Graceful Sermons : A Table

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

“He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies…”

Table.

Food.

Meal time.

What meals do you remember?

Hmmm. Let me see….

Lunch time! Remember lunch back is school? High school or junior high or elementary school? The school bell would ring and the whole class would march out of the classroom, down the hall, around the corner, down another hall, and into the huge cafeteria.

Lunch Time!! Ask any kid in school what his or her favorite subject is, and half the time they will say, "lunch." The other half of the time they say “recess.”

I know lunch was always my favorite time in school.

I'd walk into that cafeteria and pick up my plastic tray and stand in line while grown-ups dished out mysterious menus. I'd sit down and eat. I'd put that first bit into my mouth and say, "hmmm, this tastes horrible."

School lunch in my school was always bad. But it was still my favorite part of the day when I was a kid, because it was like an island in the middle of the school day. It was a refuge of peace. As long as we behaved reasonably well, the teachers would leave us alone. There were no questions to answer, no tests to do, no homework to remember. Lunch was the least demanding part of the day in an environment that was full of demands. And as chaotic as the lunchroom sometimes became, it was the most peaceful part of the day.

Peace.

When we come to the Lord’s Table, for our sacramental meal, we find a moment of peace.

Come to the table today, and find peace.

Your enemies may be the gossip down the street, or the cancer may still be growing within, or the clock on the wall is certainly continuing to move time along as you feel the pressure of work you cannot finish.

Come to the table of the Lord and find peace.

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“He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies…”

What meals do you remember?

Not every meal is peaceful. YIKES! It's 2:00 in the afternoon and you still haven't had lunch. Too late to prepare a good lunch you have an appointment you have to get to. Thank goodness there are those restaurants along the way – they don’t call them “FAST FOOD” for nothing. You rush out of the house, get into the car, drive down the road, turn into the drive-through at Wendy’s order a cheeseburger and fries, gobble up the quick lunch, and throw the paper wrapper in the back seat and make your appointment no more than ten minutes late!

Meal time, it is not always a moment of peace. It is sometimes a hectic, quick bite in the middle of a hectic day. But that quick bite is what keeps you going. It charges your batteries so you won't run down.

Energy.

Renewal.

When we come to the Lord’s Table, this is a meal in which we can find a source of energy to keep going in the face of life.

Come to the table today, be renewed, and find energy.

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“He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies…”

Table.

Meal time.

What meals do you remember?

The gentle music plays in the background. The soft light flickers from the candles. The waiter brings out the food. The best from the menu has been ordered. This time it is not a cheeseburger wrapped in paper and put under a heat lamp until it is purchased. It is your favorite meal in your favorite restaurant.

And it may be your favorite because it is too expensive to have every day. It is cooked just right. And bite after bite is savored -- not consumed in haste, but slowly enjoyed to the fullest.

It is again meal time and you are at table. And you are there not so much to get strength or energy. You are there for joy and pleasure and companionship-- the excellent food, the pleasant atmosphere, the joy of sharing the food with friends and family. Another word for that is communion.

On May 8, 1984, Ben Weir, a Presbyterian missionary, was abducted and held captive for 16 months by a radical Shiite group in Lebanon. He describes this experience in a book called Hostage Bound, Hostage Free. During his first week of captivity he found himself alone, blindfolded and chained to a radiator in darkened room. He decided that on Sunday he would have his own church service including communion, so when he was given a sandwich for supper on Saturday night, he saved a piece of bread for the next day. On that Sunday morning he thought of all the Christians in the world having Communion on that day. In his mind he pictured his missionary friends in Pakistan. He imagined teachers, students, doctors, nurses, patients, public health workers, literacy teams, men in construction projects, seminary students and faculty along with missionaries. He pictured them at a Lord’s Table. Ben knew that he was part of a far-flung family, the very body of Christ spread all over the world. He unwrapped his piece of bread and celebrated the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the presence of his enemies, and felt the communion of all of his friends in far away places.

Communion, friendship and companionship. We may have one friend sitting next to us. We may have a half dozen sitting near us. But all of those wonderful friends who are back in Indiana, or Ohio, or Afghanistan – in this meal we are sitting with them and they with us. There is a mystery in the sacrament in which all Christians are bound together.

When we come to the Lord’s Table, we find a source of connection with others to keep going in the face of life.

Come to the table today, and find a communion with others in your spiritual family.

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He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

Meal time.

What meals do you remember?

When my wife and I sit at our table for a meal, we sit at a table that belonged to my parents. Before them, it belonged to my mother’s mother. I remember as a child how big it seemed, and yet, when the family gathered for Christmas or Thanksgiving, I was often stuck with the other children at the card table.

In my family photos there are so many of those family meals in which we are all sitting around the table, posed in front of the yet-untouched food in those last few seconds before we all began to dig in.

I have one photograph of such a family gathering that was taken in 1958. It shows my grandmother. She died 30 years ago. My mother and father are there. They are now gone. My two sisters are there – they have also died. Uncle Ed and his wife. Both dead. Uncle Walter is there with his wife. Dead. My nephews and nieces, their children, my son – none of them had yet to be born. My wife was alive and well, but as that photograph was taken it was still 25 years before we would meet. So the only one in that photograph who is still alive is me.

Sometimes when I sit down at that table I think of Mom and Dad, or my sisters, or all the others who have died. There is in our Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper a sense in which those who have died are also present with us in this meal because this meal is not only a remembrance of a meal that happened 2000 years ago when Christ met with his disciples before his death, took bread and broke it, giving it to his disciples before passing around the cup. This meal remembers a promise of a meal yet to come – in the future – in the kingdom of Heaven.

Many times in the Bible there is a glimpse of the future in the Lord’s Supper. One of the clearest is when Jesus established the sacrament, he said, “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom." (Matthew 26:29 || Mark 14:25)

When we gather around this meal for the Lord’s Supper at this Table, we can remember all those dinners and suppers we had with friends and family who have already died, and we can take heart that in this meal, they are with us, and they will be with us in the future, we will celebrate once again the Lord’s Supper together in heaven.

Come to the Lord’s Supper today, and be comforted by the love of family and friends who have departed in Christ.

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He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

Meal time.

What meals do you remember?

I tell you one meal that I was remembering earlier this week – it’s a meal I was unaware of until years after it had taken place.

Several days ago we mourned the death of Neil Armstrong. Armstrong is remembered as the man who was the first to walk on the moon. He was not alone. With him was another astronaut who followed him moments later down the ladder of the lunar module, the Eagle. That man was Buzz Aldrin, a Presbyterian elder who months before the historic launch of Apollo 11 had gone to his pastor and asked about how he might find a way to give thanks to God in a private and personal way once he was on the moon.

He and his pastor decided that he should celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there on the moon. A few months earlier, the Apollo 8 astronauts had orbited the moon, but had not landed on the moon. As they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve, the astronauts had read from the opening passages of the Bible, and there were those who had responded negatively. Not wanting this to be a public spectacle, Buzz Aldrin simply radioed back to earth and asked everyone to contemplate what was happening and to give thanks in his or her own way. He later wrote, “After saying those words, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. I read from the Scriptures, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.’ Then he ate the bread and drank the wine. In that moment, the first meal on the moon was the bread and wine of Communion.

For a few moments, the instrument panel of the Lunar Module of Apollo 11, nicknamed the Eagle, had become the Lord’s Table. At that table stood two men who had gone where no man had gone before, and to this day, only 12 men have stood on the moon and no one has yet to go further from earth. No matter how far you travel, you cannot escape God. Psalm 139 verse 8 said, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there.”

The presence of God.

When we come to the Lord’s Table, we find ourselves able to experience and feel the presence of God who is always with us, but here at the Table, we have an opportunity to feel this presence in a real and dynamic way.

Come to the table today, and find communion with God.

Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com

Sunday, September 02, 2012

A Table