John 6:1-14 And 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
I want to talk a bit about what it means when we get together - as church - a bunch of people who get together to worship Jesus. What it means to be a Christian Community.
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One of the things that the earliest church did that was central to their worship, central to their being a community, and that we are going to do today, is eat together. And eating together can be difficult.
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I love that awkward scene from the film Four Weddings and a Funeral where Hugh Grant is seated at a wedding with several ex-girlfriends… and they all have great fun discussing him while he sits there - kind of squeamish.
Is there anyone that you would feel awkward with if you had to eat with them?
I imagine that each of us here has someone in our mind that it would be really difficult to sit down and have a meal with.
Maybe we would be embarrassed by our Woolworths cuisine if we ate with someone who couldn’t afford even to buy meat.
Maybe it would be awkward to eat with someone against whom we bear a grudge; someone who we have wronged - or someone who has wronged or hurt us in the past.
Many of us even struggle to eat with members of our own families.
We all know - that eating together, sitting across a table from one another - spending time together - talking, communicating - is difficult. But even though it is difficult - it’s important.
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Today, we will eat together. We will share in a community meal… the meal that Jesus established for us to remember him by, we call it communion.
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Eating with people was an important part of Jesus ministry.
If you read the gospels you will notice that a lot of the stories the gospel writers tell - talk about eating. In fact Jesus often got into trouble because of the kinds of people he would eat with…
Jesus is the kind of person who brings inconvenient people with him: In one instance (The end of Luke 7) - he’s eating at the house of a Pharisee (a well respected, law keeping religious man); and a woman who was known to be ‘a sinner’ came and disturbed the meal.
Jesus gets people to eat together - who wouldn’t normally eat together: On another occasion, In John 6, at a time when people didn’t eat together unless they’re of the same social, or religious class, or a part of the same family; Jesus shares out bread and fish with all sorts of people…
No ritual washing, no separating the pure from the impure, the men from the women - the sinners from the non-sinners; the sick from the healthy - Jesus gets all the people following him to share…
All sorts of people eating together and God blessed them with abundance (12 baskets left over; when before they ate they wondered where they would be able to get food).
It seems to (from this sign) that God likes it when people eat together…
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Jesus habit of eating with people - of bringing all sorts of people together around one table earns him a bit of a reputation. In Luke 7:34 he quotes what others are saying of him: “the Son of man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”
In Luke 15:2 we hear the Pharisees grumbling against Jesus saying: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus gets into trouble for the fact that he eats with all kinds of people, sometimes bringing people who didn’t like each other together - at the same table!
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Jesus, by eating with all sorts of people creates a community that flies in the face of the values of the world - one which we might find a bit awkward to be a part of. A community comprised of a whole lot of (sometimes) very different people.
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As if there wasn’t enough eating going on in the New Testament - Jesus also tells stories about people eating together…
Remember the story of a King who prepared a feast (Matthew 22), he sent out invitations and none of the well to do and acceptable in society came. So he sent messengers to the Main Streets to invite the poor the crippled and the lame… and they came to eat at his house. (Jesus tells us - this is what the
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I think that eating featured so prominently in the gospels because the gospels were written for churches. Groups of people who got together and ate together as part of their worship service; eating together was not just important for Jesus - it was important for the early church as well...
The letters to the churches tell us that eating together was as difficult for them as it is for us today…
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We read in Paul’s letter to the Galatians and in the book of Acts that Peter - one of Jesus’ own disciples - struggled with the issue of eating with gentiles (People who weren’t Jewish). But eventually God helped him to see that Jesus had wanted him to eat with them.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we have another instance of people finding it difficult to eat together; he reprimands them for the way they behave, he writes: (1 Cor 11:17) “…your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it…”
He goes on to speak of the way they behave:
1 Corinthians 11:20 “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk…” Vs 22: “Do you despise the
People in the church to whom Paul writes found it difficult to eat together so some people ate separately to the others - in this case the rich separated from the poor.
Paul reprimands them quite sternly for not keeping unity - even though it was difficult.
Earlier in this letter in Chapter 11:16&17 he tells the church that the bread which they break when they eat together is a participation in the body of Christ and that they are all one body, because they partake of the one loaf!
Now - as he speaks to them about divisions among them he uses harsh words - literally cursing those who don’t (in his words) “recognize or discern the body of the Lord” when they eat and drink together.
It seems to me that Paul thinks it is important for us Christians to eat together - and in eating together to be united (Even though it is difficult - and some will have to make sacrifices.)
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When we eat together as Jesus has taught us to eat together we celebrate unity bought at a very high price. Jesus died for this sign of reconciliation - a reconciliation of God to people, and people to each other.
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Not only did Jesus teach people to have unity when they ate together - he taught the disciples to have unity when they prayed together…
In Luke 11 and Matthew 6 - Jesus teaches his disciples a prayer - what he have come to call the Lord’s prayer: “Our Father…”
Jesus taught his disciples to pray in plural: Our Father; give us our daily bread; forgive us our sins, lead us not into temptation but deliver us… it is not a prayer for individuals - but a prayer for a community a prayer written to be said together.
Our being together when we worship and when we pray seems to have been very important for Jesus; we worship God together, we confess our sins, together - as a community; and we ask for our daily bread - together. This prayer reminds us of our unity.
Think too of Jesus prayer for the disciples in John 17 - in it Jesus prays that his disciples will be one so that the world would know who Jesus was. That they would know he was the Messiah - the son of God.
Being together - eating together - praying together is difficult: But it is what Jesus wants for us - and often it is difficult to do what Jesus wants us to do.
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As we move on together as a community of Jesus’ disciples we need to recognize that it is difficult sometimes to be together, and its difficult because we are difficult people.
Some preachers (like me) wear funny shirts and use strange words. (We find that awkward - but being a community who takes unity seriously - we put up with that.)
Some wear shorts and bounce about a bit more than we would like. But God’s will is more important than ours - and God calls us to be together.
Sometimes children (who are a part of the community of people who eat together) make noises and cry and disturb our concentration. (But they are a sign of life - a sign that this living body is going to carry on living!)
Some people like their music loud and others like it quiet. Some want an organ and no guitar! Others want an organ and no guitar… But what does that matter when what we’re actually here to do is follow Jesus together… and that means we learn to like each others music.
Some want the pulpit in the middle some to the side…
Some understand something in the Bible that way - something in another way…
Some want chairs over here and over there… You know what - it really doesn’t matter; what we’re about is following Jesus together.
All sorts of things make it difficult for us to eat together - to pray together to be a community - but with the help of God (and the prayers of Jesus himself) it’s not impossible.
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And I believe that maybe, just maybe - when we learn to be together, to love each other and to worship together we will begin to see the Kingdom of God in this place - and the people of Franschhoek will know that Jesus is the Messiah - because of our unity - even though unity is sometimes difficult.
Amen.
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