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A Sermon by
Donel McClellan
A Sermon by
Donel McClellan Our Journey to Jerusalem One of the more controversial suggestions I made as pastor of this church was
to consider getting round tables for the fellowship hall. As soon as the idea
was out of my mouth it was under attack. “What’s wrong with our old
rectangular tables?” I like them because I can talk to the
person across from me,” someone said. "Round tables are too inefficient,” claimed
another, “we don’t have enough space for them.” And they backed up their
argument with a diagram which purported to show that we could seat more people
at rectangular rather than round tables. Eventually, the church agreed to get a few round tables and people had an
opportunity to try them out. Guess what? Folks liked them. “They allow us to
feel more a part of the community since we can see everyone else at the table,”
said one. Another observed, “I have drawn a diagram and we can seat more
people at round tables than at the old rectangular ones.” Round, square, or rectangular tables. Does it really make a difference? It
does in our home. For almost all of our married life we have eaten at round
tables. With three children and two parents it seemed the fairest way to arrange
ourselves for meals. There is no head to a round table and they invite
conversation. Our meals often were frequently long because conversation and
debate are most always part of the McClellan family dining experience. A friend
once told us that she loved having our children visit at mealtime. Their family
tended to eat in silence, but one McClellan at the table was enough to engender
lively conversation. Joy Harjo, American poet of the Muscogee tribe wrote about a family table in
her poem, Perhaps the World Ends Here. http://arts.endow.gov/explore/Writers/Harjo.html (Use your web browser to read the
poem-- then return to the sermon) From the intimacy of family tables the prophet Isaiah transports us to the
world’s end, the Day of the Lord. The location is God’s dwelling place. In
Isaiah’s time, the image for that was the mountain top where human beings and
God had encounters. Abraham took Isaac up the mountain to offer him as a
sacrifice. There they met God’s angel who provided a lamb for sacrifice and
spared Isaac for another purpose. Moses met God on the mountain and returned
with the Ten Commandments. So Isaiah paints a vivid image of the final gathering. On this mountain the God of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich
food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged
wines strained clear. The day of the Lord is to be a dinner. The finest corn-fed Iowa beef, wines
from the choicest vintages. I imagine there will be tables for the guests, but I
don’t know whether they will be round or rectangular. And the guests? Who are
they? Interestingly enough, they are not just the Jewish people. They are
representatives from all nations. All people rejoice in the God of their
salvation, and all people sit at table together at the heavenly banquet. Jesus picked up this image and lobbed it right into the middle of our
Christian Liturgy. We are the people of God who gather around the Table of the
Lord. We know that Jesus ate with the rich and the poor. In fact, he was hounded
for including poor outcasts at his meals alongside the wealthy and respected.
Each week at the 9:00 a.m. service our communion liturgy includes these words: So let us prepare to eat and drink as Jesus taught us: Inviting the stranger
to our table and welcoming the poor. May their absence serve to remind us of the
divisions this Eucharist seeks to heal. And may their presence help transform us
into the Body of Christ we share. Isaiah says that what we have to look forward to is sitting at table with
God. The shroud of death will be lifted. We will recognize people from every
nation seated with us at the table. And God will remove from our consciousness
our disgrace, our pain, and our tears. Joy will reign on the mountain of the
Lord and we will “be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation.” My question to you is this. Does anyone outside the church understand that
this is the primary vision which shapes out life and guides our journey as the
people of God? I doubt that many people would identify this vision as representative of the
Christian Church. I suspect that the church is seen by the world as anything but
heading towards a celebration of inclusiveness, justice, and dinner with God.
Our culture sees the Christian Church as an agent of conflict, a bastion of
scientific ignorance, a temple of intolerance and a handmaiden of patriarchy.
How have we failed so miserably? How have we lost sight of our guiding vision? P.D. James, the wonderful English mystery writer is also a practicing
Christian. In her autobiography, Time To Be in Earnest, she confesses
that high ideals for literature are nearly impossible today. No longer can
writers aspire to move their audiences to new insights of moral or religious
reform. One culprit is the ubiquitous, coarsening, triumph of television. The
omnipresence of audio visual media robs the imagination of its flexibility and
power. P.D. James believes that our culture’s real sickness reflects the
collapse of the Christian liberalism that once undergirded Western art and
society. James fleshes out what she means by Christian liberalism as she writes about
her education: We were taught, as much by example as precept, to respect our minds and to
use them; to examine the evidence before rushing in with our opinions; to
distinguish between fact and theory; to see history through the eyes of the poor
and vanquished, not merely those of the powerful and the conquerors; not to
believe that something was true simply because it would be pleasant or
convenient if it were, and, when exposed to propaganda, to ask ourselves, “In
whose interest is it that I should believe this?” 2 By Christian James means to affirm that we live in a world of value
and consequence. By liberal she supports an autonomy and pluralism which
provides people the opportunity to choose among many morally valuable forms of
life. The problem is that the religious underpinnings of Christian liberalism have
eroded and our culture is spinning madly off like a kite cut loose from its
string. Liberalism has morphed into libertarianism, and autonomy has been raised
to the highest degree. The far side of this mood denies that we are obligated to
any ends not freely chosen by ourselves. P.D. James asks, how we can recover
ethical and religious values in a work having no “immutable value
system, [no] accepted view of the universe and [our] place in it, [no] set of
ethical rules of conduct to which all right-minded people conform”? Perhaps it is time for liberal Christianity to reassert its vision. Perhaps
it is time for the church to fix it’s focus on the great ultimate images of
faith, and to direct its business by those mystical goals. Isaiah imagined a dinner on God’s mountain. John picks up the vision and
clothes it in new imagery more appropriate to the times in which he wrote.
Isaiah lived among nomads who journeyed with their flocks. John writes from
prison in an age where the power of the emperor and the power of the wealthy
threaten to destroy the fledgling Christian church. Where Isaiah’s vision is
rural, John’s is urban. From Isaiah’s mountain of God we move to John’s
city the New Jerusalem. The new Jerusalem appears only after the old orders of the world are
destroyed. No more military-industrial complex. No more PAC money silently
pressuring the electorate. No more aggressive nations invading weaker countries.
No more terrorism. No more ozone depletion. When God comes, all that is
imperfect will be destroyed. In its place will be the gift of a New Jerusalem where God will take up
residence among us, where all tears and all fears will be taken away. Everyone
will live in plenty and all nations will bring their gifts to enrich the
heavenly city. This is the spiritual goal towards which our faith points. This is the end of
our journey to Jerusalem. I would like to invite you to allow these images of
God’s ultimate purposes into your imagination. Read the texts at home.
Consider how our world might be shaped more closely to the image of a heavenly
banquet or a perfect city. Allow the themes to influence your prayer and your
action: Intimacy with God How might these visions shape your live? How ought they to shape your church? Jerusalem, my happy home, Amen. Notes: 1. Joy Harjo, Perhaps the World Ends Here, —from The Woman Who
Fell From The Sky, 1994 2. Quoted by Ralph C. Wood, Deep Mysteries: The World of P.D. James, The
Christian Century, September 27-October 4, 2000, p.960 http://arts.endow.gov/explore/Writers/Harjo.html
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