Chew On This!
Proper 14B-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
Jesus climbed a mountain and sat with the disciples. He looked and saw a large crowd following them. He bid them to sit down. (John 6:3) They were people of every nation, station, and denomination. There, beside Jesus, was Matthew the tax collector who once made a living working with the occupying Roman army. Nearby by was Simon the Zealot, who had once conspired for the violent overthrow of Rome. These political opposites sat together. Red and blue united in communion with Jesus. The gospel is political, but it must never be partisan.
Perhaps, there were others you might recognize, like the man once called the Gerasene demoniac, or, the leper who returned to say thanks, or the woman healed of a hemorrhage she had suffered for twelve years. The Samaritan woman could have been there, as could Jairus the synagogue leader, or maybe even Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, along with Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, Salome, and the other Mary’s who had supported Jesus’ ministry financially.
Many who shared the feast were deeply, personally connected to Jesus. Most were probably there because they were hungry, or because they were curious to see someone famous. Whatever their reasons, it didn’t matter. They gathered around Jesus. People of faith, and of no faith, and of different faiths. Yet each found welcome. Each person was fed. As it was then, so it is now. Whatever your background, regardless of your doubts and questions, you are welcome in this community of faith…and you are invited to the Lord’s table.
Jesus often taught from the table. In this way Jesus teaches us what family means. He was criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:10-11, for example); others judged him for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or for eating with Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36-50, 11: 37-54, 14:1). He welcomed them all, even Judas. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a bad reputation at a men’s-only dinner (Luke 7:36-37), and he invited himself over to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1-10). Jesus broke the rules, always making a bigger table, a wider circle.
Sadly, over time, as The Way of Jesus came to be called Christianity, and as Christianity later became Christendom, communion stopped being an inclusive meal and became a way to separate people into groups of insiders and outsiders—just the opposite of Jesus’ intention! Jesus continually interpreted the Law of Holiness from the Hebrew bible in terms of the God whom he has encountered—and that God is always compassion and mercy. Instead, over time, Christendom emphasized the priest as the “transformer” instead of the people as the transformed.
Each of the Sacraments is a reliable means to receive God’s abundant grace. One Sacrament need not precede the other but each leads naturally to the other. The baptized naturally find their place at the Lord’s table. Others who first find welcome at the Lord’s table will then discover their full humanity in the living waters of God.
This is what the kingdom of God looks like. This is what Eucharist means. Seated en-masse on the mountain was the New Jerusalem. This is what Jesus taught us to pray. In God’s economy everyone receives their daily bread. Lord, give us—all of us, this very day—our daily bread, the bread that is you, the bread that in our lives can become nourishment for all!
The simplicity of this prayer that Jesus gave us can distract us from its wisdom and its challenge. At its heart is what Walter Brueggemann contends is God’s alternate food policy. The hungry are fed. The thirsty find drink. And yet, Communion is about more than the Recommended Daily Allowances of nutrients we need for good health. It is also about the discipline of the manna economy.
God provided manna in the wilderness. God said, “Each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day…. Gather as much of it as each of you needs…[and] let no one leave any of it over until morning” (Exodus 16:4-19). The daily bread of communion is an invitation to embrace the discipline of simplicity, of just enough, and of radical trust in God’s abundance. (Cathy C. Campbell, Sojourners Magazine, author of Stations of the Banquet: Faith Foundations for Food Justice.)
Jesus is the bread of life. My grandma Lois once taught me never to shop for groceries on an empty stomach. You’ll end up spending more on junk food that does not truly satisfy. Our most famished cravings do not fit in a grocery cart. We have a famished craving because we partake of the bread of death that only makes us hungrier and hungrier until we are exhausted. Jesus is the bread of life. The bread fills you up. It won’t let you down. It really sticks to your ribs because it is made with love and truly, it is love.
You may have heard the Latin phrase, made famous by the 17th century philosopher, René Descartes, cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am). Years ago, William Sloan Coffin, the chaplain at Yale University, suggested a subversive counter proposal which he thought truer to real life: “that it’s amo ergo sum (I love, therefore I am).” This Latin phrase, came from the title of a book in German by Christina Kessler, which can be translated to make the point more radical: “I am because I love.” Or as the farmer-poet Wendell Berry put it, ‘I only live to the extent that I love.’
The love of God which we call grace is the bread of life present always and everywhere. Taste it here at the Lord’s Table. Chew on it and meditate upon it, so that you may better see and greet Christ in your neighbor and become the food that nourishes the soul.
At the Iona Abbey, on an obscure island off the coast of a narrow peninsula in Scotland, where Christianity thrived for hundreds of years throughout the Dark Ages of Europe, the invitation to eucharist is phrased this way:
The table of bread and wine is now to be made ready. It is the table of the company of Jesus, and all who love him. It is the table of sharing with the poor of the world, with whom Jesus identified himself. It is the table of communion with the earth, in which Christ became incarnate. So, come to this table, you who have much faith and you who would like to have more; you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time; you who have tried to follow Jesus, and you who have failed; come. It is Christ who invites us to meet him here. (Iona Abbey Worship Book (Wild Goose Publications: 2001)
