Delivered at the Meeting of the Synod, October 8, 2021
James 1:21-26, Matthew 25:34-40
It’s been a really interesting year, these past 12 months since I was installed as your moderator. It’s a year that I pray won’t be repeated, though I’m afraid that’s little more than wishful thinking on my part. Yet, through it all we – the Synod, our Presbyteries, our Churches, our camps and other ministries have shown remarkable resilience.
At heart, I’m a finance guy. And I confess that during the spring of 2020 I was gravely concerned about the future of the money side of the Synod. Would churches not be able to make loan payments? Would churches need to draw heavily on their deposits? What would that mean for our ability to retain staff and fund grants?
I should have known better.
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
I should have trusted that it is God who is leading us, God who is sheltering us, God who is blessing our work and the ministries being carried out in our corner of God’s world.
So, life goes on. As a Synod we continue to take in money – mission donations, loan payments, deposits, per capita; and give it back – making loans, awarding grants, paying staff.
Our churches and ministries, too, continue in their calling. And in the process they are finding new and creative ways to proclaim the gospel and work to bring God’s Kingdom into fuller reality.
I want to focus for a bit on ‘new and creative’.
I remember a few years ago, at the turn of the last century, when those who study church history were wont to point out that Christ’s church has a pattern of major upheaval every 500 years or so. They pointed to the expansion of the papacy under Pope Gregory the Great (around 600), The great schism of 1054 where the church split between east and west, and the protestant reformation – we’ll use 1520 for convenience. These were identified as markers of a pattern of semi-millennial upheaval within the church. And the church history types looked to the current state of Christianity for clues about what great change would be borne in our time. I remember that the leading candidate back then was post-modernism.
But I think that philosophy has lost some of its luster. It may be great for the hallowed halls of our seminaries, and I confess that I find its tenants particularly appealing, but I’m not sure it plays well in King Hill, Idaho or Klamath Falls, Oregon.
As I’ve thought about how we do church, and I confess that my worship experience for the past 20 odd months has focused mainly on making sure the audio on our live-stream is balanced, I’ve begun to wonder if the true revolution for this 500 year mark has less to do with philosophy and more to do with how we worship, how we define community, how we relate to each other and to our world when the forms we were born into no longer apply.
Yes, many of us have discovered the wonder of live-stream worship, how we can reach our own shut-in members as well as regular viewers from across the country and around the world. But while that offers new and exciting possibilities for worship, it doesn’t deal with the isolation and separation that, in itself, threatens the heart of our Christian Communities.
At a recent Presbytery meeting we spent some time in a visioning exercise. We divided into small groups and discussed our responses to a number of questions. It quickly became obvious that the question most important to our table leader dealt with ‘how do we get people back into church?’ And it was clear that he interpreted ‘into church’ to be ‘in the pews on Sunday Morning.’ So I asked, ‘Why would we want to?’ I can be kind-of snarky like that. For me it goes back to Matthew 18. Jesus said; “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” I would guess that most of us have always related this statement to worship – two or three worshipping in my name. But that’s not what Jesus said. And I think that’s key. Yes, people in the pews is a good thing. Worshipping together, in congregation, as a community of faith is the form we have received and a major part of how we define church. But worship isn’t the only way we practice community. And this is important, these days worship isn’t always the most effective means to welcome new disciples into our community. Which brings us to the metaphor of the banquet.
Food was a big deal for Jesus – meals together with both friends and antagonists show up often in the gospels. So it’s little wonder that the metaphor of the great banquet in the kingdom of heaven shows up frequently as well.
What follows is not a prescription. Take it as a metaphor, a look at how the great banquet might look played out in a given time and a given place. And ask yourselves; What do we learn here about community? What’s important about how others are welcomed to the table – both the physical table and the metaphorical table? How can my church, camp, ministry come together in community to welcome others to that metaphorical table?
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The women of St. Arthur’s Presbyterian Church knew exactly what they were doing, though they would never tell anyone. Even at the beginning they were reasonably certain that the session wouldn’t understand. Oh, it was simple enough to get the approval. The proposal was for a series of Friday lunches to be served during lent. Nothing extravagant; soup and salad and fresh baked bread. And the publicity would be minimal, a sign on the street and maybe a few public service announcements in the local media. There was some mention of the organ playing during the meal but people couldn’t exactly recall anyone saying anything about the praise band.
And that’s how it started. That and a little word of mouth and soon it had become a local institution. Lent came and went and the Friday lunches just seemed to go on. Nobody much minded, it was harmless enough. The really interesting thing was the lives that were touched.
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Mark hadn’t set foot in church since that fateful day when, as a youth, he had been caught in the choir loft with Suzy Dorf, the pastor’s daughter. They hadn’t been doing anything really serious but from the reaction of the pastor you’d think they had committed an unforgivable sin. So he left. If that was church, he didn’t need it. Mark was on his way back to the office from a rather successful sales call when he heard the announcement on the car radio. He was close to the church. He had the time. Almost without thinking he pulled into the parking lot. He found a space and sat for a moment, but just a moment. Then he got out and went inside. The first person he ran into was Betty Dorf (no relation). She sat at the table with the inevitable cash-box. The sign on the front of the table said, “Lunch $10.00”. Wow, he thought to himself, holy soup must be really good. But Betty looked him up and down and said: “I don’t know you. This one’s on the house.” With that she gave him a ticket and sent him on, somewhat bewildered, to the woman who would exchange his ticket for a tray. Having negotiated the food-line he was sitting at a table by himself peacefully munching on fresh-baked bread when a friendly voice said: “I don’t remember seeing you here before. Welcome to St. Arthur’s.” The voice belonged to a middle-aged man with a clerical collar and a loud sweater. He introduced himself as pastor Jones (“They call me Rick.”) and they exchanged the obligatory introductory information. Somehow Rick knew the right questions to ask and soon he had learned of Mark’s disenchantment with organized religion. “I can understand how you feel. There are certainly a lot of people who feel the same way about church.
But you’ve got to admit that the food is good and the price is right. Not a bad deal all around and all it costs (here comes the pitch) is that you have to listen to me suggest that you should give church another try. This isn’t your parent’s church. We’ve come a long way in the last twenty years, and I think you’d be surprised by what you’d find here.” With that the conversation turned to golf and gardening and then Pastor Rick moved on to another table, leaving Mark in peace to eat and think. Sometime later Rick came by to suggest that Mark should leave by way of the sanctuary because the praise band was practicing, and Mark might be interested in hearing some of what passed for ‘church music’ these days. Mark glanced, obviously, at his watch and mumbled something about “maybe next time”. As he left, though, he finished the thought: “or not.”
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Angie was a church dropout too. For her, though, it hadn’t been anything she had been caught doing in church. Rather, it was choices she had made in her daily life that set her at odds with organized religion. For some reason, church people tended to look down on prostitutes. It wasn’t like there weren’t prostitutes in the bible. It wasn’t like Jesus didn’t know them, and talk to them, and care about them. But somehow it was different now. For some reason her kind weren’t welcome in church these days. So when the time came – when the pastor called her in and told her that the elders had met and that she would need to change her occupation or leave, she made the only practical choice. Being a good Christian was fine and all, but it didn’t tend to put food on the table. And while man may not live by bread alone, it was certainly an important part of living. “Go ahead, take some.” She glanced up, shocked that her mind had wandered. But the bread smelled so good. It was a smell she remembered from her grandmother’s big country kitchen. The woman holding the basket of steaming loaves didn’t look like her grandmother. Actually, she couldn’t have been more different – her age, her clothes, her hair – But the smile was the same, all warm and welcoming and glad to have someone enjoy the fruits of her kitchen work. And then she set the basket on the table and sat down. “My name’s Mabel. I don’t think I’ve seen you before, have I? The only thing worse than my memory for faces is my memory for names.” Angie couldn’t help smiling. Mabel was so, well, large. Not physically, though she certainly seemed to enjoy eating her bread as much as she enjoyed making it. Her ‘largeness’ was more about her very presence. She seemed to fill her space with joy and humor and volume. For Angie the effect was almost palpable. “My name’s Angie, and no you haven’t seen me before. I just dropped in to get warm and eat a little lunch.” So far so good. Angie began to feel a little more comfortable. Maybe she could escape the situation without having to reveal her cccoccupation. Or maybe not. “Hey, wait a minute. I know who you are.” Angie froze. “I’ve seen you standing on street corners around.” Angie wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. “The way you’re dressed out there it’s a wonder you don’t freeze.” Angie wanted to die. “So tell me, how do you protect yourself from AIDS?” The question was so unexpected that Angie actually answered it, and the next, and the next, and before she knew it she and Mabel had exhausted an hour, the whole loaf of bread, and Mabel’s curiosity about prostitution. As Angie left her head was spinning. Mabel’s pronouncement: “I can’t say that I approve of how you make a living, but I do know that God loves you just like he loves me and that’s a whole lot more important than what I think.” Had been followed by the offer she never expected: “If you ever need anything, any time, day or night, here’s my number. Call me.” It was inconceivable that there were church-people who might not approve of what she did, but would care for her anyway. But that was what she had just witnessed. Try as she might, she couldn’t help wondering if she had been wrong about church all along. On the other hand, she knew exactly what she would be doing for lunch next Friday.
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Oswald made it a point to attend the Friday lunches. If they were going to let the unworthy, unwashed, uneducated masses into his church he wanted to be there. He would make sure they didn’t make off with the saltshakers. He would give them an example of what an upstanding, successful churchman looked like. He would show them how to act in public. So every week Oswald occupied the corner seat at the first table. His face set in a permanent scowl, he glowered over the proceedings ignoring both the women and the guests. The women of St. Arthur’s knew how to handle Oswald. They treated him like any other guest. The offered him refills on coffee and extra bread and every week one of them was chosen to sit with him for a few minutes and engage him in conversation. Eventually he began to loosen up a bit; but even they were surprised that it was the children who first got him to smile. As the cold gray days of March gave way to the warm sun of late April the children became restless and active. For some reason this seemed to touch Oswald. Or maybe it was that small children instinctively know when someone needs their attention. It started with young Nancy Smith. He looked up from his soup one day and found himself the subject of her intense study as she knelt on the chair across the table from him. After a brief conversation she was scampering happily back to her mother. He sat smiling, watching her exuberance. The next Friday the scene repeated itself. The following Friday she was joined by her brother and her best friend Amy. From that point on, it was rare to see Oswald without one or more children around him. The women noticed and decided that it was time to act. On the following Friday as Oswald finished his soup one of the women appeared at his side.
Pushing her way through a small crowd of hangers-on (or was it a crowd of small hangers-on) she handed him, not the breadbasket, but a children’s book. He looked up, startled. “What am I supposed to do with this?” She simply looked around at the children. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. It’s time you got to work.” She walked back to the kitchen. He looked at the book and then at the children. Then he pushed his chair back, opened the book and started to read. Until his dying day, the high point of Oswald’s week was Friday when he would put down his soupspoon, pick up that day’s book and read. Several generations of children look back on those Fridays and remember the kindly old gentleman with the warm smile who always seemed happy to see them, each of them, all of them. Yes, he read them stories. But more than that he told them that they mattered, that they were important to him, and to God. And that both he and God were happy that they came every Friday to share some soup, and a story, and some time with him.
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Bill was pretty normal. Good job, happy family (wife and two and a half kids), nice house (garage and two and a half bathrooms), vacation time-share at the lake (Christmas week and two and a half weeks during the summer), all the normal trappings of success. The problem was that Bill wasn’t happy. Oh, he seemed happy. And he certainly wasn’t unhappy. Occasionally he actually felt happy. But in his quiet moments Bill wasn’t really happy. When he thought about it, he had to wonder if there wasn’t supposed to be something more to life than what he had. He thought maybe that it had something to do with growing older. Maybe this was what a “midlife crisis” was all about. On the other hand, maybe it was something deeper. He never really did anything about it because he never really knew what to do, who to talk to, how to get help. So he kept on doing exactly what was expected of him; job, family, church, service clubs; in the hope that eventually the feeling would go away and he would feel ‘normal’ again. But no matter how much he tried to pretend that everything was all right nothing ever changed and he was left with a hunch, eventually a certainty, that everything was not, in fact all right. Finally, he talked to his doctor. But part of his problem was that he couldn’t seem to describe the problem. So no matter how he tried to say it, he just didn’t seem to be able to communicate the reality of what he felt. He had much the same experience with a couple of counselors – first one recommended by his doctor, then one he chose from the phone book. Finally, on a certain Friday, late in the morning, he was driving downtown. He happened to drive by the church and he was surprised by all the cars outside. It had never occurred to him that this much activity would be going on other than on Sunday mornings. He went inside to check it out. Somewhere in the midst of his second bowl of soup the pastoral care associate joined him. At first they exchanged small talk but soon their conversation turned to life, and expectations, and Bill. Bill found himself telling his pastor much more than he had intended. But on the other hand he also found a willing, caring ear to hear his thoughts and honor his feelings.
Their lunchtime conversations became a regular Friday event, one that they both looked forward to. What they found in each other was a companionship that neither had anticipated. They also found a significant store of shared feelings. Their conversations didn’t actually fix anything, but they did make the waiting seem, somehow, more normal, more bearable, more OK.
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Over the years my daughter Kimberly has been kind enough to provide editing help on a number of my stories. Her insight and suggestions have been very helpful and have significantly improved my writing. So I was pleased that she left this one virtually untouched. She responded that, in reality, there were problems with this story that went much beyond simple editing.
She had some very serious questions about what I had written. Here are the most important ones:
Is the banquet in heaven or on earth?
Yes; both
Is God the host or are we the hosts?
Who prepares the banquet?
Who serves the banquet?
Am I suggesting that we all implement a Friday Lunch?
It’s important to remember that, even in Jesus’ terms, the banquet is really a metaphor. Not that I don’t anticipate some good eatin’ on the other side of the pearly gates. Imagine being able to take thirds on fried chicken to go with your mashed potatoes and sausage gravy leaving just enough room for chocolate cake topped with chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup – all guilt-free! But we can’t get so focused on the vision that we lose the metaphor. So no, I’m not suggesting that we all begin a Friday Lunch program – unless that’s a mission we want or need to undertake.
The message here is about finding our mission, whatever that may be, and pursuing it with a passion. The message here is about being open and welcoming and ready to accept people, anybody, as they are, whether or not they seem like the kind of people we’d like to invite to our feast.
So just as we hope for God the host in heaven, so also we see our roles as hosts here on earth. And just as we look to angels to serve us in heaven, so also we serve others here on earth.
But what about Mark and Bob?
That’s a kind-of hard one.
Not all will come to the party, the great banquet in the kingdom of heaven. Some who are invited will choose not to respond. Mark heard the call, but his disenchantment with organized religion prevented him from seeing the possibility of responding to that call. Some who are invited won’t even hear the call.
And then there’s Bob. You didn’t meet Bob this morning. He stopped by the church for lunch on the way to the hills to commit suicide. Then he went through with it. Bob was so intent on his own self-destruction that he wasn’t attuned to the possibility that there was another way, another answer. Kimberly was concerned that I would illustrate this point with a suicide and suggested that I might soften Bob’s account a little. She was probably right so I decided to tell you about Bob rather than giving you his story. But while I needed for the point to be dramatic, I don’t want to leave the impression that Bob’s was the only way we don’t hear the invitation.
Other characters I didn’t mention help illustrate this:
Jack, who drove by the church but was turned off by the number of cars in the parking lot – didn’t want to risk getting dents in his new Tesla.
Ted, who was too busy brokering deals at power lunches to be bothered with a simple meal for the sake of eating.
Audrey, who was concerned that there weren’t entrance requirements. She actually attended one lunch and when she saw Angie sitting quietly at a table eating soup and chatting with a couple of the women she vowed never to set foot in that God forsaken church again.
Burt, who drove by the church every Friday for four years and never noticed a thing.
Let’s see: Material Possessions, power, fear, exclusion, not paying attention. There are more things that get in the way of us hearing the invitation, but you get the picture.
Some people will choose not to respond. That’s the way of things. But take heart:
Our task isn’t to make sure everyone makes it to the banquet.
Our task is to offer to others the invitation to join us at the table.
Our task is to host and serve.
That’s the way it’s been in the churches of the Synod of the Pacific for more than a hundred years, hosting the banquet and serving others in our little corner of the world. In all that time it’s been the work of the Synod to support that mission. And that’s the way it will be, with God’s help, for the next hundred years and beyond.
We live in a time of great change: great challenges, great prospects, great new opportunities to be church together, church for the world, in new and exciting ways. But through it all may we keep our eyes on the banquet, and on our role as hosts – welcoming all working together to serve others, to bring the good news to a world sorely in need of hearing it.
Amen
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