreating the poor among them. Shamefully enough, the Corinthians committed these sins while participating in the Lord’s Supper. As a self-imposed judgment, their mistreatment of the poor caused weakness and sickness among them, and even death.

The breaking of bread and the drinking of the cup remains for us one of the most sacred and important symbols we have to express Christ’s sacrificial love and eternal victory. Therefore, let’s remember, when we come to the Lord’s table together it should be a holy communion. A place where we discern the body of Christ by taking care of one another as we remember together how Christ sacrificially took care of us.

Luke 22.7-23; 1 Corinthians 11.17-32

N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus, HarperCollins: 2011, Kindle Edition.

A little sweetness in the classroom

For ESL classes, holidays create the perfect opportunity to introduce students to new vocabulary and surprise them with some traditional treats. This week, therefore, my class prep included mixing dough and kneading bread as well as creating flash cards.

Fresh out of the oven, all my Italian Easter bread needs is confectioners sugar icing and colored sprinkles.

My students enjoyed the bread and the accompanying English vocabulary because there's nothing like food to encourage student participation :)

I also introduced them to ham pie (also known as pizza rustica) made with ricotta, provolone, and mozzarella cheeses as well as ham and pepperoni. They thought it was muy rico. 

Then, before we reviewed the ABC's and 123's, Stuart and I shared how to properly greet one another on Easter Sunday: Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!

Our Easter morning greeted us with clear blue skies and a warm sunny day. After church, we enjoyed lunch with a friend and the "Easter bunny" even left me with a sweet surprise.

We hope you enjoyed a blessed Easter Sunday with friends, family, and a few surprises, too.

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We came. We saw. We ate.

We came to Connecticut last week to visit family and celebrate Easter.

Here's a little photo journal of our time here.

We're never home more than 24 hours without getting some pizza from Di Matteo's in Hamden, CT. Today we go to Pepe's Pizzeria (because you can't get too much pizza when you visit the Northeast).

Saturday we were off to Mystic to shop and then enjoy some seafood at The Ancient Mariner. You can't get lobster rolls like this anywhere else in the US.

On Easter Sunday we downed some stuffed shells and a spiral ham before digging into the Italian pastries and cannoli from DiSorbo's Bakery - always a favorite.

Our trip to Connecticut in summary:

We came. We saw. We ate.

And yea, we really did see our family as well. 

I'll try to get a picture of them after lunch :)

He Gave Them the Spirit (Part Three)

He Gave Them a Meal (Part One) He Gave Them a Cross (Part Two)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1.8

“This passage,” expalins Ajith Fernando, “shows us how important the Holy Spirit is to our understanding of mission and how important mission is to our understanding of the Holy Spirit.”


As I mentioned in previous posts, Jesus gave his disciples a meal to explain his impending death. He gave them a cross to express the exacting cost of living for the kingdom. Now Jesus promises to give his disciples the Spirit to empower them for his mission.

So we see, God’s mission and God’s Spirit are irrevocably intertwined. And as Ajith Fernando reminds us above, we cannot truly understand the mission of God if we do not appreciate the importance of the Holy Spirit in that mission. And we cannot truly appreciate the Holy Spirit if we neglect the mission he empowers us to be a part of. A read through the book of Acts confirms that the purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to empower his disciples to preach the word of God everywhere and in all circumstances.

As the Spirit of Pentecost empowers God’s prophetic community for mission, so the Spirit of missions is relational. God entrusts his message with his people. God empowers his people with his Spirit. Therefore, missions must be incarnational; it must be relational.

As a missionary, may I be so bold to proclaim that there is no substitute for sending real people into all the world to bring God’s message by his Spirit, because the message we need to share is this: God is reconciling the world to himself through Christ. Therefore like Christ, our ministry and our methods must be incarnational; they must be relational. Nothing less will do. As his disciples we have the responsibility to be incarnate with his message and empowered by his Spirit to go into all the world.

Although it is tempting to believe that Jesus’ commission to all nations is a new development in the missio Dei, it is not. The mission of God has always included the nations beyond the called and faithful remnant. It has always included reaching out with compassion and hope to the poor, the captive, and the oppressed. What is new is the promise of power to all believers (regardless of social status, nationality, age, or gender) to expedite the mission.

This power though, is not the consequence of an inanimate energy source, but rather the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ. No less than the abiding presence and power of the Holy Spirit is adequate to accomplish this exceptional mission to all nations.

To accept the gift of the Spirit as they did at Pentecost and throughout Acts necessitates an intentional missions objective, for the purpose of Pentecost is to clothe believers with power to be witnesses to all the nations. For a believer to claim to be filled with the Spirit and yet have no inclination for the mission of Jesus simply makes no sense.

Today, if we want to be a part of God’s missional, prophetic community – to be empowered by his Spirit to send and to go and to make disciples – then once again let us ask God to fill us with his Spirit. But to ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit intrinsically implies that the recipient of the gift will accept the mission, the method, and the power to go to the ends of the earth!

Ajith Fernando, Acts, The NIV Application Commentary, Zondervan: 2009, Kindle Edition

He Gave Them A Meal

It's an early morning for me this Holy Saturday as I continue to reflect on a profound thought N. T. Wright shares in his book, Simply Jesus:

When Jesus wanted to fully explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory. He didn’t even give them a set of scriptural texts. He gave them a meal.

Seems to me Jesus inherently knew that if you want your students to remember something very important, you give them an object lesson. I imagine, in later years whenever the disciples gathered together to share the Lord's Supper, they not only remembered Jesus' words that evening, they also recalled the smell of the roasted lamb, the feel of Jesus' hands washing their feet, and the sound of the musical festivities that hung in the air.

Tomorrow as we gather together, may our hearts and minds go back to that first time he gave us the meal - his last supper - and let us celebrate the new life and covenant it represents by remembering the sights and sounds of resurrection morn: He is risen! He is risen indeed!

I can't get away from Wright's thoughts, so here is the first in a three-part series I hope to write this Easter season beginning with He Gave Them a Meal. 

Enjoy and Happy Easter!

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I am a missionary. I tell stories.

"Stories matter. Many Stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize." ~ Chimamanda Adichie

Recently, a missionary friend shared the following video of Nigerian-born novelist Chimamanda Adichie on Facebook. Her presentation, The Danger of Telling the Single Story on ted.com captivated me. "Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become," warns Miss Adichie.

And therein lies my dilemma.

I am a missionary. I tell stories.

But I do not want to misrepresent the people, the culture, or the nation God has called me to.

In John 8, we read a well-known story. And if your Bible is like my Bible, the title of this excerpt is, The woman caught in adultery.

As Jesus was teaching near the temple, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees bring a woman before him. They blab her story to Jesus and to the crowd gathered to hear him: "This woman was caught in the act of adultery," they say. "The Law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?" The religious leaders exploit and expose this woman by telling her story with an ulterior motive: "They were trying to trap [Jesus] into saying something they could use against him."

But Jesus does not take the bait. He does not allow them to tell her story for their purposes. If they wanted to tell a story, they would have to tell their own: "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"

Have you ever wondered why Bible translators titled this story the way that they did? Are we guilty of telling the single story – the woman caught in adultery – the only story the religious leaders wanted everyone else to know?

What if we told the story from Jesus' perspective? What if we called it, The woman protected, restored, and redeemed by Jesus? Or why not, The men who got caught throwing rocks, as Renovatus pastor Jonathan Martin did in a recent series, and really turn the story around.

I am a missionary. I tell stories. I have a responsibility.

I don't want to exploit or expose, like the religious leaders.

I want to restore and redeem, like Jesus.

As missionaries we believe God has commissioned us to tell His story, the story of Jesus – his life, ministry, death, and resurrection – to the nations. As missionaries we also share the stories of the people God has called us to – to the people who have sent us. We share them because we want you to know and cherish the people of Mexico (or India, or the Middle East, etc). We want you to know their culture, their beauty, their families. We want you to hear their stories because we love them.

But we have a responsibility to let you know, our stories are not the only stories. We share from our perspectives and experiences. But I trust most of us do it with sensitivity, care, and sincerity.

Jesus, I hope I do.

Stories are powerful. This Sunday your church will tell the most powerful story of all time. Pray for us as we share His story in Mexico. And pray also, that we share the stories of the people we love and serve with the dignity they deserve.

(I encourage you to watch Chimamanda Adichie's presentation. She is a powerful story teller. Her video is less than 20 minutes long, but I believe it will captivate you as it did me. And for all my Connecticut friends, Miss Adichie graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2001 and from Yale University in 2008.)

Spring 2013 newsletter

True Confessions

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42

Martha certainly made a name for herself in the New Testament. If I asked you to describe Martha with one word, you might say: Impulsive. Bold. Impatient. Hardworking. But how about these words:

The Last Enemy

My hand rests upon the white coverlet of my brother’s over-sized bed in the cramped room. My mother glances towards me and says, “Wendy, get your brother some water, please.” I search the unfamiliar house to complete my task . . . 

Read the rest of the story on Tortilla Press.

Cristo en la Pascua

As many of you know, I teach Pentateuch at Anna Sanders Bible Institute in Mexico City. In the course of our studies, we learned about the institution of the Passover in Exodus. Last week, missionary Elena Parker shared with my students the significance of the Passover to the Christian believer.

Angel Wings and Anginetti

The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!" ~John 12:12-13 (NLT)

As Palm Sunday approaches I recall once again the holidays I celebrated as a child within the traditional context. Palm Sunday was a special holiday where I grew up; a memorable event that began at church and extended throughout the day with family. At Saint Peter's Episcopal Church, every worshiper received a few strands of palm; the long thin variety from the fan of the palm tree. As we waved the palm branches we sang, All Glory, Laud, and Honor and then during Sunday School we would fashion the palms into crosses to be shared with family and friends later in the day.