In Remembrance: A Call To Action - Luke 22:14-20, 24-27 (October 4th)
Recently, Anita and I
watched this Hallmark movie, Lead With
Your Heart. And yes, I will watch
chick-flicks with my wife, just as she will watch the J.R.R. Tolkien movies
with me…it was in the marital vows…, you know, for better or worse. I was
thrilled with this movie because it reflected the equality of men and women of
our day—too often we only see the husband portrayed as the inconsiderate spouse
that forgets the anniversary—in this movie, they are equally guilty of letting
their busy lives cause them to forget.
They key for today, though, is what happens when they remember. They remember the anniversary (through the
help of a friend and the help of a phone call), and they move into action to
cover their error before the other spouse finds out.
We have all kinds of ways
to help us remember things these days.
The old stereotype of tying a string around your finger as I did with
the children this morning is from days gone by, though some may still use
it. Some folks will write important
events on their calendars and check them every morning. I place them on my calendar on my phone and on
the computer and have it alarm to remind me of where I am supposed to be or
what I am supposed to do. Some folks
receive email reminders or pop-up alerts (I use those too). Some folks set their alarm clocks to remind
them to take medicines. Doctors’ offices
will call and text reminders about appointments. I can’t tell you the number of times I have
made use of text messages as reminders. For
example, Anita, Joshua, and I had gone to the store Thursday night and
forgotten one of the things on our grocery lists (another way folks try to
remember things—though it only helps if you 1) remember to take it to the store
with you, and 2) if you take it to the store, remember to check off all the
items on the list). We forgot the
cocoa. I left Friday morning to go to
the hospitals to visit both Carl Trollinger and Sylvia Holsonback. I told Anita I would pick up the cocoa on the
way back from the hospital. Before I
hung up from telling her I was heading to the hospital, though, I said, “When I
call you to tell you I am leaving Moses Cone, text me a reminder about the
store.” The key thing about all these
reminders, though, is that they are calls to action. They string on the finger, the calendars, the
alarms, the emails, the pop-ups, the phone calls, the text messages, the
shopping lists—they all come to us to remind us, not simply to sit around and
think about what we are remembering, but as reminding us that we need to do
something—take medicines, go to the doctor, buy ingredients for a recipe, shop
for birthdays or anniversaries, meet someone for lunch, attend a meeting, or
something else. If we just receive the
reminders and do nothing but contemplate the reminder or the event the reminder
is about, it does us absolutely no good.
So what does all of this
have to do with our worship today?
Everything. We are people who
need remainders. God has known that
people needed reminders. We read through
the Old Testament and the stories of the Hebrew people, and whenever there are
major events where God steps in and the miraculous happens, God tells them to
celebrate a festival or a special meal to commemorate the event, and it is to
become an annual event to help the people remember what God has done for them
and to remember how they are to live. We
gather today on World Communion Sunday for the celebration of a special meal
established by our Savior. Jesus asks
God’s blessings upon the bread, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples
telling them to receive it and eat it in remembrance of Him. While Luke’s Gospel doesn’t tell us
explicitly that Jesus said the same thing when offering the cup, Paul, in His
letter to the Corinthians, tells us that Jesus said, “This is the cup of the
new covenant in my blood. Do this, as
often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”[i]
Some may be wanting to
say, “So? What does that have to do what we’ve been talking about? What does that have to do with ‘a call to
action’?”
To many times in the
twenty years I have been serving as a pastor, I have had folks say to me, “I
think we shouldn’t have Holy Communion so much.
It loses its meaning when we have it every month.” I had a church member ask me one time if we
“had to have communion once a month?”. I
told them “No. Actually, if we wanted to
be true to our heritage, we would celebrate it every Sunday.” To be honest, if we want to be true
Methodists we not only would have it every Sunday but every time we gathered
for Bible Studies or meetings through the week…and if we truly understood its
significance, that it is so much more than sitting in a pew and thinking about the fact that
Jesus died for our sins, we would desire it more often as well.
One of the significances
of Holy Communion is that it is a call to action. What action?
It could be found in the song that the choir offered this morning:
In remembrance of me, eat this bread,
In remembrance of me, drink this
wine,
In remembrance of me, pray for the
time when God’s own will is done.
In remembrance of me, heal the sick,
In remembrance of me, feed the poor.
In remembrance of me, open the door
and let your brother in…
In remembrance of me, search for
truth,
In remembrance of me, always love…
In case we think that
this is just some ideal social gospel that Ragan Courtney and Buryl Red tried
to tie to Communion and in no way could be anything that Jesus would have
suggested, rather than the song, consider the Word of God. In our reading this morning, just as Jesus
finishes offering this sacred meal to those He called friends, those He called
brothers, they begin arguing among themselves about which of them will be the
greatest. Jesus responds to this dispute
by telling them: “the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the
leader like the one who serves. For who
is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? …I am among you as one who serves.”
My brothers and sisters,
if we truly receive this meal in remembrance of Jesus, if we receive this meal
as those who have committed their life to following Jesus, then this meal
serves more than just a meditation on the cross, but a reminder that we are called
to take up our cross and follow Jesus.
This meals serves to remind us that we are called to action…the action
of living out our faith by following Jesus in serving those around us who are
in need.
To eat this bread in
remembrance of Jesus is to remember that we are called to see those who are
hungry in our community and strive to feed them and enable them to feed
themselves.
To drink this juice in
remembrance of Jesus is to remember that we are called to see those who are
thirsty because they are without clean drinking water and help them find
sources.
To eat this bread in
remembrance of Jesus is to remember that we are to see those who are homeless
and unemployed and help them find a new start in life.
To drink this juice in
remembrance of Jesus is to remember that we are to see those who are grieving
and feel alone and to come alongside them and walk the valley of the shadow of
death with them.
To eat this bread in
remembrance of Jesus is to remember that we are called to see the children in
our community who live without love or leadership in their lives and decide to
spend time in the school reading with, tutoring, or mentoring a child.
To drink this juice in
remembrance of Jesus is to see those whose lives have been turned upside down
by storms or fires or earthquakes and help them know that they are cared for by
helping them find the courage and ability to start over.
To celebrate this meal,
my brothers and sisters, is to hear a call to action, a call to follow Jesus, a
call to take up our cross, a call to reach out to all who might be in need.
My brothers and sisters,
let us prepare to receive this bread and receive this juice in remembrance of
the One Who gave His life for us all…and be prepared to offer our lives in
action as His instruments of salvation in our community and the world.
In the Name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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