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"By Word and Sacrament" by Rev. Charles Hoffman

April 14, 2002 Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Luke 24:13-35

There's an old story about a preacher who preached a sermon on Adam and Eve. His text was from the early part of the book of Genesis. Now word had gotten around that every Saturday night this preacher would go to the sanctuary, practice his sermon, and then leave his notes on the pulpit for the Sunday service.

It's not such an unusual thing to do. In fact, I remember Dwayne Zimmerman telling me one time that he would go to the sanctuary, sit where he knew certain people usually sat, and then try to hear the sermon from their point of view.

I will tell you, anyone who is serious about the task of preaching will do just about anything to make it work. Because preaching is the most important and the hardest thing we do. I can have ten things go wrong during the course of the week, but if I have an idea percolating for Sunday's sermon and if I have an inkling as to how I will develop that idea, then it's as though all is right with the world.

That's why the preacher I told you about would go into the sanctuary for a dry run each Saturday night. But as things sometimes happen, a couple of mischievous children learned about this Saturday night ritual. And knowing that they would have to listen to the sermon, they decided to make things interesting. They crept into the church one Saturday night and removed a page from the pastor's sermon notes. It was the first time in their lives that they actually looked forward to the Sunday sermon!

The preacher was quite eloquent that day as he worked his way through the Garden of Eden and the creation of the primal couple, Adam and Eve. He was, as they say, warming to his subject. "And Adam said to Eve. . .and Adam said to Eve. . . and Adam said to Eve. . . there seems to be a leaf missing!"

I don't know if the story is true. That is, I don't know if it's factual, but I can tell you that stranger things have happened. It's the public speaker's worst nightmare to say something so outlandish that there's no use continuing. And it's been happening ever since old Saint Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost and preached to the crowds in Jerusalem.

There's a classic commentary on what happens in church services from Annie Dillard's book Teaching A Stone to Talk. She says that she started attending the Catholic Church in order to escape Protestant guitars. But it didn't work because before long the Catholics started using guitars as well.

"Why am I here?" she asks. And then, tongue in cheek, "who gave these nice Catholics guitars? Why are they not mumbling in Latin and performing superstitious rituals? What is the Pope thinking of?"

She describes a service that takes place the second Sunday of Advent: "No one," she writes, "least of all the organist, could find the opening hymn. Then no one knew it. Then no one could sing anyway. "There was no sermon, only announcements. "The priest proudly introduced the rascally acolyte who was going to light the two Advent candles. As we all could plainly see, the rascally acolyte had already lighted them."

When it was time for the prayers the priest collected the written concerns placed in a box prior to the service. One asked prayer for a baby safely delivered on the twentieth of November. After reading the request the priest intoned the words, "We pray to the Lord," and the congregation responded, "Lord, hear our prayer."

"Suddenly," says Ms. Dillard, "the priest broke in and confided to our bowed heads, 'That's the baby we've been praying for the past two months! The woman just kept getting more and more pregnant!'" She goes on, "How often. . . have I exhausted myself in church from the effort to keep from laughing out loud? I often laugh all the way home."

Then comes this commentary: "A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our. . . act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples' dirty feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right – believe it or not – to be people. Who can believe it?"

(Teaching A Stone to Talk, HarperPerennial, 1992, pp. 36-38).

It's all right to be people. And it's a good thing because that's what you are. Of course, you try to hide it on a Sunday morning. You always put your best foot forward as you come to church. I know because I do the same thing.

People come to church looking as though they have it all together when the truth is that the world may be collapsing around them. Successful looking people are often losers.

Sunday mornings we take a hiatus from being our real selves. After the service we always hold a meeting of niceness at the door. You are always nice to me as I am to you. It's as though we're trying to "outnice" each other.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that we try something else. Most of us can only take so much honesty. We don't really mean it when we ask each other, "And how are you?" If everyone stopped to answer that question nothing would ever get done. We all know that. But we also know that within any congregation of people there are as many stories as there are people. And those stories run the gamut of human emotion.

Some of you have come to church this morning feeling elated with life. You are at the top of your game. But you are also in the minority. For many or for most of us it isn't like that at all. In fact, for two thousand years people have been carrying their broken bodies and wounded spirits to church. They come looking for some answers that address the complexity of life, hoping that there might be some healing elixir, some hint of meaning and some reason to carry on. And for two thousand years the church has sought to respond to these natural yearnings of the human spirit.

Two travelers were heading home to a place called Emmaus about seven miles from the city of Jerusalem. Along the way they were joined by another traveler, a stranger. They told him about the terrible experience they had been through in the city. Their friend Jesus of Nazareth was condemned to death and executed. They said, "We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."

We had hoped. It's another story of someone's hopes being dashed. How many times have people come to church feeling just like that? We had hoped, but it wasn't to be. And then, almost as an afterthought, they added that there were rumors that their friend was alive. We had hoped; sadly and tragically that's the end of it. But that's not the end of it.

For now the stranger speaks as he uses their scriptures to explain what this all means. Later, one of them will say, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?" But before that, they come to their home in Emmaus. It's late in the day, no time to be traveling, so they invite their traveling partner to stay the night with them.

And then it happens. Listen: "When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and give it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him."

Now in relating these things about Jesus, Luke is anything but subtle. In fact, he is very transparent. Clearly, Luke is saying that Jesus was made known to those bewildered followers in two ways: in the hearing of the scriptures and in the breaking of bread. That's how the Christ comes to his people. He comes through Word and Sacrament. He's been doing it ever since two downhearted Christians met him on a lonely road in Palestine on the evening of the first Easter. That's why worship in the Church is built around Word and Sacrament.

If you have spent time at the Grand Canyon you know something about the endlessly changing light. The canyon has as many faces as there are minutes in the day. Sometimes the variations of light are subtle; sometimes dramatic. But as you sit on the canyon rim you see this constantly unfolding resolution of color.

I believe that the table sacrament is something like that. It will mean different things at different times of your life. It is a dynamic metaphor with endless meaning for those who there receive bread for the wilderness and wine for the journey.

Years ago, when my father was going through his last long illness, I told my mother that whenever I went to the table for Holy Communion I carried her and father with me.

I believe that like all great art, the sacrament "needs no wordy explanation" (J.S. Whale, Christian Doctrine, p. 155). It is given to us in the universal language of symbols.

That is why clergy have a special feeling for the sacrament. It's as though we are off the hook. More than at any other time, in the sacrament success doesn't depend on the priest.

In our Bibles there is a verse that says, "In many and various ways God spoke of old. . . through the prophets"(Hebrews 1:1). We know that was true. And now we know that God also speaks through the sacraments of the Church.

Now if you look in your order of service you will see that there is something else. There is a section called Proclamation of the Word. This is where what happened between Jesus and the travelers on the Emmaus road gets institutionalized. This is where the Word which is Jesus Christ gets broken down into a torrent of little words. This is where we listen for the Word of the Lord in the words of our scriptures and our anthems and our hymns and our sermons and prayers.

This is also where preachers can get nervous if they don't do their homework and where they should be nervous because so much is at stake. What's the good word? That's what people are listening for every Sunday. They come with their expectations.

Over thirty years ago Wallace Hamilton said that the Church "has an enormous stake in the treasury of words. He wrote, "This agonizing process of finding the word, the right word to fit the meaning, is the enduring struggle of the church" (Still the Trumpet Sounds, pp. 155f.).

I guess I want to modify that statement this morning and say that finding the right word is especially the enduring struggle of every preacher, because it's a daunting task. Barbara Brown Taylor knows it's true. She said that "to put God's word into a human mouth was to push flesh to the limit" (When God Is Silent, p. 64). And I think that's been especially true in our times. We are a visual people raised on television and sound bites. It's more and more difficult for us to give our full attention to oral communication.

If you don't believe me, watch and see how many other things people get done while they are conversing on their cell phones.

But God has come to us in the Word that was made flesh and lived among us – the living, life-giving Word of God; the Word that is quick and powerful, sharper than a razor blade, straight as an arrow, and able to discern our innermost thoughts and our most secret intentions (see Hebrews 4:12).

So the Church comes together to worship. Curving itself around Word and Sacrament it listens and watches for sounds and signs of God's presence. We do it every Sunday. We know that we don't always get it right but it is nevertheless our sacred calling. Word and sacrament: the heart of our worship.

It happened somewhere in rural Oklahoma. Fred Craddock was to be the preacher but the service got canceled because of bad weather. Everyone knew it was canceled except Fred. Somehow or other they couldn't reach him. Two men went down to the church to let him know that the meeting had been canceled. They waited until the preacher arrived.

By the time Fred got there the two men were seated at the special table that has familiar words written across the front: In Remembrance of Me. They were playing cards. Fred asked them what they were doing.

"Well," said one, "we were just playing a little poker, waiting for you to get here."

"On that table?" Fred asked.

"Well, a table's a table's a table."

And Fred replied, "No it isn't. No it isn't. Not for me." (from Craddock Stories, p. 140).

Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.