Supper Time - Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after Trinity

Second Sunday after Trinity
June 9^th, Year of Our + Lord 2024
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Supper Time – Proverbs 9:1-10, Luke 14:15-24

Sermon Audio available HERE.

   “It’s supper time.  Do you want to grab something to eat?”  How many of our best memories, our most unexpected joys, have followed this simple invitation?  God has created us in a most wonderful manner.  We need the sustenance of food, to give energy to our muscles, to keep ourselves alive.  And so we feel hunger, which drives us to eat.  But the Lord has also given us a sense of smell and taste.  So, beyond meeting our need for calories, food can also be a delight; we can be carried away to ecstasy by a delicious meal, a tasty treat. 

   In the Marines I had a commander, Lt. Colonel Showalter, who had suffered a brain injury in a car crash that took away his sense of smell and taste.  He could only get a bit of sensation from foods that were very spicy, very acidic, or sour.  Colonel Showalter was also a bit crazy.  He loved to invite his new lieutenants out to lunch, and then shock them by reaching across the table and taking anything off their plate he might be able to taste: dill pickles, hot peppers, lemons out of your water glass.  Only after stealing the food he could taste would he then explain his twisted justification for raiding your plate.  Unable to smell or taste, our C.O. missed out on much of the joy of eating.  But he still wanted to eat together with friends and colleagues, because he drew tremendous satisfaction from the conversation and bonds that eating together often creates.     

   Breaking bread together, sharing a meal, is among the most humane, most intimate, simple activities, filled with wonderful potential for joy.  A first dinner date with the girl of your dreams.  Or the 10,000^th meal with the love of your life.  A return to Grandma’s table after many holidays away.  Pizza and beer with the crew after a successful day’s work, or to celebrate a good game.  Breaking bread together can be the best.   

   But not every meal is so wonderful.  Being frail, foolish, and full of faults, we humans can turn a meal together into a time of dread.  Like going to dinner to meet your boyfriend or girlfriend’s parents, when you already know they don’t approve of you.  Or perhaps you are that hostess who so wants to impress your guests that you stress yourself out, and end up the only person who doesn’t enjoy dinner. 

   Employers often like to include a meal in their job interview process.  No pressure there.  Try not to chew with your mouth open.  And of course, there’s the first time you carry your tray into the lunchroom at your new school, in the new town your parents just moved you to, and everyone is staring at you.   

   Not everyone even enjoys the prospect of eating with others.  It takes effort to get ready to go out, or to someone else’s home to eat.  You have to clean yourself up, put on pants and a decent shirt, and find the energy and will to engage in conversation.  You were going to put down your phone and talk with your hosts, right? 

   Some people fall out of the habit of eating with others.  It’s easy to retreat into our houses, and always eat alone, all by our lonesome selves.  Maybe in our bedroom.  Or alone on the couch.  Eating micro-waved pizza rolls and scrolling on your phone.  Or maybe just staring, barely tasting your food, which is probably just as well.

   Now, I’ve eaten at potlucks with many of you.  Someone in your household seems to know how to cook, and you clearly enjoy eating together, although, to be honest, we do tend to sit with mostly the same people every time.  Getting out of our comfort zone and breaking bread with new people is usually a blessing, even more so when those people are your brothers and sisters in Christ, members together of His Body.  So I pray that many of you will host or attend a Summer Supper Club Challenge.  We’ll talk more about that later. 

   You should also sign up to help our sister church Blessed Emmanuel Lutheran in Sturgis during Rally.  They offer breakfast and dinner to the bikers, and they need helping hands.  I know some people want to avoid the bikers and the traffic altogether.  But the meals served at Blessed Emmanuel are the most wholesome event of August, and it’s great fun to be help serve.  So, go ahead, take a chance.  Trust your pastor, and sign up to help. 

   But even more, much more, I pray that we understand the true reality, the highest reality, of breaking bread together.  The importance of eating together is God’s doing, it’s part of His plan.  Through it, He is trying to point you to the heavenly banquet at which He so very much wants you to be seated.  Now, maybe you’re thinking that sounds stressful.  Dinner with God?  How could I ever behave properly at His table?  What clothes would I wear?  If the Lord knew how I really am, what I really think and say and do, He would never invite me to eat with Him. 

   The Lord does know how you are, how I am.  He knows how often we fall into sin, what we are really like.  He knows us, and He hates our sin.  Yet, God wants us at His banquet anyway.  You and I have been invited to dine with the Almighty, despite our unworthiness, despite our sin.  Our reservation is confirmed; Jesus took care of that by washing away our sins at Calvary.  Now, you are right to think you do not have appropriate clothes for the heavenly banquet.  But the Holy Spirit dresses you in the righteousness and holiness of Christ Jesus.  Believe it: all is prepared, and you are invited. 

   Indeed, because your Savior knows you better than you know yourself, because He knows the sins and doubts that still plague you, He has given you another meal, an appetizer of the feast to come.  The simple yet miraculous meal, Christ’s true Body and Blood, in, with and under the bread and the wine.  Jesus gives you Himself in the Supper, to forgive you again today, and to strengthen you for Christian living this week.

   Rejecting the Lord’s invitation is foolish.  It’s stupid.  Whatever other thing might draw you away, it’s not as good as what the Lord has for you.  It may be a good gift.  But how sad to let good gifts from God draw you away from your relationship with God.  It’s foolish to think we don’t needs God help, day by day, and for eternity.  Such thinking is either the worst ignorance, or it flows from soul-destroying pride.  And we all carry around this fallen tendency to think and do exactly these things, to wander away, to make excuses.  So, God has filled His Word with reminders of our need and His invitation. 

   Israel escaped slavery in Egypt through the Passover meal, which 1,500 years later Jesus fulfilled and transformed into Holy Communion, where our escape from slavery to Satan is celebrated and delivered.  Before instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus prepared the way by feeding the 5,000, and the 4,000, and by time and again sitting down to eat and talk with sinners, including prideful Pharisees, as in today’s Gospel from Luke 14.  And one of His last acts before ascending to the Father’s right hand was to cook a fish breakfast for His fishermen friends.  And the Lord’s final instruction for Peter?  “Feed my lambs.”    

   Meals are center stage in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  The Promised Land for Israel was flowing with milk and honey and overflowing with good food, and life with God in heaven is described as a remarkable, never-ending banquet.  Wisdom has set her table, and she calls the simple to come, to eat her bread and wine, and live.  Through His food-focused Word, the Holy Spirit wants to teach us to think of God and His eternal feast every time we sit down to eat here on earth.  Even more, He moves His Church to keep offering, keep providing, keep proclaiming the message, the bread of life, day after day, week after week, year after year, for you, and for all the hungry sinners in the world. 

   For most of human history, it was a victory, a cause for celebration, every time a family could gather around a table full of food.  Hunger was never far away.  Producing enough calories to meet the minimum needs of humanity has been, up until about one or two hundred years ago, a constant challenge for all societies, everywhere.  Joseph rose to power in Egypt managing a food shortage.  Recurring drought and famine plagued Europe and North America into the 20^th century.  Many commentators say that today famine is usually not caused by an actual lack of food.  Rather, hunger is inflicted, used as a weapon by malicious men seeking to control people and win wars.  Regardless of its cause, hunger continues to be a threat in much of the world.  Historically, the margin between a sufficient supply of food and starvation has been a very fine line.    

   Finding enough calories to eat is not so much a problem for us Americans, in our day.  Which could be related to the decline of Christianity in our nation.  God’s Word is chock-full of references to food and meals and banquets.  The fear of famine and the joy of being filled up with good food are common Biblical themes.  Feeling real physical hunger will make one understand and take these Bible stories to heart, and to thank God when we do eat well. 

   We, on the other hand, are more worried about weight gain, Type 2 diabetes, and tooth-decay driven by corn sweetened beverages.  So, we may not grasp the fear of starving, nor the true joy of a bountiful feast.  Is faith endangered by over-full stomachs?

   I will not pray for famine.  We rightly ask God to give a goodly share, on every table, everywhere.  More important is that we pray and fight against a famine of the Word.  Regardless of whether we have bountiful food or suffer want, God through His Word can and will create a right understanding of food, most importantly a right understanding of His heavenly food.  That is, He will create faith in His promises of free forgiveness and perfect righteousness, delivered by Christ, who is both the host and the meal that feeds our souls for eternal life.  Taste and see that the Lord is good! 

   It is time for the Supper.  Let’s give thanks, and break bread together, in Jesus’ Name,  Amen.