David Martin

SERMON: "Table Graces”

In bulletin inserts over the past two Sundays,
the Christian Education Board
has solicited your questions about
the Sacrament of Communion.
Perhaps some of you responded,
but for whatever reasons,
I did not receive any of your questions.
Prayerful intuition has had to stand
in the place of your questions
as I prepared this message.

When I was a child,
we ate dinner together
practically every evening of the week.
Before eating, my father or mother would ask me or one of my siblings
to say a grace or a table prayer.
Often, I would say grace
that my parents had taught me, such as:

“God is great and God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen.”

How many of you say grace, a table prayer,
before eating a meal?
That’s great.

Saying grace helps us to be thankful
for the food we receive,
and even more,
that God has adopted us as God’s children.

When I was older,
I learned table graces from my grandparents,
all of whom were very special to me.
My mother’s father was very proud of his Canadian and Scottish ancestry
and he taught me a rather funny grace
by the Scottish poet Robert Burns:

“Some have meat, but have no teeth.
And some have teeth, but have no meat.
But we have teeth and we have meat,
so let the Lord be thank’ed.”

Whenever I think of that prayer,
I think of the picnic dinners on summer’s evenings I ate with my mother’s parents
and my family and sometimes my cousins
by my grandparent’s lakeside cottage.
Before eating,
we would sit in lawn chairs
and talk for an hour or two,
sometimes tend a fire,
or throw stones in the water.
Then my grandmother would ask us
to help bring out the dishes and the food,
and we would enjoy a delicious meal—
my grandmother’s homemade scalloped potatoes—
they called them potatoes—
were my favorite food—
we would enjoy this meal under the pine trees
by the light of the setting sun.

My father’s mother,
who lived in Lancaster , PA ,
also taught me some table graces.

“Come Lord Jesus our guest to be,
and bless these gifts bestowed by thee. Amen.”

“For food and friends and happy days,
we give you gratitude and praise.
In helping others, Lord may we,
repay our debt of love to thee. Amen”

Saying these graces reminds me
of my grandmother’s huge kitchen,
of the many tins of homemade cookies
that she would make for us,
of the pickled watermelon rind
and candied grapefruit peel
that she always tried to serve us,
of eating Thanksgiving dinner
in her antique-filled dinning room
at a large table covered with dishes
and surrounded by relatives.
Her graces remind me of her love for her family,
of her love for food,
and of her love for Jesus.

You know, my grandparents have been dead
for a number of years now,
but one reason I remember how special they were,
how much they cared about me,
how important their faith was to them,
because of the table graces they taught me.

Jesus’ friends also remembered
how special Jesus was,
and how much he cared about them,
because of the table grace he taught them
on his last night with them.

Jesus had shared many meals with his disciples,
some by the light of a fire,
some in the homes of friends and family,
some in the homes of strangers,
some with huge crowds of people.
During some of these meals
Jesus did such wonderful things
that they are recorded in the gospels.

But the meal that Jesus’ friends remembered best
was his last meal
because of the table grace Jesus said
in the face of death.
Jesus and his friends had gathered to eat the Passover meal in Jerusalem .
During the Passover meal,
Jesus’ friends celebrated and remembered
how long ago God and Moses led their families from slavery in Egypt
to freedom in the promised land of Israel .
Bread and wine were important parts of this meal as they were at most meals of the time.

But Jesus’ friends were startled
when during the Passover meal,
Jesus took some of the bread,
and blessed and broke it,
and gave it to his friends saying this table grace:

“This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
And after the supper, Jesus held the cup of wine up also, saying,
“This cup is the new agreement in my blood.
Each time you drink this cup, remember me.”

Why do I call these words of Jesus “table graces?”
Jesus was not praying to God.
Instead, Jesus surprised his friends
by giving himself so completely to them.
Grace is the love that takes us by surprise.
It’s the help we hadn’t counted on,
the kindness we didn’t think we deserved.
And maybe we don’t
but it is there anyway,
and that is how Jesus’ friends survived
the disaster to come,
and how we survive most of our disasters.

Jesus warned his friends about the disaster to come,
but they were still shocked and afraid
when Jesus was arrested later that night
and put to death on a cross the next day.
And yet three days later
they learned once again that God is full of grace, when God’s love again took them by surprise,
and raised Jesus from the dead.

And what did Jesus do to show his friends
that he was alive?
He ate bread and fish!
He shared meals with them.
He showed them,
“This is my body that is for you.”

Ever since that time,
Jesus’ friends and disciples
gathering around a table set with bread and wine
or similar foods,
repeating Jesus’ special table grace
eating bread and drinking wine together
and experiencing Jesus’ loving presence.

One way that our congregation
has witnessed to Jesus’ table grace
is by declaring that this table
is open to all baptized Christians,
who seek Jesus’ presence and guidance
in their lives.
Just as many grains of wheat are ground to make the flour of the bread which we will eat,
and many grapes are crushed to make the wine which we will drink,
we seek to live out Jesus’ prayer at this table,
that “they may all be one,”
not only by remembering the many churches around the world
where communion is being celebrated today,
but by inviting all baptized Christians to this table.

Yet there is a certain group of baptized Christians
who we are often unsure
whether to invite to Christ’s table
to receive his table grace.

Our youngsters.

As one parent told me,
I know that Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them,”
but when my children were younger
they didn’t take worship very seriously,
and they approached Communion
like it was a little snack.
I wanted them to eat Communion with reverence.
So I decided they should not receive communion.
After all, doesn’t Paul say in one of his letters to the Corinthians that
“anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup
of the Master irreverently
is like the part of the crowd
that jeered and spit upon Jesus at his death?”
Yet sad to say,
now that my children are in their late teens and early twenties,
they don’t come to worship much any more.

On the other hand, I recently read the story
of a grandfather who is a member
of another UCC church in the E &R tradition
where it was the practice
to invite youngsters to the Lord’s Table
only after their confirmation.

One day this grandfather was visiting
his son and family and little granddaughter
in another community.
In that community there was no UCC church
and the family was attending a Lutheran Church , one also whose practice it was
to serve only those youngsters
who had been confirmed.
The family clearly understood
that the little girl would not be included
in the sacrament.
When it came time for communion,
the family went forward to the communion rail
and the little girl did not want to be left alone in the pew,
so she went forward with the family,
knowing she couldn’t have any.

The pastor started at the far end of the rail,
and as he distributed the elements,
he repeated words such as,
“This table is spread for all those
who love the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And when he reached the family,
as expected he skipped over the little girl.

And then in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the church, the little girl said,
“Why can’t I have some.
I love Jesus, too.”
She’d been listening carefully.
And the grandfather said that in that instant,
all his opinions did a 180 degree flip.

We have children who clearly love Jesus
and we have children
who are not sure why Jesus is deserving of their love.
And their reverent or irreverent attitudes
translate into their behavior during Communion.

Our response as a congregation has been to try to make rules, sensible rules.
Our oldest rule was that
children should only receive communion
after they have been confirmed.
Yet in recent years
as we have sought to welcome families with young children from other Christian traditions,
we have said that parents should decide when their children are ready to receive Communion.

Yet faith in Jesus is a gift of grace
and caught from the example of grace-filled
and openly grace-hungry lives.
Rules and laws may point the way to grace,
but they cannot substitute for it.
Rules are like a damper that controls the fire,
but not the fire of faith in Jesus itself.

The fire for Jesus should not just be fed on Sunday morning,
lest it be extinguished by the end of the week.
The child of God should be fed with table graces throughout the week—
graces that are less about the blessings of
plenty of fast food,
and more about whose we are,
who loves us with a holy love,
who searches for us when we are lost,
which is often,
who calls us to serve others,
and who feeds us with the word of life.

If it is true that every child of God
should be fed with table graces
throughout the week,
how do we nurture a climate in our congregation and our homes
where this happens?

Where all know and experience in their own way
God’s great love for them?

Where all hunger for the presence of Christ?

Where all may hear and respond to Christ’s invitation to come to this table,
this banquet of love in place of our denials,
our betrayals,
and our brokenness?

Let all who are hungry for Jesus,
come!
Amen.

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