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| This is the carved, wooden replica of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, which hangs in our home. |
This sermon was preached at St. John's Church, Decatur, AL on Maundy Thursday. The following text inspired the message:
There’s
a carved wooden replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, which
hangs in our home. It like the real one depicts Jesus’ last meal with his
disciples. Kim got this copy on a family trip to Mexico. I didn’t even know she
had it when we got married. It was one
of the joyful surprises that our first year of marriage brought. But, when we
moved into our current home we opened a box and there it was. We just had to find a place to put it so,
onto our dining room wall it went last January.
Several
months went by. During that time, Kim and I prepared for the impending arrival
of our son. Each night when we got home we ate together and Jesus and his
disciples looked on. Each night that carving on our wall reminded us that Jesus
and his friends were sharing a meal across time and space with us. It was quite
lovely. Then, on August 7th, 2017 all of that changed.
John
Theodore Olson arrived last summer and threw everything in our lives for a
loop. The 234 days since have been wild! They have been awesome, but they have
been wild. Days filled with both fantastic and challenging moments—moments that
have shown me new depth and breadth to the emotions I felt possible. While
there have been so many highs, like his first smile and his baptism here at St.
John’s, I recently observed a disturbing low. Or, rather a trend that has been
pointing in an unhealthy direction. And, it has everything to do with our Last Supper carving.
By
no fault of Teddy or his mother—that is to say, by my own fault and no one
else’s—Kim and I have slowly stopped eating dinner together at our dining room
table. Now, we don’t have a fancy dining room, it is the best place for us to
sit and eat together. But, instead of sitting down, asking a blessing, and eating
together we have been crashing on the couch, as we try to adjust to being
parents. Often what we eat is lukewarm. Sometimes it has been microwaved. And,
every so often—when Teddy fights going to bed—we even struggle to eat at the
same time. As I notice this upsetting development, I miss not only eating with
Kim, but also with the disciples and with Jesus.
At
the very core of seemingly every society lay the sacredness of sharing a meal
together. Perhaps you noticed that in
our readings for this evening. They all have the setting of a meal or they
point to the sacredness of one. The universality of breaking bread together
means that these readings connect with every single one of us—no matter who we
are or where we are from. And yet, like my tendency to eat alone, it appears many
are losing touch with the sacredness of eating together.
One
news release about this subject reads: “Families today are finding it more
difficult to eat dinner together, and when they come to the table, it's often
the TV [or smartphone] that's doing the talking. A recent survey…found that 40
percent of American families eat dinner together only three or fewer times a
week, with 10 percent never eating dinner together at all. However, 88 percent
of families would like to increase the time spent…at the dinner table.”[1] Oddly this was not from a social interest group or even a family
first initiative, these results were from a big food conglomerate. While some families
never eat together and many only eat together sparingly, almost all want to
spend more time together around the table.
How about you? Do you want to share more meals
together with those closest to you? What about with others? What about with God? Do you want to share a meal with Him?
One of the first questions I remember Evan asking
at Theology on Tap has stuck with me. During that Thursday night gathering at
the Brick for food, beverage, and conversation, he asked something like, “If
you were an inmate on death row, what would your last meal be?” The question
has stuck with me, not because I like
thinking about that scenario, but because in some ways that is what the Last
Supper was like for Jesus. Jesus was not on death row, but he knew that it
would be the last meal he ate before he died—his last meal before death. “What
would your last meal be?” is a good question, but I might add to it, “Who would
you want to be there with you when you ate it?” For that also had to be a
consideration for Jesus. Who did he want to share that meal with?
On this night long ago, during supper Jesus took
bread, gave thanks to God, broke it and said, “‘This is my body, which is foryou; do this to remember me.’ He did the same thing with the cup, after theyhad eaten, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time youdrink it, do this to remember me.’” Jesus shared this holy meal, his Last
Supper, with his followers, his disciples, those closest to him. What would it
be like for us to gather there around the table with Jesus? Not just beside a
wood-carved image of The Last Supper,
but truly there next to him, mystically sharing a meal, as one of his
followers. What is that like?
The way John tells the sacred story there is no
taking, blessing, breaking, saying, and giving. Still there is a meal. And, in
whatever account of the Good News of Christ Jesus we read, we know another
thing: one of his own followers betrayed Jesus. Who would you want to be with
you at your last meal? If you ask me, I would have a hard time eating my last
meal with someone who would betray me.
Jesus not only dined with his betrayer, but he
also served him. In John’s story, Jesus got up, took off his robes, picked up a
linen towel, tied it around his waist, poured water into a basin, then washed
and dried his disciples’ feet—including Judas’. We have no exact parallel today
for the intimate way Jesus served his friends. It is an act of love locked in
time. Still, Jesus, the teacher, bending to serve his students so starkly
stands out—especially when he gets to Judas. While we tend to focus in on one
disciple’s failing, I do not believe he was alone.
John claims that the other disciples were clean.
It was only the betrayer who was defiled. This seems false to me. For in the
shadow of this night, all leave Jesus, all abandon him. Yet, even as Jesus knew
this impending truth, even as he saw the darkness of Gethsemane ahead, he still
ate with and knelt before all of them. If we stay long
enough around this table with Jesus, we experience this too.
As were gather with him, we might be tempted to
think that we wouldn’t do that. We
would never hurt him, we would never leave him. And yet, we do. We betray and
abandon Christ in word and deed, in thought and action, in things done and left
undone. Still, he is here. Still, he is with us. The Eternal Word of God, the
One through whom all things were made, kneels down to wash the feet of us
modern day betrayers and traitors.
When he finishes he invites us to do likewise. Serving
others sounds so nice when it is our friends, but what about others? Jesus knew
that he was serving friends who were at the same time backstabbers. Would we be
able to share our last meal with false friends? Would we bend to serve them? Well,
if we are still around this table with Jesus, then I believe we must.
God’s love through Christ extends even to us
defectors. God’s love through Christ even reaches those whom we despise. The
vast majority of my being cannot comprehend this. My mind cannot understand or
accept it. And I wonder: Could I wash the feet of a turncoat friend, someone
who made fun of me, or one who broke my heart? What about a terrorist, a
child predator, or a school shooter? Could I let one of them wash my feet? I
cannot convince myself that I could. Not on my own. And yet, gathered here at
his Last Supper, I see Jesus break bread, share the cup, and kneel down to wash
my deserting feet. And, I hear him saying:
“Just as I have done, you must do.”
I give you a new commandment: Love. Just as I
have loved, so you must love. This is how everyone will know that you are my
disciples, love.
x
[1] "National Survey Reveals Nearly Half Of American
Families Eat Dinner Together Fewer Than Three Times A Week Or Not At All."
ConAgra Brands. 05 30, 2003.
http://www.conagrabrands.com/news-room/news-national-survey-reveals-nearly-half-of-american-families-eat-dinner-together-fewer-than-three-times-a-week-or-not-at-all-1008335
(accessed 03 28, 2018).
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