|
Back to Sermon Archives
April 30, 2006
John Auer, Pastor
Scripture: Acts 3:12-19, 1 John 3:1-3, Luke 24:36-48
“A Holy Communion: From Last Supper to First Breakfast!”
We really don’t know that this moment in Luke -- when the risen Jesus asks for
something to eat, and they give him a piece of broiled fish -- takes place at
breakfast! We do know from another resurrection appearance by the lake in
John’s gospel Jesus cooks breakfast along the shore for his fishermen friends.
Otherwise we pretty much always know it is Jesus eating off others, living off
others – including us! To this very day, Jesus is living off us!
Jesus is known in who we are, his body the church – in what we say, what we do,
how we bear witness, service, action in his name! Without us, how is Jesus
known today?
How is Jesus seen? Heard? Touched? Tasted? Smelled? Felt
very deeply at all? We are the ones who must prove today not to be any more
of a ghost, any more of an illusion, a mere appearance without substance, than Jesus
was then! We need to be able to say as well, Look at our hands! Look
at our feet! Look at our wounds, our suffering for what we believe! Touch
us and see – we are real!
Confirmation class went to Carson City last Sunday to see “The Cotton Patch Gospel.”
In that translation the risen Jesus, back in Atlanta where he was lynched, asks
for a cup of coffee and a piece of pecan pie! My point is, Jesus is always
asking something of us! I wonder if Jesus ever hosted a meal? If he
ever cooked or bought a meal for anyone else? Wasn’t he always eating somebody
else’s food? Maybe that’s how he gets such reputation as drunkard and glutton!
Jesus eats with anyone, at any time or place! Just so long as they fix it
for him!
Even that last night with him, when we eat with him just before he is arrested –
even then he tells us to find a room already prepared with everything for the Passover
Meal. Of course, then he does something very tricky, even sneaky. He
calls the bread his body and the wine his blood! He tells us from then on
whenever – wherever, however, with whomever -- we eat, he is there! Jesus
would not miss a meal if his life depended on it -- and it does! From then
on he is in every breaking of bread, every spilling of cup! Apart from him,
we eat nothing.
United Methodist preacher Bill Wylie-Kellerman warns us, “If you can read the gospels
without getting hungry, you’re not paying attention! Jesus comes eating and
drinking: So many feasts and feedings, table teachings and banquet [and vineyard]
parables, last suppers and Easter barbecues – one gets the feeling the kingdom is
convened as a gigantic floating pot luck, the poor being seated first!” If
anyone knows the practice of faith as a pot luck, it’s United Methodists!
And we should be just as well known for seating the poor before others. When
in doubt, share a meal! Want to grow close to each other? Share a meal.
Want to celebrate stories and gifts of each other? Share a meal. Want
to settle differences with each other? Share a meal. Want to become
as family with each other? Share a meal! I keep hoping folks meet one
another in worship, get to know one another in coffee hour, and decide to take one
another to lunch!
Jesus asks that we eat and drink, remembering him! Remembering his death!
Reminding ourselves what got him in trouble! Learning to tell his story in
such ways as he connects up with the stories of our own lives! That is what’s
happening on the All-Church Retreat with Rev. Tom Boomershine at Lake Tahoe this
weekend. It’s called “The Stories of Our Lives.” It began with a round
of telling stories from our own lives. Then we learned to tell for ourselves
the story of resurrection in the garden according to John chapter 20 – picking up
the “verbal threads” and “major themes” of the story as we told it again and again.
Last night I think was for telling stories of our lives connecting with Jesus’ story,
and worship today is for performing those stories before communion together.
I ask us to imagine how Jesus is in each breaking bite of the bread, in each spilling
sip of the cup. The breaking of bread, the spilling of cup, symbolize each
of our equal shares in the goodness, fullness, and richness of all God provides
for all of God’s children. Communion with Jesus embodies and reflects community
and solidarity with one another. Through one another, we find community and
solidarity with all persons, all peoples on earth! For all are children of
God, all brothers and sisters in Christ – no matter of what religious tradition
or practice. John’s letter says here that seeing ourselves as children of
one God, members of one family, one household, one body – that is only the beginning
of what God is up to that drives the world – specially its leaders! – to distraction!
If not destruction. That is the trouble Jesus is forever getting himself into –
He treats, and eats with everyone equal, equally related to him and God!
That is the essence of Jesus’ story. But we as the church have forgotten that
Jesus so many times! We would rather pick what we want from such texts as
this about Peter in the early church pleading to the people who allow Jesus to be
sent to death as a scapegoat for their own fears – including Peter himself!
We would rather hear this as condemning all Jews for “Christ-killing.” Truth
is, Jesus is a Jew. All his followers are Jews. His followers are just
as intimidated, just as guilty of abandoning him. They repent to the
risen Jesus – as we do – for ignorance and fear in the face of his suffering and
death – today as well as then.
Resurrection calls us to life over death, to love over fear -- and to stand with
all who suffer invasion, occupation, violence, war. We stand as witness against
all who lord the power of death over others! Over millions of others, thousands
of others, hundreds of others, or one single other. When we the church tolerate
and even take part in the Holocaust, in rationalizing the killing of six million
European Jews, still in our own lifetimes – when we the church stand back instead
of stand out in behalf of those who suffer today and die today – wherever they are
in the world, whoever is causing their deaths – then we are denying the rising of
Jesus from death. We are denying the word of God -- that truth is stronger
than ignorance, love is stronger than fear, life is stronger than death.
We hold vigil across the street today at noon to “witness,” as Jesus charges us,
the deaths of nearly 200,000 and the displacement of two million – even as we few
“witnessed” Wednesday night at the Nevada State Prison the death of one. Even tomorrow,
we may “witness” community and solidarity with millions of “unauthorized” persons
living, working, raising kids, paying taxes among us.
Here today we light candles in remembrance of millions killed in the Holocaust.
Remembrance and repentance lead to resistance – the witness of words and deeds against
powers of ignorance, fear and death in high places. The date for “Yom HaShoah,”
day of remembering the Holocaust each year, commemorates the incredible courage
and endurance of those who resisted in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. As soon
as we – so-called “ordinary citizens” but charged with the witness of Jesus in
all the nations! – as soon as we give the government, the state, the nation --
or anyone else for that matter -- the power to kill in our names (That is at
least some of what Peter is getting at here) -- the power to lord death over the
life of even one person – no matter how scary and scandalous any one person may
be – then we open the ways to Holocaust, and to genocide, and to invasion,
occupation, violence, war that spread ignorance, fear, destruction, death -- in
all times and in our own time.
Anne Frank has been called “the human face of the Holocaust.” What a witness
to creative resistance! A girl of her early teens -- witnessing her refusal
to let her truth, love, life, hope give in to the worst, or give up on the best
we might do to each other. It has been said of her, “Anne Frank is a hero
because she was optimistic, patient, unselfish, and strong. For some, she
has been someone to look up to. For others, she has been a victim of wrongdoing
that will help to prevent the same tragedy from happening again. She died
unjustly. If she had lived, she could have been someone who was famous for
her life, not her death.”
Famous for her life, not her death! Sisters and brothers,
that’s Jesus – famous for his life, not his death! Not so much that we
receive life after death, but that we risk life before death! The promise
of his resurrection for all: that we be made known, not for our deaths, but for
our lives! Anne Frank, among countless others – before her, with her,
since her – died unjustly! Jesus comes to turn unjust death into “just
life.” Just life! Hey! I’m hungry! What have you got?
Piece of fish? Piece of pie? Cup of coffee? Perfect!
Let’s eat, let’s eat, let’s eat!!
Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
