The Table- Monday

Who can drink this cup?

Can you drink the cup?
Can we hold the cup of life in our
hands? Can we lift it up for others to see, and can we drink it to the full?
Drinking the cup is much more than gulping down whatever happens to be in there,
just as breaking the bread is much more than tearing a loaf apart. Drinking this
cup involves holding, lifting and drinking. It is the full celebration of being
human.

(Henri Nouwen, Can you drink the cup? p 24)

Reading of the day - Matthew 20 v20-23 Who is the greatest?

The question from James and John's mother is for Jesus to declare them in key positions in the Kingdom. Imagining the scene, there are the boys with mum before Jesus. She askes the question, but JEsus response is to turn look at the boys and ask them a rather uncomfortable question that we sat with and meditated upon as disciples today: "Are you able to drink the cup from which I am about to drink?"

Allowing the question to ring in our ears a Table we hear that in all our own clamour for recognition for status, there is no need to jockey for Kingdom position or even to Lord it over one another, but we have every reason to serve one another. Jesus points them and us to practices that are more radical than those we are conditioned to, that make it possible to live in and from God's presence, a sharing in the very life of Father, Son and Spirit. Holding the cup is to accept a radical new way and life, to say 'We are able!' - willing and able to render Christ in our daily living. This uncomfortable question demands not just verbal, notional ascent, but action.

We sat with our hands cupped sitting holding a cup with the question that askes of us all about our own discipleship.

A Prayer:

God bless and keep us, God's face shine upon us and be gracious to us,

and grant us peace and light this night as we go to rest. Amen.