My praise comes from you while I am among those assembled for worship. I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who fear the Lord. Oppressed people will eat until they are full. Those who look to the Lord will praise Him. May you live forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families from all the nations will worship You because the Kingdom belongs to the Lord and He rules the nations. All prosperous people on earth will eat and worship. All those who go down to the dust will kneel in front of Him, even those who are barely alive. There will be descendants who serve Him, a generation that will be told about the Lord. They will tell people yet to be born about His righteousness – that He has finished it. (Psalm 22:25-31)

 

     Sophie was a wonderful woman. She was the matriarch of one of the congregations I served on my settlement charge. She was the one who knew everything about everyone, and if you needed to know something, she was the one to go to. If Sophie was the matriarch, her husband Stan was what you might call the usually benevolent dictator. Stan liked things his way, and he liked to get things his way. He'd let you disagree with him, as long as in the end he got his way, and if by chance he didn't get his way, he'd either pout or throw a temper tantrum. That's not a particularly good Christian witness, but Sophie more than made up for it. Stan was the boss over what quite frankly were the less important things. He ruled the finances and the property with an iron fist. But what would money and a building get you if there were no sense of God's presence? That's what really matters, and Sophie took care of that. She was kind and generous and caring. She was a faithful disciple of Jesus, a faithful servant of the church and a lover of the Word of God who showed the fruit of the spirit in her life. She was almost 90 when I moved there, but nothing much would stop her. She still played the organ on Sundays. I was told that in her younger years she was quite a good organist. By the time I arrived, to be honest the tunes that she played on Sunday morning often had little to do with the hymn we were singing – or with any other hymn known in the Christian world – but no one cared. She was Sophie. She was serving God, Who said not “Make a beautiful sound” but rather simply “make a joyful noise.” Sophie was joyful. She was also one of those responsible for preparing Communion. One Sunday we were having a Communion service in that little church. I took my cup of juice and swallowed it, and immediately realized that something was wrong. It just didn't taste right. After the service I approached Sophie and gently asked “Was there anything wrong with the grape juice today? It didn't taste right.” She looked at me a bit sheepishly and said, “Oh, Reverend Davis, we didn't actually think you'd notice.” This piqued my interest. “Well, what was wrong with it?” I asked. “Well, Reverend Davis, we didn't actually have any grape juice and nobody was going into Springdale to buy any.” “Well, what did we use?” There was another sheepish look, and Sophie answered “Grape pop.” I looked back at her and could only repeat “Grape pop?” “Is that a problem?” Sophie asked. “We left it open all night so that there would be no bubbles.” “Well,” I said, “I don't really know if grape pop is appropriate for Communion.” “Really,” she said, “because we had the same problem a few years ago and we couldn't even find any grape pop that time but no one seemed to mind.” Somewhat hesitantly I asked, “What did you use that time.” She said, “Cream soda.”

 

     Friends, I want to promise you this morning that when you see what's under the lid of the trays this morning you will not find either grape pop or cream soda for Communion. It's true that Jesus once changed water into wine, so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that He could have changed our grape juice into cream soda, but I doubt it. It's most definitely grape juice, which is probably going to keep most of us happy with our celebration of the sacrament. But, while grape pop or cream soda still strike me as a little bit over the top in terms of Communion elements, Sophie taught me a lot about the Sacrament of Holy Communion as we call it in the church. You see, if I had been approached beforehand and had been told that it was impossible to get grape juice and that we'd have to use grape pop instead, my response probably would have been to say that we just wouldn't have had Communion that Sunday, because you just don't use grape pop for Communion. But Sophie saw things differently, and she may well have understood what this Sacrament is about far better than I did at the time. For her, what was important wasn't the details of what we would serve as we celebrated the Sacrament. What mattered was simply that we came to the table. What mattered was the hospitality involved in setting the table and having it ready for whoever might happen to show up on that given Sunday. If grape pop was what was available then – by golly – she'd use grape pop, because this was a Communion Sunday, and you don't turn people who expect to come to the table away from the table for any reason. I suspect that if there had been no bread to be found in the entire town, Sophie would have happily used potato chips, because what mattered to her was the symbolism of welcoming people to the table, no questions asked, letting them share with the community whatever bounty God had blessed us with, and simply letting them know that they belonged there, because God had invited them.

 

     This morning, we re-create a meal. Jesus sat with His disciples and ate. We always think of the meal as consisting of bread and wine, but all we know is that bread and wine were there. It was probably a larger meal than that. It's possible that there was meat; there may have been some grains. There was perhaps water. But we know about the bread and wine. The point is that this was a meal to which Jesus invited those closest to Him, and He gave them these instructions which have been passed on through the centuries since and have eventually come to us: “Whenever you do this, remember Me.” What we're doing today isn't a meal – at least not one that will satisfy anyone physically. I don't know about you but after the wafer and cup of juice, I'm still going to want to go home and have lunch. No this meal is different. It's not about satisfying the needs of the body; it's about satisfying the needs of the spirit. It's about recognizing the presence of Jesus and demonstrating in a symbolic way our desire to welcome Jesus within us; to have Him touch our spirits; to let Him be our guide on this journey of faith. This meal will satisfy. God's banquets always satisfy the hungry souls who attend them.

 

     Psalm 22 meant a lot to Jesus. When He hung on the cross, it was to the words of Psalm 22 that His mind was drawn, and He cried out the words, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me.” Jesus knew this Psalm, and I wonder if it wasn't at the centre of His thoughts throughout His life, and not just in the moments before His death? A lot of what we read of Jesus in the Gospels seems to revolve around food and feasts. The marriage feast at Cana; the feeding of the five thousand; the feeding of the four thousand; the criticism of the Pharisees that He ate with the wrong people. And – yes – what we know of now as “The Last Supper.” Jesus knew that He was living in a society that was full of people who were hungry – both physically and spiritually – and so Jesus fed people – both physically and spiritually. He set no preconditions. He didn't question all five thousand hungry people about their theology to make sure they were worthy. He just fed them. At the Last Supper, Judas who would betray Him was as welcome as Peter who would deny Him and as Thomas who would doubt Him and as John whom He loved so dearly. Throughout His life, Jesus lived the words of Psalm 22, which speak of both the oppressed and the prosperous eating until they didn't need anymore; which speaks of even the dead and dying being welcomed in God's presence; and which speaks of the need to repeat the story over and over again because every generation has another generation following it who need to learn of the righteousness of God. That's the type of invitation God gives. 

 

     That's why we have an “Open Table.” All who believe that the grace of God has appeared in Jesus are welcome to come and to feast and to be spiritually filled with what only God can give. This morning is, indeed, about what God gives to us: the Word to strengthen us, music to inspire us; prayers to encourage us; fellow Christians to enrich us; the Holy Spirit to empower us – and, make no mistake about it, Christ to feed and fill us, because the wafer and juice remind us of Christ, Who gave Himself; Who died as a demonstration of the love of God for the world and of God's solidarity with all of us who are destined to experience death as well, but who are filled with the confidence that death is not the end, just as it was not the end for Jesus. The more I think about what this sacrament means, the more I realize how right Sophie was. It's not the form of the sacrament that matters, or the type of elements that get used. It's called Communion. It's about bringing us together from all walks of life and from all backgrounds – all of us unique individuals who by our act of coming to the table establish ourselves as a unique community of faith, bound together with the whole community of faith. So, come to the table. It's set for you.