your loves got me

like it always has

Sermon on Communion, from the Last Supper in Mark:

At Grand View, every senior has to take this final seminar. In it, the school does everything it can, to prepare students for life after the academy. 

You have to go to a toastmasters meeting. Social events until you get five business cards from potential employers. Mock interviews that are taped, and then replayed in front of class. Informational meetings about student loans, and the impossibility of getting out of them… 

Of all that, though, for me the most intimidating part was the sessions on etiquette…

I’m from a small town, and we’re all pretty much the same. And while I learned the basics: wash your hands, wipe your face, say please, and don’t forget to say thank you afterward; that was about the extent of it. 

It wasn’t until college that I learned there was a proper way to eat soup. That there is particular fork to use for the salad. 

It wasn’t keeping all those seemingly arbitrary rules straight that gave me the sweats, though. What really scared me, was the lesson that was never said aloud: Failure to keep these rules you would reveal to everyone around the table, you didn’t belong. That you weren’t sophisticated company, but really just a dumb kid from hicksville, Iowa. 

Because more than anything, I just wanted to fit in. Not to look foolish.

That’s the thing about those tables where we gather; they’re always fraught. Aren’t they?

Even if you don’t have to worry about manners, there are a hundred other things to worry about. Does everyone around the table get along? Don’t spill! Maybe the pot roast should have come out a little sooner, it’s a little dry. But don’t say anything to mom (or dad), though, because they’ve had a day. 

And on and on. It never ends.

Our dinner tables are always a minefield. 

We cram so much into those four corners. We don’t just bring our appetites, we bring our hopes and frustrations. Our expectations and disappointments. Who we are today and who we hope to be tomorrow…

And it was no different for the disciples that night, either.

Don’t kid yourself. That meal was do different from the rest of them.

Why, if you don’t think Peter was driving everyone nuts fretting whether all the arrangements had been made. If you don’t think you don’t think Simon wasn’t worrying about the menu and his dietary restrictions. If you don’t think the Zebedee brothers weren’t bickering about the seating order. If you don’t think Thomas wasn’t worried he’d grab the wrong spoon or hold it incorrectly. If you don’t think Judas had anything more on his mind that night than his appetite, you’re wrong. 

Because this meal is not some quaint gathering. It’s not some religious ritual with little, if any, connection to the rest of life. This meal is just like the rest of them. Full of tensions and mixed motives. Jostling bodies and growing bellies. 

And it was precisely at this place, that Jesus comes.

At the place where we worry about our Ps and Qs more than anything else, Jesus shows up. At the place where we’re on pins and needles, hoping uncle Mikey doesn’t say the wrong thing, Jesus grabs a hunk of bread and passes it around. At the place where we wish out palate was just a little more refined, Jesus passes around a cordial.

Of all the places for the Son of God would meet us, a meal?!?!

A meal! Jesus doesn’t wait for us to find him, instead he comes to the place where we find ourselves every day. He doesn’t come insisting we shape up first, but rather comes to the place where we’re least likely to have it together.

Amid growling stomachs, Jesus comes along, not telling us to set our mind on more spiritual things, but giving us some bread. 

While we’re worrying about the preparations, Jesus comes sharing no lessons on etiquette, but rather a little wine.

And here’s where it gets real good, folks. Because that promise, it’s just the (apairatief) aperitif! 

Let me serve you up something a little more filling than the promise that Jesus meets us where we’re most hungry. Let me fill you with the proclamation that wherever Jesus shows up, he never comes empty handed. When Jesus comes to the table, he’s bring salvation along with him!

Throughout the Gospel, whenever Jesus showed up for a meal, it wasn’t long before the whole thing broke out into one great big party. Because whenever he showed up, he brought the goods. 

And folks, today, this meal is no different. 

This meal isn’t just the promise that Jesus meets us in the thick of it. This meal is the promise that at the table, Jesus brings the goods! He brings his hunger and his thirst for righteousness. He brings his keys to the kingdom! 

But don’t get up from the table yet! Because today’s offering is even more than the promise that Jesus shows up in the thick of it, bringing the goods. Today, you get even more at the Gospel smorgasbord! 

I still have the sweet stuff to serve up! The proverbial icing on the cake!

Listen, Jesus doesn’t just come bringing his righteousness, he also takes all our, well- junk, in return!

Jesus comes, bringing his goodness, and in return, takes our bad manners on himself. Jesus sits down and comps for the food that flies from your mouth when the person across the table cracks a good joke. 

He takes comes and on his way out takes that pot you left on the stove too long home to clean. And even more, Jesus even takes your anxiety. Your pettiness. Your bickering. Your bad table manners. Your life and death even. 

Jesus comes to this table bringing all he’s got, and in exchange taking everything you’ve been trying to compensate for. There’s nothing you bring to this table, that Jesus can’t handle.

I mean, that’s the thing about meals, isn’t it? The way they reveal who you really belong to. That’s what was so terrible about those etiquette classes, how my eating habits betrayed that I didn’t belong.

At this meal, though, Jesus does the exact opposite. He gives up his seat at the great heavenly banquet, and comes here to take his place with us in the din of our chaotic lives.
And more! He comes saying, “these ones are mine, they belong to me. They’re my tribe.” Jesus comes and takes all our chipped dinnerware, and in return gives us his good China!

Let me offer up an after dinner cocktail. It’s another story from my senior year of college. Less like the etiquette lessons, and more like the Gospel. 

Near the end of the year our campus Pastor, LeAnn, invited me and two other senior friends out to the 801 Chophouse. At the time, far and away the fanciest restaurant in Des Moines. 

Before the meal she told us we should wear sports coats. And when we showed up in our ill-fitting goodwill buys, she didn’t blink. (Instead)
Instead, she asking another a student to take a picture of all of us, and gushed how good we looked. 

When we got there and the coat-checked asked for our jackets, she made sure we knew to hand them over. Afterward she asked if we had brought a tip for the coat-check. And when we all stared at her blankly, she handed us neatly folded twenties. To leave on our jackets.

And when the sommelier came, she said we asked what their best red wine was. 

When the sommelier returned pouring a sample, LeAnn wouldn’t try it. Instead she pointed to me and said said “ask him.” And she smiled and told me, “you’ll know.” Well, it smelled like wine, so I said it was good. And it was the best glass of wine I’ve ever had.

I had no business being there that night, and despite what my fiends tell you, neither did they. But instead of taking us to a place more befitting us, LeAnn brought us along with her. At every step, and at cost to herself, she made sure no one doubted we should have been there with her.

Beloved, at the great heavenly banquet Jesus does this, and so much more for you. 

At this meal, when the doorman stops us to check if our name is on the guest list, Jesus just passes him an easy “hund-y,” and slips us in. Jesus is the late-comer, who shows up totting the good wine! He’s the one that see’s the ne’er do well trying to sneak in, and says he invited them.

Jesus comes to the meals, and when we thinks it’s over, he busts out the cake and desert wine! Making sure everyone gets more than enough. 

This is what it means when Jesus says this meal is a new covenant. 

Because he knows all too well how our meals work. As yet one more way to make sure those we think don’t belong are weeded out. 

But Jesus’ meal is precisely for those who have been weeded out. Those who life has torn up and tossed aside. And this meal is no consolation meal, either. It’s a feast full of the good stuff. A banquet of Jesus’ goodness, his eternal life, obedience, and his peace and joy, too!

You that are hungry. You that have worried you don’t belong. You with stains on your shirt, Come to this feast. Jesus has declared you’re the guest of honor tonight. He has a suit for you waiting in the guest room, and best of all, I promise you won’t leave this feast hungry.