Have You Anything Here to Eat, a sermon based on Luke 24: 36-48 preached on April 14, 2024

Several years ago, there was a trend to wear bracelets with the letters “WWJD” on them. The bracelets were meant to remind the wearer to ask him or herself, “What would Jesus do?” I remember wearing one as a teenager, and so while driving, I’d occasionally glance at the bracelet and would check my speedometer, asking myself, “Would Jesus speed?” or, joking with friends, maybe making fun of someone we knew, I’d glance at the bracelet and would ask myself, “Would Jesus be laughing right now?” That was the intended purpose of the bracelet, yet given the supernatural abilities of Jesus, Dr, David Bartlett, a well-known Bible scholar, once asked the question, “What would Jesus do?” and said, “Jesus would give the blind man his sight. Jesus would make the leper clean. Jesus would multiply the bread and fish to feed thousands. Jesus would face death without fear. Jesus would die and on the third day, would rise again.” In other words, it’s not always good to ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” because there are things that Jesus can do that we cannot. Jesus, the son of God, did supernatural things, and yet, Jesus, the risen Christ, also did perfectly human things. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept, just as we do. Jesus laughed, just as we do. When Jesus stormed the Temple and toppled the tables of the money changers, it was because Jesus got angry, just as we do. Now, in our Second Scripture lesson, Jesus, the risen Christ, Who has done the most supernatural thing of all by rising from the dead, follows up this awe-inspiring miracle by asking his disciples, “Have you anything here to eat?” Eating is not supernatural. Jesus got hungry; we get hungry. Being hungry and asking friends for something to eat is an act that everyone here is capable of, so while I don’t doubt the power of God, Who might enable one of us to walk on water or speak in another language, think with me today about Jesus, the divine Miracle Worker, the One who conquers death and is risen to rule the world and what has He to teach us in asking this question, “Have you anything here to eat?” What does it mean that Jesus who wept, who laughed, who got angry, also got hungry, and when He got hungry, He made a request of his disciples, “Have you anything here to eat?” when likely He could have waved His hand and produced a five-course meal or touched His belly and freed Himself from such mortal struggles as being hungry. Have you ever wished you wouldn’t get hungry? I wish I could resist tortilla chips at Mexican restaurants. Why can’t I stop eating them? “What would Jesus do?” the bracelet asks. I say, “Jesus would never give into the temptation of tortilla chips the way I do,” and yet Jesus, the risen Christ, asked His disciples, “Have you anything here to eat?” Why? I believe it is because they were afraid, and Jesus knows that there are a million tiny things that reduce our fear. He knows that there are hundreds of tiny gestures that make us feel safe. One of them is sharing a meal, but another is a simple handshake. Have you ever thought much about the power of a handshake? Imagine with me that you’ve just signed a contract with a new business partner, and when you go to shake her hand, she keeps her hands in her pockets. How are you going to feel? What I’m trying to say is that a handshake is more than a handshake. And a meal is more than food. Jesus knows that. Have you ever experienced it? I have. Just last week, I was on my way to a Presbyterian pastors conference in Moab, Utah. It was for Presbyterian ministers at larger Presbyterian churches. Only 15 were invited from across the country, so I was honored to be invited and proud to be a pastor at a larger Presbyterian church. A wealthy donor put us all up in a beautiful lodge next to a river. The only catch was that to get there I had to fly in a plane that didn’t have TVs. I sat down and there was no built-in TV for me to watch. In fact, there was a sticker where the TV might have been that said, “At this seat, we’re pleased to offer you free personal device entertainment.” Translation: You don’t get a TV to watch movies. You can look at your phone or use your laptop, so I put in my earbuds and took out my computer. Later, the flight attendants came around with snacks. Because they charged me $40 to check my luggage, I thought they were also going to charge me for a snack, yet lo and behold, the flight attendant came to our row with off-brand Chex Mix and full cans of ginger ale. Closing my computer and taking out my ear buds to focus on eating my snack, the woman next to me, who noticed that I had been working on this sermon, asked me if I was Roman Catholic or Presbyterian. “Presbyterian,” I responded, “but how did you guess that?” I asked. She saw the sermon I had been working on and noticed the bulletin draft I had open. Knowing that her nondenominational church doesn’t use the liturgy that we do, she put it together that I must be Roman Catholic or Presbyterian. Then, I introduced myself. I told her my name. She told me hers and that she lives near Peachtree City. I told her that I live in Marietta. The next thing I know, she’s telling me about her son who lives near the Battery, her other son who is doing his residency in Albuquerque, and her youngest son, also named Joe, who died by suicide two years ago. I told her I was sorry. She thanked me for listening. Would she have told me that if no off-brand Chex Mix had been provided? I doubt it because a handshake is not just a handshake. A meal is not just a meal. Knowing that, this morning I draw your attention to a most human request that the resurrected Jesus makes of His disciples: Have you anything here to eat? He’s just done the most supernatural thing that He could possibly do. Rising from the dead is so amazing, so supernatural, so miraculous that the disciples can’t even believe He’s real. Did you notice that in our second Scripture lesson? They were all disbelieving and wondering, so He invited them to touch His hands and His feet, yet that wasn’t enough. As Dr. Bartlett said, “What would Jesus do? Give the blind his sight, heal the leper, multiply the loaves and fishes.” There are all kinds of supernatural things that Jesus does that keep Him outside our grasp and keep us from understanding Who He is, so this morning, think with me about this most human thing that He does, this most basic thing He does, which is also something that from time to time defies our grasp because we get busy doing all kinds of other things so that we don’t eat together either. What keeps us from sitting down and eating together? Maybe one kid has baseball practice three nights a week. The other has dance lessons. Plus, they both have after-school tutoring to get ahead. Parents work. Dogs must be walked. The grass must be cut. All kinds of important meetings and enriching activities have families moving in so many different directions that getting around the dinner table for a shared meal can seem impossible, so when I hear Jesus ask, “Have you anything here to eat?” while I don’t hear anything supernatural in the request, and while I don’t hear anything impossible, I do hear Him teaching us something important and life changing. I hear Jesus, the perfect, sinless, miracle-working, Son of God, revealing once again the incredible gift that we look over, for He is there in the breaking of the bread. That’s what we say so often at the communion table, and yet the kitchen table is an ordinary miracle with healing powers all its own. In my first or second year of ministry, I was invited over for lunch by a mother in the congregation. The invitation came about three weeks after I had been asked by the local newspaper what the Bible really says about homosexuality. In 250 words, I wrote my response. I wrote that while there are passages in the Bible that speak to the issue, Jesus never mentions it, and if Jesus never mentions it, then why do we spend so much time talking about it? That’s all I wrote, but that statement was enough for one member of the congregation to photocopy the article and place it on every pew in the sanctuary while another member of the church held a petition for people to sign if they’d like for me to be fired. It wasn’t the best day of my life, and it was followed by multiple lunches where I was lectured. Multiple cups of coffee where I was interrogated. I would go to visit church members in the hospital, and after I prayed for them, they’d tell me how they felt about what I wrote. Three weeks after I wrote the article, this mother invited me to her home for lunch, and I remember calling Sara from the driveway, “I hope this is the last one. I’m tired of this.” When I walked in, she was visibly nervous. She had prepared too much food for us to eat. I remember there being a bowl of chicken salad and another bowl of tuna salad. We ate in awkward silence for at least 30 minutes before she finally asked, “Can you really tell me that my son isn’t going to hell?” Have you anything here to eat? That’s the question that Jesus asks. Moreover, it’s a question that we all ask because we are all hungry, yet it’s not only a question about food, for a handshake is not just a handshake nor is a meal just a meal. A meal is an invitation to see Jesus as He is, right here, risen and with us, so sit down and eat with people. Eat with your family. Invite your neighbors over. Why? Because we don’t see Jesus clearly even though He is always with us nor do we see each other clearly because we are moving too fast, yet when we sit down to break bread together, we remember that He is with us, and He will be with us forever. Halleluiah. Amen.