Hebrews 13: 1-8

Luke 14: 1-14

Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN.

A huge crowd is exhausted and hungry after Jesus teaches through the day; with a scarcity of bread and fish they are fed and filled. He bids Zacchaeus to come down from his tree so that he can dine in the home of this scoundrel, tax-collector; Zacchaeus responds to Jesus’ love with an immense offering to the poor: “half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” It is with bread and wine that He prepared his disciples for the Way before them on the night of his betrayal. After traveling along the road to Emmaus, it was as bread was broken that He was revealed to his followers as the Risen Christ. And risen, he prepared a meal of fish for the disciples and bid them their ministry of love: “Feed my sheep.”

Meals, food, bread and eating were very much at the center of Jesus’ ministry. The work of Christ is the work of assembling, welcoming, feeding and loving. In a sense those acts are inextricably connected. What he ate, when he ate and with whom he ate demonstratively showed the vision of God and God’s Kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate. It is also precisely this vision that got him into so much conflict with the religious and political leaders of his day.

We sense this in the gospel story that we heard today. We sense the tension as the one who is invited to eat a meal is so closely watched. Sensing a teachable moment, our rabbi confronts the assumptions of his day, and ours, and gives a different vision of the table. This is not overly complicated, if you are the guest: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit in the place of honour.” And he turns worldly assumptions upside down: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” And if it is our party, we are called to exercise a most unconventional invitational process: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And you will be blessed…”

Jesus’ vision is one in which every guest holds a posture of humility and every host is outlandishly generous in invitation. As future events would make clear, Jesus’ message fell that night on deaf ears. The social culture of ancient Palestine did not markedly change. And for that matter, the social culture of Christendom pretty much adopted the norms of Jesus’ day. Those who had stature and status knew it and used it. New religious elite came into being and wedded its fortunes to the political powers. And social standing delineated who ate with whom.

Let us imagine that Jesus was gathering at our table today, to provide us a teachable moment. Our Lord would no doubt take a moment to look at what we eat, when we eat and with whom we eat. He would wonder whose social status affected connections and table fellowship. Because he came to save the world, Jesus would cast a global and worldly gaze. And this is what he would see.

He would see a world of broken table fellowship. Far from feasting together, he would see that those created in the image of God are feasting on each other. More and more his sheep are divided over economic interest, political wars, and religious conflict. He would search hard for the humble heart and would find it sorely missing in leaders around the planet. Instead of a posture of restraint and modesty, he would find arrogance and grasping for power. But he would surely be particularly concerned about the question of “daily bread.” And here is where his sorrows would deepen. For as he circled the globe, he would see that half his sheep live on less than two dollars a day. He would see that those with power and wealth are gaining more bread and those with less are receiving less. He would cast a particular eye towards this nation, a nation seemingly filled with Christians and he would see that we were the premiere global consumers.

It would not be lost on Jesus that his followers in the Church, rather than calling the world to his form of table fellowship, were consumed with fighting with each other about who was holy enough to eat with each other.

“Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter, and when Peter replies, “Yes,” Jesus bids him to “Feed his sheep.” Jesus is asking us the same question, “Do you love me?” Of course, we love you Lord!” Didn’t you hear our opening hymn: “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name!”? Then feed my sheep.

The writer to the Hebrews called those who follow Jesus to “let mutual love continue” to feed the sheep of Jesus through offering: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Like the travelers to Emmaus, whenever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, He will be in the midst of us. Our following of Jesus means to help those who have no bread. Our call is not to do charity. Charity is giving the crumbs while we control the loaf. Our call is to be a people who work for justice where all God’s children have plenty. It is about radically changing what we eat, when we eat and with whom we eat.

Make no mistake, daily bread and Eucharistic bread are bonded as if they are one. Jesus’ vision of God and God’s kingdom is Eucharist; it is all God’s children gathered around the table of God in an eternal feast of plenty. We are fed in Eucharistic bread so that that vision will “graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works…” And the fruit of good works is that God’s Kingdom continually comes on earth as it is in heaven. Our good works will be those that strive for a mending of the whole human family. It will mean that we work for those who have less to have enough. It will require us to give up what we have. As Jesus suggested in the parable of our gospel, we will have to be like the guest who intentionally relinquishes the higher place. We will have to model and live into a spirit of humility and giving.

The mystery and miracle of this posture of humility, giving and hospitality is that even as the kingdom comes near to us, even as those who are without bread, receive plenty, it is us who are most transformed. For it is in this giving that we receive. All comes full circle. The bread of Eucharist moves us to assure daily bread for all God’s children, and as we do this, the bread we receive at this altar is indeed the bread of heaven.

As we move from receiving the Eucharistic bread to living a Eucharistic life, we find Jesus. Just as with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, we will find Jesus in the stranger—the one so different from us—and our heart will burn within us. It is through bread of Eucharist and daily bread that our Lord will be made known to us.

Amen.