What a way to spend one’s last night on earth!
Jesus eagerly desired to spend this Passover with is disciples. He broke bread with them,
reminding them that his body and blood are given for them, for the world.
He is letting them know how important they are to him, and what happens?
They break into a fight.
Jesus has to break it up – reminding them of the purpose to which they are called – to serve.
I wonder how well that message went down that evening – probably not well – their heads were full of future glory.

How often do we get sidetracked from the main event? Like a side show at a three ring circus, we become involved in disputes and irritations that are not the main focus of our call to live as Christians in the world.

Last night my husband and I watched a movie called "the Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio."
I was amazed at the servanthood of the protagonist of the story, a woman with ten children and an alcoholic husband, who gave everything she had to support her family and to launch her children successfully into the world.
She did it with great creativity, and great joy.
At one point, her husband, a despondent man of lost hope, said to her, "you are too happy!"
Her response was to laugh, as though it were a great joke. She WAS happy, although for many of us, we would wonder how that could be possible.
It reminded me of Paul’s words about Jesus – who for the JOY that was set before him endured the cross.
Jesus’ call to servanthood included a call to experience the joyful side of living in community –
- serving one another as Christ served us,
rather than retreating into territorial disputes, or allowing our own control issues to dominate the conversation.
For our life in community is a continual conversation, both vertical and horizontal, that begins at the altar rail, where we break bread together, sharing Christ’s body and blood, poured out for our neighbor on either side of us, as much as for ourselves.
This was the lesson the disciples still had to learn, an ongoing lesson that we must relearn again and again as we struggle to live into Christ’s call to love and serve one another. Sometimes that call sends us stumbling in the dark, afraid of what might happen if we lose control. But even in the darkness, Christ is there, lifted up, drawing the world to himself. And drawing you and I into the greatness of his everlasting, and ever loving, and ever-forgiving embrace.