Souvenir Christianity

Last Sunday I shared about our Lord’s Supper service in which we used olive wood cups to serve the juice. I relayed how that after a two and one-half hour time lapse between filling the cups and partaking of the Lord’s Supper that some of the cups had completely absorbed the juice and that the juice having taken on the taste of the olive wood tasted bitter. Each participant took the used cup home with them as a souvenir. When the cups dried however we noticed that the juice had left a crimson stain. No amount of rinsing could wash it away. I noted that these facts reminded me of how we are supposed to absorb Christ and how having absorbed him our lives are changed. If Christ does absorb us we will be stained and that stain is His identifying mark upon us. I noted that the bitter taste of the juice reminded me of the bitter cross Christ had to bear. As followers of Christ we also are sometimes called upon to be involved in bitter work. My friend Pat Pajak told me afterwards that I should have used white grape juice and waited to fill the cups about 30 minutes before the Lord’s Supper service. That way less juice would be absorbed by the cup, it would not take on as much taste from the wood, and the cup would not be stained. That sounds like good logistical thinking. It would be less messy and the people could go home with a less blemished souvenir.  

On the other hand maybe we have just identified a problem of the Christian faith. We engage in to much souvenir Christianity. We have no desire to absorb very much of Christ. We come to worship looking for a small and quick dose of Christ and if we discover we got a little to much we can rinse it off. It does not change us much. Therefore it does not prepare us to taste the bitter cup of suffering nor does it compel us to drink the often bitter cup of service. It is a stainless faith. I guess that kind of faith makes a good souvenir. But it does not identify us and it does not make much difference in the world.