F. Harry Daniel
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: October 1, 2006

"Do This - Why?"

An obvious feature of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the four gospels and in Paul is that imperatives run through them all: "eat this," "drink this," "do this." The supper has to be done, reenacted. It is not an option. Command and obedience are at its heart: "do this." Somehow it is vital, necessary, essential to the nurturing and maintaining of the Christian life. Why? Why do we have to do this? Notice that "we?" The Greek imperative is plural: "You all do this."

This meal is eaten with Jesus and one another. When we are invited to a dinner party, there is a host and those gathered around the table. At such events we focus on the host and our companions. Jesus commands us to come to him with our neighbors, not to come alone. So here at this table we commune with him and we commune with one another. Eating together is a way of creating and sharing community with others. Face to face, we look at each other, we talk to each other. We recognize each other’s humanity and invite each other into our lives. We learn to care for each other. To be human is to be a person in relation with other persons. Eating together is a way of identifying who we are. Measuring the impact of such eating is beyond our ability to fathom. A study of students who scored the highest on SAT indicated that the one thing they shared in common was eating together with their families around a table at home.

Here at this table we eat and drink with the crucified Jesus who gave himself for us all, we eat and drink with the risen Lord who is present with us through the triumphs and tragedies of life. We come face to face with the cross. We are also witnesses that he is not dead but risen. This Jesus Christ draws us into his communion with the Father who created the universe and loves all its creatures and into communion with the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, nourishes us, nurtures us and enables us to flourish. We are brought into the very community of the triune God. Our host ushers us to the throne of grace through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are welcomed into the presence of the triune, three-personed God. We are welcomed into the community of God: God along side us, God above us, God within us.

As we remember the story of this person, this human being, these plain things, this bread and this wine become far more. They speak of great evil, pain and hurt, but they also speak of great forgiveness, grace, and love. Brian Wren expresses the experience at table in his great communion hymn:

I come with joy to meet my Lord,
Forgiven, loved, and free,
In awe and wonder to recall
His life laid down for me.

Year in, year out as we come to table the story of the gospel continues to do its work drawing us into the good news so that it shapes who we are and makes us the bearers of the gospel. God’s vision of forgiveness and health and wholeness and flourishing for the whole world calls us to faithful living. As we feed on this kingdom food we are claimed body, mind and soul for God’s kingdom. And so we pray every Sunday "Thy kingdom come." This call, this commitment is a challenge to our perceptions, perspectives, desires, interests, power relations, priorities and alternative ways of organizing reality.¹ That is why we obey the command, heed the imperative to do this: to remind us who we are and whose we are, to refresh, to re-envision life. Through the activity of the triune God we are given powers to resist the compelling might of sin; we are given abilities to accept God’s renewal of relationships between human beings who have hurt, wounded and sought to destroy one another. Violent human beings can be remade into bearers of shalom. This God takes loveless human beings who so desperately need to be loved and turns them into human beings who love their neighbors as God intended.²

Also here at this table we eat and drink with those whom God has called to journey with us toward the kingdom of God, companions we did not choose, but who are given as gifts. Our presence here together is an act of pure grace. We are incorporated into the fellowship of this table, formed into a community eating together. And this is not of our doing. The crucified, risen Lord forms this community without our trust or understanding, but he invites us in nevertheless. Listen to Brian Wren’s hymn again:

I come with Christians far and near
To find, as all are fed,
The new community of love
In Christ’s communion bread.

In the Presbyterian Church there is no such thing as private communion, community is necessary. Yet our deep individualism makes all this togetherness difficult for us.³ For many of us learned, and it is a habit hard to break, that communion was a very personal affair between the individual and God. So in the church I grew up in we sat with our eyes down, head bowed shutting out the world and one another.

At this table we are people gathered in community, not solitary diners eating alone. In the Bible meals are communal events sharing food and drink, sharing in one another’s lives, inviting strangers in. When the Civil Rights movement began in the south, one of its primary targets was lunch counters, asking for admittance to the community of others. This is not like warming something up in the microwave and sitting down to watch Seinfeld reruns. I was called not long ago as part of a jury pool in Dekalb Co., GA. As we all gathered at 8:15 on a Monday morning what struck me was the incredible diversity of human beings all bound together by a common commitment.

When scripture wants to speak about God’s ultimate reign, community is necessary to describe it and it does so in that marvelous image we read as our Old Testament lesson. Jesus himself said that we will all "come from the east and the west, the north and the south and sit at table in the kingdom of God." God draws us together here at table. In the early church there is an old custom called the passing of the peace in which we face our neighbor before communion and share Christ’s shalom so that there may be no strangers in our midst.

And so sometimes we sit and are served, but we pass the elements to one another and hopefully look at one another. When we sit we must resist that old habit of individual piety to focus inward on ourselves. Yes, we are called to pray, but we are also challenged to look around at the incredible gifts of God in the rich diversity of these human beings gathered here. They, you are a we.

In the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah, GA, they put tables in the wide, main aisle of the church so that the members may see each other face to face and commune.

I have come to love intinction. You get out of your seat and come toward. We look at each other, we smile, and we become part of the great procession of the saints. And as you return to your seat and watch these others come forward you are reminded of their gifts, their needs. These ones known to the triune God cannot remain strangers, they must become friends. This is why we must do this – to be found in community again. One communion Sunday at 2^nd Church in Little Rock, I was holding the bread and John Davies was holding the cup. As each person dipped the bread in the cup, John called them by name. There were at least 90 people in line and John did not miss a one. Why do we do this: to learn to call each other by name.

One day we will all sit at God’s welcome table and pass the food until all are satisfied. This table is not about individual spirituality or the salvation of the individual, it is about the gathering of the members of Christ’s body on behalf of God’s creation. That has enormous implications: we are to live out God’s intentions for the world.⁴

"Do this" – why? To be transformed and enriched in the company of God and our neighbors. To live in the divine presence of an inexhaustibly creative, wise, good and merciful God a new life with those companions God has given us in community.