Sunday, May 26, 2013

Earwig in the Chalice

This morning I woke up thinking that my challenge for the day would be preaching a sermon on the Holy Trinity.  It's not an easy topic, and I mostly dodged it.  My theology teacher, Ellen Wondra, used to say, "You can't appeal to mystery until the last 15 minutes of class."  By saying that, we were forced to wrestle with complex theology instead of just throwing up our hands and saying "It's a mystery."  I'm glad she didn't hear my sermon today.  Since I preach for less than 15 minutes, I appealed to mystery at the beginning of my sermon!

After the sermon was over, I thought I would be home free.  Indeed, everything was going smoothly until after the Eucharistic Prayer had ended.  A Eucharistic minister handed me the second chalice.  I lifted up the purificator, and lo and behold!  An earwig was scurrying about in the bottom of the chalice.  I give grateful thanks that I did not drop the chalice, as I am not one of those people who are fascinated with insects.  My usual response is to scream and shake vigorously, hoping that the creatures will be dislodged from my person or whatever object is near me.  And earwigs are kind of like scorpions.  They're just so prehistoric looking! 

So, I gave in to my natural impulse and stepped away from the altar, turned my back, and shook the chalice upside down, trying to fling the little critter into the air.  When I peered in, he was still there, now at the edge.  So I took the purificator and knocked him down the altar steps, moved back to the altar and used the purificator to wipe out the inside of the chalice.  In the hope that alcohol kills all germs and any other insect residue, I poured the wine in.  I'm sure this all happened in less than a minute, but it felt like a one act play to me. 

Some things are mysteries and not to be explained.  The Holy Trinity is one.  Much less complicated is the mystery of the earwig in the chalice.  I'm not going to try to solve it.  I'm just going to appreciate God's crazy sense of humor and enjoy having another story to tell.

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