“Gathered Around the Family Table”

Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On October 4, 1998

  Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.  This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.  For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do.  But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.  Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

      II Timothy 1:  8-14

Paul speaks, in many different places in this text, of the family connections in the Christian faith, and of the way in which we are connected in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Paul says that we are a family.  Paul speaks of the family connections in the Christian faith, and he speaks of the way we are connected in Jesus Christ.   As we gather here today in preparation for receiving the Lord’s Supper, I am aware of those connections.  Paul says we’re connected not just with the networking and the associations that are familiar to you, the actual kin relationships here – the neighbors who are gathered here this morning, the people who are in school together, the people who work together, the people who eat meals together.  All of the connections make up not only this congregation, but this community.  Paul says that those things connect us.  But we are connected with another, deeper kind of connection, and that is the connection we know in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are connected in that gospel. 

As we gather here this morning in preparation for this meal that we are going to eat together, as we gather in preparation for the Lord’s Supper, I am aware of the connectedness of this gospel in Jesus Christ in this sanctuary. And in the larger church outside of these walls. I am aware of Sylvia Campbell and Charlie Stevens in Haiti this morning, in the rural hospital, who no doubt are celebrating communion together, or perhaps already have, as they prepare to begin to do surgery on some of the members of the village who have come to receive their help.  I am aware of Steve Nunn, celebrating communion with the Trinity Gospel Church, who came and sang with us last spring, and who study the Bible with us on Mondays at noon.  I am aware of our friend Abe Brown at the College Hill Baptist Church, who came with his choir and shared life with us, too, and whom we support with our prayers.  I am thinking of the connectedness in the gospel that we have with Bruce Robertson and his wife Judy, who are sharing the sacrament this morning at the First Presbyterian Church in St. Petersburg.  Or the connectedness in the gospel that we have with Charlie Hasty, who is serving an interim pastorate in Savannah.  Or Mark Burnham at the First Presbyterian Church in Selma, Alabama, where they are serving the gospel through the sacrament this morning.  I am aware of our connectedness in the gospel of Jesus Christ with the Crowder family, with Sheff and Daryn and Gaither, and their spouses and their children, as they hold each other up in love, grieving for their mother.  Or Wally and Carolyn Wilcher, receiving the sacrament somewhere this morning, worshipping with his father after his mother’s funeral.  Or Fred and Barbara Koons, here with us today, receiving the sacrament here after grieving for his mother this week.  I am aware of the connectedness we feel even at this very moment, with Fitz Conner at the First Presbyterian Church, who is administering the Lord’s Supper for the first time in his pastorate there.  Or Harriet Cale, who used to be the associate pastor here, and is serving the sacrament this morning at the Village Presbyterian Church, where she is acting as the interim pastor.  I am thinking of John McCall, a Presbyterian pastor from Tampa who is serving the sacrament from Taiwan this morning, and of his parents who often worship here with us.  I am thinking of Emily Anderson, and Carlyle and Marshall Jones, who are all receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, sharing in this meal this morning in France, where for different reasons, they are spending some time.  Congregations that you have belonged to in other cities and other states are connected in the gospel of Jesus Christ with you as they share this sacrament this morning.  Family members and friends in other places, Christians who share this sacrament today in the Congo, in Russia, in China, in Brazil. 

Paul says, thinking of this kind of connectedness in the gospel, “I am grateful to God when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.  I long to see you so that I might be filled with joy.  I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith (thinking of Timothy here, maybe this is a part of your story, too), that lived first in your grandmother, and then in your mother, and now I am sure, lives in you.”  Paul says we are connected in the gospel of Jesus Christ as a kind of family.  And God has given us this sacrament as a family meal.  And the main course of the meal is, quoting Paul, “the grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”  The entree of the meal is “the grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought to light life and immortality through this gospel.”  This is to say that the good news, and it is good news, that we know and we represent by sharing in this meal together, we know that that good news is that death is not the ultimate word, but that the love of God is the ultimate word.  And the love of God is the most powerful influence in our lives now and will be powerful enough to resurrect us in the life to come.  That is the good news that we represent by enacting this meal together.  This is, Paul calls it, “the family legacy.”  “This is (he uses this metaphor) the treasure.  You all guard it.  This is the really valuable thing.  Guard it as you share it together around this family table.” 

“We are a family,” says Paul, “connected in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to act like a family.”  If you gather around this table as a family, act like a family.  Those who share this family treasure, this legacy which is for you, are marked in their lifestyle by certain patterns of behavior.  We call those “table manners” at my house, as we implore each other to them.  Certain patterns of behavior are a part of what makes the Christian family the Christian family together.  You notice that Paul does not say that it is particular roles and relationships.  He does not say the Christian family is determined by an exact formula of particular roles around a table.  It doesn’t have to be a father and a mother a grandmother and children.  Paul speaks here of a faith that is shared in a family system that includes one son and two women.  There are lots of different family systems here this morning, some by our choosing, and you are welcome at this table regardless of whether you are single or married, with children or without children, alone and together.  And let us acknowledge that we all come to this table with our own simpleness and our own brokenness, and we are welcome here not because of our appearance, not because of our achievements, but we are welcome at this table because Jesus Christ is the host of this table and has invited us to come. 

Gathered around the table of Jesus Christ, His family is recognized as distinctive not because of different roles they play, but because of a table manner ethic they share.  What does that look like?  You know these manners.  You know this treasure.  In the family of Christ, there is open communication marked by a commitment to speaking the truth, but speaking the truth in love.  In the Christian family, members are listened to and are able to listen.  That’s part of what makes us the family.  In the family of Jesus Christ, conflicts and disputes are resolved not by force, but in just and fair ways.  A part of what makes the family of Jesus Christ distinctive is that they have a sense of tradition.  A part of what makes the family of Jesus Christ the family of Jesus Christ is that they live with an ethic of affirmation.  They encourage each other.  They support each other.  A part of what makes this family apparent to people who see it is that there is a context of trust there.  They seek to be trustworthy for each other.  This family is characterized by a common esteem that they have for the different members of the family.  They respect each other.  The family respects one another.  The context of the family of Jesus Christ is the context of forgiveness.  Here is a family system where we seek to offer forgiveness and to claim it not only for ourselves, but to the others who come to sit at the table with us, because of the common way that we have been forgiven by Jesus Christ.

This family has something that we do together chronologically.  In this family system, we share a sense of the Sabbath.  That is to say, we make time for God’s purposes.  We have leisure enough for God’s purposes.  Here you are, on a Sunday morning.  You could be at the beach, I guess.  But here you are, and I am judging that in some way you are setting aside family time to come and to gather around this table.  We have sense enough to lay our work aside, at least long enough to acknowledge that God is able to achieve God’s purposes without us.  We are not God. 

The Christian family has a family meal that the family gathers around.  The Christian family has a sense of right and wrong.  The Christian family has a sense of responsibility, and a part of what makes the Christian family distinctive is the shared vision for God’s agenda. 

This family is marked by a shared vision of seeing God’s purposes as providing the meaning for life.  Such a shared vision in the family is expressed through worship.   That’s where we articulate that vision, and where we are renewed in it.  That shared vision is a witness to the truth in a culture whose materialism and emphasis on sexuality is idolatrous.  This shared family vision is a witness to the truth that there is a larger purpose to the world than ease, leisure, and good times.  In our family, that is to say OUR family, we understand this larger purpose to be best seen in the story of Jesus Christ.  Those who share this family treasure, this legacy which is for you, are marked in their behavior by certain patterns, by table manners.

Paul says, “This is the family meal.”  We are a family, and in the family we behave certain ways, and this is the family meal.  Today.  This supper.  This Lord’s Supper.  We find the family meal.  Here today, we find bread.  Daily bread.  Daily bread for the long journey for life.  For the long affirmation out of the Christian community over two thousand years is that again and again and again, here at this meal we find our faith nurtured.  Not that it’s the only place where we find bread for a living life;  we find it in prayer, we find it also in reading the scriptures.  We find it in Christian fellowship.  We find it in mutual support.  But this continues to be a principle place where we find our faith nurtured, where we find bread for the living of Christian lives.  Even as food nurtures the body, here this food nurtures our spiritual selves.  Paul says this grace was given to us in Jesus Christ, long before the ages began, God was cooking this grace.  He was preparing this meal before we were conceived.  But it has now been revealed, it has been made clear to us and we see it in the appearance of Jesus Christ.  Here we find, in this supper, acted out the gospel of Jesus Christ, conveyed to us in a way that is both understandable and yet at the same time, profound mystery.  And there are lots of things in life like this.   You know what it’s like to live with something that’s intelligible and is a great mystery at the same time.  It’s intelligible.  It’s reasonable to us in that we can describe it and we can talk about it, and we can begin to understand it, but it’s a profound mystery to us in that we can never encase it completely within our reason.  We can never fully describe it.  We can never completely articulate it. 

What we feed on here, what the gospel gives us, is the assurance of forgiveness and the good news of our reconciliation with God.  That’s what the gospel gives us here.  What we find to feed on here, what the gospel gives us, is hope for the present.  Hope and faith that a loving God is in charge of this world, and whose purposes are behind this world.  That’s what the gospel gives us in this meal.

Here we find, in this gospel, meaning and purpose for the living of our lives, for we seek now to live in a way that serves God and glorifies His name and His Son.  Here, in this gospel, in this meal, we find the good news about our hope for the future, and the good news about how God is going to resurrect us into the life everlasting.

This is a family meal.  It gives us the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Family members, the Lord has blessed us in giving us this Gospel.  Let us receive it and pray for one another and be grateful for it.