This Table is Difficult

 John 6:56-69

August 22, 2021

 

Santo Cena
Militao de Santos

This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?

I know the disciples were talking about the bit

about eating Jesus flesh and drinking Jesus blood.

But the whole of communion is difficult.

This table is difficult.

 

Yes, there are all the theological wranglings:

Transubstantiation or consubstantiation.

Essence verses being, the true presence,

in, with, and under all that stuff.

But hard to understand is not what I’m talking about

and I don’t think it’s what the disciples are

talking about it being difficult.

They mean it’s tough to accept,

I mean it’s tough to practice in real life.

Gnawing on everything that Jesus commands is difficult.

 

This last five weeks we’ve been reading John 6.

It’s called the Bread of Life series and it’s

where Jesus says he is the bread of life.

So we’ve been talking about Jesus and

food and eating and communion and Christ’s table.

 

I did a little overview of all the places in the 4 gospels

where Jesus was eating or talking about eating.

I counted 25 incidences in the gospels where
Jesus was eating with people or talking

about people eating together.

None of these are family meals.

They’re all kind of like dinner parties.

 

A lot of these meals seemed to be out in public,

where others could kind of look in.

They weren’t private.

And indeed in the temperate climate

lots of people ate outside and some say it’s possible that

their houses were open to the street in view of others.

 

One seminary professor I know, who knows

a lot more about the gospels than I do,

said that more than that, it’s likely that Jesus

made a display of his meals to everyone.

Even more than the gospels tell us about.

 

That as part of his mission work,

every time Jesus would travel into a new town

his gang of  disciples would pick a very public place,

lay down the giant blanket and the pillows,

pull out the food and just invite people over.

Jesus made a spectacle out of his meals.

 

I was intrigued by this image. It rang true.

It was an open and free party.

It was feeding those who needed it.

And it was also a testament to those observing:

Jesus was eating with everyone. And especially

inviting those who were outcasts from other group meals.

Most famously with tax collectors and sinners,

who could more specifically be characterized

today as mafia strong-arms and sex workers.

Vice squad targets.

They all could openly come for food and friendship.

 

This teaching is difficult.

 

I grew up in a denomination that restricted

who could and couldn’t have communion.

They were very selective on who could come.
That seemed to be the norm to me.

Only certain people who belonged to the

denomination could eat with us.

Only certain ages, and beliefs,

only the baptized, only the un-divorced,

There was a tussle in my church about whether a teenager

who had gotten pregnant would be allowed to take communion.

 

I don’t think this is unusual.

Most denominations have some restrictions.

Some are more intense about it than others.

 

And even in documents we have about the earliest

church, they seemed to gravitate to that

kind of model, putting wide requirements on

who could and couldn’t eat at the churches table.

 

At points, I have thought that was the most

difficult part about this meal.

That some were excluded from it.

That you had to accomplish or subscribe to certain things

in order to make it to the church’s table.

And that’s what made it special and sacred.

But in looking at all of those eating events in the gospel,

That was never the issue for everyone looking in.

Never once did those Pharisees or scribes say,

“Why does he only invite certain people to his meals?

He turned several people away, why did he do that?

If he was really a prophet, he would have known who

he did not invite to the meal.”

Jesus was only asked why so many

of the wrong people were invited.

They asked, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?

This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

If this man was a prophet, he would have

known what kind of woman that was at his table.”

 

This teaching is difficult.

 

So our tables at the ELCA and some other churches are open.

Meaning anyone of any denomination can

have communion at an ELCA church.

 

And there are many churches and pastors

who have taken that extra step to say

that anyone is invited of any age,

any denomination, we don’t ask whether

people are baptized or confirmed or on the right or wrong path.

Everyone is welcome to our tables

because everyone was welcome to Jesus table.

 

And we get guff for that, we get labeled all sorts of things,

told that we’re not doing it right or by tradition.

We get told were lazy and we don’t regard

Jesus table with enough respect or sacredness.

We’re told “We need to put more limits on Christ’s table.”

When what we’re actually trying to do is imitate Christ.

And be more like what the scriptures repeatedly describe.

 

But the world is more comfortable with us when we’re exclusive

and restrictive and make strong lines of demarcation

between “them and us”.

But we knew before we started,

that this is teaching was difficult.

  

So we might all be onboard with this,

we might actually be okay with opening our tables

and eating with mafia thugs and sex workers.

And even people of another denomination or no denomination at all.

We might be okay with that kind of openness.

And the party-like atmosphere.

But this table is not just a party.

It’s not all just fun and festivities.

At this table, on the night in which he was betrayed

Jesus took the bread and the wine and he ate.

He ate with the one who denied him.

With the ones who ran and hid when the going was tough.

And he ate with the one who would betray him

and turn him over the authorities and have him killed.

And nothing feels worse than friends who turn on you.

But Jesus ate with all of them none the less.

 

I don’t know how I would feel about that.

Eating with people who betrayed me and did me harm.

This is teaching is really difficult at times.

 

There was an Anglican priest named Father Wiggit

who ministered to the political prisoners

in South Africa in the early 1980’s.

 

To remind people, in South Africa there was brutal, blatant,

cruel, and non-optional segregation and racial brutality

against black people in South Africa by

the Dutch and British colonists who settled there.

Black people were arrested, starved, tortured,

and killed for minor infractions like speaking

up against the government, or walking in the wrong neighborhood.

Many were also imprisoned in horrible

concentration camps for decades.

 
Nelson Mandela was one of those who was imprisoned for

speaking out against apartheid and

he was held in work camps from 1962 – 1990.

 

Father Wiggit told this story:

Every week he would come and share

communion with the prisoners.

A few of them would sit around a little table in a nasty room,

and there was always a prison warden who was assigned

to come and observe the proceedings.

The guard would just sit there during the service stone-faced,

and make sure that there was no ‘suspicious’

activity happening, no secret information shared.

Father Wiggit did this for years at this camp

with the same warden watching.

 

In 1982, Nelson Mandela had already been in various prison

labor camps for 20 years.

And he was transferred to the prison that Wiggit served.

The first time that Nelson Mandela was there,

he joined the prisoners for communion.

Father Wiggit started the communion liturgy and

Mandela stopped him. He yelled out to the warden

and asked him if he was a Christian.

The warden said “yes” and Mandela said,

"Well then, you should be over here.

Take off your hat and come join us.”

And the guard took of his hat and joined them.

Father Wiggit said he had never thought of inviting the warden,

He said he just saw him as an apartheid functionary.

 He said he saw his face change.

He was not the cold guard he had been for so many years.

Mandela saw him as a brother in Christ and invited him to the table.

It made all the difference there.

Mandela lived the teaching of Jesus.

He gnawed on the whole body of Christ.

 Not just part of it.

 

This is difficult teaching.

 

Wherever this table is, in a church, or living room,

or on a lap in a nursing home,

or in a visiting room of a prison:

This is Christ’s table, it’s not my table,

it’s not the church’s table,

and it’s not even the ELCA’s Table. 

It’s always Jesus table.

It is to be made ready for those who love him

and those who want to love him more.

 

This is Jesus table, Jesus is our host

and so it is always Jesus guest-list

that we have to honor.

 

Every time we have communion together

and we open this table up to everyone,

and share Christ’s body and blood with

anyone that might drift in, any one that might

care to join us (and some that might not care at all)

we make a testament and a witness to

the depth and breadth of God’s love and forgiveness.

 
 

We sit across the table and share this sacred

food with our enemies, those that don’t share,

that don’t believe our struggles or opinions.

Those who don’t understand us or agree with us.

Those who betray us and deny us.

Even those who keep us captive,

and who treat us and others with great injustice.

And when we do it, we are saying this is how God is.

This is Jesus Christ the Bread of life.

 

This is difficult teaching.

But like Simon Peter said to Jesus,

“Where else are we gonna go?”

Jesus has the words and the ways of life.

The way to change the world.

This food that we share keeps us coming back.

 

This is body of Christ, this is the bread of life.

The sacred meal that we join together to share.

The meal that we ingest, gnaw on,

that becomes a part of us.

This has the power of reconciliation,

the power of forgiveness.

The power to help and to heal.

The power to bring us together and erase divisions.

As difficult as this teaching is,

This is living bread from heaven.

This is Jesus Christ

And he has the words of eternal life.