Sermon for Worldwide Communion Sunday, October 6, 2002
First Focus:
The different breads on the communion table, representing the different peoples of the world fill me with a sense of hope and unity for this world.
Bread has always been a basic food staple, a symbol of life, of hospitality, of sharing, and of simple sustenance. Jesus uses the symbolism of bread to teach us the basis of God’s relationship with us. From Jesus’ prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread”, to the words to his disciples celebrating the Passover Feast: “Eat this bread, this is my body broken for you,” Jesus uses the most basic staple of survival to remind us of God’s generous giving in our lives.
This Sunday morning, as I reflect upon Worldwide Communion and the Old Testament reading of the call of Gideon I also think about courage to answer the call of God in our lives, and the place of courage in our faith.
I invite you to imagine past the communion table to the evening of the night Jesus was celebrating the Passover Feast with his disciples. An upper room in a house, a small intimate dinner of teacher and disciples. The teacher knowing that one of the disciples at the table has already betrayed him. Yet the teacher, Jesus, holds all the disciples lovingly. If he has fear, it isn’t apparent. If he knows the consequences of the betrayal, he doesn’t falter. He moves the remembrance of the Passover sacrifice to his own impending arrest and confrontation with Roman authority.
In profound courage Jesus holds his small community in calmness and faith. Courage isn’t the predominate image of that supper. Only later, when Jesus is praying alone in the garden, do we get a glimpse of the fear he feels and the courage he prays for. Jesus was aware of his call as a child, and in the final few hours of his life, we hear his prayer for courage.
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became life great drops of blood falling down on the ground. Luke 22:42-44
Gideon’s call is also about courage, although his call is very different. Gideon is a poor farmer. For a few years now the Valley of Zezreel, where he lived, had been raided annually by the Midianites, the Amalekites and the people of the East. Each harvest season they rode across the desert, stormed the valley, stole the harvest and returned to their own cites.
The people of Israel had been praying to God for help. Gideon, a poor farmer, wasn’t trying to save his people, he was just trying to save his wheat by hiding it in a winepress. In the midst of looking after himself, a stranger appears, with the greeting “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior.” It is an angel, we are told, and God isn’t mincing words. The people need help, and God is appointing a helper.
Gideon doesn’t ask to be a leader. He isn’t even convinced that God is about. When challenged to save Israel, his response is typical of us all,” How can I deliver Israel? My family is the weakest in the group, and I am the weakest of the family.”
If you read on, you will find that as time goes on, Gideon repeatedly seeks affirmation that he should be on this quest of saving his people. I have often heard people say, “If this or that happens, I will take it as a sign that I should be doing this or that” We are afraid of stepping up to the plate, we get knots in our stomachs when we think about taking an action that puts attention upon us.
It was the same fear that Jesus faced when his life was at stake. Jesus found the courage, not in signs, but in faith.
It takes courage to follow God. It takes courage to follow Christ. Not all of us are called either to save the human race, or to save our community, but all of us are called to listen for God and to follow when God needs us. Courage can come in small tasks. It takes courage to sing, to paint, to speak, to pray, to bake cookies, to come to church, to walk in a march, to defend a cause, to be present to the world around us.
It must have taken Jesus great courage to stay present, in community with his disciples when they really didn’t understand what was happening, and when they were betraying him. It must have taken courage to stay in community with God when he knew that following God’s call placed him in conflict with society and demanded his life.
Jesus knew something that we sometimes forget. There are two parties involved in following God. There is us, being called, and there is God. We are not alone. We forget that, and try and rely upon ourselves.
Paul talks about courage in the terms of faith, hope and love. The greatest of these he says is faith. Faith, trusting in God, in God’s presence.
An early church father, Thomas Aquinas, described courage as listening to reason and carrying out the intention of the mind. Courage is not acting uninformed. It is grounded in knowing what is at stake and then moving forward. This is what Jesus did. He knew what was happening in his country, with his people, the dangers, the opposition; and still he carried out his understood calling from God.
Courage is a gift of God. It is based on faith, grounded in hope, and acts out of love. Courage in action is our Christian ethics in action.
It takes courage for us to follow Christ. God gives us this courage as a gift in unconditional love.
This world needs our courage to speak, to act, to love, to be followers of Christ. It isn’t always easy, but it is faithful. Know that God is with you.
Amen.