For this series, I am offering a different kind of list of spiritual disciplines, a communal way of “training, not trying” that will encourage a shared spiritual life, a yoking to Christ through the body of Christ. In my sermon last Sunday, I launched this new series calling it, The Gentle Yoke: Spirituality for Stubborn Souls. Drawing from the imagery in Jesus invitation to take his “yoke” upon us and “learn” from him, for the remainder of this Lenten series, I will be exploring what it means to be yoked to Jesus. I am suggesting that to be yoked to Jesus today is to learn from the Spirit of Christ through the Body of Christ. It is to learn from the Spirit through the Word in communion.
Today, one more take on Showing up by "reading in communion."
“Daddy, do you understand everything about what we read in the Bible?” my eight-year-old daughter asked me. “Because I sure don’t.” I laughed aloud. “Oh no, Ali, I just know where to read so I can learn from those who do.”
Since New Year’s my family has been attempting to have a little Bible Study every time we sit down for dinner. One person reads a SHORT passage from the Bible (we are reading the book of James currently), another prays. Then we answer two questions: What does this mean? And What should we do about this? It’s simple enough. And often profound.
It has been a gratifying thing to have a Bible study as a family. But when we are sitting down for dinner and talking about a passage of the Bible, I sometimes envision us being surrounded by literally hundreds of Bible teachers, scholars and commentators. 
I think of us having this conversation about “loving our neighbors” and about treating the poor well with Henri Nouwen, John Calvin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, St. Augustine, or the Desert Fathers.
Of course, I don’t name drop in front of the kids. But really it’s all the dead people that I read that make me seem so smart. And of course, there are a lot of smart, godly, still living people who are also “there” through their writings. NT Wright, Richard Hays, John Stott, Dale Bruner….and the list goes on.
One of the reasons why I love to teach and preach the Bible is that it gives me an excuse to read the Bible with faithful saints of every time and place. I have been well-trained to do so with relative ease and that responsibility and calling is also one of my great joys. (It is also the reason why the “teaching office” of the church remains an integral part of “priesthood of all believers.”)
Many of us struggle with reading the Bible because we have never taken the time to read it with the great teachers of past and present. (And frankly many of our current inductive Bible studies and small groups become little more than collective pools of ignorance when we ignore the great teachers of the church.)
This Lenten season, consider taking some time to read the Bible with some dead (and living) people. Pick up an easy to read commentary and read for yourself. I wholeheartedly recommend NT (Tom) Wright’s “Bible for Everyone…” series (and the good bishop seems to be very much alive). 
Wright draws from and writes the very best in historical and scholarly commentaries and yet has the uncanny ability to bring that scholarship down to our “everyday” level. (When I grow up as a scholar, I want to be like him.)
Then bring what you’ve learned into a Bible discussion with your friends. Challenge your pastor with good questions, think and talk and post something on a blog. Enter the great on-going conversation about the Word of God and the world.
People will think you’re really smart.
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