Sermon Easter 3 May 7, 2000
Jesus said,"Do you have anything to eat?" "Ma, What's for supper?" How many times have you heard that before?Doesn't that sound just like a child?Isn't that just like Jesus? Not only does he insist that we need to enter the Kingdom of God like a child, now after his resurrection he starts acting like one.
How many times a day in how many kitchens across the world do children. young and old, tall and small, stand there and demand to know, "What do we have to eat?" And that seems to be the primary question with Jesus. Jesus always seems to be thinking with his stomach, no disrespect intended. Apparently even after his resurrection from the dead Jesus still gets hungry.
After his resurrection in the town of Emmaus Jesus breaks bread with two of the disciples. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he instructs Peter and John to throw their nets over on the other side of the boat; they do so and fill the boat to overflowing! There are so many fish, in fact, that Peter has to jump overboard and wade in to shore, where he finds Jesus, sitting by a charcoal fire, a few fish already on the grill, saying," Come and have breakfast with me!" (John 21:12)
Jesus says this to us, too:" Come and eat with me!" We can relate to a God like this: on the beach, a warm fire, fresh fish (well, maybe not for my breakfast), fresh bread, some good friends, and I'd add some coffee. Sounds like a good breakfast to me. And then of course there is the story of the little boy. You remember a few weeks ago when read the story of the little boy who fed five thousand people with just five loaves of bread and a few fish. Jesus is there with with five thousand people after a long day of teaching and preaching, and he turns to Philip and says, "What do you have to eat? What do we have to feed all these people?"
It's a little boy who has the loaves and fishes. And as it was that day, so it must have been on the beach after the resurrection, and so it was in that room with the disciples - the same question, the same food, and the same story. Everyone ate and was satisfied. Everyone's eyes were opened and they could see it was Jesus with them! The story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is one of my favorite stories after Jesus was resurrected. The scene was Easter day. Jesus starts to walk with them but they don't recognize him. They walk for seven miles to the little town of Emmaus. Finally they invite the resurrected Jesus in for dinner. Then somethind remarkable happened. Jesus opened up the scriptures for them and then had some dinner. They finally recognize him, not by the sound of his voice, not by his appearance, amd not even by what he said. They finally recognize him "in the breaking of the bread." It was bread that made Jesus real to those two men that day. That's the reason Jesus used bread for communion. That's the reason I break the bread at communion. When I break the bread before you each week at the end of the Eucharistic prayer I hold it high and break it loudly because I want you to see Jesus, not Robert Harvey. That's how I know my Lord is present with us, in the breaking of the bread, in the sharing of the bread, in the eating of the bread.
Everyone begins to understand when they eat with Jesus; to really understand who he is. Everyone is to go and tell others about our resurrected Lord, to accept God,s forgiveness, aaaaand to tell the story- beginning here and now! That's our mission.
And so it is that we gather at the Lord's table every week, to eat with him and his friends; to be fed to overflowing; to have our eyes opened and to begin to understand who Jesus is and what he wants us to do. And so we, too, can go and tell others to believe, to accept God's forgiveness, and to tell the story. That's our mission. This is how we know Jesus is present- he is always eating and drinking with people. Sometimes it wasn't always with the best people. We are told he ate with the outcasts and sinners. He ate with everyone. He always fills people to overflowing! That's our mission.
We know his followers did it, too. Peter, for instance. When asked for money by the lame man on the way to church, Peter said," Silver and gold have we none. But such as we have we give to you. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And we know the man was healed and went walking and laeping and praising God. He became another witness of these things. Because he praised God and told the story, we are here today. That was his mission.
Those disciples were vested with authority to heal the sick and raise the dead, going barefoot from house to house, saying "excuse me, but may we stay with you? We can't pay you anything, but perhaps we can eat together." And that's how the church grew; the church grew on it's stomach. No wonder church pot-luck suppers are so popular. There's a tremendous paradox here. Were those disciples beggars or miracle-workers? If they were miracle-workers, why did they have to depend on the kindness of strangers for a cup of water or a corner in which to sleep? Because that was their mission.
Not too long ago I heard a story about a Buddist custom in Cambodia. All Buddist seekers of the truth must spend a year of their lives as beggars. They go from village to village wearing nothing but a robe and owning nothing but a begging bowl, asking strangers to supply their most basic needs. After the year is over, they are free to return to their former ways of life. I sometimes think that's what life was like for me at the seminary! I'll tell you, after a year like that none of them returns the same person.
What must it be like to own nothing, to have nothing but your own need, and to understand that the only thing you have to give is what you yourself have been given? What must it have been like to not only talk dependence on God, but to live it every day for a year? Can you imagine? You would have to understand that dependence on God equals reliance on the hospitality and kindness of strangers. That kind of knowledge could change a person for good, forever.
After a year like that, you could hardly take your turn at the soup kitchen and hold yourself apart from the person on the other side of the counter. When you look at that person you see yourself and you see God standing there before your eyes. Either way you offer not out of your abundance, but out of your own need. You need to give a portion of what has been given to you without thinking that makes you a hero.
Our mission is always to give, not out of our abundance but out of our need. Because when it comes down to being a provider of God's love like we are in this church, Christ sends us out with nothing at all and with everything we need: healing, forgiveness, acceptance, restoration and resurrection. Those are the only things we really have to share with the world, which is just as well, since they are the only things the world really needs.
What do we have to eat? We have the bread of life and the cup of salvation. "Come and have breakfast. Taste and see that the Lord is good." Our mission is to spread that invitation.
