Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
October 4, 2009 World Communion Sunday
Galatians 3:23-29
Fred Craddock, perhaps my favorite preacher, tells of returning to the little church of his childhood in Tennessee. He had not been there in years. Walking in the sanctuary, he noted they had purchased new stained glass windows since he had last been there. Admiring the windows, he saw, set in the bottom of each window, the name of that window’s donor. But much to his surprise, he recognized none of the names. “You must have had many new folks join this church since I was a boy,” he said to a church member. “I don’t recognize a single donor’s name.”
“Oh those people aren’t members here,” the church member replied. “This town hasn’t grown a bit since you were a child and neither has the church. We bought these windows from a company way over in Italy. They were made for a church in St. Louis, but when they arrived, not a single window would fit. So the company said they were sorry and would make new windows. They told the church in St. Louis to sell the non-fitting windows wherever they could. So we bought the windows from them.”
Said Craddock, “But didn’t you want to remove those names?”
“Well, we thought about it. But we’re just a little church. Not many of us here, not many new people. So we like to sit here on Sunday morning surrounded by the names of people other than ourselves.”
And isn’t that precisely what we are doing on this World Communion Sunday, and indeed any Sunday we gather here? It is so tempting for the church community – any community – to narrow our focus to our needs, our challenges, our issues; to make our family or our fellowship a closed circle, drawing only on its own resources, concerned only with one another. Particularly in times like these, I mean, how can we really expect to be worried about the wider world when it is a struggle just to pay the monthly PG&E bill? So tempting just to pull down the shades, close out the world. Heaven knows we have enough troubles of our own
And then it’s World Communion Sunday and we find ourselves at this unconditionally inclusive table, where all are welcome, where all have worth and dignity. We come here and discover that the Spirit gives us ears to hear the voices of those who rejoice and those who mourn, those who laugh and those who weep, those who have plenty and those who wonder if they will have to go hungry for another day, those who go to Safeway for a flu shot and those who walk miles to stand in line at a makeshift clinic. We come and find ourselves face to face with One who seems to think that no family, no community, can remain strong and healthy and joyous and grateful if it lives only unto itself; who seems to think that our doors must open outward – the doors of our church and the doors of our hearts. So yes here, like the good folk of that little Tennessee church, we gather surrounded by the names, the voices, the faces of so many people other than ourselves, our brothers and sisters in one human family, all loved by God, all welcome here…all welcome.
And as I say that, it occurred to me that maybe this table should be cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Perhaps we need to put a warning in today’s order of worship – partake of this supper at your own risk. For in a world so divided, so angry, so fearful, so contentious, so ready and willing to draw a line in the sand dividing us from them, mine from yours…in such a world, to come here, to share in this meal, is to expose ourselves to something wild and dangerous and new. Oh, it’s 2000 years old, but still so very new. For as Paul says, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all are one in Jesus Christ.” He is talking about nothing less than our membership in a whole new family, a new humanity, a new creation, a new world. And the old hatreds and fears and boundaries and divisions and animosities and suspicions and grudges and angers just no longer apply – not here, not at this table. Now it’s easy to disagree with Paul about so very much, but, you know, if you hang around him for a while, you begin to see that he truly is a visionary who is willing to bet his life on a path, an inclusive vision, that is radically different from what the world of conventional wisdom calls “normal”. And he has that annoying habit of wanting to know what are we betting our life on these days? Are we open to what one author calls, “the fierce and transforming joy” of such a vision? Are we truly open to seeing what God is up to in the world and then joining God there? Are we open to the outward thrust of our faith – from me to my neighbor, to a stranger, to the enemy, and on to all the tribes and nations of the world?
Do you recall the film, Hotel Rwanda? It is a powerful depiction of those ghastly days of genocide and of how one man, interestingly named Paul – played by the actor Don Cheadle – sheltered and helped rescue more than a thousand people. Paul is the manager of an exclusive hotel in Kigali. Once the genocide starts, he displays remarkable courage and improvisational skills in protecting his family and many others at the hotel. It’s fascinating to watch his deepening understanding of the risks and opportunities of caring for others and his ever deepening and expanding vision of an inclusive hospitality.
At the conclusion of the film, he and his family are taken by UN officials from the hotel to a refugee camp. They make their way through the camp looking for their nieces, who they hope are still alive. When they can’t find the girls, they board buses that will take them to Tanzania. A Red Cross worker who has worked with Paul to rescue orphans is in the camp, sees him and runs to catch the bus carrying him and his family. She climbs on board and tells Paul that his nieces are alive. The convoy stops so that they can go back to the camp and find the girls.
In the film’s final scene, Paul, his family, the nieces and the group of orphans he has promised to find a home for, are walking back to the bus. The Red Cross worker says to Paul,”They say there may not be enough room.” He quietly answers, “There is always room.”
Sounds a lot like another Paul; sounds a lot like Jesus. Like it or not, we are one in Christ, in God’s family, and there is always room. The doors must open outward, in our hearts, at our tables, in our lives, to welcome others and be welcomed by them. We simply cannot allow exclusion and hatred, anger and violence to shrink our world, our imaginations, our hearts. Not when forgiveness, reconciliation, hospitality and love can enlarge them. And if ever our country and our world could use an enlarging of generous and hospitable hearts, it is now. I’m not sure we can survive without them. Frederick Beuchner says, “As surely as sailing ship is made to sail with the wind, so are you and I and everybody else in this wide world are bound to each other as a brother is bound to a brother, giving and receiving mercy, binding up each other’s wounds, taking care of each other. This is not just the way things ought to be. Most of the time it is not the way we want things to be. But it is the way things are.” And, he might add, it is at the very heart of our faith.
A final Fred Craddock story, I’ve shared this with you before. He talks about being in a large distant city when a huge blizzard came on very suddenly. And so he and a few other travelers found themselves in a little greasy spoon restaurant, “Slurping bad soup.” The door opened, in walked a woman. You could tell just from the way she was dressed - her tattered coat, her grocery cart outside - , she was someone who lived on the street, just trying to get warm. Well, apparently, she and the owner of this restaurant had a history. He came out from behind the counter and said, “Get out of here. You’re not welcome. You cannot stay here. Get out.” So she opened the door and went back out into the storm. “Craddock says, ‘We all sat there for a moment and then without a word every person in that restaurant got up, put on their hat and coat, went out, stood on the sidewalk with that woman in the snow. They stood there until finally the owner relented and let them all back in. She sat down, he gave her some of that bad soup.” But, says Craddock, “In that moment, the soup became the body and blood of Christ.” And so, my friends, welcome to the welcome table, to the table of our Lord, and all are welcome because there is always room.