October 2, 2022
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus
Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch
October 2, 2022 Based on Luke
“My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
When I was a kid, my favorite restaurant in my hometown, the place I wanted to go to celebrate every birthday with a special dinner was a restaurant owned by a local Japanese family. I remember the first time I went to eat there as though it was something akin to a transcendent experience. As though, I was transported into another world entirely different from my own.
I think it was because this restaurant was the first place I ever went to that was completely foreign to me. I was an American white kid from suburbs of the south, accustomed to family dinners around the table, with casseroles and smoked meat. But it wasn’t just the food that was different at this restaurant, this family went all out to give people an experience of the culture of their mother land and I think it was the first immersive experience I ever had where I was welcomed into a culture that was not my own. The first time that I realized how many different people there are in the world and just how different our ways of life can be.
I can still visualize so much of the restaurant. And I can recall the feelings I felt the first time I went there. The curiosity, the sense of exploration, of wondering what this will be. When you get there, before you even walk through the entrance there was a Japanese garden that you would wait for your table in, and to get to the host desk and the front door you had to cross over a koi pond by bridge. Having never seen a garden like this, or the intricate and beautiful patterning of koi before, I was mesmerized.
You’d walk in and the first thing you saw was standard American tables for people unwilling to fully dive into the experience. But just beyond it, where we would often try to sit was a room designed to be like a traditional Japanese tearoom, that overlooked a small bonsai garden. It had paper paneled walls and tatami mats as floors. You came to the room and removed your shoes before you entered. Then… you sat on the ground on pillows that were at a table that was lower than my coffee table at home.
Then, the biggest shock I remember as a kid was what was on the table… no silverware, just chopsticks. The wait staff tried to teach me how to use them but after I tried and failed, they gave me those trainer chopsticks where they fold up a napkin in between and bind them together with rubber bands to help kids figure out how to use them.
Everything about this place was unlike anything I had experienced before. It was all completely new and foreign to me, completely outside of any familiar frame of reference I ever had. And yet I found it all absolutely delightful, better than I would have imagined, beyond what I could have pictured. The food, the setting, the hospitality blew me away even at my young age and I could not wait to go back to experience it all over again.
“My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways …my ways, says the Lord.”
As Christians, we have a tendency to feel a close relationship with God. We feel familiar with God..
It's because we meet God through the person of Jesus. This person who we believe was God incarnate, the word made flesh, divinity made human.
Because Jesus was human like us, we tend picture Jesus being just like us, a person we can relate to, someone that knows us firsthand, someone that likes what we like and behaves like we do. There is nothing wrong with this, In fact it’s an important theology. To feel it is why so many people feel that personal and intimate love from our creator. In fact, Christian cultures around the world show this same tendency.
You’ve no doubt seen how white European cultures have depicted the Lord’s supper…Where Jesus with white skin breaks a traditional bread loaf and drinks wine.
But maybe you haven’t seen how other people and cultures depict this same meal.
Here’s how the story of the Lord’s supper is depicted in Cameroon,
Where Jesus with dark skin gathers a tribe of followers in a small clay hut, and takes food that was common to them, lifted up in a bowl, to sanctify it.
…or in China, Where Jesus with Chinese features takes a bowl of rice and shares it with his disciples so that they might remember him.
… or this depiction from Latin America, where the feast takes place in a dense jungle, and Jesus shares with his disciples bread and cup, but also plantains.
In each case We find a Jesus that looks like the culture who has met him, in a setting that is familiar to the people, offering food that is familiar, to people who look familiar.
That familiarity and intimacy and proximity is essential to our faith. But it’s not all of what we believe. God is personal, but God is also beyond the personal. God is much bigger than us and much bigger than any one of our cultures. And when God says I will provide a feast for you and for all the world, where the hungry will come and be fed, and the thirsty will come and be satisfied… it is a vision that is bigger than anyone of us might imagine.
That table expands every culture and every place on earth, that table includes people who eat on mats on the ground, and those that don’t have daily bread but eat rice instead. That table includes all of creation. That table is not our table, it doesn’t look us alone, and yet we are invited to come and find our place there. We are invited to come to this table that is Christ’s and find our place in the beautiful diversity of God’s world. We are invited to come and experience a vision of the world that is utterly unique and far beyond anything that we might imagine.
So today I invite you to come and share in this global feast. Today I invite to join with Christians all over the world who are tasting the goodness god imagines for all of us. Today I invite you to come with curiosity and openness to this table that is unlike our tables, this table that is beyond our culture and identity but still a place of abundance and grace.
Today I invite you to come and share in this feast. Amen.
We welcome all who worship here this morning!
WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE
PRELUDE Public Drum Circle
Introit “Funga Alafia” (West African Welcome Song)
Sung by IPC Children’s Choir
WELCOME Rev. Trip Porch
CALL TO WORSHIP
One: Around the world people gather to break bread and pour wine.
All: We gather with them in heart and mind.
One: Around the world the broken body is made whole.
All: As part of that body we join in its unity.
One: Around the world the Banquet of God is prepared for the table.
All: We, who share in the banquet, come eagerly to be fed.
One: Let us worship together, let us share God’s bounty.
HYMN No. 390 “Praise, Praise, Praise the Lord!” (Louez le Seigneur!) LOUEZ LE SEIGNEUR
PRAYER OF CONFESSION Ben & Caroline Fortman
Almighty God, mother of mercy, father of grace: You have called us to one table, but we have pursued our own course. You have promised us the abundance of all creation, but in our greed, and in our envy, the world goes without. You have promised us the bread of life itself, but in our pride, and in our arrogance, the world goes hungry. You have promised us the waters of peace and justice, but in our violence, and in our discord, the world goes thirsty. And now we are famished, too, Lord. Have mercy on us. Forgive us, again. Transform us, at this table, and for this table, and send us from this table as servants of your righteousness, by the power of your Son, our Lord. Amen.
Silent prayers of confession are offered.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
RESPONSE OF PRAISE # 695 “Change My Heart, O God” CHANGE MY HEART
PASSING OF THE PEACE
One: The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,
All: And also with you.
WE LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD
ANTHEM “All Are Welcome at the Table” Mary McDonald
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE Mary Rebekah Fortman
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 55
All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat! Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk! Why spend money for what isn’t food, and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good; enjoy the richest of feasts. Listen and come to me; listen, and you will live.
Seek the Lord when he can still be found; call him while he is yet near. Let the wicked abandon their ways and the sinful their schemes. Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them, to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness. My plans aren’t your plans, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my plans than your plans. Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and don’t return there without watering the earth, making it conceive and yield plants and providing seed to the Sower and food to the eater, so is my word that comes from my mouth; it does not return to me empty. Instead, it does what I want, and accomplishes what I intend.
Yes, you will go out with celebration, and you will be brought back in peace. Even the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you; all the trees of the field will clap their hands.In place of the thorn the cypress will grow; in place of the nettle the myrtle will grow. This will attest to the Lord’s stature, an enduring reminder that won’t be removed.
Holy Wisdom, Holy Word
Thanks be to God
SERMON Rev. Trip Porch
HYMN NO. 378 “We Wait the Peaceful Kingdom” MERLE’S TUNE
TIME OF OFFERING
OFFERTORY RESPONSE #596 “You Are Holy” DU ÄR HELIG
THE LORD’S SUPPER Rev. Trip Porch
Invitation to the Table
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving Lord’s prayer using debts/debtors
Sharing of the Bread and Cup
Hymn During Distribution # 137 “He Came Down” HE CAME DOWN
Prayer After Communion
Gracious God, we offer our thanks, for the community that you’ve called to join in this feast, and for the ministry of churches around
the world who gather with us today. By this broken bread may we each be restored for the work yet to come. By this shared cup may
we each be claimed for the proclamation of your Kingdom. At this shared table may we be united as children of your promise, children
of your word, dying and made new again, sent boldly together into the world as servants of your peace. Amen.
HYMN (insert) “Until All Are Fed” McFarland
TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
BENEDICTION RESPONSE “Until All Are Fed” McFarland
POSTLUDE
Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452
WORSHIP LEADERS
Pastor – Rev. Trip Porch
Liturgist – Ben & Caroline Fortman
Children’s Message – Mary Rebekah Fortman
Children’s Choir Directors – Mary Rebekah Fortman and Sharon Renkes
MUSIC LEADERS
Chancel Choir
Indianola Children’s Choir
Organist – Orlay Alonso
Director of Music – Christopher Dent
Assoc. Director of Music – Ariel Alvarado