Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!

The following meditation was inspired by the recent gospel readings from the Eucharistic lectionary.

Early in the gospel of Matthew, the universalizing of God’s kingdom (prophesied beforehand in the scriptures), is brought up in terms of table-fellowship: “I tell you, many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Later in the gospel, a Canaanite woman comes to Jesus, crying out what we would today perhaps recognize as the Jesus prayer or the prayer of the heart. She comes and cries out because her daughter is tormented by demonic possession, and Jesus answers in a way that sounds to us to as if he were endorsing racist ideology: “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This is enough to put us off our meal, but the woman is undeterred: “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” This display of persistence and humility causes Jesus to marvel at the extent of her faith in him, which secures her place at the table and her share of the royal nourishment: her daughter is healed. Those of God’s people at the table are left to ask themselves both if they harbored feelings of superiority and hardness of heart towards the woman, and further if their faith is as great as hers. The gospel of Luke lags not a step behind Matthew. Table-fellowship continues its prominence in connection to the kingdom. The parable of the father who had two sons shows us the prodigal who hits rock bottom when he considers making his board with the pigs. At this moment, he remembers how well his father’s servants are cared for. He then goes to his father with a plea of the lowest expectations, and instead is thrown a banquet. Again, the humility (whether voluntary or involuntary) of the dogs and the pigs who get the scraps.

Then we come to the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. The poor Lazarus lies at the rich man’s gate, covered in sores – and feeding the dogs! He longs for the scraps that might fall from the rich man’s table, but the rich man is not like the rich God. They both die, but are separated by a great chasm in death, just as they were in life. Now the rich man suddenly desires to close the chasm that he tended during his life. Lazarus is reclining on Abraham’s bosom. He is with the father of the faithful, one of the constellations of children that God promised Abraham.

Now, who is this poor man who was carried to the royal side of father Abraham? His naming is unique in Jesus’ parables. He is named “Lazarus.” Luke’s Greek Bible would have had that name in it: it was the name of the loyal servant who was Abraham’s heir until he was given Isaac, the son of the promise. In our Hebrew Bible the name is Eleazar. So it is appropriate that the poor man is named Eleazar/Lazarus, and that the father of the faithful, so known for hospitality in his earthly life, is the host for the faithful in the antechamber of the kingdom of God. There, awaiting the resurrection of the dead, Lazarus is comforted by Abraham, while the nameless epicure suffers torment: their positions are reversed and intensified. Lazarus has sublime table-fellowship, and the epicure wishes he had water. In our own table-fellowship, Prayerbook Christians have a traditional prayer, that goes like this:

WE do not presume to come to this thy table (O mercifull Lord) trusting in our own righteousnesse, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We be not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbes under thy table. But thou art the same Lord, whose propertie is alwayes to have mercie : grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his bloud, that our sinfull bodies may bee made cleane by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that wee may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

In various forms, this prayer from 1548 survives and is still sometimes used throughout the Anglican churches. In1637 it was given the title “of Humble Access.” Perhaps we need a renewal of its use. How we long even for the crumbs from our Lord’s table, of which we confess ourselves unworthy but in desperate hunger. This faith will be rewarded and this confession will be honored not by crumbs, but by the choicest morsels of a generous Father and a generous Lord, who insists that we come to their table. This is what God has been telling us all through scripture. Just as our Father Abraham served the Angel of YHWH and two angels by the oaks of Mamre, so shall we Abraham’s children be served by the Angel of YHWH – who has become manifest in the flesh! – at his Father’s table, prepared no longer in the presence of our enemies, but in the presence of his holy angels and in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end. Amen.

All textual rights reserved to the author, Derek A. W. Neve, PhD. ©2022