Sacred Meals

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
August 13, 2006; 10 Pentecost, Proper 14, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(John 6:35, 41-51) -- Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
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As part of the pre-meal blessing, my mother will look around the table and spend a moment making eye contact with each person. Silently she offers an inward smile of blessing for each one there. That's a mindfulness technique that she picked up from a book by the inspiring Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. As a way of inviting us to eat with more mindfulness, he teaches us to be aware of the people who are at our table as well as those who are not at our table. To be mindful of the miracle of interbeing that has brought this food to us for our health and enjoyment -- the farmers and the workers who cooperated with the earth and sky to produce the food, the labor that harvested it, those who transported and prepared it to make it available to us. A plate of food is a global event. To eat with mindfulness is to be grateful for the whole earth, acknowledging our complete interdependency, our organic union as a planet.

Eating together has always been a sacred event. Sometimes we recognize that; sometimes we don't. A shared meal is a profound act of union. As we eat from the same foods, our lives are being constituted by the same substances. Ancient cultures acknowledged this mystery by practicing certain strict customs. In Medieval Saracen tradition it was forbidden to kill anyone with whom you have sat at table, for you would be killing part of yourself. In the Jewish practice of Jesus' day, to have a meal with another was a public announcement of your lifetime acceptance of that person.

That is why the radical table fellowship that characterized Jesus' movement was so scandalous. Jesus welcomed to his table people who were known to be unclean, notorious sinners. People who were not even trying to live by the Biblical laws sat with him openly. He dined in their homes. No good rabbi would behave this way.

When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God he often used the metaphor of a great banquet. It is like a royal wedding banquet where everyone has been invited, both good and bad. At his most remembered meal, Jesus took off his robe and washed the others' feet as though he were their servant. He took the bread and the wine, blessed it, broke the bread and gave it to his companions with words that identified that act of table communion with his immanent death. That following Easter Sunday, they knew him in the breaking of the bread. The disciples experienced his victory over death, his resurrection, as they repeated the familiar activity of eating together. Christians have known Jesus to be present in precisely the same way for nearly two thousand years. The church knows itself to be nourished by Christ in the bread broken and the wine poured out. We become what we eat, the Body of Christ, taken, blessed, broken and given for the life of the world.

We call that a sacrament. It is our word for the experience of the spiritual within the material. Maybe you remember from your Confirmation classes -- A sacrament is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." Traditional Christian spirituality recognizes seven sacraments, but we also have a tradition of recognizing the sacramentality of the whole of creation. Every table, every meal can be "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." Being aware and awake to that reality is the purpose behind the mindfulness practices that Thich Nhat Hahn teaches. Every enduring religion has practices that intend to cultivate our awareness of the spiritual depths present in every place and in every moment, especially when we eat together.

There is a profound connection between eating and listening to God. The story of the first sin is a story of wrong eating. Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because "it was good for food, and ...a delight to the eyes, and desired to make one wise." Their desires deafened them to God's intention for them, and they suffered terribly for their choice. The first temptation that Jesus faced in the wilderness happened after he had fasted for forty days, and he was famished. The tempter said, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." Jesus' answer makes explicit the connection between eating and listening to God. "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

His ministry continued to be marked by teaching and feeding. His first miracle in John's gospel was to turn water into wine at a wedding feast. The feeding of the multitudes is the miracle that is repeated most frequently in our four gospel accounts. The radical hospitality of his table is the most characteristic feature of his social relationships. The prayer that is uniquely identified with him has at its center a petition for our "daily bread."

Those lessons weren't lost on the early church. A ritual meal, the Eucharist, has been the central act of worship for the Christian church since Easter Sunday. At least one Roman official complained of the food charity that the underground Christians practiced, writing a report to his superiors saying that these Christians "feed their own widows and ours." The order of deacons was created to distribute food and necessities to the poor. Our church stands in that long tradition as we prepare a hot, balanced meal every Monday and Wednesday for anyone who comes and as we distribute hundreds of boxes of quality food monthly through our Angel Food ministry. It doesn't take much imagination to connect those feedings to the Eucharist we will share in a moment. We are trying to reclaim the radical table hospitality of Jesus when we offer our Eucharistic invitation saying, "No matter who you are or where you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place and at God's table."

But, we cannot eat mindfully while listening to God without being profoundly impacted by the fact that daily bread is a daily anxiety for at least one-fifth of our fellow human beings. Over a billion people try to survive on less than $1 a day. Before this day is over, more than 20,000 of them will die because of their extreme poverty. You remember our horror at the massive death toll of the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed over 220,000 people. Global hunger and poverty today is like thirty-one tsunamis of death every year.

Yet, there is good news. For the first time in human history, our generation has the technology and the means to end extreme poverty. Next month Bob McMath will lead for us a Sunday morning study of the Millennium Development Goals, an achievable plan to end extreme poverty. We'll explore what one person, one congregation can do to make a difference.

There is another related tidal wave that hits a little closer to home, and that is all of the illness and death in the first world caused by our overeating and poor eating. Food choices are killing us now, even as they did in the Garden of Eden. Some have said that our planet's food-related woes are deeply related to our spiritual hungers. Centuries ago, Isaiah asked in the name of God, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live." (Isaiah 55:2-3) Isaiah said that listening to God and feeding on God are deeply related. Centuries later Paul advised his congregations, "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God."

As we pray for daily bread, we make that a prayer of hope grounded in faith. Today as you come to this table of open hospitality, take a moment a look around this room. Let your eye make contact with each person, and give each person here an inward smile of blessing.

Come to this table with open hands, open hearts, and receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation. Know yourself to be the welcome guest of God at this festive banquet. As you eat and drink, experience yourself as completely acceptable of God. Let the mutual delight of this holy table fill you with thanksgiving. The food of this communion unites you with all who dine here. This meal unites you with every human being in all the world, for everyone is created in the image and likeness of God. Claim your gift of intimacy with God. For this meal is how we experience that we are the Body of Christ, given for all the world. We are a Holy Communion. Indeed, through this sacred meal we become the gifts of God for the people of God.