First Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church

Rev. Sam Pendergrast

April 6, 2008

Luke 24:13-35

 

 

“Known in the Breaking of Bread”

 

During my first year out of seminary, I had three funerals within a one-week period, one of them for a husband and wife who died in an automobile accident. For me as a new pastor it was sink or swim. Fortunately I had pretty good instincts when it came to caring for grieving families. Still, I had some lessons to learn. For instance, funerals are for giving comfort and offering hope, not for teaching about death and grief. Those sermons and lessons need to be offered at other times when people are not drowning in the raw emotions that come with the death of a loved one. The very human story of the Bible offers plenty of openings to preach on death, grief and hope. It’s the same way with money. The wise pastor will preach on the Christian attitude toward wealth, possessions and giving at times other than the annual pledge drive. Besides, to ignore that topic is to avoid an enormous portion of the Scriptures.

 

In this church you have not been in the habit of celebrating the Lord’s Supper very frequently. When occasions for sharing in communion come so rarely, two things can happen. On the one hand, worshipers can be taken by surprise and not know what to expect. On the other hand, since the chance to participate is rare, some people come with a variety of stored up expectations. Either way, without good preparation, sharing in the multiple meanings of the Lord’s Supper becomes more difficult. The Lord’s Supper as The Last Supper reminds us of Jesus’ suffering and death; it reminds us of how Jesus took on the burden of the sin of the world; it can have a very sorrowful feel. The Lord’s Supper celebrates Jesus’ victory over death. It reminds us of the power of forgiveness. At times to focus of the meal is one of fellowship and a celebration of the new community created by Jesus. We come to the Table to be fed and empowered for joyful service as God’s people in the world. Those are a few of the ways we understand this sacrament.

 

Today I want to use the story of the walk to Emmaus and the way the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread to talk about the Sacraments, specifically about the Lord’s Supper. In the Presbyterian Church we have two sacraments: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. What we believe about sacraments in general is this: “Sacraments are signs of the real presence and power of Christ in the Church, symbols of God’s action.” If we think of the act of preaching as God’s Word proclaimed, we think of the sacraments as God’s Word made visible. Our participation in the sacraments, whenever we baptize a new Christian or whenever we gather around the Lord’s Table to share his meal of new life, enriches our lives and helps us to grow in faith and understanding. At the same time, the wise pastor, the wise church, regularly will teach what it is we believe about these sacraments so that when people take part, they can do so with deeper faith and a richer sense of God’s presence.

 

There is plenty of room for misunderstanding. The Romans accused the early Christians of eating their children, of being cannibals, because they spoke of sharing the Body and Blood of their Lord. Some churches claim that the bread and wine become something else, the actual spiritual body and blood of Jesus. Some churches believe that communion is no more than a memorial, something we do to remember Jesus, just as he commanded. Some believe that the spiritual body of blood of Jesus is present with the elements of bread and wine.

 

I believe that it is more helpful to focus on the body of Christ that gathers around the Table than it is to focus on the body of Christ on the Table. After all, if the purpose of our listening to the Word is to shape us in the image of Christ and to form us as his disciples, so the purpose of taking part in the Sacraments, the Word made visible, is to do the same. What we believe about the sacraments matters because it affects our participation. Our participation in the sacraments shapes our lives as followers of Jesus. That’s what I think the Apostle Paul was concerned about in the first letter to the Corinthians when he urged that church to “discern the body of Christ.” Paul harshly scolded the Corinthian church because the Lord’s Supper had become for them an occasion of division rather than a time of unity. Apparently in those days the celebration of the Lord’s Supper was a pot-luck affair. People brought their own bread and wine to the gathering. They didn’t just take a pinch of bread and a sip of wine. It was a meal. But what had Paul so worked up was that those who had plenty went ahead with their meal and did not wait for the others, some of whom had nothing. The Lord’s Supper in the church in Corinth apparently became an occasion for some to be well-fed and drink plenty of wine, and for others to be left out.

 

Paul’s introduction is all the more jarring because of how understated it is: “In the following instructions I do not commend you….” Do tell. It becomes clear how far he is from “commending” them as he goes on. “When you come together, it is really not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” He goes on to say that “all those who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” His phrase, “discerning the body” means that if Jesus died for the sins of all of us and prayed for all of his followers to be one, then we make a mockery of his death and of his meal if we refuse to have our eyes opened and to recognize our Lord in those present around the Table with us.

 

I imagine it’s hard for most of us to appreciate that controversy from the church in Corinth, given the way we generally celebrate communion. In fact, for most churches “celebrate” may be too strong a word! We sit solemnly in our pews. Plates are passed quietly. It’s easy to be alone in the crowd and to avoid making eye contact. Even though we hold the bread and eat together, it hardly seems like sharing a meal. And drinking our little cup of juice can seem like nothing more than drinking a toast to Jesus. Hardly a fellowship meal or a celebration of the risen Lord. No wonder so many people think of communion as a sad occasion more like the Last Supper than a foretaste of the resurrection.

 

In the breaking of bread, those first disciples in the village of Emmaus recognized Jesus present at the table with them. In the breaking of bread, we recognize Jesus present with us, no longer physically present, but present in spirit in the gifts of bread and wine and also present in his Body gathered around the table. For you are Christ’s Body and individually members of him. When we gather around this table, we proclaim that the power of forgiveness and the power of the new life that Jesus gives us is greater than any disagreement, any insult, any resentment or hurt that we have suffered at each other’s hands. Jesus’ love makes us one, despite our sin.

 

Recently the spotlight of the national news media has shone on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the church where Barack Obama is a member. Some of Reverend Wright’s comments regarding race and national political issues have been extreme, some would say outrageous. His words have revealed the pain and division that still exist in our country as part of the legacy of slavery. Those words, and the words of many who responded critically, are a challenge to the ability of Christians to come together around one Table. It would be hard for me to make much sense of or to respond with charity to some of those words.

 

So it was with profound awe and a sense of humility that I read Mike Huckabee’s public response when he was asked about Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory comments. Huckabee, as you know, is a Baptist pastor and the former Governor of Arkansas, recently a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Huckabee said,

 

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, "That's a terrible statement," I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I'm going to be probably the only conservative in America who's going to say something like this, but I'm just telling you: We've got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, "You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had ... more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

 

Wow! I think that Mike Huckabee’s eyes were opened in some way to a new reality. I dare to imagine that it is because of recognizing the Risen Lord in the breaking of bread that he is able to speak with such charity and humility about a Christian brother who has spoken in a insulting way. I would imagine that Mike Huckabee knows that the Body of Christ is bigger than any disagreement, religious or political. It’s bigger than the wounds we have suffered in our families, our communities and even our churches. The Body of Christ has room for all of us.

 

So the next time you come to the Lord’s Table for communion, I pray that your eyes may be opened and that you may recognize the risen Lord present in your neighbor. That is who we are. We are the Body of Christ. Each of us, however imperfectly, is the presence of Christ. He has no hands but our hands and no feet but ours. We come to this Table for a multitude of reasons – for forgiveness, for strength, to celebrate the victory of Jesus over death, to express our joy, to remember, to be joined together with the community of faith. We come because we are hungry for what only God can offer us as we come together as God’s people.

 

The spiritual writer, Evelyn Underhill said this about communion:

The Eucharist is the very heart of Christian worship because it is so rich and far-reaching in its significance; because it eludes thought, eludes emotion, relies on simple contact, humble and childlike receptiveness…. It mixes together the extremes of mystery and homeliness; takes our common earthly experience of suffering, love, abandonment, death, and makes them inexpressibly holy and fruitful; takes the food of our natural life and transforms that into a channel of Divine Life.

 

One of my favorite communion hymns is by Brian Wren. More than any other hymn I can think of these words express the rich meanings of the Lord’s Supper.

I come with joy to meet my Lord, forgiven, loved, and free,

In awe and wonder to recall his life laid down for me.

I come with Christians far and near to find, as all are fed,

The new community of love in Christ’s communion bread.

As Christ breaks bread and bids us share, each proud division ends.

The love that made us, makes us one, and strangers now are friends.

And thus with joy we meet our Lord. His presence always near,

Is in such friendship better known: we see and praise Him here.

Together met, together bound, we’ll go our different ways,

And as His people in the world, we’ll live and speak his praise.

 

We will never exhaust the meaning and the mystery of the Lord’s Supper. We will never outgrow or outlive our need to be fed with Christ’s body and blood. And we will always have eyes that need to be opened in some way to the reality of both our very human neighbors and to the presence of the risen Lord among us. I pray that each of us may know one another and the presence of our risen and living Lord more fully each time we break bread together.