Sunday, October 5, 2014

Borrowed Bread

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October 5, 2014 - World Communion Sunday

Mark 14:12-26
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 13 So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” 16 So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.
17 When it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, “Surely, not I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”  22 While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. 24 He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Sermon: “Borrowed Bread”

Sometimes, one day runs into the next and nothing feels terribly significant, or even worth remembering.  But then, there are days when even the most ordinary of things can become something that shakes you to the core.  I suppose you could call it heaven breaking in, or God giving us spiritual espresso, or the one day that makes all of your other days make sense. 

If we’re honest with ourselves, most days are the former: an exercise in “getting-r-done”, the endless monotony of tasks dragging our weary feet in a ceaseless shuffle we quite grandly call, “life.”  This is not the story of that sort of day.  This is the story of the other sort of day.

It doesn’t get more ordinary than water.  My master had asked me to go and fetch some water, and I was carrying back that large jar, just like I did every boring day of my existence.  You could say my life was as ordinary as that tepid water.  But then two men started following me.  It’s hard to outrun people when bearing ten gallons of water, so they caught up with me, right as I came to my master’s house.

I must have had a panicked look on my face, because the first thing they said was, “Relax.  We’re not here to harm you.”  Something in their face said they meant this, so I laid down my water jar and said, “Okay, that’s good, what can I do for you, then?”

“The Teacher says, ‘Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” they replied.  This is when my ordinary day took a bit of a turn.  You see ordinarily, I might have laughed at such a request from strangers.  But I took them to my master anyway, knowing full well he might laugh himself at such a request.  And that’s how I knew this wasn’t an ordinary day: he didn’t.  He seemed to perk up at the mention of this “Teacher” and immediately told me to show them upstairs.

I did, and showed them the grand upper room, which was actually used for great banquets, and was equipped for the Passover, because my master and I were Jews, after all.  I had assumed my master would have it reserved for some of the synagogue leaders and politicians.  You know, important people.  I did not expect these admittedly bedraggled, questionably demanding characters to trump that reservation.   

They looked around, and approved, and left.  As I continued making preparations for that night’s Passover meal, I felt a growing sense of anxiety mingled with excitement within me.  Could this Teacher be that trouble-making Jesus I’d heard mentioned in the marketplace?  Did he really outsmart all of the religious elite, and heal the sick and raise the dead?  By the time those two men returned that night, along with several others, I had built up this Teacher so much in my head, it was the equivalent of expecting David Copperfield to walk into your living room.

When he did enter, looking every bit as dusty and dodgy as his friends, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed.  But he did ask me my name, which was strange (servants were generally seen and not heard, you know).  He said he appreciated my hospitality, like it was my house he was in, and apologized for being so last-minute about it.

Then he reclined at the table, and he must have been some kind of teacher, because everyone else followed suit.  There were twelve of them, gathered around this Teacher and there was something electric in the air of that space, like the profound quiet before a great thunderstorm.  Something was going to happen, something I didn’t think was good, and they all knew it. 

They ate in uneasy silence, with a peppering of side conversation from time to time.  One fellow looked particularly fidgety and nervous, so much so, that when I tapped him on the shoulder to refill his wine, he nearly knocked over his glass with surprise.  I later learned his name was Judas.  I also later learned just why he was so nervous that night. 

After they ate the olives and cheese and figs, the Teacher picked up some of the unleavened bread.  The air in the room shifted once more, as things became serious and everyone focused on him like distant thunder makes you stare intently at the sky.  “One of you will betray me,” he said, as simply as one might say the sky is blue or the grass is green.  It was not a question, it was a statement of fact.  But those disciples of his began saying, “No, not me, maybe him?” 

The fear I’d felt when they first came into the room became enflamed as they all pointed fingers and accusations.  This whole time Jesus just looked very sad, not sad for himself, exactly, but more pity for them.  I’m not sure how you could feel sorry for someone who was going to betray you, but it seemed to me he did.

I wondered if he might kick out this betrayer, refuse to feed him.  On an ordinary day, that might have happened, but I had already learned this was no ordinary day.  Instead, this teacher took that borrowed bread, in that borrowed room, and broke it, and fed them, saying, “Take, eat this is my body.  I remember what he said because I found it very strange at the time.  I knew that bread – I baked that bread – it was not his body.  But that didn’t seem to matter.  The Teacher was teaching an essential lesson.

He then took wine and poured it into a cup, and blessed it, and passed it around for everyone to drink, even jumpy Judas, who spilled a little on his robes.  “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.  Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”  Again, he spoke with the matter-of-factness of describing the sky as blue and the grass as green.  He was stating facts, naming what was going to happen.  He didn’t sound scared, though I do think he was a little sad, because it was clear he really cared for these people, and didn’t love the idea of leaving them.

Then, with the solemnity of a funeral service, they sang a hymn in deep tones, thanked my master and me for our hospitality, and left.  They left, without me learning the significance of this Passover meal, or the power of this Teacher.

But later, I did learn.  We all did.  I watched the one who broke the bread I’d baked be broken himself, while a crowd reveled in it like some salacious sporting event.  I wept tears I didn’t know I had, because something about it all just seemed so very wrong.  And when I heard the remarkable news three days later that miraculously this Teacher lived again, oh I wept even more. 

I wept for gratitude that anger and fear didn’t win.  I wept for hope that the kind of love this Teacher had for the world couldn’t die.  I wept because it meant that sometimes, every so often, extraordinary things can happen.

You can just be going about your boring life and suddenly, it all changes.  But there is a catch.   I could’ve said no.  My master could’ve said no.  We could have refused hospitality to these rough-looking strangers.  That’s the ordinary thing to do: say no.  To hoard our bread and our buildings for ourselves.  To reject spontaneity in favor of safety.  To welcome comfortable isolation instead of the risks real relationships involve. 

I think it matters that this Teacher came to earth and that he taught and healed.  I think it matters that, when he could have run and hid (knowing what was coming), instead he took bread and broke it, feeding even his betrayer.  But I think it really matters how he did this.  He borrowed.  This powerful proclamation of who he was and what he was going to do, of the eternal power of the kingdom of God through him, was utterly reliant on an ordinary servant like me saying yes. 

You see, I think God most prefers to work through ordinary means, and ordinary people.  I think God limits God’s self from all of the David Copperfield shenanigans because God desperately wants to involve us in this work of feeding and being fed, of giving and receiving.  This world so often operates in an “every man for himself” sort of way, where there’s not enough bread to go around, where you should always say “no” to strangers, and where your busy schedule is much more important than whatever it is another person might need from you. 

But this Teacher, this Teacher who took the time to ask me my name, he proclaims another world, where bread is meant to be shared (especially with enemies and betrayers), where our impulse should be “yes” to the needs of strangers, and where God can show up in the most surprising of ways, right smack in the middle of the ordinary, asking you to take notice, and serve, and be served. 

We have a choice you know, of which world we want to live in.  As for me, I choose the world this Teacher was about, because somehow I think it’s more real and solid than the other one, as real as the grass being green and the sky being blue, if we’re willing to open our hearts and our homes to a stranger, and see it, and taste it, and share it.  Amen.