Would you like to have dinner sometime?

When I was really young I was afraid of the dark.   Like everyone who has that fear, I was afraid half the time.  I still don’t know how not to fear what could not be seen, let alone trust anything in the dark, the unseeable…it can be good.  I suspect like most of you I have a suspicion that something out there was going to get me and I give rein to my over active imagination which always INVENTS things for me to fear.  In the 23^rd Psalm God does a counterintuitive thing when it comes to our very real fear of enemies. God doesn’t say “Let’s go smite them” (I love that word smite…It is myvorite word in the whole Bible. I always have wanted to tell someone I was really

angry with…I am going to smite you…To be honest; I was smiting a lot of people earlier in the week).  And God doesn’t say, “Let’s look at all the facts and determine the level of threat ” God says “Hey! Let’s just eat.”

Even, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for God is with me; God’s hand comforts me. God sets a table before me in the presence of my enemies: God pours oil on my head,  and my cup overflows. GOODNESS AND MERCY WILL FOLLOW ME ALL OF MY DAYS.

I don't know what to tell you about what is going on in the world today.  I am too scared and I don't know and I am wise enough to know I don't know. I  am no shepherd and I can’t lead you anywhere.  There is no clever theology or social  commentary that can take away the sting of this last year, much less make sense of it.  Sandy Hook.  Shootings at movie theatres.   Children dying.  People too sick, too  young with little hope of healing. The collapse of our health care system.  The militant lines that have been drawn against civil rights of others different from  ourselves.  Killing people at a mosque while praying.  Bombings in Boston.  Towns  being leveled because a fertilizer plant imploded. Steubenville.  Attempted  poisonings on elected officials.  Ricin poison found on envelops in a post office.Threat of war at the Korean borders.  Nuclear arms.  Measle outbreaks.  Economies failing.  

But I can tell you this… God is right there in the middle of it. 

God is in the presence of every single thing that attempts to  

threaten our peace.  God sets a table right in the middle of enemies, fear and evil.  

And God says “Eat.”  

So I will tell you THE story.  THE only story that really matters.  THE only story that needs to go viral.  I really don’t have any stories of my own (well, actually I do but those are more novel worthy and not worthy of repeating). But tonight I can tell you again of how God decided to live with us and to be our friend.  I can tell you the story of God and how he walked among us.  I can tell you about this very same God who named the stars, delivered a nation, buried Moses, spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Isaac, danced with David and gave dreams to Ezekiel and carried Elijah off in a chariot. I can tell you about a God who speaks in earthquakes, fires, wind, and with a word makes a storm calm. I can tell you how this same God who decided to be human and

 was born in a time as violent and faithless and terrifying as our own and this Jesus was so full of grace and truth and love for his enemies that he was killed by those he came to love. And I can tell you how on the night before he died he gathered around another table with some real screw-ups and broke bread and said forgive one another and wash each others’ feet and how he held up a cup and said it was that cup of love would save us from ourselves.  And he told that group of ragamuffins to always remember that love every single time they gathered together to eat. And I can tell you that even from the cross on which he was hung he did not stop loving the enemy and I can tell you that despite human fear and violence, death did not have the final word and Jesus defeated death itself and then he again gathered his friends on a

beach and fed them fish sandwiches for breakfast and told them after he left go and feed sheep.  God knew we would be hungry and so he wanted to make sure we are fed.  Fed by THE story so that we know that not even death can separate us from the love of God.  Remembering every time we eat together as God’s people that we can face every evil and fear this world has to throw at us and know that love is stronger the grave.  Every time we break bread together, eating lets us know that love conquershate and death does not have the final word and forgiveness is more powerful than violence.   And despite it all, IT IS ALWAYS WORTH IT TO LOVE people.  The table God prepares for us right in the middle of the fear and evil shows us WHO WE REALLY ARE AND CAN BECOME.  And in that becoming we give away the very food we have received to a world that is just like us –

desparate to be loved and not feared.