josephholubsermons


 

             April 9, 2009
            Maundy Thursday
            Mark 14:17-25

A Meal of Many Meanings

Tonight we gather around an event recorded in the gospels known as The Last Supper.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all recount Jesus eating the Passover meal with his disciples.  The Gospel of John does not.  John has Jesus sharing a meal with his disciples the day before Passover, a meal at which he washed their feet.  Each gospel writer's account of the meal event differed from the others.  The reason: Because each gospel writer's faith community experienced the meaning of Jesus differently, so the story took a different shape according to the meaning they put to it. 

The individual stories in the gospels are best seen and understood in the context of the gospel in which it appears.  Each gospel represents a different faith community, and tonight I read the familiar story of The Last Supper from the gospel of Mark.  Mark's version of the story is different from Matthew's and Luke's version and vastly different from the way John tells the story.  .   

The telling and interpretation of each of the versions of the Last Supper of Jesus are best understood in the context of the gospel in which it appears. So, for a few minutes we will climb into the Gospel of Mark to better see what this story meant for Mark's faith community, and what it can mean for us.   

For Mark's community, this final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples has multiple meanings.  I have entitled this sermon, "A Meal of Many Meanings."  The story connects with other stories in the gospel, and in so connecting, adds to and fills out the meaning of the story. I will briefly look at four very rich meanings as Mark presents the story. 

The first meaning could be described as "Guess who's coming to dinner?"  Jesus sharing meals with others was one of the distinctive characteristics of his public activity.  Jesus' meal practice was often highly criticized by his opponents and adversaries.  The respectable religious community was scandalized by Jesus' meal fellowship and aggressively asked, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"[i]  The issue was that Jesus ate with undesirables, fellowshipped with the marginalized and outcasts.   Table fellowship in biblical times was monumentally significant.   The culture of New Testament times put a high premium upon who one shared table fellowship.  Sharing a meal in their culture was considered a deep bonding experience as well as affirmation and acceptance of the one with whom you shared the meal. 

Jesus' dining habits with the marginal had huge religious and political implications.  It was religiously significant because it was done in the name of the Kingdom of God. It was politically significant because it affirmed a different vision of society than the status quo of strict religious and social boundaries.  Jesus' final meal with his disciples is a reminder that Jesus' guest list included those that were not included at the dining tables of the religious and righteous of his time - and according to Mark, it even included one he knew was going to betray him. 

So, the first thing is the table hosted by the Lord Jesus, is an inclusive table that knows no boundaries and offers the world God’s vision of inclusiveness.

A second thing is that in Jesus' final meal we hear an echo of the story of the feeding of the five thousand.  Notice Mark's detailed description of how Jesus handled the bread.  Mark says that Jesus "took" the bread, "blessed" the bread, "broke" the bread, and "gave" the bread.[ii] 

In the sixth chapter of Mark, we see exactly the same words in the story of the Feeding of the 5000.  In that story we see the exact same sequence of words that Jesus, "took, blessed, broke and gave" the loaves and fishes.[iii]  It's intentional on Mark's part so that his readers would see a connection between the two meals. 

The scenario was this in Mark 6: Thousands of people have listened to Jesus teach throughout the day.  It is late and they are hungry.  The solution offered by the disciples is predictable and reasonable, "Send them away."  In other words, send them away for we can't be bothered.  We are not equipped to feed so many.  We are not responsible.  Send them away to fend for themselves.

The disciples response is an all too common response of haves towards have-nots; the strong to the weak; oppressors to the oppressed: fend for yourselves! 

Jesus offers an alternative solution that seems quite impossible, "You give them something to eat," he said.  The disciples are perplexed and paralyzed, so Jesus leads them through a most amazing process. 

 Jesus has them find what food is available (five loaves and two fish); has them make the people sit down in groups; has them distribute the food that he has blessed, and then has them pick up what is left over (twelve full baskets). 

The amazing thing about this meal story is that Jesus took, blessed, broke and gave what was already available.  After the available food passed through Jesus' hands, it fed a multitude.  If we look at this story beyond the literal we see that the story is not really about multiplication.  When we read the story more metaphorically, the point of the whole story is that when available bread passes through Jesus hands, hands that represent the distributive social justice of the kingdom of God, there is more than enough to go around!  The point of the story is not multiplication, but distribution. As disciples of Jesus, who came announcing the Kingdom of God, we are called to participate in the process of God's distributive justice.

Every world hunger expert on the planet will tell there is enough food on this planet to feed everyone.  There is not a food shortage.  It is not a food multiplication problem.  It is a distribution problem, and that is a justice issue.  The disciples did not see it to be their responsibility to feed the multitude. Their solution was to leave everyone to fend for themselves, but Jesus showed them another way, the way of the Kingdom.  He showed them they were to be agents of God's distributive justice.

So, the second thing is, with the feeding story of 5000 as backdrop, Mark's community understood the Last Supper and their regular commemoration of it, as a commissioning to be the hands of Jesus in God's distributive justice.

The third thing is The Last Supper was the Passover Meal celebrating liberation.  By sharing the Passover Mark intends for his readers to see a connection between Jesus' public ministry and the Passover.  The Passover was the Jewish story of bondage, deliverance and liberation.   It was the most important story of the Jewish people. 

The Passover commemorated the Last Supper in Egypt centuries before, and its purpose was to remember God's liberating activity.  But it was not merely a remembrance of the past, but a celebration of longed for liberation in the present.  The night before he was to be executed on a Roman cross, Jesus shared the Passover that commemorated liberation from an oppressive imperial oppressor - the Egyptians.  If you substitute the Roman Empire for the Egyptians it is not hard to see the Jesus sharing the Passover meal embraced the longings of the people for liberation from the new oppressor - Rome.

One of the earliest meanings of the cross for those first followers of Jesus was that Jesus' death was an indictment of the oppressive Roman system and its collaborators.  Jesus' death symbolized and exposed the oppression that the peasant masses experienced under Roman and temple rule.  So, the third thing is that Mark's community understood their regular reenactment of the Last Supper as a new Passover that included their longings for liberation and God's desire that oppression come to an end. 

The fourth thing is Jesus made a connection of the bread with his body; and the cup with his blood.  This eventually came to be interpreted as a reference to Jesus as the sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.  But that is not the meaning that Mark's community affixed to these words.   Mark makes no explicit or implicit references to Jesus death as a sacrifice for sin.

We must recall that in the 8th chapter of Mark Jesus issued his great challenge when he said to the crowd that had gathered around him, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of gospel, will save it." 

For Mark's community of faith that's what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.  It meant to take up one's cross and follow.  It was a road that called for a life sacrificial love; of giving oneself away for the sake of the Kingdom of God. It could literally mean the giving of one's life; or metaphorically mean giving oneself away in love and service to the neighbor. 

For Mark's community, when Jesus passed the bread and cup, it was an invitation into his way of life; his kind of life; the way of the taking up the cross and following Jesus into an experience of dying and rising; death and new life; letting go of old ways of thinking and living and embracing new ways of thinking and living - the ways of the Kingdom of God.  

Tonight we commemorate and reenact the Last Supper of Jesus according to Mark.  We reenact it every Sunday in this faith community.  It's a centerpiece of our life together.   It's a meal of many meanings: a meal celebrating the inclusive grace of God that has no boundaries of exclusion; a meal in which we are re-commissioned to be the hands of Jesus and the heart of God empowered to be about the mission of God's distributive justice; a new Passover that makes paramount God's desire that all forms of oppression cease; a meal that invites us into the way of Jesus, taking up the cross, the path from death to new life.