FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Communion Meditation by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

Ash Wednesday

February 21, 2007

CHRIST AT THE CENTER:

THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – “HOSPITALITY”

Scripture: I Corinthians 11:17-34

INTRODUCTION

During the Lenten Season, we’re going to focus our time and attention on the theme “Christ at the Center: The Gifts of the Spirit.” The text from the Bible which will guide us along the way is taken from I Corinthians 12, written by the Apostle Paul around 55 AD while he was in Ephesus on his third missionary journey. Paul had heard about the trouble and dissension in the Corinthian congregation, with whom he had spent some time just five years before. So he wrote them a letter to offer some correction and a sense of direction for their life together in the Lord.

What he wanted those first century Christians to know was that the Holy Spirit could help them in those hard times if they would open their hearts and minds to the gifts which the risen Christ had given to them: unity, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues, strength from belonging to the Body of Christ, and in I Corinthians 13, the gift of love which could bring and bind them together as the church that they were called to be and become.

Over the next seven weeks, as we make our way toward Easter, we’re going to explore these gifts of the Spirit, and seek to embrace the myriad of ways that each and every one of those same gifts are available and at work among us today.

I

In order for that to happen, we need to be open to receive the gifts which the Lord has given to us – and that was the real problem in the church at Corinth long ago. Because of their theological divisions and personal disagreements, which spilled over into public arguments and private resentments, the Corinthians had become resistant to the movement of God’s Spirit among them.

Where that was most evident was at the table of the Lord’s Supper, a sacrament consecrated by Jesus to draw His disciples together, but which had turned into a food fight amongst the rich and poor members of the congregation.

Last month as our elementary aged children celebrated their first communion, Kacy Brubaker preached a sermon describing the feeding frenzy which had developed between the Corinthian Christians. The wealthy people got to the table first, and with an attitude of superiority, they ate most of the bread and devoured the wine so that there was hardly anything left for the folks at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

Today, it would be as if some folks in this church left worship on the final hymn, rushed into the reception room and gobbled up all the Krispy Crème donuts, swigged down the fruit punch and finished off the coffee before the rest of the congregation got there. Among the seven deadly sins, we’re talking about gluttony and pride, where some people actually think that they are entitled to more than their fair share.

What the Apostle Paul called it, in so many words, was greed, and that, according to the gospel, was just the opposite of what Jesus had meant the Lord’s Supper to be.

So Paul laid out the instructions in what our Book of Common Worship calls “The Words of Institution”:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (I Corinthians 11:23-26)

And then He added these final words to make certain that no one would miss the point:

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat a home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come. (I Corinthians 11:27-34)

What Paul was describing was the gift of hospitality, a sacred and holy gift which the Lord had given to those Christians for the benefit and mutual growth of the entire community.

II

And so it is today. When we approach this communion table, we come with open hearts and open hands to receive the gifts which God wants all of us to share. And because we’re Presbyterians, who do everything “decently and in order,” no one would dare to turn this sacrament into a feeding frenzy.

However, the real question which we still face today is similar to what those Corinthians dealt with in the first century A.D.: “Is everyone welcome at this table, or are there special reservations for some people, but not for everybody”?

The Presbyterian author Kathleen Norris, in her book “Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith,” answers the question this way with a description of what she discovered in a South Dakota Benedictine Monastery:

“During Holy Week of 1997 I had the great good fortune to be a guest in a monastery, experiencing hospitality at its firm, quiet, non-intrusive best. I rested up from an overload of work and travel, took long, vigorous walks, trawled the retreat house library for treasures, sat in solitude and silence, and of course attended the communal liturgy…

I discovered that the main difference is hospitality… The goal is being free to love others, non-exclusively and non-possessively, both within their monastic community and without. St. Benedict says ‘A monastery is never without guests.’…

Given this fact, I try to be aware that being a guest in a monastery brings with it certain burdens, primarily being willing to accept the pure grace of being welcomed without expectation. Welcomed as I am, because of Christ. I also liked what I found there, and drank so deeply of monastic hospitality that when I went back home, I began dreaming about the place. My unconscious mind knew, long before I did, that I had received an invitation. I stood before an open door, and was being welcomed inside…

Benedict knew this and I believe this is why he so emphatically states in his Rule that ‘all guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ.’… Not long ago I heard a novice speak of a nun with Alzheimer’s in her community, who every day insists on being placed in her wheelchair at the entrance to the monastery’s nursing home wing so that she can greet everyone who comes. ‘She is no longer certain what she is welcoming people to,’ the younger woman explained, ‘but hospitality is so deeply ingrained in her that it has become her whole life.’…

Benedictines do not turn their backs on the world, even as they seek to detach themselves from worldly values. This seems to me the core of Benedictine hospitality. To reject the world is to reject other people. And to reject other people is to reject Christ himself.” (“Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith” by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead Books, New York, 1998, pages 262-266, selected sentences)

Now we know that Catholics and Protestants still have a long way to go in discovering how the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper can bind us together instead of separating us one from another. But could it be that Kathleen Norris found the secret of hospitality in that Benedictine Monastery – the acceptance of one another as sisters and brothers around the table in the presence of Jesus Christ?

CONCLUSION

Dr. Fred Craddock offers his own answer to that question, and this story leads us to the conclusion of our Ash Wednesday sermon as we prepare to celebrate communion tonight at the beginning of the Lenten Season:

“I was invited last year, in mid-October, to the University of Winnipeg in Canada to give two lectures, one Friday night and one Saturday morning. I went. I gave the one on Friday night. As we left the lecture hall, it was beginning to spit a little snow. I was surprised, and my host was surprised because he had written, ‘It’s too early for the cold weather, but you might bring a little windbreaker, a little light jacket.’ The next morning when I got up, two or three feet of snow pressed against the door. The phone rang, and my host said, ‘We’re all surprised by this. In fact, I can’t come and get you to take you to breakfast, the lecture this morning has been cancelled, and the airport is closed. If you can make your way down the block and around the corner, there is a little depot, a bus depot, and it has a café. I’m sorry.’ I said, ‘I’ll get around.’ I put on that little light jacket; it was nothing. I got my little cap and put it on; it didn’t even help me in the room. I went into the bathroom and unrolled long sheets of toilet paper and made a nest in the cap so that it would protect my head against that icy wind.

I went outside, shivering. The wind was cold, the snow was deep. I slid and bumped and finally made it around the corner into the bus station. Every stranded traveler in western Canada was in there, strangers to each other and to me, pressing and pushing and loud. I finally found a place to sit, and after a lengthy time a man in a greasy apron came over and said, ‘What’ll you have?’ I said, ‘May I see a menu?’ He said, ‘What do you want a menu for? We have soup.’ I said, ‘What kinds of soup do you have?’ And he said, ‘Soup. You want some soup?’ I said, ‘That was what I was going to order – soup.’ He brought the soup, and I put the spoon to it – Yuck! It was the awfulest. It was kind of gray looking; it was so bad I couldn’t eat it, but I sat there and put my hands about it. It was warm, and so I sat there with my head down, my head wrapped in toilet paper, bemoaning and beweeping my outcast state with the horrible soup. But it was warm, so I clutched it and stayed bent over my soup stove.

The door opened again. The wind was icy, and somebody yelled, ‘Close the door!’ In came this woman clutching her little coat. She found a place, not far from me. The greasy apron came, ‘What do you want?’ She said, ‘A glass of water.’ He brought a glass of water, took out his tablet, and said, ‘Now what’ll you have?’ She said, ‘Just the water.’ He said ‘You have to order, lady.’ ‘Well, I just want a glass of water.’ ‘Look. I have customers that pay – what do you think this is, a church or something? Now what do you want?’ She said, ‘Just a glass of water and some time to get warm.’ ‘Look, there are people that are paying here. If you’re not going to order, you’ve got to leave!’ And he got real loud about it. So she got up to leave and, almost as if rehearsed, everybody in that little café stood up and started toward the door. I got up and said, ‘I’m voting for something here; I don’t know what it is.’ And the man in the greasy apron said, ‘All right, all right, she can stay.’ Everybody sat down, and he brought her a bowl of soup.

I said to the person sitting there by me, I said, ‘Who is she?’ He said, ‘I never saw her before.’ The place grew quiet, but I heard the sipping of that awful soup. I said, ‘I’m going to try that again.’ I put my spoon to the soup – you know, it was not bad soup. Everybody was eating this soup. I started eating the soup, and it was pretty good soup. I have no idea what kind of soup it was. I don’t know what was in it, but I do recall when I was eating it, it tasted a little bit like bread and wine. Just a little like bread and wine.” (From Craddock Stories by Fred B. Craddock)

When all is said and done, what matters most around this communion table is that Jesus Christ calls us to be one – one body, one community that celebrates the gift of hospitality which is open to all and offered to everyone. Those are the words which are heard every time we come to celebrate this supper, the Words of Invitation which in Christ’s name are extended to this congregation tonight:

Dearly beloved, all that humbly put their trust in Christ and desire His help to lead a holy life, all those who are truly sorry for their sins and would be delivered from the burden of those sins…all of us, therefore, are invited and encouraged in Christ’s name to come to this table. Let us therefore so come, that we will be renewed in body, soul and mind and strengthened here to go out there into the world to serve the Lord and others in all that we say and everything we do.

Here is the gift of Christ’s Hospitality, offered to everyone, including you and including me!

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The sermon distribution fund has been established by the Session of First Presbyterian Church to enable friends and groups to make contributions for the printing of the Sunday sermons. Sermon leaflets will be printed from time to time, as they are requested and as funds are available. Please designate your gift for Sermon Distribution Fund. Thank you for your support.