Food for the Journey

Matthew 22:34-46

Change is one of those things that happen whether we like it or not. Usually, we don’t like it. We fear it. As mortal human beings, we know that nothing ever stays the same, and that in some sense stability really is a myth.

Today we celebrate Reformation Sunday, as the anniversary of the day that Martin Luther made his dramatic break with the Catholic church. As Protestants ourselves, we generally think of this as a good change. Of course as Methodists, we trace our denominational heritage back to the Church of England which broke away from the established church through its own reforms, both theological and political.

Phyllis Tickle and many other current church scholars see overall church history as a series of change and settling, change and settling. They have suggested that every 500 years the church goes through a giant rummage sale. About 1000 years ago the church split between the West and the East. About 500 the Protestant Reformation began. Now, we find ourselves in a general state of decline and social change and confusion: some say the overall church is dying and some say it is being transformed into something new. There’s no doubt of a “decline” of mainline Protestantism: we see it here in all that empty space in the pews, the empty overflow chapel downstairs and the balcony seating that we don’t really need. But we can hope for a transformation and renewed life. The fact is not that the church will change, but that the church is changing.

If this is true, then current forms of church will not die out and end. The Eastern Church continues to exist. The Roman Catholic continues to exist. During the period following Luther’s reform, the Catholic Church underwent its own changes and adjustments.

The Protestant Reformation didn’t destroy the established church, instead new branches arose and everyone changed and transformed into something new.

Like 500 years ago, we find ourselves in the midst of great social and technological change. We now have a global culture and limitless information at our finger tips. We’ve taken our sense of individual identity quite seriously to the neglect of our communal nature. Many people are suspicious of institutions that remind us that we are dependent on each other and not merely individuals. And so we hear lots of folks say they are “spiritual” but not “religious.” They believe in God, but not organized religion. They may have been hurt by religion, or jaded by its sense of hope, or just don’t want someone else telling them what to believe. Sadly, the church sometimes looks like a place where not everyone is loved and accepted, is full of empty platitudes and a false kindness, or a narrow set of beliefs that demand strict adherence or else. Ideally, the church is a true community, where each person is strengthened and challenged in faith and loved and accepted. That it is a genuine place where folks can come with their questions and wrestle to find answers together—can be genuinely caring and yet fully cognizant of the depth of the mystery we find in God. And that we ultimately arrive at our beliefs together, that there is room for doubt and questions and no one has to take what the preacher says as law.

About 2000 years ago there was a reformer. He looked at the current religion and showed them a way to live more faithfully: more by grace and less by law. He taught amazing lessons about love, about feeding the hungry, about loving God, and loving all other people just as much as we love ourselves. Like other reformers who would follow, he made the status quo uncomfortable, he rubbed religious and political leaders the wrong way and they sentenced him to capital punishment just like any other radical renegade. But this guy wasn’t just a crazy fool, he was also God. Christians are not alone in worshipping God. But we are unique in that we believe in the kind of God that would become so humble, who would walk in our shoes, who would show us what love really looks like, and would willingly die because of it. God incarnate, in human flesh.

One way we celebrate this incarnation is through Communion.

We eat every day. In most homes, the kitchen is the central place for family and friends to gather. It’s an obvious, basic part of human survival. But, for the most part, it is also something inherently pleasant. If most human beings did not enjoy food, we wouldn’t have so many restaurants, and so many types of food, and so many chefs. We’d eat something basic and move on. Because they were all human, Jesus and his disciples ate meals. They physically had to, but they also did it for the fellowship.

John Wesley actually participated in Communion as frequently as he could because he found it to be a source of daily sustenance for the spiritual journey. Wesley also called it a “means of grace” meaning that the Lord’s Super is one of the ways that God communicates directly to us: we have prayer, we have scripture, we have communion.

In early American Methodism, churches could only have communion every few months because that’s how long it would be before a traveling preacher could be with them to preside. Then they bumped it up to once every four months and now to once a month. Those days are long gone and we still tend to treat communion as an occasional element of worship instead of a regular one.

When we share in this meal, we have to get up, if we are able, and come forward. We might bump into each other, we might be clumsy, but there’s no wrong way to come to the table. We touch and taste the bread and the juice, we can kneel at the altar, we can sing, we can smile at each other, we can pray. We have the chance to be awake and alive and connected during worship. We’ll see how worship can’t always be something that we can do all alone in our living room, watching a service on TV or listening to a sermon pod cast. It isn’t just a walk alone in the woods. There’s a reason to get out of bed and come to church. It’s not something we can do alone or online, it’s not personal enlightenment, it’s not just “me and God.” Christian practice is loving God and loving all other people. Worship requires coming together because the love and grace of God comes to us and then immediately must go back out. Our communion liturgy reminds us of this. The bread and cup become the body and blood of Christ so that we can be Christ for the world: so that we can work Christ’s loving, sacrificial redemption in a hateful, selfish, unforgiving world. Communion reminds us of who we are and how we’re supposed to be.

Jesus broke bread with his friends and followers on many occasions. He ate with sinners and saints alike. He fed 5000 with a few loaves of bread on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana. He described the kingdom of heaven as a glorious feast and spoke of food for the hungry.

Jesus loved his disciples and he loves all of us. He was willing to let his physical body die in order to show us what sacrificial love truly is. His sacrifice would feed our spirits. Before he died, his disciples never quite understood that Jesus was going to die and then live again. Before he was arrested, Jesus shared one last meal. And in an attempt to help them understand, he took a loaf of bread and blessed it and gave it to them and said: this is my body: physical food with spiritual meaning, for you to eat when I am gone and to remember me when you can no longer see me. The wine, he took and blessed, and said this is my blood, its new wine, poured out for you as my love is poured out for you: when you eat and drink, remember me.