Celebrating the sacrament of Holy Eucharist is one of my central jobs as a priest.  I approach the sacrament very seriously and reverently because I know how sacred the privilege of consecrating the Eucharist is and how profound the reception of Holy Communion can be.  In general, my philosophy is to be so graceful and intentional with my celebration that attention is taken off me and turned exclusively and intently to the mystery of the holy meal.

So, imagine my mortification when, after almost 16 years of celebrating Holy Communion multiple times a week, my hand clips the chalice and copious amounts of consecrated wine soak the altar (for those familiar with the terms, the corporal, fair linen, frontal, chasuble, and even my alb were victims).  It was an enormous mess – even the priest host was swimming in wine that landed in the paten.  The gasp was audible when it happened – I’m sure I took in a surprised gasp of air myself.  But I steeled myself and do what we priest always do – I kept going. 

Fortunately, despite the frustration of needing to clear the mess and get linens to the dry cleaners and washing machines, there were lots of laughs and ribbing afterwards.  But the visceral experience of wine flying, landing on silver implements, and making my hands sticky got me thinking.  In the Episcopal Church, we say Jesus’ real presence is in the bread and wine when the priest consecrates it.  There is nothing more incarnational than the messiness of spilt wine.  And we all know that being incarnate means being messy – our bodies naturally make perfection impossible.  But more than that, following Jesus is messy.  Following Jesus means getting into messy relationships with other messy people.  Following Jesus means Jesus sees all our own messiness – even the messiness we hide from others.  And following Jesus makes Jesus very hard to get rid of – there is stickiness to Jesus that lingers with us, much like the stickiness that stayed with me, even after cleaning up. 

I wonder in what ways you’ve been avoiding the messiness of Jesus lately?  In what ways has your desire to control the messiness of the Gospel left you with clean hands, but shallow experiences of the divine?  I look forward to hearing your stories of how the incarnational nature of Jesus is shaking up your life in good and holy ways.  We all need a little more messiness!