A Meal in the Kingdom
Scriptures: Exodus 12:1-17, Mark 8:31-38
Good morning, friends. It is good to be here with you this morning. This morning, I’d like to take some time to reflect on the meal, the sacrament, the ritual that we’re about to take part in together – the service of Holy Communion. Communion is a gift to us handed down from the very earliest Christians, handed down from Jesus. What we actually do is very simple, but the meanings and the symbolism are very rich. I know I’ll only be able to touch on a few things today, but I hope it will be enough to spark your own reflections as well. I’d like to begin with a sung prayer. If you know the song, feel free to sing with me. Let us pray.
Open our eyes, Lord
Jesus leaned back from the table. He and the disciples had been celebrating the Passover together, here in Jerusalem, remembering the escape into freedom by Moses and the Israelites. They had passed around flat, unleavened bread, a reminder of how the Israelites had eaten that night – in a hurry, with sandals on and bags packed, ready to escape into freedom. They had shared roasted lamb in memory of the roasted lamb the Israelites had eaten on that last night, the lamb whose blood painted on the doorways kept Israelite children safe from the plague God was sending, the lamb whose blood marked them as Israelite and not Egyptian. And they had eaten bitter herbs, a reminder of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.
The Passover meal Jesus ate with his disciples was a meal reminding them of how, a thousand years before, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel, had remembered the people of Israel, caught in slavery to the Egyptians, groaning under the weight of their oppression, their very existence threatened as the Egyptians tried to keep them from having sons. God remembered them, and staged a tremendous intervention, sending leaders – Moses and his brother Aaron – and plagues to convince the Egyptians to give up their power and their profits from the Israelites. And, once freed from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites lived in a new reality, one in which their allegiance belonged, not to a Pharoah, a human leader, but to God. They ate manna in the wilderness, and lived by trust in God.
All this, Jesus and his disciples remembered in their Passover Meal. And then Jesus added just one more thing. “Listen,” he said, “Tomorrow, I’m expecting trouble from the authorities. I’ve been teaching you about a peaceful kingdom, but what they’re hearing is war. I’ve been gathering the sick to heal them, but they see me gathering supporters for a violent revolution. I’ve been giving good news to the poor about God’s reign here on earth, but they’ve heard it as bad news for them. So, I’m expecting trouble tomorrow, and I don’t expect to make it out alive. And I want you to remember me whenever you eat together.
Look at this bread. It’s just regular bread. But now for you it will be my body when I’m not here. And when you eat it, I will be here. Thanks be to God! Look at this cup of wine. It’s just regular wine. But now for you, it will be my blood, my life which I’m giving up for you and for the sake of God’s kingdom on earth. Whenever you eat and drink, friends, remember me. I have tried to teach you about a new reality – about God’s reign here on earth – and I don’t want you to forget. Sometimes the world can look like just the regular world. But now for you it will be infused with God’s grace, God’s presence, and God’s beauty, just like the bread, just like the wine. Thanks be to God!”
Throughout his time in public ministry, Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. Sometimes we might think of this kingdom of God as being in heaven – something we don’t get to until after death. But what Jesus is talking about, this reign of God, is something that he saw the beginnings of here on earth. “The kingdom of God,” he teaches, “is like yeast that a woman hides in a bag of flour. It’s very small, but it makes loaves upon loaves of bread rise.” “The kingdom of God,” he teaches, “is like a mustard seed. It’s very small, but it grows into a tremendous, flavorful bush that the birds themselves rest in.”
And today, in our gospel reading, we get a taste of what that realm of God will look like, based on what Jesus, its anointed King – its Messiah – says and does. He has just asked the disciples who they say he is, and Peter gets it. “You are the Messiah,” he says. And then Jesus starts teaching that this will mean his suffering, death, and resurrection. Peter gets very upset, because to him Messiah means the guy in charge, the guy who gets waited on, who makes the important decisions, who commands the army, and, incidentally, whose friends get influential political appointments as well. But as soon as Jesus admits to being the Messiah, he gets it all wrong about what it means to BE the Messiah. “Not you, Lord, surely!” Peter rebukes. “Get in line, you tempter!” Jesus answers back. “You are thinking about human things, not divine things. You don’t have your eyes on what God is doing in the world now.”
In the United Church of Christ, we talk about communion as a symbol and as a sacrament. It’s a symbol in the sense that we recognize that the bread doesn’t literally become Jesus’ body, the wine is not somehow changed into blood, while still physically having the properties of wine. But at the same time, communion is one of our two sacraments, which is to say, we recognize that God is present in it in a special way. This is a place where we meet God, not just in our minds or our spirits, but physically, with the taste of the wafers on our tongues, and the wine in our mouths. Through communion, God feeds us a meal in the new world God is creating. This is a meal in the Kingdom of God.
Because of that, this is a meal that reminds us of what the realm of God is about. It is a meal that brings healing and forgiveness, as Jesus brought healing and forgiveness. It is a meal that brings a radical equality – people from all stations of life, men and women, young and old, powerful and weak: all are welcome at the table. This is a meal in which we remember that Jesus was our leader and our teacher, and he lived that out, not by taking advantage of his powerful position, but by serving his disciples, stooping to wash their feet, and stretching out his arms to conquer sin and death.
This is the meal we eat today, a gift from God to the people of God, thanks be to God. It is a meal that creates a new community – a new communion – connecting us to people all around the world, from the past up to the present and into the future, through Jesus. And it is this community, the church universal, created by God, that works together, first to see and then to encourage, the growth and indwelling of God’s holy and beautiful realm on earth.
There is another name for communion, which is Eucharist, and which means giving thanks. Let us give thanks today and every day for God’s gift to us in Jesus, and God’s vision for us which we remember in this meal eaten in the Kingdom of God.
Good morning, friends. It is good to be here with you this morning. This morning, I’d like to take some time to reflect on the meal, the sacrament, the ritual that we’re about to take part in together – the service of Holy Communion. Communion is a gift to us handed down from the very earliest Christians, handed down from Jesus. What we actually do is very simple, but the meanings and the symbolism are very rich. I know I’ll only be able to touch on a few things today, but I hope it will be enough to spark your own reflections as well. I’d like to begin with a sung prayer. If you know the song, feel free to sing with me. Let us pray.
Open our eyes, Lord
Jesus leaned back from the table. He and the disciples had been celebrating the Passover together, here in Jerusalem, remembering the escape into freedom by Moses and the Israelites. They had passed around flat, unleavened bread, a reminder of how the Israelites had eaten that night – in a hurry, with sandals on and bags packed, ready to escape into freedom. They had shared roasted lamb in memory of the roasted lamb the Israelites had eaten on that last night, the lamb whose blood painted on the doorways kept Israelite children safe from the plague God was sending, the lamb whose blood marked them as Israelite and not Egyptian. And they had eaten bitter herbs, a reminder of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.
The Passover meal Jesus ate with his disciples was a meal reminding them of how, a thousand years before, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel, had remembered the people of Israel, caught in slavery to the Egyptians, groaning under the weight of their oppression, their very existence threatened as the Egyptians tried to keep them from having sons. God remembered them, and staged a tremendous intervention, sending leaders – Moses and his brother Aaron – and plagues to convince the Egyptians to give up their power and their profits from the Israelites. And, once freed from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites lived in a new reality, one in which their allegiance belonged, not to a Pharoah, a human leader, but to God. They ate manna in the wilderness, and lived by trust in God.
All this, Jesus and his disciples remembered in their Passover Meal. And then Jesus added just one more thing. “Listen,” he said, “Tomorrow, I’m expecting trouble from the authorities. I’ve been teaching you about a peaceful kingdom, but what they’re hearing is war. I’ve been gathering the sick to heal them, but they see me gathering supporters for a violent revolution. I’ve been giving good news to the poor about God’s reign here on earth, but they’ve heard it as bad news for them. So, I’m expecting trouble tomorrow, and I don’t expect to make it out alive. And I want you to remember me whenever you eat together.
Look at this bread. It’s just regular bread. But now for you it will be my body when I’m not here. And when you eat it, I will be here. Thanks be to God! Look at this cup of wine. It’s just regular wine. But now for you, it will be my blood, my life which I’m giving up for you and for the sake of God’s kingdom on earth. Whenever you eat and drink, friends, remember me. I have tried to teach you about a new reality – about God’s reign here on earth – and I don’t want you to forget. Sometimes the world can look like just the regular world. But now for you it will be infused with God’s grace, God’s presence, and God’s beauty, just like the bread, just like the wine. Thanks be to God!”
Throughout his time in public ministry, Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. Sometimes we might think of this kingdom of God as being in heaven – something we don’t get to until after death. But what Jesus is talking about, this reign of God, is something that he saw the beginnings of here on earth. “The kingdom of God,” he teaches, “is like yeast that a woman hides in a bag of flour. It’s very small, but it makes loaves upon loaves of bread rise.” “The kingdom of God,” he teaches, “is like a mustard seed. It’s very small, but it grows into a tremendous, flavorful bush that the birds themselves rest in.”
And today, in our gospel reading, we get a taste of what that realm of God will look like, based on what Jesus, its anointed King – its Messiah – says and does. He has just asked the disciples who they say he is, and Peter gets it. “You are the Messiah,” he says. And then Jesus starts teaching that this will mean his suffering, death, and resurrection. Peter gets very upset, because to him Messiah means the guy in charge, the guy who gets waited on, who makes the important decisions, who commands the army, and, incidentally, whose friends get influential political appointments as well. But as soon as Jesus admits to being the Messiah, he gets it all wrong about what it means to BE the Messiah. “Not you, Lord, surely!” Peter rebukes. “Get in line, you tempter!” Jesus answers back. “You are thinking about human things, not divine things. You don’t have your eyes on what God is doing in the world now.”
In the United Church of Christ, we talk about communion as a symbol and as a sacrament. It’s a symbol in the sense that we recognize that the bread doesn’t literally become Jesus’ body, the wine is not somehow changed into blood, while still physically having the properties of wine. But at the same time, communion is one of our two sacraments, which is to say, we recognize that God is present in it in a special way. This is a place where we meet God, not just in our minds or our spirits, but physically, with the taste of the wafers on our tongues, and the wine in our mouths. Through communion, God feeds us a meal in the new world God is creating. This is a meal in the Kingdom of God.
Because of that, this is a meal that reminds us of what the realm of God is about. It is a meal that brings healing and forgiveness, as Jesus brought healing and forgiveness. It is a meal that brings a radical equality – people from all stations of life, men and women, young and old, powerful and weak: all are welcome at the table. This is a meal in which we remember that Jesus was our leader and our teacher, and he lived that out, not by taking advantage of his powerful position, but by serving his disciples, stooping to wash their feet, and stretching out his arms to conquer sin and death.
This is the meal we eat today, a gift from God to the people of God, thanks be to God. It is a meal that creates a new community – a new communion – connecting us to people all around the world, from the past up to the present and into the future, through Jesus. And it is this community, the church universal, created by God, that works together, first to see and then to encourage, the growth and indwelling of God’s holy and beautiful realm on earth.
There is another name for communion, which is Eucharist, and which means giving thanks. Let us give thanks today and every day for God’s gift to us in Jesus, and God’s vision for us which we remember in this meal eaten in the Kingdom of God.
posted by Amy Sens at 6:47 PM
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