“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)
I really enjoy looking back, to be honest. I have a pile of photos and old programs and what not tucked away into storage boxes (even some recitals and performances on cassette tape and probably a mini-disc or two). It can be really grounding to look at where I’ve been, occasionally. And so, sometimes this line from Luke’s Gospel kind drives me bonkers— when it’s misused, anyway. Remembering and cherishing our history is a sacred part of knowing who we are today. As James Baldwin so aptly observed, “history is not in the past, it is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” The author of Luke has an important point with this line about hands on plows and being unfit if you’re looking back… and the point is that we simply must stay open to the road we are currently on, and what’s ahead—even when it’s unfamiliar, uncertain, or winding. If we’re trying to move in the now and forward while only looking back…well, that’s likely to come with some extra messy results, no?
Which brings me to Henry.
Recently, Henry—our favorite Faith Lutheran big little man— has started coming up to the altar. He stands between his Mimi (Joyce) and me. Sometimes he’s dancing around a bit with a few proverbial ants in his pants. Always ready to help deliver collection plates and break bread. Each week after we break the bread, as I pray the remaining words of the eucharistic prayer, Henry happily snacks on the crumbs that have fallen from our communal loaf. Tiny pieces of crust, gathered in the most reverent three-almost-four-year-old way, delicately placed in his mouth as if no one were the wiser. Tasted with, as far as I can tell, total joy.
Honestly? It might be the best part of the whole entire Sunday morning for me. Here is this human, right there at the table, relaxed and 
enjoying a snack while we pray. Not particularly phased by the scene, just…present. What might worship be like for all of us, if we were able to enter that fully, simply gathered around table just as we are, all the time? Isn’t this just exactly what we’re all invited into for weekly nourishment? Maybe crusty crumbs isn’t quite what you have in mind when you think of what brings you joy and relaxation at table, maybe you’re more of a sip from the cup kinda person. But the concept is the same— to simply be present in the joy of what is and revel in just that. And, I can’t help but notice how much more joy ripples out to everyone around Henry, just because of his simply being himself in these moments. He’s doing his own version of putting his hand to the plow and being very fit for the kingdom of God. And look just how quickly that joyful kingdom of God spreads to the rest of the room in response! How powerful we Christians can be, when we are able to choose to just be there at the table in our joy, not too phased, just relaxed and enjoying a meal among one another— and then allowing that to radiate outward into the world.
Luke’s Gospel reminds us not to live looking backward—not because memory isn’t sacred, but because the kingdom of God is here. And we can miss it entirely if we keep our eyes set on the “what has been” and the “what was.” Every one of us is fit for the kingdom. Not because any one of us has figured everything out, but because we can trust that the finite in life carries the infinite. God is here with us, beckoning us toward rest and joyful being—even in the smallest, most ordinary ways from the smallest most ordinary places—especially in breadcrumbs picked up from the altar.
-Intern Pr. Sam