I had the joy of preaching with the people of Central Church of the Brethren in Roanoke yesterday, and I’ll share that sermon here on Wednesday for paid subscribers. I’m preaching *this* Sunday (via Zoom) with the folks at Washington City Church of the Brethren. I’ve enjoyed the practice of writing these weekly lectionary reflections, but I REALLY enjoy preaching. If your congregation needs a guest preacher, I’m available. In the meantime, a reflection on this week’s gospel text from Luke 24.
Here’s a favorite funeral story:
After a big family funeral a couple of years ago, I wound my way through the funeral meal line in the church fellowship hall. Churches do things differently, and so do people, but in my experience, a southern funeral church fellowship hall meal is possibly the best food you’re ever going to get. It’s church potluck food, but amped up to comfort the grieving with EXTRA butter, EXTRA cheese and the GOOD desserts.
IYKYK.
I sat down with my overflowing plate next to my sister, and said, “Really, is there anything better than a funeral potluck?!”
To which Leah dryly responded: “Uh, yeah…a potluck where somebody DIDN’T die?”
…
In Luke’s gospel, the stories of Jesus’ death and resurrection are filled with food. It’s like Luke knew how comforting it is for us humans to be fed when we’re grieving, sad, confused.
First, two disciples are walking toward Emmaus, discussing everything that’s just gone down - can you believe he’s DEAD? wasn’t he supposed to SAVE us? what about what the women said about the empty tomb? - when a stranger appears on the road with them. They fill him in on everything that’s happened, and when they get to town they invite him to stay and eat dinner with them. He agrees.
And there at the dinner table, the stranger picked up the bread, blessed it and broke it. And all of a sudden, there at supper, the disciples recognize the stranger as Jesus, their friend and leader and lord. But he vanishes right before their eyes.
They scurry back to Jerusalem, find the rest of the crew and start explaining what happened and how when the guy broke the bread, they suddenly realized who he was and right then, in that moment, Jesus shows up again, among the gathered disciples.
And even though he shows up IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY ABOUT HIM SHOWING UP the night before, even though he introduces himself and this scene by saying “peace be with you,” the disciples are TERRIFIED. They think it’s Jesus’ ghost.
Jesus knows that’s what they’re thinking, so he offers them his fresh, still-visible crucifixion wounds. “It’s me,” he says. And then he says, “Hey, you guys, it’s been a long few days, what with the arrest and torture and murder and death and resurrection and what-not, and even last night when you two invited me to dinner I had to rush out before we actually ate..do you have any FOOD?!”
And the guys, shocked and off-kilter, scramble around and find a piece of broiled fish and Jesus takes it, gratefully, and chows down.
So much food here in these resurrection stories.
Scholars will tell you that in Jesus’ time there was such a thing as a “ghost test” to determine if someone was really alive or if they were, in fact, a ghost. You had to make sure that the person’s feet were actually touching the floor, that they had actual bones inside their skin, and that they were capable of consuming actual human food. By inviting his friends to touch his hands and feet and sides and by asking for that fish, Jesus was proving himself real before his friends could test him.
But there’s something else going on here. Jesus is always and forever eating with people. In the gospels, he gets in trouble for eating with the wrong people. One of his most famous miracles is multiplying a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish in order to feed thousands of people. At the last supper, he tells the disciples that his own body is like bread, his blood like wine, meant to be consumed and put to good use. In John’s gospel, the resurrected Jesus cooks breakfast for his friends on the beach.
Eating is elemental and it is also political. What and how and with whom we eat has meaning. We do it in different ways at different times because we intend it to mean different things.
When Jesus broke bread and ate fish with his disciples after he’d been crucified and resurrected, he could have been meaning all sorts of things. Certainly the liturgy and theology of communion/eucharist have explored those possibilities expansively over the centuries.
But one of the things that Jesus was surely doing in choosing to EAT with his friends in those resurrection appearances was to comfort and reassure them. Look, he’s saying, I’m still here. I’m eating your fish. I’m sitting down with you at the dinner table. I’m grilling up some breakfast for you on the beach. Peace be with you. No need to be afraid. Here, have a snack.
I wonder what this means for us, people who claim to be resurrection people. For me, most immediately, it means I’m going to be more intentional about having people over for dinner to nurture relationships. For congregations, it might mean reflecting on who is present and welcomed at the church’s tables - both the communion altar and the potluck buffet.
But I am also thinking about how I- we - can work to make sure everyone has enough to eat, and the safety and comfort in which to eat it. Supporting local food banks, continuing to insist on an end to the genocide and famine in Gaza, learning and working in service of more just food systems.
What does it mean that even after being arrested, condemned, tortured, murdered and resurrected from the dead, one of the handful of things Jesus insisted on doing before he ascended into heaven was eating alongside the people he loved?
I am grateful that when my classmates started planning a lake day the Saturday before finals week they asked me to help design an agape meal liturgy for our potluck. We'll see what it looks like when I mix my Brethren heritage and the Episcopalian liturgy
You are such a wonderful preacher! Thanks for sharing the message here as well as live!