We took communion in church this morning. I waited in line and tore the bread as our pastor Bailey told me, "The Body of Christ broken for you." I dipped the bread into the cup as I heard, "The Blood of Christ shed for you." I ate the bread and the grape juice dripped down onto my cupped palm. As I walked back to my seat, the thought crossed my mind:
I have blood on my hands.
Last night, I was dumping out all of the fear, frustration, and inadequacy that I feel right now. It's not really fair to EA, who has had to hear this a good deal recently. At some point, she reminded me of a question that I asked her when our friendship was still en route to dating. A dozen years ago, I visited her while she was at summer school and in a garden asked:
What is the one thing that you know 100% to be true about God?
In our living room, EA suggested that perhaps I needed to figure that answer out and build from there.
So this is what I was trying to figure out as I sat in the pew with bloodstained hands; the communion line slowly processing a few feet from where I sat. I listened to the words repeat in a trance-like rhythm:
The Body of Christ broken for you. The Body of Christ broken for you. The Body of Christ broken for you.
Know 100% to be true about God? I could have kicked my 20 year old self for his religious zeal. What on earth do we know about God? I sighed and bounced my knee as I often do when I'm restless. I sifted through a thousand thoughts, theological constructs, and images.
"But what do you believe?" I asked myself. "Maybe 'know' is not a place where you're at right now, but what do you believe about God?" But I wasn't sure. "Then what do you need to believe about God?"
I sighed again. The refrain about Christ's body continued in the background unbroken. I looked around hoping for an answer. I smiled as a member of our church who has been sick took communion. I stared at the vibrant stained glass windows that lined the back wall. And straight ahead I saw it. It's right in front of me every week because we're Baptists and we always sit in the same place. It is a panel depicting the father welcoming home the Prodigal Son. His arms are outstretched and he's running; practically diving forward to welcome his long lost son.
I need to believe in grace.
The thing that I have to believe about God is that God's grace is bigger than we make it out to be. Because, even though we sing "Amazing Grace" an awful lot, we sure like to build fences around it. And I sense in my soul when things are amiss—if I feel lost in my calling like I do now or if I am screwing up—that the fence is a hundred miles tall and a million miles long. I'm on one side. God is on the other. And I can't do any of this if that is the mindset in which I am living. But that is where I've been: locked up in fear that I have squandered my calling, that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do, that I'll let down my family or not provide for them, that I am lost.
Somewhere along the way, I lost my grip on grace. I'll realize that and then try to grasp it again. It has been harder to hang on to as adulthood has progressed, but I suspect that grace was my answer to the question of what I knew 100% about God twelve years ago. Grace sustained me through my youth. I needed to believe that God loved me as I was; that God's grace covered for more than we could imagine.
I still need that. If I believe in grace then it frees me to be who I am. It frees me to follow God and to use the gifts and abilities that God has given me without trepidation. Believing in grace is not a matter of doing whatever I want, but a matter of knowing that I—imperfect Christopher Cox who loves to write and run, who is a bit of a nerd, a husband and father, who is an introvert that can fake it in front of a crowd, who loves Jesus but believes things that are out of step with the church of his youth, and is still trying to figure out what the heck he is supposed to do—that I am wanted.
I need to believe in that grace for me. I need to believe in that grace for EA and for our sons. I need to believe that grace for whoever I serve, for the women and men who were in that communion line, for the 6 billion plus people who were outside our church this morning. I need to believe the lyrics of the song "If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking" and that the "we" is not just those who have the church's stamp of approval. I need God's grace to be bigger than the box we have built.
I remembered later on what exactly Jesus said in Matthew about that blood that was shed for me and for us: Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." With that a new thought crossed my mind:
There is forgiveness on my hands.
Not blood and guilt and shortcoming, but grace. Grace is on my hands because of what God has done. That is not what I know 100% to be true about God, but it is what I need to believe. I guess I can start from there.