For two thousand years, the church has been tempted to turn the wonderful stories of Jesus into law. Where Jesus was gentle, open, creative, the church has often been narrow, rigid, dogmatic. Such an attitude is not comfortable with the ambiguity of story. Instead of allowing the story to do what stories are meant to do...permeate our hearts and souls...the church has often attempted to pound them into our brains.

"This is exactly what it means," some have said to us and the beauty and benefit of Jesus’ style has been lost to many.

I believe there is no more beautiful story in all of scripture than the one that begins, "In the night in which he was betrayed..." The Eucharist is the greatest of Jesus’ stories acted out on that night long ago and every Sunday to this very day. It is a story. It is open to a myriad of understandings and feelings. Like a hug, it is something to be experienced, enjoyed.

Such an ambiguous activity is often terribly difficult for the church. Instead of experiencing, we analyze. We dissect, discuss, debate and then decide precisely what it means. We even have rules that say if you don’t know what it means, or agree with us on what it means, you can’t participate.

Absurdity upon absurdity.

I cannot tell you what a hug means. I can only experience hugging and being hugged. I cannot tell you precisely what love is. I can only experience loving and being loved. How shameful that we have failed to understand this. How sad that we have perverted the stories of Jesus.