All great spirituality is about letting go… It trains us in both detachment and attachment: detachment from the passing so we can attach to the substantial. Richard Rohr
Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. John 21:10-13
A post-resurrection story. Another meal! To cap it all Jesus cooks breakfast for his disciples, for those who fell asleep, denied him, ran away (wouldn't we?). Jesus continues to feed his disciples.
And I suddenly recall from week 3 Stephan Helfer noting that psychologists say that the sharing of food is both a sign of intimacy and a way in which intimacy can be nurtured.
Easter reminds us that something needs to give
Rohr’s lines remind me of Jesus’s crucifixion and his incarnation, that letting go has a motivation, an attachment, a draw (love) as well as a detachment. To detach from, let go of, our hitherto unseen prejudice, judgment, distance and follow Jesus in experiencing and reflecting on loss, sacrifice, and our own mortality for example. There often needs to be some shift, for both movements (cf Caroline Tyler’s reflection).
Like the self-emptying of Advent, the self denying of Lent is surely more than the clearly difficult restriction of appetites and just for its own sake or end. An internal conversion of outlook is required for sure. Something has to be given up, some giving in, stepping aside, giving space to, being lost. Then something new may be found, given, emerge – the kind of communion perhaps that Jesus depicts in eating and drinking at table with strangers, the other. That abstention and communion are both materially profound is remarked upon in Tom Ingrey Counter’s reflection. In the ‘letting go’ of Lent, we are at some deeper level ordering ourselves towards re-engagement with life, observed Gus McLeod in Koinonia. An example of such engagement is seen, possibly uncomfortably, in the contemporary depiction of David LaChapelle’s rendering of the Last Supper. Some echoes here of Nancy Adam’s own Good Friday reflection.
A further union, a deeper communion
As per Eularia Clarke's painting Feeding of the 5000, there is again fish and bread (chips in Clarke’s contemporary depiction) but this time there is plenty of food and fewer people to feed. Meals with Jesus were an inclusive call to take our place, always as merely ‘sinners-in-the-process-of-conversion’ turning our finiteness toward the grace of God, which is readily, heartily and open handedly extended. Can I remind us of Lynn Darke’s comments on hospitality that the Son of Man came eating and drinking for good reason it seems. He was building communities where forbearance and resilience, generosity and hope, kindness and love are what sustain us, and where the Trinity becomes a reality as the guest in our midst.
Question
What do I need to let go of for the waiting new life to emerge?
Andrew Hook