The Blog of St. Mark

The Word — it’s what’s for dinner!

• Order of Service: Common Service (CW, p15)
• Lessons: Jeremiah 15:15-21, Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:21-26
• Hymns: 104, 469, 355, 434

In the Name of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.

“I found a fry on the floor, Dad, so I ate it.”  Sitting in a booth at a McDonald’s in Kentucky, I was thankful that my wife wasn’t there.  Katherine popped up from underneath the table, jubilantly chewing on someone else’s fry that had fallen on the floor.

Right there we made a rule.  “We don’t eat food on the floor of a McDonald’s, ok?  Even if it’s our own food that we dropped.  Five-second rule or not, let’s just leave that food for the cleaning crew, ok?”  Not necessarily understanding why, Katherine readily agreed and waited patiently for Mom to come with more food.  We also rehearsed the silence that would greet Mom, no happily explosions of, “Mom, guess what?  I found a fry on the floor and Dad let me eat it!”

Even though the food might have looked good, because it was on the floor in a public place where other people’s feet and shoes rested, not to mention any number of drips, drops, spills, stains, and creepy-crawly creatures scampered, it wasn’t a good idea to eat it.  It looked good, but wasn’t good.

“Have two bites.”  That’s the rule around a lot of tables with kids, isn’t it?  It’s even the rule for Mom and Dad.  That rule rules our dinner table.  When something new, different, or unusual sits on the plate, you’re supposed to try it.  Even if it’s asparagus, or brussel sprouts, or mushrooms, or artichoke hearts, or sauerkraut, or squash.  Try it, you may like it, Dr. Seuss teaches.  Try it, because it’s good for you.  No matter how weird it looks, smells, or feels.  Not only because you didn’t pick it up off the floor of a McDonalds.  But because they’re naturally packed with things we need, not with artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors.

We get these things about food.  Because we do, God talks a lot about food in the Bible.  The verse of the day from the prophet Jeremiah, taken from the appointed Old Testament lesson, is just one of many of those places.  When your words came, I ate them, Jeremiah said.  They were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty (Jeremiah 15:16).  A number of English translations more closely follow the Hebrew of that opening phrase and say Your words were found.  The question is, are these words like the fry on the floor or the asparagus on the plate?

To both Jeremiah and Peter they were asparagus on the plate.  God called Jeremiah to damn the people among whom he lived.  He announced God’s anger and coming punishment.  Specifically in chapter 15, God explains through Jeremiah the meaning of an incredible, ongoing drought.  “You love to sin, now I’ll remember those sins.”  “Your prophets love to tell lies; you’ll get what you deserve.”  “You followed the nations in their idolatries and adulteries, I’ll destroy you.”  “Because of your sins you will suffer.”

And Jeremiah says, “Great, but what about me?  I’ve been good.  Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?  Will you be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails (Jeremiah 15:18)?”  Jeremiah knew these words of the Lord were good, yet he had to choke them down.  And Peter, who boldly confessed, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16), gags on what Jesus sets before him next:  suffering, death, the cross.  Never, Lord (Matthew 16:22)!

While God gave Jeremiah and Peter the good and healthy asparagus, both really would have preferred a fry from off the ground.  Even if only momentarily.  Even though they knew that one would give them heartburn and the other would unclog their arteries.

How foolish it would be for us to let our children eat food off restaurant floors and spurn the clean and healthy fruits and vegetables we know they need.  How foolish of us when we do it to ourselves!  But how often wouldn’t we rather have the fry off the floor than the asparagus?

It’s hard to choke down what Christ says.  It’s hard to choke down God’s Word.  We don’t want to swallow it because it speaks words we don’t want to hear.  We don’t want to hear about bearing crosses.  We don’t want to hear that even though we obey we still suffer.  We don’t want to hear that faith in Christ means do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed (Romans 12:2).  Because that doesn’t look as good.  That doesn’t taste as good.  So we’d rather scrounge around on the floor, we’d rather pluck up something already chewed on, something stepped on, something left behind.  We’d much rather have our taste-buds tickled, than challenged.  We’d rather savor for a moment than live a healthy life.  Even though we know we’ll regret eating that dirty fry later, we still eat it.

Because it’s more pleasing and pleasant.  It’s more pleasing and pleasant to pick and choose which words of God we want and which we don’t.  It’s more pleasant and pleasing to read our novels and watch our programs regardless of how much sex and violence and depravity fills them.  It’s more pleasant and pleasing to live the way everybody else is living than it is to go against the grain.  It’s more pleasant to eat anything and everything else, than it is to eat the Word of God offered to us in Scriptures and proclaimed to us by our called servants of the Word.  When did you last really rejoice with those who said to you, “It’s time to go to church?”  Were you just as happy heading off to Bible class as you were to your friend’s house?  Why the dirty fry, when there’s the healthy asparagus cooked to perfection, plated beautifully, and ready to eat?

Still Jeremiah says, When your words came, I ate them (Jer. 15:16) and Peter didn’t abandon Christ when He called him Satan.  Despite what Christ’s words sounded like and looked like on the plate, despite what they promised – pain, anguish, and suffering – they were the better food.

Sam-I-am said, “Try them and you may.”  The Holy Spirit says the same.  “Try them.  Eat them.  Discover the bearable lightness of your crosses, lightened by the cross of Christ, the suffering that He bore.”  “Try them.  Eat them.  In view of God’s mercy (Romans 12:1), looking at Christ, fixing your eyes on Christ, the Son of the Living God, who didn’t just die, but rose, understand that these words come from the love of God for you.”  “Try them, and discover the honeyed sweetness that Ezekiel and John discovered.  Yes, they will occasionally cause you pain and anguish, yes there will be indigestion as your sinful nature rebels, as the world rejects you, but still they’re sweet, ever so sweet, for the Law that condemns leads you to Christ, so that you might be justified by faith, and live in view of the mercy of the One who feeds you.  Try them.  Eat them.”

God has set the table deliciously.  He does not pick up scraps from the floor, wiping off the dust so that it looks attractive.  He doesn’t pack His Word with calories and chemicals.  He fills it with the nutrients we need.  He announces the judgment we need to hear, cleansing our systems of pride and arrogance and sin, driving us to despair.  But then He doesn’t leave us in doubt.  No shortages, no rationing, no terrible drought or famine follows.  Only the finest of foods, the choicest of wines, the best of breads.  He places the Living Bread from heaven upon your plate.  He fills your cup with His Son’s blood.  And it’s all around you.  It’s in the Bible on your bed stand, the gathering around that Bible in your Bible classes, the Divine Service in your church, the Sacrament upon your altars, the Baptism at your fonts.

You wouldn’t let your kids eat junk off the floor.  Don’t let their souls, or yours, do the same.  What’s for dinner?  The Word.  Yesterday, today, and forever.  The Word that fills your soul with good things.  The Word that marks you as belonging to God.  The Word written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31).  The Word – it’s what for dinner!  Amen!