Not My Table

Sermon

A couple weeks ago the lectionary had us in 1 Corinthians and I leaned on a three-year-old commentary of New Testament professor Valerie Nicolet, who, among other great things, is studying queer theory at the Institute of Protestant Theology in Paris. I didn’t say it in French before and I won’t now, but what I loved about her analysis of this letter to a community or communities in Corinth from the Apostle Paul was that she said it’s clear that the Corinthians are working alongside Paul. What Paul says doesn’t just go; they give it right back to him. And that’s a model for the church now as we think about “what we’ll be and how we’ll behave.”

That inspired me to stick to this letter for my last two sermons here, and it’s given me some beautiful thoughts on this short selection from the eleventh chapter, which we often call the Words of Institution. You’ll likely recognize them as the words a minister says before the sacrament:

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

²³ For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 

²⁵ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant sealed with my life. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s saving death until he comes again.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

We are also, if you’re a big lectionary follower, in the Gospel of Matthew this year. And the Gospel of Matthew includes very similar words for this sacrament, so there can be debate on who wrote this down first, but I think the affirmation we should take is that these words are sacred and have been shared by saints long before us. And yet, they’re simple sentences. Take this, drink this. Jesus doesn’t tell us to specifically DO many things. It is somewhat rare that Jesus says, DO THIS, as He does here. Most of the time I experience Jesus saying something about an animal, or the wind or a tree, that I don’t easily understand like I do a shared snack. But there are a few places where Jesus is merciful to my need for minimalism, and says, pray this… eat this… drink this… so I love these words.

Still, there have been countless arguments about communion. Many great approaches to explaining what this meal means, and there is affirmation, as I said, and some discrepancies in the Bible; Luke seems to have two cups, but maybe someone moved a paragraph and forgot to delete the other (oops). All Christian traditions have theories about it. Because this is a holy mystery and that makes it hard, even though it’s also simple. We must just do it, to borrow a line from a local business. Jesus said do this, not write a report on your findings and implications. We do this, and trust that Jesus will meet us here. But I am a Presbyterian minister, a Minister of the Word and Sacrament; that is the full and complicated name for it. So, historically, despite other flaws I’ve been hurt by in his thinking, John Calvin’s thoughts help me, and I do love the stories of his seeking communion.

Calvin said that both sacraments are signs and seals. Signs and seals, like closing seals, not ocean seals. The sacraments are a sign, as in, I can see them, God has graciously given me something that I can touch and taste and smell as I work out my faith and flaws. It is a sign that God cares for me, and that God has sealed me on God’s heart. That God is, in fact, sealed on my heart, as God was at my baptism. I am sealed and sustained unto abundant and eternal life, as this bread and grape juice sustain my body now. But as Christians, and as Presbyterians, we are big-time believers in the connectional church, so we do not believe that this meal only sustains individual bodies, we believe it also sustains the communal body—that it must be taken in the body, the body of Christ, the Church.

Which is why we never eat this meal alone. We eat it during church physically, or amongst other believers in homes or hospitals or at camp with ants, which is also the church. This is important to remember, as we are a divided body. At last count, there was something like a jillion denominations, and as a country, every election year, every month, every news cycle, we seem more polarized than ever before. But here, even the man who will betray Christ is at the table. Someone you can’t stand should be here sitting next to you, driving you nuts with their chewing; someone who has hurt you is probably here because hurt people hurt people. The parts of yourself you don’t like are here, too.

It reminds me of different family tables I’ve sat at or leaned on. I have mostly fond memories of our family dinners; we often prepared meals together, everyone helping with something. Most of the time we laughed, though we realized over time that some of us eat way faster than my sister, and she helped me realize I must experience some type of misophonia, meaning the sound of chewing; even though I’m glad to be eating, it can set me on edge—my family be blessed by enduring me. My sister later on suggested that I find a church with soft bread, so I wouldn’t have to hear people chewing communion, and obviously that’s why I came to Westminster. But our table was good. It hosted us for more than 40 years, even as we grew and increased in number. It was an altar of knowing that loving each other didn’t mean we’d have to always enjoy each other.

Because we need to share this meal, being together is what is going to sustain us; it is what is going to get us through the day, the week, what is going to get us through to the resurrection. Here we can be brave, we can face betrayal, even death. Here we can remember God’s goodness and how God has made us good. We can acknowledge we are broken, that we hold on to brokenness, and that we have come around to like mushrooms—I used to pick them out at that small table, but now they’re a star vegetable in my life. We grow.

I’ve loved from others the image of pulling chairs up to the communion table.

So, I prefer the noise of scooching chairs over the noise of chewing. And it’s an understanding of this tradition that’s especially helped me in transition. It’s helped remind me that this is not my table to monitor. I usually say that when I’m inviting people to the communion table, and I’m really talking to myself more than anyone else: this isn’t my table, this isn’t your table; it’s in the church but it isn’t even our table. This is the Lord’s table, and all who wish to taste and see that the Lord is good are welcome here. You can have this sign and seal if you’re here for the first time or if you haven’t been here in a long time. It’s not my table; monitoring this table is not a part of our mission. It’s not ours to monitor.

Knowing something isn’t mine or ours was made really clear to me about a month ago as I was helping my parents downsize (something I know many of you have experienced or are actively experiencing) and that table we had with us for so long—it went to another great family, just like the table my wife and I had of my grandparents’ that no longer worked went to Habitat for Humanity. It wasn’t our table, even though we’d lost a lot of Play-Doh and yogurt, and for four or five months the letter Q from our son’s ABC puzzle was lost in the leaves of that table. We didn’t find it until we were moving and taking it apart. Anyway, despite thinking about it, I realized it’s not helpful to say out loud as a table leaves, “this is not my table,” like I would here. It’s better to think about all the tables being connected, like this one to the one outside, or wherever they are. Pull up chairs, scooch… All who wish to taste and see that the Lord is good are welcome here. Amen.