TITLE: “Feed Your Children, God Most Holy”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read, with focus on these words: For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Our hymn of the month, if you haven’t noticed, is an old Lutheran meal prayer entitled Feed Your Children God Most Holy. You can really tell a lot about a people on the basis of how they pray. Listen for just a moment to the words of this prayer, or you can follow along at hymn 468 if you wish:

Feed Your children, God most holy, Comfort sinners poor and lowly;

You our Bread of Life from heaven, Bless the food you here have given!

As these gifts the body nourish, may our souls in graces flourish

Till with saints in heav’nly splendor At your feast our thanks we render. (LW 468)

If you we to do a theology of eating and prayer on the basis of this hymn, I think you would find that it beautifully expresses our faith in Jesus Christ for the forgivness of sins, and tells us a great deal about how we approach the throne of grace in prayer and in our lives.

Feed Your children, God most holy, Comfort sinners poor and lowly. We are God’s children, and He, even though He is holy and righteous far beyond us, comes down to comfort poor and lowly sinners like you and I. When we approach the table, whether we are talking about the dinner table before the Packers game or the heavenly table of His eternal banquet, how we approach the table says a great deal about us. We have no inherent right as human beings to all of God’s grace and mercy. We don’t deserve it, and yet He continues to abundantly shower His blessings upon us without measure. He feeds our bodies and comforts our souls. That is His work. That is who He is and what He does for you and I.

The next line: You our Bread of Life from heaven, Bless the food you here have given! Jesus, as He reminds us in John Six and in so many of our communion hymns, is the very Bread of Life. He is the one who provides for our every want and need. He is the source of our lives and everything He gives to us each day. Actually, the food that is set before us at both our dinner table and the heavenly table is His. He is the one who gave it to us. Now think about that for a minute. You are the one who worked for it, bought it, cooked it, set the table, gathered the family from the four corners of the earth, and now sit down to enjoy, literally, the fruits of your labors. And yet it is not your food but His. He is the giver. He is the one who gave you the strength and the talents to make the money to buy the food. He is the one who gave you the time to prepare it and the family to eat it. They are all His gifts to you. That is why this hymn so properly makes it so that we pray that God would bless the food He gave us.

The third line: As these gifts the body nourish, may our souls in graces flourish. There is an incredible connection between the gifts of the body and the gifts of the soul. That is why we sometimes sing this hymn during the Lord’s Supper. Every time we sit down to eat a meal at home, on the road, wherever you are, there should be one part of you that is looking to this Altar. Realize God’s gifts to you. He strengthens your body just as He strengthens your soul with His body and blood. Really they go together. Think of it this way. One of our communion hymns ends with, Lord may your body and your blood be for my soul the highest good. But there are other hymns that will talk about how this food can death destroy, and at the blessing you hear the pastor say something like “and now may the true body and very blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ strengthen and keep you, body and soul, in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.” Body and soul. They go together. That’s a part of what makes us Lutherans. Indeed, that is what makes us Christians! God doesn’t just give you spiritual blessings in this life, or only think of things to come. He cares for you now, body and soul, for things today and eternal life tomorrow. Really if you think of it, here in this place today and tomorrow come together at His Altar. It is a wonderful and beautiful thing.

And the final line: Till with saints in heav’nly splendor At your feast our thanks we render. Even as we eat this food for our bodies and food for our souls, it points us to the connection we have with the saints in heaven. Why? Because they all go together. When you sit down to eat and drink with your family, there is always a part of the family that is missing. Your mother or father. Your grandparents, aunts, uncles. Maybe even your children. They may not be with you at that meal, or they may have already gone on ahead to be with Jesus in heaven. But it is not as if they are gone from the table forever. We will be reunited with them in glory. That is the blessing of God that we hope and long for this day and every day.

Proverbs 25 says Do not exalt yourself in the presence of the king, and Jesus in our Gospel text reminds us that we should not make ourselves more than we are when it comes to a banquet. You don’t just go to sit at the head table. You wait until someone else tells you where to sit and where to go. But the real point of our text, and of our hymn, is that you are at the table. God invites you into His presence to eat and drink with Him each and every day, but especially Sunday after Sunday at His Divine Service. This is God’s house. He says to you, come, for all things are ready. I have the food that will give you eternal life. I have the gift which is beyond all understanding. Come, he says. You don’t deserve it but I invite you anyways, because of my great love for you. Come to the table, sit and eat.

Feed Your children, God most holy, Comfort sinners poor and lowly;

You our Bread of Life from heaven, Bless the food you here have given!

As these gifts the body nourish, may our souls in graces flourish

Till with saints in heav’nly splendor At your feast our thanks we render. (LW 468)

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.