First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: John 6:22-35
When, following my mother’s death, we were cleaning out my mother’s things, we happened upon a number of old cups and saucers (like these which I hold before you now). They are not really that old, given that I remember when most of them were purchased….and I am not that old, relatively speaking.
Made of English bone china, my mother collected and displayed them. I don’t recall her ever using them. Which was all right with me, given that I do not do “dainty,” and these are dainty. I suppose if you are going to serve tea sandwiches….those little round things filled with pink and green stuff (that have to be consumed in batches of 50 or 60 to satisfy the average appetite)…. these cups might suffice. And they’ll work for those desiring a mere “spot of tea.” But, as tea servings go, I’d rather have a mess of it than a spot of it. Which is what brings me to my late grandmother (the one to whom I affectionately refer as “the old Yugoslav”).
Grandma was not so much into tea as she was into coffee. And when she poured herself a cup, it was a cup worthy of the name. Bigger, even, than the mugs which are so popular today, Grandma’s cup looked like a salad bowl with a handle. And, in my mind’s eye, I picture the handle as being broken. Meaning that, as cups go, I picture Grandma lifting hers with both hands.
But allow me to digress, just for a moment, for the voicing of a pet peeve. I am talking about waitpersons in restaurants who, in pouring my coffee, stop when the cup is half full. I know it is a fear of spilling that aborts the filling. But I’ll take that risk. Again, blame my grandmother. Her cup always had too much in it….leading coffee to slosh from it….like into the saucer, which contained the overflow until she drank from it….although I never do it (especially if Kris is around). But which explains my love for the decorative little plaque which reads: “I am drinking from my saucer because my cup overflows.”
That line, of course, recalls the 23rd Psalm and its promise of the prepared table, the anointed head and the overflowing cup. Which is language most of us like, given that it sounds warm, welcoming, and just a little lavish. For many of the same reasons, we like the King James translation of John 14:2, wherein the Father’s house is described as a place of “many mansions” rather than “many rooms”….“rooms” sounding Spartan in a Motel 6 kind of way….“mansions” sounding extravagant in a Donald Trump kind of way. Images? Of course they’re images! But pay attention to the kinds of images that attract you. In their own way, they speak volumes about you.
The “overflowing cup” sounds like the “never-empty coffee cup” one restaurant offers me, and like the Big Gulp cup that 7-Eleven sells me. We’re talking “filling,” aren’t we? Along with “satisfying,” aren’t we? I think so. At least, that’s the Bible’s promise.
And the church’s offer.
Eat this bread. Drink this cup.
Come to me and never be hungry.
Eat this bread. Drink this cup.
Come to me and you will not thirst.
Didn’t we sing that, mere minutes ago? Yes, I believe we did. Twice, for good measure. And on other Sundays, don’t we sing:
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more.
Feed me till I want no more.
Why, yes we do. I know we do.
Of course, there was that lady two churches back who showed up every time we had a potluck or a smorgasbord. We never saw her in the sanctuary. We never saw her in a class. But lay some food on a buffet table and there she was. And she would fill her plate….I mean really fill it. But she wouldn’t necessarily eat it. Instead, she’d put what was on it into her purse or in her coat pockets….sometimes in little plastic baggies, but sometimes not. Then she’d get back in line and do it over again. But church people, being the nice, non-confrontational people they usually are, nobody ever went up to her and said: “Lady, what in the world do you think you’re doing?” Instead, they came up to me and said: “Check out that lady over there. She’s doing some really weird stuff with her food.”
But you cannot imagine my surprise when, one Christmas day, we went to Kris’ mother’s house for turkey and dressing, and there she was. Kris’ mother had met her at a community event and felt badly that she looked so much the stranger. So she took her in. And the lady put food in her purse that day, too. Then, just for good measure, she put my niece’s brand-new, just-out-of-the-box Christmas doll in her over-the-shoulder bag and walked out with it. And none of us said anything. Because we were dumbfounded….it being Christmas….and, if she really needed it….
Now I know what you’re thinking. You are thinking that she was poor and starving. Which was far from true. She was neither. Her problem (as we came to find out) was more spiritual than material. She had plenty….including plenty to eat. In point of fact, she was anorexic….meaning that in some strange way that even the $150 an hour people don’t understand, her head was preoccupied with food. She wanted to be around it. She needed to handle it (as well as hoard it). But she hardly ever ate it.
Still, in ways we never fully grasped, she was an emptiness in need of filling. Who came to the right place. And hung with the right people. But loaded up on the wrong stuff. Whatever ailed her wasn’t going to be cured by one more purseful of succotash or a Tiny Tears (she walks, she talks, she even wets the carpet) dolly lifted from the gift pile of sweet little Jennifer.
Sometimes succotash can do it, I suppose. And sometimes a dolly can do it, I suppose. Satisfy the need, I mean. Quiet the rumblings….calm the fears….ease the pain….all of the above. But not long term. Because, by the end of the day, you’ll pass the succotash. And by the end of the year, you’ll outgrow the dolly. Which is why Jesus said to the curious in John’s gospel: “Why don’t you try soul food rather than stomach food?” Which only confused the curious. Their only concern was how to get directions to the nearest soul food store. But Jesus was talking about himself, don’t you see. Yes, he was talking about himself. Because, at the end of the day, both the cynics and the preachers are right. It is who we know.
I don’t know the Rev. Dr. Judith Walker Riggs. But after reading this, I think I want to. She writes:
In 1959, living in London, young and much taken with the glamour of the city, one twilight evening walking home I was idly looking in lit basement windows. One set of windows looked into a large kitchen. I realized I was at the back side of that exclusive London hotel, Claridges.
Claridges’ ancient kitchen had light bulbs on strings and a wall of ancient blackened ovens. As I watched, a harried assistant ran up to the wall of ovens, pulled open a door, and dragged out an enormous tray of 20 just-roasted Rock Cornish Hens.
Then the assistant dropped the tray. Twenty birds skittered over the floor. You think the ovens were ancient and crusted! What the harried assistant slipped on, and what these chickens hit, was a floor so black, so greasy, so sticky and so slimy with the dregs of decades, it was impossible to tell underneath those mud flats what the actual floor even was.
Some very elegant and expensive diners upstairs were going to get very impatient before another 20 birds got roasted, I thought.
How wrong I was. Without missing a beat, the man picked the capons off the floor (one by one), brushing each on his already disgusting apron, neatly placing it on a little individual silver tray garnished with a ruffle of herbs. And up they went to the dining room.
Can’t you just see 20 sophisticated and hungry Londoners about to eat food that had been on a floor you wouldn’t want to walk on without boots (or at least rubber-clad shoes)? It happens.
Momentarily, we are going to invite your participation in the Supper of the Lord. The point of my little story being not to tell you that this bread has been on the floor, but that the Lord of this bread has been on the floor. As to where you are….ankle deep in the spills….or upstairs with the gentry and the sherry….I can’t rightly say. All I can say is that this table is set for you. So eat.…drink….and be very glad.
