It is in community with other believers that we come to live an abundant life,
a full life, a max-life.
Once again, it doesn't matter where you've been, or what you may have said,
or what you may have done --
it doesn't matter what your life may have been like,
it doesn't matter what your life may be like,
you are invited to this table
to participate in this most sacred of times.
Today is world communion Sunday.
Today Christians are gathering all over the world in each inhabited continent, to celebrate the Lord's Supper and recall our kin-ship and remember the reason for our being -- the kin-dom of God.
On this one day, more Christians will gather around a communion table than any other day in the year!
As the day began in London, Christians gathered to celebrate communion,
as the day sets in the West tonight, it dawns in Korea
and we come on this day around the largest and longest communion table ever imagined.
As you know, there are many ways of doing communion.
The bread takes many forms and shapes according to custom and culture.
The cup is filled with all sorts of drink from fermented wine to sweetened grape juice.
Some churches expect folks to come forward and physically stand at the table to take the elements from the pastor or other appointed server.
Others pass the elements around like we do.
Some celebrate communion each and every Sunday.
Some celebrate communion once each month.
Others celebrate communion four or five times a year.
But, we all believe that this table signifies something significant, of utmost importance to our faith.
In every single Presbyterian church in the world you find the communion table in a prominent spot. While the reformer zealots trashed the Catholic cathedrals and churches and stripped them of all trappings and ikons, the communion table was left -- along with the baptismal font -- as signs of their importance to us.
It is a physical representation of our theology:
we are family, and each Sunday we gather around the table.
It needs to sit out front --
never to be shunted aside or moved back out of the way.
It is a sign of kin-dom of God.
Today's Gospel Lesson is the familiar story of the king who prepared a big wedding banquet for his son, but when the time arrived to begin the feast, not one of the invited guests was there.
The outraged king ordered his servants to go out into the streets and invite everyone they could find. This they did until "the wedding hall was filled with guests" (Mt. 22:10).
Like all the other Gospel parables, this story has meaning for us today only to the extent that we understand what it meant to Jesus' original audience.
Many of today's leading Scripture scholars tell us that there are nuances present in today's parable which clearly suggest that the invited guests did not actually refuse the king's invitation.
The invitees merely found excuses for coming late.
The feast was to begin in late afternoon and run until late that night -- and frequently for days on end.
Consequently, the invited guests decided that rather than cancel or postpone their scheduled business, and previous appointments,they would attend to it in the daylight hours and then join the celebration sometime after dark.
In their view, the party could await their presence for a few hours;
but in the king's view this was one party that could not wait.
The "Kingdom of God," Jesus says, "is like that." Our presence is requested urgently!
The Kingdom of God is now!
Jesus seeks to inspire an attitude of immediacy in our response to His invitation to enter into the Kingdom.
Like the invited guests in the parable, we tend to put the invitation to one side, and assign a higher priority to other urgent business.
You may have heard the story about a hunting dog that was so very proud of his ability as a runner. One day, a rabbit he was chasing got away.
Well, this evoked a great deal of ridicule from the other dogs in the kennel because of all the boasting he had done.
Still, he had a ready explanation for his defeat.
He said, "You must remember that the rabbit was running for his life, while I was only running for my dinner."
Jesus is asking us to come in haste to the banquet of life He has prepared for us.
It's as though He is saying, "Run for your life.
There isn't a moment to lose.
Join in the gala celebration now --
the festival of life that flows from the Good News of a loving, gracious God who will never abandon you!"
In finding our way into the Kingdom Festival, it seems that our biggest problem is recognizing our Divine Host when we see Him.
We need to open our eyes to Jesus' presence in terms of the way the New Testament reports it.
If Jesus were to be physically born into this world today, what do you think?
would the event occur within the boundaries of a rich and powerful nation,
on the estate of a prestigious and wealthy family, and in a way that would make it easy for the vast resources of the media to acquaint us with the news?
Or would it likely be ...
A child would be born in some third world country into a tribe of poor, uneducated parents.
He would grow up under a government that would not acknowledge His right to citizenship.
During His entire lifetime He would travel no more than fifty miles from the little village of His birth,
and would spend most of that lifetime simply following His father's trade --
a hunter, perhaps, or a primitive farmer.
Toward the end, He would begin to gather a few followers together, talking about things that sounded so dangerous to the authorities that the police would finally move to arrest Him,
at which point His following would collapse and His friends would run for their lives and try to hide from the authorities.
After a short time in prison and a rigged trial He would be shot by prison guards as an enemy of the state.
Well, this was precisely the kind of circumstance into which Jesus was born, isn't it?
Think of those first-century persons who were being asked to believe that the Son of God was born of a humble girl in a cow stall;
that His parents became refugees;
that He was branded a criminal;
that, as He listened to the cry "Crucify Him",
He was viciously beaten and spat upon.
You remember that our Divine Host who invites us to His festival of life gives us specific instructions on how we are to recognize Him today.
"You will see Me most clearly," He says, "in the faces of those brothers and sisters
whose demands on your love and compassion are hardest to meet.
You will see Me most clearly in the faces of your brothers and sisters whom you find hardest to love."
You know, the early church understood that Jesus loved banquets.
Real blowout, big-time, guzzle-and-gulp-it-down feasts.
Not for Jesus would there be any plastic-plated deli trays or cheesy cheese logs.
No rubbery chicken-ala-king or dry sheet cakes.
Only the king’s own prime rib, steaks,
and veal chops are feasible feastible material.
Vast quantities and succulent quality:
a true feast is above and beyond the experiences and expectations encountered everyday.
Who could possibly even imagine turning down such an invitation?
How could anyone not want to show up?
There is an interesting custom among the Navajo people after a baby is born.
They celebrate the baby’s first laugh.
They believe that the soul enters the body soon after birth.
A baby’s laugh is a sign that the soul has become attached to the body.
So, "When a baby laughs for the first time, the person who made the baby laugh hosts a party. They buy candy for the guests, and during the celebration, small pieces of rock candy are placed in a woven basket.
The baby gives pieces of the candy to each of the guests.
It's believed by doing this, the baby will grow up to be generous and giving.”
One Biblical scholar notes that God’s first command is, in Genesis 2:16 (the creation account of Genesis 2 is older than that of Genesis 1): Eat the food of the Garden.
And God’s last command can be found in Revelation 22:17: Drink of the Water of Life.
The Bible begins with eat.
The Bible ends with drink.
And everything in between is a banquet.
Friends, this table is for you and me.
You and I have been invited to the feast.
God is the host.
So, what kind of guest will you be?
Will you show up?
Will you show up to life?
Will you celebrate laughter -- your soul that ties you to others in the kin-dom of God?
It is at this table that each of us finds meaning to Jesus' words:
I have come that you might live your life to the fullest -- abundantly -- to the max.
Jesus told this parable of the wedding feast to remind us that each one of us -- good or bad -- is invited to the feast that has been prepared.
Once again, it doesn't matter where you've been, or what you may have said,
or what you may have done --
it doesn't matter what your life may have been like,
it doesn't matter what your life may be like,
you are invited to this table
to participate in this most sacred of times.
It is in community with other believers that we come to live an abundant life,
a full life,
a max-life.
Amen.
The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, heard these words during a worship service on World Communion Sunday, October 2, 2011.
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