 Dr. William A. Ritter Senior Minister |
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I have a friend who was once invited to a little rural church to speak. Because of a terrible rainstorm, they cancelled the service, notifying everybody by telephone. But because my friend wasn’t reachable by phone, the notification missed him. So he drove out into the boondocks of Oklahoma, slipping and sliding along the muddy roads. Two of the men thought about the fact that the guest preacher might not know they wouldn’t be "having church," so they went to the sanctuary to wait for him, just in case he showed up. Which he did, finding them seated at the table down front….the one that had the words "In Remembrance of Me" carved into the facing….and they were playing cards. "What in the world are you doing?" my friend asked. They said: "We’re just playing a little poker, waiting for you to come." "On that table?" my friend said. "Well," said one of them, "the way I look at it, a table’s a table’s a table." To which my friend said: "No it isn’t. No it isn’t. At least, not for me." Some tables have an importance, far beyond their size, shape or construction. I’ll bet a lot of you can still remember the dining room table in the home of your childhood….and may still have the dining room table from the home of your childhood. Or your grandmother’s table. Or the first kitchen table you bought because, if you were going to be married and start sleeping over, you had to have some place to eat breakfast. My 27-year-old, single, male nephew recently extracted his grandmother’s table from our basement. I’m not sure why he wanted it. It’s not a young man’s table. It’s not mod or stylish, sleek or trim. It’s not a Friday night, gather your buddies, drink beer and play poker till 3:00 a.m. table. And it’s not like my nephew can’t afford a table. He can afford any table he wants. So why his grandmother’s table? You know the answer as well as I do. As I said last Maundy Thursday, tables are symbols of our civility. More than any other piece of furniture, they suggest how far we have come as a culture, a people or a family. Listen to the phrase: "If we can just get everyone to the table." Do you hear the hope in that? Sure you do….whether the issue be carving a turkey or signing a treaty. This is Table Day in the life of Christendom. Second only to Maundy Thursday, this is the penultimate Table Day in the life of the Christian church. Because, on this day, we break the bread and lift the cup together….all across the world….in solidarity, if not perfect unity. Broken though we may be….by everything from time zones to ideologies….on this one day, the table (and the cloth that covers it) are seamless. Holy Communion! Why do we do it? Lots of reasons….some of which we, in the Christian church, still fight over. How do we do it? Lots of ways….some of which we, in the Christian church, still fight over. Does it always lead to a powerful religious experience? Probably not. On those perfunctory, mechanical, how-long-is-this-going-to-take (and how-soon-can-I-get-out-of- here) days, I suppose the most that might be said is that, upon rising from the table, we will have remembered Jesus. But on those days when the membrane that separates things temporal from things eternal, things seen from things unseen, is stretched a little thinner than usual….or maybe even splits for just a crack….the best that might be said is that, upon rising from the table, we have experienced Jesus. "Do this and I’ll be there," he said. Which is sometimes called "the Doctrine of Real Presence." And while most of us don’t go as far down that road as the Roman Catholics do (literal body, literal blood, in a holy and mystical form of cannibalism), I have yet to meet a Christian who professes a "Doctrine of Real Absence." Which is to say that Jesus is here somehow, some way, somewhere….in this moment….at this table….through this act. We do this with him. And with each other. "Drink ye all of this," was the way the preacher put it when I was a boy. Which did not mean "all of the liquid" but "all of the people." I got it backwards in those days. When I was a child, I equated the preacher with my mother: "Finish your juice. Drink it all. Don’t leave any in the bottom of the glass….the bottom of the cup….the bottom of the chalice." But the preacher was not my mother. And Jesus is not my mother. The words "drink ye all" relate to the people around, not the contents within. I am talking about people I can’t necessarily name, but people I must try to visualize. There was once a preacher who went back to his boyhood church….a little congregation, scarcely bigger than the proverbial church in the wildwood….where he was surprised to discover that they had acquired a sanctuary full of beautiful new windows. They were stained glass.… leaded…. brilliantly colored. He couldn’t figure how they could afford it. But that wasn’t all he couldn’t figure. He began reading the names (the dedications in the windows), failing to recognize a single name. And he was reared there. So he asked the pastor if the dedications represented people who joined up since he left. "No," said the pastor. "A church in St. Louis ordered these windows from Italy, and when they got them, they didn’t fit. So they put an advertisement in a church paper saying they would sell them cheap to any church willing to give them a home." When asked about the unfamiliar names etched into the windows, the pastor said: "Well, the Board discussed that and decided against coloring them out"….adding that, "It’s good for our little church to realize there are some Christian people besides us." Well, it’s good for all of us….even here, where there’s a lot of us. Could I but scan the table this morning, I’d see people I’ve supped with from the Upper Room in Jerusalem to a jungle room in Costa Rica. And that’s just for starters. I’ve got family breaking bread this morning in Prague, in London, all over Israel, all over Great Britain, down South, up North, in tens of towns and hundreds of churches. As many of you know, I am not terribly domestic. But one of my jobs at the parsonage is to put the extra leaves in the dining room table at holiday time. We store them behind the winter coats in the first floor closet. But my whole house….which is a wonderful house.…wouldn’t be able to hold all the leaves required, were all of my friends in Christ to show up on the same day. And those are only the friends I know. One of them wrote me Friday from a little town on the Sussex coast of England. I haven’t seen her for over 20 years. I served her church for a summer once. She has sent me a Christmas card every year since. This letter, occasioned by something other than Christmas, begins:
And the rest of the page is filled with handwritten prayers. The last concludes with her personal reflection on Psalm 46. You know Psalm 46. At least you know the following lines:
To which she adds: "The earth has moved. Please, God, help us." Isn’t it amazing how endearing we Americans have become to the rest of the world in the face of our suffering? We come to this table with him. We come to this table with each other. And, in ways I can’t begin to explain, we come to this table with those who have taken an earlier bus to Glory. They are not here, some of them. They should be. They were here once. They are not here now. And there are days when their absence speaks as eloquently as did their presence. But just as there are empty places at our table (where they have been, but are not now), I think there are empty places at their table (where we are going, but are not yet). While raising the cup, Jesus said to his disciples: "This is the last time I shall drink with you here. But the day shall come when I shall drink with you there" (the operative words in that sentence being "with you"). Meaning that the Sacrament is given by Jesus to tide us over, to see us through, to keep us keeping on….until we shall be one with Jesus….one with each other…. and one with those who, as the poet says, "we have loved long since, yet lost a while." Or, as we shall soon sing:
They were one with us in life. They remain one with us in death. And quite apart from the fact that their future may one day be ours, our fight (in the present moment) continues to be theirs. As Colin Morris loves to say: "We must not, in assessing our strength, ignore those regiments camped over the hill." For as we shall soon hear in the Great Thanksgiving, we are joined with "all the company of heaven." My friends, we are incredibly well supported. Do me a favor as we close. Picture, in your mind’s eye, a piece of paper. Picture also a pen. Now picture yourself making a list….a list of names. It is a list you are going to add to from time to time and keep with you over time….even if you have to leave everything else behind (car, boat, books, furniture, computer, whatever). In fact, when your life is ended and you have to leave the earth, take it with you (your list, I mean). Now I know, I know, I know. When you get to the gate, Peter’s going to say: "Look, you know the rules. You went into the world with nothing, you’ve got to come out of it with nothing. So what’s that in your hand?" And you’ll say: "Well, it’s just a list." "A list?" "Yes, just a list with some names." "So let me see it." "Well, it’s just the names of folks who helped me….people who, if it weren’t for them, I’d have never made it." To which Peter will say (again): "I want to see it." So you’ll give it to him. And he’ll smile and say: "I know ‘em all. In fact, on my way to the gate, it seems like I passed ‘em all. They were painting a great, big sign to hang over the street. I didn’t see it real close, but it looked (for all the world) like they were fixin’ to write WELCOME HOME." My friends, what if you could see even a fraction of all those people at the table? And what if you could see Jesus at the table? Would it make your life any easier….your road any smoother…. your landings any softer? Maybe. Maybe not. But I guarantee you this. You would not be lonely. Or hungry.
Note: In preparing this meditation for World Communion Sunday, I hauled out no small number of "heavy hitters" in my dugout of supporters. They include Colin Morris, Barbara Brown Taylor, Fred Craddock and William Barclay. The letter from England came from Frances Nightingale who is a member of the Rustington Methodist Church on the West Sussex coast. I served the Rustington church on a pastoral exchange in 1975 and later hosted a youth orchestra conducted by her husband, Peter, in 1980.
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