12 Pentecost B – August 16, 2015

12 Pentecost B – August 16, 2015

12 Pentecost B/Ordinary 20/Proper 15              August 16, 2015
Luther Memorial Church        Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Proverbs 9: 1-6  +  Psalm 34: 9-14  +  Ephesians 5: 15-20  +
 John 6: 51-58

Holy Wisdom, you have set a table for us and called us to feast with you.  Give us ears to hear and hearts to receive your Word, the living bread from heaven, given for the life of the world.  Amen.

          Scripture tells us of a woman who existed even before creation, a woman who was the first creation of God and then participated with God in the creation of the world.  This woman is described in Hebrew Scriptures as a tree of life, giving long life to those who find her.[1]

          This woman’s name is Wisdom and in today’s first reading she has prepared a feast of magnificent proportions and invited the simple to come and join her in partaking of it.

The study of Wisdom and Wisdom literature is complex and often full of contradiction.  It makes some in our patriarchal society uncomfortable to imagine that a female figure could be elevated to such importance.  Scholars argue over the interpretation, some suggest that Wisdom, which comes from the Hebrew word hokmah is meant to describe an feminine aspect of God’s being, while others believe her to be a separate entity altogether.

What is clear in today’s reading from Proverbs is that Wisdom has prepared a bountiful feast in her clearly generous and luxurious setting.  The house that she built has seven pillars – suggesting that it is large and also hinting at a sacred context.  The Hebrew people did not normally eat meat with their daily meals; meat was saved for special occasions, so that she has slaughtered animals and mixed wine are clear indicators that this is no ordinary meal.  It is a feast.

As I was thinking about Wisdom’s holy feast this week,  a story of a  feast in my own life came to mind.   During our first year of seminary my dear friend Amy and I were at the end of our ropes – we were emotionally, physically, and intellectually spent.  On Thursdays we had a night class, which gave us a bit of a dinner break.  Most days we just went to a nearby sandwich shop or diner or pizza place for a quick bite before class.  But on this particular cold winter’s evening, Amy suggested a nearby small establishment neither of us had ever tried.  We trudged over through the biting Ohio wind, our backpacks full of books.  When we walked into the restaurant, the warmth greeted us like an old friend.  Our host encouraged us to put our burdensome backpacks down in the coat room then ushered us to a table next to a glowing fire in the fireplace.  When we sat down, she picked up the beautiful starched white linen napkins and put them in our laps.  I glanced at Amy across the table to see tears gather in her eyes.  In that moment, we had been invited to lay our burdens down and come to a table where there was nourishment for both body and spirit.

“You that are simple, turn in here! Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. “

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, said in a sermon that “it’s the really hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away. For those who know their need, God is immediate, not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body.” [2]

On that day, as Amy and I dragged our weary selves into that Ohio winter’s evening, we knew our need.  Our spirits were in fact stifled by the rigorous process that is preparation for ministry.  In many ways there is great irony in this.  And I acknowledge that this is a story of my own need.  Most days, because of where I was born and because I am blessed with a deeply satisfying vocation, supportive family, loving friends,  my need is tamped down – less obvious because the blessings of this life or the tasks of the day burble to the surface first.

But when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable before God… when our fears and our doubts and our insecurities are uppermost in our hearts… when our poor decisions or our inadequacies or just our acting without sense are all too evident….we know our need.  We know that we need a God who invites us to come….to lay our burdens down….and to eat of bread, meat, and wine at a feast prepared in the holiest of places.

Throughout the New Testament, Jesus describes life in the Kingdom as a rich feast.  But in our Gospel reading today, Jesus not only invites us to the feast but declares that he is the meal itself.  Feasting with and literally feasting on Jesus gives us life.

It is one of the greatest privileges as your pastor to feast at this table with you.  When Paul Bartling asked me at my interview to serve as your pastor what I found to be the most meaningful aspect of worship I immediately responded: “when we gather at the table.”  Because it is to this table that we bring our truest selves, some days more broken open than others.  Some of us come and linger, some come and go quickly.  Some raise our eyes to take in the cross and the table and the candles – the feast as it is set.  Your responses to the body and blood of Christ echo in my ears and heart:  Yes!  Amen!  Thanks be to God! Oh thank you! I think each time that I should take off my shoes when we gather at the table because the ground is so holy.

For we bring our deepest needs and our truest selves to this table and God responds by offering us the very body and blood of Jesus.  Could there be a greater gift?

When we wonder what our purpose is for being the Church….when we consider and envision the future ministry of this congregation…..we do well to hear again from Rowan Williams who said: “The one great purpose of the Church’s existence is to share that bread of life; to hold open in its words and actions a place where we can be with Jesus and to be channels for his free, unanxious, utterly demanding, grown-up love. The Church exists to pass on the promise of Jesus – ‘You can live in the presence of God without fear; you can receive from his fullness and set others free from fear and guilt’.” [3]

This is why we are here.  That in our need we come to this table prepared for us with the body and blood of Christ, given for the life of the entire world.  To be a place of wide welcome so that others… so that all… may also come.

After that dinner on that cold Ohio evening, Amy and I would visit that same place from time to time.  We ate many other meals together – in each other’s homes and on shared trips and quick meals grabbed in the seminary gathering space.  But when the days became especially challenging and our need for grace and succor were especially tender, we always took ourselves back there – we called in being “white napkin needy.”

Five years after we ate that first white napkin meal,  I stood at the table of the Lord at Amy’s funeral, holding the body of Christ in a white linen napkin and saying to each one who gathered, “this is the body of Christ given for you.”   We had gathered, those who loved her, with the heavy burden of our grief.  Called to a feast of love prepared throughout time by God, by Wisdom, and ultimately by Jesus’ own self.

Sisters and brothers, maybe your need does not feel especially tender on this day….or perhaps it does.  But God, and Wisdom, and Jesus call us to this table….to a meal prepared for us before Creation…..the very body and blood of Christ, given and shed for us and for the life of the world.

The feast is prepared.  All are welcome. Come.

 

[1] Proverbs  1, 3, 4, 8, & 9

[2] Williams, Rowan, Archbishop of Canterbury.  Enthronement sermon, Canterbury Cathedral.  27 February 2003.

[3] Williams, ibid