Sermons

 Meeting Jesus at the Table

John Wilkinson	Third Presbyterian Church
October 4, 2009	Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

If you’re up for it, I would invite you to close your eyes for a moment. Now imagine in your mind a response to this question: What do you think of when you think of communion? Keep your eyes closed…

* Do you think of anything at all?
* Do you think about Jesus? Yourself? The people around you?
* Do you think about your first communion, perhaps as a child?
* Do you think about your family of origin?
* Do you think about what happens here?
* Do you think about the servers, the lovely silver communion ware?
* Do you think about other communions and other churches?
* Do you think about grape juice or wine, little cups or one common cup, pre-cut bread or one big loaf, and what happens to them in all of this?
* Do you think about your worthiness, or unworthiness?
* Do you think about your children?
* Do you think about the ways that Christians have fought about this stuff ?
* Do you think about H1N1, because I need to let you know that many are these days!

OK – open your eyes. What do you think of when you think of communion?

Now, listen to this, titled “REASON WHY MANY WEAK CONSCIENCES REMAIN IN SUSPENSE AS TO THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF THE SUPPER." “As the holy sacrament of the Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ has long been the subject of several important errors, and in these past years been anew enveloped in diverse opinions and contentious disputes, it is no wonder if many weak consciences cannot fairly resolve what view they ought to take of it, but remain in doubt and perplexity, waiting till all contention being laid aside, the servants of God come to some agreement upon it.”

If you guessed John Calvin, from his 1540’s “Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper,” you would be correct. A complex discussion then, and now.

On this World Communion Sunday when we are also marking Calvin’s 500th birthday, this needs to be much more than a history lesson or a lesson in communion theology.

Here is what I am not interested in: an arcane debate about doctrine (though I can go there if need be!) or a debate about what different churches believe (though I can, and have, jumped into that fray).

Here is what I am interested in: encountering communion’s deep meaning, meeting Jesus, why this matters. Calvin can help us with that.

We meet Jesus at the table and Jesus meets us. That is what I believe happened and happens and will happen – and when that meeting happens – bread and cup – everything is changed.

Some of this you will remember from Sunday school – that this sacrament, like baptism, is a sign and a seal, a sign that points to something else, God’s love, and a seal that confirms God’s grace that is already and always present. For us, the sacraments – baptism and communion – don’t make grace happen. Like grits at a southern breakfast, grace comes without you asking for it.

Both baptism and communion should happen only within the context of congregational worship, and both should happen only with some teaching and interpreting, scripture read and sermon proclaimed.

Since the tradition has identified these two as sacraments, it’s also been understood that one must be baptized to participate in communion, a kind of entry point. But we are debating that right now – the Presbyterian Church is, for once a good and healthy debate. One perspective has it that since baptism has always been the kind of initiation, why should one circumvent it. Another perspective has it that if communion, the Lord’s Supper, is truly and fully an act of gracious hospitality reflecting Jesus’ gracious hospitality to us, who are we to get in the way of someone wanting to share that experience.

That discussion leads to another, the matter of worthiness itself. Our Presbyterian forbears have differed on this. Some have emphasized worthiness – a visit from a dour Scottish minister or elder on a Saturday afternoon, an examination that gauged your readiness. If you were deemed prepared, you might be issued a communion token to present the next day. If not, you would still come to church, but participate from a distance, what became known as “fencing the table.” Some portions of the broader Reformed family still do that. We don’t, but since what happens here matters, it is always good for us to think about preparation, where our heart and spirit might be as we enter this time of communing.

And then there is the name itself. We Protestants have used two names – communion and the Lord’s Supper. “Communion” indicates that we are communing – sharing – in community. And “Lord’s Supper” reminds us that it is Jesus who invites us, that we come as guests.

Partly in response to Vatican II and our new understanding that everything Roman Catholic is not completely awful, the word “Eucharist” has been creeping into our parlance. It means “thanksgiving.” Jesus thanked God for the bread and cup at the first occasion, and we do the same every time we break the bread and pour the cup. In most traditions, the fairly extensive prayer we will share in a bit is called the “Eucharistic prayer,” and so it is, a thanksgiving prayer.

Is any of that what you think about when you think about communion? I do think about preparation and worthiness, about grace and gratitude.

I must confess that I don’t think too much about controversies from earlier centuries and eras. They are fairly settled for us, and for me. For centuries, we battled, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, always intensively, about what this all means. Some of those battles rage still, sadly, reflecting a broken church and broken world.

Some had to do with what happens at the meal itself – and what those words mean, “this is my body, this is my blood.” Did Jesus mean it literally, symbolically, figuratively? What we Protestants have agreed on is that he didn’t mean it literally. But he meant it.

With John Calvin, I believe that because it happened once – both the meal and the events that followed it – that whatever happens here is not another sacrifice. Once was enough, and once was good for all. That is why this is a communion table and not an altar.

But what we have said is that whatever happens, that it is something more than just what it is, that we focus less on the bread and cup, and more on the Holy Spirit’s presence in the meal, making it effective, making Jesus’ spiritual presence real, if not bodily and physically.

Stacy Johnson summarizes what Calvin believed: “Calvin argued that the Supper provides real spiritual nourishment in which believers receive the benefits of the broken body and shed blood of Christ. But, at the same time, it is not an event in which something magical happens to the bread and wine... Instead, it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the supper that enables believers to truly participate with Christ…” (John Calvin: Reformer for the 21st Century, page 104)

Perhaps you grew up with these two practices – 1. no communion until confirmation and 2. four, perhaps six observances a year. Both are changing. Since baptism has been the entry point, we’ve determined in the past generation that children, with parental support, can participate. They can’t and don’t understand fully, but then again, neither do I.

And as to frequency – Calvin said that once a week was good. That can make ministers and communion servers nervous! That has seemed excessive for us, and perhaps a little too Catholic. That’s evolving, here and everywhere. We don’t want this to become too routine, taken for granted. But for all its deepness of meaning, why not more frequently, to access, as Calvin would say, the full benefits of grace.

Theologian Brian Gerrish makes the case that the themes of “grace and gratitude” are the central ones of Calvin’s communion theology, making it most fully a Eucharistic theology. Gerrish affirms grace and gratitude to be at the heart of what it means to be Presbyterian, to be a person of faith and a follower of Jesus: that grace and gratitude shape Calvin’s entire theology, making all of theology, and therefore all of the life of faith itself, a Eucharistic theology. God’s graciousness, God’s welcome to the communion table, and our grateful, thankful response. (Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin)

God invites out of love and mercy, and we respond with a profound thank you, not to earn anything, or because we deserve our invitation, but to express our deep gratitude through our words and our activities and our very lives.

That gets closer to what I think about when I think about communion – not dogma, not church battles, but a simple meal shared with friends, to whom all are invited, even me. Our task is to thank the host and reflect that same hospitality in our lives.

The word sacrament means something like “mystery,” and I can live with that, live with the ambiguities of what this all means. Calvin himself called the Lord’s Supper “mysterious and incomprehensible,” and if it was that way for him, surely it can be that way for us.

But I do think about Jesus. I think about his broken body, and ours, and reconciliation. The letter to the Hebrews from which we heard calls Jesus “the exact imprint of God’s being,” and if that is true, and I believe it is, we see so much about God when we see Jesus’ face as we meet him at the table. Calvin calls communion a “mirror,” a mirror in which we see Jesus, and see ourselves, and through which we reflect God’s love to all the world.

Calvin also said that at this meal we experience the “brotherly (and sisterly) charity of God,” which gives this meal a powerfully ethical and moral dimension. Perhaps when you reflected earlier, you thought of a communion table that had the words “In Remembrance of Me” imprinted on them. I also thought of a communion table at a church I know that asks – in plain carved letters – “Has Everyone Been Fed?” That is not just good table manners, but rather a question infused by the justice and hope that happens at this moment .

Has everyone been fed, here and elsewhere, enough food, enough clothing, enough shelter, enough safety, enough education, enough health care, enough hope? And what are we – we who have had our spirits fed to overflowing – what are we doing to answer that question?

That’s what I think about – and more. And when I think about that, all of that, I think about how much I need this holy, simple, mysterious meal, and how grateful I am to receive it. The gifts of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.