Pizza During Prayer

I went to LaSalle Street Church tonight. Sitting in a cute basement with an oddball group of people ranging from 8 years old to 88, I sat with a room of strangers and read prayers.
I liked it — not that you could tell from my actual presence or statements, but I did.

It was a world away from the place in which I daily worship God. It was unlike my liturgical church which holds tightly to creeds but even further removed from my Bible-only school that reeks of the Baptist tradition, without ever openly declaring it.

Only a few blocks down, I walked in its heavy wooden door and stumbled upon a secret world of pseudo-evangelicalism. A place where prayers are written on post-its, yet people kneel for confession.

It was beautiful, different and thought-provoking. I plan to have a series about this evening, if I can find enough energy to blog amid the sea of papers I am avoiding. Tonight, I want to start with the first thing I learned, stumbling into the doorway of this quaint church for a celebration of liturgy and Shane Claiborne's new book, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals:


Danica and I stood in the back of the room, as forty people or so mingled over Diet Coke and cheese pizza. "Do you think this is it?" I asked, somehow expecting hipsters or hippies, but certainly not middle-aged 9 to 5-ers.

"Well, it said in the sanctuary on the tickets... do you think this is the sanctuary?"

Our confusion was obvious. Our lack of belonging even more so. Oreon, one of the many pastors within the church, came up to warmly greet us, asking us to grab some pizza and snag a chair to join in an evening of prayer.

She smiled and said, "And that's what we're going to do tonight: eat and pray. I think it says that somewhere in the Bible, that you are supposed to eat when you pray, right? I haven't found it yet, but I think its there somewhere."

She laughed at her own Bible joke, and I, uncomfortable with the incongruence of this place with my ideas of church, awkwardly commented about writing it in the margins of her bible.

I was in for a long night.

Halfway through the service, I realized what she said and what she missed: the Bible does say that we are to eat and pray. Its the Love Feast. Its the meeting of the New Testament church. It is what church is: eating and praying.

Acts 2:42,46-47 -- And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

The New Testament church had consistent potlucks: church was had around the table, sharing food together and praising God. This was their communion. In our communion, as we take the Eucharist, we are called to do the same thing — eat and pray:

Matthew 26:26 -- While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat. This is my body."

Take and Eat. For in doing so, we partake of Christ. Take and Eat. For in doing so, we join together for a common cause. We live as the united bride of Christ that we are.

Pizza and Prayer: it seems wrong to be munching on some greasy thin crust while singing to God that he is holy. And it might be.

But tonight, sitting in the basement, looking out at the snow covered branches in the park next door, with the candles lit for the Advent season, with a bearded man on a banjo playing Latin songs of praise, I savored this perfect slice of pesto pizza and praised God in the assembly of his believers.

In closing, a piece of the Saturday evening liturgy:
Lord, let your servant now rest in peace, for you have kept your promise. With my own eyes I see the salvation you prepared for all peoples, a light of revelation for the Gentiles and a glory to your people, Israel.