Sunday 08/20/23 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “Physical Food Vs. Spiritual Food!”
Old Testament Scripture: Psalm 133
New Testament Scripture: Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 15:10-28
I have a question for us all this
morning. How many people here have been to a buffet? I know I asked a question
like this in a recent sermon, but I am going in a little bit of a different
direction this morning. Some of us that are familiar with the Club 55 restaurant
here in Sidney, might not know that they advertise their buffet dinners every Friday
night. They also have buffet dinners at other times too. I have never been to a
Club 55 buffet dinner. Have any of you?
Have of us ever been to the Golden
Corral Buffet? I remember going to the biggest buffet I had ever been to, when
I was in Pennsylvania about 6-8 years ago. I went on a church trip to the Sight
and Sound Theater in Lancaster, County Pennsylvania. It is an amazing theater
if you have never been to it. The productions portray biblical characters and
stories, with live animals, and all sort of other amazing things.
As part of this trip, which I think was
the first time Melissa and I went with a group to the Sight and Sound theater,
we saw the production of “Moses.” We also went to a little village to shop, and
we also got brought to the Shady Maple Smorgasbord, which as I said, was the
biggest buffet that I had ever seen in my life. I still remember walking in the
first of a couple times I went. I stood in awe for a few seconds. When then got
our tables and ordered our ice teas, sodas, coffee, water, and etc.
Everyone else in the church group had
gotten up to head to get their food, but I lingered a little behind. You see, I
was writing on a table napkin. One of my parishioners at the time said, “Pastor
Paul what are you doing?” I said, “I’m creating a buffet strategy!” The parishioner
said, “What does that mean?” I then responded, “Does any great general lead an
army into battle without a strategy?” The parishioner said, “well no, I don’t
think so.” I then said, “And you expect me to attack the biggest buffet I have
ever seen in my life without a strategy?”
This drew a lot laughter, but I had a
strategy, and it didn’t involve me missing out on trying different all things
at the buffet! At a buffet like this you don’t waste time on salads, or rice,
there are bigger things to go after friends!
Stories and examples like this got me
thinking though, and as I thought and prepared for this sermon, I asked myself “what
if buffets had chaplains?” I mean don’t get me wrong, on the church trip we
prayed before we ate, and I generally do the same whenever I go out to eat with
friends. Imagine though, if you went to the Club 55 Friday night buffet, and
after you were seated and ordered your drinks, Pastor Paul approaches your
table. I then say, “welcome to the buffet, my name is Pastor Paul, and I will
be your chaplain for this evening”. Imagine if the Golden Coral Buffet had a
chaplain, or the Shady Maple Smorgasbord Buffet near Sight and Sound Theater in
Lancaster County Pennsylvania had a chaplain?
What would be different about a meal,
a buffet, or feeding others, if a spiritual component was added in? You know,
as I have said before, so many churches are good at putting on a spread. Buffet
dinners, fund raiser dinners, etc., yet if we don’t tell them about Jesus, if
we don’t invite them to church, and if we don’t befriend them, then how will their
experience be any different than going to a buffet or a restaurant? If we only
offer people “Physical Food,” how are they supposed to find “Spiritual Food?”
Suppose that the Golden Corral Buffet
and the Shady Maple Smorgasbord had a weekly community prayer meeting that met in
their restaurants, but it was not advertised? How would we know about it? If I
attend a church dinner, and I have no idea who goes to the church, who the
pastor is, or what they are all about, why would I go to the church on Sunday?
Is because the good lasagna that they served made me find Jesus? Or perhaps on
the way into the church, or when I was exiting the church, Jesus would just pop
up in the hedgerow and introduce himself to me? I mean, if we are not going to
tell anyone that attends the dinner about Jesus, the church, who we are, or why
we are here, then are we really shocked when no one comes to the church until
we have another dinner.
A great pastor from the 1800’s, Charles
Spurgeon said this:
“If you have to give a carnival to get people to come
to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming
back.” (https://quotefancy.com/quote/786352/Charles-H-Spurgeon-If-you-have-to-give-a-carnival-to-get-people-to-come-to-church-then?
If a
church has a dinner, an event, or a fundraiser over and over, and you continue
to get crowds, but if no one is coming to the church on Sunday, are we really
offering “Spiritual Food?” This is why my sermon title for today is called “Physical
Food Vs. Spiritual Food!”
Now on
the other end of the spectrum we have what James talked about in the Book of
James. In fact, in James 2:15-16, it says:
15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? (Jas. 2:15-16, NRSV).
So, we can feed people’s bodies, and
tell them nothing about our faith, about Jesus, and or our church. Or we could
do all of those things, and yet ignore the persons physical needs. To me, a
strong and a growing church, is one that offers both “Physical Food” and “Spiritual
Food”.
I remember in a church that used to
serve for example, that I could not attend a Thanksgiving Dinner one year. One of
the members of this church found out and approached me angrily and asked me, “Well
if you are not here, what will happen if someone wants to know about Jesus?” I then
looked at that person and asked, “Well since you know him too, I was under the impression
that you could let that person know who Jesus is.”
One of the realities that all churches
need to combat now and into the future, is not seeing the pastor or the priest
as the only person in ministry. We are all called by our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ to be witnesses to his love, and spreaders of his gospel. We won’t all
do this in the same way, but if people come to dinner after dinner, and event
after event, and they never connect with the church, then what?
Friends we can feed, we can clothe, we
can love, we can heal, and we can help people in countless ways, but why would
we feed someone “Physical Food” and not offer them “Spiritual Food?” In this
way, a great ministry at this church and at the Mount Upton UMC is Sauce and
Cross. I did not create the Sidney Area Sauce and Cross, as it was created by
former District Superintendent Rev. Everett Bassett, and his wife Sharon
Basset. What was and is brilliant about this ministry? We start the ministry
every month by sharing a free meal together. We all eat together, fellowship
together, get to know each other together, and we all love each other.
Then, after we have received this “Physical
Food,” we have a worship service in the church sanctuary. In this service, we
are feed spiritually. The “Physical Food” is the “Sauce” and the “Spiritual Food”
is the “Cross.” This is why this ministry is called “Sauce and Cross” and this is
why we are “feeding the body and the soul.” Some of us struggle though to share
and to tell people about our faith and our church. We do not all have the same
gifts, but if we all love Jesus, if we all love our church, and if we all want
the mission of our church to be strengthened, then we need to offer people “Physical
Food,” and “Spiritual Food.”
One of the breakaway Christian denominations
that broke away from the original Methodist Movement in the 1800’s is the Salvation
Army. The Salvation Army preaches the gospel, and is hyper-concerned with people’s
spiritual well-beings. What the Salvation Army does so well is it offers people
“Physical Food,” and “Spiritual Food.”
If we are being honest then, do we do
both? If we are being honest, we can probably say that some of us might do more
of one and not the other, that we do both well, or that it depends on the
circumstances. In our recent VBS, we fed kids and families “Physical Food” in
the beginning each night, but then we feed the kids and families “Spiritual Food”.
You see, the Last Supper with Jesus and his friends on that first Maundy or
Holy Thursday, started as a normal Passover Sedar Dinner. Everyone was fed physically,
but by the end of the night, the disciples were given Holy Communion, Foot
Washing, and the Mandate to love each other. I can say very confidentially that
the Last Supper was a night where the disciples were fed “Physical Food,” and “Spiritual
Food.”
We hear in the first verse of our reading
from Psalm 133 for this morning, once again:
1 How very good and
pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! (Ps. 133:1, NRSV).
Unity
though, is more than just sharing food at a church dinner. Unity is sharing our
lives, our faith, our hurts, our joys, and our experiences with each other.
This is the fullness of the church, as we offer people “Physical Food,” and “Spiritual
Food.”
We hear
in our reading for this morning from Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 in 11:2a once again:
2 God
has not rejected his people whom he foreknew (Rom.
11:2a, NRSV).
The Apostle Paul
then says in 11:29-31, once again:
29 for
the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 Just as you were
once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their
disobedience, 31 so they have now been disobedient in order
that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now
receive mercy (Rom. 11:29-31, NRSV).
God
has not rejected us, and the gifts and the calling we have from God are not
changed. If we turn to Christ, we are forgiven. If we have been disobedient and
hard of heart, Christ offers us love and mercy if we turn to him. As beautiful
as this is my friends, how will people know about this if we never tell them?
It could be the best church dinner in community history, and we will have offered
great “Physical Food,” but did well tell them how much God loves them? What if
they left the church with a full stomach and a broken heart? What if we offer “Physical
Food” and “Spiritual Food?”
This
leads us to our gospel of Matthew 15:10-28 reading for this morning. Jesus is
challenged and accused of eating while unclean. Jesus did not wash his hands before
eating, and therefore, according to Jewish Law was ritually unclean. This then
therefore made Jesus’ food ritually unclean, and spiritually harmful.
When
I was kid, we always washed our hands before sitting at grandmas table on
Sunday, but not because we were ritually unclean. We did this so that the
linens and other things would stay clean. In the same way, Jesus accuses his accusers
of attacking him for eating with unclean hands, while they have unclean hearts
and souls.
Instead
of being focused on rituals and strict traditions, Jesus tells the Pharisees
and the religious leaders this morning, that clean hands are not the issue. The
bigger issue my friends is having a dirty heart and a dirty soul. If we have a
church dinner and everyone has clean hands, but if they hurt and have pain in their
hearts and souls, then we didn’t offer them “Spiritual Food.”
Starting
in Matthew 15:10, Jesus reinforces this saying:
10 Then he called the crowd to him and said
to them, ‘Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles
a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ 12 Then the
disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took
offence when they heard what you said?’ 13 He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly
Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind
guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall
into a pit’ (Mt. 15:10-14, NRSV).
Jesus is basically telling the Pharisees
and religious leaders that you so focused on clean hands and the “Physical
Food,” but what about the heart and soul of the person? We eat food, it is
digested, but what about what comes out of our mouths and hearts. In other
words, Jesus is telling the religious leaders that they are putting on dinners
and are focused on the food and the ritual, but are they focused on the heart
and the soul?
Initially
being a little confused by what Jesus said in Matthew 15:10-14, the gospel
lesson picks up in Matthew 10:15 saying, once again:
15 But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this
parable to us.’ 16 Then he said, ‘Are you also still without
understanding? 17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the
mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes
out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the
heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false
witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with
unwashed hands does not defile’ (Mt. 15:15-20, NRSV).
It’s
not that having clean hands before eating is a bad thing, but it we had to choose
between dirty hands and a dirty soul, I don’t know about you, but I chose a clean
soul and dirty hands. This is why my friends; it is important that we offer people
“Physical Food” and “Spiritual Food.” For as the great Pastor Charles Spurgeon
said:
“If you have to give a carnival to get people to come
to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming
back.” (https://quotefancy.com/quote/786352/Charles-H-Spurgeon-If-you-have-to-give-a-carnival-to-get-people-to-come-to-church-then?
The rest of our gospel of Matthew reading
from 15:21-28 shows us the expansiveness of Christ’s love and the gospel. The
first followers of Jesus were all Jews and were called “The Way,” or “The Way
of Christ,” but quickly all manner of people would begin to become followers of
Christ. We see a glimpse of the expansiveness of the followers of Jesus Christ
being both Jew and gentile, in Matthew 15:21-28.
In
this final portion of our gospel reading, a Canaanite woman shouts to Jesus to
rid her daughter from being tormented by a demon. Jesus at first does not
answer her, for she is of a different culture, tribe, and religion. This woman
who wants to help her daughter however, persisted. Jesus then says he came to
save and restore the Jews. Yet the Canaanite woman will not take no for an
answer. She came and knelt before Jesus. To challenge her Jesus says stating in
Matthew 15:26, once again:
26 He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the
children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27 She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even
the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28 Then Jesus
answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’
And her daughter was healed instantly (Mt. 15:26-28, NRSV).
Some
people in the time of Jesus, considered the Canaanite people to be like dogs
compared to them. Jesus then says to lovingly challenge the Canaanite woman, why
take food from children and throw it to the dogs? Or to put it another way, why
should Jesus help the Canaanite woman when she doesn’t believe in the God of Israel,
and knows nothing about him. Even though some Jews considered the Canaanites no
better than dogs for their rejection of the God of Israel and for being of a different
culture, the woman says to Jesus:
‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat
the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table’ (Mt. 15:27, NRSV).
After
Jesus lovingly challenges the Canaanite woman with the stereo-type of being no
better than a dog, she says, but even dogs can receive the crumbs of what Jesus
is teaching. Essentially, that anyone, Jew or not, can receiving the grace of God
in Jesus Christ. This is made evident, when our gospel of Matthew 15:10-28
lesson, ends once again with Jesus speaking to the Canaanite woman in 15:28
saying:
28 Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is
your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed
instantly (Mt. 15:28,
NRSV).
Jesus
was not talking to the Canaanite woman about “Physical Food,” but rather “Spiritual
Food.” Jew, Gentile, Greek, Roman, etc., all need “Physical Food,” and “Spiritual
Food.” As a church then, and as Christians we need to offer all people “Physical
Food” and “Spiritual Food,” for both the body and the soul need to be fed.
Amen.
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