August 28, 2022

 When I brought a guest to dinner at my grandparents, I had some instructions for them.  Grandpa’s chair, the big leather recliner was for no one but grandpa, even if he was away on a trip.  Line up at the bathroom door to wash your hands before dinner.  The adults eat at the kitchen table and fill the seats from oldest to youngest accompanied by their spouses until all the seats are full and then everyone else eats at the kids table in the living room.  Grandpa and the men get the good cuts of meat and the kids get what’s left.  Finally, don’t touch uncle John’s guitar.  We knew the order of things from birth, but for newcomers an orientation was very helpful in avoiding causing offense and possible banishment.

            Cultural norms show up at mealtime in every culture.  Where people sit, when they eat, who talks, and the order in which they are served show who has what power, who is deemed most important and who they share power with, since mealtime is a time of sharing, especially sharing food.

            In the church, too, we have mealtime—Holy Communion, and we can look at this meal to see who and what is most important at our meal.  At the meal of Jesus, everyone is invited.  It used to be that youngsters waited until they were 6 or 7 to take Holy Communion, but now, as long as their parents feel comfortable, anyone who holds out their hands is given communion.  Communion used to just be for the baptized.  In many churches, we have relaxed those expectations.  The Bible doesn’t mention the baptism of any of the disciples and Jesus never said anything explicitly about communion being only for the baptized.  God can work through communion to bring someone to the baptismal font.  Humans are way more concerned about good order than the Holy Spirit which seems so much more free and open to whatever way a person connects with God. 

What is served says a lot.  The bread and the wine or grape juice are universal foods that are widely available, as we found again when we celebrated home communion over many Covid months.  At Trinity we have a freezer full of wafers which some people love and other people are puzzled by.  The wafers are used because of tradition and ease of use.  They never go bad, which may be troubling to some and comforting to others.  We don’t have to make sure people make bread every week and the wafer is easily handed—everyone gets the same amount, unlike handing out torn up bread.  For others, the papery wafers don’t resemble the body of Christ very much, they stick to the roof of your mouth and can be rather dry.  Because of the amount we have, we’ll work on using what we have and then consider whether we’d like to mix things up in a year or two. 

Where we sit in church has a great deal to do with when we take communion, whether we are first or last to receive or where in the lineup we fall.  Lutherans do not consider the front row a seat of honor, or a seat at all unless there is a funeral or sometimes if there is a little kid who needs a good vantage point.  Once during my sabbatical I visited an Episcopal church and sat in probably the 5^th row.  As others filed in, they all sat behind me so when communion time came, I had no one in front of me to show me how it’s done at that particular location.  They were concerned to tell me that I was welcome at communion, but I let them know that I would partake after someone familiar with the process led the way.  In this way, it was not the seat of honor to be in the 5^th row even.  My favorite church I visited when I was briefly waiting for a call in Tacoma.  A very kind woman introduced herself, invited me to sit with her, explained so many things about the church, asked about me and provided a very pleasant experience.  I definitely returned. 

We can notice here, does everyone have what they need to participate at the level they are comfortable with?  If new people come in just as the service is starting, is the front the only place to sit, because most of us would rather leave than sit there, not knowing the traditions and norms of this place and even when we do know them.  How can we remove as many barriers as possible to make a newcomer more comfortable?  From where I normally sit, who do I interact with?  What do I see?  What do I miss?  Who do I miss? 

Mealtime reveals much about power.  Who is in a position of power and who does that person relate most to?  Our guest of honor at church is Jesus—both host and guest.  He sets the table, not with grandpa’s chair front and center with those closest to him next and then the children on the outskirts, but instead this is what Jesus’ use of power looks like.  Here he is, the one present at creation, all the power of God’s word going out and bringing into being all that is.  This power of love and relationship, co-equal with the Creator, coming to earth as a little baby, powerless, except in that he is open to receiving.  This is a power that Jesus wants for all of us.  If we are too full of ourselves or our money or our possessions or the admiration of others, we might not feel the need to receive, we might not be open to Jesus invitation to relationship and love.  If we’ve already taken the best seats we might not be open to his invitation or his invitation of others around us.

So Jesus gave up his power of knowing everything and seeing everything and took on limits, which allowed him to relate to us, and especially relate to those that many people choose not to relate to.  He came not to Rome the Superpower but to Israel, the occupied terrorized land.  He took on a human body, poor, rejected, beaten.  He took on the body of a prisoner.  He took the lowest seat at the table so that all of us would know we had a seat at his table. 

He fashioned a table where everyone would have a place.  A place at the table means having enough to eat, to sustain your life.  It means meeting your nutritional needs so that you can think and act and participate and relate.  It means having an enjoyable experience—food that is a delight, tasting fresh and good and warming your heart.

Having a place at the table means sharing with your neighbor so that everyone has enough to sustain healthy, abundant life.  It means using food as a way to relate to others, sharing recipes, preserving food together, sharing cooking tips and secrets.  It means potlucks.  It means community.  The table isn’t just about me—that’s a TV tray.  A table has guests, it has laughter and conversation.

A place at the table means having a say—that your story is worth listening to, that your perspective matters.  A table is a place where ideas are shared, where the people who have the most at stake have a perspective that holds more sway than the people with the money.  A place at the table invites each voice, especially those who have been silenced and it allows for all the different communication styles.  Some may be shy and others outgoing, but the usual talkers learn to make space for the quieter voices that have some thinking to do.

A place at the table means family coming together—that none of us is alone but that we care about each other and relate lovingly to each other.  A table cements relationships.  A table is place where memories are made.  When we come to this table of Jesus, he is reaffirming that we are in his family with all the people considered more or less important than we are, all having opportunity for health and relationship and a say.  It is power among in which the sum is so much more than it’s parts.

A place at the table is communion.  Coming together, unifying, taking on the body of Christ, finding our way to serve our neighbor in need and be vulnerable about our own needs.

So we come to this church to practice our new social norms so different from those in the world.  We gather, wealthy and poor, old and young, admired and rejected, and we sit all mixed up together.  We join our talents and serve on committees.  And we find ways to follow Jesus, this random group of people of various social status.  A plumber sits next to a nurse who sits next to an artist who sits next to an ex-con who sits next to a widow who sits next to a wrestling coach who sits next to a shelf stocker who sits next to a garbage collector who sits next to a musician who is making eyes at a baby who is watching a sixth grader draw Super Mario—all of these Jesus’ siblings, God’s precious children.  It’s a delightful mishmash of people, in relationship, caring about each other, giving up their seat to someone whose feet are tired, who aren’t in it for any gain for themselves, but because it is worthwhile to relate to people different from ourselves.  And we go out in to the world with Jesus’ seating arrangement in mind, prepared to give up our seat, prepared to have a strange conversation, to ask someone crying on the bus if there is something they need, to accept other people’s offers of help.  We practice here to be ready to meet Jesus in the world and to give him our love, our food, our relationship, our power, our voice, and to follow the one who emptied himself, revealing ourselves needy, and empty, open to receiving community and power-sharing and different nourishing food than we’re used to, ready to move seats so that justice and love would be known by those who never knew it before.

I heard someone say this week that humankind ought to humble ourselves before mother nature.  How long have we relegated this natural world to the kid table, placing ourselves at the best seats?  We have been realizing that our life and well-being is all wrapped up with that of God’s good creation.  God didn’t create us to play the world’s game of moving up in the ranks and being the most important.  God created us for relationship, love, and compassion, for connection.  We are created for making room at the table so that we all might have access to abundant life.

There was one more meal that I shared with my grandpa.  When he was hospitalized with cancer, he had a machine breathing for him and his mouth was so dry.  He was trying to communicate with us and finally we figured out he was asking for a chocolate milkshake.  Of course he couldn’t eat, but we found a solution.  We dipped a mouth swab in a container of cold chocolate milk and gave him a taste.  I’ve never been so close with my grandpa as in that moment of relationship, of communication of needs, of vulnerability, and of delight and in that moment we were sharing in a most holy communion.