Eucharistic meditation, July 3

Luke 14:21: Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, "Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame."

Pastor Wilson has reminded us this morning that the older members of our congregation are not pitiable stragglers in the church's pilgrimage. Instead they are in the vanguard; they are the trailblazers, marking out that path that we, by God's grace, might follow. And as such, they are essential the vigor and health of the church. We need our older members as much as they need us.

This table is a weekly reminder of that fact. At this table, all the baptized – Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, young and old – are joined together as one body because we all partake of the one loaf. At this table, we make a weekly confession that we are bound together as the organs and members of a body are all parts of a single body. At this table, we not only acknowledge our utter dependence upon Christ and His Spirit, but also our dependence upon one another for health and life.

The very young and the very old are, in fact, the model participants at this table. We tend to think otherwise. The paradigm participant, we tend to think, is an adult with all his faculties developed and still intact; one who knows the difference between trans and con and knows that both are wrong; who can remember Christ's death and consciously confess his sins. Little children and old folks are strange exceptions, welcome at this table by the gracious indulgence of the vigorous and mature.

Jesus, however, said that the Father would invite the halt and the lame, the weak and the despised to this table. Jesus said that we must become as little children if we hope to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus might well have said that we must become old frail if we hope to enter the kingdom. Don't come to this table despising the weak, the very young and the very old. Come to this table aspiring to imitate their childlike faith, acknowledging your own feebleness and trusting the Father to feed you living bread.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, July 03, 2005 at 09:07 AM

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