Sunday, October 6, 2024

Spoiled Dinner; Luke 22:14-24

 This was an interactive service.  

    

What are some of your favorite memories around food?.....Do you have bad memories around food?....Today on this World Communion Sunday, we read the story of the Last Supper from Luke’s gospel.  This is the most important meal for Christians—more important than the feedings of the 5000+ and the 4000+, more important than the meal where the sinful woman washed Jesus’s feet, more important than His meals with the tax collectors and sinners, more important His meals with Pharisees, or at Zaccheaus’s house.  It is more important, because Jesus told us to continue celebrating it in remembrance of Him.  But this Last Supper is more than just a memorial service.  Christ gives Himself to us and unites us with all other believers, which is why it is the most important supper. 

            The Last Supper was a celebration of the Passover.  It would have been a big deal for any Jewish family.  Jesus was joyfully anticipating this dinner.  Our passage begins with Jesus telling the disciples how much he has been looking forward and longing to share this Passover meal with them.  It should have been the perfect dinner, but it wasn’t.  What was supposed to be a joyful celebration had some moments that could have spoiled it.

            First is the fact that Jesus clearly says, it’s His last Passover meal for a while.  He says, “until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”  Now that’s not bad news!  We don’t know when that will be, and neither did the disciples.  It could be very soon!  And it is definitely something worth anticipating!  But He also says that before that happens, He is going to suffer.  This shouldn’t have been a surprise to the disciples.  Jesus had been talking about it constantly on His way to Jerusalem.  We heard Him mention it many times last spring.  There is sadness even knowing that it was going to happen, and yet, we know how necessary it was for Christ to suffer, so that all people might be forgiven of their sin and have eternal life.  Still even Jesus’s impending death didn’t have to spoil the dinner.  Like having a last celebration with someone you know is terminally ill, it’s bittersweet, but you strive to make it be a great memory for all involved.  And Jesus Himself made it special by giving new meaning to the afikomen and the cup of redemption and the cup of joy.  It’s certainly something neither they nor we can forget.  Jesus is the fulfillment of Passover being broken for us, spilling His blood for our salvation, that we might have eternal joy. 

            But then Jesus says the one sitting next to Him will betray Him.  There is someone at the dinner table who plans to spoil the evening.  This starts a conversation among the disciples.  They start wondering which of them will do it, even though Jesus made it pretty clear—the one whose hand is with Mine on the table.  The one who dips with Me, in the other gospels.  The others are clueless and start speculating about each other.  This speculating turns into a full-blown argument. Like children, they start arguing over who is the best.  Anybody in here have to deal with family fighting at the dinner table?  It can certainly ruin a meal!  Jesus uses it as a teaching moment.  He points out that He is the greatest, and yet, He comes to them as a servant, not as patronizing.  He encourages them to be like Him, servants to one another.  And yet, He also tells them that they are all going to be great.  He commends them for standing by Him in His trials, thus far, even though they were all going to run away, except John, and tells them that they would inherit the Kingdom of God and inherit thrones in that Kingdom, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Those who are spoiling what should have been the perfect dinner, will in the end be rewarded, not for what they did here, but because they have been chosen by Christ to take the gospel to the world.  Jesus turns the conversation back to the kingdom redeeming the spoiled dinner.

            But the dinner isn’t over yet.  There’s one more spoiler.  Jesus looks across to Simon Peter that Satan has asked permission to sift him like wheat.  Peter is incredulous saying he vows to follow Jesus to prison and death. Jesus tells Peter that Peter is doing to deny Him that very night, not once, but 3 times. Yet even as Jesus gives this disturbing news, He tells Peter that He has prayed for Peter that his faith will not fail.  We can trust that when our faith is weak, Jesus has prayed for us.  When we know others who are struggling with their faith, tempted to deny the Lord, we should pray for them, trusting that God, will in God’s perfect timing, restore them as well.  Jesus promises despite all that Peter will do, that he will have a job to do once he repents, which is to strengthen his brother disciples.  Peter will in the end, be the strong one.  It’s often those who have reached rock bottom and come out of it who are best suited to help others, whether it be those who are recovered and recovering addicts to help other addicts, the formerly incarcerated who make the best mentors for those headed down into a life of crime.  Peter understood after denying Jesus 3 times how much he had received forgiveness, and so he boldly proclaimed forgiveness in Christ to anyone he could. 

            The Last Supper should have been the perfect dinner with everyone getting along and celebrating, but it had many spoilers.  And yet, it was the perfect supper.  Nothing was a surprise to Jesus.  Not even Satan could ruin this meal.  Jesus used every potential spoiled moment to teach something about Himself, about the Kingdom of God, and about the disciples.  We can remember this when our dinners don’t go so well, to give and receive grace to ourselves and to those around our table, to teach and to learn.  The disciples continued the practice of table fellowship among believers and promoted in all the churches as Christ instituted, and so we do today.  We remember Jesus in this meal.  We remember what that Jesus died for us, that He is the Passover lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, who death sets us free from the law of sin and death.  We remember that He is our salvation.  We remember that we are inheritors of the Kingdom of God.  We remember that Christ has taken people who were not family and made them into God’s family with God as our Father and Christ as our Brother.  We are brothers and sisters, called to serve one another in love.  Under Christ’s new covenant we are called to bless the world, just as God promised Abraham that He would bless all the peoples through Abraham. 

            The table is still a sacred space, not just the Communion Table, but whenever believers are gathered, when believers are gathered with unbelievers.  Whenever we gather for a meal—in our homes, in restaurants, at church, on a picnic we can remember Christ and invite Him to our tables as He invites us to His.  Even when things don’t go perfectly, Christ is in our midst and can do His holy work. 

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