Bread

Preliminary manuscript for the sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

For July 5, 2014

Exodus 18:8-12, KJV or NKJV or RSV

Exodus 24:9-12

Matthew 26:26-30

Worship events for the day: Baptism and Communion.

Toward the end of the day this past Monday, I was starved. I had left Washington at nine p.m. Sunday night with my daughter, Bonnie, headed for Wyoming. She drove all night. I took over about five in the morning, and we continued our drive to Laramie, Wyoming. I didn't eat breakfast because I knew a full stomach would make me even more drowsy. Same for lunch. We nibbled along the way, some chips. A few cookies, nothing substantial. Finally, we arrived in Laramie, found Bonnie's new apartment and unloaded the truck. Bonnie and her roommate were discussing the placement of the couch when I announced with some intensity. I've got to go find some real food!

I invited the roommate to join us. She declined and said she was going to finish her workout which our arrival had interrupted. Bonnie and I headed out to the truck. We were just getting ready to pull out when the roommate ran out and said, “I've changed my mind. I'd like to come.” She climbed in and guided us to a great little vegetarian restaurant.

Eventually the food arrived. After the waiter had loaded our table, I said, “It's my custom to say a blessing over my food. Are you okay with that?” The roommate nodded. I bowed my head and said, “Lord God in Heaven. Thank you for this good food and nice place. Blessed this food and our conversation. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Then we ate. The girls both got salads which seemed woefully lacking in substance to me. I had something the menu called a black bean tamale pie. And we talked. About music and career dreams and grand philosophies of life. This was the first time Bonnie and the roommate had met. There was the carefulness of strangers getting acquainted. There was the ease of conversation over dinner.

For Bonnie and me, it was a rehearsal of family tradition. When I ordered the black bean tamale pie, Bonnie told her it roommate, “I could have predicted that. Growing up, he served us beans and rice all the time.” And I knew that she was recalling our Friday night parties—haystacks (for those not in the cognoscenti this means a taco salad—beans, salad, corn chips) and friends and music.

That black bean tamale pie did not just fill the hole in my stomach, it recalled thousands of shared meals, shared times of laughter and conversation. The roommate couldn't know it, but I suspect our dinner this past Monday evening was her initiation into the extended McLarty clan. She's part of our family now. She protested when I paid the check, but I dismissed her protest, saying, “I'm in the habit of adopting my kids' friends.”

This is the power of shared food. For Bonnie and me it was another enactment of our shared life. For the roommate, an initiation. A first step into a circle that stretches half the world around.

That dinner was a perfect picture of what we do in worship. We gather here to celebrate again and again and again, our shared life. And our worship is the perfect occasion for welcoming others—newly adopted daughters and sons of God. Newly met sisters and brothers.

Shared life costs something. It's worth the cost, of course. Still, it's smart to acknowledge it costs. Adopting my daughter's roommate cost me a few dollars on Monday night. Adopting each other here as brothers and sisters, parents and children costs us money and time and heart. And these precious connections are worth every bit of the expense.

Today, we baptized Jennifer Buyco. When I buried her under the water and lifted her again, my hands did not belong to me alone. They were your hands, too, and the hands of God. I was acting for all of us. In obedience to Jesus, we buried her old identity rooted in heredity, family of origin, education, ethnicity and even gender and raised her into a new identity—she is now, officially, part of the royalty of heaven.

The Book of Revelation paints an astonishing picture of Jesus' plan for his people—all of them, men and women, every race and nationality—are destined to sit on the throne of heaven and share in the rule of God.

When I raised Jennifer out of the water today, I was raising her as royalty in the kingdom of heaven. She and we share a family claim to the throne of heaven.

In a few minutes, we will share “The Lord's Supper” together.

This ritual flows from the supper Jesus shared with his inner circle on the last night before he was executed. Because of the intense emotions of that evening, we remember that single meal. I tend to think of it as a single event, an “only-once” happening. We remember the words Jesus spoke to his friends gathered around the table. He took a loaf of bread, broke it and handed it around, saying, “This is my body which is broken for you.” Then he passed the wine cup and said, “Drink from it all of you, this is my blood.”

We call it the Last Supper because it was “the last one.” Yes.

It was also a repetition. It was one in a three-year long series of shared suppers. Jesus and his disciples did life together. They ate together. When we take communion we are joining that tradition. We are joining that family. As members of the fellowship of Jesus, all of our meals are opportunities for reminding ourselves again of our privileges and responsibilities.

When we say a blessing over our food, we are renewing our participation in the heavenly family. Under the light of a blessing, a piece of toast and a glass of orange juice becomes communion. Dare I say it, even coffee and a donut, as meager nutrition as that is, becomes a point of connection with the heavenly family, if we are open to receive it.

Rituals teach us the hidden meaning of ordinary life. Communion teaches us that every meal carries the potential to connect us with heaven. Baptism teaches us that every passing through the waters—every morning shower—marks our entrance in a new life blessed by God.

Rituals reveal hidden meanings in the routines of our ordinary life. Baptism teaches us that every passing through the waters—every morning shower—marks our entrance in a new life blessed by God. Communion teaches us that every meal carries the potential to connect us with God and the family of God. Our worship here on Sabbath mornings, teaches us that God is present on earth, in Seattle, in music, in words, in art, and in the faces of ordinary people. Every worship service whispers to us, that we—you and I, ordinary disciples of Jesus—are the face of God for one another and the world.

So let us gather again at the table of the Lord and renew our connection with God and one another.