What Does Church Taste Like?

⁴² The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. ⁴³ A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were united and shared everything. ⁴⁵ They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. ⁴⁶ Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. ⁴⁷ They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.

If you braved the freezing cold on Easter morning this year for the sunrise service, you may remember Johnna asking a rather strange question. Or at least, it was a question that caught me off guard. She asked “What does death taste like?” I wondered where she was heading with that question until she started describing all the memories she had of her family and church and the funeral meals shared whenever someone died. The bowls of potato salad and the certain kind of cake that always appeared whenever the community was in mourning. As soon as she started talking about those funeral meals, I could imagine my own family and the funeral meals we’d shared. Death – for me – tastes like ham biscuits and green beans.

Home tastes like macaroni and cheese and my grandmother’s chocolate cake. Furman tastes like chicken tenders and Duke like Bullocks BBQ and hushpuppies.

What does home taste like for you?

The connection between taste and memory runs deep for us. In fact, our brains are hard-wired this way. Memory, taste, smell, and emotion are all experienced because of the same part of the brain. Certain tastes bring back powerful feelings of comfort, of belonging, of love because they are interwoven in our minds.

We can think we’re past the worst of our grief over losing a loved one only to bite into something familiar and have grief and love come flooding back. That’s the kind of power there is between food and memory, between taste and love.

So, what does church taste like?

As a child church, tasted like bugles (eaten off my fingers), cheese puffs, those butter cookies with the holes in the center that made them fit perfectly on little fingers. Church tasted like lemonade from paper cups.

One of my friends who is a minister says sometimes church tastes like a rich philly cheesesteak and sometimes it tastes like a dry turkey sandwich.

Here at Aldersgate I would imagine – at least for the Wednesday night crowd – church tastes like chicken casserole and chocolate pie.

Church tastes like white bread and Welch’s grape juice.

You may remember, as I do, how good that bread and grape juice tasted after more than a year of plastic and weird purple syrup-y stuff. It tasted like church. It tasted like love.

Church will always have a taste because church has always been about food, about eating together. Potlucks and Wednesday nights. Snacks at VBS. At Messy Church we always finish with a meal because that’s as much a part of being church as anything else we do.

Last Sunday I shared with you how in those early days after Easter, the followers of Jesus had to figure out what they would do next. Having seen evidence of the Resurrection, having received Jesus’ commission, they had to figure out how to respond.

The question for the season wasn’t so much why this is happening as, knowing that Jesus lives, how will we practice resurrection?

Those days between Easter and Pentecost were a time of preparation and waiting. But now, in the days, weeks, months after Pentecost and the Holy Spirit’s dramatic arrival, we begin to see the movement – the Church – taking shape. And while the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus remains central to the early Church’s teachings, it’s the practices – the work – of that early Church Luke records for us here. Luke shows us in these 6 verses what practicing Resurrection looks like.

One of the first practices of the church, we learned last week, was that the followers of Jesus were united in their devotion to prayer. Now, in addition to their devotion to prayer, we find the group devoted to the teachings of the apostles about Jesus, devoted to the community and caring for one another, and devoted to their shared meals.

Their days were structured around meeting together in the Temple and around eating together in one another’s homes where they shared food with gladness and simplicity.

Are we surprised to find common meals playing such an important part in practicing resurrection? It really shouldn’t surprise us that we most often find Jesus’ friends around a meal table. It’s where Jesus himself usually was.

Author Tim Chester, in his book A Meal with Jesus, says the New Testament finishes the statement “The Son of Man came…” three ways. In Mark 10:45 Jesus says he (the Son of Man) came “not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In Luke 19, Jesus says he came to seek and save the lost. But in Luke 7, Jesus says “The Son of Man comes eating and drinking.” The first two answer the question of why Jesus came. But the third tells us how – it was a statement of method. The Son of Man comes how? Eating and drinking.

Jesus ate with the leaders – the Pharisees and the wealthy. He ate with the sinners, the outcasts, the tax collectors. One of the greatest criticisms launched at Jesus was that he was forever eating and drinking with all the wrong people, that his followers were gluttons in stark contrast to John the Baptist’s asceticism.

When it came time to leave his friends, Jesus brought them together for one final meal. And, as New Testament scholar NT Wright says, “When Jesus wanted to explain to his disciples what his death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal.”

Jesus knew – better than most I would imagine – how taste and memory were connected. That in sitting down together to eat bread, to drink the cup, his followers would be drawn back to him in powerful ways. They didn’t need a study guide, or even a “how-to” manual (though sometimes that seems handy); they needed a meal.

One of the first acts of the New Creation – on this side of Easter – was Jesus breaking bread with travelers in Emmaus. And it was the sharing of the meal, those weary travelers recognized the Risen Christ with them.

So when it comes time to establishing priorities in the new Church, when it comes to establishing practices, it shouldn’t surprise us at all to find the disciples devoted to sharing meals with one another.

Eating together created a family, a family born not of blood but of baptism and God’s Spirit. The church was built not in glorious cathedrals or in contentious councils. The church was built at the table, where followers of Jesus from all walks of life shared food with gladness together.

In 2019, a new “super group” of singers  Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires formed a band called Highwomen (named in honor of the legendary Highwaymen – Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson). Thanks to my dad I was raised on the Highwaymen and immediately fell in love with the work of this new group. It was their song Crowded Table that caught my heart and played on repeat for a long season.

“I want a house with a crowded table; and a place by the fire for everyone.”

(You can hear the song here: https://youtu.be/ZPfI8zBWub4)

I remember thinking two things when I heard this song. The first was that it described my grandmother’s house perfectly.

I may be an only child, but I grew up with quite a large extended family since my mom is one of 10 kids. Family meals at my grandparents’ house were chaos – in the best possible way. There wasn’t just one crowded table but several and with all the various ages of children and grandchildren, you never really knew who was going to be there for Sunday dinner. A neighbor, a new boyfriend, Mike’s new girlfriend who is now my aunt Kani (and has been for 30 years). Who was home from school or out of town for work. You never knew – you just found a seat at one of the tables and made sure you got in line for food before all the macaroni and cheese ran out. But at my grandmother’s house, there was always enough food and always a place at the crowded table.

When my grandmother passed away later that year, I quoted this song at her funeral.

But the song didn’t just describe her house – I remember thinking when I first heard the lyrics – THIS! This is what God’s kingdom looks like! A crowded table with a seat for everyone sharing a meal together.

Writer Rachel Held Evans said it this way: “This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.”

What does resurrection look like in practice? How do we live on this side of the resurrection?

We may do well to start at the table, sitting down with those who look like us and those who don’t, those who think like us and those who don’t. What would it be like to share meals together with gladness and simplicity? What’s the worst that could happen?

According to Luke, the early church grew and grew and grew – not because of eloquent speeches or perfect Sunday School curriculum – but because folks saw the gladness, the generosity, the welcome. They saw God’s goodness in the way Jesus’ followers lived and they couldn’t help but want a seat at the table too.

What does church taste like?

Like fried chicken and mac and cheese. Like chicken casserole and pie. Like lemonade in paper cups. Like bread and Welch’s grape juice. And those tastes of comfort, of belonging, of love, draw us back to the one we follow, back to Jesus – who came eating and drinking to save us all and make room for all of us at God’s crowded table.

Sermon preached May 7, 2023

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Both Sides Now

Acts 1:1-14

Sermon preached April 30, 2023 at Aldersgate UMC

I bet if I asked you if you knew the singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell we’d have a great demonstration of the generational makeup of our congregation. If you don’t recognize the name, you might recognize her song “Big Yellow Taxi.” That would add another generation to the mix. Joni Mitchell rose to fame in the 1960s as a folk artist with songs like “Cactus Tree” and “Help Me.” In 1969, she recorded her song, “Both Sides Now.”

“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.”

Joni, her guitar, and her folksy soprano voice sang of knowing both sides of not just clouds, but love and life. Mitchell would go on to win 10 Grammys and be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

In 2015, though, she suffered a brain aneurysm and had to relearn how to walk, to live again.

After her aneurysm, Joni Mitchell faded a bit from the limelight, understandably. But at last summer’s Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island (a festival she first played in 1967), Joni took to the stage again, her first public appearance in nine years.

I caught a video of Joni at the Newport Festival – she’s sitting center stage in a high-back, gilded wing chair, a velour track-suit a microphone in front of her that she doesn’t have to hold. She’s surrounded on stage by other performers – looking like a queen holding court. And she begins to sing in a voice that’s now an octave lower:

“Oh, but now old friends they’re acting strange
And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all.”

There’s something poignant about hearing her sing of clouds and love and life and how she’s seen them all from both sides now.

(Here’s the clip of Joni performing “Both Sides Now” at Newport: https://youtu.be/jxiluPSmAF8)

Joni wrote “Both Sides Now” in the 60s while she was in her 20s. With all she’d seen and experienced, with all the changes life brought now, on the other side of her brain aneurysm, the song feels weighty and powerful, filled with the wisdom only time can bring.

I’ve looked at love from both sides now. I really don’t know love at all.

This season of the church year between Easter Sunday and Pentecost is – well – weird. I mean, technically it’s Easter but how many sermons can we preach on the handful of resurrection stories we have available? A few years ago, Messy Church USA decided to do social media posts for the 50 days of Easter with all kinds of ideas for celebrating the whole season. We were running low on ideas 2 weeks in. By day 40 we were exhausted and repeating ideas. If we think 40 days of Lent is too long…these 50 days of Easter are forever!

Theologian Karl Barth called this season the “significant pause” as the disciples waited and watched, wondered and prepared for the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the true start of their own.

Luke tells us that Jesus spent 40 days with his disciples after his resurrection – assuring them, breaking bread with them, and teaching them. Jesus spoke with them, Luke says, about God’s kingdom. I really wish Luke or one of the others would have written down some of what Jesus said! Did he go back over the stories he’d already told them asking “Do you get it now?” I wonder how the disciples heard Jesus’ stories differently on this side of the resurrection.

Of course, the disciples – bless them – think that this is it, Jesus is finally going to “finish the job” and restore Israel. They get this one wrong on 2 accounts – first in thinking Jesus is going to do all the work and secondly, and perhaps more of a concern, in thinking that the job to finish is a return of David’s kingdom, a return of the good old days when God’s king ruled instead of Rome. Hey Jesus, are you finally going to put things back in order the way they used to be, the way we think they’re supposed to be?

Instead, Jesus looks to them – his closest friends – the ones who’d learned from him, who’d worked alongside him, who’d seen firsthand the signs of God’s kingdom breaking through, the ones who’d seen the evidence of his death and his resurrection. This next bit is for them. They now have a job to do.

So what do they do next?

Apparently, it wasn’t standing and staring up into heaven. I love that the disciples just witnessed this miraculous moment of Jesus ascending into heaven and they are staring up after him, I would imagine with expressions of awe and wonder. Joni Mitchell thought she didn’t know clouds at all – well she’s got nothing on the disciples’ befuddlement!  But even as they are gathering their wits after witnessing this miraculous moment, angels appear and basically chastise them for standing there. Maybe give us a minute to collect ourselves before we move on?

But move on to what?

It’s in this season between Easter and Pentecost, during this “significant pause,” that followers of Jesus have to figure out where they go from here. They have received their commission from Jesus – but they have to decide what they will do with it. There are plenty of questions, very few clear answers and in many ways, everything they thought the new about life, about Jesus, about God’s kingdom, about love has now taken a categorical shift with the Resurrection.

The disciples can now say they’ve looked at life – and love – from both sides now.

And now, on the other side of the Resurrection, what will they do?

Author and historian, Diana Butler Bass, says the question in this season is not “What is the resurrection?” Instead, the questions are “Where does the resurrection show up in our lives? How do we practice resurrection?”

In other words – this isn’t a season of wondering about the details of the how or even the why. It’s asking, “now what…why does this matter…and how will we live on this side of love, on this side of death and life?”

These were the questions the disciples had to ask as they considered their next priorities. And, in many ways, these questions and their responses defined the start of the Church.

I wonder, how might these questions guide us still today? We’ve seen both sides – and now, on this side of the Resurrection, how will we live? Where does resurrection show up in our lives? How do we practice resurrection?

Luke’s going to show how the earliest disciples answered these questions as he tells the stories of the earliest acts of the apostles (and spoiler alert, we’re going to talk about it more next Sunday). But for now, as the disciples return to Jerusalem after the ascension, a few things are becoming clear about this side of Easter.

Whatever comes next the disciples will not be able to stay in the safety of the upper room together for much longer. Jesus was clear when he told his disciples they would be his witnesses where they would need to go. Jerusalem – where witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection in close proximity to those who brought about his death will be most dangerous. All Judea – throughout the traditional boundaries of God’s kingdom. But also Samaria – the place where the “enemy” lives. And all the way to the ends of the earth – to those mysterious places, the scary places, the places where people are different and unknown. Even to those places.

It’s also clear that wherever the disciples go next, whatever this new Jesus movement looks like, they will not be alone. One of the overwhelming messages of the Easter season comes in how Jesus keeps patiently showing up – on the road to Emmaus, in the locked room, to the guy who missed the first appearance, to the women, to them all. Over and over again, the Risen Christ shows up. And even as Jesus ascends to heaven, the promise is and always has been that he will not leave his followers alone – the Spirit is on the move.

In the final verses of this passage, we get a glimmer of where the Church might be headed as it seeks to answer, “how will we live on this side of the Resurrection.”

“When they returned to Jerusalem from the Mt of Olives (Luke tells us)…they went to the upstairs room where they were staying. Peter, John, James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James (who was Alphaeus’ son), Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James…along with some women including Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers…all were united in their devotion to prayer.”

United in their devotion to prayer.

The church doesn’t begin with the big bang of Pentecost. It begins with a hodge-podge group of followers – young and old, men and women – united in their devotion to prayer.

These early days of the church are fascinating really. Having been on both sides of life, of love – the disciples had to figure out what to do with the good news. How would the Resurrection make a difference – what would it matter in their lives and in the lives of others around the world?

We too live on this side of Easter. And we too are called to push boundaries and to go beyond our imaginations. We cannot remain locked up inside our safe walls any more than the earliest disciples could.

I wonder what we can learn from those early days? I wonder what we still have to learn about life, about love. Where does resurrection show up in our lives? How will we practice resurrection?

I don’t know what it will look like in this season exactly – but I do know this: We would be best served if we were united in our devotion to prayer. And we do not go alone.

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