And the table will be wide: a sermon on Habbakuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4

In July of this year, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Cali, Colombia to participate in the Global Baptist Peace Conference. You may have heard about this event: it happens every 7-10 years and is sponsored by Baptist denominations around the world. I attended in part because Seattle First Baptist has been involved in justice issues near and far for many years, as well as because I serve on the Board of Directors for the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America~Bautistas por la Paz, one of the organizations that sponsored this year’s conference. The Baptist Peace Fellowship has been an incredible gift in my life over the past five or six years, as I have learned more about the kin-dom of God from these peacemakers striving for a better world than from anyone else. At the Global Baptist Peace Conference, there were over 400 people from over 36 countries represented, who spoke more than 60 languages. There were children as young as infants and elders in their 90s. There were youths from Colombia whose families had been disappeared and murdered during the guerilla clashes with government forces; seminary professors from Myanmar who witness against the oppression of indigenous peoples; Baptist faith leaders from the Republic of Georgia who advocate for LGBTQ rights; indigenous Mayans from Chiapas, Mexico who are climate activists; pastors from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe who dreamed about one day sending aid to the USA instead of the other way around. And me, a young pastor who works with children and youth. And two folks from Seattle First Baptist Church, and Rev. Doug Avilesbernal, our Executive Minister of Evergreen, and Josue Gomez, the President of American Baptist Churches-USA. To say I felt out of my depth would be accurate: what did I have to offer to these accomplished peacemakers? What did I have to give, as an Anglo-USAmerican whose country has been complicit in much of the violence facing some of the other countries gathered there? But as we went about the week, I felt I was praying with my presence, and I leaned into my discomfort in a spirit of honesty and transparency as I sought to gain skills to heal the world. For just one week, an incredible diversity of people gathered at the United Baptist Seminary of Colombia for a week of worshipping, listening to stories, sharing skills, praying together, eating and dancing salsa. And all of these activities were communion. And on World Communion Sunday, I remember the faces of those I broke bread with; those I danced with at a salsa club called “The Devil’s Cauldron,”; those whose workshops I attended as I desired to expand my skills as a peacemaker; those who literally served me the bread and the cup during our closing worship. All of these were communion.All of these activities, eating and dancing and drinking and hugging and learning and worshipping, were communion because they helped me remember who Jesus is, and what Jesus did.As I shared simple meals of arroz con frijoles and chicken and salad, I remembered how Jesus ate...a lot. He is eating SO much of the time in the gospels, and that reminds me that Jesus was human. He hungered and thirsted, just as we all do. As I danced at the salsa club with people from 20 countries, I remembered how Jesus went to a wedding, participated in community celebrations, and was capable of feeling joy. How he lived in a body that maybe danced, maybe moved to the music, maybe remembered dance steps from learning them alongside his mother and father. As I learned about the sociopolitical history of Colombia, as I paid attention to the stories of teenagers who were teaching other teenagers about conflict resolution, as I received stories about people traveling with the migrant caravans headed towards the United States, I remembered how Jesus taught all who follow him to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. And as I tore a small piece of bread and dipped it in grape juice, I received the blessing of knowing and being known as someone made in the imago Dei, the image of God. As we know all too well, this awareness of others as God’s image bearers is all-too-rare in today’s world. As we watch the news, as we talk to loved ones who live all across this country and all over the world, we hear over and over stories of relationships not as they should be, of abuse, of discrimination, of imprisonment. Perhaps at times we could join with the prophet Habbakuk in saying “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?” “Violence!” we cry out, looking at the detention of immigrants at the borders (and within the borders) of this nation. “Violence!” we cry out, listening to the bombings and war cries and weeping of mothers like Rachel, looking for her children. “Violence!” we cry out, feeling the earth shaking under our feet and the sea levels rising and human-made structures collapsing to the ground. And yet...like Habbakuk, the prophet who converses with God, who is openly frustrated with the Divine, we may pause in our angst and recall that we, too, have seen a vision of a different way of living. We, too, have seen the kin-dom of God among us. We, too, have seen the imago Dei in the face of those we “other”. Habbakuk’s vision is the second part of our Scripture today, as he announces that even though times seem dire, there is reason to have faith, there is reason to hope, there is reason to continue trusting God. In the second chapter of Habbakuk, after listening to Habbakuk’s concerns and frustrations, God responds to the prophet, saying, “Keep the faith. Share the vision you have been given, because it is coming. Justice is coming.”That’s what we were doing at the Global Baptist Peace Conference. Sharing the vision. Telling our stories, making it plain on tablets so all could read and know, reminding each other to keep the faith. Justice is coming. And that’s what we are doing today, on World Communion Sunday. Across the whole globe, people are gathering for worship and to share communion. But we do have to acknowledge that World Communion Sunday is a bit weird. For one, as Protestants who usually only share communion one Sunday per month, we can be tempted to think of the Lord’s Supper as special. And, in a way, it is special. It is a gift from God, a way of communing with the Holy One, a path to remembering Jesus Christ. But it is also not special: it is ordinary, it is commonplace, it is something that makes us who we are as Christians. One blog I read about this reads: “But if Holy Communion really is the Church’s signature rite, if it is indeed that which makes the Church what it is, then “special” is exactly what it is not. We don’t think of the air we breathe as “special,” the breakfast we eat as “special.” These things are gifts, of course–breath and food–but it is in their givenness, their ordinariness that they are the means for life and health.” And I wonder why we only set aside one day a year to be World Communion Sunday? Why the first Sunday of October? Why only once a year? Shouldn’t every day we share communion be a world communion Sunday, where we remember and honor those who are sharing this same meal all over the globe? And shouldn’t every meal we eat, like the rice and beans in Cali, Colombia, be communion? Shouldn’t everything we do be reminding us of the life of Jesus the Christ? Shouldn’t everything we do, from eating to drinking to dancing to embracing to learning to worshipping be an activity in which we recognize God’s love for us? So, in light of those questions, I choose to think of World Communion Sunday like this: There are some things that transcend language, race, ethnicity and geography...and communion is one of those things. I believe that it even transcends time. As we gather at the table today, let us remember that Jesus gathered with his friends and community, the men and women and children, the young and old and in-between, Jews and Gentiles and all sorts of people. It may not have been easy for them all to gather there, being different and carrying cultural expectations and assumptions about the others. But Jesus stood in the gap, between people who were different, uniting them as family; between different ways of worshipping, gathering them in one Spirit; between age groups, making all people siblings in Christ. Though we may have good reason to cry out, “Violence!” and “How long, O Lord?” right now, be assured, justice is coming. Peace is coming. Across the world, people who bear the image of God are working to bring about change, to be in solidarity with “the least of these,” to change situations of oppression. Across the planet, on this World Communion Sunday, the vision of God’s coming kin-dom is alive and well, being made plain by the work of ordinary people like you and me. And so today, I ask you: What is your vision for the future? What will the kin-dom of God look like? What will Jesus’ table be like? In closing, I offer these words from a favorite poet, Jan Richardson: AND THE TABLE WILL BE WIDEAnd the tablewill be wide.And the welcomewill be wide.And the armswill open wideto gather us in.And our heartswill open wideto receive.And we will comeas children who trustthere is enough.And we will comeunhindered and free.And our achingwill be metwith bread.And our sorrowwill be metwith wine.And we will open our handsto the feastwithout shame.And we will turntoward each otherwithout fear.And we will give upour appetitefor despair.And we will tasteand knowof delight.And we will become breadfor a hungering world.And we will become drinkfor those who thirst.And the blessedwill become the blessing.And everywherewill be the feast. May it ever be so. Amen. This sermon originally preached October 6, 2019 at Japanese Baptist Church, Seattle, WA.