The Banquet on the Mountain
By Rev. Daniel A. Smith
November 22, 2009
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Nelson Mandela said in his 1953 Presidential Speech that “there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” Our passage from Isaiah makes me wonder if the same is true for the mountaintop of God’s desires as well, that is, the mountaintop of that Beautiful City of Zion about which we all sang as we began our service. You see, in ancient Israel, the mountain of the Lord is not only a sign for the presence of God but a symbol for the way things are supposed to be in the world and an acknowledgement that we all have a ways to go to get there. If we walk in God’s path, though, if we come to learn God’s ways of freedom, when we can see a vision of those “fairer worlds on high,” we too can find ourselves marching to the mountaintop where our deepest desires and God’s deepest desires will touch upon each other and be fulfilled.
The Prophet Isaiah takes this ancient tradition of promised fulfillment one step further in our passage for today, by bringing a divine banquet to the mountaintop, a meal in which God’s hospitality and freedom and justice for all will be realized. The passage recalls another mountaintop meal when Moses and the leaders of Israel, “beheld [the presence of God} and they ate and drank,” on top of Mt. Sinai. Here though, Isaiah develops the vision even further. Sisters and brothers, Isaiah the prophet has good news for all of us who came in singing that opening hymn with such gusto! We’ve not only been marching through those valleys, marching upwards to Zion. Friends, we are heading to a slammin’ party on Zion! A feast of rich food, well-aged wines, food filled with marrow, wines that are strained clear! We are heading to the Banquet on the Mountaintop! Forget about those pearly gates heavenly visions, here. We’re talking “Pass the Chateaubriand and the Lafite-Rothshild!” [Vegetarians and Non-drinkers- I trust you can translate]. Clearly, this is to be a feast of joy, a feast for all peoples, a feast where the words “Behold.” “Eat.” “Drink.” are all that is needed because God has thought of everything!
Do we believe in these glorious visions? Do they sound too good to be true to our modern ears? Is there maybe a little something preventing us from imagining and believing in a future that beholds such joyful promises? Is there some barrier that prevents us from sending that RSVP? Perhaps it’s our overplayed capacity for reason. Perhaps it’s our overwhelming need for empirical proof. Or, perhaps it’s something even deeper. Did you notice the very next image that comes up in this text?
In addition to the mountain and the banquet, Isaiah also speaks of a shroud, one that is cast over all people, and of a sheet that is spread over all nations. Often translated as a “veil of grief,” the original Hebrew refers to an actual garment that was worn by all mourners, which means by all peoples, every last one of us including you and me. God seems to know already that this veil may be precisely what is keeping us from the party! So what does God do? Our ever-consummate host takes care of that too. I told you God thought of everything. The good book tell us that God will destroy the shroud and the sheet, that God will swallow death forever, and that God will wipe away the tears from all faces, even yours and mine.
What the Bible is here saying, both literally and figuratively, is that part of what keeps us from banquets on mountaintops are those garments of mourning that we all wear. Who here knows the feeling? I mean it. Who among us has not reached for our party shoes and felt held back by the weight and exhaustion of grief? I hardly need to translate or illustrate this because it cuts right to the heart of our experience. Sure, we can put on a happy face, but rarely can we remove for ourselves that veil that hangs between us and the rest of the world when we are grieving. It could be a grief for those who have died, those saints who are known to us - those who raised us, those who have sat in the pews next to us, those who have been our friends and family, near or far. It could be a grief for saints unknown, those who we read about in the prayers or in the papers, those who have died through acts of war or violence. It could even be grief for a lost innocence, or for some traumatic experience, or for whatever moment when we have found our hearts crying out “This is not the way things are supposed to be in this world!” The prophet acknowledges that this weight of sorrow, this garment of mourning and heartache is real for all peoples, and all nations. But he doesn’t stop there.
Today, we may come into this space, wearing that mourners veil, some more apparently than others, but we all are invited to let God lift it, with arms up, over our heads, like taking a shirt off a small child. Not all of us may be ready for this; if we’ve lost someone recently, we may want to hold on to that garment. That’s ok. When my dad died back in 1990, it took years for me to see the world without looking through the blur of that veil and it still dangles over me even from time to time, even to this day. But even if our tears are still streaming, daily, or however periodically, I invite us all to join the march to Zion, to do what we can for this day to shed that cloak of grief, to lay down that burden of pain, and to gather here with all the saints, past, present and future and see. I invite us to come and see if we might catch a glimpse for ourselves, of what that someday, heavenly, mountaintop banquet might look like. You don’t have to do it alone. We are here for each other, to lift this weight together. And God is here too, if only to say…Behold, and then, eat and drink. It can be just that simple. Throw yourself onto this First Church procession, cry out those tears, and let the God that we behold together wipe away your tears and make room in your hearts for the bread of life and the cup of everlasting joy.
In a moment, as part of our annual All Saints tradition, we will say the name of those whom we have loved and lost. We would do well to remember that because God already has swallowed up death through the life and resurrection of Jesus, they, like Christ, are all here with us, even now. As they say in Latin American memorials, they are Presente! Ahora y Siempre. They are here with us, now and always.
By acknowledging this truth which we already know somewhere deep in our hearts, we proclaim with Paul that nothing can separate us from the love of God, no valley of shadows, no veil of mourning, no garment of sorrow, not even death itself. Though it’s no easy walk, to walk without loved ones by our sides in spirit and in body, our march and procession to this banquet table, is our way of acknowledging God’s power to swallow up death, to bring everlasting life and to wipes away tears for all faces, even yours and mine.
Do you believe it? I know many of you do. I can hear it in your voices when you sing “We’re Marching to Zion” or “For All the Saints.” And I know many more of you who want to believe it, desperately. If you’re still working on it, that’s ok. Just let yourself sing, let yourself behold, and take and eat and drink of the cup. When we give thanks after it all, for love that cannot die and for the life that never ends, you might just find that you can speak yourself into believing it.
I believe it. I believe it with all my heart, almost all the time. I have since a few days after my father, Albert A Smith, died 19 years ago when I swear I felt God at least start to lift something from me. It wasn’t the shirt on my back but it was something like it, some veil that I was allowed to peek through for a moment and so to know with a blessed assurance that my dad would be okay and that I would be okay and that our love for each other would never be lost in the great love that is God’s. Do I think I’ll actually see him again? Well that’s a sermon for another day. For today, I cherish the chance to speak his name and to know that he is present, here with us, along with all those other names we are about to hear. And together, we join the great procession, that great march to banquet on the mountain, to the fulfillment of all desire! Amen.