Most
gracious and life-giving God, call us to your table, let us sit as friends of
each other and friends of you. Let us
ponder anew what we learn and cherish when we gather to experience the taste
and feel of your everlasting goodness.
Amen
We’re not too far past the holiday
season of 2013 and lots of people hosted big dinners and parties. I ran into a grandmother who wanted to tell
me how bright her grand-daughter was.
The grand-daughter’s mother, grandma’s daughter, was putting on a dinner
for about 30 people. When all sat down
to the over-loaded table, mom thought it would be great if six-year-old Amanda
said grace. Now, Amanda was not so sure
about this, and asked her mother what she should say. Mom says, “you’ll be fine, just pray what
you’ve heard me say”. Amanda makes a
great show of getting ready, putting her feet in the chair, putting them down,
making sure her hair was in place, and checking all the buttons on her
blouse. Finally, just as mom was getting
ready to say, “hurry up!” Amanda clears her throat and says, “Good God, what
was I thinking, inviting all these people to dinner? Aaa-men”.
Suffice it to say that the pious were left to finish their own prayers
while most everyone else quietly giggled hoping that Amanda was not going to
get in trouble. Mom hurried off to check
the status of the gravy. Grandma is
still laughing!
We’ve been talking about ‘bread’ for
the last two weeks and today we’re taking up the epitome of sacred bread—the
bread used at God’s table, the communion table.
I tried, I really did, to find a nicely laid out chart of what every
denomination or branch of Christianity believes about Communion, the Lord’s
Supper, or the Eucharist. The estimates
of the number of denominations with varying beliefs about communion and other
tenets is staggering. So, while I
contemplated it, don’t worry, I won’t review all those differences. It does cause me to wonder how aware we are
of what this act means to many of us and why it still seems to be a point of
contention between the denominations, and especially between Catholicism and
Protestantism. Just as interesting to me
are some of the ‘conflicts’ we’ve had in this church already around one of only
two sacraments when we already have no real clue each Sunday what people are
thinking as they partake or not.
Let’s go back and take a better look
at the meaning of bread in the Gospel story.
I included the first reference to bread because it shows what Jesus
thought about bread and the importance of it.
Right after Jesus is baptized by John the Baptizer, he goes to the
desert to be tested for his ministry.
This wasn’t one of those multiple choice tests, or fill in the blank—this
was a life and death test with questions put to Jesus by none other than Satan
himself. I prefer to think of these
tests as struggles, issues that he had to resolve before he could begin his
public ministry, but since the Old Testament spoke of the forces of evil as an
actual person, aka Satan, the Devil, Beelzebub, etc. we won’t spend too much
time on exactly how the test was administered; and, instead look at the first
test as it concerns bread. Now, Jesus
was hungry. He had been fasting for 40
days and his desert time was drawing to a close. He was really hungry. Let me be clear—he was really, really
hungry. So, up walks the Evil One, who
takes advantage of his hunger and taunts Jesus.
“Since
you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.” Now, we’ve established that Jesus was hungry. The logical thing—and we would have all
forgiven him if he had done it—was to turn the stone into bread. But, Jesus wants to show us something
important, so he quotes the Old Testament Law to Satan: “It takes more than bread to really live.” Jesus sets the stage for the rest of his
teachings that day when he allows us to see that there are more important
things than satisfying our wants and desires—no matter how valid they might
be.
Secondly, we hear the actual story
of the last time Jesus ate bread before he was killed. You hear me tell the story every Sunday, I
know most of you know it by heart. This
story, more than anything, gives us a concrete, physical way to remember what
it was like to sit at table with Jesus—to listen to him teach and ponder the
hard questions that sometimes come our way.
Finally, we have the story of the travelers on the road to Emmaus. Even though neither one of the travelers
recognized Jesus walking along the road with them, he did the one thing that
would refresh their memories. He blessed
and broke bread. Suddenly, the memory is
clear and they know exactly who he is.
But, quickly, he is gone.
Blessing and breaking bread is a
holy act. I sometimes wish that we could
spend more of the service in the act of coming to the table. But, time rushes on; and, too many times, we
are hurrying to get through the actions of communion so that we can get to a
very different kind of table—you know what I mean? But, just for a moment, let’s pretend we have
all the time in the world. I really like
what the author of our middle ready says about communion. John Hicks speaks of the Lord’s Supper as a
covenantal act. God gives gifts to us,
we return them and we celebrate this covenant of mutuality by observing the one
act—the only ritual—that Jesus asked us to do in his memory. Jesus is the New Covenant with God’s chosen
people. The people of Israel had
forgotten AGAIN what it looked like to follow God’s will. Jesus sealed the covenant between God’s
creation and God by saying, “Here, this is what it looks like—this loving your
neighbor, this turning the world upside down, this loving your enemy, this
taking care of those who need your care”.
I think Jesus chose this ritual of re-enacting a meal because it is the
ultimate description of the new world of the new covenant. At the table, we are all the same; all
hungry, all looking for something more.
The ‘food and drink’ is all the same.
God’s Table is the great equalizer.
There’s no wine list for those who can afford the better stuff and the
filet mignon and hamburger folks all eat the same crust of bread. This, my friends, is what Jesus was
about. We eat and drink together and we commit
ourselves to what the supper embodies—the Gospel and God’s enduring love. We are grateful. We are committed again to each other and to
God. We are sitting in the presence of
God being served by God and learning what it means to be servants. When this happens, we encounter the sacred;
we see God. And we see each other as God
sees us, united in love, each standing for the other.
Paul says a similar thing in his
letter. “Because there is one loaf, our many-ness
becomes one-ness—Christ doesn’t become fragmented in us. Rather, we become unified
in him.” God invites us to make this
sacred meal, our meal; this divine table, our table. And in that invitation, comes the covenant
that we are all equal around the table.
Now I want to tell you how I think this applies to where our church is
headed. We are all in this together;
that’s why you have been invited to the small gatherings. I’m glad that so many of you have taken
advantage of them. I hope all of you
will. When we sit and discuss the
campaign and all that God is calling us to do, all are welcome to speak, whether
or not you believe that this is the next step God wills us to take. Discernment belongs to the group and we are
all involved. There are many ways to
ascertain God’s will. The invitation to
participate in whatever way you are able is identical to inviting us all as we
are to the table.
We are a church; and, as such, we
are in covenant with God and with one another.
There may have been misunderstandings along the way. All of us, your pastor and Board included are
ordinary people. We get distracted or
overwhelmed with the work that God calls us to do. We, all of us, have feelings, perceptions,
and, sometimes, we just don’t listen to each other. In other words, we take our eyes off the
source of all our energy and power. And,
sadly, sometimes when we do the covenant gets shaky. That is one of the purposes of a Capital
Campaign—to enable all of us to refocus on the question that God is
asking. We will not all answer it the
same; it would be weird if we did.
However, as a covenantal community, we owe it to each other to listen
and listen well. All of us to all of us;
until the voice of God is heard among us, between us and within us.
We are more than half-way through
this focused time of discernment; although, we will always be in discernment
with God for the next steps in the journey.
Today, when you hear the invitation to the table, know that the
invitation is especially for you. No
matter where you are in your spiritual life or your involvement in the
community. This is your opportunity to
commit to the covenant we share. Does
that commitment mean money? For some, it
does; and, for some, it does not. But we
discern together, we celebrate together, and we love together. This is the will of God. This is the call to our hearts. Amen and amen.
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