Take Communion With Me- John 13

How to be loved? We don’t know. So Jesus paints a masterpiece upon our dirty feet.

This is where pain turns to memory, so we can tell a different story.

I am under the discipline of intimacy with my Father, and this is what He has shown me about my transformation this week-

I am a Judas, just coming in from the dark of night. My feet have been made dirty by the steps of betrayal.

You, reader, are also a Judas in need of grace. Your story is different but the larger narrative is the same- we are in the same community of sinners made hungry from the ache of rejection.

We all hunger for that piece of bread which openly identifies the betrayal of our very feet.

So before the effects of the day set in, come now before Him, kneeling at His feet and bowing low, hair undone, breathing a breath prayer three times with hands pressed together at heart center.

This week I had two sermons bombard me with the realization that my spiritual transformation is not going exactly as I had imagined.

On Monday I listened in to a sermon from The Garden Church, a talk by Dave Lomas titled “Lean Back”. It was about John chapter 13.

Several days later I tuned into a recording from VOX Community, a sermon by Jack West called “Betrayal and Forgiveness”. It was also about John chapter 13.

Coincidence? No. This is how I hear from God- the only way for Him to get through my stubborn pride is to repeatedly tell me the same thing in a variety of different ways. Eventually He gets through- eventually.

So John 13 seems to be of import in my walk with Jesus this week. What is He trying to teach me here? This is the account of Jesus washing all of the disciple’s feet, just moments before the betrayal of one of those disciples, Judas.

This is coming right after I wrote about Luke 7:37 in a blog about intimacy and the washing of Jesus' feet by a woman of ill-repute.

Ok, Jesus. Let’s journey here together, then-

John 13  (NLT)

Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

13 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.^[a] 2 It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas,^[b] son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. ³ Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. ⁴ So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, ⁵ and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

His masterpiece is being painted upon our feet 

with water made dirty by our own sinful betrayal.

We see Jesus kneeling at the feet of his betrayer, moments before those very same feet would walk out on Him and cooperate with the plan for His suffering.

Have feet ever walked out on you, reader? What if Jesus asked you to kneel down and wash them without the resolution of conflict?

This is the struggle of the human heart. To put forth your actual, physical sin before Jesus and have Him cleanse it with grace. To come hungry for love, because betrayal has made us empty.

This humility intermingles with the offering of love and we are repulsed and compelled. We lean back and look down, to watch the beloved head bend over our sins with ministrations of grace.

Have you ever washed the feet of your betrayer? It will haunt your soul for a lifetime and call you to reckon with your innermost being.

If you have the audacity to wash the feet of your enemy, rest assured that God is pursing your heart with a tenacity that defies the gravity of shame.

So Jesus calls us all to repentance-

¹² After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down and asked, “Do you understand what I was doing? ¹³ You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. ¹⁴ And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. ¹⁵ I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

Can we do this? Are we, His followers, capable of extending forgiveness so generously, lavishing it upon those who would walk out on our offering of love?

Why are we stil carrying around this awful baggage of betrayal? When are we going to set it down and rest, allowing our King to minister to the very feet which carried us away from His mercy and love?

Oh, but did you know, you are Judas, too? Yes, because betrayal makes us hungry for truth. And if we are hungry, we are the one to whom Jesus hands the bread dipped for sinners-

²¹ Now Jesus was deeply troubled,^[f] and he exclaimed, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me!”

Betrayal. Yes, this is a loaded word. For each person it means something different, but to all of us it means the same- a burden of pain.

Who is the betrayer in need of forgiveness? It is I, the hungry sinner who consumes the bread at the table of Christ.

Will you take communion with me?

²⁶ Jesus responded, “It is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl.” And when he had dipped it, he gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot. ²⁷ When Judas had eaten the bread, Satan entered into him. Then Jesus told him, “Hurry and do what you’re going to do.” ²⁸ None of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant. ²⁹ Since Judas was their treasurer, some thought Jesus was telling him to go and pay for the food or to give some money to the poor.³⁰ So Judas left at once, going out into the night.

You can either dine with Jesus at His table of forgiveness, or you can go out into the night. 

The night: a place of shame and regret. A place where your will is not opposed, and you are left to your own devices. This is where the dark things are, a place without love or tenderness. A place where nobody ever washes a brother’s dirty feet. A place of judgement and the rendering of punishment.

The night is the place where you realize you are a hungry sinner, made empty by your betrayal of Christ's ministrations of love, longing for a morsel even if that very morsel publically declares your incrediable need for forgiveness.

God, You call us to love. To really love.

To love ourself despite being wrong. To love our betrayer despite the betrayal.

In the sermon at VOX, Jack West made a statement which fell as profound up my sinners ears: "We must enter into a larger gravitational experience than the one in which we were harmed. Unforgiveness ends in the collapse of the smaller story upon it's author. All stories that are not expansive and don't have forgiveness at their center will eventually collapes on their author."

Jesus, You are calling us into a larger story as you wash the sins from our betraying feet.

This is impossibly hard.

We cannot do it without You.

But because You have already washed our feet before we betrayed you, we now have the power to forgive the feet of those who will never apologize for the ways they have betrayed us.

So we can gather at the communion table in the safe haven of neutrality-

⁴ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. ³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

We are all hungry sinners in need of the bread. The one to whom Christ gives the morsel to dip and consume, that is the one who will betray Him.

That sinner is me.

That sinner is you.

For we have hurt one another, and in doing so we have betrayed His command to love.

Will you take communion with me?

How to be loved by the One who loves us? We don’t know. So Jesus paints a masterpiece upon our dirty feet.

This is where pain turns to memory, so we can tell a different story.

So before the effects of the day set in, come now before Him, kneeling at His feet and bowing low, hair undone, breathing a breath prayer three times with hands pressed together at heart center.

Meet me at the table, friends, for here we can re-imagine that which we call the story of betrayal. Perhaps you can help me retell my journey from a higher point of grace.

Come hungry to this table, because when you accept a morsel of bread from the One who names and claims our pain, then your betrayal of His love becomes the channel for His grace.

I am a Judas, just coming in from the dark of night. My feet have been made dirty again by the steps of betrayal.

You, too, are a Judas in need of grace. Your story is different but the larger narrative is the same- we are in the same community of sinners made hungry from the ache of betrayal.

Take communion with me, won’t you?

It’s the starting place for forgiveness, it is the birth place of freedom. If nothing else, we can dine side by side and watch Jesus wash our feet. From there, God knows what can be accomplished in us.

Take communion with me. For there are no betrayers when the table has been set by the gentle cleansing hands of our King. Instead, there is a community of consumers who are being transformed into redemptive works of grace.

"Father, you see my heart, and You know how I have walked into the dark of night away from Your cleansing love. I come again to the communion table to empty my soul, spirit and mind of everything that does not worship You. Does regret or guilt sing Your praise? No. Does longing for things long past bring about change? Never. Can holding onto betrayal lift You higher in my thoughts? No. Jesus, my King, arrest my soul, tame my spirit, transform my mind and meet me at my dirty feet. As the dark of night melts into the light of day, let all things within me be surrendered and made new. I want to walk away from the communion table transformed into a child of dignity and humility. I declare my need for the morsel of bread which You hold out as the others look on, for I am the one upon whom Your forgiveness must fall first. Meet me this week, Jesus. Go with me to the communion table on Sunday. Honor my feeble attempts to reconcile. Bless my desire for unity and healing. Wash my feet again. Thank you, Father. Amen."

I will meet you around the communion table, my friends. 
See you Sunday.

Rebecca

~*~

Support my work by following my page.

To read my story or

view my creative writing,

please visit my original blog site.

Intimacy- Luke 7:37

I resisted this blog for several days after knowing what I would write about. Who wants to talk about intimacy in a public forum?

Yet Here I am to take a walk among the idols of my life with Jesus. I don’t want to be here, but I made the brave and dangerous choice to enter into His calling. Faith done right will feel like a juxtaposition. Ambivilance is inevitable in the mental arena of the daily disciple.

Once upon a time I knelt at the feet of my idol and anointed perfume with complete humility and trust. I let my hair down and embraced my identity as the Luke 7:37 woman of the Bible.

I was vulnerable, I was honest, I was courageous. But I knelt in a posture of submission at the feet of a human being who I had wrongfully put in place of Christ. I had made an idol. I sought intimacy with an image-bearer instead of the Creator Himself.

I was bravely misled by my own choice to sin- I wanted to make people my refuge and my redemption. I wanted to craft human friendships into vessels of salvation. I entered into relationships with a desperation for healing and wholeness that caused me to offer up my soul on the wrong altar.

Who is the Luke 7:37 woman? Read with me here-

Luke 7:37-50 (NLT)

³⁷ When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. ³⁸ Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

⁴⁰ Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

⁴¹ Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver^[a]to one and 50 pieces to the other. ⁴² But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

⁴³ Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. ⁴⁴ Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

⁴⁷ “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” ⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹ The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”

⁵⁰ And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Who walks away from their most vulnerable moment with a sense of deep inner peace? Well if the idol you knelt before was less than the complete perfection of Jesus, you probably walked away with regrets.

If the idol you knelt before was Jesus Christ, then you walk away not only at peace, but made strong in the very midst of your weak human fragility. You walk away whole and humble at the same time, ready for true intimacy with others.

The Luke 7:37 woman of the gospels was given true peace as a result of her true intimacy with the only One who deserved her devotion- she brought her whole sinful self and was therefore granted the right to love and be loved despite the many idols of her abuse.

Intimacy with human beings is complicated and complex, full of potential pitfalls. It is directly tied to idolatry because of sin. This is because we are all made in the image of God, walking around in a broken system, and so we are all potential gods and goddesses of idolatry in our own right. We tempt one another with our great display of false perfection whenever we pretend that sin does not impair our judgement for relational intimacy.

As I read Deuteronomy this week, I see this human struggle with idolatry going on among God’s people from the beginning of the exodus from Egypt.

Deuteronomy 4:15-31  (NLT)

A Warning against Idolatry

¹⁵ “But be very careful! You did not see the Lord’s form on the day he spoke to you from the heart of the fire at Mount Sinai. ¹⁶ So do not corrupt yourselves by making an idol in any form—whether of a man or a woman, ¹⁷ an animal on the ground, a bird in the sky, ¹⁸ a small animal that scurries along the ground, or a fish in the deepest sea. ¹⁹ And when you look up into the sky and see the sun, moon, and stars—all the forces of heaven—don’t be seduced into worshiping them. The Lord your God gave them to all the peoples of the earth. ²⁰ Remember that the Lord rescued you from the iron-smelting furnace of Egypt in order to make you his very own people and his special possession, which is what you are today.

It is not your sin to be abused- to be helplessly mistreated by broken human beings. No, it is not your sin to be hurt. It is not your sin to become a victim of another’s neglect or cruelty. That is someone else's sin, not yours.

BUT it is your sin to allow this to distort our view of God. It is sin to allow humans to determine our worth in Jesus. It is a sin to project painful human failings onto the perfect God who loves you. The sins pushed upon us are not our fault- the pain which we allow to taint our trust in God, that is the piece of the suffering that you are responsible for. How have idols shaped your world view?

The idol of hate, vengance, fear, betrayal, unforgiveness, bitterness? Products of human brokenness. Not products of God's love. To cross these two is blasphemy. Of this I daily repent.

For this I must look back and take account for all the ways my idolatry of human opinion and praise marred my intimacy with Jesus.

To mistrust God is a sin, because His love for you is perfect. How have you allowed your idolatry of another human person become the downfall of your relationship to Christ? If you fully trust God, can that abusive relationship truly damages your core values?

How was my Luke 7:37 moment an act of sin? Because I allowed the failure of a human friend to cause me to pull back away from the love of Jesus in fear.

Who hurt me? People. Who did I hide from? God.

Oh, I also hid from people, too. Don’t get me wrong. But the bitterness, the denial, the rejection of forgiveness, these were all a mistrusting of God’s redemptive plan for my life. By rebelling against reconciliation, I was revealing how much I truly mistrusted God’s ability to produce something new in the aftermath of human failure, both mine and theirs. By choosing anger and sometimes hate, I was choosing to take away the false idolatry of other humans into my own hands.

Since other people could not be my god, then I would be my own god and take shame and rage into my own hands. If I could not be intimate in relationship with people, I would not be intimate in relationship with anybody- this does include God, whether the victim of relational suffering realizes it or not.

How we treat image-bearers is how we treat the one who actually is the Image of Christ. Intimacy with people is only meant to be a reflection of our intimacy with Him, not a replacement.

A voice interrupts here and says, am I still talking about this after so long? Yes, because working out sanctification is a lifelong process that involves honesty, patience and the guidance of the Spirit. And today, He guides me here to talk about intimacy.

Idolatry of other human beings is what gives sin access to our hearts. Trusting human persons for the very real needs that only God should be trusted with- that is where intimacy gets damaged.

Are we in fact bent but not broken, or are we whole and healed in Jesus? I am currently wrestling with this myself. It seems to be a both/and situation, a duality and a very Jewish way of thinking.

In my counseling sessions I am currently going through Dr. Dan Allender’s companion workbook called The Wounded Heart. This week, we are working on shame. I wanted to share a piece of it with my readers here-

Answer these questions with me, and see if we have some humanity in common, you and I:

Q: Look back at the embarrassing moments and shameful truths you’ve been writing about. Which of them involves letting people determine your value and desirability? Which of them involves letting God determine those things?

A: Every incident of shame in my life involves trusting in people to take the place of God and expecting humans to validate my worth. I have rarely trusted God to define who I am. Even now, right now in this moment. This is why I am so often anxious.

Q: What signs do you see in your life that you have tried (and maybe succeeded) to deaden your longing for deep, satisfying involvement with others?

A: I let relationships fade away when I am hurt or let down. I use neglect or avoidance to create a safe distance between myself and others in order to avoid intimacy.

Q: What pain do you avoid by not longing for love?

A: When I keep a safe distance from intimacy, then I avoid the pain of being hurt again, I avoid making another mistake, and I avoid falling short of other’s expectations of me. When I hide, I can’t be wounded.

Q: Do you identify with the fear of abandonment? If so, what do you do because of that fear?

A: Yes, based on past experiences I certainly fear relational abandonment. I anticipate it and try to stay ahead of it at all times. I avoid intimacy because the distance keeps me feeling safe.

Q: As you look back over your answers, think about who you are trusting. To what or whom have you given the power to determine your desirability and worth?

A: People. Always people. I have place myself at the feet of human idols, ones who cannot provide the intimacy I need to be fulfilled, healed and whole. I have looked to people to be my God, and when they let me down I retreat into emotional isolation. People are my idols, and so I fear and avoid depth of relationship because intimacy is a threat when it is based on the broken human definition of love.

My friends, this is a tiny window into the thoughts I have been wrestling with this past week. God is doing a work in me, revealing the roots of my idolatry and communicating to my heart where true intimacy with Him could take me. Here has been my response to Him:

“Dear Father- I am tired of doing relationships my way, but I have no idea how to change. I sit here in the weeds of my mistakes and wait to be rescued. All my self-help efforts have failed. I realize that on my own, in my own stubborn pride to “do it myself”, all my attempts have amounted to a state of helpless and useless fear of intimacy. You are the healer of my body and the lover of my soul. I want to experience Your overwhelming presence every day, even when there is pain and sorrow. I know that my brain needs to be washed and reprogrammed so that I can experience true intimacy first with You, so that I can experience it secondly with others. Help me to differentiate between intimacy and efficiency- teach me to understand love from a healthy foundation of trusting first in You. In Jesus name, AMEN.”

Yes, idolatry is the opposite of intimacy. This is why God makes is very clear in His Word- no idols. Okay, God, we agree. No idols.

But we have idols. They are people. They are everywhere.

God warns us, not because He is jealous (although He is jealous for our faithful love) but because we are weak.

We are all weak. We are all bent by the weight of mishandled intimacy. We are all human. We are all burdening one another with the weight of idolatry.

When I knelt at the feet of another human being, I place the weight of my salvation upon the back of a fellow struggler. To idolatrize the thoughts, opinions and assumptions of someone other than God is to sin against the Creator and all humanity.

Our idolatry is breaking us down. Our lack of healthy intimacy is ripping relationships apart. We need Jesus at the center, here and now.

Certainly, I am not the only Luke 7:37 woman in this world- there are more than a few of us out there. Only most don’t say so, because it isn’t safe to do so.

Thankfully, God anticipates our tendency for making idols out of each other, and so He leaves this promise that comes in the aftermath of our sins:

²⁸ There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. ²⁹ But from there you will search again for the Lord your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.

³⁰ “In the distant future, when you are suffering all these things, you will finally return to the Lord your God and listen to what he tells you. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.

Some of us want deep relationships but don’t want to do the daily work of building intimacy to get there. Some of us prefer to just hotwire intimacy or surrender to the breakdown of relationship and simply ride it out while it lasts. I have done both. Both are sin. Both require substantial emotional healing.

It is time to exchange idolatry for intimacy. Stop idolizing people and start knowing them- but do not attempt this until you place your worship in a safe place: upon the feet of Jesus.

We must intentionally work on intimacy with God every day. Our souls cannot be allowed to sleep. We must become emotionally invested in knowing Christ each day.

Are you brave like the Luke 7:37 woman of the Scriptures? Can you present your WHOLE self to Jesus, worshiping at His feet?

So begin to reserve the depths of your heart for Him, because He adores you deeply. Desire intimacy with Him so that you can experience it with others. Love the soul in another person in a way that reflects Jesus instead of replacing Him.

Even though our sins are many, the love of Jesus in us is even more. Intimacy with Him will always save us, and then we can continue to move forward in peace, together.

Victory is ours, brothers and sisters.

With Love,

Rebecca

~*~

Support my work by following my page.

To read my story or

view my creative writing,

please visit my original blog site.