Today's Sermon

 

“A Place at the Table”

           

         Last Sunday, someone said to me, “Weren’t we supposed to have communion today.” I had this moment of panic, but we quickly figured out they thought it was December first. Whew! You can’t miss something so important as communion. I still remember the day in seminary where we had to get up and offer the words of institution, what you say when you before you break the bread and pour the cup at communion, and don’t get me started on pouring the cup. I was so nervous.

         The table occupies a central place in our tradition. Those of you who have come from an Episcopal or Catholic background know it’s the heart of every worship service. In scripture, from animal sacrifice to Jesus eating with outcasts, from debates about rules around eating to the last supper, even prophetic imagery of a coming just kingdom, heaven and earth collapsing into one is expressed in table imagery. Across every culture, there are rituals, rich with symbolism, that feature eating. We punctuate most major life events with a meal. Breaking bread is a symbol of making peace, the subject of the second Advent candle. That we have to take in food and drink so frequently is a reminder of our vulnerability and creatureliness. It connects us.

         In a few moments, I’ll offer now well-committed to heart words drawing on Luke 13:29, “They shall come from north and south and east and west to sit together at the table in the kingdom of God.” The context of that passage is Jesus offering judgment for those who posture but do not truly follow the way of righteousness. These hypocrites will be thrown out, while everyone else will stream in to enjoy a great banquet. We approach the communion table as a foretaste of the kingdom to come.

         This Advent, the time leading up to Christmas, we are playing with the image of being the inn in the Christmas story. We are getting ready to welcome the divine into our space. Last week we spoke of making room by doing some clearing out. Today we consider the kind of meal we could put on. Every good inn needs a good dining area.  

           Our first reading echoes the image from Luke of people gathering from the four directions. It comes from a book called Baruch which is in what’s called the Apocrypha, books that appear in some Christians’ Bibles but not others. We use it here for how it builds off last week’s theme of looking to God for our measure of justice or righteousness. Hear these words from the fifth chapter: 

5 Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
    and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
2 Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
    put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting,
3 for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven,
4 for God will give you evermore the name,
    “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory.”
5 Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
    look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
    at the word of the Holy One,
    rejoicing that God has remembered them (Baruch 5:1-5). 

          “Righteous Peace” The order matters. Often the impulse is to say everyone just needs to get together. Make peace. Here the implication is that we get to peace only through justice. Without addressing wrongs, any other coming together is liable to be forced and fleeting. Try forcing a family to be together at Thanksgiving that hasn’t worked through its painful issues. You’re lucky to last the meal, and if you do the visit, but even then, surely your visit can only be short before the hurts need to be addressed. Righteous peace requires truth-telling, accountability, an attempt at repair, and only then can a meaningful and lasting peace settle in. “Just come together” is no replacement for justly coming together. The same goes for our societal tensions and global conflicts. We can’t make things better without actually making things better. At our inn, if we just plop people down at the table together, we’re just as likely to get a food fight, or someone storming off, as we are anything that resembles communion. Incidentally eucharist, the Greek derivative for communion just means, fittingly, “thanksgiving.”

         Making for a pleasant Thanksgiving is, of course, easier said than done. Various parties have different versions of what has happened between people, of the parts people played, who has been wronged, and how, who has what kind of power in the situation, and what is to be done.

         The Apostle Paul wrote a lot to people struggling with real tensions, not so different from ours. Some of his writings directly address meal tensions around communion. Their communions could be daylong feasts rather than squares of bread dipped in juice. Paul knew the meal had to reflect the justice it was supposed to represent and foretell. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11:17-24, he had to correct a practice whereby the wealthy would gorge on all the good food and wine before the laborers could finish the day’s work. They arrived to find table scraps and dregs, not a fitting reflection of the egalitarian vision of the kingdom on which the church was founded. If anything, beyond equal, the lowly are lifted above the powerful. It is right after talking about people coming from east and west and north and south to God’s great banquet that Jesus utters, “some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30).

           Elsewhere, as Paul tries to encourage people in their striving for righteousness. He writes to the Philippians,

9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9-11).

Knowledge and wisdom, the ability to “determine what really matters.” Isn’t that the secret to life? After the service last week, someone summarized my sermon in one sentence: “Clean out the garage so you can spend more time in the living room.” Not bad. This week, maybe it can be even briefer “Have some manners,” and by that I don’t mean decorum as much remembering the vision and the invitation list is based on righteousness or justice your lived out values.

         Once you determine what really matters, then you can work toward a just peace no matter the scale. It’s okay to go to the mat on what really matters, take your stand, because you’ll have clarity and peace with what comes, even if another’s reaction is disappointing. That is actually what makes the table safe for others. Have you ever had that feeling of relief when the bully is kept away? I truly believe Jesus is radically inclusive, so I’m not here to scare anyone into thinking they aren’t welcome, but let us remember Jesus does not welcome every behavior or affirm every choice or perspective. As I’m told my predecessor was known to say, “All people are equal. All movements are not.” That is good news for those committed to righteousness.

         What kind of table would we set for the holy family, tired from their journey, living somewhat on the edges of society, one forced to register with the state. The question is not only will the food be warm, but will the room be safe from threat as they eat. Will the father be able to provide for his family even though their situation has earned them shame from their own people? Will the pregnant woman be able to take a load off in peace? Will the child be allowed to come in time?

         We were supposed to have communion today? At the inn, communion is every meal. Time to set the table.

         Amen.