Costly Recipe for Passionate Intimacies

Starbuck’s is my least favorite boutique. I’ve always been a Dunkin’ Donuts kind o’ guy. When forced by circumstances, usually a meeting, into Starbuck’s, I can’t seem to resist buying a biscotti, a long, hard, crunchy Italian cookie – best dunked in coffee. My grandmother made those often.

Among my most prized possessions is my grandmother’s biscotti recipe. She gave it to me 17 years ago, a year before she died. Fact is, it’s right here in my wallet. For reasons I can’t fathom, the last time I made biscotti, I stuck the recipe in my wallet instead of putting it back inside a cookbook where we keep other recipes from grandma. That was 5 years ago. The recipe has been in my wallet ever since then, and in the mean time, we’ve had only store bought biscotti.

Most of these are really bad. To keep pace with trends folks tinker with the recipe. They substitute margarine, not 5 sticks of pure butter. They add sesame seeds. Some add almond paste and almond pieces. A few bakeries put in, ahh, chocolate chips!

For all practical purposes, I don’t have grandma’s biscotti recipe. Having the recipe means gathering the ingredients. It requires measuring them out in the exact proportions. Owning the recipe means mixing the quantities together in the right order, using the appropriate utensils. Enjoying the recipe involves following the instructions for preparing and baking the dough. For as long as the recipe has been in my wallet, none of that has happened.

To many of us hold our Christian identity with the same ill regard I hold grandma’s recipe. It’s tucked safely away. We know exactly where it is. It’s tattered and worn not from over-use, but from abuse.

On his last night with his disciples, Jesus gave them an example and a commandment. Better words might be recipe or pattern, and an instruction or a direction.

Jesus always practiced what he preached. He walked his talk. He makes clear in this foot-washing both the high regard and the deep love he has for his disciples. He establishes in this meal the expansive, inclusive reach of his breaking-open and pouring-out love. He instructs us to do likewise.

Choose to love one another with a vulnerable love; love which is prone to be ignored, rejected, denied and even betrayed. It’s what happened with Jesus’ love. It can happen when we love that way, too. Despite that, as Jesus lives out that love, we see and experience a love persisting through to the end.

Both Jesus’ acted out language, and his spoken word, are in the plural. He performs what he does and speaks what he says to the community he’s called together. He knows how difficult it is for individuals, including himself, to love that way – vulnerably and persistently.

That’s why we do what we do here this evening. As those whom the Spirit of God has called together to receive this pattern, to practice this example, to hold this recipe in high regard, we keep these intimate rituals. We wash feet. We share a common meal. Both ground us in God’s own passionate, vulnerable, persistent and present love that gives us life, brings us freedom, blesses us, and makes us a blessing to and for the world.

You’d be hard pressed to call us a boutique church. That hasn’t, and shouldn’t, stop us from being bold enough to tinker with the recipe. Our tinkering, though, must always be relevant, never trendy. Our loving Jesus’ own in the world demands that we continue finding appropriate and truthful ways to keep shairn’ plenty good news!

When we faithfully execute that pattern, follow that example, serve up that recipe, everyone will know Whose disciples we are, because our love for one another, like Jesus’ love for us, stretches beyond our closest reach and extends passed our least costly embrace.