Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Communion *O God, Unseen Yet Ever Near* Witness of Scripture: Exodus 16: 2-15 Anthem *The Food of Life* arr. Bradley Ellingboe. FCC Chancel Choir Sermon *Bread from Heaven* David Spain
Recorded on October 1, 2023
A week from tomorrow, our neighbors to the north will celebrate Thanksgiving Day.Timed to the Fall harvest, the Canadian celebration of thanksgiving is about 6 weeks ahead of the U. S. celebration.Regardless of when the day is held, thanksgiving celebrates the wondrous bounty of this good earth, and our interdependence with and appreciation for all those who keep us fed and nourished.We remember the farmer and the harvester, the dock loader and shelf stocker because it always takes a village for us to live. All of this is possible, the gift of life is possible, because as the wonderful hymn Come, Ye Thankful People, Come so perfectly sings it—“God, our Maker does provide for our wants to be supplied.” We celebrate bread from heaven.
The church in its wisdom is ahead of culture when it comes to thanksgiving, for before either Canadians or Americans gather at tables to give thanks, the church across the world—transcending national boundaries and denominational expressions—gathers at the Table to celebrate World Communion Sunday. Given that First Christian Church in particular and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in general celebrates communion every Sunday, we might wonder how today is any different. Simply put, more people are sitting down to this meal today than any other given Sunday. Although Jesus gave this meal 2,000 years ago to any and all his disciples, and shortly thereafter the early church instituted it, World Communion Sunday is a relative newcomer to the table. The tradition began in 1933 by Hugh Thomson Kerr who ministered at the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The idea was to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity, to inspire and to inform, and to affirm how all churches are connected with one another. By 1936 the Presbyterian Church had adopted the practice of World Communion Sunday, and by 1940 the National Council of Churches endorsed its celebration to Christian churches worldwide. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) which from its beginning has affirmed efforts for unity, was a natural fit to celebrate World Communion Sunday.
The timing of a global day for communion—or Eucharist as it is also called which is a fine church word meaning thanksgiving—seems obvious enough, harvest time. We also notice that World Communion Sunday began in 1933, amidst the depths of a global depression as the flames of global conflict were flickering in Europe. It seems an unlikely time for thanksgiving; and yet, perhaps especially in such a time it is important to remember and to give thanks—thanks given not as denial, but for perspective; not in isolation, but for community.
As the church gathers in person locally and in spirit globally, in a time different but perhaps no less stressful than when World Communion Sunday was first held 90 years ago, we might recall another community of people assembled, thousands of years ago gathered not in the confines of a sacred building but wandering in the expanse of a desert wilderness. We remember our ancient faith ancestors had labored hard for years under the oppressive thumb of Pharaoh whose brick quotas only deepened their despair, a despair so pronounced their cries were heard by God who liberated them from the cruelty of all that had been and sent them toward a promise of what will be. Today’s story from Exodus joins this parade of liberation 30 days into their wilderness sojourn, as the exhilaration of passing through the parted sea with unmoistened feet has given way to the lamenting of their dwindled supplies with strident voice. The food they had managed to pack away in their hasty escape from Egypt has now run out, and the desert shows no promise of a meal. They are afraid and they are annoyed, ready to return to Egypt where even though their employment was oppressive at least they had 3 squares a day and a dependable schedule. With the desert sand their gritty gruel, their memories had faded—they had forgotten their oppression, and they had forgotten their liberation; they were ready to toss out Moses and Aaron as their leaders and had decided God had left them for dead.This part of Exodus, and part of the next chapter as our ancient ancestors double down on their complaints, has been named the ‘murmuring tradition.’ Peter Gomes describes it this way—“where there is not outright rebellion but a low grade grumbling fever, not outright war but an undercurrent of moaning and groaning, of complaining and kvetching, the sort of little irritants that make up the day, the week, the year, our lives. The murmuring tradition is one we all know; nothing worth causing a fuss about yet never quite satisfied.” (Strength for the Journey, 162) If faith is one part tradition, then the murmuring tradition gets handed down and when it is active, nostalgia is idolized and the future as Yogi Berra once said ‘ain’t what it used to be.’ Whether our ancient ancestors or our next-door neighbors, we are familiar with the murmuring tradition—"if this were improved, if you were better, if you did what I wanted, if the football team would win 65 to nothing every Saturday.”Now our many technologies and the unyielding ideologies give ample opportunity for amplified murmuring.
We note that, although there would be times when both Moses and God were ready to be done with the kvetching crowd—thankfully never at the same time—in this story God’s response is neither judgment nor anger. Instead, God responds out of who God is—abundantly, generously, graciously—which is exactly why we remember this story on World Communion Sunday. God is as God does—responding to complaint with compassion, providing generosity where there is grumbling. As the story is told in Exodus, God hears the complaints just as God did when our ancestors languished in labor camps. What God provides is not a four-course banquet nor a sumptuous feast for a few to be satiated, but a plate of plenty for all to be fed. There is a delightful pun in the story that is lost in our English translations. When God provides this flaky substance revealed on the ground as the morning dew burns off, the Israelites ask a logical question. “Man hu?” It means ‘what is it?’ ‘Man hu’ becomes the word manna—what is it, and as our wandering ancestors pick up enough for the day—not to hoard for themselves but to live in such a way that all will have enough to eat—surely they remember as we do on World Communion Sunday, that from the beginning it has been God’s good way of love to nourish life with a daily quota of bread and not a daily quota of bricks.Lest we ever forget, we pray each Sunday ‘give us this day our daily bread.’
In the middle of their wilderness complaining, our ancestors ask a wonderful question--‘What is it,’ this manna God provides? We do well to ask the same question of this manna placed on this Table and in the midst of whatever wilderness wandering might be ours in this moment of time. “What is it,” this communion we celebrate? “What is it,” that is nutritious in this wonder bread from heaven? It is we affirm, bread of reconciliation. Perhaps we recall the Chapel of Reconciliation that is the bombed-out shell of the Coventry Cathedral in England. There is no entry into the restored and gloriously rebuilt cathedral without first going through the ruins, testimony to hate and enmity between nations and peoples. Yet the rebuilt and restored cathedral proclaims as does this Table that destruction and despair is never the end. Yes, we pass through what has been estranged and broken, but there is the bread of reconciliation that awaits. We both remember and live into that reconciliation with every communion meal.
“What is it,’ this bread from heaven? It is that loaf proclaiming God’s love for the world, that place not abandoned by God but that place beloved of God—that place where everything that is made has something of God in it. This bread from heaven is grown in the goodness of God’s earth, and it is our calling to nurture this breadbasket of a world God has created. We remember that when we sit down to this meal.
“What is it,” this bread from heaven? It is symbol and sign of God’s presence in human form, in Jesus Christ who breaks the bread and shares the cup. As God is invested both in the child born into the world and the woman who is God-bearer, so we invest our lives into the world. “God has chosen not to act in the form of phenomena,” wrote Peter Gomes. “God has chosen to act in the form of men and women who know God, love God, and serve God. By God’s love for us in Jesus Christ we are become in ourselves…in our daily work acts of God, evidence, living proof that the God who acted in the lives of the prophets, the martyrs, and the saints still acts in the likes and lives of us.” (Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living, p. 179)
When the Disciple Stance Class meets as it has done for three weeks, we answer the “what is it” question, affirming communion is the central, essential expression of our worship. Christ is the Host and we are the stewards of this grace. We do not police or bounce anyone from this Table—there are no walls or boundaries here, no conditions or exceptions. We serve one another with joy and gratitude, not eye one another with suspicion and critique. We need this open Table, especially in a world where the rhetoric of certitude and the dogmas of exclusivity would seek to teach us otherwise, would cause us to forget manna in the wilderness, bread from heaven.
Years ago, after a delightful evening of preaching at another church in another city, it came time for communion. It was the practice of that church to serve communion to some but not to all, a decision made by each congregation, a right to decide which I defend whether or not I agree with the decision. Forewarned not to receive communion, I was planning to sit quietly while others received the sacrament. Just as the minister of that church moved toward the altar to give communion, he sent a non-verbal reminder to stay seated…waving me to stay in my seat. It was subtle but sure. Today, as stewards of this Table, we assemble to wave you into this Table, to declare a happy thanksgiving to Canadians and Americans and anywhere in the world where people gather to a Table hosting the Bread from heaven, bread that as the old hymn sings God graciously “feeds us till we want no more.”