Maundy Thursday--"Divine Economics: Food & Shelter"

Divine Economics: Food & Shelter

Part II of the Holy Week Sermon Series

by Rev. Lance Armstrong O’Donnell, Pastor

Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Van Wert, Ohio

Maundy Thursday

9 April, A.D. 2009

Ex 12.1-14; 1 Cor 11.23-32; Jn 13.1-15 (34-35)

CCT: In the Supper of Our Lord our most basic human needs converge: food and shelter for our bodies and souls.

Introduction

“Divine economics,” as I said on Sunday, is not a Holy Week fundraising drive. “Economics” is literally about the order or structure of things, so when we speak of “Divine Economics” we are speaking about the way that God orders or structures things. 

On Palm Sunday we spoke about how the events of that day relate to the most fundamental of God’s institutions, the family. Today as we remember with great solemnity the first celebration of The Lord’s Supper we also remember the whole of Jesus’ teaching on Holy Thursday, most notably His display of love and service in washing the disiples’ feet. In remembering these things we will place special emphasis today on God’s order of things in providing for our most basic needs: food and shelter.

Let’s take each of those in turn--food then shelter--and then reflect upon them in light of Jesus’ “new command.”

I. Food

A. Daily Bread 

In the Fourth Petition of The Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Indeed, we need food to live, and in teaching us to ask for our daily bread the Lord Jesus reminds us that “God give daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”

God promises to give us what we need, daily bread.

“Daily bread,” we learn in the Small Catechism, “includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”

B. Bread and Love

There is who whole “food chain,” a whole system beginning with the basic human institution, the family, that leads to the most basic needs on our tables. 

And this calls to mind Jesus’ command to the disciples in the Upper Room: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13.34) The Christian life is to be characterized by love; that is, by--in the words of St. Paul--“looking not just to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil 2.4) This call to love extends to every area of our lives. We tend to forget this, to lose sight of it, but faithful work--wherever that work is--is an act of love. Showing up and doing a good job, being willing to serve faithfully, is one of the ways in which we show love for one another. I will speak more about this on Sunday morning, but it is well that we remember what our Small Catechism teaches. Our most basic physical need, daily bread, “includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body,” and that includes our loving and faithful work.

C. Bread for the Soul

But there is another bread of which the Scriptures speak, another human need. Jesus speaks of this in at the beginning of His public ministry, in the text with which we began our Lenten journey, His temptations in the wilderness . . .

“If you are the Son of God,” said the devil, “tell these stones to become bread.” And our Lord Jesus replied, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And after the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus expanded on this, saying:

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6.51)

Just as basic as the need of food for the body is the need of food for the soul, for man--as you will recall--is made in the image and likeness of God. Man has an immortal soul, and the Word of God is the soul’s sustenance.

We will return to this in a moment, but first let’s also consider our need for shelter.

II. Shelter

If you really think about it, our most basic bodily “shelter” is our clothing. A “roof over our head” is just an extension of this. Listen, on that note, to this familiar teaching of Jesus:

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew 6.28-29)

Here, as with food, Jesus is reminding us that God provides for our most basic needs, yet shelter--like food--is provided by a great chain of gifts and labor, the “labor of love” about which we spoke a moment ago.

Yet, with shelter as with food, there is more to the story. Psalm 91.1-2 speaks of this:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High 

will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. 

I will say  to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, 

my God, in whom I trust.”

And, of course, Jesus speaks of this in the remainder of the passage from Matthew Six:

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6.30-35)

Which brings us back, then, to the Upper Room . . .

III. Heaven and Earth Come Together

Our Lord Jesus, on the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks He broke it, and gave it to His disciples and said, “Take, eat, this is My Body, which is given for you.

In the same way also He took the cup after supper, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them saying, “Drink of it, all of you. This cup is the New Testament in My Blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

Friends, this is clearly Jesus’ “last will and testament.” The book of Hebrews puts all this in context: 

Therefore he [Christ] is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.  For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood . . .  22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9.15-18, 22)

And that is what we truly need . . .

For, clearly, we who have been called to love have failed to do so. Even the “best of us” must recognize that even our “good deeds” are often filled with self-indulgence, with “what’s in it for me?” or “what will I get out of this?” For the rest of us it is--dare we say?--much worse than that. Whether passive-aggressively or otherwise, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. Even in our own families we at times are vindictive, unthankful, corrosive. We who know the Love of the Ages in Christ, who have witnessed and believed His mercy to us, have fallen prey to the devil, the world, and our sinful nature.

We need more than earthly food and shelter. . .

We need heavenly shelter, that is, protection from the perils of our sins . . . And in the Supper Christ mediates to us the forgiveness of sins won by His innocent suffering and death and glorious resurrection from the dead.

Recognizing our weakness, our inability to cultivate our own godliness, we need food for our souls, the Message that we live not under the threat of punishment but under the grace of God, and--again--in the Supper Christ promises us just that, the forgiveness of sins. And we know that where there is the forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation.

Today we remember that [CCT:] in the Supper of Our Lord our most basic human needs converge: food and shelter for our bodies and souls.

Conclusion

The bread and wine of Christ’s Supper are real food, but combined with Christ’s Word of Promise they are much more than that.  The clothes that we wear and the roof over our head provide real protection, but even all of Solomon’s splendor could not compare to the Robe of Righteousness that you wear through faith in the promise of Christ.

So, today, as you leave this place with the solemnity of the stripped altar, you leave with the love of Christ coursing through your veins and a truly heavenly protection, for nothing can separate us  from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.