I cook lunch and dinner for around 150 people every Friday in our commercial kitchen here at JPUSA with a team of about 3-4 others. Some of the tasks require more skill than others, and some tasks are downright tedious. One of the most tedious tasks is washing potatoes.
I volunteered to wash them this time around since I had escaped this task the last time.
Everyone else was busy with other prep, so I was alone with 40 lbs of potatoes at the sink. As I started to wash, I was reminded of the Leviticus accounts of cleaning. I asked God to help me make any connections that the Spirit was trying to show me.
Why are you washing these potatoes? The question came to me. I am washing them so that they can be clean. That was the simple answer. I am constantly thinking of movies and TV connections, so the scene of Dorothy and her friends getting washed up to be presented to the Wizard came to mind. They went through an elaborate cleaning and beautifying process to be presentable to this Great and Powerful being they were trying to reach. I liked that picture, but it seemed incomplete and the metaphor totally broke down because the Wizard turns out to be a fraud and is demanding, etc.
So, I kept scrubbing potatoes and listening to the Spirit and the question came to me again: Why are you washing these potatoes? The simple answer came to me: so that they can be eaten. Did you know that the skin of the potato has the most nutrients? Leaving the skin on makes the potatoes much more nourishing. This reminded me of Jesus's words in John 6:51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
For the life of the world. This is the reason that God is making for Godself a people in the wilderness - so that they would be an example to the world of how to come near to God. God was cleansing and setting apart a people that would act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
This is still why people are called to be God's own. So that we can be food for the world. We are being cleaned and set apart so that we can bring the nourishment of God to those who have yet to experience it.
On their website, the organization Bread for the World states their purpose as this: "As followers of Christ, we seek to express and embody God’s reconciling love at all times and in all places. Throughout the Scriptures, God speaks of our purpose to rebuild, restore and renew all that is broken (Isaiah 61). We work to end the brokenness of hunger and poverty in our communities, in our country, and around the world. We partner in God’s work to remove the barriers that impede the flourishing God intended for all people."
In order for Jesus to become the living bread, He had to die. And He told us that we have to die too. Over and over again. In all four gospels, we find the words, "whoever loses their life will find it." The synoptic gospels all have the words, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." We are called to die daily to identify with Jesus.
This death isn't for our own sake. Just as Jesus died willingly to become the living bread and the cleansing blood for us, He calls us to do the same so that we can spread this "good infection" (as C.S. Lewis calls it) to the rest of the world.
In his daily devotional, Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen writes, "When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words 'This is the Body of Christ,' we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ. We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world."
This is why resurrection is so important. Not just to signify that we will live forever in heaven someday with God, but that we can die each day and be reborn each morning with new mercies given to us by our faithful, steadfast God. In the book of John, just before Jesus tells His disciples that they have to give up their life in order to find it, He says these words, "unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it will only be a seed. If it dies, it will give much grain."A seed dies, produces fruit that has usually many seeds in it, and then those seeds can die and produce more fruit and the cycle goes on and on.
Several years ago, Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia created a video to promote railway safety called "Dumb Ways to Die." It became a viral hit and produced a spin-off game that is now in its third iteration. As Christians, we should be all playing a game every day called "Good Ways to Die." Let me explain. If we are to take up our cross daily, that means to find ways to die each day. Some of these include denying our self by giving preferential treatment to others or by fasting. Another way was reinforced in our sermon at Uptown Church yesterday: forgive! We can die to our need to be understood. We die to the sinful ways of life that are destroying us.
Mother Teresa has a beautiful poem that illustrates these good ways to die:
“Deliver me, O Jesus:From the desire of being esteemed
From the desire of being loved
From the desire of being honored
From the desire of being praised
From the desire of being preferred to others
From the desire of being consulted
From the desire of being approved
From the desire of being popular.
Deliver me, O Jesus:
From the fear of being humiliated
From the fear of being despised
From the fear of being rebuked
From the fear of being slandered
From the fear of being forgotten
From the fear of being wronged
From the fear of being treated unfairly
From the fear of being suspected
And, Jesus, grant me the grace
To desire that others might be more loved than I
That others might be more esteemed than I
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease
That others may be chosen and I set aside
That others may be preferred to me in everything
That others may become holier than I, provided that I, too, become as holy as I can.”
From the fear of being despised
From the fear of being rebuked
From the fear of being slandered
From the fear of being forgotten
From the fear of being wronged
From the fear of being treated unfairly
From the fear of being suspected
And, Jesus, grant me the grace
To desire that others might be more loved than I
That others might be more esteemed than I
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I decrease
That others may be chosen and I set aside
That others may be preferred to me in everything
That others may become holier than I, provided that I, too, become as holy as I can.”
God isn't calling us to be doormats, God is calling us to live a life hidden with Christ in God's presence. We can suffer these deaths because we know who we are and Whose we are. We read in Colossians 3: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." This secure position and right relationship give us the ability to die in these ways so that God can be revealed to the world.
In Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech the night before he died, he said these words, "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life - longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will."
In order to follow Jesus, we have to be willing to die in order to become food for the world. We have to say to God as He said, "not my will, but Your will be done."
In order to follow Jesus, we have to be willing to die in order to become food for the world. We have to say to God as He said, "not my will, but Your will be done."
