"Speaking Truth to Power: A Meditation on the Lord’s Supper"

Every professional association has its standards of excellence and regular rituals to reinforce those standards. The Christian Church is no exception. Our Lord and Savior was put to death because he spoke the truth to those who were the religious and political authorities of his day. They were intimidated by his words and responded with violence.

Now we are gathered here this morning as Christians in our professional association meeting preparing to participate in the church’s core ritual, the Lord’s Supper. Our host is the Risen Christ who alone has determined the standards for our membership. This society is unique because herein we are measured more completely than in any other group in which we belong. Our Christian profession is not one type of practical activity isolated from others. Rather, it is our whole being as such that is our host evaluates. Our being includes our innermost thoughts, our secret aspirations, our hidden motivations, our frustrated desires, our troublesome anxieties, our shameful secrets, as well as our relations with others in our work, speech and action.

Like all societies, only the initiated have been invited to participate. The principle qualification for initiation is our public proclamation that Jesus Christ is our personal Lord and Savior. The implications of this proclamation are many. First and foremost, it means that we affirm the aim to unite our being with the being of Christ. In other words, with God as our helper, we seek to internalize in our own spirit the love and faith and hope that is in Christ.

And that is why the form of this society is a common meal round an ordinary table. But, this table is not our table. It is the Lord’s table and that makes all the difference. Sometimes this table has been viewed as a Baptist table or a Presbyterian table or a Roman Catholic table. That is unfortunate because our Lord is not a Baptist or a Presbyterian or a Roman Catholic, or a member of any other denomination. Rather, Christ invites to this table all who confess their sins and diligently resolve to live their lives in accordance with a unique set of standards manifested to us by our Lord’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection. We are invited not because we are worthy but because of his bountiful love and mercy. This meal, our host, and we the guests manifest the goal of this Christian society – the creation of a new and perfect community wherein all peoples will trust God unconditionally and love all others as brothers and sisters.

It is important to note that this table was inaugurated as our Lord’s last supper – not unlike the last supper that prisoners on death row are permitted to have when the time of their execution has drawn near. The similarity between the two is vivid. For both, it is their last meal. The difference lies in the fact that the state does not provide our Lord’s last meal but, rather, the risen Christ does so himself. How is that possible? Two reasons:

First, our Lord’s last supper was a secret meal. Rather than participating in the traditional Passover meal, Jesus instituted an alternative meal which the authorities would have certainly viewed as an underground seditious event. Remember that when the disciples asked him where he wanted them to prepare the Passover, he told them to go into the city where they would meet a man who was carrying a jar of water which, incidentally, was a very unusual thing for a man to do in his day. Yet, that would have surely been one way to determine who the unknown man was. Jesus told them to follow the man into the house and to tell the householder that Jesus was on his way. We are told that the householder showed them a large upper room where they prepared the meal. All of this mystery suggests that the meal was an underground activity.

Second, Jesus certainly knew that his mission was very troubling to both the political and religious authorities of the day. He also knew that his disciples were slow learners and did not yet grasp the full nature of his mission. Thus, he predicted that each of them would betray him before long. In fact, he announced that the betrayer was eating with him from the same dish.

These features indicate the difference between the meal he was hosting and any meal that we should ever host. Let us consider some additional differences between that last supper and our celebration of it today. That inaugural event was held in secret just before his arrest, followed by a gorilla trial, the humiliating experience of carrying his cross through the streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha where he was tortured to death between two criminals, abandoned by all of his followers, and comforted only by the abiding love of his mother and her two friends.

By contrast, our meal today is held in the open and celebrated freely by most churches at least every first Sunday and attended by people from all walks of life. The meal is rarely viewed today as a dangerous activity for anyone who participates. Instead of intimidating those in power with the message of truth, many Christians today are closely allied with those in power.

Should we view this difference as progress in church/state relations or as a problem? I view it as a problem because the mission of Christ is to inaugurate an alternative way of life for all peoples; a way that is characterized by love, justice, mercy, hope, and peace; a way that exalts the poor and those of low social esteem; a way that requires us to forgive our enemies and to reject war and violence; a way that acknowledges God’s blessing on the meek, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the oppressed, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted in the pursuit of social justice.

Finally, Christ invites his disciples to eat and drink at a different kind of Passover meal. Instead of the lamb he provides himself in symbolic form inviting his disciples to eat the bread representing his body and to drink the wine representing his blood. This simple ritual should be done in remembrance of him: his life, death and resurrection. He said that he would not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day he drinks it new in the Kingdom of God. This table is the table of the resurrected Lord. Christ hosts this meal in the Kingdom of God. He is present at this table as are a vast host of witnesses who have lived and died in the faith. This table unites heaven and earth. We can experience the kingdom of God in this ritual act. It unites our being with that of Christ. It unites our resolve with the mission of Christ. Let us participate in a penitent manner praying that God’s grace will enable us to be faithful and courageous in embracing this new way of life and proclaiming it to the world in thought, word, and deed. May God be you this day and always. Amen.