Avoiding things. I imagine we all have some very sophisticated habits for how to avoid what we don’t want to do, see or talk about.
All of a sudden scrubbing the rust off the handle of that one knife in the cutlery drawer becomes TOP priority and we work at it until it sparkles! But, oh, look at that, now we’ve run out of time to focus on what we’re trying to avoid. (thank goodness).
Or, we let a call go to voice mail and then “keep forgetting” to respond.
Or, we find a new route to work to avoid where we had an accident, or our ex’s house or the store where we caused a scene.
We are experts at avoiding what we don’t think we can tackle, cope with or understand.
Over the next two weeks we’re going to explore the “bread of life discourse” in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. In part because it was the lectionary reading, in part because it’s challenging (and I’m working hard not to avoid it), and in part because we take the bread and juice each month at communion and can be quite successful at not thinking about what it deeply means for us.
Jesus tells us he is the bread of life. And sometimes very graphically. What does that mean to us? The gift of not avoiding this exploration is that we have the chance for a richer understanding of what it means to believe in, and follow, Jesus.
See you Sunday,
Julie.