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Proper 22

Philippians 3
If others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5For I was circumcised when I was eight days old, having been born into a pure-blooded Jewish family that is a branch of the tribe of Benjamin. So I am a real Jew if there ever was one! What's more, I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6And zealous? Yes, in fact, I harshly persecuted the church. And I obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that I was never accused of any fault.
7I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ 9and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!
12I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. 13No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be,[c] but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.


Where, in your house, do the most meaningful conversations take place?
Growing up, the conversation place was always the kitchen table. Whether during a meal, or simply the place where a quiet cup of tea was shared, the kitchen table seemed to be the first choice on most occasions. As I grew older, and we moved to a larger house that included a formal dining room and a living room away from the television, the meeting place remained the kitchen table.

The kitchen table was also the venue for the heated social and political discussions that characterize the time my family spent (and spend) together. If a family could be described as a newspaper, we would be the Globe, the Post and the Star. Imagine three editorial boards sharing a meal, and you get a glimpse of the conversation. Now, you folks don't know me yet, and so you will need to wait and discover which paper I represent.

The other important function of meal times was to act as a kind of filter for friends and girlfriends. "I don't like it: your family fights too much" was usually a bad sign in that quest for relationship compatibility. This is how we communicate. It is who we are. And in my late teen years, when my family found the church, the table conversation became that much more interesting. It then became Globe, Post, Star and Observer.

***

I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me.

Listening to Paul, we have entered in the middle of a conversation where the overall concern is claiming faithfulness. The debate within the church at Philippi concerned keeping the Jewish law as the number of non-Jews in their midst continued to expand. The church was searching for an identity, a place of common commitment, and some in the church had settled on circumcision.

It was a painful idea to say the least, and so the congregation turned to Paul to help them determine the heart of religious observance and there was a need to undergo such a drastic procedure. Paul begins with his religious resume, detailing his past as an enemy of the church. He was zealous in his desire to defend the tradition from the emerging Jesus movement, and does a bit of bragging to make his point.

Then he turns a corner. "I have discarded everything else," he said, "counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him." In fact, "garbage" is the polite translation of the Greek. The more accurate word is "dung" or whatever expletive you prefer to insert in your personal translation of the text. Having discarded strict adherence to the law as the centre of his faith, he finds a new centre: "I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law," he said, "but trust Christ to save me." He goes further still:

As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!

***

My experience of pastoral care within the context of a congregation also leads to the kitchen table. It is the place we tend to gather when pain is shared and the texture of our life with God is explored. It is the place where (at our best) we can relax and let down our guard and experience the unity that God desires. Again, words from Paul:

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? Seeing that we, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we are all partake of the one bread. (1 Cor. 10)

The sacred meal that Jesus began was first a meal. Even in the early church there are reports that the "Lord's Supper" (as it was becoming) happened with a shared evening meal, and that the proclamation of the Word remained in the morning. Only later did the two become one, as the Lord's Supper became less physical nourishment and more spiritual nourishment.

As a meal, it is obvious that the same pattern of table fellowship that existed through the week would enter the weekly sacred meal. The same conversations, the same caring (maybe a squabble or two) and the same commitment to one another existed in the context of broken bread and shared wine. Paul reminds us that "we, who are many, are one body" when we take our place at the table. Having taken on Christ, sharing his meal, sharing in his death, we also participate in his resurrection. Your table becomes the communion table and becomes Christ's table at the heavenly banquet. Each table and every believer is one.

***

All of this has two implications. For the first one, I will allow the late Henri Nouwen to explain:

When we dare to speak from the depth of our heart to the friends God gives us, we will gradually find new freedom within us and new courage to live our sorrows and joys to the full. Nothing will give us so much strength as being fully known and fully loved by fellow human beings in the Name of God. That gives us the courage to drink our cup to the bottom, knowing it is the cup or our salvation.

In other words, communion is communion, and it only works when we bring the whole of ourselves to this table or any table. We find new courage to be the people God wants us to be when we are surrounded by people with the same desire and the same willingness to leave a guarded interior behind. We find new courage when we can "put on Christ" and become open to our tablemates, freeing them and ourselves to be authentic and vulnerable. Everything else is "dung," Paul would say, everything but out desire to live with Christ and make him known.

For yet another implication, I turn to my friend Bill Kervin. He wrote:

Ever-present God,
you come to us in a stranger's guise.
and are known in every breaking of bread.
Open us to your presence
in the faces of those whom we meet,
that we may see
in every welcome extended
and in all food shared
communion with you.
It is for the sake of the whole human family,
that we pray that this might be so. Amen.

Think of it as a prayer for a foodbank, where communion takes on yet another meaning, communion with all regardless of means or place or circumstance. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers," the author of Hebrews reminds us: "for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." In the breaking of bread Christ is revealed, in the distribution of bread God's desire for justice is made known. We share food for the sake of the whole human family, joining what was once an empty table to this table.

At the centre of every table is Christ's longing: Longing to join with your family and take that extra place at the table; longing to build the fellowship of this table and reach more people in this community; longing for justice that will see scarcity at table become abundance; and longing that all tables, by God's grace, become one.

Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:29 AM