There’s Room at the Table for All I Corinthians 12:12-26; I Corinthians 11:23-26 Reverend Anne Benefield October 8, 2014 Prayer: Teach us, Lord Jesus, to act as servant leaders, working diligently for the welfare of others; to speak boldly about our faith and to tell the story of God’s loving embrace of the whole human race; to look calmly to heaven, especially when the world is roaring with violence; to trust You, Lord, to hold us close, in even the most desperate of situations; and to offer forgiveness to those who hurt us, as You did on the cross. Bless us with abundant faith in Your name. Amen. I’ve been thinking about what to say to you for some time. When I thought about you, I thought “Who am I to speak to you about racial reconciliation? You have much to teach me about reconciliation.” I am humbled by the honor of your request and recognize my limitations. Thank you for inviting me. I will do my best. In August I was reading The Warmth of Different Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It’s about the greatest migration in our history as a country, the migration of Southern blacks to the Northeast, Mid-west, and West. My reading of the book coincided with the shooting of Michael Brown and driving my son to St Louis where he goes to college. Reading that book changed me. I have always be saddened by the prejudiced treatment of people of color. I’m an idealistic person holding on to hope, but not denying the pain we all live in. However, that book forced me experience a depth of hatred I hadn’t really felt before. The stories were so gruesome that sometimes I would turn over a few pages because I felt sick witnessing through a book what had been done to my brothers and sisters in Christ. When Michael Brown was shot, I had a visceral reaction. In the past, I felt sad when I thought about the killing of young black men like Travon Martin, so very sad, but this time I felt angry. The television news reports interviewed more black women this time – black professional, well-spoken women – and they were angry, measured and dignified, but deeply angry. I saw their anger, I felt it, and I shared it. It was now my anger. I read another book this summer by James McBride. He is a black man whose mother was white. The book is a tribute to her. When he was in his teens he confronted his mother who was devoted to Jesus. He said to her, “What color is God? Is God white or black? What color? Does God look like me or like you?” She answered him slowly saying, “God isn’t like that. God isn’t white or black.” But her son persisted. Finally she said, “God isn’t black or white. God is the color of water.” Her words gave him pause. He was still angry, but somehow he could live with his anger. God is the life-giving color of water. Water is necessary for every living thing on earth as God is necessary for every living thing. But I want to get back to the anger that came bubbling up in me at the shooting of Michael Brow. I have a nineteen-year-old son. I worry about his safety, but not from violence. He rides his bike everywhere so I worry that he will get hit. His girlfriend of two years broke up with him yesterday so I worry about his broken heart. I worry he won’t work hard enough to get good grades. I worry that he won’t get a good job. I worry about all kinds of things, but I don’t worry about his safety from police officers. Before my son, Johnny, and I got in the car to drive to St Louis where he goes to college, his father took him aside for a word. As we drove away I asked Johnny if everything was okay. He said that his Dad told him not to go to Ferguson. I asked Johnny what he thought of that and he explained he wasn’t sure. I told him that if he had the opportunity to go to Ferguson he should think about it carefully and decide what was the right thing to do. When I got home, Johnny called. In passing he mentioned that the first person he saw when he went on campus was a student he didn’t know, but who said to him, “Let’s go to Ferguson.” He thought about it and thought he would have gone if he had known the student, but he didn’t. Then he asked me if I was disappointed in him. “No, no. It’s the kind of situation you should be in with people you know.” In my heart of hearts I was a tiny bit disappointed, but sometimes Johnny is wiser than I am. One of my favorite preachers is Fred Craddock. In his book of true-life stories, he talks about growing up on a subsistence farm in western Tennessee. Their closest neighbors were a black family named Graves. “When their son was born, the mother announced, ‘My son is going to be the child of reconciliation! He’s going to be the end of all this hostility and hatred.’ She called him Lee Grant. “One time when Lee Grant went to town, he let Fred Craddock go with him. Fred wrote, ‘I have never witnessed one person suffering the verbal abuse that he suffered from people who didn’t know him. He was a very gracious, good man, but his name was Lee Grant. ‘ And his mother said to Fred, ‘I don’t think you ought to go to town with Lee Grant anymore – you might be hurt.’” Fred finished the story, “I already was hurt. Strange.” [Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001), p.135.] And so the racial divide hurts us. Even in the church we have been divided by race although that is contrary to our earliest values. There is only one thing that can unite us: Jesus the Christ. Only in Christ can we find reconciliation. Our unity is nourished and defined at the Lord’s Table. That is where we recognize that we are the body, each of us is a member with an important role, as the Apostle Paul states so vividly in I Corinthians 12:12-26: 12For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Paul goes on to explain that each of us has talents to serve God. We are one body: the Body of Christ. Let’s go back to a passage in Chapter 11 of I Corinthians. These verses are called “the Words of Institution” because they instituted the Lord’s Supper. I Corinthians 11:23-26 23For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Paul didn’t write these verses in a vacuum. He was writing to the church in Corinth, where some of the most basic values of the Christian church were being disregarded. Two characteristics that marked the early church – and I might add were critical to the growth of the church – were inclusiveness and care for the downtrodden. In Corinth both of those values were being disregarded, even trampled upon. Christianity was the first monotheistic world religion. Of course, there were pagan beliefs that crossed ethnic, national, and cultural boundaries, but Christianity was opened to all people – rich and poor, free and slave, pagan, gentile and Jew. Following the Roman roads, Christianity spread around the world. The second powerful characteristic was the care given to the dying and sick. Because Jesus had become human, all humanity was to be blessed and treasured. At a time when disease and sickness weren’t understood and could easily spread through a family, the dying and the sick were regularly left out in the street. Christians went around picking up the dying and carrying them home to care for them. For many in those times such care was beyond imagination, but you can see that Mather Teresa was following an ancient practice of Christianity. Today when we see the fear of Ebola, notice that many of those who are taking care of them are Christians. In Corinth, the church had what we would call potluck dinners together and the Lord’s Supper became a part of that meal. The first problem was that the wealthy, who had more flexibility in their schedules and more ability to bring fine food, arrived early, before the poor and slaves could get away from work. The wealthy would have a grand meal with plenty of everything and apparently some were even getting drunk. By the time the less fortunate arrived there was nothing left. The behavior was both exclusive and mean. In that context, Paul wrote the “words of institution,” explaining how the Lord’s Supper was meant to be understood and practiced. So we know that divisions in the church are nothing new. Yes, we are living in troubled times. ISIS has executed another British aid worker. Ebola is feared throughout our country because it will eventually come here. We live in a global world and these situations are likely to keep happening, but we focus on the negative. There is a reason: we are afraid. We are afraid of what is different and much of the world looks, thinks, and speaks differently from us. Yet, in Christ, we are called to reach out to those who are different and in our resistance we have a lot in common with the church in Corinth, but here’s the good news: We have the Lord’s Supper which brings us all together. Everyone is welcome at the Lord’s Table. In the mid-sixties, I was working at a large church in New York City. There were some racial, religious riots. We worked with the children and youth to allow them to work through their worries and concerns. A few years later, some of the youth were getting ready to graduate from high school. Two girls asked to address the congregation – a pretty brave thing to do considering that there would be 1,500 people at the service. One girl was named Susan and she was Hispanic; the other girl was Kiry and she was Black. They stood before the church and said that they went to different schools, where they hung out with kids from their own culture, but at church they became friends. They became best friends and it had changed their lives and their understand of what if meant to come together. They said that without the church, they would never have gotten to know each other because they were from different worlds. They wanted to thank the church. One of the messages for us is someone always has to bring us to the table. Those girls had parents who brought them, but we need to help bring others to the table. People seldom find their way alone. Brian Greet, a British Christian, saw something when he was traveling in India that helped him understand the true church. He was visiting a Christian community where people were suffering from leprosy. When it came time for lunch, he headed for the central dining room. On the way, he heard the sound of laughter behind him. Turning around, he saw two young men, one riding on the other’s back. Pretending to be horse and rider, they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. Then Greet noticed that the man who was carrying his friend was blind, and the man he was carrying was lame. The man without eyes used his feet; the man without feet used his eyes. Together they fetched their food and shared it. That’s true communion. [Brian Greet, The Upper Room, October 4, 1983, as quoted in Homiletics Online, “A Meal,” I Corinthians 11:23-26, 4/21/2011.] Finally, it’s scary to bring to Christ people who are different from us – people who look, think or speak differently from us. Although it is easy to spot someone who looks different, we struggle with more subtle differences, too, especially people with different opinions from us. A few weeks ago, I had a meeting coming up. I was anxious because I knew it would be contentious. Earlier that day, I had a session with my therapist. When I arrived she immediately recognized that I was agitated. After I explained my fears, she invited me to close my eyes. Then she asked me to answer the question “What do I need to make it through the meeting?” She said to answer with the first thing that came to my mind. The answer was immediate: “Jesus.” My therapist encouraged me to invite Jesus to come. And when I did, I saw Jesus sitting across from me in my mind. He was smiling and He said: “Sister Anne, look at me. I am a strong man – spiritually and physically – and yet, I have been hurt, betrayed, left to die. You aren’t weak because you are anxious. I myself have had moments of anxiety. You aren’t experiencing anything I haven’t experienced. I am with you. I will never leave you alone.” We are anxious because we are afraid, but when we are united with Christ, we can overcome our fear. We are the body of Christ in the world. Remember those words: On the night he was betrayed the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. All are invited to the Lord’s Table. Jesus invited you to come forward and be nourished for His service. We have a lot of work to do, so we need His sustenance. Amen.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 22:25:15 +0000
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