Recipe for Abundance

Have you been to the Farmers Market here in our parking lot on Tuesday afternoons? It is filled with wonderful things, corn and tomatoes and Swiss chard, honey, goat’s cheese and baked goods and soup. Apples and pears are arriving and the plums are sweet. There is lettuce, beets, kale. All this produce has come off the land close by. People are flocking here to find the fresh and tasty, the healthy and delicious, the fulfilling and the filling. It’s a pleasure to behold. We are blessed to have such ready access to real food. It is a real ministry to the neighborhood for folks who use the market as a convenient and reasonably priced way to eat fresh food, and of course it supports local agriculture as well, a double bonus.  Of course, while it looks easy for the customers, we know that it comes with a lot of behind the scene work of organizing and setting up and putting away.  My thanks, our thanks, to those who make it happen each week, Tara Mirto, Jay Hirsch, with help from Richard Davis. Thank you for your ministry among us, and to all who have helped in other ways.

Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight O God, our rock and our Redeemer.  AMEN.

August is the best month, I think, for cooking and for eating.  August is a harvest month. The first fruits of fall are coming in and the richness of the summer produce at its height.  When we eat well and see the colors, forms and varieties of fruits and vegetables around us, we touch a bit of the wonder of creation.  And as I have said, while I am partial to our farmers market, and other local farm stands, we can even experience the same sense of bounty in the supermarket at this time of year.  One summer, while at my local supermarket, distractedly doing my food shopping, a woman came up to me, entirely unbidden, and said, “Isn't it amazing what God has prepared for us?”  I was stunned, because this is not the usual conversation that one has in the produce aisle between the iceberg lettuce and the cucumbers, but she was quite sincere, and it was very touching to hear this testimony of faith. I don't know why or how she picked me to say this to, but her comment certainly altered my experience of food shopping that day and ever since. 

And those who garden also experience marvelous bounty,  right at their doorstep.  Gardeners have the seemingly miraculous experience of going out to the backyard or the patio and harvesting vegetables which were just small seeds a few months ago. 

Abundance is all around us, all year round of course, but especially in August. 

Today's scripture from Luke does talk about meals and feasting, and abundance but indirectly. It is at first glance, about humility, and pride.  It contains one of those great Jesus hard to forget one-liners, “She who exalts herself will be humbled and who humbles herself will be exalted."

What follows seems to be a recipe for how to organize a social event.  “Don't invite your friends and relatives who can return the invitation, but go out and invite the poor and the lame who cannot.” So while eating and feasting are the context, Jesus seems to take a different tack than that of speaking directly about the abundance of God. 

Its not surprising that Jesus uses the image of eating and drinking in his stories.  He was known as a partygoer. The powerful people who observed him considered Jesus to be too much of socializer, too much of a drinker. Jesus’ participation in banquets and feasts was for him a sign of the reign of God, a foretaste of the kingdom when all would have enough and all would sit at the table together. In a society in which the haves and the have-nots were strictly separated,  this caused scandal and criticism. By eating and drinking with all sorts of people who were rejected by society, Jesus was saying that God was a partner. A table partner to all humans no matter what their class or background. The heavenly banquet was open to all and Jesus was inaugurating this feast by his inclusive presence. 

It is in this context, in the face of his welcome for all at these meals, that we can understand the idea of humility and its opposite, putting oneself first. At God's table, there is no need to rush to the head, for there is a place for all.  It’s not necessary to be anxious about where one is going to sit, or how much food is available and who is going to notice us. All are equal; all are going to be fed. In fact it is counter-productive to rush to the front, because, that might not be the place that we are assigned. So relax! All are included and anyway, the table is round, all are seated in a circle of community. 

And, when we make a party, don't only include those whom we know, for the heavenly banquet includes all, many of whom we don't know and many we think don’t look deserving.  But they are. So let’s make room for them. 

This is radical proposition, and not only for those who first heard those words.  When we think about it, we might become a bit anxious--what do you mean, invite all these outsiders? It’s hard enough to keep up with returning the favors and meals to which we have been invited. Is it necessary to do even more? Go even further? Even in August with all its bounty, we are wont  to draw limits on whom we include. 

But Jesus is not prodding us toward a literal reading of these words. He is going deeper, I think, towards the idea of keeping score, of counting up who owes whom and making sure that like is returned to like. Social rules often  keep us trapped in convention and custom, and Jesus pushes against these rules. Because in a tit for tat world, no one is ever free to simply enjoy. Everybody is keeping score, and missing the main thing on the menu, the abundant grace of God. 

When we keep score, it’s hard to be humble. Its hard to relax as well and have a good time when we are checking out the other person’s status, and wondering if we fit in and subtly or not so subtly pushing toward the head of the table.

So, by describing God's table, Jesus is giving us a recipe, but it’s not a recipe of how to succeed or a recipe of how to get ahead. 

Jesus is giving us a recipe for abundant life.

Jesus instruction is not a recipe of how to do something, but a recipe for a new and different way of being.

And here are some of the ingredients: Willingness. Openness. Attention. Delight in what is. Letting God be God and letting go of false pride and social expectation. And many more ingredients of faithful living.

If  we combine these in our own special pattern, we will have peace of mind and feel love and give love and find our place at God's table. 

Like all good recipes, Jesus’ recipe for abundance allows for the inventiveness of the cook.  It allows us to pick what is offered of the fullness of faithful living and encourages us to combine these ingredients in our own ways. God encourages us to fool around with our individuality and wants us to taste the delights of faith.  For as much as God wants anything from us it is for us to be ourselves, unique, individual. But God is also saying, through this story and the others of abundance and feasting, that all are welcome at the table. And as we take our places with humility,  we will be truly fed and truly nourished. That is the heavenly banquet that Jesus has come to announce and to inaugurate. 

And we might say that it looks a bit like this tale, taken from Jewish folklore: 

“A rabbi asked the question: What is the difference between heaven and hell?  In hell, the sight is horrifying, Row after row of table are filled with platters of sumptuous foods, yet the people seated were pale and emaciated, moaning in hunger, practically starving.  Every person held a spoon, but their arms were splinted so that the arms could not bend. The food could not reach their mouths and although they could see it and smell it, they could not eat. 

In Heaven the table was set the same way, row and after row of delicious food. And their arms too were splinted, so they could not bend.  But in heaven, everyone was well fed.  How did they manage to eat?   The rabbi goes on to say, “ As I watched, a person picked up his spoon…and stretched across the table and fed the person across from him. And the recipient thanked the benefactor by leaning across the table to feed him as well”. 

The abundance of God is always in front of us, but unless we are willing to feed others, to be in relationship, to reach out, we live in a kind of hell. That is why we can never be complacent about the hunger of others, in places  around the world, and in our own New Havenarea. We are blessed with many good things and it is our responsibility to share the blessings we have received.   For the good things that we have, we receive as gifts, and that knowledge is the basis of true and honest humility. 

All is gift. When we know this our pride falls away, and we touch abundance. 

If we are humble, if we let ourselves be fed, if we feed others, invite the outcaste and know that we ourselves are invited by grace and not through our own efforts, then we know the heavenly banquet is right here and right now. 

This is the great good news of today's lesson about humility at the harvest table, and in life. It’s not a hard rule about being humble.  It is the opposite, an gentle invitation to communion with God, where what is shared is truth and grace and love. Where all are welcome to receive the same. And when we know that we are invited, not by our merit but simply through God’s grace, we will not rush to the head of the table but will take our right place. For at this table everyone is at God's right hand, feasting on the full portion of grace, feasting at the meal of love. Feeding each other across the table, working so that no one goes hungry.  And letting ourselves be touched by the gift of others care.

This is a recipe for abundant life, and we can live it in this full, fruitful month of August.  And in every other, month and, moment, as we receive the gifts of God’s abounding grace, and give thanks with humility.  Amen