Communion service on 4th of July week-end often seems an odd pairing to me. themes seem very different, although the theme of sacrifice is found in both. I tried to use the hymn "o Beautiful for Spacious Skies" as an illustration of the call to be transformed. It felt a little forced!
“Dancing with Jesus: Last Supper Stomp” I Corinthians 11: 23-26; Exodus 12: 22-28; July 2, 2023; SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp
I Corinthians 11: 23-26 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Introduction: We continue with our Dancing with Jesus preaching series.
It’s probably a good thing we are not coming forward for intinction this morning or we might have asked you to dance down the aisles!
Move 1: The Last Supper Stomp!
a. I was not surprised to find a dance dealing with the Lord’s Supper
1. I was surprised it was a stomp!
2. A Stomp seems so emphatic - like stomping something out or stomping your feet in anger.
2. When I think of the last supper, I don’t immediately go to stomping.
3. When I read the author’s intent, however, when depicting this dance, I realized he chose a stomp to signify Jesus stomping on betrayal.
4. after all, the Last Supper took place as “Paul describes it, “on the night when he [Jesus] was betrayed.
5. My earliest recollections of Communion–or the Lord’s Supper, as we most often called it in Baptist life–was the ritual beginning with the words, “On the night that Jesus was betrayed. . . .” Not on the night he was arrested, or the last night with his disciples, but the night he was betrayed. And the one who betrayed him stayed for dinner. (https://donteatalone.com/community/lenten-journal-betrayal; 3/24/16; Milton Brasher-Cunningham).
6. For him, the Last Supper over time became all about betrayal and guilt.
b. what comes to mind when you think about celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
1. David Gambrell - more than just the story of the one night; Last Supper
2. maybe fellowship?
or resurrection?
or gift from God?
3. I still can't explain my first communion. It made no sense. I was in tears and physically unbalanced.: I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind. The disconnect between what I thought was happening – I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else say was happening – the piece of bread was the “body” of “Christ,” a patently untrue or at best metaphorical statement; and what I knew was happening – God, named “Christ,” or “Jesus,” was real, and in my mouth – utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything but cry” (59) Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, Sara Miles
4. As we come to the Lord’s Table, there are lots of images we can access;
lots of theological perspectives we can have.
Move 2: Briefly reflect on the Last Supper as a Table of transformation
a. we see the transformation symbolized in the story of the Last Supper.
1. The disciples gather for a Passover meal, but it becomes what is known as the Last Supper.
2. Passover - a ritual meal that remembers the night when the Israelites took the blood of the sacrificed and marked their doorpost.
in the night, the angel of death visited the Egyptian homes as the final plague skipped over the homes of the Israelites that were marked.
3. Passover meal - celebrates death passing over the Israelite homes long ago.
they were told to celebrate this ritual and lay claim to its meaning generation after generation.
4. Along comes Jesus, who gathers for a Passover meal, the ritual still being celebrated, but the ritual Jesus transforms.
Passover, when death passes over, becomes the Last Supper, which celebrates Jesus’ willingness to submit to death instead of having death pass him over.
His choosing not to be passed over, and instead be crucified, transforms the Table by the power of his death and resurrection.
5. Even Jesus’ description of the meal reveals transformation: the bread becomes his body broken for us;
the wine/juice becomes his bloodshed for us.
b. We are invited to this Table to be transformed.
1. Fourth of July is often near a communion Sunday
2. “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies” a patriotic hymn.
3. But notice the words and their call for us to be transformed when we sing
God mend thine every flaw;
or May God thy gold refine
till all success be nobleness
and every gain divine!
A reminder of part of our legacy here in the United States: we are a nation seeking to live into the goodness to which God calls us, which means being transformed
We come to the Lord’s Table to be transformed.
c. Transformed from the world we live into the world we hope for, the world to which God calls us.
1. I saw the musical “Hadestown” recently.
A story from Greek mythology is retold in modern times.
as the story concludes, they sing a song about Orpheus and his gift.
The gift? he could make you see how the world could be in spite of the way that it is.
Can you see it?
We come to the Lord’s Table to be transformed, to be renewed for the work of closing the gap between the world we know and the world that God envisions for us and calls us to work toward.
The gift of Christ is the invitation to this table to be transformed.
Conclusion: spoiler alert - Hadestown finishes the way it begins.
They are going to tell the story again in the hopes that maybe the next time the transformation will be complete.
We come to our Lord’s Table today - joining those who have come before us and those who will come after us,
always in the hope that God’s transforming power will continue to shape and form us, until that day when God’s transformation of the world will be complete.
Exodus 12: 22-28 22Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. 23For the Lord will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down. 24You shall observe this rite as a perpetual ordinance for you and your children. 25When you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this observance. 26And when your children ask you, ‘What do you mean by this observance?’
27you shall say, ‘It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed down and worshiped. 28The Israelites went and did just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.Call to confession: In spite of God’s love for us and gift of love to us, we often close our hearts to God and disobey God’s commandments. Let us confess our sins before God.
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