Tom- a “weekly sacrament of grace” (Week 6:2)

Topic: Week 6- The new community: the body of Christ
Theme for 6 Weeks- Who is Jesus and what difference does it make?

Read Matthew 25:31-46

The guy on the other end of the phone line appeared to either have a speech impediment or some type of mental disability. He called and asked for the pastor, and when I picked up the phone, he proceeded to tell me that he lived three blocks away and wanted to know what time church was on Sunday and if he was welcome. He and his friend, Norm.

He also wanted to know if we had potluck meals at church. In the years that followed, it was evident why he asked that question: he was usually first in line at our monthly potlucks, went back for heaping servings of seconds, thirds and more, and he left potlucks with his bag full of plastic tubs of church-potluck food that the hospitality committee members always prepared for him.

Tom was 52 yrs old when I first met him that Sunday after his first phone call to me. He was overweight, wore clothes that didn’t match (as in, striped shirts with double-knit plaid pants), he smelled of stale sweat, it always seemed he had a 3-day beard, and he had poor social etiquette (he would walk up and interrupt a conversation you were having with someone else). He was in church almost every Sunday and he never missed potluck Sundays!

He carried a paper bag with handles to church each week which contained his Bible, a picture of Jesus, a picture of his friend Kevin, and odds and ends. He was often annoying. It wasn’t the prettiest sight to eat across the table from him at potluck meals.

He had a mental disability and was in a group home, with Norm, three blocks from our church. More importantly, in my view, he had an emotional and spiritual vacuum that was with him, perhaps, since he was a small child. And, he loved Jesus. Yes, I believe he loved Jesus in the way he could best understand it. And, he hugged people. He hugged members of the church. I got a hug every Sunday from Tom and I hugged Tom each week.

Here’s the thing: in the years before he died, he was a member of our church, and I’m grateful to say, that church community loved Tom. They picked him up and drove him to church when our church location was moved. They packed food for him after potlucks. They hugged Tom- smell and all. They listened to him when they were bored to tears. They listened to him tell the same stories about Kevin over and over again.

He was annoying and it was frustrating more than once. But, he became a “weekly sacrament of grace” (as one member called Tom- profoundly, in my eyes). He was accepted here. This was the church being the body of Christ.

Shane Claiborne reminds us of being the body of Christ in this, “We are literally to be the body of Jesus in the world. Christians are to be little Christs- people who put flesh on Jesus in the world today. You are the only Jesus some people will ever see.” (p. 228, Jesus for President). We, the new community, are the body of Christ.

Included in that is the posture of serving others, especially the poor and broken. Jesus comes as and is a servant; he has called us to be servants. This is being the body of Jesus in the world: serving.

And here is one of those apparent puzzles: this new community (“church”) is the body of Christ in the world today; serving is one essential characteristic of this body. And, when we serve others (the hungry, poor, homeless, suffering, broken, etc.—see the Matthew 25 passage today), Jesus says we are doing this to him- Jesus himself!!

We, the body of Christ, when serving the poor, hungry, stranger, etc. are doing it to Jesus. For, Jesus, the one who has suffered for us in his love for us, is in the broken and poor (as we see in this passage). I don’t have a clean way of resolving this tension of these two aspects; I merely live with the truth Jesus shares with us in this mystery.

We are called to serve each other, and especially, the Tom’s of the world. And in doing so, we meet Jesus in new ways even as we do this as the body of Christ. My life has been changed as a result of Tom who came into my life- messy, smelly, annoying, and broken to the core. A “sacrament of grace.”

Question: Where might God be calling you/us to serve the poor and broken?

Prayer: Oh Lord God, you have called me to be part of the body of Christ and to be the body of Jesus in the world. Make me more like your Son Jesus so that I reflect him to the suffering and poor, abused and wounded. In your name, Amen.