The Rev’d Robert M. Odom

Christ Church Covington
Proper 13
May 3, 2003

In her day and in her circle, my grandmother was renowned as a wonderful cook. Now, unlike some ladies who were known for their cooking (like my wife’s grandmother) my grandmother didn’t simply employ a good cook; she did the cooking herself. From beginning to end, a meal at my grandmother’s house was an expression of who she was and what she valued: celebration, family, taste, and plenty. As is the case of most south Louisianans, food wasn’t just about being fed, it was about gathering the people she loved and showing them how much she loved them, it was about creativity and joy, all those thing humans and human families need to be strong and healthy other than just food.

My grandmother also liked to cook a big pot of gumbo, or et touffe, or whatever, and freeze most of it, so she’d have plenty to share, and so she could produce something really good on short notice – she liked to be prepared for the “mystery guest” as she used to say, that friend or relative who might happen by around supper time. To store all these delicacies, she had a refrigerator-freezer in her kitchen, another in the garage, and a deep freeze in the garage as well. So after she died we had all this delicious food that my grandmother prepared. What a treat to be able to partake of Mimi’s fantastic et touffe after she was gone.

But you know what? We discovered what we should have known all along – the food (as tasty as it was) wasn’t as good, the meal wasn’t as magical. What made it all so rich was my grandmother’s presence. It was the person herself that gave meaning and life to what she did and made. It was her personal presence that made her food and her meals warm and delicious and inviting and unifying.

Our Gospel this morning tells us that in Jesus Christ, God has enriched the mere elements of life with his personal presence. God hasn’t just given us the rudiments we need to survive, he offers us personal relationship with Him in the person of Jesus Christ.

The Western world has (until recently) divided human history into two chunks: B.C. and A.D. with the coming of Jesus Christ as the pivotal event around which time is arranged. John the Evangelist, writing long before this system of dating was invented, is perhaps laying the foundation for it by identifying Jesus with the pivotal event in the life of Israel theretofore: the Exodus from Egypt. John, more than any of the other Gospel Writers, goes out of his way to drive home this point: that a person – Jesus – is the fulfillment of all that was foreshadowed in, shall we say, the “first exodus.”

At that Exodus, in order to enter into freedom and return to the promised land, the Israelites enslaved in Egypt had to sacrifice a lamb and mark their doorways with its blood so that the angel of death would not enter their homes. In the desert, they were given manna to sustain them, water for their thirst, and the Law to govern and guide them on their journey through the wilderness. What John is telling us is that in Jesus, all these things have been transformed into a person, and that a person has transformed all these things. Jesus was the lamb that was slain, by whose blood we are delivered from evil and death, Jesus himself is the bread that sustains the community of faith, Jesus is the water that refreshes the thirsty, Jesus is our governor and guide in a world that might seem more and more like a wilderness. The perfection of the signs and works and gifts of God, is his personal presence, is the person of Jesus Christ.

What this means is that getting to know Jesus Christ personally is the primary duty of all Christians, and that means time spent in his presence: in prayer, in scripture, in worship, in sacrament, in service to the poor. If we are going through the motions of all these things without realizing Jesus’ personal presence in and through them…it’s like eating the gumbo in the absence of the beloved person who made it. It’s not the same, it’s not as full, not as rich, not as satisfying, certainly not as inviting.

In His love, God has given us a person by which we can relate to him. Seek first to develop that relationship, and you will feast with him in this life, and the feast with him in the age to come will never end. It’s the person that makes the difference, and the person in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The Rev’d Robert M. Odom
M.Div., Curate

Return to Recent Sermons