Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 14:15-24
October 3, 2004
Over the course of eight summers (from the summer following the third grade to the summer following the eleventh grade), I went to church camp twelve times. A week each time. Meaning that there were some summers when I went twice. I camped at Lake Louise, Lake Huron, Mill Lake and Judson Collins Camp on Wampler’s Lake in the Irish Hills. That’s where I started. At Judson Collins, I mean. I was ready to go….packed to go….anxious to go….yet anxious about going (if you know what I mean). You know the drill. Pack the car. Drive to camp on Sunday afternoon. Sign on the dotted line. Find the cabin. Claim the bunk. Make the bed. Say goodbye to the parents. Bite down hard on the lip. Fall in with other kids (fresh from having bitten down hard on their lips). With all of us figuring, yet none of us saying, that we could survive anything for seven days.
I remember praising God for the dinner bell and the announcement that we should gather in front of the mess hall. Which we did, en masse. When someone (one of the counselors, I suppose) commenced to sing:
Here we stand like birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness,
Birds in the wilderness,
Here we stand like birds in the wilderness,
Waiting to be fed.
Waiting to be fed. Waiting to be fed.
Here we stand like birds in the wilderness,
Waiting to be fed.
Which we were. Fed, I mean. And strange as it might seem (or might not seem), we were all right after that. We were all right with camp. We were all right with each other. I suppose we were even all right with the wilderness. A good meal can do that. Make things all right, I mean.
Though not always. “Exhibit One” being eight-year-old Haley Waldman of Brielle, New Jersey. Who got all dressed up in her frilly white dress one Sunday morning, the occasion being her First Communion. Which she took, only to have it declared invalid by the Diocese of Trenton, with the invalidation subsequently ratified by the Vatican. Why? Because the wafer her mother asked the priest to substitute was fashioned from rice rather than wheat.
Haley, you see, suffers from a disease (or is it a syndrome?) known as Celiac Sprue. Meaning that her intestinal system cannot tolerate gluten (a food protein contained in wheat and other grains, but not in rice). Reasoning that “a wafer is a wafer is a wafer” (if blessed by the priest and served in the church), Haley’s mother said: “It’s just rice instead of wheat. How does that corrupt the tradition of the Lord’s Supper?”
“It just does,” answered the church. “History and doctrine tell us that the wafer (like the bread served at the Last Supper) must contain at least some unleavened wheat.” To which Haley’s mother said: “Even ‘some’ will make my daughter sick.” So as concerns Haley’s first communion, she “took”….but it didn’t “take.”
So where is Christ in the sacrament? We have talked of this before, you and I….advancing the conversation, but achieving no resolution.
Is Christ in the chemistry of bread and cup (wheat vs. rice, wine vs. Welch’s)?
Some would say so.
Is Christ in the authority of the one who serves bread and cup (priest vs. pastor, elder vs. deacon, lay vs. clergy)?
Some would say so.
Is Christ in the transubstantiational theology that miraculously reconstitutes Christ’s body and blood from what, to the naked eye, still looks like bread and cup?
Some would say so.
Or is Christ in the spirituality of the believer, who experiences Jesus in the heart….if not in the stomach….upon ingesting bread and cup?
Some would say so.
We will not settle that question anytime soon….if ever. As long as there are Christians who come to the table, there will be disagreements over what some have called the “Doctrine of Real Presence.” But as I have said enough times so as to have a reasonable expectation that you will remember, I have yet to meet a Christian who proclaims a “Doctrine of Real Absence.” Jesus is in the sacrament somewhere….from his Thursday night command that we do it, to whatever Sunday morning comfort we take from it.
The more interesting question to me is not “What happens in the sacrament?” but “Who benefits from the sacrament?” Which is very much the spirit of this morning’s story….a story that is not really about a sacrament, but about a meal. We are talking a big meal, given by someone who can afford to throw one. Except the invitees fail to show. For mostly good reasons. So others are invited from all over. Who presumably come. With the universally-overlooked aspect of this last-minute invitation being how radically universal it is. “Go out and find people,” the servant is told. “Go anywhere. Find anybody. Don’t bother to screen ’em. Just bring ’em.” Unless I am missing something in the story, the only criterion is their willingness to come.
As most of you know, we offer the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at the close of the 8:15 service on the first Sunday of every month. On those occasions, I go up there (to the altar) and tell God that even though we’re not worthy to gather up the crumbs under his table and, in reality, are a colossal bunch of screw-ups, I hope and pray that God will be as goodas his son says he is….and that if (once more) we honor his invitation to eat and drink, he will feed and forgive. Then I come down to the floor and tell those present that the table is open to anybody and closed to nobody. Following which I add: “Let no prior condition of membership, stewardship, attendance, belief, or even moral rectitude (especially moral rectitude) keep you from this table and the comfort it affords.”
Few among the clergy invite folks so sweepingly. That’s because not everyone with keys to the gates, opens the gates. At least not widely. And I am among the few who tend to ignore the gates. Although it was front page news when my Vatican friends said that you could come to the Roman table, even if you had previously empathized with a pro-choice position or voted for a pro-choice politician. Suggesting that in even the more conservative traditions, some (there are) who are oiling the hinges on the gates, the better to allow more people to pass through them.
Last week you welcomed Rick Lischer….listened to Rick Lischer….enjoyed Rick Lischer (or so you said). As you know, Rick teaches preaching in a Methodist seminary. But Rick remains very much a Lutheran. Although he is not the same “stripe” of Lutheran as when he started. Meaning that he blurs more lines than he used to….including the line that (in some Lutheran circles) still excludes women from being pastors. I mean, it would be hard to teach at Duke Divinity School (where fifty percent of the seminarians are female) while belonging to a denomination that says to its female applicants: “You can’t work for us.”
But when he was starting out (in a version of Lutheranism where the lines were both rigid then and rigid now), Rick (as in Pastor Lischer, not Professor Lischer) told Heather Sue Dullman: “As long as you are seeing a married man, you should not come to the Lord’s table.”
Heather Sue Dullman was 18 and headstrong. Concerning her affair, Rick wrote: “I had actually seen Heather kissing a guy who looked like Elvis, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his white T-shirt. But, at that time, I had no idea that this Elvis look-alike was 30 years old, with a wife and three kids.”
Toward the end of a painful counseling session (forced by Heather’s parents), she said: “I don’t care what you say, pastor. I’m keeping him” (as if he were a stray dog). And entirely without premeditation, Rick replied (as if continuing her sentence): “Then you should not come to communion.”
In recalling that moment, Rick writes:
Her face lost its color. She hugged herself across her chest and folded her hands primly (as if to compose herself), then placed them on her lap. She looked down at her hands and tears the size of raindrops began to fall upon them. She didn’t make a single sound until she said: “It’s not fair.” She said that several times and then she left.
Continuing his recollection, we read:
Heather’s response took me off guard. I hadn’t thought through my judgment or anticipated her tears. Why was she crying? Because something had been taken away from her and she was already missing it. She cried because she had been ex-communitied. What happens when you send a family member from the table? I shudder to guess.
In his book, Rick said she never spoke of it again. Nor did he. But she never came back. Nor did he ever invite her back. It never healed. And, to this day, one gets the impression that it remains an open sore on a great career. Last Saturday, in recalling it to some of us over brunch, Rick asked: “Do you ever use communion as a tool of discipline in the congregation?” Then answering his own question, he continued: “Now I say ‘No.’ But I was raised in a church that said ‘Yes’.”
But when you start making judgments on purity in the church, who will be left to come to the table? Or serve the table?
Fred Craddock (one of my heroes) was invited by Bill Coffin (another of my heroes) to preach at New York’s famed Riverside Church. In the phone call preceding Fred’s visit, Bill said: “Since I’m not going to be there, why not stay in my apartment? It will be convenient for you. Cheaper, too. I’ll leave word with the super. Just ring the bell and ask for the key.”
Which worked. Although the place was a little cluttered. Bill was single then….not much into housekeeping. Thankfully, there were notes everywhere, some of them on the floor complete with arrows. “Bedroom here.” “Bathroom, down the hall.” Including a note on the refrigerator: “Fred, in case you’re looking for breakfast, you won’t find anything here. They’ll be happy to serve you breakfast at the church.”
“Good,” thought Fred, “I’ll be able to eat with the staff.” So he grabbed his robe and walked a couple of blocks to the church. Which was when he saw the line of people clean around the block. “That’s nice,” he thought. “They’ve heard I’m coming.”
Well, you know what it was. It was a line of the homeless waiting for breakfast. Which was served….in the big hall….at long tables….in great quantities. Sitting down with his food, Fred figured he better make conversation. So he said to the man across from him: “What brings you here?’
“Booze,” the man said. “Loved it too much. Drank it too long. Lost everything. Got into the habit of coming here for breakfast. Then I sobered up and went to live with my daughter. She said I could stay as long as I was dry. But if I slipped, I had to go. She said she wouldn’t have a drunk in the same house as her kids. Well, I slipped. So here I am. What about you? Where are you from?”
“Georgia,” Fred said.
“First time here?”
“Yes,” Fred answered.
“So what do you do?”
And while Fred wanted to say anything but the truth, he said it anyway. “I’m a preacher.”
“Well,” he said, “it takes all kinds, doesn’t it?”
But in recalling the scene, Fred continues:
I’ll tell you what I wanted to say to him. I wanted to stand on a chair….clink my glass….get everyone’s attention….and say to those two hundred men: “Listen, you losers. I’m not one of you. I’m just eating breakfast. In a few minutes I’m gonna be upstairs in the one of the great pulpits of the country, where I’ll be grandly introduced. And then I’ll preach the Word.”
But I didn’t say any of that. I had no right, you see. For it was clear to me that there was no distinction to make between them and me. Because we’re all in line for the kindnesses of others and the grace of God.
* * * * *
Just think about it. All of us in the bread line….waiting for the kindnesses of others and the grace of God.
(Here we stand like birds in the wilderness…) (all singing)
Note: Having preached the story of the great banquet on at least two other occasions, I felt no need to revisit the nuances of the story, either as concerns the multiple excuses of those invited initially or the dismissal of the early invitees by Jesus and the suggestion that they shall “never taste my banquet.” The story of the great banquet is not only contained in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, but is included in the Gospel of Thomas. Interestingly, in the latter form of the story, there is no condemnation of those who fail to attend.
The story of Haley Waldman originally appeared on various wire services. Ironically, her plight was featured in a half-page article in the New York Times (Monday, October 4)….one day after this sermon was preached.
Rick Lischer has taught preaching at Duke Divinity School for the last twenty-five years. The story of Heather Sue Dullman is contained in his marvelous book, Open Secrets: A Spiritual Journey Through a Country Church. As for Fred Craddock, he first started telling the Riverside Church story a number of years ago. Depending upon the context, it sometimes takes a different twist. One can find an earlier version in a collection appropriately entitled Craddock Stories. This particular version was taken from a CD of a sermon preached earlier this summer at Chautauqua, New York. Appropriately, the sermon preceded the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
