As the first Sunday of October, today is not only our regular Communion Sunday, it’s Worldwide Communion Sunday for Christians around the world. (Our Communion table is arrayed with different types and colors of bread symbolizing the worldwide Church’s diversity.) It’s a day to celebrate the unity of the Christian Church with our common belief in Christ as the head of His Church. A day to focus on our commonalities and set our differences aside. Although we used the Nicene Creed this morning to confess our faith, most people are more familiar with the Apostle’s Creed, which was first mentioned in a letter from the Synod of Milan dated AD390, referring to a belief at the time that each of the Twelve Apostles contributed an article to the twelve articles of that creed. However, the Nicene Creed, accepted in its final form in AD 589, was the first creed to obtain universal authority in the church, as it improved the language of the Apostles’ Creed by including more specific statements about the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Like stating the Father and Son are both God and equally divine with the same will and substance. Its Christian statement of faith is then more widely accepted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches. Both the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed help us express our beliefs, but using the more widely accepted Nicene Creed today helps emphasize the unity of the Christian Church.
There are even differences about communion within denominations, like the frequency of Communion and whether we take Communion by coming forward and dipping a piece of bread in a common cup, called intinction, or together in the pews. Methodists use grape juice instead of wine, some only have water carried from distant wells. Some churches use unleavened bread, some use gluten free bread, some use wafers, while others in poverty may have only crumbs. Many congregations make World Communion Sunday a global celebration by inviting people to make bread for communion from their own ethnic backgrounds.
Denominations even see the bread and juice in different ways – as symbolic, as the substance of His body and blood, even as becoming the actual body and blood of Christ. Not all even agree on the day of the week for church worship. But despite these differences, all Christian churches can trace their Communion beliefs back to the Last Supper and the early church, based on the cornerstone of Christ, our risen Lord, with the foundation on His chosen disciples, and given life by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Those are our common roots for this worldwide Communion celebration this morning as we put our evolved differences aside.
Worldwide Communion Sunday originated in the Presbyterian Church in 1936, and is even celebrated in slightly different ways. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America observes a variant called “Global Church Sunday”.
Despite our different practices and beliefs about Communion, our Christian hope focuses on being fed spiritually from Christ’s Table, represented by the Great Banquet Jesus taught about during his earthly ministry. We can even see the concept of His banquet expressed in the OT. In the twenty-third Psalm, for example, the psalmist David uses the imagery of a shepherd caring for his beloved sheep, finding them good pastures in the lower lands for much of the year. But the shepherd prepares for the time he will lead his sheep to the lush mountain pastures, where sun drenched grass, watered by melted winter snows, awaits them. The shepherd had sometime previously prepared the pasture lands, removing rocks that would prevent grass growing, and possibly injure His sheep. He had removed any poisonous weeds that would endanger the sheep, being especially fatal for the lambs. In the psalmist’s words, He prepares a banquet table for them. And as long as the shepherd was present at that banquet pasture, the sheep’s predatory enemies could only watch. We, the sheep of His pasture, putting our faith in our Good Shepherd, look forward to His leading us to His banquet table in heaven, guiding us even through the valleys of the shadows of death, on our way there. Our destination, rather than the path our Shepherd leads us on, is our focus. As long as we remain in His presence, regardless of the path, we know we will arrive at our destination. But those who wander away on their own path, no matter how certain they may feel theirs is the right way, will miss the promised banquet.
In our OT reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks of the Great Banquet from a different perspective. Our passage opens with Isaiah praising God for His perfect faithfulness, for the wonderful things God had planned long ago. Isaiah was a prophet during the Babylonian exile, and even though God allowed the Babylonians to conquer Israel because of their sinfulness, Babylon was a pagan enemy that didn’t worship God. So, Isaiah speaks against Babylon and other such enemy nations who would therefore be reduced to a heap of rubble, their fortified towns to lie in ruin, their ruthless voice no longer to be heard. Such was the fate of those who did not honor the Lord God.
Although he speaks against the Babylons of the time, he was not condemning them. Speaking from ‘this mountain’ which would have been Mt Zion, on which Jerusalem was built, Isaiah looks forward to a time when the outlying heathen nations would no longer be excluded from fellowship with Israel, but instead share in its sacrificial feasts. even at the banquet of the great King. When the Sovereign Lord, in Isaiah’s words, would wipe away tears from all faces, and remove His people’s disgrace, or sinfulness, from all the earth. A time of actual worldwide communion.
If we were to take Isaiah’s prophecy as a worldview, there’d be great hope for our world. Instead of being seated at the banquet in the presence of our lurking enemies, we would then eat with all our former enemies. Ukranians eating with Russians, South Koreans with North Koreans, Taiwan with mainland China, Christians, Moslems, and Jews all joining in genuine fellowship in worldwide communion. That’s what our Call to Worship expressed, that we were created for such worldwide relationship, gathering in heart and mind, in unity. That the Lord’s Banquet would be prepared for all those eager to be fed, worldwide, from His Table.
But Jesus has much to say about that Great Banquet Table in our Gospel Lesson. In context, He had been invited to a dinner and noticed how people were choosing seats of honor for themselves. As a practical word of advice from God’s etiquette, He suggests guests should choose a less honorable seat out of humility, and perhaps be asked to move to a higher place of honor, rather than being embarrassed and moved to a place of lesser honor. But He more radically tells his host that instead of inviting his friends and family to his banquet, he should invite the poor, the handicapped, those that could never repay their invitation with anything but gratitude. Their act of charity would be repaid at the resurrection, with invitations to His Great Banquet.
Then Jesus tells a parable about a great earthly banquet given by a man who had sent our many invitations. Now in those times, servants would take the invitations to the invited guests, informing them personally about their invitation. The servants would later return to those guests to remind them and get their reply.
As in all His parables, Jesus wasn’t really talking about that banquet, but rather His Great Banquet celebration in heaven. You would think that receiving such an invitation for His Banquet would be like answering the door and greeted by the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes people presenting you the Grand Prize. Or like in the picture over the altar with Jesus offering to come in and eat with us. Israel, as God’s chosen people, were initially chosen to be invited to His Great Banquet as the ones privileged to invite others to His banquet.
But Jesus is addressing the Jews by this parable to show them their failure to respond to their Messiah, the host of the Great Banquet. One invited guest in the parable had bought a field and so declined the invitation. Perhaps he represented those concerned with expanding their own kingdoms on earth with more. Working toward a better job, getting ahead in the world. More money, more power, more status. Building bigger barns to enjoy retirement one day. Sorry, Jesus, I can’t come now. More important things to achieve.
Another invited guest had bought a yoke of oxen, and wanted to see them work. He saw his possessions as his priority. Like the rich young ruler who wanted to inherit eternal life, wanting an invitation to the Great Banquet. But with his wealth, the cost of going to the banquet, having to sell his possessions, was too great. Sorry Jesus, I’m too involved with my possessions right now to come to Your banquet. They’re worth more to me.
A third invited guest had just been married and well, you know how that goes. A happy wife is a happy life. He was more concerned with happiness in this life than eternal happiness. Friends, parties…eat, drink, and be merry. There’ll be time enough to come to your banquet when the good times wind down. Sorry, Jesus, no time to come, I have fun parties to attend for now.
The banquet host then tells his servants to invite those who had not yet been invited. He uses the poor, crippled, blind, and lame to show the great lengths He was willing to go to invite others. Jesus wasn’t inferring that only certain people were initially invited, while others had been seemingly unworthy to come. In fact, Jesus had stated earlier He had come to save the lost, the very people He ministered to most during His ministry. But He had expected the Israelites, especially the Temple leaders, to share the Good News of the Messiah to all His children.
But the Temple leaders were even offended to think that the invited guest list would also include Gentiles. The Jewish arrogance that they had been chosen as the only ones worthy of the Kingdom, instead of being His vessels to reach out to the Gentiles, failed to understand that God loves all His created children, not just those who considered themselves entitled. They failed to understand Isaiah’s prophecy that God would welcome all peoples in Zion. When Zion would come to mean not just the mountain that Jerusalem was built on, not just the Temple they considered as Zion, but Zion as the worldwide Church of our God.
At mid year 2023, the World Population was estimated at 8,045,311,447. That’s how many invitations would have been sent if His Great Heavenly Banquet had been then. It’s how many places had already been set with room for many more. But the invitations are just that – invitations. They’re not entitlements to salvation. Each of the 8 plus billion people must act on those invitations if they’re to have any value. Choose to come, or pursue your own priorities.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus used an example of ten maidens being invited to a wedding feast. They intended to come to the banquet, but only five were prepared for the unexpected late arrival of the groom. Once the door was closed, they were not recognized as invited guests. We have each been given our invitations, no one is excluded, all are welcome. But we must act on those invitations. We must be prepared to enter the Great Banquet, not wasting time on useless excuses. When Christ returns and the door of His kingdom has closed, it’ll be too late. Those who are prepared will know the joy of His Great Banquet, sharing with all those who love His kingdom.
So, on this worldwide Communion Sunday, let us think of sitting around his worldwide Table, His worldwide Church, remembering His broken body and His blood shed for us, in however many different traditions there may be, but honoring Him as our One Lord, in His One Church, at His Great Banquet. When Jesus Shall Reign Wherever the sun Does its successive journeys run. Worldwide. Amen.
