Yuri Andreevich Kovalenko Family Dinner 1979

Wisdom Sets Her Table for the Senseless [Proverbs 9:1-6 and John 6:51-58]

 

**Sermon Art: Family Dinner, Yuri Andreevich Kovalenko (1979)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on August 18, 2024

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Proverbs 9:1-6

1Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
2She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
3She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
4“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
5“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
6Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

John 6:51-58

[Jesus said,] 51“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

[sermon begins]

Wisdom sets her table. Her house is decked out down to the twinkle lights on the pillars. There’s meat in the smoker, sangria by the pool, and a table setting so full of Pinterest pins it’s downright holey. Wisdom is ready to party. No one can accuse her of holding a party only for people equal to her eternal, creative power. She flings wide the doors and shouts from the rooftops. She calls for simple and senseless people. Wisdom’s table is ready, dear friends, and it’s our simple, senseless ears that are listening. Listening through the many voices competing for airspace. Listening for how Wisdom, in her eternal glory, makes sense to the senseless.

Regarding our simple and senseless ears, Wisdom doesn’t seem to be inviting us into a new opinion. Opinions are everywhere these days. It seems like everyone should be ready to weigh in about all things at all times. We confuse wisdom with the social tool of opinion. A tool that we use at parties, in the hallways at work, via text with our friends, on social media, in the car on the way home from church – you name the location and we’re wielding our opinions like clubs. To be clear, opinions actually ARE important. They affect real lives in real time. Opinions decide where food ends up, where people live, how we drive our cars, and who gets elected. Opinions guide our choices in each moment of each day. Opinions matter. However, today’s Proverbs reading invites us to consider the difference between opinion and Wisdom. Not the least of which is that opinions decide who gets to be at a party, by contrast, anyone and everyone is invited when Wisdom calls us to the table.

A few weeks ago, I attended a preaching retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. The hosts were professors from Luther Seminary. Professors who record the Sermon Brainwave podcast that I often listen to as part of sermon prep. During the retreat, I was excited to listen to preaching by the professors as part of our worship time together. Every preacher needs a preacher. I’m grateful to hear the good news proclaimed and for the faith that is sustained by the Word. I was excited to talk preaching with other preachers from all over the world, listening to their experience of preaching and wildly different congregations. And I was excited to learn more techniques, tips, and theology of preaching. Go ahead, ask me whether or not preachers should tell personal stories in sermons or the pros and cons of manuscript versus extemporaneous preaching. Or guess my opinion about whether or not to weave together scripture readings in the course of one sermon.

The point is, we all have opinions on all kinds of topics. Opinions can be widely held (of COURSE, Billy Joel is the Piano Man!). Opinions can also rightly hold people and institutions accountable for misbehavior – from employers exploiting employees…to our schools’ support of teachers in classrooms full of priceless children…to our government’s accountability to the people. We know that opinions can be limited, biased, uninformed, and misleading. We also know that opinions can be wise and insightful. We know all of these things and, still, our opinions are challenged by Wisdom’s invitation. Come hungry to the table because Wisdom is preparing food.

Ahhhh, food. I love food which for me means a love of cooking that includes cooking shows, movies about cooking, pictures of food, recipes, and foodie restaurants. But the best part of cooking is actually cooking. In the past year, cooking has taken on a different quality. It’s a simple pleasure that feels like life. It’s sensory in a way that settles my spirit. Slicing, dicing, sautéing, smelling, tasting, serving, chewing, swallowing…you get the idea. It’s not much of a stretch to envision Wisdom’s invitation that includes food, wine, and people sharing supper. Although it’s quite a stretch across space and time from Wisdom’s table to Jesus’ invitation to eat flesh and blood in wine and bread. Wisdom sets the table and Jesus keeps it weird. There’s a bumper sticker for you – Wisdom sets the table, and Jesus keeps it weird.

Jesus doesn’t speak the classic words of communion in the Gospel of John. The classic words of communion, what we call the Words of Institution, begin with the words, “On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread…” Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in the sixth chapter is what he throws down. And what Jesus gives us in these verses is weird – flesh, blood, bread, and wine weird. The weirdness moves the crowd around Jesus from complaining to outright arguing with each other as they start forming their opinions about what he’s said.

At this level, Jesus doesn’t seem interested in the opinions. Nor does Jesus seem interested in being taken into our hearts. Jesus seems interested in our mouths, gullets and bellies, in what’s digested and becomes part of bodies, in what he calls true food and true drink. This word “true” in the Greek, alēthēs (ἀληθὴς), is literally translated as “what can’t be hidden.”[1] Another way we say this in the church is that Jesus is truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine.

Jesus tells us that eating this true food IS abiding in him and he in us. This abiding is happening at the gut level – digestion and nourishment. Jesus abides in our very selves at the cellular level. Literally, in our flesh. The infinite God contained in the finite. The divine mystery in bread and wine and in our very bodies. This is insight from the inside out. Talk of insight brings us full circle back to Wisdom’s table. In the Proverbs reading, walking in the way of insight is defined as knowledge of the Holy One. This is not meant as insight forming yet one more opinion to be explained and understood. Rather this insight is a relationship with the Holy One who is Jesus. The living Jesus sent by a living God.[2]

The Jesus in John’s gospel throws down communion words about flesh, blood, bread, and wine while he’s living his life early in his ministry. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well as for Paul in First Corinthians, communion words are spoken at a Passover meal on the eve of his death.[3] In the gospel of John, Jesus’ words about flesh, blood, bread, and wine draw life into focus – bringing the eternal in the flesh, into the now of living.[4] Jesus IS life. More than that, Jesus is life now, today, as the eternal, infinite God meets us in bread and wine. Neither just a crusty remembrance of life ended on a cross in the past, nor a golden ticket into a future life to be postponed as long as possible. Jesus promises life today – the abundant life of God in real relationship with us here and now.[5]

God’s source and norm of life brings hope to a world choking on opinions that end relationships and that hope is good news for our simple, senseless ears.

And we embody hope and life in the world as we abide in Jesus and he in us.

Welcome to table and Wisdom’s feast.

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Song After the Sermon ELW 518: We Eat the Bread of Teaching

Refrain:

We eat the bread of teaching, drink wine of wisdom, are given here a taste of the kingdom. Together joined, the greatest and the least, we all are one at Wisdom’s holy feast.

  1. Wisdom calls throughout the city, knows our hunger, and in pity gives her loving invitation to the banquet of salvation.
  1. Simple ones whose hearts are yearning, come and gain from Wisdom’s learning; bread and wine she is preparing, know her loving in the sharing.
  1. Enter with delight and singing, for her richness now is bringing us this joyous celebration; eat and drink in jubilation.

 

Text: Omer Westendorf, 1916-1997; Music: Jerry Ray Brubaker, b. 1946

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[1] ἀληθὴς as interpreted by HELPS Word-studies at https://biblehub.com/greek/227.htm.

[2] John 6:57

[3] Matthew 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:15-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

[4] Karoline Lewis, Luther Seminary, Associate Professor of Preaching and the Marbury E. Anderson Chair of Biblical Preaching.  “A Living Bread” (John 6:51-58) on Dear Working Preacher for August 19, 2018. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3667

[5] John 10:10 [Jesus said,] I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.