Take My Hand - Andrew Taylor-Troutman

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bring the grape juice. If the point is that we are all invited, then we witness to this hospitality by welcoming one another. We extend grace to others because Jesus first extended grace to us.

      I take a great deal of comfort in the message of grace found at the Lord’s Table. Yet there is a scandalous aspect to practicing radical hospitality in Jesus’ name. It is one thing to talk about worshipping together despite our silly mistakes. But what about the wife whose husband is cheating on her? Is he still invited? Is each spouse involved in this gut-wrenching and heart-breaking situation invited to the same table? What about families that have been torn apart over inheritances? Are both sides of the dispute, even if one is clearly at fault, invited to eat the same bread and drink of the same cup? Such questions provide a challenge for us to live as the body of Christ, even as we break bread in remembrance of him.

      Jesus once told a parable about an older brother who was fuming mad because his father threw a grandiose feast for his younger brother. This prodigal son had made many mistakes in a land far away. By his own estimation, he was not worthy to be considered a member of the family, much less the reason for festivity. That was certainly the opinion of the older brother. Still the father throws a celebration for this prodigal and then goes to his other son who was bitterly angry out in the cold fringes of the party’s light. The father lovingly said, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:32).

      It is striking to me that Jesus ends his parable with these words. What a scandal he places before us! Since the elder brother does not respond to his father, the same question falls into our laps. How might we witness to such grace in our communities today?

      For my first communion service, I borrowed an idea from one of my seminary professors, Paul Galbreath. I encouraged the congregation to pray the Great Thanksgiving liturgy with their eyes open.1 When I prayed from the Lord’s Table, I was able to lock eyes with them. In the exact moments of my first communion prayer, I was mostly in my own head, thinking about the words I had memorized and so carefully practiced ahead of time. As I have reflected on the experience, however, several faces have come to mind: the smile on her face, the tears running down his cheeks, and the look of pride in my parents’ eyes. I treasure these memories of those different faces as snapshots of the scandalous yet beautiful belief that Jesus invites us all to the same table no matter what we are feeling or have experienced beforehand.

      In the following weeks, the snapshots of those faces during the prayer became living portraits of people’s lives. I learned that many people received some kind of “first communion” on that Sunday. They ate the bread for the first time without a spouse or for the first time as an expectant mother. They drank from the cup for the first time as an unemployed father or for the first time as a homeowner. Yet no matter what we have done or what has happened to us, the elements of this meal are always the same. With our open eyes fixed on our Lord’s Table, we can see evidence of God’s unchanging love in the breaking of bread and the pouring of the cup. Like the father of Jesus’ famous parable, God “sees” us no matter how far off we have traveled and invites us to the feast (Luke 15:20). For all of the “first-timers” who come to the Lord’s Table, I pray that they will look to these constants to provide a sense of comfort.

      Our open eyes can help us with the scandal of grace as well. Like the older brother, we are confronted and challenged by God’s hospitality. In light of what God has done for us, we can learn to see one another other as members of the same family of faith despite our mistakes, errors, and sins. As we pray with our eyes open, we are inspired to practice hospitality. Since we eat at the same table, we should take the time and invest the energy to help during the transitions of the all “firsts” and “lasts” in our lives.

      I preached about hospitality that Sunday morning when I served communion for the first time, but I learned about hospitality when I brought communion into homes during the following week. I discovered that hospitality is about sharing strawberries and iced tea before the breaking of the bread and pouring of the cup. When sharing home communion, I found out that there is a great deal of laughter beforehand and sometimes there are tears afterwards. As a result, my prayers are less formal and more personal in someone’s home.

      I had to abandon my well-rehearsed communion script in other ways as well. The personal experience of home communion naturally leads to personal exchanges between the pastor and those who receive the sacrament. For instance, one gentleman abruptly interrupted the liturgical prayer to ask about my wife’s new job. On a different occasion, a matriarch of our congregation repeated the Lord’s Prayer with me, but then kept right on going after the “amen,” adding words of thanksgiving for the people of her beloved church. Often a parishioner spills grape juice down his or her shirt while struggling to drink from those tiny glasses. I break off smaller pieces of bread so that the elderly communicant will not accidentally choke, and sometimes I place the food directly in his or her mouth. Thank God for all of these improvisations! Our sacrament does not take place in a vacuum apart from shaky hands and short attention spans, just as the body of Christ cannot be contained by the four walls of a particular church. Neither is the difference between pastor and parishioner so rigidly defined as it can appear to be during the celebration of a sacrament in Sunday worship. All of us are sharing real bread, real juice, and real fellowship together. Whenever and wherever we partake of Holy Communion, the point is that God will be real to us.

      In the beautiful text about the journey to Emmaus, the two travelers cannot recognize Jesus on their own (Luke 24:15–16). God must come to us in order to be revealed. Grace is the first cause; and yet there is a task for us. We are to practice hospitality by insisting that even strangers join us around our tables (Luke 24:29). Because God first invited us, we must go to people who cannot come to us. As it was in the breaking of the bread that the companions recognized Jesus, so must we recognize the image of God in each other through sharing the sacrament. In the same Emmaus story, Jesus immediately vanishes after he is recognized (Luke 24:31). It seems to me that we need to continue the practice of breaking bread together in order to see him again. Then we might see our tables at home and at church running over with the abundance of grace.

      “TASTE AND SEE”

      July 4th, 2010

       Luke 10:1–12, 17–20

      A discipline is a habit or a training that results in a certain pattern of behavior. If someone were to ask us to compile a list of spiritual disciplines, we would think of activities that are designed to make us faithful Christians. I imagine that we would start with prayer and Bible study. Then we might add regular church attendance, tithing, and fasting. These are well known spiritual disciplines. What about the practice of hospitality? Would that make our list?

      Perhaps we don’t usually think of hosting a traveler for dinner as a pattern of Christian behavior; maybe we don’t even think about church potlucks in a spiritual sense. Yet we should adjust our thinking.

      Hospitality might not have been the first idea that struck you about this morning’s text. But when Jesus sends out the seventy into the mission field, he invites them to experience the hospitality of others. Jesus instructed these missionaries to remain in the homes that welcomed them, eating and drinking whatever was provided (Luke 10:7). While the missionaries are important, Jesus declares the importance of their hosts as well. The mission of the seventy would not have worked without the generous hospitality of these strangers.

      There are also other texts in the Bible that point to the importance of hospitality. Consider the story of Abraham and three unexpected guests who turned out to be angels (Gen 18:1–15). The moral of this account is, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb 13:2). As the biblical word for “angel” can be translated as “messenger,” hosting a messenger of Jesus is the practice of entertaining angels.

      Hospitality, then, is a spiritual discipline. One of my former professors, Paul Galbreath, has written that hospitality is the practice of meeting with friends or strangers so that we can meet God.2 We share a meal and share a laugh; we open our homes and open our hearts; and we discover Emmanuel—God with us.

      Today we have the opportunity to practice

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