This should be interesting.
Jackie Hill Perry is a black woman my son’s age who is a spoken word and hip hop artist who used to be a lesbian.
I’m not sure what I’m doing over in this patch except that I like the cover of her book of devotions, Upon Waking: 60 Daily Reflections to Discover Ourselves and the God We Were Made For:,
This is purely a case of me judging this book by its cover.
What’s a 35 year old black, ex-lesbian (she’s married and has 4 kids now) hip hop artist have to say to me?
I’m already smirking and I haven’t even cracked the book yet. 🙂
In the introduction to her book, Perry’s’ first sentence is:
“Devotionals have never been my cup of tea.”
Me either.
Even though I write a reflection every day about Scripture wrapped around a topic I’m pursuing and share it with some folks, I don’t have a culture, like most of you, of reading a daily devotional.
Never have.
I feel guilty about that too because some of the daily devotionals that I quote from all the time (More Precious Than Silver and Experiencing God Day-By-Day) were given to me by my late wife for me to to get in touch, at least a little I suppose, with the God that animated her.
She’s smiling from Heaven now, knowing that I’m deeply embedded in the process of understanding God’s Word.
Perry continues in her introduction:
“What is typical of devotional-like content, we engage only as a means to check off a box or temper our spiritual insecurities. This work cannot become the measure of your maturity in which you read only to feel good enough. Or study only to prove your godliness. You are capable of so much more, and you know it. God made you and redeemed you so that you may know Him. That's the point of everything.”
Okay. She’s got me there.
Some days, I write this reflection about a piece of Scripture and I DO feel like I’m checking a box off–especially if I’m pressed for time.
I could just skip a day. That would be easier, maybe, than sawing off part of my previous day to read, research and reflect and being up before the sun and the seagulls to see if I can put anything together that doesn’t embarrass myself or God.
But, when I read your comments or discuss His Word with Karen, often what I’m trying to say or learn about the Scripture slips into focus–usually around an application of the verse in my life that I hadn’t considered.
I think this is why I’m intrigued with a devotional by someone who is about as diametrically opposite of me as a person can get.
What haven’t I considered?
Perry’s first Scripture is from 1 Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 11:24 And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
During this first foray into Perry’s thoughts, I realize that we don’t hold the same beliefs about the Eucharist.
She finds, like Karen, that the Eucharist is a metaphor for Jesus’ body while, as a Catholic, I believe, because I’m enamored of spiritual mystery, in transubstantiation (the changing of the whole substance of bread and wine into the substance of the Body of Christ).
I’m used to this by now though.
John Piper (a major influence on Perry’s beliefs) writes in Why We Eat the Lord's Supper about what Jesus is saying in verse 24:
“This is the most natural way to understand the words, "This is my body." This represents my body. It's very telling that in the modern Catholic Catechism the word "represents" is used but it is regularly hyphenated: re-presents. The implication seems to be: there is a real physical re-presenting of Christ. His physical body is presented again. I think that is an unnatural way of reading these words.”
Is it unnatural or is it THE major part of the mystery of faith?
I don’t have the exegetical chops to reason through something I’ve been doing for over 50 years–just like Karen doesn’t have any background in believing transubstantiation.
I’m closer to how J.R.R. Tolkien, a fairly hardcore Catholic, felt about the Eucharist. Holly Ordwway writes in Tolkien’s Fath: A Spiritual Biography:
“Tolkien declared that frequent communion is the “only cure” for weak or “sagging faith”--that is one does not need already to have a strong faith before receiving communion. Furthermore, he emphasizes that although the Blessed Sacrament is always “perfect and complete and inviolate” in itself, it “does not operate completely and once for all” in any of us. LIke that act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise.”
What’s neat about picking up a random devotional by a random person (who it seems I have very little in common with) is the opportunity it gives me to synthesize and fuse disparate concepts and apply them to my life.
Is there a link between Perry, Piper, Tolkien and myself?
I think so.
Perry writes:
“In the same way our bodies need a constant diet of food, our souls need God like this always…We need the Bread of Heaven because truly no other food will do.”
Reflections, devotionals, and praying as metaphors for verse 24?
Satisfying the hunger in our souls with His Word–reading, thinking, reflecting, writing and praying?
This should be interesting. 🙂
Lord, we thank you for the body of Christ, who was broken for our sins. Help us to understand the magnitude of this sacrifice and to live in a manner that honors His love.
Lord, we pray that the sacred act of communion draws us closer to You and to one another.
Amen.