When I moved into the Pastor’s study several weeks ago, the one remaining item from Sam’s time here was a copy of the November 2009 issue of Our State magazine. We don’t subscribe to this magazine at home, but I get to read it often because my in laws have a subscription. I love this magazine. The pictures are beautiful and the articles are interesting, and sense I’m a native to North Carolina, the magazine’s themes and topics are often like a trip down memory lane and a good visit back home.
This issue of the Our State magazine is dedicated to FOOD! Biscuits, barbecue, pecan pie, collards, fried okra, chicken and dumplings, country-style steak, banana pudding, fried chicken, country ham, figs, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, sweet potato pie, apple stack cake, oysters, seafood chowder...you hungry yet?...chess pie, pound cake, brunswick stew, new potatoes, grits and eggs, ribs...I’ll stop there before you all start drooling and run out the door for lunch.
At the back of the magazine, there is an article about artist, Shirley Willis. Shirley creates all the faux food displays at Tryon Palace in New Bern, NC. From the pictures and descriptions of the food, you would never be able to tell that it is not real. She’s made all sorts of appetizing, but artificial, creations: “small cream puffs held together by caramel and garnished with spun sugar, baked cinnamon apples, baked shrimp in scallop shells, roasted turkey, baked shad, and green beans garnished with bacon, a holiday dessert buffet of pastry swans swimming on a mirror lake surrounded by wafers, sugared fruit, tea cakes, and other 18th century delicacies.” Oops...sorry...there I go again getting everybody hungry.
But wait, maybe there’s no need for apologizing. You were hungry before I even started talking to you about food, weren’t you? If not, then why do we have the table set for you here? We come to this place and gather together to receive what we hunger for, the bread of life and the cup of the new covenant. God’s table has a place setting for us all and it is overflowing with abundance.
I remember talking with a friend one time about his family’s Thanksgiving traditions. He said that his mother used to have so much food and people at her Thanksgiving meal that she would begin cooking a week early. Her husband and sons would move out any unneccesary furniture and put it into a storage unit until after the festivities were over. Each room of the house was dedicated to a different food group. There was the meat room, the veggie room, the salads room, and the dessert room. The whole family, neighbors, friends, and guests would come over on Thanksgiving and spend hours and hours eating and enjoying one another’s company. Afterwards, everyone would pitch in to help clean up the big mess.
God’s table overflows with an abundance that this woman could not ever imagine. The pitcher at the Lord’s Table overflows with grace and mercy. The refills are free and they keep on coming. The plates are filled with nourishing peace and joy. Eat to your heart’s content. The table is made with gracious welcome and loving unity, so that all may be invited, received, and embraced. The chairs are built with rock solid truth and faith to keep you from falling and to bear any amount of burden or heavy weight. Everyone who gathers at the table is both the waiter and the guest, serving one another and sharing in fellowship. God’s table is beautiful, abundant, overflowing, welcoming, and nourishing, yet there is still hunger in this world.
On my way to work the other day, I met a man named Tim. Tim was standing at the top of the exit ramp from I77 getting onto Tyvola Rd. When my car got to the top of the ramp, I was stopped right beside Tim. I wanted to but couldn’t ignore him. I looked around the car to see what I had to give him and remembered the apple I had packed in my bag for a snack. I rolled down the window. “I have an apple,” I said. “I don’t want your apple,” said Tim. “I’m not being mean, I’m just being honest. I’m an alcoholic,” he said, “What I desire overrides an apple.” I looked at him, smiled, and started forward when the light turned green.
A single mom in my neighborhood has six children. She receives some money at the beginning of the month, but it does not cover all of her expenses. In talking with one of her daughters this past week, I came to realize that this mom often cries with worry about how she will buy groceries for her children.
This week, a college sophomore at University of Texas in Austin, opened fire, shot and killed himself on UT’s campus. Those who knew him were shocked, saying that he “was an excellent student who ‘wouldn't or couldn't hurt a fly.’ [His] high school principal, said teachers remembered him as being brilliant, meticulous and respectful.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100928/ap_on_re_us/us_ut_gunman
Gypsies from Romania, the impoverished from latin america, the Karen people from Myanmar, plus many others seek refuge from despair only to be trapped in exile from any semblance of home.
Father Pedro Arrupe, the Jesuits' superior general, said, "When people are hungry anywhere in the world, the Eucharist is incomplete." (at the International Eucharistic Congress, which was held here in the U.S., in Philadelphia, in 1976)
Read Scripture: The thought of this affliction and homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me with grief and mourning. (Lamenations 3:19 & 20)
My sister in law has a funny word for that frustrated and mad feeling you get when you’re hungry...you know the feeling that you’re going to rip off someone’s head if they talk to you any more about the decision of where or what to eat because all you want to do is eat and at this point it could be italian, mexican, thai, or cardboard for all you care, you’re just hungry! This state of mind, according to her, is called “Hangry”. When we’re hangry, any amount of waiting is torturous. Each minute we are being kept from the table is another minute of grief and pain.
The hungers of this world often physical hungers, but they are also often spiritual and emotional hungers. Hunger for companionship, hunger for acceptance, hunger for welcome, hunger for a place to call home. We are hungry...even more than that, we are Hangry, hungry and with righteous anger...bowed down with grief and mourning...and we are waiting for all of us, not just some, to be nourished.
On this World Communion Sunday, we cannot help but notice the empty seats at God’s table, seats that are waiting to be filled. There is a room at the table for Tim, if only we will welcome him. There is a space at the table for the single mom and her children, if only we will notice them. There is a seat for the college sophomore in Texas if only we would embrace him. There is a seat at the Lord’s Table for those who seek refuge, if only we will move our purses and bags that are taking up extra space and share with our neighbors.
Read Scripture: But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness, “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
We come to the table, filled with God’s bounty, we eat the bread and drink the cup and we wait, quietly with hope for God’s salvation to be made complete in us, in all of us.
The Lord is our portion, therefore we will hope in him. Amen.
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