Friends, the Resurrected Christ is made known to us in the breaking of bread. That simplest of acts. And Mama C taught me and so many other students that. You see, at the end of the day, the Gospel is not proclaimed so much by eloquent sermons, or fancy church buildings, or huge choirs, or whatever else. At the end of the day, the Gospel is proclaimed simply by breaking bread with one another.
You see, God couldn’t wait for “better” circumstances. For some reason, it was important to God to birth God’s son into a messy reality by a poor, marginalized couple from the Middle East during the regime of a cruel ruler named Herod. For some reason, it was important to God that God’s son not be born at the Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville but in a poverty stricken county in Eastern Kentucky. For some reason, it was important to God to introduce Jesus to us in the same birthing process as you and I entered this world.
We worship a very different kind of king. We worship a wounded king. We worship a wounded God.
Saint Augustine himself said of this parable, and I quote, “I can’t believe this story came from the lips of our Lord.”
So, together let us seek what has been lost. Let us search for what seems so lost nowadays: compassion, gentleness, justice, and basic human decency. Let us do the work of discipleship by celebrating together, with radical abundance, when what has been lost has been found.