Sermon: “The Longest Table”
wayne mclaughlin
Leeds Presbyterian Church
World Communion Sunday
October 4, 2020 – (worship through Zoom)
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Old Testament Reading Exodus 20.1-4, 7-9, 12-20 NRSV
20 Then God spoke all these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth…
7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work…
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid[b] and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.”
Epistle Reading: 1 Corinthians 12.7-13 CEV
7 The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others. 8 Some of us can speak with wisdom, while others can speak with knowledge, but these gifts come from the same Spirit. 9 To others the Spirit has given great faith or the power to heal the sick 10 or the power to work mighty miracles. Some of us are prophets, and some of us recognize when God’s Spirit is present. Others can speak different kinds of languages, and still others can tell what these languages mean. 11 But it is the Spirit who does all this and decides which gifts to give to each of us.
12 The body of Christ has many different parts, just as any other body does. 13 Some of us are Jews, and others are Gentiles. Some of us are slaves, and others are free. But God’s Spirit baptized each of us and made us part of the body of Christ. Now we each drink from that same Spirit.
Gospel Reading Matthew 16.13-18 CEV
13 When Jesus and his disciples were near the town of Caesarea Philippi, he asked them, “What do people say about the Son of Man?”
14 The disciples answered, “Some people say you are John the Baptist or maybe Elijah or Jeremiah or some other prophet.”
15 Then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter spoke up, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus told him: Simon, son of Jonah, you are blessed! You didn’t discover this on your own. It was shown to you by my Father in heaven. 18 So I will call you Peter, which means “a rock.” On this rock I will build my church, and death itself will not have any power over it.
SERMON TEXT:
Diversity
Today we sit down at the Table with Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Church of Christ, Mennonites, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalians, Holy Rollers, and Non-denominational Churches…
We will sit at Table with people who worship in brick churches, the little brown church in the dale, cathedrals, storefront churches, small churches, huge churches, new churches, ancient churches…
Today we will sit down with people who are white, brown, yellow, red, black, sun-tanned, freckled, wrinkled, and hairy…
We will sit with people who are tall, short, skinny, fat, muscular, flabby, toothless, bald, dyed hair, well-dressed, perfumed, smelly, big feet, small feet, educated, illiterate, rich, dirt poor, homeless, sick, grieving, depressed, joyous, alone, with big families, unemployed, tired, bored, athletic, introverted, extroverted, morning people, night owls, lovers of opera, lovers of Elvis, mountain climbers, couch potatoes…
This morning we will sit down at the Lord’s Table with people from Ames, Iowa, Dayton, Ohio, Charlottesville, S.C., Seattle, Wash., Phoenix, Arizona, St. Paul, MN, Paris, IL, Paris, KY, Paris, Idaho, Arab, AL…
People in Japan, Iceland, Venezuela, Russia, Scotland, Taiwan, New Zealand, China, Spain, Mongolia, India, Guatemala, Mexico, Germany, Nigeria,…
People who are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Socialists, and people who live under dictatorships…
We will sit at Table with women, men, and children of different sexual and gender orientations, people of different cultural backgrounds, people who are part of churches with different governing structures, different theologies, different traditions, different points of view, different tastes and preferences, different memories, and different prospects for the future…
1933
On the first Sunday in October each year there are probably more people partaking of the Lord’s Supper around the world than on any other Sunday. This is World Communion Sunday. An idea that was thought up in 1933 by the Reverend Hugh Thomson Kerr, pastor of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It was then adopted throughout the US Presbyterian Church in 1936 and subsequently spread to other denominations.
Today we will sit at the Lord’s Table with people all over the world, our sisters and brothers in Christ. Some of these people are like us; many of them are different from us. If we could meet all of these people we would like many of them; some we would not like; some would not like us. In the Church of Jesus Christ we don’t get to pick and choose the people who are related to us in Christ.
The important thing is that we are all one in Christ. We are part of one another. What unites us is not our politics or our language or our nationality, but our unity with Christ. We are all part of the Body of Christ through the free gift of the grace of God.
Longest Table
Of the 7.3 billion people on earth today, 2.4 billion, almost a third, profess to be Christian.
Today we sit with 2.4 billion people—our family in Christ.
Where are they all going to sit? you say. Good question. Easy answer. This table in our sanctuary is a long table. We only see a little of it. But the invisible part stretches around the globe—25,000 miles if it went around the equator. But it zigs and zags everywhere. It goes through every nation on earth.
Each congregation has a little piece of the Table. It is the longest Table in the world.
Trans—
In the midst of a global pandemic, in the midst of racial tensions, in the midst of political turmoil, today we sit down at the Lord’s Table in peace, in unity, to commune with Christ, and with all of our sisters and brothers around the world.
We will not only think about our connection, we will feel it in our hearts.
This trans-national, trans-racial family that we are part of overshadows all of our differences.
Which raises an ethical question. In my first year of college I had to write a term paper for a religion class. We chose our own topics. I chose to write about the Christian attitude toward war. I went to the college library and found books on war and ethics and peacemaking. Being a young, radical college student, my thesis ended up stating that it is immoral for Christians to take part in any war; that Christians should be pacifists.
My rationale was this: Every nation on earth has believers in Christ. The Church resides in every nation. Therefore, when one nation goes to war against another nation, the ridiculous and immoral situation inevitably arises wherein Christ’s disciples of one nationality are out to kill Christ’s disciples of another nationality. What could be more inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus?
It seemed to be a water-tight argument. How could a Christian fly a bomber over a nation where other Christians lived and with good conscience drop bombs on his fellow Christians? Could anything be more non-Christian, more anti-Christ?
I thought about that term paper as I was writing about World Communion Sunday. Because the moral logic of my argument still sits in my brain. Since that time I have accepted more fully the ambiguities of life. I have come to recognize that life is not simple, but complicated.
In many situations there is no simple, black-and-white answer to messy ethical and moral questions. I have learned to compromise.
Yet, I am still bothered by the fact that the Church is a trans-national entity. I still believe whole heartedly that to bow to any national flag is idolatry. To do so is to break the first commandment: You shall have no other gods besides me. I’m not talking about saluting the flag or saying the Allegiance to the Flag. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m talking about bowing down to the flag as a way of bowing down to a nation as our absolute authority. Governments have relative authority; only God has absolute authority. To put a national flag above Christ is to deny our Lord and Savior.
To live as a Christian is to bow to no one or no thing except Christ the Lord. And if we bow only to the Lord, then the Church, as his Body, must also be of utmost importance. And our relationship with our sisters and brothers in Christ all over the world must be of utmost importance.
I’m sorry to bring this up on a Sunday which should be a feel-good Sunday. But this is where the Lord led me in this sermon. Listen carefully: Patriotism is one thing. Nationalism is another. I celebrate patriotism—the love of country. I love America. I am committed to the ideals of my country. But I must condemn nationalism—the idolization of country. Thou shalt not have any God but me. Perhaps the celebration of World Communion Sunday will at least help us think seriously about the reality of Christ dwelling in people in all nations on earth.
Cells
Christ has established his Church. We see congregations diminishing, and congregations closing, buildings being sold. At different times and in different places parts of the Church dissolve and other parts are renewed. Like the cells in our bodies: some are always dying, while others are being created.
The world-wide Church will never die. The gates of hell will never prevail against it. It will change form. Old traditions will die, and new traditions will come to life. The form of worship may change. Terminology may change. Technology will spur new ways of doing things. The music for worship will evolve. But the Church itself, the Body of Christ, will never be defeated by the enemies of unbelief, immorality, apathy, or the powers of evil.
We are Christ’s Body. We are everywhere. Today we will be fed. Today we sit at the longest Table in the world.
[text: 1242 words; time: 9:54]
