Communion Table Manners

Jeremiah 2:4-13; Luke 14:7-14; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16

Central Baptist Church—Lowesville, VA

02 September 2007

I grew up hearing that good manners were essential to life. We practiced good manners at home, and especially around the table. We have taught our children in the tradition of the Barney song, “Good manners are important to everyone in the world.” Along the way, I recognized that good American manners were sometimes at odds with good Brasilian manners. If it is proper to see guests to the door in the US, it is only proper to see them to the car in Brasil. I also recognized that some reportedly good manners at heart were not always so good. In a world full of competing cultures and ways of life, what makes for truly good manners, especially as concerns the communion of the body of Christ?

A primary lesson I learned in manners was that guests have priority. They receive the best there is to offer. Only family sleeps on the sofa. Guests go first. Only sometimes, that rule does not make good sense. Walking into a new culture with different ways of doing things, it is not always thoughtful for guests to be first in the serving line. Standard practice of the rule of “guests first” places them at a disadvantage rather than giving priority to their needs. It requires more attention to a guest’s needs and perspective than our standard practices are often willing to allow. Good manners may become life routines, effectively alienating those we reportedly seek to serve. Do we pay attention to serving the needs of others ahead of our own?

Sometimes our life routines shut others out rather than drawing us together. Complacency replaces our drive for building community and fellowship. In a sense, this is the issues Jeremiah was addressing. Israel and Judah had seemingly forgotten Yahweh’s presence in their midst. In the process of living, they had forgotten Yahweh and Yahweh’s provision. They were ignoring God’s redeeming a slave band from the powerful Egypt, granting them refuge in a new land. Though guests in Yahweh’s land, they were acting as owners and ignoring the true owner’s presence. Complacent with God’s provision, they forgot their place. Yahweh’s guests had forgotten who they were. Putting Yahweh on the backburner of life should have been reprehensible, but they had forgotten their standing. Do we remember ourselves as guests under the care of God’s hospitality?

As a child, I was oblivious to the financial burdens associated with hospitality. I always looked forward to having guest in our home, especially guests who spent the night. It meant a refreshing change of playmates, new experiences, new stories at the dinner table, and sometimes fresh victims for a limited array of jokes and riddles. The fact that guests helped raise the utility and grocery bills, or that there was more work to be done around the house in meal preparation, cleaning, and preparing sleeping arrangements missed my attention completely. I was focused on the presence of guests, fellowship, novelty, and interaction. As long as guests were present in our home, they would have time for me and would not be distracted by work-related concerns. I could drink up the attention, interaction, and novelty of the experience. Without realizing it, I looked upon hospitality as serving my own interests, rather than the interests and needs of our guests. Are we more concerned with being served than serving?

Hebrews reflects on fellowship and the practical aspects of living our faith in community. Mutual love, hospitality, and freedom from materialism are integral aspects of this communal aspect of faith in Christ. It is the way of life that Christ himself displayed. His love was genuine and constant. He gave it freely to all, accepting any under the umbrella of God’s love and provision. He did not measure one’s response to the bestowal of grace as prerequisite to love and hospitality. He did not consider the cost of love and grace an impediment to serving the needs of others. Rather, he treated others with that basic rule of good manners, placing their needs and interests above any issues of personal welfare. He gave the same kind of welcome and love to strangers as to friends. He taught his disciples according to the way he lived his claims of God’s sufficiency and provision. The way he taught and the way he lived was also the way he died. The whole of his living bore cohesive witness to his undying confidence and devotion to God’s sufficiency and eternal provision.

Hebrews calls us to emulate that same manner of living as a sufficient lifestyle rule. Not only are we surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who have lived according to faith, we are also given the example of Jesus Christ. He is the same today as yesterday and tomorrow, freely giving of himself that others might live. Do our lives bear evidence that we honor and worship God according to the manner of Christ Jesus?

As a guest at a church meal or in someone’s home, I always had my Mom or Dad to lead me through the serving line or give directions at the table. Sometimes a host might take the initiative to lead me through unfamiliar customs. Growing up among assorted cultures, it was a good idea to sit back and observe the rules of the game. One Sunday, my father was preaching at a Chinese church in Brasil. We were served lunch after the service. I thought I knew all about chopsticks, as I used them consistently at Chinese restaurants. That meal confused me to no end, however. American and Brasilian manners did not help with wieners in my soup. After attempts to cut one with my chopsticks, I asked the member next to me about it. My attempts seemed foolish as she picked up a wiener with her chopsticks and bit off one end.

I needed someone to lead me through this new experience. Rather than putting myself forward, I needed leading. I needed to learn new rules for interacting in that new setting. I had to be willing to give up on the manners I had learned and allow a stranger to teach me new appropriate manners. Are we willing to place ourselves in the vulnerable position of depending upon strangers to lead us through a new experience?

Living according to the gospel is about living in vulnerability. It is about centering our lives upon God in such a way that we become dependent upon God’s provision. It requires releasing our sense of independence, control, importance, and self-sufficiency into God’s care. It is then that we begin to live in accord with the good manners of the gospel of Christ Jesus.

In today’s Lucan reading, Jesus taught about the humility and vulnerability of not putting our own interests forward. He also emphasized the need to serve others without thought of advancement or gain. In so doing, we center our living on communion with and service to God. This is the quality of good manners that Christ Jesus displayed in his living and dying. It is the quality of communion table manners we are to emulate. If Christ Jesus is the same forever, we are to follow his eternal disposition of grace.

Do our lives center on communion with and service to God according to the example of Jesus? As we celebrate redemption around the communion table, this is the essence of good manners we are called to adopt. Christ Jesus placed our needs and interests ahead of his own. So we are called to set aside concerns for our own welfare, placing our lives completely in the service of grace. Good manners like these are not merely important. They are the very gospel of Christ in our living communion.

—©2007 Christopher B. Harbin