Pentecost 11

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
The Reverend Martha Frances
Year B, Pentecost 11, Proper 15

20 August 2006

Text: John 6: 53-59
Other Readings: Proverbs 9: 1-6; Psalm 34: 9-14; Ephesians 5: 15-20

When I was a little girl, we traveled from wherever we lived to my mother’s family home for Thanksgiving. Leaving after school on Wednesday, we drove until far into the night, but when we left Ft. Worth, my sister & I started watching the eastern skyline ahead of us for the illuminated figure of Pegasus atop the Magnolia building in downtown “Big D.” We each wanted to be first to see Dallas, & Dad was always relieved that we quit asking him “How much further?”

Then came the Thanksgiving feast. As you might guess, the women in my family have always been good cooks. They left nothing off the menu for Thanksgiving: turkey & cornbread dressing, candied yams & green beans & jello salad, & more desserts than could go on one table. As the oldest grandchild, I was the first of my generation allowed to eat at the “big people table” in the dining room, taking great pleasure in bragging to my cousins. Various relatives came from afar; I’ll never forget the year the St. Louis aunts graced our table. Family stories were almost as exciting as the food at holiday meals. At that table, I first heard my great-grandmother recall the train ride to Dallas from Missouri with my own grandmother & great aunt when she was befriended by the famous outlaw Frank James!

We all have tales of special meals, don’t we? Perhaps your favorite was your 5^th birthday, or like another of mine, my granddaughter Amelia’s first one. One of the lynchpins of our ministry at Lord of the Streets is the Sunday morning breakfast after the Eucharist—a hot breakfast for 250 or so homeless people served to them at table where they can fellowship with one another. For many homeless, Sunday breakfast is their one meal each week served at table—festive in itself.

Hospitality is a basic Jewish as well as Christian value, & our lesson from Proverbs today presents Lady Wisdom as a hostess preparing meat & drink & setting her table. Then from atop the town hall, she invites the poor—the common people—to feast with her. She offers, “Come, eat of my bread & drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, & life, & walk in the way of insight.” Even Abraham killed the fatted calf to provide for the strangers at his tent. Sharing a festive meal is at the heart of developing community. None of us should be surprised that the primary repeatable sacrament of the Christian Church is a sacred meal. Each Sunday we make Eucharist together around the altar table, preparing & offering the bread & wine of Holy Communion for all to receive.

The 6^th chapter of John which has been our gospel text for the past several weeks shows Jesus personalizing the celebratory meal, shocking the Jewish community by telling them when they consume the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, they actually eat his flesh & drink his blood. The Jewish people to whom Jesus spoke must have been scandalized when he said, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man & drink his blood, you have no life in you.” After all, ever since Moses, they had drained the blood from their meat before cooking it. That they were actually to drink the wine Jesus claimed was his blood must have been hard to swallow, literally!

But our eating of the body & drinking the blood of Christ in a sacred meal is exactly the point, Jesus is saying. The power of Jesus’ incarnation is that Jesus actually came to earth as a human being, fully human as well as fully divine, to live among us earthlings, to invite us to fulfill our lives as God created us to do, as God’s children—brothers & sisters of each other as well as of Jesus. Jesus says here that his flesh is true food & his blood is true drink, so those who consume this sacred meal abide in him.

What does it mean, to “abide” with Jesus? To abide is to trust without wavering, not having to have reassurance. And the marvelous gift which Jesus offers is that he abides with those of us who eat & drink at this table. Jesus Christ, the ruler of the universe, lives within those of us who commune with him & each other. How extraordinary! How enriching, once we wrap our minds around that wonderful gift which Jesus offers.

How long has it been since you have really meditated on the idea that Jesus wants to hang out with us, even those of us who aren’t bigwigs in the world? Who did Jesus hang out with during his earthly lifetime? Yes, he got to know some important people like Nicodemus, but most of the time, he hung with fishermen & tax collectors & people whom he healed from paralysis & leprosy & other diseases which made the “nice” people avoid them. Jesus told those who criticized the quality of his friends that those who are well have no need of a doctor. Jesus sat down & told stories with common folk like you & me.

You know what else? Jesus still wants to hang out with us. Jesus told his disciples, near the end of his life according to John’s gospel again, that one reason he had to die was so the comforter, the Holy Spirit, could come & be with them but also be with those precious to Jesus far beyond his earthly lifetime. And because we are physical human beings who need to see & hear & touch & taste, Jesus provided an astounding ritual which is at the same time very ordinary, & he told us to perform this ritual every time we could. So we come to this altar table every Sunday & on Wednesday evenings in this beautiful worship space to commune with Jesus & with each other.

Of course, I respect the wishes of parents who prefer for their children to wait until they are older to receive the Eucharist. I prefer, however, that children never remember a time when they were not fed at Jesus’ table. Just as they do not have to understand the digestive system to be fed earthly food, there is also true grace in their being nurtured spiritually as soon as they are baptized. Baptism is full initiation into the body of Christ for all of us, no exceptions.

The ordinariness is that we’re eating a meal together, a festive meal just like the Thanksgivings I remember from my childhood. What’s absolutely amazing is that somehow, in ways none of us fully understand, Jesus is present in this meal, so present that we can taste & see Christ’s goodness as we eat the bread & drink the wine. In the Episcopal Church, we don’t have to explain HOW Jesus gets into the bread & wine. We call the method a mystery, content with believing that since Jesus tells us whoever eats him abides in him, we don’t have to explain the mystery.

Jesus’ Jewish ancestors had presented fruit & vegetable & animal sacrifices to God in their worship, but Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross effectively fulfilled the sacrificial system. Christians have always believed that Jesus made the one holy & living sacrifice & that we are called to make only a sacrifice of praise & thanksgiving here at the altar in order to intermingle with Jesus & have Christ live in us. We’re called to eat & drink with Jesus so we may go forth from here transformed people to live as new creations in the world & to invite others to this marvelous feast & the way of life it typifies.

Some have misused this scripture to indicate that Jesus separates us into the saved & unsaved, but Jesus performed the ultimate sacrifice for ALL of us & invites us ALL to the table. We may choose to respond to the invitation or not to respond, but Jesus hasn’t left any of us behind; God’s love doesn’t have limits. A lot is made in some circles of the importance of each person’s accepting Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior. Some individuals & churches are pretty intent on giving us the formula for that salvation event & then hint or proclaim outright that their chosen method is the only way. What arrogance to limit the God of the Universe to only one set formula or experience!

Barbara Crafton in her on-line meditation this week helped me in verbalizing the short-sightedness of such an approach. She says, “I may engage a personal shopper or a personal trainer or a personal assistant, but I don’t have a personal savior. I have the same one everyone else has, & I have him by virtue of having been created through him. My salvation is my return to him, from the midst of the worst muck-ups into which I can stumble. It is not my reward for good behavior or for having the right answer when someone asked me a question about him.” Certainly, our ever-growing & maturing relationship with God through Jesus Christ is a life-long journey we travel in concert with a community of faith, & our personal prayer & meditation time allows us access to the on-going process of sanctification, but Jesus offers & even urges us all to respond to an inclusive invitation.

How many of us, at sometime in our lives, at least, hold back our response because we’re scared of what kind of new creation Jesus expects us to be? What would it mean if you really let go & gave yourself fully to Christ? How would your life have to change, not in order to earn Christ’s salvation—that’s already been won for you. All you have to do is accept it, nourish yourself with Christ’s gift of body & blood, & ACT redeemed.

Perhaps we’re just a little afraid of who we’ll become if we get fully infected with this Jesus bug. Lady Wisdom tells us to lay aside immaturity & live, walking in the way of insight. Many avoid growing into maturity as Christians so they don’t have to take responsibility for living as grown-up Christians.

Grown-ups need regular nourishment, & this sacramental table offers us the best—Jesus’ body & blood. When we come to the banquet table, we risk continual conversion, for that is what it is. Those of us who have thrown in our lot with Jesus must be vulnerable enough to listen in our hearts to what Christ would have us do with our lives. Regardless of where you are on this Christian journey, as you receive Christ’s Holy Communion this day & from now on, may you experience the deep & abiding love Jesus has for you, just the way you are. May you also hear Jesus’ call to take a chance on him, to commit to grow into the person Jesus created you to be. May we all risk becoming the community which fulfills God’s hope for us.