God Eats With His People: Proper 13

For several years my parish trained first year field workers for the seminary. They usually sent us their most difficult students. One of those was Heikki Ausiku, a pastor from Namibia. You might remember South Africa controlled this Lutheran nation, forcing apartheid on its population. Heikki was sent to the seminary to learn English, so he could participate in international affairs when blacks eventually gained freedom. Our job was to make him comfortable with white people as he had never been allowed to speak with them in public. The only problem was St James was known as the most prejudiced congregation in Gettysburg.

Heikki was afraid even to come to the meeting where assignments were made. In fact, He had not come out of his room, even for meals, since he arrived. So Pastor Keyser and I went to his dorm, knocked at his door, and knocked at his door and knocked at his door until it was finally opened a very narrow crack. Our entire first conversation was with an eye peeking through that crack.

When we returned to the Church, we knew we had a very difficult mission. We came up with a plan.

First, we had him teach the Mothers’ Sunday School class. These ladies were real Gettysburg, real prejudiced. But they were mothers, well at that time grandmothers, who knew something about Christian caring. We figured motherhood would trump hate. We were right. They were the first whites to whom he had ever spoken in public and they provided the encouragement he needed. The class mothered him. We knew the first part of plan was successful when they asked him to dinner in their homes. When we welcome someone across our thresholds to our dinner table, we place ourselves under obligation to treat that person as our brother or sister.

The second part of our plan was to have Heikki serve Communion. He was an ordained Lutheran pastor, fully qualified to distribute the bread and wine. If the mothers’ dinner tables made him brother, sharing the Lord’s Table should make him one with the whole congregation. That’s what we thought. But after our first service one of our best friends, a fishing buddy, said he would never take Communion again if he had to receive it from the hands of a black man.

None the less, we did not give up. We believed our people’s faith was stronger than their prejudice. We remembered how much our God is always eating and drinking with his people in the Bible. At the very beginning he eats with Abraham. Later on Mount Sinai he eats and drinks with Moses and the chief Hebrew men. Then Jesus, God incarnate, eats with sinners and tax collectors. He will not let the Pharisees criticism or even the Sadducees killing him destroy this table fellowship. In the resurrection Jesus is always eating and drinking with his people. And today he is still known in the breaking of the bread, inviting us to share the Bread of Life and live in love. If Christ was present at his table right here, right now, he would heal the prejudice and make us one. And of course, we were right. Before long, the congregation regarded Heikki as family, including our fishing buddy, brought his wife and children to be with him as he studied. We grew so close he named future children after members of the parish. At present Heikki is Namibia’s ambassador to Cuba.

There is no doubt eating at the mothers’ tables and at the Lord’s Table played an important role. Eating with one another is very powerful. Eating with God is even more so. To eat at this table obligates us to treat everyone else here as brother and sister.

When we understand this basic Christian gift, we realize one of the greatest sins of our time is to refuse people a place at the Lord’s Table. Any reading of the Gospels reveals that is what Pharisses do by making rules about who is a sinner and then accusing Jesus of eating that kind of person. Yet too many Christians make requirements that people have to pass before they are welcomed to our table. Over the years one of the most frequent hurts expressed to me as pastor has been people telling about being refused Communion in a Roman Catholic or Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.

One the other hand, one of the greatest gifts we offer is to welcome people to share our meal with Jesus, to invite people to cross our threshold to eat with us. Our task is to make people comfortable around our table not judging whether they are worthy. None of us are. One of the best days of my life was when worshipping at a Benedictine monastery and having the abbot yell across the room I should place a wafer into the plate if I was going to commune. I yelled back, “I can’t I’m a Protestant”. And he yelled back over the whole congregation. “That doesn’t matter. You are welcome here” From that day I commune wherever I worship, even in Catholic churches. No human has the right to deny me God’s free gift. Once you eat at God’s table, you are under obligation to welcome all.

I guess I think another modern sin is pretending eating is simply the way I nourish my body physically, acting as if food is only a commodity on the supermarket shelf that I purchase with my money. In truth we never eat alone. The act unites us with all creation. Something must always die, either a plant or an animal that we might live. Some farmer, rancher, trucker, grocer works hard to provide the food. When we enjoy a true meal others share our table. A good meal is more than forcing fast food down our throats to receive physical nourishment. It also is a mental and spiritual nourishment shared with fellow diners. And God himself is always present. All of this should be acknowledged every time we eat. All eating should involve thanksgiving. All has the power to make enemies friends. All places us under obligation to recognize the role of others in our lives.

Yesterday I shared a table with prisoners from the jail, people doing community service for breaking some law such as driving under the influence, and community volunteers from Gettysburg Churches. It was the Seeds for Success program that rehabilitates’ people by teaching them gardening. I was asked to offer thanksgiving in prayer. As I did I realized the group was truly enjoying the meal, because they had worked together in the garden plots all morning to produce it. But I also had to remember the history that had brought them together in this place at this time. And as I remembered all this, I realized I could not tell who was who as we shared bread. Eating and conversing together we were no longer rich and poor, free or prisoner, drunk or respectable church member. We were just brothers and sisters sharing a table with God.

Tags: Apartheid, dinner, Eating With Jesus, Eucharist, Food, Lord’s Table, Namibia, Proper 13, Sermon