|
When
you and I were kids, many years ago, we used to read the side of the
cereal box as we ate breakfast.
How
many of you remember reading the cereal box? What you may not remember is
that the cereal box was probably the first time you ever saw the food
pyramid. The federal government introduced the food pyramid back in the
1950s to tell people what they should be eating.
It
started with the four food groups (milk, meat, fruits and vegetables and
grain) and then in the late 1970s the Department of Agriculture added a
fifth category—fats, sweets and alcoholic beverages, with the warning to
consume these in moderation.
Now
the food pyramid has added a distinction between bad fat, like in potato
chips, and good fat, like that found in salmon. But the bottom line
remains, these are the things you should be eating for a healthy diet.
And
that ties in so directly to what we do here every third Sunday of the
month, celebrating the banquet of the Lord Jesus Christ together. When you
look at these little bread cubes and tiny cups of grape juice, you don’t
immediately see 100 percent of recommended vitamin intake.
But
a closer examination reveals that dining together at the table of Jesus
Christ offers three spiritual nutrients that we need very much.
First
of all, we need fellowship with each other in Christ’s love. John
Wesley Powell explored the Grand Canyon in the late 1800s. There is a
stretch of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon called Separation Rapids
that was named for what happened to Powell’s party of explorers. These
rapids look very threatening—so threatening that three of Powell’s men
decided to try to walk out of the Grand Canyon. Part of their problem was
that their group had already lost one of their boats and most of their
food on an early stretch of rapids, and this new area looked even worse.
It
was impossible to walk around the rapids, so the group had only two
choices—try to walk back the way they came, or face their fears and
shoot the rapids in their remaining boats. Six chose to ride the rapids,
and they discovered that the white water stretch of the river wasn’t as
long as it appeared. It only lasted a few miles before they found smooth
sailing and calm water. In a few days they found fishermen and
civilization after months of isolated exploration. As for the three who
tried to walk out? They were never heard from again.
In
this crazy world of turmoil and unabashed, unrestrained hatred we really
do need each other, and not just need each other, we need the fellowship
of believers who gather in Christ’s love. For the next 16 days this
country will be going through probably the most mean-spirited, bitter,
just plain ugly elections in our history. And this in a country where Abe
Lincoln was once called the son of a monkey and worse. Whoever wins, and
I’m not endorsing either candidate, is going to have tremendous
difficulty governing the country that is so badly divided.
My
point is that in a country, to say nothing of the world, that is so badly
divided, Christian unity is more important than ever, and nothing builds
Christian unity than taking communion together. After all, the table of
Jesus Christ is open to all who believe in him and call on him for their
salvation. Not everybody takes advantage of Christ’s gift, though.
Those
who remain together in the face of their trials, like the Powell
explorers, will soon discover that God provides the strength and grace to
endure and survive the trial. But those who bail out on the rest of the
group are going to find themselves lost, confused and dependent on a
self-reliance that turns out to be insufficient. They have forfeited the
fellowship of the saints.
In
my life I have been affiliated, as you know, with several denominations of
Christians and a number of individual churches. What I have found in each
stop is that you make true friends among true believers, and those true
friends are encouragers, not discouragers. You’ve probably discovered
this for yourself—there are two kinds of people in the world,
encouragers and discouragers. Some people provide emotional warmth in a
cold, cruel world, and others only leave you cold. We come here expecting
to find encouraging people, and rarely are disappointed.
When
Solomon wrote that two are better than one, he meant that there is
strength in unity, even in the unity of people like you and me. I don’t
mean that to sound mean, but honestly, when we look at ourselves we
usually say something like “What can I do? I don’t have much
ability.”
But
when we work together, then it starts to click. Then things start to
happen. It’s like I tell young people getting married, the secret to a
good marriage isn’t two people who are equally matched, the secret is
two people whose strengths and weaknesses complement each other, like two
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
I
read a great quote while preparing this sermon: “Snowflakes are one of
nature’s most fragile things, but look at what they can do when they
stick together.”
Second
spiritual nutrient is that we need to be fortified with the truth. The
truth is rarely popular, and is less so today—that there is one Lord in
all the universe to whom all men and women are subject, and yet by whom
all are loved. And that this Lord is Jesus Christ who lived and died and
rose once and for all 2,000 years ago in Palestine, and knowing and
trusting him alone is the only way to escape the judgment of God, a
judgment that we deserve. The uniqueness of Jesus Christ as man’s only
hope has never been widely accepted, but never before has the prevailing
culture been so openly scornful of this faith—even among the so-called
religious.
By
that I mean that it has become popular among Christian scholars to defy
scripture and suggest—or come right out and state—that there are many
roads to God, and that all religions are equally valid.
Furthermore,
they say that we are being cultural oppressors if we uphold the death of
Christ on the cross as the only means of salvation for all the world’s
people. Myself, I wonder about the people of Baghdad who view the five
bombed-out Christian churches. I wonder about the members of those
churches and their suffering. Some Christians in Iraq are thinking about
fleeing the country.
Others
might wonder if it’s not expedient, or safe, to deny Christ and take up
Islam. What would you say to them this morning? Is there any truth in this
world? Or should they just go along to get along? No, I say to you this
morning as I have in the past and will in the future, if the words of
Jesus Christ are not true—“I am the way, the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me”—then we might as well close
up this church and go home. Here is truth for a world that is slowly
bleeding to death: Christ is the answer to all your questions.
Finally,
all of us need a healthy dose of humility by learning to hold hands and
walk together. I know that sounds a little strange, but I think that
holding hands is one of the greatest and most intimate joys of life. Do
you remember how nervous you were the first time you held hands on a date?
Joining hands with that special person turned out to be the most wonderful
thing in the world. Then there is that special moment in the wedding
service when the bride and groom are asked to join their right hands to
symbolize their uniting and becoming one.
But
the joy and importance of holding hands isn’t limited to romantic love.
There is the delight of a parent and child holding hands as they take a
walk together. One thing that I look forward to when we have prayer
services, and certainly I’ll be doing this Wednesday night, is holding
hands in a prayer circle. And certainly it’s a very powerful moment for
me whenever I’m in a hospital room or funeral home and I take the hand
of someone who is scared or grieving. The act of taking someone’s hand
is reassurance that we are not alone.
Robert
Fulghum made that point in his book, “Everything I Need to Know I
Learned in Kindergarten.” Some of the things he learned include “Share
everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Don’t take things that
don’t belong to you. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.”
How
much better off we’d be if everybody played by those rules, right? But
the most important thing of all he learned in kindergarten was “When you
go out in the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together.”
That’s
what the author of Ecclesiastes was trying to say thousands of years ago.
“Two are better than one. For if they fall, one will lift up the other;
but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to
help.” But holding hands requires a certain humility, an admission that
we need each other. It requires gentleness and love. You don’t reach for
somebody’s hand when you’re angry and want to hurt them. We take each
other’s hand when we want to be one with them. When we want to say,
“You can count on me, no matter what happens.”
Holding
hands can be a romantic gesture, it can be a personal gesture, and it can
be a Christian gesture, a symbol of our unity. That’s what Paul urged
the new church to do when he wrote, “Make every effort to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” he wrote, “for there is
only one body and one spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God
and father of us all.”
Christians
this very morning around the world, no doubt in Baghdad as well, gather to
share in their Lord’s supper. They don’t all handle the details the
same way, and they certainly don’t all understand the theology the same
way, but Paul makes it clear that we all have the same calling and the
same hope of redemption. Christians in Vancouver, Canada, and Vienna,
Austria, and Vanderbilt, U.S.A. all have been baptized into one body, and
we have this in common: one Father is sovereign Lord of all of us. He
leads us and works in our hearts to accomplish his will.
Maybe
some of the other people in the world are saddened by the divisions in
Christ’s church, or by divisions in their own local church. But here, at
this table, we catch a glimpse of life the way God meant it to be—one
people, his people, holding hands and lifting each other up. Maybe, just
maybe, we all can be inspired by this sacred meal to keep the promise and
the dream of unity that Christ had for all people everywhere. Each time we
gather here is a wonderful day to remember that the power of Christ’s
love is greater than anything that divides us.
|
