Bless Be the Table That Divides
Ephesians 4:1-16
Dr. O Wesley Allen, Jr.
This Table divides us. By “us” I mean the church. Who stands here to serve—clergy or laity? This Table divides us. What elements are to be used—wine or grape juice; leavened or unleavened bread; a single loaf, round wafers, or chiclets; a single wine goblet or individual shot glasses? This Table divides us. How do we partake—coming forward to kneel, standing and dipping a piece of bread in the cup, or passing the elements through the pews? This Table divides us. How often should we take partake—weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually? This Table divides us. Who can partake—only members of the congregation, of the denomination, only the baptized…what about children? This Table divides the church. We can’t even agree on what we should call it—Is it The Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Mass? We Christians are divided when it comes to this Meal.
When I lived in Connecticut I became good friends with a Roman Catholic priest, Father Bogaslawski. When he was installed at a new parish, he invited me to be a part of the clergy procession in the service. There must have been twenty-five clergy there, and I was the only Protestant. All of the Catholic clergy wore beautiful albs with elegant stoles and bright chasubles. I wore a black pulpit robe and a little red Cokesbury stole that looked like a thin neck tie from the 1950s. I looked out of place, but I didn’t feel out of place. I was treated like an honored guest. While we were robing and lining up, every other clergyperson greeted me. We processed in, the neo-Gothic basilica was packed and all along the aisle laity nodded at me as if to say, “We were hoping you could make it.” At the opening of the service, the bishop recognized me publicly. And then in the sermon I was thanked again by my friend. I was treated as long lost family. It was wonderful to be included… and then came the Table. I was the only person in that huge, filled worship space that was not allowed to take the body and blood of Christ. Mind you, there was no animosity. There was no oppression. There was no lack of hospitality. There was simply a difference in understanding, a different ritual practice. In truth I didn’t agree with the language prayed at the Table, so I didn’t really want to receive. If I had wanted to, though, my friend would have only been able to offer me a blessing when I came forward. No bread or wine for me. I was honored to be there and felt greatly respected, but I was also sad, a little lonely, as the rest of the family gathered at the Table. The Table divides us.
But not just Catholics and Protestants. We Protestants are divided, too. We talk about the Protestant Reformation as if everyone who broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century was on the same page, but really we ought to talk about the Protestant Reformations (plural). For instance, take two of the earliest and most influential reformers, Martin Luther in Germany and Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland. They were both Catholic priests who led their churches and their cities to become Protestant. They were extremely close in much of what they thought, especially because they agreed so much on one of the central slogans of the Protestant Reformations—sola scriptura. This is your first Latin lesson for today: it means “scripture alone.” The Protestants rejected any teaching of the church that wasn’t grounded in Scripture. This didn’t mean, however, that they didn’t disagree about how this slogan was to be applied, how Scripture is to be interpreted.
For instance, Luther and Zwingli were brought together in 1529 to discuss all of the different tenets of the Protestant movements. They agreed pretty much on every issue but one. They disagreed about the nature of this Meal. Luther said, in the Scripture when Jesus instituted the Meal, he said, “This is my body and this is my bread.” So, Luther concluded, the bread and wine are somehow mysteriously, literally the body and blood of Christ at the same time that they are just bread and wine. Zwingli said, No, no, no, no. We should take the Bible literally unless it is using figurative speech, and it does so often. When we call God our Rock, no one thinks we mean that God is literally made of granite. Clearly, at the Last Supper, Jesus was using metaphor. So when Jesus says, “This is my body and blood,” he means “This signifies my body and blood.”
The story goes that Luther took some chalk and wrote on the table in the banquet room where they were sitting the Latin words, “Hoc est corpus meum.” This is your second Latin lesson for the day; it means this is my body. Every time Zwingli tried to argue that the Meal was a symbolic memorial and Christ was not literally present, every time Zwingi used the word “signify,” Luther simply pointed at the word est, “is,” and said nothing. They left that meeting without coming to any agreement. (See, church meetings have always been trying.) The words Luther wrote on the table, the words Jesus spoke at the Table, divided them. And the Table still divides us.
Maybe we’re expecting too much of the table. I haven’t rattled on so long that you’ve forgotten our Scripture reading, have you? Ephesians says,
“There is one body and one Spirit,
just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all,
who is above all and through all and in all.”
I love that line. I’ve read about that oneness of the Body of Christ a hundred times. But until just recently, I hadn’t noticed what was missing. One body it says. One spirit it says. One hope it says. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, it says. One God of all it says. But it does not say one table.
Maybe we don’t all have to be united at the Table as long as we all agree that the Table reminds us that we are all united in Christ. Do this in remembrance of me, Jesus said. The Meal is about remembering Jesus’ death and resurrection, which served as the exclamation point on his life and ministry, on his very personhood. Christ died once for all, for everybody. So all are united in Christ. All those who have been baptized—whether they were immersed as an adult, had water poured over their heads as a youth, or had water sprinkled on their heads as infants—all those baptized have been united with Christ, and thus are united in Christ. As one pastor I know reminds his congregation every time they celebrate a baptism: in the church, water is thicker than blood.
Notice Ephesians doesn’t tell us to become one. It doesn’t teach how to be one. It doesn’t give us the Twelve Step program for Christian unity. The letter is filled with instructions about using your spiritual for the good of the church, but it does not say “Work to become one.” It’s not an imperative: You ought to be one. It’s not an interrogative: Are you one? It’s a simple declarative statement—that’s your grammar lesson for the day. It says we are one in Christ. Every ligament of the Body sewn together by Christ it says. It doesn’t matter how many differences we have in the way we act at this Table. We are one. It doesn’t matter how many different types of bread or wine we consume at this Table. We are one. It doesn’t matter how many different ways we interpret this meal. This Table is unable to divide us. We are one in and through Christ. You’ll pardon me if a little of my Alabama roots slip out in my language choice here since I’ve been down visiting family this last week, but ain’t nothing we can do at this Table to make more than one Body of Christ. What God has put together, no one can put asunder. The Table may not unite us, but it cannot divide Christ. Even when we gather around divided Tables, the Meal reminds us of our unity.
And we can even hope that someday the Table catches up with us. I think maybe one of the reasons I never noticed that the Meal was missing from Ephesians list of one’s is that I grew up singing, “The Church’s One Foundation.” The second verse is based on our Ephesians text:
Called forth from every nation,
yet one o'er all the earth;
our charter of salvation:
one Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name professing
and at one table fed,
to one hope always pressing,
by Christ’s own Spirit led.
Did you catch that? The author slipped in table among the rest. [Loudly:] One Lord, one faith, one baptism, [whisper, cough:] one table. It wasn’t there in Ephesians, but the church longs for it. I think that line—and at one table fed—is there as an expression of that hope. The hope is that someday our Table practice will catch up with who we really are in Christ.
And even though that “someday” may be in the distant future, sometimes in the present we can catch a glimpse of the Table as a place of unity. Sometimes, even even the divided Table can remind us that we are one.
The preaching and New Testament professor Fred Craddock tells the story of being a guest lecturer in the north one late spring when a snow storm surprised the city overnight. His host couldn’t get to him because the streets were closed and told him that the only food available was probably a 24 hour bus station just down the road that had a little diner in it. So Fred put on every shirt he had in his suitcase and his one blazer since he hadn’t brought a winter coat with him. He walked down the street. Found the diner. Thank heavens it wasn’t too far because it was bitter cold. He looked through the glass door and saw that there were no empty tables—only a couple of stools at the counter were open.
So he went in and sat down at the counter and the large, burly fellow behind the counter, plopped down a glass of water at Fred’s seat and said, “What’ll you have?”
“Can I see a menu,” Fred asked.
“No menu.”
“Any specials?”
“No specials.”
“Well, what are my options?”
“We have soup.”
“What kind of soup?”
“One kind of soup.”
“OK, I’ll have that,” Fred said.
The man brought him his bowl of soup, dropped a spoon in it, and walked away. Fred took a little bite, a little sip of the soup. He still couldn’t figure out what it was. It tasted familiar but he just couldn’t quite put his finger on the taste. He was pondering a second spoonful when the door opened. The wind blew in a small woman who wasn’t wearing much more than Fred, but her clothes were in rags. She kept her head sort of down and made her way over to the one remaining stool at the counter.
The man behind the counter scowled at her, walked over to her and said, “What’ll you have?” She said, “Can I have some water, please?” He growled and brought her some water. She took a sip and then the man asked again, even louder this time, “What’ll you have?” She said, “I’m sorry I don’t have any money. Can I just sit here and get warm for a bit and then I’ll be on my way?”
The man got even louder: “Look, lady. These seats are for paying customers. If you can’t order something and pay for it, then get out.” So she got up and started heading back toward the door and through its glass you could see the wind whipping the snow down the sidewalk.
Then, Craddock says, something happened he would have never expected. Everyone else started standing up and moving toward the door as well. No one said anything. But it was like everyone knew: if she’s not welcome here, no one is. And the man behind counter shouted out, “Okay, okay, she can stay.” And everyone quietly went back to their seats and started eating their soup. The burly man behind the counter brought a bowl of soup for the woman and said, somewhat sarcastically, “Enjoy.”
Fred took another spoonful of his soup, and he realized what it was. He recognized the taste. The meal tasted just a little bit like bread and wine.
By no act or will of our own, we have been made one through the death and resurrection of our one Lord and savior Jesus Christ. And sometimes we can catch a glimpse of that unity at this Table. We are one. We are one. We are…[signal to congregation to say “one”]. I couldn’t have said it better. Amen.
