Sermon, 8/28/22. Banquets and Menus: Invitees and Seating Arrangement

12 Pentecost   

Psalm 81:1, 10–16; Jeremiah 2:4–13; Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16; Luke 14:1, 7–14

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  Luke 14:13

It would appear, if one thinks about it, that the people of biblical times had food on the brain, to paraphrase a mid-western saying from my childhood.  Think about it: the Bible is filled utterly from beginning to end, Old and New Testaments, with stories and images about food.  In the Creation Story the mythical Adam and Eve were given in their idyllic garden everything they needed for their physical nourishment.  In the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy we read of the Israelites who would enter a land of milk and honey. 

We recall the story in the Second Book of the Kings (2 Kings 27. 13f.) of the widow and her son who had so little to eat that, when a prophet of God seeks her hospitality, which according to custom would include an offer of food and drink, she responds “as the Lord Thy God lives, I have not a cake…” She informs him further, that she was preparing, for her young son and herself, those few remaining ounces of meal and those few tablespoons of oil as their last meal, so that they could eat, lie down, and die of starvation.  As the story unfolds, the prophet convinces her to make her last patty, but first to share it with him which she does, and as the story ends, because of her generosity, to the ends of her days, her container of meal and cruet oil were never ever again to run on empty. 

In the New Testament, there is that beautiful poetic expression of hospitality in St. Luke’s Gospel (Lk. 1.46 – 55) which gains its title “Magnificat” from the Latin that introduces it.  We know it also as “The Song of Mary,” which I noted just last week.  Mary sings, according to Luke:
He hath put down the mighty from their seat,/and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things,/and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Then there is the story of the fatted calf which was ordered slaughtered and prepared for the errant son, over the objection of the boy’s older brother who had remained home and served their father with devotion.  And, of course, we dare not forget the story of feeding 5000 men, plus women and children from a boy’s picnic lunch of fish and bread.

The stories and images, throughout the Bible, hint at God’s coming reign, when people will sit down and eat together at a great banquet.   They tell us about possible wardrobes of the kingdom and what garments we may expect to wear, e.g. crowns for our heads, shoes for our feet, and radiant garments around our bodies. The garments, though, are secondary.  One needs a garment only if one is going to a banquet, and the banquet is deemed acceptable and successful by the quality of the feast offered.  Food is front and center.  It is essential in sustaining us, physically.  It is central to us in good times and in bad times. 

What we eat and with whom we eat inform us, moreover, of the quality of life and of our rank in society.  When Jesus’ critics really tried to irritate or to diminish Jesus in the eyes of his followers, they called him a glutton, someone who would eat with anyone, anytime, almost anywhere.  And it is true.  Jesus broke all kinds of dietary rules, did not even require his disciples to wash their hands before eating.  He plucked even ears of corn on a Sabbath. 

Important, however, in the biblical stories and on those occasions when Jesus dined, is not what was eaten, but rather that they were gathered as a group or as a community.  As in our own day, many important conversations occurred around meals.  When Jesus wanted to show someone that he accepted him, he ate dinner at his home.  He called Levi the tax collector to follow him and then followed him home for a meal with his fellow tax collector friends.  When he met Zacchaeus, Jesus said, “Get down out of that Sycamore tree; I want to eat at your house.”

The Passover Seder, the Last Supper, which was observed in the upper room and which has become our own central act of worship, was the ultimate show of the centrality of food, of breaking and sharing bread as that element which brings people together.  But even before that final act in the Upper Room, when Jesus wanted to show his disciples just how deeply he loved them, how close they needed to be to him, he said: “I am the true food, I am the true drink.  Do you want to live?  I am the food that gives life.”   

In so doing, Christ’s words echoed the words of the Prophet Isaiah, who described God’s love: “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! …. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?  Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isa. 55.1 – 2)

At its core, the church is all about hospitality.  How do we prepare for and show that hospitality?  Everything that we do, how we have organized ourselves and our activities is to be providers of hospitality.  The titles Archbishop, Bishop, Priest, Deacon have value, if and only if, the bearer of the title forgets not that the office is to serve, to enhance hospitality.  The Church, followers of Jesus of Nazareth, has organized itself around eating.  Eating together seals our fellowship.  Our rhythm of worship is that we come to God’s table in this holy place every week, and often during the week.  In so doing, we remind ourselves that being fed by Christ is what sustains.  For one hour we set aside prepackaged food, the organically grown food, the genetically altered food of our everyday lives, in order to dine on the food of promise, of hope, of universal peace.  We remind ourselves that this meal, which we share ritually, week in and week out, is a banquet offered for the whole world.

And who is welcome at this table?  People from the Mediterranean, from Sub-Sahara Africa, from China, from the United States, from Scandinavian, from Sudan, from Ecuador and Honduras—financially well-to-do Christians, destitute Christians, doubters, seekers, non-believers, non-Christians who are curious about the message we want to share with them, people whose priests have been abusive and seek now healing, people whose prophets have been massacred, people whose social surroundings are in chaos or riddled with lack of attention to medical needs. 

Who is welcome at this table?  Those, whose water has been contaminated, whose homes and places of worship have been destroyed by fire, by typhoons, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and by sectarian, ethnic and racial violence.  Those who may have been downsized because of outsourcing or Covid, those who seek to regain a sense of security and dignity which they have lost or been taken from them. 

What we celebrate here on Sundays and during the week, in a stylized liturgical fashion, is a banquet where the seating arrangement is unimportant.  One does not have to make reservation in advance.  Those whom we welcome to the banquet, will find here the food of companionship.  They will discover or be reminded that to dine at this table is designed to transform the ordinary meals of our lives into communion, so that when we eat ordinary food this week—whether at home, in restaurants, in our automobiles, with friends, with diners at the noon-day soup kitchen—we will realize that Christ is present there also, and that tangible bread broken, and real drink poured, are all holy.  It has all been given us by the God who created us. 

As to what is on the menu at the banquet in the kingdom of God?  Frankly, I do not know and nor am I really concerned.  What should concern us all, i.e., where we should focus our attention and which should ground all offers of hospitality, is a phrase from the Lord’s Prayer: ‘On earth as in heaven.’  Heaven will take care of itself.  On this is where and who we are.  And this is where the God of the prophet Jeremiah would focus our attention.  The bread and wine give us the strength needed to carry on Christ’s work, to heal as he did and speak the words which he taught us, to make sure others have the food they need, daily.

And to those who ask, “and why do you at St. James do what you do?”, I offer you a response which the Book of Proverbs proclaims: “Let the seeker turn in here…. Come, eat the food I have prepared and taste the wine that I have spiced.  Abandon the company of simpletons, those who do not fear God, and you will live, you will advance in understanding.” For “the first step to wisdom is the fear of the Lord.”  (Prov. 9.4 – 6, 10)  Come!  Let us invite all to Christ’s banquet.  Amen