April 2024

I have been thinking today about the sacrament of brownies…..

     When I was a girl I was required each week to memorize parts of the Lutheran Catechism before my confirmation in the church. The catechism had long passages full of big words and big ideas which I guess might be inevitable when humans try to distill the mysteries of God and faith down into words that they can make children memorize. To be honest, all those many passages I learned and recited every week to get my check mark are long gone from my memory. 

     The dull and dry church of my childhood did not have great preaching or great music or great prayers. But, God always makes God’s own heart known and so I did carry from that place real and true experiences of the One who made me and loves me. I carried away years of singing the liturgy and hymns and all those beautiful words of the Bible set to music that are carried still in my heart after all these years. I carried away the Bible stories told in months of Sundays. And probably more than anything, I carried away the kindness of church ladies who loved me, who were happy to see me and who made a great party for me when I won a large denominational scholarship to college.

    And this brings me to brownies! Over the past thirty-five years, I have baked countless pans of brownies. For some reason, brownies, more than any other baked good, became the means of grace at my house.  On Easter weekend Chris was driving the boys over here for church and as usual, somebody in the van says, ”Do you think Lisa is making brownies?” They have to come expect and to hope for brownies. And over all these years, I have come to believe that brownies are a sacrament here, perhaps not equal to bread and wine or water and blessing, but a sacrament, a MEANS of GRACE, nonetheless. 

     Every single pan of brownies carries with it these kinds of messages– I see you. I love you. I missed you. I was looking forward to being with you. I made something just for you. Those messages are straight from the heart of God. For me, for them, for us together. I was taught long ago that the sacraments like baptism and communion were the means of grace through which we could physically partake of some intangible spiritual reality that God would impart to us. And so, just as I carry the grace imparted to me through the love of the church ladies of my childhood, I pray God may be alive in me and in my love also.

     I carry yet another pan of brownies, warm and cut, to our basement gathering room and just like every priest and pastor before me, I bless them and offer them as a means of grace that each boy will experience that message from God that they are seen, that they are known, that they are waited for, longed after. That they are loved.