Sermon at Springridge Mennonite Church - August 27, 2006

Scripture: Proverbs 9: 1-6

Matthew 22: 1-10

John 6: 51-58

Title: “Come and dine”

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- Imagine if you will, sitting at a long table decked with linen, set with fine china, elegant crystal stem ware and gold eating utensils.

- The room, if it can be called that, is vast and bright and airy.

- Sitting around you are the people you have loved the most in life – whether still living or living once again if they had been dead.

- They are somewhat different than you remember them though. For as they and you are seated round the table you notice that all of the guests are in the prime of their life.

- Any debilitating conditions are gone and you are all feeling as healthy as any of you can ever recall.

- The food has not yet arrived but you know it will.

- For the moment though anticipating the food is not what is at the forefront of your thoughts because you are simply enjoying being there.

- The experience is heavenly.....

- Such an image of a heavenly banquet is an archetypal one. That is, it is one which goes back generations and centuries and it twigs with the desire of being surrounded by friends, food and comfort.

- It is a calming and healing image.

- One that gives hope and encouragement of a better place, a better time and of joy.

- Unfortunately, while it is a symbol and an image which has its roots in the Bible and is used by Christians, the heavenly banquet is not one which appears in scripture aside from the parable which Jesus told his disciples and a brief reference in Isaiah 25:6 which reads:

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.

- It is like the image of the lamb lying down with the lion. That one too is one which people adopt as biblical but it is not to be found in scripture either. Rather the image which appears in the book of Isaiah is that of the lamb and the wolf.

- But being at a table with those we love and also with Jesus is still a grand idea.

- It is also a locale which makes sense because a lot of familial and friendship interaction occurs over meals.

- In scripture a lot of Jesus’ discourses happen at the table.

- Gathering at the table is a natural place where people gather, face each other and share in a common experience.

- If such a setting can result in some wonderful memories here on earth then why can’t a similar setting bring joy in the life hereafter?

- As Jesus points out though not everyone who is invited to the table attends.

- Some are actually quite rude in their refusals.

- Some are also likely unable to see the table which is set before them and this is what I would like to focus in on this morning – the inability of some to see the welcoming table.

- As a people of faith we know that the spirituality and faith which we hold onto is not one which is easily understood by others.

- Some non-Christians simply regard faith as a weakness and an inability to face the reality that we are born, we live and then we die.

- Christianity for them is like fairy tales.

- Fair enough. Seeing things their way, they might have a point. I disagree with them though since I refuse to believe that our story ends at death. My faith tells me otherwise.

- Faith in and of itself is not something which can be scientifically proven.

- Faith develops within a person based on perception and a sense of conviction that all what can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched is not all that there is.

- Faith operates on another level and cannot be categorically proven.

- It is something which is to be perceived and experienced.

- It is something which requires different eyes and ears.

- C.S. Lewis wrote a compelling story of perception in the seventh and final volume of his Chronicles of Narnia series which is entitled: The Last Battle

- In this story the final battle of good and evil is fought.

- The battle scene revolves around a little barn and its door.

- Through this peculiar door some evil characters enter and meet their evil god and consequently their doom.

- Other noble characters enter and find a paradise before them as the doorway of the barn for them is a portal into a heavenly realm with fruit bearing trees and blue sky and fresh running water.

- And then there is a third group of characters who go through the same door and wind up in the same place as the righteous people, but because they are so trained to only see what they believe is real, all they can see is the dark inside of the barn even though they too are in the heavenly paradise.

- Permit me to read an excerpt of this story where some of the noble children come up on the crusty dwarves:

Lucy led the way and soon they could all see the Dwarfs. They had a very odd look. They weren’t strolling about or enjoying themselves ...nor were they lying down and having a rest. They were sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another. They never looked around or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and Tirian were almost near enough to touch them. Then the Dwarves all cocked their heads as if they couldn’t see anyone but were listening hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.

“Look out!” said one of them in a surly voice. “Mind where your going. Don’t walk into our faces!”

“All right!” said Eustace indignantly. “We’re not blind. We’ve got eyes in our heads.”

“They must be darn good ones of you can see in here,” said the same Dwarf whose name was Diggle. “In this pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable.”

“Are you blind?” said Tirian.

“Ain’t we all blind in the dark!” said Diggle.

“But it isn’t dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs,” said Lucy. “Can’t you see? Look up! Look around! Can’t you see the sky and the trees and the flowers? Can’t you see me?”

“How in the name of all Humbug can I see what ain’t there? And how can I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?”

“But I can see you,” said Lucy. “I’ll prove I can see you. You’ve got a pipe in your mouth.”

“Anyone that knows the smell of backy could tell that,” said Diggle.

“Oh the poor things! This is dreadful,” said Lucy. Then she had an idea. She stopped and picked some wild violets. “Listen Dwarf,” she said. “Even if your eyes are wrong, perhaps your nose is all right: can you smell that?” She leaned across and held the fresh, damp flowers to Diggle’s ugly nose. But she had to jump back quickly in order to avoid a blow from his hard little fist.

“None of that!” he shouted. “How dare you! What do you mean by shoving a lot of filthy stable-litter in my face? There was thistle in it too.”.....

- At his point in the story Aslan the Lion (who is the god figure in Lewis’ books) appears and Lucy asks: “could you – will you – do something for these poor Dwarfs?”

“Dearest,” said Aslan, “I will show you both what I can, and what I cannot, do.”

.....Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarf’s knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” But soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarrelling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said: “Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out......” (excerpted from pp. 135-140)

- There are all sorts of reasons why some people will not come to faith, while they will not come to the banquet of a relationship with God.

- Some cannot perceive that which lies beyond their senses and logic.

- Some are too busy to give faith much thought.

- As the camp song goes: “I cannot come don’t trouble me now. I have married a wife and bought me a cow, I have fields and commitments that cost a pretty sum, pray hold me excused I cannot come.”

- And others just have a prejudice and a block in regards to Christian faith.

- In today’s text from the gospel of John one of the biggest barriers which non Christians encounter with their struggles of Christian faith occurs in a few verses put forth by Jesus.

- In this passage Jesus makes the claim:

Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. (John 6:53-57)

- These are very difficult words. So difficult that historically one of the big criticisms of Christianity is that it promotes some sort of cannibalism.

- What was Jesus getting at here?

- The high church people often choose to interpret this passage in terms of communion.

- That makes some sense but this interpretation does not jive with the wording of the text for the fact is that John is the only gospel where no record of any communion service is recorded.

- If John would have had such a high view of communion he would have given it some space in his telling of Jesus’ story. But he did not.

- Also Jesus’ wording is quite harsh. When he makes reference to eating in verse 54 the word here actually has more of the sense of gnawing or munching or crunching.

- Most uncommunion-like!

- And his reference to drinking blood would have sounded an intolerable note for his Jewish listeners who didn’t eat meat with the blood in it since blood was regarded as the life force which belonged to God.

- Why did John include this very harsh passage? And did Jesus even say it?

- And if he did, was it one of those hard sayings of his like plucking out an eye or cutting off a foot?

- I believe that the this is the case.

- I believe that Jesus did say words similar to this and one of the reasons why John recorded it in its harshness in his gospel was because at the time of his writing there was a lot of push to play down Jesus’ humanity to say that he wasn’t fully human.

- John felt the need to emphasize Jesus’ humanity – that he was very much Lord but also flesh and blood.

- To get a good perspective on what this hard passage was likely getting at I like what William Barclay has said on the matter. He wrote:

When Jesus said that we must drink His blood He meant that we must take His life into the very centre and core of our hearts. What does that mean? Think of it this way. Here in a bookcase is a book which a man has never read. It may be the glory and the wonder of the tragedies of Shakespeare. He may have bought that book, but so long as it remains unread upon his bookshelves it is external to him. But then one day he takes it down and reads it. He is thrilled and fascinated and moved. The story sticks to him; the great lines remain in his memory; now when he wants to, he can take that wonder out from inside himself and remember it and think about it and feed his mind and his heart upon it. It is that way with any great possession and experience in life. It remains external until we take it within ourselves.

....(When) Jesus said that we must drink His blood. He is saying: “You must take my life inside you; you must stop thinking of me as a figure in a book and a subject for theological debate; you must take me into you, and you must come into me; and then you will have life, real life.” (The Gospel of John Vol. 1 pp. 231, f)

- When we celebrate communion, and consequently our faith, we bring so many perceptions and needs to the table.

- We bring some hesitancy because we are not fully sure of what it all means.

- We also bring a desire to draw closer to Jesus.

- To be near him or with him at the table.

- To be inspired by his life, commitment and sacrifice.

- To have him operating inside of our lives as guide and saviour.

- But no matter whether we have all of the answers or not. Or whether we have a great perception of faith,

- The Lord sits at the table and beckons to us just as we are and where we are at.

- Come, let us now draw near to the table and partake in the old ritual, the continuing mystery and the symbol and deep love of our Lord and saviour: Christ Jesus.

- (GO DOWN TO THE TABLE AND PERFORM THE SERVICE OF COMMUNION)