TITLE: “The Lost Art of Eating”

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.

Do you remember the good old days, when families gathered together on a regular basis, we call it daily, and actually ate together. I think sometimes that eating is a lost art. Oh make no mistake about it, we consume plenty of food. Our culture is one where we are obsessed with food like no other culture in the world. We consume everything that is in front of us, be it good or bad. Take take take, in in in, it all goes into the great mouth of American greed. Whatever it is, we cannot get enough of it.

But what we have by and large lost is the art of eating, at least eating together. We have forgotten that eating is at least in part about rejoicing in receiving God’s gifts. About six weeks ago one of the great leaders of the art of cooking and eating well died. Yes, I’m talking about Julia Child. Julie Child’s basic point, if you can boil down her recipes and distill them to their basic essence, was this: God didn’t make anything that a little more butter can’t help. But if you were to actually read some of the introductions to Child’s cookbooks and the like, you would find that for her, cooking wonderful food was a gift to be treasured and enjoyed, because it was a gift from God. You didn’t just stuff your face with food. That’s what animals do. God created a world of wonderful variety and flavors, and, with a little more butter, the combinations are simply marvelous.

But like any truly good gift, it must shared in order to be enjoyed. Who ever heard of receiving a wonderful gift and keeping it to yourself? What kind of joy is that, sitting around like Ebenezer Scrooge, trying to keep all of your gifts to yourself, in some fear that someone else may take them from you. The only thing which may be more obnoxious than that would be the thought of bragging about gifts that are given to you as if you earned them, or of presuming that you deserve to be at the front of the table.

That, of course, is what is happening in our Gospel reading for today. Jesus is at a banquet with the Pharisees. A man comes to with a terrible disease called dropsy. We call it edema today. The man comes to Jesus, and Jesus seeks to heal him. Now this scandalizes the Pharisees, who are far more concerned with where they sit at the Table than the gifts that God had given them that day. They are scandalized that Jesus would consider healing this man on the Sabbath. Jesus, in his typical fashion, gets to the heart of the matter. Which of you, having an ox or a donkey who has fallen into a pit, would not pull him out on the Sabbath?

That’s what Jesus is getting at. Ownership. If you own something then you take care of it. You do whatever you need to do to keep it safe, so that it can do what it is supposed to do. You don’t go out and buy a new car and never change the oil. It would be bad investing. Or if you were to go buy a house, would you just let the house run down until it was worthless? Of course not! You’d take care of it, pay the bills, do whatever you needed to do.

What Jesus is saying is that God owns you. You are His because you were baptized into His name. You are a part of God’s family. Now it is His work to take care of you. Not yours. You are the one in the pit like the donkey or the son or the ox in our text. You’re stuck, and you can’t get out. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try and scramble to figure it out on your own, you can’t get out.

But this is the point. Because you are God’s child, because God has put His name on you, He has promised to take care of you. He has promised to pull you out of the pit and put you back on dry ground. That is the work of the Sabbath. The word Sabbath means rest, and Jesus says that you have a Sabbath-rest in Him. He’s done the work of your salvation and life. He’s done it all. He is your Sabbath, your final rest. There is no scrambling, not striving after position or salvation in His Church. It is His work to pull you out.

And furthermore, because God owns you, because you are his and he is yours, that means you have a place at the table. You belong at the Table of God’s House, dining on the finest that He has to offer you. Why? Because you belong here. You don’t belong here because you’re worked your way to the table, or because of anything you have done. If it were left to what you do, you wouldn’t deserve to be here at all. Notice, though, I didn’t say you deserve to be at God’s Table. I said you belong at God’s Table. Why? Because God loves you. Because God has brought you to this time and place to be with him and to receive all of his wonderful gifts.

So what does all of this have to do with Julia Child and how much butter we put into our food? The connection is this. Because God loves you. Because God has brought you tot His house, set you down at his eternal banquet, and because God has given you a seat of honor in his holy house, enjoy it! Rejoice in the gifts God gives you this day, whether we are talking about the food of the eternal banquet Table, or the lesser food and drink of daily life. For they are all gifts of God.

God has given you much in this life. He has given you food and drink, clothing and shoes, family, work, play, and everything in between. God has been merciful to you, and will continue to take care of you, no matter what may come your way. Trust that the One who would send His Son to die and rise again will carry you through. Come to the banquet.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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