Luther Launch Sunday September 13, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Genesis 18: 1-8 + Psalm 63: 1-8 + 1 John 2: 10-14
John 4: 31-38
Still our restlessness, O God, and open our hearts and minds, that we would hear the words your Spirit speaks to us. Amen.
If you have seen the movie Inside Out, you might be familiar with the concept of “core memories.” In the movie, these memories are the ones that literally provide power for the important facets of the life of Riley, the little girl who is the main character.
{How many of you have seen the movie?}
Even if you haven’t seen the movie, we all have core memories that have shaped us as people. The times in our lives that will always be present with us and that inform and give power to what we do and who we are.
One of my core memories involves moving when I was eleven years old, from Illinois, where all of my extended family lived, to Alabama, where my father’s job transfer necessitated a move. I had no idea what to expect, having spent little time in the deep south. I had no idea what it would mean to my pre-teen self to not have my grandmothers and aunts and cousins and great aunts and uncles present in my daily life any longer. The trip in the car felt as though I were being literally un-hinged from all that mattered to me with every mile we drove toward the unknown. When we arrived in Sulligent, this small town on the Alabama-Mississippi state line, my parents gently guided us into our new home. And I will never forget what we found when we walked in. Every surface in the kitchen was covered with gifts of food. Pies, cakes, cookies, banana pudding, biscuits, and yeast rolls. The refrigerator was also full, with fried chicken and pork chops and tomatoes and peaches and salads and deviled eggs and sweet tea. The freezer was packed with frozen casseroles enough to last for a month. Somehow, the idea that people we didn’t even know had cared enough for us to provide us with food in this measure – overflowing and abundant – comforted pre-teen me.
If I were to take a poll this morning, I’d be willing to bet that many of the core memories in this room in some way involve food. After all, it is often food that gathers us together with friends and family and community.
The author Eli Brown writes: “Some foods are so comforting, so nourishing of body and soul, that to eat them is to be home again after a long journey. To eat such a meal is to remember that, though the world is full of knives and storms, the body is built for kindness. The angels, who know no hunger, have never been as satisfied.” [1]
In the story from Genesis this morning, Abraham encounters God while sitting outside of his tent to escape the heat of the day. Those who hear this story know that the three travelers are somehow divine, although scholars aren’t sure just how that is. But Abraham merely sees them as ordinary travelers on a journey who have come near his tent at the hottest time of day. And what happens next in the story is so beautiful. Abraham sees to it that they have water to wash the dust from their feet and a place to rest. That they have food and drink. Abraham instructs Sarah to bake bread from fine flower and his herdsmen to prepare meat from a calf. Abraham gets cheese and milk to round out the feast and offers it to the travelers as they rest under the trees.
Hospitality is more than something we do because etiquette calls for it. Hospitality is a mark of discipleship. It is a biblical principle that is found in stories as early as Genesis.
This week, as we remembered the anniversary of September 11th, I watched a video of a friend of mine who is now an Episcopal priest in Portland. He was from Alabama, and like me, Jeremy had just started seminary on that terrible day. He was at General Seminary in Manhattan. Jeremy tells the story of how he and his classmates were assigned by the seminary to staff a respite center at the edge of Ground Zero. They had coffee and bottled water and they made hamburgers by the dozens, anticipating hungry rescue workers. But as the evening wore on, no one came. Because no one wanted to leave the very important work that they were doing… the work of rescue and recovery. So Jeremy and his classmates loaded up their backpacks and bags with hamburgers and bottled water and they walked into the middle of Ground Zero. He notes that it was difficult to put anything into words in that space. The horror and the uncertainty and the grief simply would not coalesce into words of any kind. But some coffee and water quenched trembling fears and a hamburger pulled from the backpack of a student was fuel to provide nourishment for the long journey ahead. [2]
Likewise, this week, we have watched as refugees arrive in Germany and Austria and other European countries to cheers and to gifts of food. Families fleeing in terror – running from years of civil war in their country and from terror groups that threaten any hopes of a future. And in those places where they are being warmly welcomed, there is always food present in that welcome. Whether their understanding of hospitality is a Biblical one or not, this welcome of the refugee, this feeding of the hungry traveler, is a vibrant reflection of God’s welcome to us. And it is a reminder to us, in a country rich with resources, that the same God calls us to do the same, over and over again in Scripture, to offer welcome and not walls.
On Thursday evening, in this neighborhood, a plea went out on Facebook. Because in this neighborhood….right outside our doors….there are families who were counting on the free and subsidized breakfasts and lunches provided by the school. There are children who do not eat without those meals. What could be done while the teachers were on strike and school was closed? The cry went out. And I was able to respond with the invitation to come for sack lunches. And then, to add to that….the striking teachers contributed non perishable items that had been gifted to them to eat during the strike….to go into our sack lunches along with the food that you have given. (Shortly after this the City of Seattle announced that it would offer meals to children at community centers across the city.)
During the days and months and years after we moved to Sulligent, I came to know the givers of that food that graced our table. There was Cloe Rye, whose famous yeast rolls were also served in the school lunchroom. There was Shirley Weeks who taught Home Ec and made a banana pudding that was out of this world. There was Mr. Winton, the pharamacist, who could fry up a mess of chicken with the best of them and with whom I would sing in the church choir for many years to come. There was Martha Paul whose love and care was as sweet as her tea. Food enabled relationship. The same was true for Abraham and the weary travelers. Providing food for these holy people on the road enabled them to speak to Abraham of God’s covenant with him.
In Jesus’ life, food is a metaphor for fruitful discipleship. Jesus is always found at the table – often with those society has neglected to feed or care for. Jesus grills fish on the beach and breaks bread with tax collectors. He feeds crowds with just some bread and fish. Ultimately, though, Jesus tells the disciples in the reading from John today that what nourishes and sustains him is doing the will of God.
Sisters and brothers, as we begin this program year in the life of this congregation, we do so with two meals. We will gather in the fellowship hall for a feast prepared for us by Gordon and Bill. This gathering together is intended for fellowship and fun and enjoyment as we consider all that this year might hold.
But before we make our way to the fellowship hall, we will find our way to this table, where Jesus offers his very self to us. Where Jesus gives us food to sustain us when we are uncertain, afraid, or new to the neighborhood. Bread of heaven and cup of salvation for souls and bodies that thirst for God in the midst of this journey, in this dry and weary land.
We rejoice, we give thanks, because we are fed with the body and blood of Christ at a feast table that has no end.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Brown, Eli Cinnamon and Gunpowder
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkGniUp2W1g&feature=youtu.be
Jeremy Lucas. September 12