A Place at the Table

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Matthew 5:1-12

September 11, 2016

It’s a bit odd to focus quite intentionally on beginnings, on “kick-off” Sunday, on “what’s next,” if you will, on the eleventh of September. Phrasing it that way – the eleventh of September, rather than September 11 or 9-11 – provides, perhaps, a bit of distance from remembrances that draw the mind and the imagination back in time.

It is, of course, appropriate to remember and reflect. But, as I sat writing over at Northside Social last week, I was struck looking around at the other coffee shop denizens by the clear reality that many, if not most, of the folks in there were probably in elementary school back in 2001.

It’s been 15 years since the terror attacks that many young adults can only dimly recall from their childhoods, even though the arc of their growing up years was forever altered that bright, clear morning. They’ve come of age taking the national security state just as much for granted as they take their cell phones, and every bit as ubiquitous.

Sometimes I don’t think I even recognize the world I live in, but, strip away the technological wizardry, and it’s a world that Jeremiah would have recognized quite well. For Jeremiah lived in a time of empire and of exile. He lamented, and he spoke out fiercely on behalf of those who suffered under the weight of injustice. He called the powerful to account, and to change. He spoke an uncomfortable truth to uncompromising power.

Jesus, of course, lived in the midst of the empire of Rome – the dominant and defining economic, political, and military power of the ancient world.

As my friend Carol Howard Merritt wrote in the foreword to Rick Ufford-Chase’s new book – a book the book group will be studying this fall:

Jesus ministered under the looming shadow of the Roman Empire […]. The Roman rulers were so tactical about their threats and intimidation that they dotted the sides of the roads with crucified bodies as a warning to the seditious. And even with those horrifying advisories, the disciples resisted. In this time when the Empire exalted the rich, full pleasure-seekers, Jesus reminds the crowd who is really blessed – the poor, hungry, and weeping.[1]

That’s all well and good, but what has it to do with us? What has it to do with following Jesus in the 21^st century? What has it to do with Clarendon Presbyterian Church and the lives of the longing and the lost who gather here – or do not. What has it to do with we faithful, doubting, grasping, rejoicing, weeping, laughing, saints and sinners in 2016 and beyond? We who live still in the shadows of fallen towers?

To begin with, it seems to me, we can try our best to be fearlessly honest about the time. As Gandalf the wizard told Frodo in Lord of the Rings, “we cannot choose the time we live in. We can only choose what we do with the time we are given.”

We begin by doing the difficult work of naming the time accurately. You see, whether or not I want to recognize it, the church of today dwells in a time that Jesus would have recognized quite clearly.

We live in a time of empire, and, what’s more, we live in the heart of the empire. We benefit greatly from it, and most of us living in metro DC owe our livelihoods to it either directly or indirectly; after all, DC is nothing if not a company town.

But when we offer up our most basic faith claim, repeating the claim of the earliest followers of Christ, we are pledging our allegiance – but not to the empire of the United States.

The early church said, “Christos kurios,” or “Christ is lord.” They said it in direct response and opposition to the allegiance required by Rome and emblazoned on the coins of the realm: Caesar kurios, or Caesar is lord.

Margaret Aymer’s translation of the Beatitudes begins with a reminder about different empires, different allegiances, and who matters, ultimately, to God:

“Greatly honored are the destitute in spirit, for of them is the empire of heaven.”

Who matters to God? Who is honored in God’s empire?

The poor, the brokenhearted, those with humility, those who hunger for justice, those who love with kindness, those who make peace, those who dwell on the margins of the empires of this world.

How can we, who have pledged our allegiance to the way of Jesus, be his church in our time and place? I hope that we’ve sparked some visions in worship this morning that begin to make clear some provisional answers to that fundamental question.

But wherever those visions eventually lead us, we begin by remembering. We remember those whom God never forgets. For in remembering those whom God honors we begin to re-member those whose lives have been dismembered by the powers and principalities of our world.

Jesus showed us the way of such putting-back-together in and through his life, and he began that work so often at table.

At the table it did not matter to Jesus what the world said about you. Your life could be a tangle of all kinds of disparate and difficult strands, but Jesus would say, “for you, my friend, there is a place at my table.” The world could say of you, “he’s just a beggar,” or “she’s an unwed mother”; “he’s a tax cheat” and “she’s an addict”; “she’s a lesbian,” and “he’s a sinner.” Jesus would say, “welcome, this is my body broken for you.”

So, this morning, you may be feeling wearied by the world, but Jesus invites you, saying, “come you who are weary and I will give you rest.” You may be feeling lost and alone, but Jesus invites you, saying, “I am with you always.” You may be feeling fearful about the future, but Jesus invites you, saying, “be not afraid.”

You may be feeling joyful this morning, and Jesus invites you remembering that it is also good and right to laugh with one another, and that God delights in our joy, as well.

So however the morning finds you this day, there is a place at this table for you, for here we celebrate the joyous feast of the people of God and have a foretaste of the banquet in the empire of God’s love. This – this is how we begin.

---

[1] Carol Howard Merritt, in Rick Ufford-Chase, Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions for the Church in a Time of Empire (Unshelved Books, 2016) 7.