1 Pentecost 12 B 2012; St. John 6:51-58 August 19, 2012 Cross and Crown Lutheran Church Food, Freedom and Life There's a restaurant in Indy one of my favorites actually that in addition to serving some unbelievably delicious food has an interesting practice. Now, I ve only just recently noticed it, and while I absolutely love the food there now that I ve noticed it. it s kind of hard not to notice it. Kind of like when someone points out that a picture on the wall is cockeyed. Before, they said something, all was well. After they say something, well, now balance must be restored to the universe. Must... make... picture... straight. There. Oh good. Anyway, so there s this restaurant in Indy with this interesting practice. Now of course in the interests of science I had to go back to this particular restaurant several times just to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. And now, after much diligent experimentation and observation I m pretty sure that I m right. Anyway, this practice that I ve noticed involves how they seat people. You see, the first time I went to this restaurant it was for a business-type meeting with someone I respected. So, I paid attention to what I wore that day, you know making a good first impression, good etiquette and all that jazz. So I arrived for lunch that day wearing something that was a couple steps above business casual but not quite an interview suit, and I hoped that it'd be OK.
2 Anyway, the hostess met us at the door of this restaurant and sat us bang in the front at a very good table. From where we sat everyone could see us and we could see everyone. Well, as I said the food was excellent, and I was eager to go back there again. So, easily, I found a reason to go back and to share my new find with others. But this time none of us were dressed nearly as fancy as the first time I d been there. We were closer to, oh, somewhere between business casual and casual. This time the hostess seated us way in the back behind a screen. Hmmm, interesting. Then the third time, I went there. Did I mention how much I liked the food? I took my parents to this restaurant. We d been sightseeing all day and so we were dressed in shorts and flip-flips. We got a booth, in the darkest corner of the restaurant. Now don t get me wrong, I still love the food at this place. And the desserts are to die for, but, what you look like, apparently plays a very big role as to where you are going to get to eat this very delicious food. You come in looking well-heeled and, possibly, important and you get the choice seats. You come in looking a little sunburned and tired and you get a booth, in the back, by the restrooms. Interesting. At the moment I m debating whether or not
3 to make it a personal project to see if I can figure out exactly what the dress code is here. You know, does a Butler shirt get a better seat than an IU shirt? Do they seat Purdue at all? That sort of thing. Inquiring Hoosiers want to know. Now, it won t be easy and will probably involve a whole lot of dessert. But I think I'm up to this. Anyway, when it dawned on me what they were doing part of me, to be honest, got a little angry. I mean I understand that nice restaurants would like us to be wearing nice clothes and all. I get that. And I m fully behind the whole no shirt, no service thing, unless you re in Cancun or somewhere like that. But, this whole ranking system by clothing, that was a little weird, however, it wouldn't have felt weird at all to the folks who first heard Jesus in this morning's gospel. You see, there is a whole lot more going on in today s gospel reading, than meets the eye. But to understand that, you have to put yourself in their world and to do that first you ve got to know that the best that any of them, could hope to get out of life, ever, was a darkened booth in the corner of the restaurant. But to get there, let's start with the meat course. Now, hopefully as summer is coming soon to an end
4 everyone here, who's wanted to, has gotten their fill of barbeque. It's something that most of us don't even think about. You want a little steak or some ribs, you run down to Kroger or Marsh and you're good. So if we put aside the cannibalistic overtones of Jesus' metaphor for just a sec. most of us here wouldn't waste too much time or thought on the "eating meat" part in this morning's gospel. Yet, for nearly everyone within earshot of this teaching the first time around even the idea of eating meat would have stopped them cold. It's not that they were a bunch of vegetarians far from it it was because, meat was a precious, and I mean precious commodity in their world. And as far as we know, Jesus' followers were not exactly the movers and shakers of society. They rarely, if ever got to eat meat. In fact, if we are taking about the sacrificial meat here unless they were of the Levite tribe, and it's doubtful that many of them were, none of them got the choice meat from the Temple. You see, this is how it worked back then. Back then, a central part of Jewish practice was to bring offerings to the Temple: meat offerings, vegetable offerings, and grain offerings. If you were a good Jew
5 you did this for a hundred different reasons. Sometimes it was in thanksgiving. Sometimes it was to atone for a sin. Sometimes it was to regain your purity status within the tribe. There were lots of reasons why you'd bring food to the temple And when you did bring something. You brought the best you could afford. Then the Levites, that is a particular tribe within the tribes of Israel they were the priests would take the offerings that were brought and burn them on the altar to God just like a giant BBQ. Now, just like everyone else these Levites had to make a living too. But unlike everyone else according to the law of Moses they couldn't inherit any land in the way everyone else could. So in fairness, the Levites were permitted to eat a portion of the sacrificial food offerings and to feed their families with it. This included the meat, the choice sacrificial meat. The meat that the regular folks almost never, ever got to eat. Kings got meat. Priests got meat. Wealthy merchants and tax collectors might eat meat. But the rest of us? Well, we saw an awful lot of falafel and lentils every night. So now, knowing this, let's go back to Jesus' metaphors this morning. First the bread I am the living bread. OK, whether you eat wheat bread, or rice bread, or oat bread it doesn't matter,
6 the stuff that makes up bread is stuff that we human beings can't live without. It keeps the body running. Now, let's go to the meat. In using this metaphor Jesus is not just going for shock value here. No, the taboo that he's attacking isn't cannibalism, but social slavery, that is, who's above who and who's better than who in the social pecking order because in offering his followers the choicest portion of meat, that is, himself, what he's actually doing is raising everyone who believes to the same status as the priests. Basically he's escorting them personally from the back booths of the restaurant to the best seats in the house. Then lastly, Jesus talks about his blood. Again, while on the surface there's a great big "ick" factor here, let's go deeper. Now I won't spend a lot of time here but just to be complete, in ancient times, the blood was where - it was believed - the animal's life-force resided. Makes sense when you think about it. When the blood ran out, the animal died. So, now, let's put this all together. With Jesus, there is bread, meat, and blood or to unpack his metaphor on their terms With Jesus, there is food, freedom and life. And if that's true, then that can only mean one thing.
7 Without Jesus there is starvation, oppression and death. No wonder the authorities wanted to kill him. Because what he was saying was: "Guys, it's not just the evil Romans who are killing and oppressing you it's you yourselves." Oh wow. What he was saying was, They didn't need outside help to push folks into the darkest corners of the restaurant or the back of the bus or the end of the line or towards the worst landlords or the worst schools or the worst jobs in the city. They knew how to do it to each another just fine. No wonder they wanted to kill Jesus. Because when you're used to sitting in the best seats in the house the back booths are not somewhere you want to go or even look at if you can help it especially if you're working really hard to keep your pretty good seat at your pretty good table. Yet apparently if we take our gospel lesson seriously this morning Jesus has given the hostess the night off. And he's flipped the seating chart upside down. No wonder they wanted to kill him. Because the truth of the matter is some of us will spend our entire lives creating, and maintaining and even protecting our seating chart. We have this inborn sense of who should get the good tables and who shouldn't; of who should receive the steak and who should settle for spam. Yet the problem with this inborn sense,
8 -- this inborn sense of the seating chart is that more often than not it's not fairness that's seating our neighbor, but sin. Which is why Jesus is telling us here, wrapped in a metaphor for sure, that in his world, not our world, but his world, everyone, everyone gets the filet mignon and in the end his seating chart not ours will be the one that prevails. And when that days comes, if Jesus has his way, and I suspect he will then everyone, everyone will get a seat in the house and the cool thing is, on that day, when we finally come before God, all of them, all of them, will be the best seats in the house. Amen.