Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis Luke 14:15-24

World Communion Sunday October 4, 2009

“Working Up an Appetite”

Scripture: Luke 14:15-24

15One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, "Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!" 16Then Jesus said to him,

"Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. 17At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, `Come; for everything is ready now.' 18But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, `I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.' 19Another said, `I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.' 20Another said, `I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.' 21So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, `Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.' 22And the slave said, `Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room." 23Then the master said to the slave, `Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.'"

Reflection:

Can you picture the scene: All the tables the host can find have been put end to end and covered with colorful table cloths. The best dishes are all evenly spaced up and down the long table, and the napkins have even been cleverly folded into fancy shapes. The house is full of the aromas of fine food that has been cooking all day, and the wine has even been poured. All that is needed for the great banquet to finally begin is for the guests to arrive. They should be coming in any time now. I wonder what could be keeping them? The food is going to get cold. The host’s eager anticipation turns into bitter disappointment when the servant brings back, not guests, but excuses. They’ve all got more important things to do than to enjoy the savory food, good company and conviviality of a lavish banquet so generously offered by their friend and neighbor.

The host’s desire to share this banquet was so great, he threw all his pride and propriety to the wind, opened his doors wide, and invited in the nobodies and anybody he could get to come in to enjoy the feast.

This communion table is something like the banquet table in Jesus’ story. The early Christians called the Lord’s Supper the agape meal, or love feast. It was a taste of the kingdom of God, where the lavish love of God was fully received and freely shared by everyone. But Jesus’ story reminds us that not everyone who is invited gets in on the banquet. If you don’t have a hunger for it, if you’re preoccupied with other things, if you don’t make it a priority, the party will happen without you.

So how’s your appetite for God’s banquet today? Does God’s feast of “soul food” appeal to your hunger?

If you are haunted by the mistakes of your past or your past week, and dogged by frustration with yourself for all your inadequacies, you will find at this table a cup of wine that has been poured for you. Jesus says, “Here, drink of this. This is a new covenant in my blood that is shed for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Something in Jesus’ spirit suffers when we cause pain in another or diminish ourselves. Yet he meets that pain the same way he met the suffering his crucifiers inflicted on him--with forgiveness. He invites us to own our short- comings, and to take responsibility for the ways we’ve hurt others or ourselves. But then we can release them into a forgiving grace that loves us eternally and unconditionally. Let Christ’s forgiving love take the place of self blame and judgment. This is how we grow toward perfection–not by berating ourselves or striving to meet some perfect standard, but by opening ourselves to the power of God’s unconditional love, and letting it fill us, cleanse us, heal us, and lift us into being a carrier of this love. That’s how we outgrow our sins.

If your life is feeling flat and without purpose, there’s soul food for you here too. Almost everything in our culture is designed to enslave us to our own self interest, comfort, security and pleasure. But that strangles the dynamic life force God has placed in us that was created to take part in the great drama of creation and recreation--of giving and receiving, of life and death and new birth.

This communion bread is here because a wheat seed was buried in the ground, died to itself as a seed, and was reborn as a stalk of wheat, which was then cut down, and its grain was ground into flour, and heated to a high temperature. Jesus took this bread and broke it for us to eat, saying it was like his body, broken for us. He too died to himself, gave himself fully to God and to us, was tested, tried, broken, killed, and buried--all the while trusting and knowing that nothing essential or eternal can ever be lost, but can only grow through the sharing of it.

So Jesus invites us here to share with him in this awesome mystery. As he gives his whole self to us, he is not in any way diminished. As we receive what he gives us, Christ comes to live in us and work through us. He invites us to follow him and join him in this ongoing dance of giving ourselves away and receiving ourselves back again, enlarged instead of diminished.

We may never be able to give a clear statement of what our life’s purpose is while we’re living it. But our lives will always have meaning, richness and fulfillment as we release our selfish grip on our time, talents, treasures, and our whole lives and offer them to God to use for God’s purpose.

And if you are hungering for a deep sense of community, of connectedness to God and to others deep in your heart and soul, this love feast is for you.

There is something in our human nature that wants to divide people–to include some and exclude others, to judge people as bad or good, to rank people by their usefulness or worthiness. And so instead of beholding each other in the mystery of who we essentially are, all we see are our labels and judgments, and we react out of our prejudices and fears. We know all too well the results of our divisions: “isms” of all kinds, exploitation, oppression, and war.

But come with me to this table. None of us are here because we earned our right to be here. We are here because of God’s pure amazing love and grace. We are here because Christ stopped at nothing to find us and invite us into fellowship with him.

As we acknowledge God’s greatness and our smallness, what happens to our pride, our judgment and our prejudices? At this table, those walls just crumble away. We are all simply God’s children here.

If I had to account for the secret to the spirit of love, mutual support, mutual empowerment, cooperation, and vitality that is at the heart of HUCC, I would say it comes from this. We come together not with self righteousness but with humility. We come first, not full of what we can give but aware of our need to receive. We come not to push our own way but to become part of God’s way.

That’s how all of us different, unique individuals become one unified body--the body of Christ. It happens whenever our spirit is like Christ’s--humble before God, loving of all, and desiring to serve, heal, lift up, and bring all God’s creatures into the fullness of life. When we invite God’s Spirit to move within us and among us, it naturally connects us deeply to God’s Spirit and to each other. That’s the meaning of the word “communion.”

So how’s your appetite for this meal that Jesus has prepared for us? Could you use a heaping helping of unconditional love and forgiving grace? As you receive Christ’s body broken for you and Christ’s blood shed for you, can you release your small hold on your own small purposes and give yourself more fully to God’s purpose? Are you ready to humble yourself enough to become part of something bigger than yourself–Christ’s body connecting us and making us agents of Christ’s healing, hope and peace in this world? Then come and get it! Dinner is served.