Did you know that any service of the Episcopal Church that includes communion is required to have a sermon? The church reformers wanted to make sure that scriptures were not only read in church, but understood among the people of a congregation.
The preacher’s job was, and is, to “make plain” the words of our scripture texts so that, when we are invited to share in Holy Communion with Christ and one another, we feel fully a part of the Body of Christ, and united in his purpose.
This call to preach the Gospel has persisted in our tradition for nearly 500 years. But it finds its origin in the very earliest practices of the church, informed by Jewish tradition. Today, in fact, we encounter Jesus delivering his first sermon.
Couched between his 40-day fast in the wilderness and an attempt by the congregation to throw him off a cliff, this scene is the calm in the middle of “many dangers, toils, and snares” throughout Jesus’ ministry.
In the story, Jesus reads a bit of scripture, then sits back down, before preaching nine, carefully chosen words: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In one small scripture text and just nine words, Jesus articulates a comprehensive vision for his ministry. I’ve heard people describe it in various ways: as Jesus’ manifesto, his statement of purpose, his strategic plan, and maybe most apt, his Inaugural Address.
Biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson calls it a “programmatic prophecy.” Which is to say, here, we get a preview of Jesus’ priorities, the ones that will guide his ministry and inform his tactics going forward. Here, we learn what kind of leader Jesus will be.
It’s important to remember that, in Jesus’ day, many people awaited a Messiah, a person anointed by God to carry out his will for transformation. But most imagined a politician, a king, or a war hero. And many wanted a rabble rouser who would ignite a political takeover.
This is why, even at nine words, Jesus’ sermon is provocative. In the same breath, Jesus identifies himself as the Messiah hoped for and outlines a surprising set of tactics for his reign. Instead of building an army to defeat the Roman emperor, Jesus turns his gaze to the downtrodden.
During his reign, he will bring good news to the marginalized, impoverished, and forgotten ones, proclaim release to those trapped by prisons or circumstances, recognize the dignity of the Disabled, liberate and empower the oppressed, and declare the goodness of God for all time.
He will reveal his power paradoxically, by ignoring and forsaking the world’s power networks, walking out of the spotlight, and sitting down in the crowd, among the people he has come to save.
Jesus only needs nine words, because the real sermon isn’t what he says – it’s who he is. The real sermon is his own body.
Jesus will use his heart and mind, his hands and feet – his very life – as the tools of transformation. He will use his own blood, not poured out on the battlefield, but shared at tables with friends and strangers, offered as sustenance for the world.
Jesus’ program is not a strategic plan for domination, but a painstakingly personal, relational effort to care for each person according to their need. It is a blatant refusal of common sense, a waste of resources, and a brutally inefficient system. But that is the way of Jesus: Not a pitch, a campaign, or a policy, but a body, putting itself on the line for the salvation, redemption, and liberation of the world.
Early Christians, understanding themselves as the Body of Christ, took this sermon very literally.
In the earliest years of the Jesus movement, Christ-followers became known for their intensely, egregiously gracious community values:
- Wealthy elites worshipped with enslaved people.
- Jews worshipped with Gentiles.
- Women and men alike served as community leaders (Ludlow, 17).
- Widows were so highly regarded that they became their own order of clergy (Ludlow, 19).
- Babies abandoned due to disability or poverty were adopted and raised by church members (Holland, “Charity”).
- Landowners sold all their property and gave it to the church (Acts 4:37).
- Congregations took up collections for the poor in faraway places, and built housing for them in their hometowns (Pauline epistles, Holland).
And here’s a really wild one: Some, according to first-century bishop Clement, even sold themselves into slavery to provide for the destitute (Ludlow, 19).
In the 4th century, Emperor Julian shared his annoyance with Christians, which he calls Galileans, in a letter to the pagan priest of Galatia: “How apparent to everyone it is and how shameful that our people lack support from us when no Jew ever has to beg and the impious Galileans [Christians] support not only their own poor, but ours as well” (22).
Early Roman persecutions of Christians are thought to have occurred, in part, because Christians were so bent on ignoring the social order. They were refusing to live according to the “way things had always been done.” They didn’t seem to care about hierarchies, cultural boundaries, and political mandates. They were using their bodies and their lives as tools of transformation, pouring themselves out for the sustenance of the world.
Many of them died as martyrs, unwilling to forsake the call of Christ. And yet, their communities were characterized by joy.
How can this be? While early Christians struggled with the same theological disagreements, life circumstances, and wills to power as everyone else, there was a clear goal: Everyone has a place at the table, and everyone is fed.
Of course they were joyful! The early church was like an open-invite dinner party.
And how can you be downtrodden at a dinner party? How can you worry when another course is on its way? How can you fear when everyone you love is here with you, with scars and struggles and stories to tell? How can you grieve when each face around you is shining in the glow of candlelight, lit like the glory of Christ?
How can you be burdened by the risk involved in Christ’s program when you know that this program, his own body, is what got you here? Christ and his followers endured “many dangers, toils, and snares,” putting their bodies on the line for the sustenance of the world.
And the most incomprehensible part of all of this is that he did it, and they did it, for you. You and I are here today because the early Christians took Jesus literally. And because they took him literally, they weren’t willing to give up on the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the disabled, the lost and forgotten ones.
Because they took him literally, we, “who were lost, are found.” Together, we are one body with many members, trying to figure out how to be Christ’s body for the world.
In a nine-word sermon shared while seated, Jesus calls to us, not from the stage but among the crowd, to become one body and one blood, poured out for the sustenance of the world.
So, here’s my own attempt at a nine-word sermon: This is what it means to participate in Communion.
References:
Luke Timothy Johnson, Sacra Pagina Commentary Series: Luke
Morwenna Ludlow, The Early Church
Tom Holland, Dominion
“Crowd” language courtesy of Willie James Jennings (particularly After Whiteness)
Leah Wise 