Not to do some name dropping, but who is the most influential person that you’ve ever had dinner with.
When we are invited to a dinner by some person in a higher position than ourselves, I would think that invitation would be flattering to us.
It may mean that we are also doing something up high on the scale of doing something worthwhile.
Again, not to do any dropping of big names here to sound impressive, for I can’t really say that I’ve done anything up on a high scale, but I’ve had breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with many mayors, congressmen, and senators.
Although to be up front with full disclosure, don’t be too impressed. I was there at these events with up to five hundred other clergy. It’s a common thing for politicians to invite clergy to prayer breakfasts and to lunches and dinners along with other leaders for the benefit of the community.
Of course, you know me, if someone would ask, “Hey Tom, what you are doing today?” I would leave out some of the details like the crowd of people who were invited, too, and reply, “Oh, I’m having dinner with my old pal Senator so and so.”
Although I’m just a regular old guy, I have to admit that it felt good to be part of something bigger than myself when I was eating with others who were also trying to make a positive impact in the community.
I try to always remember how Scripture gives some etiquette about taking the lowest seat when you are invited to a banquet, so that the host will say, “No, you are not to sit there but up here in a place of honor.”
Well, that hasn’t worked for me. I go to sit in the lowest seat and stay there.
Did you ever have that experience of someone placing you in a place of honor?
I can answer that question for you don’t mind. The answer is, “Yes, you’ve had the honor of eating with the most important banquet with the King who is the King of all kings.”
Every time when you are in church for worship, you are at a banquet eating with the King of all kings.
Before we get into today’s banquet, let’s talk about the lunch that our King provided to thousands of people centuries ago.
We can talk about how Jesus didn’t intend to host a crowd. He and the disciples had been busy teaching and healing, and he thought they needed to take a break away from all the people.
But, when the people saw that Jesus was walking away, they followed him.
Jesus saw the people, and as he has to be the person that he is, he had compassion on them and spoke to them about the Father’s kingdom.
Also, he realized that they were far from any food as he and the disciples were trying to get away, so Jesus being the person that he is had that compassion still going and was thinking these people had to be hungry.
Here were the options when it came to feeing the large amount of people that had gathered:
1. Send them away. They could go back home to eat although it was a little bit of a distance. No fast food places back then like there are today.
2. The disciples could buy the meal although they didn’t have enough money in their mission budget to do so.
3. With the small amount of food that they had, they could try to stretch it, but the crowd was way too big for that. Each person would just get crumbs to eat. Running short on food is not what a good host does.
There was a fourth option that only Jesus thought of. The last option was to have God the Father feed them.
Jesus took the little food that they had, he asked God the Father to bless it, and all were fed with abundant leftovers.
We could call this feeding from a handful of food to having such a huge amount a miracle, and it is. Only God in heaven can do such things.
But, for us here today, we need to get a perspective on how God mostly works in these days.
We can always count on that the Lord provides for us in all that we need. It’s as we are taught to pray for in all things, “Thy will be done.”
To say as succinctly as possible so we get what we can make complicated and then make it wrong, God is simply always having compassion on us and is always taking care of us in His wisdom.
In that small sentence there is a lot to unpack for humans who dwell on their problems. When we have our expectations about our lives, we are mostly thinking that God is to do our will that is usually messed up and not His will that is always perfect.
After all, we are taught to bring our cares to God. But, in those prayers, we may not be thinking so much what is God’s will for us as we pray for ourselves, but what we desire for a light life with few if any worries.
Using myself as an example: if I’m always looking for miracles, I’m concerned that I’m looking for my will to be done, which is usually a kind of bale out or an easy fix of some trouble that I’ve gotten myself into.
I always need to call myself back and remember how we need to go through our problems and tough times as a process. It’s through these times we mostly learn what faith in God is all about.
Faith knows that God is always with us, but that does not mean that life is always going to turn out as we like.
Faith gives the trust that we will always be more than okay as God knows best for us.
The last point and I think is the most important for us today is how these people had lunch with the King all of kings.
To be clear, this meal was not a preview of the Lord’s Supper. That meal would come later, but in a way the Lord’s Supper and this feeding of a crowd have something in common.
They are both a foretaste of the banquet feast that we will be having in heaven one day with Jesus and all those who have died in the faith.
To add here and I don’t think this is stretching it, but when we who are all saints have our potlucks in the church basement, we are having a touch of heaven as we think that one day we all be together again eating a feast at the banquet table in heaven.
Most definitely, as we sit in worship, we are having a feast where we are being filled with God’s Word that feeds our faiths.
The liturgy has a prayer that we use often that says we are digesting God’s Word as we hear it. Like the food that we eat that gives our bodies strength, the food of Word and Sacrament in worship gives strength to our faiths, so we can live our lives with confidence that God is taking care of us from this day to our last day when we enter heaven.
As I get to my concluding thoughts, I know that I’m “preaching” to the choir. If you are reading this devotion, you are probably a dedicated church goer.
You know what worship is about, but even the “choir” needs to hear this next part because we are human and can have a tendency not to get all that we have that is going on in worship. We can get distracted and not give full focus to our Lord when we are in worship.
A little after the feeding of the crowd, Jesus made the comment that some people were making him a “Bread King.”
Jesus wanted to make clear that he was not here to fill human desires by solving problems by miracles, but he was ultimately here to fill our soul’s desires.
As baptized people who are called to do God’s will with eagerness, we want our souls filled with all the Lord wants to give us. No diet restrictions here. We are to eat all that God wants to give us that feeds our souls with His good things, and in this way we have what is most important, we have the salvation for our souls.
We will for certain be one day eating at that banquet table in heaven with Jesus and all the ones who have died in the faith.
Until then, today you and I have had lunch with the King of all kings. That hard pew that you are seating on is the place of the highest honor that you can get in this life. What a joy it is for us to have a Lunk with the King of all kings so often as every Sunday.
Look around you, see other saints, hear the Words coming from our Lord, taste and eat the true body and blood of our Lord, and let it all fill you up to take with you as you go out into your lives knowing your faith has been filled, so you can trust in the Lord in all things.