World Communion and Peacemaking
2 Tim. 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10
Today is world communion Sunday and peacemaking
Sunday. It is a day in which we focus on
the part of our call that is feeding each other, feeding the needy, feeding the
world. It is a day that we celebrate
that God is with us when we eat together and feed one another, because it is
God who is actually doing the feeding. Sarah
Miles, in her book Take this Bread, put
it this way, “it’s the really hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile
away. For those who know their need, God
is immediate – not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled
spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body.” That is what is offered in communion, in this
last supper, in the sacrament of this meal.
We are offered food, yes, but more we are offered life, we are offered God
God-self – God’s presence and care here in this meal. Sarah Miles continued, “What Jesus offered
was a radical…love that accompanied people in the most ordinary actions –
eating, drinking, walking, and stayed with them, through fear, even past
death.” She connects all of this with
Jesus’ call and command to Peter…She said, “I couldn’t stop thinking about
another (Biblical) story: Jesus instructing his beloved, fallible disciple
Peter exactly how to love him: ‘Feed my
sheep.’ Jesus asked, “Do you love
me?” Peter fussed, “Of course I love
you.’ “Feed my sheep.” Peter fussed some more. “Do you love me?” asked Jesus again. “Then feed my sheep.” It seemed pretty clear. If I wanted to see God, I could feed people.”
Sara Miles was actually converted to faith – she came to
know the living Christ through the experience to taking communion. When we read about Jesus feeding the 5000, my
guess is that this was the conversion moment for many of them as well. In the taking of food that God has given us,
the food of Christ, the body of the Word, we experience God. We are converted and reconverted to God. When we feed others, when we offer them the
bread of life, literally, we invite them to experience God as well. Sara walked into a church one day an atheist
on an anthropological mission to understand what people saw and experienced in
church. But she was invited to take
communion that day. She described her
experience this way. She wrote, “And then
we gathered around that table. And there
was more singing and standing, and someone was putting a piece of the fresh
crumbly bread in my hands, saying ‘the body of Christ,’ and handing me the
goblet of sweet wine, saying ‘the blood of Christ,’ and then something
outrageous and terrifying happened.
Jesus happened to me. I still
can’t explain my first communion. I was
in tears and physically unbalanced: I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb,
or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind. The disconnect between what I
thought was happening—I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else
say was happening—the piece of bread was the “body” of “Christ,” a patently
untrue, or at best metaphorical statement; and what I knew was happening—God,
named “Christ” or “Jesus,” was real, and in my mouth—utterly short-circuited my
ability to do anything but cry.... that impossible word, "Jesus,"
lodged in me like a crumb. I said it over and over to myself, as if repetition
would help me understand. I had no idea what it meant, I didn’t know what to do
with it. But it was realer than any thought of mine, or even any subjective
emotion: it was as real as the actual taste of the bread and the wine. And the
word was indisputably in my body now, as if I'd swallowed a radioactive pellet
that would outlive my own flesh." …(quote from book p.58 of Take this Bread).
Sara’s
belief in the meal, the feast of communion as an honest to goodness feeding of
people led Sara Miles to begin a soup kitchen in San Francisco that now feeds
thousands of people every week. Her soup
kitchen is based on her understanding of communion…volunteers and guests eat
together, commune together, with prayer, in a sacred space – in their sanctuary
because it is for her where communion should take place. It is a feast – and it is a feeding of the
thousands again and again. As such, it
has also become a place of conversion for many – a place of deep renewal and
recognition of Christ, of Jesus among them in the meal.
David Bailey wrote a
wonderful piece of music that echoes this understanding of communion. I’m going to read the words to you and invite
you to close your eyes and listen:
It was just another Sunday at the big
church down on main. He was just another homeless man, Big Joe was his name.
She was just a kitchen helper, Miss Betty mild and meek, who prepared the
sacred elements, every single week. Well
the prayers had all been said, the hymns had all been sung. The pastor set the table, invited everyone.
Big Joe heard the music, he took a step inside.
He saw a bunch of well dressed folks who looked like they were trying to
hide. He saw a man in fancy robes hold
up a loaf of bread, tear it into pieces.
And Big Joe thought he said, “All ye who are hungry…” Joe thought, “That’s me!” So he walked on down the aisle, hoping it was
free. Well the pastor looked uneasy, not sure what to do. But the usher held
the plate out and said “broken just for you.” Big Joe felt pretty lucky, then
they handed him some wine. The cups were pretty small but it tasted pretty fine
Then he said to the usher, “That
bread was good. Could I have a little more? Do you think I could?” Now the usher looked uneasy, looked a bit
confused. Then he said “I'm sorry
sir. That's not how this bread is used.”
Joe said “I'd like to talk to the master of this meal. I'd really like to know just exactly how he
feels. 'Cause up there on the table I can see it plain as day: You got a half a
loaf left over - you’re gonna throw that
away. Cause I got a bunch of friends –
they’re sleeping in the street - right outside your door and they could use a
bite to eat.” Well the ushers got to talking,
then began to shout. Then before you know it, a fight had broken out. Meanwhile miss Betty slipped away, to the
kitchen she did go, filled a basket up with bread. She brought it back to Joe. She said “Take this to your friends and you
come on back next week”. Joe said “As
you've done to them - you've done to me!” That's how it all got started at the
big church down on Main, where people come from miles away to break bread in
His name! Hallelujah!
When
Jesus began the last supper, he said, “I have eagerly desired to eat this
Passover with you before I suffer.” He
ate a real meal with his disciples. Yes,
it was a ritual, it was Passover, but it was a ritual meal – one where there was talking, laughter, sharing…not the
serious contemplative quiet taking of a tiny bite followed by an equally tiny
sip, but real and genuine fellowship and communion. He was eager to share in this meal with his
disciples, not only because he recognized that it would be his last Passover
meal in this realm with them, but also because of all that it meant to him to
eat with his disciples. It was
fellowship. It was food. It was community and deep communion. It was a teaching time in which he shared
with them that he would remain with them in this meal even beyond his death. It was an invitation to be in communion with
God. It was prayer. It was being together with Christ at every
level. We are called to do the
same. For me, coffee hour and the meals
we share – these are communion for us as the body of Christ. The times when we’ve eaten with homeless
families who are being served a meal, or when we’ve given lunches to kids or
provided food bags for those who need it – when we share food with those who
need it – this is the communion of Jesus feeding the 5000. And today we share in the meal with people
all over the world, celebrating Christ with one another, inviting the Word into
our bodies in a concrete, tangible, and real way, inviting a deeper
relationship with Christ and with one another.
Through
our need for food we are united. Through
our serving and eating with one another, we are united. Through our faith, we are united, but even
more than that, through our humanity we are one. Mitch Albom put it this way, (HALF 259) “God sings, we hum along, and there are many
melodies, but it’s all one song – one same, wonderful, human song.”
Albom
said in “The Five People you Meet in Heaven”,
“Strangers,….are just family you have yet to come to know.”
Strangers are just family we have yet to come to
know. And because of that, strangers
should be treated as family, too. I
think about what has happened this week, again, in Oregon. I think about the deaths and the
tragedy. We are all part of that
tragedy. While it is probable that none
of us was directly impacted by this shooting, we are all one. And because of that, the loss of those young
people is our loss as well. We must
stand with them. And we must try to
change things for ALL of us.
Standing
with one another around the world – standing by one another around the world
…that is another way to celebrate world communion Sunday. To be in fellowship together…to work together
to build something international – namely the body of Christ…to eat
together. That is world communion
Sunday. Standing up against injustice,
and standing with people in their pain, THAT is communion. That is what we do this day. As we prepare to take communion, I invite you
to remember our unity, to remember that Jesus fed anyone who came and invited
everyone to the table, to remember that we are Christ’s body – not just the
body of our respective churches – but the body of Christ: united in our love
for him and for God, united by this meal, united in our call to love all people
and to work for their healing and justice – this is communion. Amen.
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