Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scriptures: I Corinthians 11:23-26, Matthew 15:21-28
October 5, 2003
Last Friday night, at the end of a busy day, I said prayers in my office over several pieces of pita bread packaged in plastic, along with a giant container of Welch’s grape juice. Not for my use or your consumption. But for Jeff Nelson’s use and some senior highs’ consumption. You see, Jeff served holy communion yesterday afternoon at the end of a youth event focused on world hunger. But Jeff cannot serve communion….yet. Because Jeff is not a fully ordained elder in the United Methodist Church….yet. Or, to be technical about it, Jeff can serve the bread and cup (as in passing them out), but Jeff cannot consecrate the bread and cup (as in filling them up). With Christ, I mean….whose promises are mediated through them, and whose presence is promised in them. It takes me to do that. Or someone who has cleared the final ordination hurdle without bruising a shin. So I prayed it up. Then Jeff passed it out. And all went down.
There remains a question, however, about one of the claims I just made concerning the bread and cup….that being my reference to the Christ promised in them. As in, to what degree is Christ available and tasteable on the tongue? I have preached at least two entire sermons on that question previously, thereby feeling no urgency to revisit that question presently.
You know, of course, that Christendom does not lack for people who proclaim a “doctrine of real presence.” It is their belief that somewhere between the words of priestly consecration and the tongue of worshipful consumption, a miracle happens….a miracle in which the bread becomes Christ’s body and the wine becomes Christ’s blood. Which once, in my hearing, led a teenage girl to say “Yuk.” But which, over the centuries, has led millions of Roman Catholics (and a few Protestants) to say “Yes.”
But which has also left everybody else (including you and me) to say: “No….it’s bread going in….and it’s bread going down….even though the Christ who is not physically in it may be spiritually in it.” “How so?” some ask. “Don’t know,” others answer. “It’s a mystery,” all agree.
There are sacramental minimalists who say: “It’s a memory thing. Every time we do it, we remember Jesus….especially his last days, last words and last supper.”
“No,” say the sacramental maximalists: “It’s more than a memory thing. It’s a mystical thing. Every time we do it, we open ourselves to the possibility of meeting Jesus in it….taking comfort from how near he is…..drawing confidence from how powerful he is…..feeling cleaner from how merciful he is. No, it’s less than eating and drinking him, but more than merely remembering him. Although we can’t say exactly what. It’s neither more nor less, so much as being between more or less.” Or, as I have said to you many times over, while most Protestants do not believe in a doctrine of “real presence,” I have yet to meet one who proclaimed a doctrine of “real absence.” Jesus is in there somewhere.
Although I think it fair to say that this is not a big deal to Methodists. We celebrate the sacrament. We appreciate the sacrament. But we seldom go to war over the sacrament. And we draw no swords over exact definitions of Jesus’ presence in the sacrament. Though others do. Draw swords, I mean.
Most of us have an awareness that when the Lord’s table is set on the first Sunday of October, it is no ordinary setting of the table. What makes it extraordinary is that Christians across the world….no matter how they define it, understand it or serve it….are expected to do it. This being World Communion Sunday. Until a few years ago, it was World Wide Communion Sunday. But the “Wide” got dropped somewhere. Not that anybody asked me. In fact, several years went by before a staff member alerted me to the change. I guess I’m slow.
The unique emphasis of World Communion Sunday is that all of us are doing the same thing at roughly the same time. Which sounds like “all of us are doing the same thing together.” Except that we aren’t. No, we aren’t at all.
When I got my first church all by myself (1969), I remember thinking: “I know what I’ll preach on World Wide Communion Sunday. I’ll preach a sermon entitled The Table That Circles the Earth. I’ll bet nobody has ever thought of that before.” But I was wrong on two counts. First, everybody had thought of that before. Second, in no way was it one continuous table circling the earth, but a whole lot of separate tables dotting the earth.
I was thinking “unity” in a Christendom where, honestly speaking, there will never be unity….at least in any way that looks like uniformity. That’s because we are so blessedly and cussedly different. So much so that even those (in a given church) who preach that Christ wants us to be together will, upon failing to win their point, break away and start a separate church.
Twenty years ago, a great guy named George Tuttle picked a moment when none of Detroit’s shakers and movers were watching to slip me into the membership of the Detroit Athletic Club. Which has marvelous work-out facilities and even better dining facilities. The prime restaurant at the DAC is called “The Grill Room.” Which has two sections, designated by flooring. The carpeted section requires that gentlemen wear coats and ties. The Pewabic tile section allows gentlemen to come a bit more casually….but not by much. And nowhere in the Grill Room (or anywhere else in that venerable old building) can you wear denim. Which explains why I do not own a single pair of blue jeans. I mean, what if heaven is looked after by an ex-manager of the DAC? Should I be so unfortunate to die while wearing the wrong pants, I could end up not only looking blue, but feeling blue.
Some years ago, when the DAC stole the executive manager from Orchard Lake Country Club, we came up with a few new wrinkles. One of which was to designate a table at The Grill Room as “the mixer table.” That way, if you came down to the club solo (or so low), you could eat with strangers rather than dining alone. A mixer table. What a wonderful idea. Except as many times as I’ve passed it, I’ve seen precious few people at it. There, in the middle of everything, it beckons. With few takers. Suggesting that while DAC members may be movers and shakers, they are not (by nature) mixers.
Sad to say, the Lord’s table hasn’t always cut it as a “mixer table,” either. Present company excepted, of course. I’ll take anybody here….welcome anybody here….serve anybody here….asking credentials of nobody here. But not everybody here can go there….depending, of course, on the “where” of there. And hospitable though we may be here, not everybody there wants to satisfy their hunger here. With us. Or with me. Allow me to illustrate.
Early in July, Kris and I boarded a plane in Detroit and eventually deplaned in San Jose, Costa Rica. We were part of the fourth (and final) work detail, helping to build a church in Mansiones. People known to me (including several of you) have been going to Costa Rica since the early 1990s. We know the land, the people, the need, and the Methodist response to that need. We know everything but the language (at which we are still novices). But we don’t let our linguistic limitations keep us from forming rich and wonderful friendships. I was last there in 1992. But when I walked in the door and saw Ofelia (the cook) and Melvin (the minister), it was like yesterday.
This trip was different, however. Bigger in purpose, broader in scope and costlier in dollars, it was also wider in terms of the pool from which volunteers were drawn. Meaning that this wasn’t just a First Church pool….a United Methodist pool….or a friends of Bob Suda and Jim Miller pool. This was a pool of volunteers who were close to….and touched by….the life of Geoff Gessert. Who, as Neil Diamond once sang, found his life “done too soon,” courtesy of an overturned automobile partway through his twenties.
As for me, I didn’t know him. But I went to Lansing to pray at his funeral because I know and love his grandmother (Ruth) and his mother (Ann). When finished, the church in Mansiones will stand as a gift to Jesus Christ because of that young man….his family….and his friends.
Like I said, Kris and I served on crew four. There was no crew five. The work is being finished by Costa Ricans more talented than we. But when we left San Jose, the floor was leveled (ready for layers of gravel and cement), the block walls stood eight courses high, and the painted sign (complete with a Methodist cross and flame) stood boldly on the corner for all to see.
Most all week, I worked with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. That’s because, as a construction worker, my back counts for more than my brain. Several years ago, I learned that the people who got the cushy jobs were the people with pencils behind their ears. Those without pencils got the grunt jobs. And I was one of the grunts. My job was to level the dirt (clay, really) in preparation for pouring. But I was not doing this alone. I was joined by one other volunteer….one other male volunteer….one other 60-year-old, slightly overweight male volunteer (also without a pencil behind his ear)….a devoted churchman, and passionate Protestant volunteer. We were a team.
Shovel, wheel, dump.
Shovel, wheel, dump.
Rake and remove rocks.
Reset measuring string.
Shovel, wheel and dump some more.
Hour by hour.
Day by day.
Side by side.
Which is also how we slept.
In the same room.
On the same floor.
Atop adjoining air mattresses.
Under adjoining mosquito nettings.
Hour by hour.
Night by night.
Side by side.
I know every middle-of-the-night noise his body makes. And he knows mine. More amazing still, our wives could tell a similar story. They, too, worked together and slept together. We’re talking Christian closeness here. Until Friday morning, that is.
Given that it was the final Friday, it was my day to lead devotions. “Would I serve communion?” Ann asked. “Of course,” I answered. Each previous day, the group worshiped at the sleep site rather than the work site. But Kris (wife Kris….ingenious wife Kris….always one step ahead of the rest of the world Kris) suggested: “Ritter, why don’t you serve communion in the new church?”
To which I said: “But the new church has no ceiling but the sky….no floor but the clay….no walls but the block….and no altar (unless I pile some building materials together).” “Pile ’em,” she said. So pile ’em I did.
Bread from the local baker. Wine from the local grocer. Wonderful circle in the open air. Workers from the States. Workers from Costa Rica. Little kids. Stray dogs. Curious bystanders. A cappella singing in English and Spanish. Praising, preaching and praying. Crying for Geoff. Crying a little bit more for the sheer wonder and beauty of it all. Bread breaking. Wine pouring. Kris and I serving. Spirit moving. People circling. Each one communing. Well, not quite “each one communing.”
Late Thursday night, my co-shoveler and his wife hung back as others were drifting off to bed, eventually saying to me (in visible distress): “Can we talk to you a moment?” They wanted to talk about the sacrament. How I viewed it. How they viewed it. More to the point, how their church viewed it. And, therefore, why they couldn’t receive it. From me, that is. With us, that is.
But there was enough indecision in their voices and enough concern on their faces that, come Friday morning, I thought to myself: “This looks like a life-defining moment for them. And they look like they are close to a life-defining decision. My God, they’re going to do it.” But they didn’t.
My brother in Christ.
We were one in the Word.
We were one in the Lord.
We were one with the shovel.
But we were separate at the table.
* * * * *
How will we ever get beyond this? I don’t know that we ever will. Unless the only way beyond is below.
A lady came to Jesus. Very foreign. Very, very foreign. But also very needy. Very, very needy. Said Jesus: “I’ve got bread. But it’s earmarked for delivery. Earmarked for me and mine. Not for you and yours. You want I should throw it to the dogs?” Which, as New Testament passages go, is almost impossible to explain. Although I did about as good a job as one can do last January 19th. You can look it up. For now, stick with the lady. Listen to what she says next. “True, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”
And where do they fall? On the floor, that’s where they fall. Where, the last time I looked, there is no seating chart….no place cards….no spaces designated, reserved or protected. On the floor. Maybe that’s where true Christian unity begins….down there with the bottom feeders.
And who are the bottom feeders? They are those who remember absolutely nothing of their childhood catechism, save for a partial line from an old prayer.
We are not worthy, O Lord, so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table…..
Bottom feeders! Maybe that’s where true unity begins. Not at the table, but under it.
