Hello,
Every Friday I treat myself to fine dining at lunch. I go to the Food Court at the local mall….well, not exactly five star. I call my Friday ventures “Food Court Fridays”. Truthfully, I don’t go there for the food (duh), but I go there to make myself available to folks to visit with them. Sometimes a handful of people show up, and sometimes no one shows up. But I am there every Friday, usually eating Chinese fare, looking forward to sharing some time with the folk.
This past Friday as I was awaiting prospective diners, my ears caught the sound of a strange conversation going on at the table behind me. Now lest you think that I was eavesdropping, let me quickly state that the conversation was a bit on the loud side….at least by one of the participants. Not only was it a bit loud, it was a bit difficult to understand, at least for me. The two other people at the table seemed to be holding down an ongoing conversation with the person whose voice caught my ears, and although I wasn’t able to detect the gist of their conversation, their words that made it through the filter of the mall noise were recognizable to my non-eavesdropping ears. The longer I sat there and the more my ears took in the loud voice that first caught them, it became clear to me that the voice that I heard had a speech impediment that appeared to be the result of a hearing deficiency.
Now…once again….not that I was trying to eavesdrop, no matter how hard I strained my ears, I, unlike the two women at the table with the woman I first heard, could not understand what she was saying. It soon occurred to me as to why this was: they had obviously heard her speech quite a bit before enabling their understanding of it, and I was not at their table to hear them well.
Although I hadn’t thought about it in this way before, my Food Court Friday “eavesdropping” (no I wasn’t) pointed out to me why it benefits me to go to church every Sunday: to regularly hear God’s speech, and to be at God’s table so that I might hear God well. Truth is, God’s speech does seem to have a bit of an impediment (maybe the impediment is actually our ears?). God’s words of forgiveness and mercy don’t have the same ring as the world’s words of judgment and vengeance. God’s words of unconditional love don’t have the same tonality as the world’s fickle and “what have you done for me lately” love. And God’s declaration that our worth and value has its foundation in what God has done, that he has sent his Son to stake his claim on us, and it is not based upon the great things or the terrible things that we have done has a divine drawl that is often misunderstood. I need to hear God’s speech quite a bit so I can understand it better.
It is true that God is not silent outside the walls of the church, but there’s an awful lot of “mall” noise out there, and besides that, the Lord’s table is in the church. Sunday after Sunday the Lord invites me to dine with him and to converse directly with me saying, “this is my body, given for you… this is my blood, shed for you”. I know that his words may seem to be impediment-like when eavesdropped upon outside of his table, but I also know this; when they are spoken to me at his table they ring with a clarity that changes my life, that gives me hope, and empowers me to live in the world with divine mercy.
If you’re in the Westmoreland Mall area of Greensburg on Fridays from noon ‘til one, let me invite you to come to “Food Court Friday” and visit with me – it will be fun to get to know each other better spending meal time around a table. And no matter where you are on Sunday morning, let me extend the Lord’s invitation to “Food Court Sunday” and visit with him. I am certain it will be more than fun. It will be a joy for God….and for you….to spend some meal time together.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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