St. Paul's On-The-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

Advent 1; November 29, 2009

Luke 21:25-36

DINNER DURING THE APOCALYPSE

During this past week, many of us traveled vast distances to be with family and friends – and to have dinner.

Many of us welcomed those who had traveled great distances – in order to have dinner.

People were inconvenienced, houses were stretched to bursting, pull out beds were rolled out, people drove for miles – in order to have dinner.

Hotels were stayed in, money was spent – in order to gather around a dinner table, with traditional foods, some of them not very gourmet.

In most houses it was the turkeys around the table eating the turkey on the table.

So great is the gravitational pull of this particular dinner, that people who don't really get along the rest of the year, make an effort to get along this day of the year. People who don't really like each other, endeavor to love each other – because deep down they really do, maybe.

All for dinner. In a kind of statement for aggressive normalcy, we do this all for one dinner. In a statement that we should do this every night of the year, but maybe can't in this crazy world, we do it one day of the year.

In a crazy world where everything seems to be falling apart; for one day – and the travel days around it – we depart from our feverish tasks of trying to hold the world together in our jobs and communities – and just have dinner.

And the reason we do it is because deep down, we know that this is what alone really holds the world together – dinner with far flung family and friends; or dinner with the family we see every day but, on that special day, it achieves almost a sacramental value as we affirm what we do every day; perhaps even dinner with strangers we met only recently – but on that day of Thanksgiving, family includes strangers too, just as it should every day.

It includes them every Sunday in church. This is why a meal is at the heart of our service – Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ, shared by Him with us as we gather for this sacramental dinner that affirms all the other dinners in all the other houses that all people have every day of the year.

That's how important dinner is. God is present. We don't just imbibe calories when we share food with another person, be it at home or in a restaurant or in church. We imbibe the presence of God too.

This is why we will survive the end of the world, if it ever ends. This is why, if there are “signs in the sun, the moon and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea” – it won't matter!

We'll be too busy making dinner – inviting friends and relations and strangers, and cleaning the house – to notice the end of all things.

And in making dinner, inviting friends and relations and strangers, and cleaning the house for them – we'll be beginning a new thing.

When Mary opened her womb to God, and Mary and Joseph together opened their family to him, and when they fed all those disciples he dragged home for dinner – 'my goodness, how am I going to feed all these people,' she must have felt – she was beginning a new world for God.

And when Rome fell a few hundred years later it didn't matter because a new world had begun, ready to replace the old one.

Every time you make dinner and invite friends you make a new world. Every time you leave work early in order to get home on time for dinner, you affirm a new world. Every time you keep dinner waiting and eat late in order to accommodate the late-comer, you affirm that new world.

Every time you invite that stranger to that domestic table, you spread the new world – in spite of the old world which may be crashing down.

So when it does crash down – and it seems to be doing a pretty good job right now – others may be “confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves,” others may “faint from fear and foreboding;” but you'll be making dinner, and sharing it. You'll be passing plates, making a toast, doing dishes, while the world falls around you. So when dinner is over, and others have collapsed in the world outside from fear and exhaustion, you'll be ready to build – with all those friends and relations, and former strangers who are now friends, even former enemies who are now friends, all now working together.

So don't worry. Cook. Invite. Eat. Work together. Build a new world, starting now.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” They will always work. They will always be true. Loving will always work. It will always be true. Though there are enemies all around, so what? Try love. See if it works. See if it changes people's hearts. It always has. It always will. It worked for Jesus, for his raggedy disciples, and for his mother and foster father. It'll work for us.

You can love if you are sick or if you are well, if your health fails or your money goes or other people abandon you. You can still love. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” body and spirit may fail, but we can still give love. We can still receive love, even from our hospital beds.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” So try them, and see how they are still alive. Make dinner – or reservations. Invite a friend, or a stranger. Spread the kingdom of God.

So when destruction comes, and confusion reigns, we will not run around like chickens with our heads cut off; we will not run around in confusion and panic. We will say – oh look, spring is here, summer is on the way; the lazy days of summer, the easy days of summer, the days of growth.

These are but the birth pangs, the putting forth of blossoms, the beginning of fruit growing.

And others will say – you idiot. Batten down the hatches. Hell is coming.

No, we say, heaven is coming, and I've got work to do. Make dinner. Invite friends. Check the pull-out couch. Bring in the Kingdom of God.