Glimpsing the Heavenly Banquet

John 6:51-58

12 Pentecost – 19 August 2012

Being Eucharist people, we hear Jesus’ words and know exactly what he’s saying. After all, we drop down on our knees at a wooden rail every week, hands outstretched to receive a paper thin, tasteless wafer which we consume or dip into a chalice of not-so-great wine.

This is not a gourmet meal. But it’s the most important meal of the week.

This meal, for faithful people, is all about resurrection and being in the presence of the risen Christ. This meal is where we, as a family which identifies as the Body of Christ, find unity, wholeness, worthiness, mercy, grace. We eat together and become family, brothers and sisters in Christ.

I’m reading Barney Hawkins’ memoir of more than 30 years of ministry in the Episcopal Church–Episcopal Etiquette and Ethics (Morehouse Publishing, 2012). It’s a good book, full of great stories and theological reflection, and I highly recommend the book. It’s a theological and liturgical delight.

Hawkins reminds us that the greatness of the meal does not mean that things necessarily go as planned. Hawkins offers a variety of mishaps, including:

The day the paten is brought forward not with the expected loaf of bread, but with the bread, freshly arrived at the altar straight from the bakery, bag, tight twist tie, and all.  The priest must fumble with the bag and tie at the altar, in front of the congregation, and, as Hawkins writes, “…wondering all the while about how to get the future Jesus out of the bag?”

[Hawkins, Episcopal Etiquette and Ethics, 36]

I am the living bread that came down from heaven…Just untie the bag and get on with it.

The bread is the mystery that Jesus promised us…living bread from heaven…but what happens when a congregants’ expectations don’t jive with solid theology? Read on…

At a burial Eucharist, the grieving widow asks the celebrant to tuck a consecrated wafer in the urn so her deceased husband can have “…Communion one last time….We cannot leave him out.” 

[Hawkins, Episcopal Etiquette and Ethics, 36]

Hawkins counsels, don’t even think about doing it…”Communion is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.” The deceased doesn’t need that wafer because he’s already at the banquet. He’s already with Jesus. The wafer is for us, living on earth, so that we get a glimpse of the heavenly banquet when we, too, will be with Jesus. Until then, no wafers in the urns or caskets.

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”

It’s this bread that lies in our hands as we outstretch them to receive the wafer–living bread, heavenly bread.It is mystery bound up in a little flour and water hardened and dried into a little wafer.

Receiving the bread  is a great mystery. When we come to the altar, we are drawn up into this mystery. Jesus promises us that in the eating of his flesh and in the drinking of his blood, we abide in him and he abides in us.

Then we leave the altar rail, go back to our pews, and our lives. Life goes on.  We don’t go on alone. Jesus abides with us.

If we have to come back week after week, to eat the bread and drink the blood, it’s not because that mystery of abiding in us is ineffective.

It’s because glimpsing that heavenly banquet gives us hope.

Amen.

Musing–Jesus, don’t you CARE that we are perishing?

A sermon, preached 24 June 2012, 4 Pentecost, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Walpole, NH

Mark 4:35-41

The local Unitarian Church’s sign features a quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “…we are all islands in a common sea.” That sounds so peaceful and serene, doesn’t it?

We may be islands, but we are also boats in a common sea. Sometimes the sea is not peaceful and serene and we are tossed about–just boats at the mercy of waves and currents.

When the sea is turbulent or stormy, we are so tossed about that we lose our direction, our equilibrium, our focus, and perhaps, our faith. At times, we are all boats in a turbulent sea.

Then there’s the “ripple effect.” The turmoil experienced by one boat, figurative or literal, is felt by others. We are a community, we are connected, and it’s understandable that there is some spillover of stress from one person to another. Turbulence expands and impacts others.

The Sea

The sea mentioned in the Gospel of Mark is the Sea of Galilee–really a lake.Despite having a few fisherman among the population, as attested by the occupation of a few of the disciples, Jews were not sea-faring people.

The sea symbolized for Jews the dark power of evil. The sea was threatening, a powerful force that could destroy. As N. T. Wright describes this power:–it was “…threatening to destroy God’s creation, God’s people, God’s purposes.”

I love the ocean. I love going to the shore (New Jersey-ese for seacoast). I was born near the sea and I expect to end my days near the sea. At least that’s my plan. I don’t know what God has in mind. Figuring that out is one of the things rocking my boat.

When I was a child, and we were going to the shore, you could tell when we were getting close. The dirt alongside the road turned to sand. Then it was time to roll down the windows and smell the sea air. Even now, when I drive to the coast, as soon as I get to Dover, I turn off the AC, roll down the windows, and breathe in the sea air.

The sea air is refreshing (except perhaps when the tide is out!). The brilliant blueness of the water is renewing and exhilarating. That’s all on days that are beautiful and sunny, when the sea is calm.

We don’t see the full power of the sea on those days. The sea’s power is most evident in turbulence and turmoil–when the water is gray, and the waves crash over the sea walls and jetties, and beaches wash away–then we see not a benign sea but a sea that rages.

When the metaphorical sea is calm, we can be lulled, in our boat capacity, into thinking we’re in control.

When that same sea is turbulent, we realize that we have no power, no security, and perhaps, no hope. The sea becomes for us the power that is “…threatening to destroy God’s creation, God’s people, God’s purposes.”

The Boat

That’s the sea that the disciples found themselves in–tossed about, swamped by the waves.

Have you ever been in that kind of sea? I have. I was about 13, at a conference center in Wisconsin on a large body of water called Green Lake. My father was probably speaking, so was distracted. My mother was probably dealing with my three brothers, 4, 9, and 11, and was equally distracted. I was allowed to go off with new-found friends and told to stay out of the water (I was a very poor swimmer; still am). Like any other 13-year-old, the first thing I did was follow those new friends off to the dock and sign out a row-boat. We headed out into the lake, the deep part, ignoring the sky. While we were quite a way out, a storm blew up, and the winds blew and the once serene lake became a turbulent sea. We couldn’t get back to shore, being amateur rowers who didn’t have the faintest idea what they were doing, and who were, incidentally, out there without life-jackets. We could hear the big bell for the dining hall ringing and knew we weren’t going to make it back it time for dinner. We rowed, and rowed, and rowed against those strong waves. We finally got back, ran to the dining hall, making up a story while we ran, and got away with it. I didn’t go out in a boat again for about 10 years! If Jesus was in the row-boat, he was sleeping. It would have been easy to scream at him, “Don’t you care that we are about to drown!”

It wasn’t unusual for sudden, windy storms to blow up on the Sea of Galilee. We can’t fault the disciples for not checking the maritime report before setting out. We all know it’s not always possible to prepare for the turbulence that challenges us. Sometimes things are out of our control. We’ve all found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those moments are the times we are most likely going to demand that Jesus act, that God save, that the Spirit pour out upon us in life-giving ways. Yet, it is often at these turbulent times when we panic because of the turbulence in life that we think God is absent because God isn’t doing what we expect.

Isn’t that what the disciples felt? They are panicking and Jesus sleeps through the turbulence.

The disciples’ frantic, anxious plea, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” is not unusual in scripture. There are several instances in the Psalms (for instance, see Ps 44:23-24) where the psalmist, in trouble, demands that God wake up, and take care of things.

There are times when God doesn’t act as we expect, or when we tell God to jump, and God doesn’t ask “how high?”–and we assume that God doesn’t care, God isn’t there, God has abandoned us.

The problem with that whole assumption is, of course, that it’s hard to be anxious and faithful at the same time.Faith is like the boat on the sea. When the waters are calm…great, faith flourishes. When the sea is roiling and waves are threatening to submerge us, faith goes overboard. We bypass God, and abandon faith, as we work out our plan  for our salvation.  Every time.

Here’s the problem: this story shows that the disciples, those closest to Jesus, didn’t understand him, didn’t have faith, even after he taught them about faith and performed miracles. If those closest to him didn’t get it, why do we think we do? The evidence seems to be to the contrary. The minute our boats are rocked and floundering, we become anxious, we forget to trust God, our faith wavers, and we take matters into our own hands, instead of turning everything over to God.  Every time.

Here’s the thing we need to remember, a saying that Bishop Robinson has said more than once:

Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes God calms his child.

Perhaps we should re-write that:  Sometimes God calms the storm. Always God calms his child.

24 June 2012,  SDK