THE TABLE OF THE LORD: EUCHARIST,
MEAL OF REMEMBERING, COMMUNION
AND FEAST OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

When I was growing up the Lord’s Table was strictly a remembrance of the “Last Supper.” But that’s not where it began. It began in Jesus’ everyday table fellowship where he scandalized his world by eating with anybody: rich, poor, sinner, righteous men, women, tax-collector, prostitute men and women, republican and democrat. And he didn’t hold his nose. This is a sign of the kingdom of God come near, he said as he passed the meat. Have some and believe in the good news.

You get a glimpse in the gospel text for today: Jesus eating at Levi, the tax-collectors’. Those called “sinners” were there, too, meaning a class of people for various reasons considered unclean and unacceptable to God and without available means to get themselves clean and acceptable. The Dead Sea Scrolls community was so concerned about uncleanness and eating that they’d break their pottery plates after the meal.

Jesus’ open table fellowship was a sign, he said, of the kingdom of God welcoming all people. We still aren’t so sure whom we want included.

Then there’s the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, the only miracle repeated in every gospel, and in one gospel twice. Jesus took a few loaves and fishes and fed a hungry multitude. It was a sign that the kingdom of God means justice, means bread for the hungry.

The prophet Isaiah pictured the kingdom of God as a feast:
 

On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will
make for all peoples a feast
of rich food and aged wines.
The kingdom of God is more than bread and justice but it is not less than bread and justice.
Then there was his Passover meal with his disciples the night of his arrest. He took bread and blesses it with his Jewish prayer of Thanksgiving:
Blessed be God, our Lord, king of
the universe who brings forth
bread from the earth.
Then he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples and said, strikingly, unforgettably:
This is my body given for you
Take, eat in remembrance of me.
Then after supper he took the cup, blessed it and said
This is the new covenant in my blood
poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

But the Last Supper was not the last! The risen Christ began to appear to his disciples as they ate together those 40 days after Easter.

And from that time Christian worship was built around the table. Some had weekly Agape Meals where they shared a full meal together then broke the bread and shared the wine in Jesus’ name. Others made the Lord’s Table part of their weekly worship service. Christian worship from earliest days was built around these two parts: The service of the word, inherited from the synagogue service, and the service of the table, inaugurated by the way of Jesus.

The Table of the Lord has taken many forms since the first century. Tragically, the church has at time splintered itself, persecuted and killed over disagreements over the meaning of the Table. There are days Jesus still weeps.

Some Christians believe the bread and wine literally become in the moment of consecration the body and blood of Christ. (Roman Catholics call this “transubstantiation.” Baptists believe in transubstantiation, too. We believe that at the Lord’s table Welches grape juice is turned into
wine!)

Others believe that Christ is spiritually present at the table, with the church, in the believer’s heart, present in our faith.

Some of the modern church captured by Enlightenment rationalism has said the table can be no more than remembered action. Eschewing magic they have turned from mystery.

Can we say here that it is sacrament, that is a “meeting place” between the divine and the human focused in the scared action of this meal? I hope so.

The liturgical renewal movement in the larger church has refocused worship anchoring it in its most ancient roots and has said word and table should be celebrated together every Sunday, or at least more Sundays. We could learn.

So now I turn to a working theology at the Table: What it means, and who is welcome here? Here is a stab at our current practice of the Table and its plethora of meanings.

The Lord’s Table is eucharist, that is a meal of joyful Thanksgiving. Eucharist means in its root good gift and to give thanks.

Here at the table we learn the habit and act of Thanksgiving. We give thanks to God our creator, provider and savior, to the God who made us in God’s own image, who gives daily bread and who rescues us from powers within and without which diminish, enslave and destroy us.

Here at the table, especially at this table we give thanks for Jesus Christ, who has come with the salvation of God.

Here at the table we give thanks for the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within.

Most of all at this table we give thanks for Jesus remembering here his life, death and resurrection.
So now we move to the second meaning of the table: A meal of Remembering.

Do this in remembrance of me, Jesus said. Re-calling and remembering is a profound religious act. Past and present, then and now come together. We are at the Red Sea being passed over from slavery to freedom, we are at the table with Jesus, at the cross, at the resurrection.

What we remember here is more than Jesus’ death, we remember his whole life given for us his teaching compassion healing words and actions.

“This is my body, my blood” means more than the cross; it means a whole life poured out for us in selfless love.

And now because of the Resurrection it means his present spirit with us. So we move to the third meaning of the Table: Communion, communion with the living spirit of Christ. He is present with us now. Where two or three are gathered in my name, he said, I will be with you.

Christians argue over how he is present:
A) Is he present in the bread and wine itself?
B) Is he present in the faith we bring to the table? Is he present whether we have much faith or not?
C) Is he present not so much in the bread and wine or in our individual faith, but in our community-ness, in the act of sharing with one another, passing bread and wine to one another?
D) Is it all the above?

I remember the great painting of Michelangelo of the Creation. There is the hand of God reaching down and the hand of Adam reaching up and the index fingers of God and Adam are not touching, they are so achingly close! Is Christ present as we reach for one another, and for God? As we pass bread and wine. Do our hands suddenly touch him? Do our hands suddenly become his?

If he is here, he is here beyond our ability to understand it, in our need and hunger and wonder.
We believer here that we are all priests to one another so everyone handles bread and wine. The church fights even today over who is holy enough to handle the bread and wine forgetting that it is God that makes us holy, not we.

At one time in Western Christianity only the priests partook of the table. The congregation sat and watched, a tragic reversal of Jesus’ table fellowship, as if Jesus invited people to a meal and said, watch Peter, James and I eat!

And who is invited, who is welcome at the table? We invite all. This is Christ’s table not ours. All who wish to come to Christ’s table are welcome. It is not Abraham: table on Mohammed’s table, or Buddha’s table, but they are welcome here. So we say, all who wish to dine with Christ, who wish to meet him here, come.

Some Christians argue over who should be invited. Only baptized Christians? Only baptized Christians who have been confirmed? Only baptized Christians who have truly repented of all their sins, as if we ever could? Only baptized Christians who belong to our particular local church? Only Christians who hold the same theology about the Lord’s Table as we do? The concerns are not trivial. We do not come carelessly to this table.

But what makes this table Christ’s table is not who sits at the table but who sets the table, that is the Christ who invites us here, our savior, friend, Lord.

And in our church children are invited here too before they are baptized. Why do we invite unbaptized children?

1) Because as a part of a Christian family they are part of the people of God, the family of God from their birth. They are part of God’s family until they choose otherwise. “See what love the Father has given us,” writes John “love as if from another country, that we should become children of God. And indeed we are.”
2) The Lord’s Table is part of the process of Christian Initiation that begins with the Blessing and Dedication of Children, and continues until they profess their own faith are baptized and receive the laying on of hands.

We meet Christ here, young and old, over and over again at the Table to all people, Christian and not, believing it was part of the evangelistic ministry of the church, believing grace was at work here, whether we know it or not.

Christ’s table is a welcome table, open to all. Whosoever will the choice is yours to make, not ours to make.

Which leads to the fourth and last meaning of the Table! Feast of the Kingdom of God.
It is an enactment of the prayer we pray with Jesus: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.”

Here at the table divisions are broken down. “Christ is our peace who has broken down the dividing walls of hostility making us one. The tired and terrible divisions of this world - - lose their hold on us at this table.

Here we experienced “realized Shalom”, the peace God intends for all creation. So from the earliest days in Christian worship the church exchanged the kiss of peace, or the passing of the peace, at the Table. No cooties or uncleanness here. Grievances for now are given up.

At this table justice is spoken and ignited in our hearts. This is a table of equals and from this table we go to feed that hungry and change the world riven with injustice.

At this Table the “least of these” are here, else it is not Christ’s table. In Corinth the rich were not sharing their food with the poor in the common meal and Paul said with no little indignation: Have you forgotten whose table this is?

From the earliest days in worship an offering was taken for the poor and distributed to those in need - - as we do today in our Rice Bowl and every Sunday in our loose change offerings.
At this table the future realm of the kingdom of God envisioned by the prophets, preached and embodied in Jesus comes together with the real world now. As at Passover the past and present become one, at the table the future and the present become one.

So Revelation pictures the supper of the Lord. People are there from every race and nation, too many to count - - though the church likes to try to count! There is no hunger and thirst anymore. Death has been swallowed up by life. God the shepherd wipes every tear from our eyes. The Orthodox eucharistic litergy says:

Let us sing his resurrection
for death by death he has destroyed.

In African-American spiritually the dream of heaven is never separated from the work of earth. It is we whites who like to do this. Martin Luther King never stopped hoping in heaven and never stopped working for justice.

At the table God’s tomorrow and our today come together.

So we sing:

God’s gonna set this world on fire
(not just our hearts, the whole world)
God’s gonna set this world on fire

John said, I baptize with water
but he who comes after me
baptizes with spirit and with fire!

Jesus said, I come not to bring an easy peace,
but to bring fire to earth.

God’s gonna set this world on fire
God’s gonna make the timid sing
God’s gonna set the fearful free

God’s gonna set this world on fire
We’re gonna eat and never be hungry
We’re gonna drink and never thirst
We’re gonna work and never grow weary
God’s gonna set this world,
God’s gonna set this world,
We’re gonna set this world...
on fire!