University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

“Across Space and Time”

A sermon preached at University Presbyterian Church by

The Reverend Dr. Anna Pinckney Straight

October 7, 2007

2 Timothy 1:1-14 (NRSV)

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God--whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did--when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 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.  

It’s a seemingly innocuous question, a common group icebreaker, a question that inevitably leads to an active discussion.

What was the shape of your childhood family dinner table?

It’s a good question, because it’s difficult for most of us to think of the family table without also thinking of the people with whom you ate and the things that happened there.

Maybe about how you hid the vegetables you didn’t like.

Or the stories told about work and school.

Maybe there were too many different tables to name just one, or no table at all, and that is the story which needs to be told.

It’s more than a question about tables.  It is a question about how you were formed.

For me, it was a rectangular table.  A table where five of us sat, almost every night without fail, for a meal together.  Good day or bad.  Busy or slow.  We ate dinner together. I remember night after night the same thing-  waiting for my father to finish exercising so we could eat.  My mother pacing the cooking just right so that everything would be ready at the same time.   The table where I learned how to argue and debate, first like a bulldozer where everyone who disagreed with me was wrong, and ultimately entering into dialogues where I learned as well as taught.

We are formed by the tables where we gather.  We are formed by the tables where we gather.

Lately, I’ve been hearing lots of discussion about the family table.  Questions about whether or not it will disappear in our modern day, fast moving, three-directions-at-once culture.

And the counter culture movement that seeks to remind us of the importance of families gathering around the table. 

This movement supports their claims with research that consistently finds that children who spend time at table with their families are more likely to make healthier decisions for their ongoing well being, including being significantly less likely to abuse illegal drugs, nicotine, or alcohol.[1]

It’s not the same philosophy as midnight basketball, where you try and keep people in a safe place at hours when they are most likely to get in trouble, it’s the conversations that happen around the table that make the difference.  It’s not the food the dishes or even the linens, or even, I would suggest, whether it is supper or breakfast.  It’s the time.  The time invested in those relationships that tells children they are of worth and wonderful and helps them to be more of whom God created them to be.

It all begins with the table around which we gather today.  The communion table.

This table that changes everything, for it is here where we are invited to be in communion with God.  Not because we are worthy or good, but because we are forgiven and loved.

Of course, it can be hard to see the connections.  After all, what does this table, this square of bread and sip of juice have to do with the Mondays through Saturdays of our lives?

 In his book entitled, “Reclaiming the Bible, Words for the Nineties,” Robert McAfee Brown and his wife, Sydney Thompson, recount a story from a trip they took to the Philippines that included a two hour worship service in a language they did not understand.  At all.

In fact, there was only one word in the entire service they could recognize.  It was the Tagalog word for holy.  “Banal.”

And Robert Brown thought, at first, that “it made no sense. The holy and the banal should be opposites—two different things.”

What they came to realize was something very different.  They tell the story:

“There, the holy—the manifestation of God—was found right there in the midst of the banal, the ordinary, the obvious.  The holy was present in people taking risks, groups working for justice, providing help for AIDS victims, women engaged in ministry to prostitutes…, congregational interventions to the government for the wrongly imprisoned.  It was in the midst of the stuff of everyday life, the banal…

And our struggle is now to make the connections that seemed so obvious… [there]

Connecting the wonder of the spiritual experience to the very down-to-earth realties of our daily life.

Getting kids dressed, breakfasted, and off to school or child care.

Existing in some kind of positive relationship to the person next to us…

We need to become more adept at connecting the inner journey and the outer journey, so that one fortifies the other, so that our work in the community and in the public realm is enriched by the life of the spirit and that our spiritual life is enriched, informed, and grounded, in the actualities of our struggle for justice in the community.  We must learn to live more easily with our prayers for each other here in the church around the communion table, and our ‘calls to act’ when we leave church. The calls are our invitation to each other to be involved with and to support each other, as we move from the circle of our lives here in the church to the ordinary, yes, the banal world in which we live, just as we need to come from those involvements to be enriched and nourished by our gathering together around our common table here at church.”[2]

We gather here today in a particularly connected way.  We gather with other Christians around the world.  Far and wide.  Different nations.  Different languages.  Different parties.  Different opinions.  Different ways of life.  We gather around one table.  Not tolerating our differences, but embracing our common humanity.

This table where we eat and drink and remember.

We gather with the communion of saints, all those who have gone before us, loved and known, unknown and loved by God, all the same.  For Paul, it is Lois and Eunice.  For me, John and Wilma and Margaret.  Your names.  Our names.  Those who have come before.  And those who are still to come.

This table where we eat and drink and remember.

We gather at this table across space and time. 

We are gathered at this table by a God whose love is taller than the mountains and deeper than the sea.

And it is all so that when we go out from this place we will be different.  Opened.  Seeing with broad vision.  Living with hopeful hearts.

We do this so we can leave this place and gather around other tables. Peace tables.  Coffee tables.  Library tables.  Dinner tables.  Visiting room tables. Conference tables.  Excel tables.

They all begin with the communion table.  This place where we are brought into communion with God and are, as a result, brought into communion with one another.

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.  

Let us guard this good treasure not by holding it in and protecting it, but by spreading it far and wide.

Let us celebrate the sacrament and live more fully in the sacred.

This is the Lord’s table, and our Savior invites all those who trust in him to share in the feast that he has prepared.

Amen.