The Gardener

I am puzzled as to why Christians who receive Holy Communion, make a big deal out of it, but practically ignore their neighbor sitting in the pew or chair in church.  Look at the scene in the cemetery garden where Mary Magdalen is weeping tears of love for her dead friend.  She looks up and sees what?  A gardener is what she sees.  It is the risen Jesus, but I guess he looks pretty ordinary even if he is risen.  He speaks her name with love.  Now her love connects with his love and she sees more than the ordinary gardener.  The point?  The ordinary is never ordinary.  Those Christians sitting together in their church chairs or pews are all "shining like the sun."  They are God-filled, but all the attention is on the host they just consumed.  The host is like Jesus in the garden, risen in all the fullness of God. It looks ordinary, but it is not.  It is supposed to awaken our love and insight into the beauty of one another, that we might reverence the sacredness in one another, maybe speak a word of recognition or welcome.  Alas, it is more like grocery shopping.  Everyone is individually shopping for the food of their own eternal salvation, a place in heaven.  They are doing fine individually loving their God, but they forgot that the wisdom saying was, "Love God and neighbor."