Sermon, 8/8/21: Our Diet and Table Etiquette

11 Pentecost

Psalm 130; II Samuel 18:5–9, 15, 31–33; Ephesians 4:25–5:2; John 6:35, 41–15

Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.  Ephesians 5:2

As people of faith, we Episcopalians are members of that larger body that we call the Christian family or the Church Universal, and as observant Episcopalians we gather at least once a week around a table, an altar, to share a meal.  As people of faith, it is, so I submit to you, appropriate that we, from time to time, have a family discussion about the meal that we share and what the proper table etiquette is.  What we do is so routine as to really not require a conversation.  After all, in our social lives, limited presently by a pandemic that seems not to want to leave us, when we are invited by family or friends to dinner, we dress appropriately for the occasion.  We try to be careful that we do not spill soup on our clothes, cause the wine glass to tip over, staining the tablecloth.  And when it is time to take our leave, we always thank our host, and if the occasion is really special, we send a note of thank. 

If you have been following closely the lectionary of these last several weeks, Jesus has been feeding people, satisfying their immediate physical hunger.  But then, as we recall from last week and hear today, he challenges his followers and everyone else within hearing range to think beyond their immediate condition.  He offers his followers and everyone else within hearing range a special menu.  He offers himself, his concept of living that, if followed, will satisfy two hungers: an inner, spiritual hunger and a physical hunger.  In jargon, ‘get right with God and you will get right with those around you.’  The symbol that he uses to illustrate that special relationship is bread, because bread is a staple of life.  But he complicates the matter by declaring that he is that staple, that he is the bread of life.

The literalists think water is water is water, but overlook that water takes many forms, ice being just one of them.  That he is the bread, is an assertion that causes distress for many who heard it then and, so I suspect, also for those who hear it in our day.  That one ancient declaration has thrown us also off balance, because it challenges us to reconsider our dietary habits that affect our daily wellbeing

I lay before you this morning three different measures with which we may clarify how one might prepare for the banquet that Jesus offers.:  1) a sticker on an automobile, which I read recently: “The world needs Jesus!  Let us help you find him.”  2) the pronouncement of Jesus himself as to what was on the menu and what its nutritional value is, and 3) the pronouncement from the Apostle Paul on how to show appreciation to the host of the banquet.

Measure one: The sticker read “The world needs Jesus!  Let us help you find him”:  I am not sure what the driver of that automobile had in mind with that sticker, because we were in our respective vehicles and I had no opportunity to engage him in conversation.  And I could have been accused of stalking him, had I followed him home for enlightenment.  Moreover, while he believed the world needs Jesus, I thought, given how he was driving, the man certainly needed Jesus to help him improve his driving skills and his manners.  Changing lanes at 75 miles per hour in a 55-mph zone on I93, without signaling, showed me just how urgent it was for sticker man to find Jesus.  He could ask Jesus who he meant by another pronouncement to love neighbor (on the highway) as self.  Perhaps, “just a little talk with Jesus” might teach him to refrain from putting others on the road at risk for physical harm.

As I continued to drive, with some concern for my own safety and that of others sharing the road with sticker man, I was relieved when he took the next exit ramp.  Then I thought: if I were to assume for a moment that Jesus were lost and needed to be found, where would be some of the likely places to look to find him?  Using the Book of Records, the Bible, as my guide, I know, there is the Jesus of the individual who admonishes us to retreat from our busyness in order to assess again that which is essential in life.  Then there is the Jesus who could be found mingling with the less fortunate, the sick, the poor, those on the periphery of polite society, but there is also the Jesus who mingled with the elites and power brokers, those who set policy.    

To be sure, Jesus did on occasion withdraw.  However, Jesus was never hiding out, lurking behind the pillars of the Temple in Jerusalem.  In fact, just the opposite was true, which made it easy for Mary and Joseph to find him when they thought that he, still a child, was lost. Our Book of Records certainly never describes him as being lost, not physically, not mentally, not spiritually!  Therefore, I must conclude Jesus is not some distant, elusive deity, and is most certainly not some philosophy that we can summarize in a bumper sticker.  Jesus is always there. 

Measure two: What is on the menu that Jesus offers?  John records: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (6:51)   In Bible-speak, Jesus offers himself.  But what does that really mean, since Jesus clearly did not anticipate a physical dissection or dismemberment of his physical body, to be distributed to his hearers, as were the two fish and five loaves of bread?  I submit to you the following. 

When I still wore full-time my academic garments, together with the assistance of members of the parish and volunteers from the community, I began an after-school enrichment program for those youngsters who, after numerous conversations with the principals of the two local elementary schools, were identified as possibly benefitting from such a program.  I had conversations with their parents who, before consenting, were invited to inspect our facilities in the undercroft of our collegiate parish and to meet the volunteers.

And, yes, we followed religiously every safe church guideline, every mandate placed by the school district for the safety of their pupils.  Finally, I insisted on having an interview with each youngster, with another adult present, to gauge the level of interest in our program, because it followed five days per week immediately after a full day of school.  In addition, to occupy the youngsters during summer months, we expanded our program into a vacation garden school, and it was through that program and what those often-rambunctious girls and boys brought to our program, that I saw real living examples of the bread that Jesus offered and offers still.

Calling in a favor from a colleague in the history department, I had the privilege of accompanying that group of eight or so girls and boys to the farm of another colleague who was in the education department.  Both colleagues were early proponent of calling attention to inequities in the distribution of the world’s food supply, of caring for the environment, and of caring for each other.  At that farm, our group of girls and boys were confronted with nature as nature happens, naturally.  Ours was a hands-on visit, providing what educational films on nature shown in school cannot.  Films about nature omit, by their very nature, an essential ingredient of nature.  Films are sanitized, literally lacking smell and a tactile reality.  On the special morning of our visit, animals in nature did as they normally do, not aware of the restrictions that we adults place on our world.  We adults did not try to contain our amusement, as the girls and boys pointed and squealed with laughter as they caught nature in the act and had to take care to walk around it or subsequently cleaning up, after walking in it.

What was instructive, however, was to watch these excited boys and girls learn not only about where food comes from, but from my colleague in history what it means to share, as she informed the girls and boys that produce from the farm went to supplement the diet of our local soup kitchen.  And when our host from the education department provided us lunch from items on his farm, he insisted that the boys and girls wash their hands, wait their turn and say ‘thank you’ and ‘please,’ these social graces that some of us take for granted.  In that 4-hour visit, I saw on earth an illustration of the biblical expression of the bread of life.  That lesson taught, without prior announcement and in the simplest of language, what we were taught in the gospel according to John.  And that instruction took place in real time and in a language for third and fourth graders that required no further translation. 

Measure three: How do we come to understand and to share that unique menu that Jesus offered to his earthly contemporaries, but which they misunderstood?  How do we show our thanks to the host who invites us to dine with him?    Hear again the words of the Apostle Paul: “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” (Ephesians 5:2)  These words are most often intoned as an offertory sentence.  But they carry a meaning far greater than to signal to the ushers to pass the offertory plate, something that Covid-19 and its variants prohibit currently. These words of Paul have a double function.  To “walk in love” expresses metaphorically washing our hands in preparation for the meal that Jesus offers.  At the same time, by “walking in love” after feasting at the banquet that Jesus offers, we demonstrate our thanks.

This sacred space that we call St. James reminds us of wholeness and wholesomeness.  Fellowship around the Lord’s Table, the altar, teaches us that we are all equal in God’s eyes. Tangible objects, the bread and the wine, show us that God offers us, individually and collectively, an opportunity for a personal, intimate relationship, but within community.  Familiarity may hide that basic truth:  But let not familiarity become an impediment to what Jesus offers us, when he offers himself as the bread of life.  In a few minutes we will pray together the Lord’s Prayer.  Think about it.  These words that Jesus taught us, begin with community.  We stand or kneel as individuals, yet we are not alone before the Creator God, but in community.  When Jesus prayed alone, and he did so often, he did not use the royal “We,” but cried “my father, my God.”  However, when he taught his disciples, the word was not “my father who art in heaven, but “our father.”

We maintain social distancing, our smiles are hidden behind masks, because so to do, is to acknowledge our love for our individual selves, as well as for each other.  We become one with each other, and we become one by sharing this banquet, to which we have been invited, with others, and above all, by reminding ourselves that God, not we, supply the water for the grapes on the vine and the grain.  The modern family may have lost much by letting soccer, overtime at work, and Headline News take over the dinner hour.  However, we, as Christians and in this sacred space, are charged to recall and to live out a different mandate.  In this holy place, we come prepared to share, to tell each other how our day has gone, and we come prepared to listen to others, as they tell their tale of encounter with Jesus who is not lost.  And, finally, always at the banquet, at mass, we remember those who hunger and invite them also to the table where the Bread of Life is offered.  Amen.