feast — Andy James

a sermon on Luke 24:13-35
preached on April 3, 2016, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone
There are a multitude of ways to spend time with people you enjoy. You might go to dinner and a movie—in a theater or in someone’s home. If you happen to live in New York City and have the budget for it, you might go see a Broadway show, a ballet, an opera, or some other cultural event. You might get together at someone’s house for a meal, some conversation, and maybe a game of some sort. And depending on your interests, you might go to a sporting event of some sort or wander around a museum together.

My two favorite options, though, are a little different. For me, there’s nothing quite like taking a walk or sharing a meal. The conversation that comes even in quiet as you wander the streets or parks of our city connects us with one another. Conversation flows, ideas are exchanged, and something special happens as we spend time together. Then, in those times when we sit at table together, we find a strange presence in our midst, as walls of division are broken down and the connection among those present deepens all the more.

Rembrandt?, The Walk to Emmaus

Maybe my appreciation of shared walks and meals with friends is rooted in our resurrection story from Luke this morning. The story of Easter morning that we heard last Sunday offers us a clear proclamation of the resurrection, but we never actually see Jesus alive again. The only evidence of the resurrection is an empty tomb, and that could be caused by so many things other than resurrection. So with the proof of this strange event limited to a missing body, Jesus’ disciples start to move on with their lives, scattering from Jerusalem in disbelief as they start to figure out what they will do without their beloved teacher and friend.

Two of them then set out on the road to the village Emmaus, a seven-mile journey from Jerusalem, easily reachable on foot in a somewhat leisurely afternoon journey. The conversation naturally turned to everything that they had experienced together over the last week—the triumphant arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem as the people cried out “Hosanna,” the challenging teachings that Jesus had offered in the temple, the Passover meal that they had shared, the arrest and trial of their friend, the chants of the crowd to “crucify him,” the sentence of death urged on by religious leaders and proclaimed by the Roman governor, the strange events at Golgotha as Jesus was crucified, the placement of his body in a simple, new tomb, and now the reports that his body had gone missing so quickly.

As they walked and talked, another man joined them on the road, joining in their surely animated conversation, asking them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” His question stopped them in their tracks as it all soaked in. Their journey with Jesus had begun somewhat unexpectedly as they stepped away from their families and homes and livelihoods because there was something compelling about his message. They had taken him seriously when he invited them—maybe even insisted to them—to set everything aside and follow him. Their worlds had been turned upside down by this journey, this message, this man. And now, after an eventful week, they found their world turned upside down once again because he was no longer with them. So this strange man’s question came as a real surprise. He forced them to take stock of their emotions and lives for the first time in light of everything that had happened—and they quite literally stopped in their tracks.

As they began to answer this stranger’s question and walk along together again, the disciples told this stranger about their friend Jesus, about their hopes for him, about the death that he had experienced, and about the empty tomb that the women had found that very morning. Even though the stranger said he had not heard anything about what had happened to Jesus, he soon began to explain everything that they had told him about, interpreting everything that had happened in light of the scriptures that they all knew so very well. The conversation flowed, and the disciples came to a deeper understanding of everything that they had experienced.

He Qi, The Road to Emmaus

When the afternoon came to an end and the disciples reached their destination in Emmaus, the stranger “walked ahead as if he were going on.” But they were insistent:

Stay with us,
because it is almost evening
and the day is now nearly over.

Convinced by the logic of their argument and the lengthening shadows all around them, the stranger joined the disciples for the night. When they sat down at the table to share the evening meal, though, everything shifted once again. The guest became the host, blessing and breaking the bread, inviting them to share in a feast beyond their knowing. Suddenly the disciples recognized that the stranger who had been with them all afternoon was none other than the risen and living Jesus himself!

Just as quickly as they had recognized him, he vanished from their sight. They began to wonder and question and ask,“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” They immediately set out for Jerusalem again, ignoring their own advice to the stranger that it was too late to be traveling—their joy was too great, and they had to share this news with the other disciples! When they arrived there, they learned that Peter had also seen Jesus alive again, and “they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

This incredible, life-changing, world-shattering walk and meal marked a dramatic shift for the disciples as they went from skeptics to witnesses of the resurrection in the time it took for an afternoon walk and an evening meal. We can join in this walk, this meal, and this transformation for ourselves as we make our way through these Easter days.

Fritz von Uhde, Road to Emmaus

First, we are invited to join the disciples in sharing the stories of our walks with Jesus in the journeys of our lives. We can bear witness to the ways that we have been changed by our encounters with the story of Jesus’ life and ministry as we walk with others along the way. We can talk with one another about how the experiences of Christ in our world have changed us and opened us to new and different ways of seeing and living in the world. And we can explore how the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry connect us with one another and with Christ as we walk this way together.

Then, we can gather at table for this meal as we look for the presence of Christ in our midst. We can open the doors to this feast wide so that all may know the kind of welcome that God offers here. We can come here expecting that Christ will meet us and be made known to us in the breaking of the bread, just as he was to the disciples on that first Easter evening. And we can trust that the feast we share here opens us to a great feast yet to come, to the feast on God’s holy mountain, “a feast of rich food, a feast of well- aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well- aged wines strained clear.”

These journeys and these meals are then the openings for us of the deeper, broader, wider transformation of the world. Just like the disciples, our worlds are turned upside down by the journeys and the meals that show us the resurrection. We cannot meet the risen Christ along the road or at the table and be the same. We cannot claim the resurrection as our own and live as if Jesus’ death matters more than his new life. We cannot claim a meal of new life here at this table and live as if nothing has changed. And we cannot go forth into the world to hear and see and witness the resurrection for ourselves if all that we are looking for is life beyond death for ourselves.

So as we make our way to this strange and wonderful meal today, as we journey forth into the world to walk with one another and quite likely with Jesus himself, may we know the presence of the risen Christ among us so that we can be a part of his work of transformation in our world and as all things are being made new.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.

a sermon on Isaiah 25:6-10a and Mark 8:1-10
preached on October 4, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens was not the first to show off how perspectives of the world could change radically based on where you started looking, for even the prophet Isaiah knew how to paint a picture of radically different worlds. Our beautiful reading today, for example, with its exalted and joyful view of the future comes only a chapter after Isaiah proclaimed judgment upon the people of Israel:

Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.

This image of the worst of times is quickly replaced, though, with a vision of something new, a very clear word of hope for something different ahead.

On this mountain,
the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food,
a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow,
of well-aged wines strained clear.

The wonder and power of God will transform the desolation of destruction and exile into the wonder of new life. This feast on this mountain will be only the beginning of the transformation happening there, for this is the place where God will destroy “the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations,” and “swallow up death forever.” Mourning and sorrow and crying will find no home on this mountain, for “then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces and take away the disgrace of all people.” This mountain, then, will be the place where rejoicing begins, where the wonder of God’s justice will become real, where the promise of God’s peace takes hold. After many years of waiting, the people will rejoice, for God’s salvation will have come, and “the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.”

Isaiah’s words are filled with such incredible promise and hope for a world that needs to change, but these words of hope are rightfully tempered by the broader context of the prophet’s message—and the deep pain and sorrow that keeps emerging in our world. Even when we want to call forth rejoicing, we do not have to look far to see how violence and bloodshed tear our world apart. World powers step in to longstanding conflicts claiming that they are bringing peace, only to find that they have come to target places where they can drive people even further apart. Women, men, and children are displaced from their homes and lives in so many places by violence, forced to live in difficult and challenging conditions for months and years as they await a new home. Week after week, we hear reports of more and more mass shootings, as people who want to do others harm find easy ways to access guns and weapons and open fire on students, teachers, and others, and the rest of us wonder if our school, our workplace, our home may be next even as we become numb to the practices of our culture that allow these nightmares to continue to become reality. We can barely even begin to imagine for tomorrow a mountain like what Isaiah describes where peace and hope reign supreme, where a feast of rich food will overshadow the darkness of death, where tears and mourning will be a thing of the past, where God can and will make all things new.

But this is only the tale of one feast—a promised feast, a grand meal that still lies ahead, a dream of something more that has not yet been realized. Our reading from Mark this morning tells us of another incredible feast, a feast where the promises of something new became very real, a feast that has already made our world a different place.

By this point in his ministry, Jesus had become known for making things different for the people here and now. He offered words of power in his preaching and teaching, suggesting that a different way of life was taking hold in the here and now. He touched people with healing and hope, transforming lives that had been lived in shadows and uncertainty through the simple touch of his love for everyone. And he brought together fishermen, tax collectors, and others who would have never imagined that they would matter, telling them that they could be a part of all the things that God was doing to make the world a different and better place. At every step of the way, Jesus made it clear that making things different was not a matter for another day and age—he was the kind of person who made things change now.

When he looked out over the crowd who had followed him for three days, listening and learning from his words and actions, he realized that needed something to eat. He could have left himself only to worry about their spiritual well-being, but their physical needs were pretty important to him, too. He was faced with a no-win situation: if he had sent them home to eat, they would have just fainted along the way; and if he had suggested that they just stick around a little longer, they would have kept on being “hungry,” that strange and difficult combination of hunger and anger that is so very difficult to break! To top it all off, the options for feeding this crowd were limited: they had nothing to eat, there was no store nearby, and they couldn’t even call in a food truck or catering service to make a meal for everyone!

Still, Jesus insisted that he and the disciples could feed this crowd of four thousand people. He gathered the seven loaves of bread that the disciples had, instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground, gave thanks for the meal, and distributed the seven loaves to everyone there. As they shared the meal, they discovered a few small fish and distributed these to the crowd, too. By the miraculous power of God, this meal was enough to satisfy everyone. The four thousand people who shared this simple feast found themselves on a mountain much like Isaiah had promised, with a meal perhaps lacking in well-aged wines and marrow but filled with the wonder of an impromptu banquet. The cleanup from this feast was even of note—while they had started with practically nothing, the disciples picked up seven baskets full of leftovers! When it was all over, Jesus sent the crowd on its way as he and the disciples set out for another region, but they left this incredible feast forever changed by what they had shared.

The tales of these two feasts told on this World Communion Sunday can give us insight into how we approach the work of living in faithfulness and peace around our world. When we are tempted to live our lives of faith focused on transforming the present, Isaiah opens our eyes to a holy mountain yet to come with a feast of rich food and the full wonder of new life. And when we fall into the trap of focusing only on the new life that is yet to come, Jesus reminds us that we can and should and must do something about the hungers of this world, too. This tale of two feasts is the story of our lives of faith, lives lived in-between little glimpses of new life today and the fullness of the new creation to come, words and actions that bear the wonder of how God has already transformed our world in Jesus Christ even as that transformation is not yet complete.

So today as we gather at this table, remembering more than usual the millions, even billions, who gather at similar tables all around the world on days like today, we remember especially these two feasts even as we think of so many others: the meal Jesus shared with his disciples the night of his arrest, a gathering at table on the evening of the resurrection where the disciples’ eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, ordinary weeknight meals shared with friends and family where we have been surprised by the presence of God in our midst, incredible dinners with luscious spreads of grand fare that leave us giving thanks to God for the wonderful creation of food and the people who prepare it, even simple, uncomplicated meals that manage to give us more sustenance than we could ever imagine.

As we share this feast today, may we remember all these feasts so that we might join in God’s work of bringing hope and food and new life to our world today, tomorrow, and every day as we wait, watch, and work for the new creation to be made real among us until we join that feast of new life on God’s holy mountain. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

A Strange and Wonderful Meal

A Tale of Two Feasts