Breaking Bread Together
I always thought this vision of Peter’s was very odd.
I confess that, for a long time, I put it in the same category as most of the book of Revelation—a bit too out there and I didn’t really get it.
I mean there had to be a simpler way for God to let us know that we could eat shellfish and bacon.
Don’t get me wrong.
I mean—woo hoo! I LOVE shellfish and bacon.
But is there more going on here than I realized?
First, I think it’s important to say straight off the bat that this is not about God saying that the covenant with Jews was over and it is time for a new covenant.
That is the foundation of antisemitism.
Jesus did not come to create a new religion.
He was an observant Jew.
His lessons and his style of teaching is very Jewish.
Jesus’ message about the Kin-dom—and this vision of Peter’s—is about including Gentiles.
Alongside Jews—and the rest of humanity.
That is an earmark of Jesus’ ministry—inclusion.
Jesus intentionally went to the margins.
He didn’t just preach about the Kin-dom and heal people who were broken in mind, body or spirit.
He fed them.
He sat down and broke bread with them.
Lepers and tax collectors and prostitutes.
He intentionally included people that had been ostracized.
Because that is what the Kin-dom is—true community.
In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “Love one another. And you’re to love one another the way I have loved you. This is how all will know that you’re my disciples: that you truly love one another.”
Jesus says that we are to love one another the way he loves us.
Unconditionally and without exception.
So, any time we put limits on our love for our neighbors, we are not following Jesus’ command.
We are falling short.
And, unfortunately, there is no shortage of examples of how we are falling short.
* This is the part that is missing from the recording *
Our government continues to arrest and detain people of color under the guise of public safety—protecting us from dangerous criminals who have entered the country illegally.
The only problem is that the reality just doesn’t line up with the rhetoric.
Men with no criminal record are being deported.
Women and children are being detained.
Political dissidents are being harassed and persecuted.
All without due process—a fundamental right of all people, not just citizens.
To paraphrase from today’s lesson from Acts, “don’t call illegal who God has called a citizen of the Kin-dom”.
There is also an executive order that dictates the federal government will only recognize two genders—male and female.
That unfounded position has emboldened anti-trans discrimination across the country.
Again, governments at the federal, state, and local levels are doing this under the guise of “protecting women”.
But again, the reality doesn’t align with the rhetoric.
Trans women are not assaulting other women in bathrooms.
Trans women athletes are not depriving other women of opportunities to excel nor are they causing them injuries.
The truth is trans people are at greater risk of assault and homicide.
And advocates are concerned that the current political climate will embolden extremists that would do trans people harm.
One fallout of the executive order is that all references to transgender have been scrubbed from the Stonewall National monument—despite the fact that many of the brave souls who fought back against police brutality against LGBT+ folks were transgender.
To paraphrase from today’s lesson from Acts, “don’t call an abomination who God has called one of God’s children”.
Now, the point of my saying this is not to imply that anyone here is calling undocumented people “illegal” or transgender people an “abomination”.
But when we hear these things and say nothing, it is collusion.
We are not living out our faith.
We are not speaking our truth.
Our silence reinforces the “othering”.
Our failure to stand up encourages the perpetrators—or, at the very least, doesn’t DIScourage them.
Perhaps worse, our immigrant and transgender siblings are injured by our silence—by our failure to stand with them.
* And this is where it picks back up again *
There is an oft-repeated phrase, “no one is free unless we all are free”.
I believe that Jesus would say, “no one is saved unless we all are saved”—because our salvation is bound up with our neighbor’s.
I think it’s fitting that Peter’s vision was about food.
Food is about comfort and fellowship.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and peace activist, said, “Sharing a meal together is not just to sustain our bodies and celebrate life’s wonders, but also to experience freedom, joy, and the happiness of brotherhood and sisterhood, during the whole time of eating.”
I think that touches on something that is important for us to remember as we approach the Table this morning.
Sharing this meal together is about freedom, joy, and the happiness of siblinghood.
Yes, it is about ceremony and sacrament.
But it is also about inclusion and relationship.
Relationship between us and God—and also between each other and the rest of our human siblings.
When we celebrate Communion together, it is an embodiment of justice.
When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me”, he wasn’t asking us to passively hold a memory.
He was inviting us into action.
He was asking us to love God.
He was asking us to love each other as he loves us.
To love each other unconditionally and without exception.
To seek justice for the oppressed and the marginalized.
To continue building the Kin-dom—brick-by-brick.
To continue planting the seeds of faith that will grow.
Now, some of you may be saying, “you’re reading an awful lot into a pretty simple statement”.
Perhaps.
But about the only straightforward thing Jesus said was, “Love God. And love your neighbor.”
The rest of the time he was speaking in parables and riddles.
And although, “Love God. And love your neighbor.” seems pretty straightforward, we could spend hours discussing who is our neighbor.
And a boatload more time discussing HOW do we love God and HOW do we love our neighbor.
So, should it come as a surprise that that simple statement of “Do this in remembrance of me.” might also be layered?
We place a lot of emphasis on the idea that God’s grace is free.
That there is nothing we can do to deserve it.
That we receive God’s grace in abundance every day—with no strings attached.
And yet, there is always this call to action.
And that, my friends, is the answer to how to love god and how to love our neighbor.
We show our love for God by loving our neighbor—following Jesus’ example.
By seeking out those at the margins and welcoming them to break bread with us.
And, when I say that, I’m thinking about breaking bread very expansively.
We can break bread in a physical sense by feeding people who are hungry.
But we can also break bread in an emotional sense by including people who have been “othered”—to show them that we see the image of God in them.
And we can break bread in a spiritual sense by inviting them to this table of forgiveness.
Breaking bread together is community-building.
And, in community, there is hope.
Not blind optimism—but trust in God and what we can do together.
Today’s lesson from Revelation talks about new heavens and a new earth—where we are God’s people and God will be present among us.
It’s talking about the Kin-dom.
And all this talk about including the marginalized—and feeding them: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
All this talk about thinking expansively about how we remember Jesus.
It’s all about building the Kin-dom.
It seems so far off at this moment in time because of terrible things that are happening around us.
Terrible things that divide, rather than unite us.
But Jesus promises that the Kin-dom is near.
And we can participate in bringing it closer still.
So, let’s take away from today’s lessons that we have been given a gift from God.
The gift that we can be co-creators of the Kin-dom.
That we can be agents of God’s love in the world.
That we can be unifiers that help heal the brokenness around us.
Thanks be to God for all God’s gifts!
May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.