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Aug 6, 2000
It's been fifty-five years or so since I last heard my mother cry out: COME TO SUPPER, BOBBY GENE! That was her every evening ritual to summon me, her hard-at-play boy to the dinner table. As we lived in a small town in Oklahoma, all the neighbors had their own house, surrounded by their own yard, so there was plenty of room for kids to roam and play in the pre-supper dusk. Also in Oklahoma many kids were called by a name other than their given names: I am GENE ROBERT but I was always BOBBY GENE to my mom. Though I hated to quit my play, a mother's voice has undeniable authority: COME TO SUPPER, BOBBY GENE! was a summons both imperative and welcoming. God gives us a similarly authoritative and welcoming summons to Holy Communion: Jesus said: I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK; IF YOU HEAR MY VOICE AND RESPOND I WILL COME IN AND HAVE SUPPER WITH YOU. (Revelations 3:20) My mother had a few rules before I could sit down to a nice, home cooked meal of chicken, collard greens, and peach cobbler - my favorites. These rules can serve as guidelines for us as we approach supper with Jesus. FIRST, I NEEDED TO GIVE UP WHAT I WAS DOING AND RESPOND TO HER CALL. Play is wonderful for a child and hard to quit. But I had to hear and then obey. Similarly, in order to receive what God offers to us we have to step away from other entertaining activities and listen and respond to his call. The quality of our response makes all the difference. One of Germany's greatest sons, the poet and philosopher Goethe, said this: "There is one elementary TRUTH - the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that never otherwise would have occurred… We answer the call: we need to give up our play, our personal indulgences, and decide to listen to the call to come in for supper or all those other things that ensue in the faith adventure will not happen. Jesus said: I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK. IF ANYONE HEARS MY VOICE AND OPENS THE DOOR I WILL COME IN AND DINE WITH HIM. We can easily ignore God's call inviting us to his bountiful provisioning of all that we need. We think or pretend that we really aren't hungry; we just want to play on. We may not yearn for the bread of heaven which Jesus promised in our Gospel of today. Often we may labor under the deterrent of guilt. The late American baseball legend Gil Hodges told this story. Once, when he was managing the Washington Senators team, he discovered four of his players had broken curfew the previous night. Immediately, he called the whole team together and said, "I know who you are but I do not wish to embarrass you. You know the rules; you will each be fined $l00. I have placed a cigar box on my desk. I expect the four of you who broke curfew to put your money in the box by 3:00PM" At the end of the day, Hodges found $1700 in his cigar box! A lot more people are struggling with guilt than fines and rules and even confessions can deal with. And bringing our guilt to God, who like the all-knowing team manager, knows precisely who we are, can be very off-putting. We, understandably, might like to play games by giving a qualified and conditioned response to God. The tax authorities in the US once received a letter from an anonymous taxpayer. It read, "I have cheated on my income tax for the past seven years and tonight my conscience is troubling me to the point that I cannot sleep. I have enclosed $500 as my way of saying "I am sorry." If I find that I still can't sleep, I will send the rest of what I owe." Guilt and equivocation about our guilt has been our companion from the beginning. Whatever the cause of our reserve toward God, the first rule is we have to be willing to listen and respond without rationalizing, and without denial.
The event known as Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, is founded on the Christian doctrine that Jesus is the one whom God has consecrated to give food that endures for eternal life. Jesus is the bread of God, the true "manna" who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Jesus is both the giver of bread and the bread itself. But while we have to use symbols like bread we are not talking only in symbols. To say that Jesus is the bread we need is not like showing the drawing of food to a starving person and pronouncing that he should be filled up. We need to envisage the Christ as more than symbolic bread. We have to begin to understand that the figurative use of bread in so many references to Christ is meant to convey not sentiment through symbolism, but an actuality behind the symbol. Christ is God's bread who can be verified because we can experience a fullness which takes away the pain of our hunger. And at the same time Christ as the bread we receive at communion conveys supernatural significance, a divine mystery. We need to open the door to this Jesus, to invite him to be with us. And when we allow God somehow to come to us through someone or something, we will experience not just the idea of the Risen Christ but the presence of that Christ. We will be included in a love which will never let us go. We will each hear our names called and in a loving way that assures us that we and our names are safe with the one who calls us to his supper. John Coombs the other night gave me this quote from the writer Eugene O'Neill: "We are born broken and spend our lives getting mended." Christ is the great mender of us all.
Before I could sit down at the kitchen table, my mother would say: BOBBY GENE, HAVE YOU WASHED YOUR HANDS? Of course I sometimes was so hungry as to be tempted to lie about the hand washing, but I didn't dare lie to mom. And, besides, her insistence was simple and obviously hygienic. Before coming to the Lord's Table we are asked to wash our hands. Jesus is not requiring breast beating and self-oblations in which we roll around in the dirt to demonstrate our piety and sincerity. He is asking only that we show him a sincere, contrite heart which opens us to receive all that God intends for us. To do that we need to handle our sin and guilt in the way God handles them. A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full, having leaked out part of its water all along the path. Of course the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. While the cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of feeling guilty for its imperfection, the cracked pot made a confession one day to the water bearer: "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you for delivering only half my load these past years to the master's house." The water bearer felt compassion for the cracked pot and said, "As we return this trip to the master's house I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path." Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But it still felt bad at the end of the trip because once more it had leaked out half of its water and again apologized to the water bearer. The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of our path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house." God knows that each of us has our flaws. We're all cracked pots. But if we allow it, God will use our flaws for a useful purpose for in God's economy based on divine grace there is finally nothing which is wasted. A child said that love is when God, who could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, instead didn't because he loves us. Not even the pain and suffering are wasted with God. The genuinely receptive heart is not the one filled with self-confession and possibly self-loathing, but the heart which opens to Paul's radical claim of God's intention: FOR OUR SAKE GOD MADE HIM WHO KNEW NO SIN TO BE SIN, SO THAT IN HIM WE MIGHT BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. (2 Cor 5:21) The communion invitation to sit and eat with Jesus is not an engraved invitation to learn and know more about the righteousness of God; nor is it even a challenge to believe in the righteousness of God. It is an invitation and an assurance that we are to become the righteousness of God. And that happens because Communion is a cancelled bill stamped OUR DEBTS PAID. There's no costs, no charges, associated with our Communion because God in Christ has taken care of all the indebtedness. That righteousness means we are destined to be in right relationship with God and when that happens all other matters will follow in appropriate order. Faith is the direction our feet start to walk when we know that we are loved.
Finally, my mom would announce: SIT DOWN, SUPPER IS READY, BOBBY GENE. And so without any further ado, much less begging for food on my part, mom's wonderful nightly supper would appear. Oh that corn on the cob, those mashed potatoes, that fried chieken, and that fruit cobber! Enough food is always how it is when you have a mother looking after you….AND A GOD! The host does the preparation and the work and we enjoy. True, as I grew up and assumed more responsibility I was wanting to help mom with the cleaning up. And in the loving family we easily reconcile that seeming paradox of being honored guests at mom's table while being warmly embraced members of the family. That's how family works. And that how God's suppering works, too. We are his guests of honor while also being his children gathered at the familiar table.
Pastor Gene Preston
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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