A Simple Way (Luke 24:13-35)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on August 25, 2019, Proper 16)

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What Is a Christian?

A pastor friend of mine, David, shared with me recently a story about an event early in his ministry.  He was the director of a L’Arche community in India.  A L’Arche community is where folks with and without intellectual disabilities live and grow together in friendship as peers. 

One year while he was director, David had a handful of persons at the community who wanted to become followers of Christ.  He dutifully led them through a year of training.  They read Bible stories together.  They prayed together.  They worshiped together.

After a year, the bishop visited to meet with the candidates for baptism.  He was there to determine whether they were ready to become Christian.

Now the persons whom David had been training all had intellectual disabilities.  Their social mode of interaction was not verbal but more fundamental.  It had to do with things like eye contact and touch and bodily gestures.

So when the bishop met with them and asked the question, “What is a Christian?” they did not respond with answers that the bishop was used to hearing.  They did not respond, “A Christian believes that Jesus is the son of God.”  Nor did they say, “A Christian is one who is saved by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.”  They did not respond with words at all.

My friend, David, confesses that he was nervous when the bishop asked this question.  Would his candidates fail this test because they could not verbalize their faith in the traditional way?

But what happened next left David and the bishop speechless.  One of the candidates left the room.  In tense silence, everyone waited. 

Then a moment later he returned carrying a basin of water and a towel. 

He knelt down before the bishop.  Untied his shoes.  Washed his feet.  And dried them with the towel. 

Then he looked up into the bishop’s eyes and smiled—as if to say, that is what a Christian is.

Start at the Table

What surprises me most from today’s scripture is how the two disciples recognize Jesus.  It’s not by his appearance.  They walk beside him for nearly a full day but do not recognize him.  It’s not by his words or his theology.  He talks to them and interprets scripture to them in a way that is surely unique and authoritative.  Yet still they do not recognize him.

What opens the eyes of the disciples to see Jesus is something simple and wordless.  It’s when Jesus takes bread, blesses it, and breaks it.  Suddenly they know.

It’s worth noting that these two disciples are not of the original twelve.  They did not sit in on that last supper when Jesus broke bread.  But in the world of Luke’s gospel, Jesus is so closely identified with the table that that is how everyone recognizes him.  This is the man who broke bread and split the fish among five thousand.  This is the man who ate with sinners and tax collectors.  This is the man who ate with Zacchaeus.  This is the man who ate with the prostitute and forgave her.

That these two disciples recognize Jesus not on the road nor in his theological discourse but in the breaking of bread, is almost as if Luke is saying, Jesus is found not in a familiar and comfortable face nor in the correct doctrine and theology.  Jesus is found in bread broken and given for all, a body broken and given for all.  If you want to know who Jesus is, if you want to follow him, then start at the table.  Because that is where we see him clearest.  That is where we recognize him.

Eating in the Kingdom

As I meditate on this moment in Jesus’ life and on the story I shared previously from my pastor friend David, I can’t help but wonder if church is much simpler than we sometimes make it out to be.  In today’s world, there is a lot of conversation about how to revitalize church.  Some people advocate for more programs that appeal to the surrounding neighborhoods, or for a more attractive worship style.  Other folks say the church needs to be more rigorous in maintaining the correct doctrine. 

Today’s scripture suggests it’s simpler than all that.  To be followers of Christ is to break bread and share it. It is to break bread with fellow sinners—no matter their creed or color, orientation or otherwise—and to celebrate the good news that God loves us and has reconciled us and is stronger than all the forces of death. 

I’m fascinated by the gospel of Luke’s insistence that the resurrected Jesus shared meals with his followers, as in today’s scripture.  This fascinates me because at the last supper Jesus makes a promise.  He says that he will not eat at the table again nor drink of the fruit of the vine until he does so in the kingdom of God (cf. Luke 22:14-23).  Which is to suggest, these meals he shares afterward are in fact a fulfillment of his words.  The kingdom of God has arrived.  And that’s precisely what Jesus preached earlier when he told his disciples that the kingdom of God would not come with “things that can be observed”—with great spectacle and pageantry—but rather that it’s already here among us (cf. Luke 17:20-21).

The kingdom of God is already here, wherever bread is broken among sinners and love is shared and life prevails over the forces of death.  I wonder if it’s more than coincidence that the sense of call we shared a couple of years ago—to share the life of faith around tables, in small groups, and with the needful—is on full display in today’s scripture, where the risen Christ appears with a small group of needful travelers at the table.   For it’s in these three places (and they often overlap) that we encounter the risen Christ.  In these places, we experience the kingdom of God. 

How Can We Share?

In the end, I believe that the conversation should not be about what the church needs, but about what the world needs.  And I believe that what the world needs is what we see in the Jesus whom we follow.  It’s not programs and things to do.  It’s not proper theology and doctrine.  What the world needs is simpler: a table where fellow sinners are welcome, bread is broken, God’s love is shared, and life prevails over the forces of death.

I wonder how many people really know about this Jesus.  I wonder how many people know about his table.  I wonder how we can share the good news.

Prayer

Companion Christ,

Who shows us

What love looks like:

Inspire us

To walk

In your simple way,

That we  and others

Might break bread together

And share with you

The everlasting life of God’s kingdom

Here and now.

Amen.

A Stranger in His Own House (Luke 15:1-2, 11-32)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on August 18, 2019, Proper 15)

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A Homecoming Story

The story of the prodigal son is a homecoming story.  I imagine that it resonates so well with us because we all long for home, for the place where we belong without having to live up to any image, where we are welcomed without having to prove our worth, where we are embraced for who we are.

I imagine it resonates so well with us because we can all identify with the younger son who forsakes home in pursuit of the world’s attractions: wealth, pleasure, prestige.  We have all looked for love and life in the wrong places.  We have all taken a hard knock or two at some point and said to ourselves, “I’ve got to turn around.”

But when Jesus tells this story, he is not addressing the waywardness of his crowd.  He’s not on the street preaching judgment on the debauchery of his world.  He’s not calling, “Sinner, come home.”  When Jesus tells this story, he’s preaching to the choir, so to speak.  He’s addressing the Pharisees and the scribes, which is to say, he’s speaking to folks like you and me—folks who read scripture and pray, folks who go to worship every week and participate in various ministries.  The Pharisees and the scribes were the religious insiders of the day.  If they get a bad rep, then we should be extra cautious about judging them—for they are the ancient equivalent of us.  What we say about them, might well be said about us.

Outside Looking In

When he hears music and dancing, the elder son knows something’s up.  He asks one of the workers what’s going on and learns that his brother is home and his father is throwing a party.  He becomes indignant and refuses to join the celebration.

We’ve heard the story so many times that we may lose sight of a simple fact: by the logic of our world, the older brother’s anger is justified.  How many prodigal sons and daughters of our world have come home to find the door more or less closed in their faces?  I remember once going to a wedding where the sister of the groom was consistently excluded from his family’s pictures.  She had fallen into drugs and the wrong crowd in high school.  Whether from shame or a sense of punishment, the family would not welcome her in its joy.

The tragedy of the older brother, which is also the tragedy of the Pharisees and the scribes, is alienation.  Notice the words that the older brother uses to describe his relationship with his father and his brother.  To his father, he says, “I have been working like a slave for you.”  He sees his father as a slave-owner.  He sees their relationship in terms of work and reward.  About his brother, he says, “This son of yours…who has devoured your property with prostitutes.”  In other words, he may be your son but I wouldn’t stoop to call him brother.  He’s a sinner, for God’s sake.

And so it is that the “faithful” son, the one who has remained home all these years, working hard in the field, is a stranger in his own house.  The last we see of him in the story leaves us with a striking image: he is outside his home looking in, bitter and resentful.

What drives home the tragedy of the older brother, is that the feast inside is as much for him as it is for his brother.  His father clearly loves him just the same.  Just as the father runs out to meet his younger son, so he also comes out to plead with his older son.  Just as he insists on welcoming the prodigal as a dear son, so he greets his elder: “Son,” teknon in the Greek, an affectionate form of address.  He does not defend himself against his elder son’s complaints but cuts straight to what matters: his love for him too.  “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31).[1] 

What keeps the older brother on the outside looking in, what keeps him alienated and a stranger in his own house, are the same things that threaten to alienate us today from the beloved community that God desires.  Independence and the insistence that everyone is capable of pulling themselves up by their own bootstrap are what alienate the older brother, who essentially says, “I’ve been doing this all my life.  Why couldn’t he?”  Achievement and due reward are what alienate the brother, who essentially says, “I’ve earned this, but he definitely hasn’t.”  Honor and status are what alienate the brother, who essentially says, “I’ve enhanced your name, but he’s disgraced it.”  These things may all be true by the logic of the world, but by the logic of the kingdom they are what keep us apart from others.  They are what keep our world fractured and frozen.

Our Home?

And so it is that I wonder about the church today.  In a world where the gap between rich and poor grows wider and wider, where the political rhetoric becomes more and more divisive, how the church responds to those who are different can either deepen or diminish the division in the world.  We can ministers of reconciliation, or we can be complicit in the world’s division. 

The temptation of our world is alienation.  It’s toward writing other people off, reducing them to stereotypes.  It’s toward saying, those folks are godless, they’re socialists, they’re right-wing extremists, they’re poor and too lazy to get help, they’re rich and ignorant, they’re Muslim or Jewish.

But by the logic of the kingdom, more important than any of that is that “they” are God’s children.  The table that we gather around every week is not a table for a privileged few who’ve got the right doctrine or done the right deeds.  It’s for everyone.

That’s why for me, our Sunday sojourns this summer have been so meaningful.  As we have broken bread with memory care residents and the homeless and hungry folks of our community, we have lived into the beauty of this story.  We have discovered, perhaps, what home really is.

Prayer

Tender Father and Mother of us all,

Who comes out to us

When we are alienated,

Whether by wealth or success

Or spiritual entitlement:

We hear your words this morning,

“Son, Daughter, you are always with me,

All that is mine is yours.”

May we find our home

With long-lost brothers and sisters

Around your table.

In Christ, whose love saves us.  Amen.

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[1] Several of the insights from this meditation have come from Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: DoubleDay, 1994), 77-88.

Would They Say No to a Table? (Luke 14:1-14)

(Meditation for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on August 4, 2019, Proper 13)

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This Table Is a Trap

Tables are all over the gospel of Luke.  More often than not, they’re where we find Jesus.  And they’re where others find acceptance, forgiveness, healing, and transformation.  It’s no surprise that on more than one occasion, Jesus uses the table as a metaphor for the kingdom of God.  

But today the table is a trap.  Previously Jesus has dined twice with Pharisees.  At the last meal, he upsets his hosts.  He rebukes them for following the letter of the law while disregarding its spirit.  He tells them that the life they are living is a sort of death.  They’re missing out on the stuff that matters.  It’s not a surprise when Luke tells us that at the end of the meal, the Pharisees become hostile toward Jesus and begin to lie in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say (11:53-54). 

That forewarning brings us to today’s meal, which happens at “the house of a leader of the Pharisees.”  Today the table is a trap.

Seated around Jesus are a host of lawyers and Pharisees and then a person who sticks out like a sore thumb: the man with dropsy.  Dropsy here refers to the condition in which a person’s thirst is never satisfied.  As a result of excessive drinking, the body commonly becomes swollen.  Religious folks in Jesus’ day would have considered dropsy the result of sin.  They would have disdained such a person.  They would likely have considered him both ritually and morally impure.  So it is a real surprise that this distinguished gathering of religious leaders have invited him to their table.

But then, that’s all part of the plan.  Because today the table is a trap.

It is the sabbath, the day of rest.  Rumor is that Jesus does not always observe the sabbath.  Not long before this gathering, he had infuriated a synagogue leader by healing a crippled woman on the sabbath.  What disrespect for God and God’s day of rest, the synagogue leader had exclaimed; could he not have healed her on any of the other six days of the week?

And thus the trap.  This group of religious leaders wants to see this sacrilege with their own eyes.  They want to expose Jesus for the lawless troublemaker that he really is.

But the opposite happens.  Jesus exposes them—for their heartlessness.  In silence, he heals the man with dropsy and sends him away.  (This table, after all, is not truly a place of welcome to the afflicted man.  It was merely a stage and he merely a prop.)  Then Jesus asks a rhetorical question that reveals the hearts of his critics.  They would help one of their animals on the sabbath, would they not?  Why not one of their fellow men?

Jesus Turns the Tables

And so it is that this table, which begins as a trap, has now become a tutorial for what tables look like in the kingdom of God.  Jesus has turned the tables, so to speak.  Jesus transforms the table from a place of power and exclusion to a place of grace and welcome.

In the ancient world, tables were effectively a social boundary.  Rich people ate with rich people.  Poor people ate with poor people.  Honorable people ate with honorable people.  Sinners ate with sinners.  Religious folks kept this boundary better than most.  There kept all sorts of rules, spoken and unspoken.  They kept rules of ritual cleanliness, moral purity, and social standing.  And these rules kept tables divided.

What you did not do in the ancient world was mix different groups of people at the table.  Instead individuals could try to climb the ladder.  In other words, if you wanted to sit at the top tables, if you wanted to have a seat of honor, you had to earn it.  You had to rub the right shoulders, you had to keep up a certain appearance, you had to say and do the things that would give you honor.  This is what Jesus is talking about when he tells the parable of taking a seat at a banquet.  Everyone, he says, is trying to exalt themselves.  But the game is rigged.  You’ll never be satisfied.  In the end, you’re always humbled. 

So Jesus advocates the opposite tack.  Humble yourself at tables.  More specifically, when you give a lunch or dinner of your own, don’t invite your friends or family, which is to say, don’t invite people in your own group.  That just preserves the status quo.  It is a never-ending cycle, wherein I invite my friends, my friends return the favor and invite me, and so on.  The kingdom of God will never arrive that way.

Instead invite the folks who cannot repay you, Jesus urges.  Invite the down-and-outs, the excluded, the folks who have fallen on hard times.  Why?  They will be lifted up, and so you will you. 

The Homogenous Unit Principle

It is a glimpse of the kingdom: rich and poor, sinners and saints, sitting together at the table.

I imagine it’s an ideal that many of us appreciate.  It’s something to which we could easily say, “Amen.”  When I first read this story, I struggled to connect it to our experience.  After all, we do not practice the same exclusionary tactics that the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus’ day did.  (Although I should hasten to add that not all Pharisees looked the same.  In the story right before today’s story, a group of Pharisees warns Jesus that Herod wants to kill him.) 

We do not set up a “you must be this tall” yardstick at our sanctuary door to exclude persons on the basis of social status or religion or nationality.  We do not put barriers around the table, for we recognize it is the Lord’s table and thus bears his invitation, not ours.  The challenge for the church is not, “How do we stop being exclusive?”

For the church the challenge is a little less obvious.  We don’t actively exclude.  It’s just that churches tend to clump together in groups that look the same.  In fact, this reflects what used to be a principle of church planting: “the homogenous unit” principle.  It was basically the idea that it’s easier for folks to become Christians if there are fewer social barriers for them to cross, such as class, race, or language.  Martin Luther King, Jr., once observed the homogenous unit principle in action when he declared that 11 o’clock on Sunday is the most segregated hour in our nation.  His insight addressed more than race.  Studies suggest that churches also segregate along lines of wealth and education.  In short, we tend to worship with people who are like us. 

Just Think of a Table

But this is the opposite of what Jesus advocates.  While the world feels most comfortable in socially reciprocal relationships—it operates more or less on the “homogenous unit” principle—Jesus envisions a kingdom that is socially topsy-turvy. He anticipates a banquet where social reciprocity is not what unites us, but instead radical grace and welcome.  What unites a Jesus table is the belief that everyone is blessed and beloved by God and belongs at the table.  So a Jesus table is filled with folks from all different backgrounds, rich and poor, saints and sinners, a hodgepodge that transcends the rule of social reciprocity.

The challenge for us, then, is how can we begin to see the church as more than just a gathering of familiar faces, more than a gathering of old friends? How can we begin to see the church not as a gathering meant for us, but a gathering meant for others, especially those who are hurting?

I don’t think it’s a complete coincidence that Jesus issues this challenge with the image of a table. 

How can we imagine a church with more than just the same old faces? 

Just think of a table, Jesus says.

You’ve heard me dream about tables before.  Today’s scripture rekindles the dream.  A growing number of our neighbors, many of them the needful whom Jesus describes, would not darken the door of a church.  Maybe they feel they would be out of place.  Maybe they have other reasons. 

But what about a table?  Would they say no to food?  Would they say no to being embraced, no strings attached?  Would they say no to stories of hope, songs of joy, people who cared for them and prayed for them?  Would they say no to a table?  (I recently heard a Mexican-American pastor put it this way: To build trust, “you need a table with food on it and you need a lot of time.”[1])

It’s a far cry from a traditional worship service.  But it’s not far at all from Jesus, who is the good news that our neighbors may need to hear.  I hope you’ll humor me this dream and perhaps consider it yourself as the church continues to reflect on its calling and purpose in the world today. 

Prayer

Dear Christ,

Who welcomes us

As brothers and sisters

Just as we are,

Whose love

Draws us into

Who we are becoming:

May we as your body

In turn show your welcome and grace

To those outside our circle,

Especially the needful.

Amen.

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[1] Bekah McNeel, “Latino Immigrants Are Evangelizing America,” https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/july/hispanic-church-planting-survey-immigration-evangelism.html, accessed July 29, 2019.