May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 12
PROPER: 17 B
ST. JOHN’S CHURCH
DATE: August 31, 2003
TEXT: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 – The breaking up of this lesson is not necessary, and causes the congregation to miss some of the points.
“You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” . . . Then he (Jesus) called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile . . . For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil thing come from within, and they defile a person.”
ISSUE: Jesus in this passage is dealing with the purity issues, not hygiene issues. The people are inclined to become too observant of the man made traditions, and less concerned with the issues of the heart. Jesus makes a radical move away from fundamentalist interpretations of the law. We are called upon to purify the heart with caring and compassion, mercy, and love.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mark’s Gospel account in this 7th Chapter provides us with one of a most radical stance of Jesus. His approach to some of the Pharisees legalistic attitudes is another one of the reasons why Jesus is eventually crucified.
The most important value in Jesus’ time was a person’s honor, and standing in community. Jesus was increasing in status and honor as he preached, healed, and taught among the people. He became a threat to the leadership of the time, the Pharisee rulers, and they worked at controlling his increasing honorable status among the people be confronting and challenging him with questions that questioned his status. The questions that they ask of Jesus are not for the purpose of knowing more about him, and his ministry. They are challenges in the hope that he will discredit himself.
Mark reports that the Pharisees challenge Jesus because he and his disciples do not wash their hands before eating. In our time and culture the practice of washing your hands before a meal is a matter of hygiene, cleanliness. The practice of washing hands in Jesus’ time had nothing to do with hygiene was a purity issue. Pharisees had an extensive hand washing ritual before meals that was required by their law to keep them, and their food from pollution, and ungodliness. Their rules and laws were a part of what was called The Great Tradition. The following of these rules regarding washing before meals, and eating certain foods from certain vessels, and not mixing certain foods, and all the rules regarding what they could and could not eat, what they could and could not do on the Sabbath made them feel holy, and helped the Pharisees and a significant part of the Jewish community to feel right with God, and pure as they believed God wanted them to be.
Of course, many of the peasants and people of the land outside of the urban setting were unable to keep all of these laws and rules. Fishermen were always touch dead fish and animals, which made them ritually unclean. Farmers, tanners, merchants were always touching and were involved with things that the law declared unclean. Gentiles didn’t have a chance at being right with God. Check out Leviticus 11 – you’re Americans you can remember Chapter 11 – and read about all the religious dietary laws of forbidden foods. In a society where there was a limited supply of water, the hand washing rituals were difficult to keep. Thus, the Pharisees challenge Jesus about his disciples for not keeping The Great Tradition. “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” they ask. These were the scriptural traditions of the Torah, or Hebrew Law. Jesus responds with a daring insult. You hypocrites, or play actors, he calls them. Jesus calls upon another passage from Scripture in a passage from Isaiah 29:13, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.” They are abandoning the real commandments of God, and are holding on to old meaningless traditions. They manipulate the law for their own purposes.
For instance, instead of honoring and taking care of their parents, as the real law demands, they use the money which was take of the parents and declare that it is “Corban” or “gift” which is set aside for God. They use the keeping of the law to boost their own purity and honor rather than having sensitivity, compassion, and concern for others.
Speaking in terms of the food laws and traditions, Jesus makes the point that it is not what one takes into themselves that counts so much as what comes out of a person. It is not what you take in, but what comes out of a person is what counts. What comes from the human heart is what counts, and that can be evil condemnation of others for the sake of boosting one’s honor, or it can be motivations from love and compassion. Obviously the Pharisees are intending to discredit Jesus and his disciples in order to boost their own status and ego. They kept the law and all the traditions, but they never let that law transform them into a real child, or person, of God. They consumed the law, the traditions, the rules, and the regulations, but what came out was condemnation, hatred for others, looking at others with contempt and attempting to discredit them for their own personal gain and status. Jesus saw through that clearly and challenged them in return with their own scriptures. He challenges their whole fundamental religious tradition here in the Gospel of Mark. This riposte of Jesus is truly scathing, damning, and radical. It is most dangerous for him and his disciples. He is challenging some of the basic fundamental aspects of the religion of the time, and even some of the church’s traditions of today.
Please notice some of the dynamics that are going on in this passage. The Pharisees challenge Jesus on the basis of their Biblical interpretation of the Scriptures. They phrase it as a question: “Why don’t your disciples wash their hands?” What they mean is you and your disciples are impure because you are breaking the law of The Great Tradition. Jesus returns the punch with his own quotation from Hebrew Scripture of the prophet Isaiah: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.” Does that seem familiar? I remember my youth when my Catholic and Protestant sides of the family would use the scriptures to beat one another over the head, and to ram certain Biblical passages down one another’s throats to make their respective points. I ask you, is that really the best use and purpose of the Bible? Human beings, religious as they try to be, turn the Holy Bible into some kind of an ecclesiastical baseball bat for clubbing the hell out of one another to make their point and to try to somehow make themselves feel that they are the saved, righteous, pure folk of God. Jesus won the battle with the Pharisees so let’s let it go at that.
I wonder why we do this sort of thing? Why is it we fight so among one another both within, and without of our denominations? Perhaps, just Perhaps, it is because we feel so desperately to be right with God. We feel that God wants us to be pure in his sight. We feel like, and learned somewhere along the way that we have to earn our salvation from God. Keeping right of the law and the traditions gives us some kind of feeling of salvation. It gives us some kind of assurance. It helps define us as the righteous people of God. But what does Jesus say? He says a resounding, “NO!” If you’ve been buying into all that stuff, and you’ve consumed that kind of religion, let is pass through the stomach, the intestines, and flush it down the toilet. It’s polluted religion. You don’t have to get right with God. If you believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are right with God. Jesus is God come among us, incarnate with us, and to embrace him as Lord is purification enough. Look who he came to, and who ingested him, Sinners: prostitutes, tax collectors, peasants, widows, lepers, children, sick, beggars. The already righteous and those striving desperately for honor and salvation were the very ones who rejected the grace. Just live not worrying about what you eat or what you drink or what laws you keep or don’t keep, or whether you are true to traditions; let the radical love of Christ rule in your heart with love, compassion, forgiveness, and caring. That’s the stuff that comes out, and the stuff that really counts. It’s hard, I know. It’s too good to be true. We just don’t get it. We just “have to” earn our salvation, and pay the price for our sins and shortcomings. We can’t let them go, so we strive for this illusive righteousness, and it’s already there. Run with it! Give yourself a break and be transformed from the guilt.
The church has struggled with stuff like this from the beginning. Early Church Christians from the Hebrew persuasion insisted that new Christians had to be circumcised, and had to follow the dietary laws. St. Peter supposedly supported some of these rules, until he finally had a vision where a sheet full of all the prohibited foods came down upon him, and he was told to eat. He was transformed. Paul who at one point had murdered followers of the Way becomes transformed and starts teaching the way of Christ. Just put on the armor of Christ, and what you eat and drink, and whether or not you are circumcised does not matter. You are saved and worthy of the grace of God through the love extended through Jesus Christ our Lord, who died to make it so, and to get your attention. Why don’t we get it?
v Robert Farrar Capon, a Biblical Scholar, teacher, author, and theologian in our church puts the Gospel this way in his book called The Parables of Grace: “Christianity is not a religion; it is the announcement of the end of religion. Religion consists of all the things . . . the human race has ever thought it had to do to get right with God.
v [The Church] is not here to bring to the world the bad news that God will think kindly about us only after we have gone through certain creedal, liturgical, and ethical wickets; it is here to bring the world the Good News that ‘while we are yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.’”
What a relief it is to know that it is by the very grace of God that we are accepted and loved, not by our works. What a relief it is to know that the Holy Bible is not an ecclesiastical fundamentalist battering ram, but a book of poetry, revealing the developing insights into the outpouring of the love of God for his people.
ADDENDUM
One of the problems many people have with Scripture interpretation is in not seeing the fullness of the context and of some of the passages. For instance: People hear that Jesus taught that the church should baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. This is only half of that passage. It continues: And teach them all they should know about the faith, etc. Only appreciating half of the passage misses the point that the person baptized is to be taught and continue to grow up in the faith.
Another famous passage from Paul’s writings in Ephesians deals with how the husband is the head of the wife, like Christ the head of the church. This part of the passage sure makes the men happy, but the passage continues to spell out how a man is to love his wife, as he loves his own body. The two are one, but this part of the passage is easily forgotten, or ignored.
Today’s reading about the law reminds us that indeed there are laws to be kept, but the message of Jesus throughout the Christian Scriptures is issues of compassion, mercy, etc. The law is undoubtedly important, but so is what is in the heart, like attitudes and the qualities of generosity, love, mercy, forgiveness that temper the law.
Thanksgiving Prayer after the Communion
(Selected person or persons may offer the following thanksgivings.)
O God, you have bound us together for a time as priest and people to work for the advancement of your kingdom in this place: We give you humble and hearty thanks for the ministry which we have shared in these years now past. Amen.
We thank you for your patience with us despite our blindness and slowness of heart. We thank you for your forgiveness and mercy in the face of things in which we may have been slow to, or failed to accomplish. Amen.
Especially, we thank you for your never-failing presence with us through these years, and for the deeper knowledge of you and of each other, which we have attained. Amen.
We thank you for those who have been joined to this part of Christ’s family through Holy Baptism, Holy Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, and from other places. We thank you for opening our hearts and minds again and again to your Word, and for feeding us abundantly with the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of your Son. Amen.
Now, we pray, be with David who leaves, and with us who stay. Keep us faithful to our Lord, loyal to our commitments in this parish; and grant that all of us, by drawing ever nearer to you, may always be close to each other in the communion of your saints. All this we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
(The Congregation joins in saying the following prayer.)
Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the holy food of the Body and Blood of your Son, and for uniting us through him in the fellowship of your Holy Spirit. We thank you for raising up among us faithful servants of your Word and Sacraments. We thank you especially for the work of David among us, and the presence of his family. Grant that both he and we may serve you in the days ahead, and always rejoice in your glory, and come at length in to your heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(The priest offers the following blessing.)
May God, who has led us in the paths of justice and truth, lead us still, and keep us in his ways. Amen.
May God, whose Son has loved us and given himself for us, love us still, and establish us in peace. Amen.
May God whose Spirit unites us and fill our hearts with joy, illumine us still, and strengthen us for the years to come. Amen.
And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you forever. Amen.
(The Recessional Hymn follows.)
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Pentecost 10
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Pentecost 10
PROPER: 15 B
ST. JOHN’S CHURCH
DATE: August 17, 2003
TEXT: John 6:53-59 – So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
ISSUE: This passage is a continuation of John’s emphasis upon Jesus Christ as the Bread of Life, and very Eucharistic. The need to feed upon the body and blood of Christ is surely surreal, and poetic like. The very idea of consumption of flesh and blood surely got the attention of the listeners. But the impact is significant. To eat of the body and blood of Christ was to become the flesh and blood in the family of God through Jesus Christ, to participate in God’s way and wisdom. What grace is bestowed upon those who feed upon the bread of life.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Last week, the Scripture reading emphasized the importance of Jesus as the Bread of Life. Unlike in our culture where bread is often eliminated from the diet, in the first century bread was the essence of life providing 50% of the peasants diet. Jesus as the Bread of Life implied that spiritually, to embrace the Jesus was the very essence of the spiritual life. The concept of Jesus as the giver of spiritual bread was an important theme in the early church, and that theme continues in today’s reading from John, and very dramatically so.
In today’s reading, John’s gospel account has Jesus saying, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Perhaps our familiarity with the weekly Eucharist may diminish the impact of that statement. This statement is another one of those things that Jesus is supposed to have said, or at the very least was for John a profoundly outrageous comment he attributes to Jesus, which is made in the Capernaum synagogue. I’ve talked with you about how surreal some of Jesus’ parables were, like the men working in the vineyard and all getting the same wage, and even how mystically surreal the miracle of Jesus walking on water was. Now we have a very surreal and outrageous statement referring to the consumption of flesh and blood. How outrageous a statement it is, especially when it is suggested that Jesus made the statement in a Jewish synagogue. The concept of eating flesh or drinking blood for the Jews would have been appalling at the time, not to mention that it is not really very appealing to us either when you think about it. I’ve known young children who were reluctant to participate in the receiving of Holy Communion, because they had heard that it was eating flesh and drinking blood.
The Hebrew Scripture laws were very clear that the eating or drinking of blood of any kind was forbidden:
· In Genesis 9:4, Noah is given instruction after the flood ordeal as to what he can eat among fish, animals, and green plants, but “The one thing you must not eat is meat with blood still in it; I forbid this because the life is in the blood.”
· Leviticus Law (17: 10,1214) writes “If an Israelite or any foreigner living in the community eats meat with blood still in it, the Lord will turn against him and no longer consider him one of his people.”
· Even in the New Testament Book of Acts 15:29 early Gentile Christians are told: “Eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood . . .” The taboo hung on at least as it was related to Gentile pagan practices.
The early Christian church, according to historians, was often given a bad name for the idea has spread that this secret cult was slaughtering infants and drinking their blood at its ritual services. The very concept or thought of eating flesh and blood was repulsive to be Jews, Muslims, and atheists. Even today in a world that knows Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter in the movies the concept of eating the flesh and blood is comically tragic. For a time there was the doctrine of Transubstantiation that the bread and the wine at the Eucharist were in fact changed into the body and the blood of Christ. At the Reformation in England, the doctrine in the Church of England was changed to that of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, which did not attempt to define how the body and the blood of Christ was present. The doctrine was best expounded by a poem attributed to Elizabeth I, Queen of England:
“’Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and Brake it;
And what the Word did make it,
That I believe, and take it.”
Needless to say the concept of eating flesh and blood is daring, and again, another one of those surreal scriptural things that needs sensible study and interpretation. What did the church mean – what is the meaning - by this very dramatic statement we find in John’s Gospel account?
In a time when the world was facing very difficult times, the Church and the life and ministry of Jesus was intent upon establishing and looking forward to the Kingdom, the Realm, the Domain of God. It is as difficult to say that we must eat the flesh and blood of Jesus as it is to say that God came down from heaven to live among us. But that very theological principle is at heart of our faith. Jesus was and is the Word of God that came among us, and people were called upon to also be born from above, to become citizens of the Kingdom of God. We refer to our children as our flesh and blood. To eat or partake of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ meant to see oneself in a very startling and surreal way as a participant in the family of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. They very concept is that of becoming the spiritual and the real flesh and blood with the Lord. What a statement of grace; the free gift of God is bestowed to his creation that we may be flesh and blood with Jesus.
It is imperative, I think, that to fully appreciate and understand the Scriptures, you really do have to appreciate the poetry, the surreal aspects of the scriptures that challenge the imagination and that gives lasting impacting dramatic insights. John’s gospel is particularly good at this poetic imagery. For instance, in the synoptic gospels Jesus has a last supper with his disciples, which is a Passover meal. He takes the bread, gives thanks to God, and breaks the bread, and shares it with his disciples. Then, he goes to be arrested and crucified. The Gospel account is quite different. The last supper in John is the day before the Passover. There is no breaking of bread or drinking of wine mentioned. What is mentioned is that Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. Here, the Lord becomes the peasant slave and example to his disciples, demanding them to do what he has done to them, be the servant of all. Jesus is the uncanny God that has come into the very depths of the world to assist in the human intimacy and refreshment. In John’s Gospel, the supper of impact is the Feeding of the 5,000, where there he picks up the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and distributes it to the whole crowd of people in complete overflowing abundance. There comes the great revealing revelation, “Surely this is the Prophet who was to come into the world!” And the further poetic revelation that Jesus is the Bread of Life is revealed.
One of the things I want to convey is that the Holy Bible and the rich stories and surreal wonders of our Scriptures are not a literalistic baseball bat to hit people over the head with to make them believe what you and I may believe and think. Rather it is a revelation of the glory of God gorgeously revealing the love, the intimacy, and the family and flesh and blood into which we are called.
For centuries and from Sunday to Sunday, many Christian people have gathered to participate in the Eucharist, Holy Communion, Mass, Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, or Holy Mysteries. Call it what you will. Perhaps, we do become too familiar with the Service and forget its roots, meaning, and theology. It is indeed a feeding, a feeding upon the Bread of Life, which is Christ. It is the table of the Lord that we come to, with hands outstretch for spiritual feeding. Our human need that expresses we do not live by bread alone, but by the essence of the Lord as the Bread of Life, and we are really, truly participants into the Body, the Blood, the flesh and blood of the Holy God that washes our feet and accepts us into his Family and his Kingdom.
Whatever comes, however our lives may be shaken, challenged, distressed, troubled, threatened, whatever your sins, the table is always set, and the Family is always there.
“Come and eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, fear, loneliness, anxiety, and live, and walk in the way of insight,” says the Wisdom of God. (Paraphrase of Proverbs 9:6) Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34)
SEASON: Pentecost 10
PROPER: 15 B
ST. JOHN’S CHURCH
DATE: August 17, 2003
TEXT: John 6:53-59 – So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
ISSUE: This passage is a continuation of John’s emphasis upon Jesus Christ as the Bread of Life, and very Eucharistic. The need to feed upon the body and blood of Christ is surely surreal, and poetic like. The very idea of consumption of flesh and blood surely got the attention of the listeners. But the impact is significant. To eat of the body and blood of Christ was to become the flesh and blood in the family of God through Jesus Christ, to participate in God’s way and wisdom. What grace is bestowed upon those who feed upon the bread of life.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Last week, the Scripture reading emphasized the importance of Jesus as the Bread of Life. Unlike in our culture where bread is often eliminated from the diet, in the first century bread was the essence of life providing 50% of the peasants diet. Jesus as the Bread of Life implied that spiritually, to embrace the Jesus was the very essence of the spiritual life. The concept of Jesus as the giver of spiritual bread was an important theme in the early church, and that theme continues in today’s reading from John, and very dramatically so.
In today’s reading, John’s gospel account has Jesus saying, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Perhaps our familiarity with the weekly Eucharist may diminish the impact of that statement. This statement is another one of those things that Jesus is supposed to have said, or at the very least was for John a profoundly outrageous comment he attributes to Jesus, which is made in the Capernaum synagogue. I’ve talked with you about how surreal some of Jesus’ parables were, like the men working in the vineyard and all getting the same wage, and even how mystically surreal the miracle of Jesus walking on water was. Now we have a very surreal and outrageous statement referring to the consumption of flesh and blood. How outrageous a statement it is, especially when it is suggested that Jesus made the statement in a Jewish synagogue. The concept of eating flesh or drinking blood for the Jews would have been appalling at the time, not to mention that it is not really very appealing to us either when you think about it. I’ve known young children who were reluctant to participate in the receiving of Holy Communion, because they had heard that it was eating flesh and drinking blood.
The Hebrew Scripture laws were very clear that the eating or drinking of blood of any kind was forbidden:
· In Genesis 9:4, Noah is given instruction after the flood ordeal as to what he can eat among fish, animals, and green plants, but “The one thing you must not eat is meat with blood still in it; I forbid this because the life is in the blood.”
· Leviticus Law (17: 10,1214) writes “If an Israelite or any foreigner living in the community eats meat with blood still in it, the Lord will turn against him and no longer consider him one of his people.”
· Even in the New Testament Book of Acts 15:29 early Gentile Christians are told: “Eat no food that has been offered to idols; eat no blood . . .” The taboo hung on at least as it was related to Gentile pagan practices.
The early Christian church, according to historians, was often given a bad name for the idea has spread that this secret cult was slaughtering infants and drinking their blood at its ritual services. The very concept or thought of eating flesh and blood was repulsive to be Jews, Muslims, and atheists. Even today in a world that knows Hannibal the Cannibal Lecter in the movies the concept of eating the flesh and blood is comically tragic. For a time there was the doctrine of Transubstantiation that the bread and the wine at the Eucharist were in fact changed into the body and the blood of Christ. At the Reformation in England, the doctrine in the Church of England was changed to that of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, which did not attempt to define how the body and the blood of Christ was present. The doctrine was best expounded by a poem attributed to Elizabeth I, Queen of England:
“’Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and Brake it;
And what the Word did make it,
That I believe, and take it.”
Needless to say the concept of eating flesh and blood is daring, and again, another one of those surreal scriptural things that needs sensible study and interpretation. What did the church mean – what is the meaning - by this very dramatic statement we find in John’s Gospel account?
In a time when the world was facing very difficult times, the Church and the life and ministry of Jesus was intent upon establishing and looking forward to the Kingdom, the Realm, the Domain of God. It is as difficult to say that we must eat the flesh and blood of Jesus as it is to say that God came down from heaven to live among us. But that very theological principle is at heart of our faith. Jesus was and is the Word of God that came among us, and people were called upon to also be born from above, to become citizens of the Kingdom of God. We refer to our children as our flesh and blood. To eat or partake of the body and the blood of Jesus Christ meant to see oneself in a very startling and surreal way as a participant in the family of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. They very concept is that of becoming the spiritual and the real flesh and blood with the Lord. What a statement of grace; the free gift of God is bestowed to his creation that we may be flesh and blood with Jesus.
It is imperative, I think, that to fully appreciate and understand the Scriptures, you really do have to appreciate the poetry, the surreal aspects of the scriptures that challenge the imagination and that gives lasting impacting dramatic insights. John’s gospel is particularly good at this poetic imagery. For instance, in the synoptic gospels Jesus has a last supper with his disciples, which is a Passover meal. He takes the bread, gives thanks to God, and breaks the bread, and shares it with his disciples. Then, he goes to be arrested and crucified. The Gospel account is quite different. The last supper in John is the day before the Passover. There is no breaking of bread or drinking of wine mentioned. What is mentioned is that Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. Here, the Lord becomes the peasant slave and example to his disciples, demanding them to do what he has done to them, be the servant of all. Jesus is the uncanny God that has come into the very depths of the world to assist in the human intimacy and refreshment. In John’s Gospel, the supper of impact is the Feeding of the 5,000, where there he picks up the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and distributes it to the whole crowd of people in complete overflowing abundance. There comes the great revealing revelation, “Surely this is the Prophet who was to come into the world!” And the further poetic revelation that Jesus is the Bread of Life is revealed.
One of the things I want to convey is that the Holy Bible and the rich stories and surreal wonders of our Scriptures are not a literalistic baseball bat to hit people over the head with to make them believe what you and I may believe and think. Rather it is a revelation of the glory of God gorgeously revealing the love, the intimacy, and the family and flesh and blood into which we are called.
For centuries and from Sunday to Sunday, many Christian people have gathered to participate in the Eucharist, Holy Communion, Mass, Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, or Holy Mysteries. Call it what you will. Perhaps, we do become too familiar with the Service and forget its roots, meaning, and theology. It is indeed a feeding, a feeding upon the Bread of Life, which is Christ. It is the table of the Lord that we come to, with hands outstretch for spiritual feeding. Our human need that expresses we do not live by bread alone, but by the essence of the Lord as the Bread of Life, and we are really, truly participants into the Body, the Blood, the flesh and blood of the Holy God that washes our feet and accepts us into his Family and his Kingdom.
Whatever comes, however our lives may be shaken, challenged, distressed, troubled, threatened, whatever your sins, the table is always set, and the Family is always there.
“Come and eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, fear, loneliness, anxiety, and live, and walk in the way of insight,” says the Wisdom of God. (Paraphrase of Proverbs 9:6) Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34)
Sunday, August 10, 2003
PENTECOST 9
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 9
PROPER: 14 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 10, 2003
TEXT: John 6:37-51 – “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” . . . . . . . . “I am the bread of life.” . . . . . . . . . “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
SEE ALSO: Deuteronomy 8:1-10 – “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
ISSUE: We do not live by worldly bread alone, but through the awareness that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. In Jesus’ time, bread was of great importance to life. But the teachings of the early church emphasize the importance of Jesus as the bread of life, and of the importance of that spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. We need to have a spiritual life in which we pay close attention, as the bread of our life. That spiritual life carries us through the junk food and the difficult times of our lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have repeatedly mentioned how important the story of the Feeding of the Multitude must have been to the life of the early church. The story is repeated some six times in the four gospel accounts. And in the Gospel of John there is repeated reference to the fact that Jesus is the bread of life. We are still in our lectionary readings for this summer dealing with that issue. It is also significant, I think, that there are a number of references to Jesus eating with, and sharing meals with sinners, not to mention that some of Jesus’ well-known parables are related to feasting, wedding feasts in particular. His first miracle is at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and his last meal is a supper with his disciples. The fact that Jesus is so involved in the meals and feasting of people was significant to the early church.
In the continuation of our readings from the Gospel of John, the important phrase that Jesus is to have said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and “I am the bread of life,” and “I am the bread living bread that came down from heaven” is a constant refrain in this reading from John once again. Whether Jesus actually said these things, we can’t be absolutely sure, but we can be sure that John’s writings and his early church saw Jesus as bread from heaven, nourishment from God. The “I am” statement placed on Jesus’ lips is the name of God, Yaweh, or in the Hebrew, “I am what I am.” Another possible translation is that God is the living bread, and Jesus, is God’s gift of the living bread and bread of life.
To the early Christians, this concept of Jesus as the bread of life was extraordinarily significant. The phrases today do not carry the impact that they did in the 1st Century A.D. To appreciate the passage, you have to understand the context and the importance of bread in the period these phrases were written. Today, bread may or may not be part of a meal. In fact, if you are on certain diets these days, you are inclined not to eat bread at all because of its high carbohydrate content. We have such a significantly large selection from the market that bread does not play the significant part in the diet that it once did. We have so many choices of fruits, vegetables, meats, and pastries that bread is a small part of our diet. In fact we can easily do without bread. To say that Jesus is the bread of life means for us that Jesus may be just a small part of our choices in and abundant life.
In ancient times, and in the 1st Century A.D. the place of bread in the diet was of significantly greater value. Among the peasantry of this period at least, if not more than fifty percent of a person’s calories came from bread. In more elite circles there were more choices, but the peasantry, and those with whom Jesus seemed to be closest were people whose diet was largely bread. (I understand that bread is still a significant part of the Middle Eastern people’s diet.) People of this period didn’t give up bread. It was the main staple of their life. Without it was starvation and malnutrition, and possibly death. You had to have bread. Without it you died. Thus, when Jesus said, I am the bread of life, the statement made people take notice. It meant that he was the staple of life, eternal life. He is the living staple life giving food from heaven. To do without him, is to die.
Not unlike the Gospel of John, the people become argumentative. Who does Jesus think that he is? They know he is only the son of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. He is son of a carpenter who has not place or standing. He dares to grab at honor above his status and birth rank. Who does he think he is? Nothing good came or was supposed to come from Nazareth. He makes such a profound statement, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus makes no claim to have made himself the bread of life. It is the Father that sends people to him, the Father who sent him. And everyone that comes to him he will not drive away or cast out. Everyone who comes to him may feed upon the essential life giving bread of life. It’s not his doing, it is in fact the work of God that sends Jesus Christ into the world and gives him as the essential food for living. God the Father directs his people to the Christ.
It is also very helpful to understand that Jesus is loosely quoting in this passage the prophet Isaiah 54:13: “And they shall all be taught by God.” Actually: “All your sons shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the prosperity of your sons.” The bread is the important teaching of Jesus Christ. There is also the passage in the Hebrew Scripture this morning referring to the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness, “He humbled you be letting you hunger, then be feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by (material) bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” For the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, the Word of God, the teaching and the instruction of God that is the spiritual life giving bread of life with all the significance and importance that is implied in this passage
We must reclaim from this understanding of Bread, that in the Scriptures it is the thing essential to life, and especially to sinners and outcasts, and for all the disenfranchised and expendable people. God invites them all to come to him, and provides the life giving Word, Jesus Christ, as the essential food of their lives. Herein is also the turning point for the Christian life. We do not live by material possessions alone, and by the status that we claim for ourselves or by the status others give to us. We are all sinners; we all need God to live a truly meaningful full life. We may well think in our time, that we can live without bread, but we really cannot live meaningfully without God’s bread, God’s teaching, God’s Jesus Christ. One of the things we have lost in recent years is the ability to fast. It used to be that people would fast before receiving Holy Communion on Sunday mornings. People would fast in Lent, a season now barely observed by the modern Christian world. We’ve become somewhat obsessed with the need for material food and consumption, that seeking the bread of heaven takes a lesser place, and the fasting that taught us that fact is being lost. We are giving to the diet of junk food. There is a significantly important spiritual life that is a part of our human essence that becomes starved, and it should not be.
One of the most outstanding things about the life of Jesus Christ was his ability to be accepting of the human condition in terms of his association with all kinds of people: sinners. Clearly Jesus was dreadfully frustrated with a few, and they were those who thought that they were not sinners. It was the so-called righteous, hypocrites and self-righteous Pharisees. These rigid people were annoying to Jesus, whose lives were defined by rigid observance of the law but in Jesus you saw a more a very sensitive kind of person, expressing the sensitivity and mercy of God. He was the expression of the God of mercy, of compassion, of unique understanding of the human condition. He saw blessedness and honor in the poor and those who experienced great loss, who were sick and considered, cursed. Jesus seemed to relish hospitality toward all people, teaching parables of invitation to the unacceptable folk. The strictest of Jews, St. Paul, after a confrontation with Jesus expresses not a long sermon on rigid affirmation of the law, but of the essence of love.
In Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13, he spells out the stuff of which Christ’s love is made:
v Love does not give up. It is patient as hell, and doesn’t pick up its marble and run away.
v Love cares more for others than just for one’s own self and needs, and way of thinking.
v Love doesn’t want and demand, what it doesn’t have, or can’t control.
v Love doesn’t strut, or boast. I doesn’t have a swelled head and see one’s self as a hot shot.
v Love doesn’t force itself on others.
v Love doesn’t fly off the handle in a fit of rage and uncontrolled language and actions.
v Love doesn’t keep score, and hold grudges against others with which to hit them over the head. It doesn’t revel in the losses of others.
v Love puts up with a hell of a lot of stuff, with which it doesn’t necessarily agree.
v Love always looks forward and keeps going; love keeps plugging along, and lets go of old grudges; it is not vengeful or hateful.
v Love trusts, is loyal and is committed to the belief that God is indeed in charge, and has everything ultimately under control. (See The Bible in Contemporary Language: The Message, Eugene Peterson)
These teachings on love are the spiritual bread, the spiritual essence of our lives. Without this kind of bread we spiritually starve to death as human beings who are in the image of God. If we don’t have this kind of love, it doesn’t matter how right we are, whether we speak with tongues of angels or ecstasy. If we don’t have this kind of spirit we have nothing, and are spiritually starving. We are bankrupt without love. We can do all kinds of good and righteous benevolent things, but without the bread of Christ’s love that does not count for anything. The Bread of Christ; the teachings of love are truly startling to the thinking of much of the world. Yet, it breaks the bondage of doing the same old things that lead to constant rivalry, hate, vengeance, anger, self-righteousness. The bread of life in love paves the way to newness, hope, and to the full glory of God. We cannot live as God’s own people, in the image of God without our participation in the essence of God.
In the scene of Jesus on the cross what we see is the bread of life in all its glory: incredibly patient, self-giving, non-anxious, non-boasting, non-reveling, not giving up, not giving in, but dying for the brokenness of the world. Jesus is faithfully bearing witness to the love and forgiveness of God that brings about new life, resurrection, and fullness of the meaning of life, dying for all, and for each one of us.
We do not live by bread alone, but by the teachings of Jesus Christ. These teachings are not just something you can do without. They are the spiritual sustenance and the continuing hope of our lives. A spiritual life of prayer, of knowledge of Scripture, of fasting from the world from time to time is truly of the essence of paving our way with Christ to the Kingdom of God.
SEASON: PENTECOST 9
PROPER: 14 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 10, 2003
TEXT: John 6:37-51 – “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” . . . . . . . . “I am the bread of life.” . . . . . . . . . “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
SEE ALSO: Deuteronomy 8:1-10 – “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
ISSUE: We do not live by worldly bread alone, but through the awareness that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. In Jesus’ time, bread was of great importance to life. But the teachings of the early church emphasize the importance of Jesus as the bread of life, and of the importance of that spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. We need to have a spiritual life in which we pay close attention, as the bread of our life. That spiritual life carries us through the junk food and the difficult times of our lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I have repeatedly mentioned how important the story of the Feeding of the Multitude must have been to the life of the early church. The story is repeated some six times in the four gospel accounts. And in the Gospel of John there is repeated reference to the fact that Jesus is the bread of life. We are still in our lectionary readings for this summer dealing with that issue. It is also significant, I think, that there are a number of references to Jesus eating with, and sharing meals with sinners, not to mention that some of Jesus’ well-known parables are related to feasting, wedding feasts in particular. His first miracle is at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, and his last meal is a supper with his disciples. The fact that Jesus is so involved in the meals and feasting of people was significant to the early church.
In the continuation of our readings from the Gospel of John, the important phrase that Jesus is to have said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and “I am the bread of life,” and “I am the bread living bread that came down from heaven” is a constant refrain in this reading from John once again. Whether Jesus actually said these things, we can’t be absolutely sure, but we can be sure that John’s writings and his early church saw Jesus as bread from heaven, nourishment from God. The “I am” statement placed on Jesus’ lips is the name of God, Yaweh, or in the Hebrew, “I am what I am.” Another possible translation is that God is the living bread, and Jesus, is God’s gift of the living bread and bread of life.
To the early Christians, this concept of Jesus as the bread of life was extraordinarily significant. The phrases today do not carry the impact that they did in the 1st Century A.D. To appreciate the passage, you have to understand the context and the importance of bread in the period these phrases were written. Today, bread may or may not be part of a meal. In fact, if you are on certain diets these days, you are inclined not to eat bread at all because of its high carbohydrate content. We have such a significantly large selection from the market that bread does not play the significant part in the diet that it once did. We have so many choices of fruits, vegetables, meats, and pastries that bread is a small part of our diet. In fact we can easily do without bread. To say that Jesus is the bread of life means for us that Jesus may be just a small part of our choices in and abundant life.
In ancient times, and in the 1st Century A.D. the place of bread in the diet was of significantly greater value. Among the peasantry of this period at least, if not more than fifty percent of a person’s calories came from bread. In more elite circles there were more choices, but the peasantry, and those with whom Jesus seemed to be closest were people whose diet was largely bread. (I understand that bread is still a significant part of the Middle Eastern people’s diet.) People of this period didn’t give up bread. It was the main staple of their life. Without it was starvation and malnutrition, and possibly death. You had to have bread. Without it you died. Thus, when Jesus said, I am the bread of life, the statement made people take notice. It meant that he was the staple of life, eternal life. He is the living staple life giving food from heaven. To do without him, is to die.
Not unlike the Gospel of John, the people become argumentative. Who does Jesus think that he is? They know he is only the son of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth. He is son of a carpenter who has not place or standing. He dares to grab at honor above his status and birth rank. Who does he think he is? Nothing good came or was supposed to come from Nazareth. He makes such a profound statement, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus makes no claim to have made himself the bread of life. It is the Father that sends people to him, the Father who sent him. And everyone that comes to him he will not drive away or cast out. Everyone who comes to him may feed upon the essential life giving bread of life. It’s not his doing, it is in fact the work of God that sends Jesus Christ into the world and gives him as the essential food for living. God the Father directs his people to the Christ.
It is also very helpful to understand that Jesus is loosely quoting in this passage the prophet Isaiah 54:13: “And they shall all be taught by God.” Actually: “All your sons shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the prosperity of your sons.” The bread is the important teaching of Jesus Christ. There is also the passage in the Hebrew Scripture this morning referring to the Hebrews wandering in the wilderness, “He humbled you be letting you hunger, then be feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by (material) bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” For the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, the Word of God, the teaching and the instruction of God that is the spiritual life giving bread of life with all the significance and importance that is implied in this passage
We must reclaim from this understanding of Bread, that in the Scriptures it is the thing essential to life, and especially to sinners and outcasts, and for all the disenfranchised and expendable people. God invites them all to come to him, and provides the life giving Word, Jesus Christ, as the essential food of their lives. Herein is also the turning point for the Christian life. We do not live by material possessions alone, and by the status that we claim for ourselves or by the status others give to us. We are all sinners; we all need God to live a truly meaningful full life. We may well think in our time, that we can live without bread, but we really cannot live meaningfully without God’s bread, God’s teaching, God’s Jesus Christ. One of the things we have lost in recent years is the ability to fast. It used to be that people would fast before receiving Holy Communion on Sunday mornings. People would fast in Lent, a season now barely observed by the modern Christian world. We’ve become somewhat obsessed with the need for material food and consumption, that seeking the bread of heaven takes a lesser place, and the fasting that taught us that fact is being lost. We are giving to the diet of junk food. There is a significantly important spiritual life that is a part of our human essence that becomes starved, and it should not be.
One of the most outstanding things about the life of Jesus Christ was his ability to be accepting of the human condition in terms of his association with all kinds of people: sinners. Clearly Jesus was dreadfully frustrated with a few, and they were those who thought that they were not sinners. It was the so-called righteous, hypocrites and self-righteous Pharisees. These rigid people were annoying to Jesus, whose lives were defined by rigid observance of the law but in Jesus you saw a more a very sensitive kind of person, expressing the sensitivity and mercy of God. He was the expression of the God of mercy, of compassion, of unique understanding of the human condition. He saw blessedness and honor in the poor and those who experienced great loss, who were sick and considered, cursed. Jesus seemed to relish hospitality toward all people, teaching parables of invitation to the unacceptable folk. The strictest of Jews, St. Paul, after a confrontation with Jesus expresses not a long sermon on rigid affirmation of the law, but of the essence of love.
In Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 13, he spells out the stuff of which Christ’s love is made:
v Love does not give up. It is patient as hell, and doesn’t pick up its marble and run away.
v Love cares more for others than just for one’s own self and needs, and way of thinking.
v Love doesn’t want and demand, what it doesn’t have, or can’t control.
v Love doesn’t strut, or boast. I doesn’t have a swelled head and see one’s self as a hot shot.
v Love doesn’t force itself on others.
v Love doesn’t fly off the handle in a fit of rage and uncontrolled language and actions.
v Love doesn’t keep score, and hold grudges against others with which to hit them over the head. It doesn’t revel in the losses of others.
v Love puts up with a hell of a lot of stuff, with which it doesn’t necessarily agree.
v Love always looks forward and keeps going; love keeps plugging along, and lets go of old grudges; it is not vengeful or hateful.
v Love trusts, is loyal and is committed to the belief that God is indeed in charge, and has everything ultimately under control. (See The Bible in Contemporary Language: The Message, Eugene Peterson)
These teachings on love are the spiritual bread, the spiritual essence of our lives. Without this kind of bread we spiritually starve to death as human beings who are in the image of God. If we don’t have this kind of love, it doesn’t matter how right we are, whether we speak with tongues of angels or ecstasy. If we don’t have this kind of spirit we have nothing, and are spiritually starving. We are bankrupt without love. We can do all kinds of good and righteous benevolent things, but without the bread of Christ’s love that does not count for anything. The Bread of Christ; the teachings of love are truly startling to the thinking of much of the world. Yet, it breaks the bondage of doing the same old things that lead to constant rivalry, hate, vengeance, anger, self-righteousness. The bread of life in love paves the way to newness, hope, and to the full glory of God. We cannot live as God’s own people, in the image of God without our participation in the essence of God.
In the scene of Jesus on the cross what we see is the bread of life in all its glory: incredibly patient, self-giving, non-anxious, non-boasting, non-reveling, not giving up, not giving in, but dying for the brokenness of the world. Jesus is faithfully bearing witness to the love and forgiveness of God that brings about new life, resurrection, and fullness of the meaning of life, dying for all, and for each one of us.
We do not live by bread alone, but by the teachings of Jesus Christ. These teachings are not just something you can do without. They are the spiritual sustenance and the continuing hope of our lives. A spiritual life of prayer, of knowledge of Scripture, of fasting from the world from time to time is truly of the essence of paving our way with Christ to the Kingdom of God.
Sunday, August 3, 2003
PENTECOST 8
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: PENTECOST 8
PROPER: 13 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 3, 2003
TEXT: John 6:24-35 – Jesus answered them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” . . . . . . Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.”
See also Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
ISSUE: In this passage from John’s Gospel account, the people appear to be most interested in Jesus as a miracle worker in terms of his feeding the multitude. They have a fascination with his providing them with an abundance of bread. Yet Jesus attempts to re-direct their understanding, that he is the Bread of Life. He is the way to God, and he is the way of love and his message is hope and healing for the world. His miracle is a sign of something far more nourishing and life giving, a food that never perishes which is from God.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the past several weeks we have been involved in a sequence of several stories that are peculiar to both Mark and John’s accounts of the Gospel. Jesus feeds the 5,000 peasant folk. The crowds and the disciples are dismissed; the crowds return home full, and disciples are to return across the lake while Jesus goes up the mountain to pray. However, he sees the disciples straining against an adverse wind; he walks out on the water, steps into the boat with them and the sea is calmed. In the combination of these miraculous stories, I can’t help but see a kind of fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures being played out. The 23rd Psalm in particular. The crowds follow Jesus into green pastures where they are seated, and receive a bounty whereby their cup runneth over or at least their twelve baskets with an abundance of food. Jesus is truly the shepherd of a flock of folk who are like sheep without a shepherd. The disciples and the disciples return home beside stilled waters, and a new day dawns.
As the new day dawns in John’s Gospel, the crowds once again are in pursuit of Jesus and his whereabouts. Jesus senses that the crowd is now pursuing him in the hope of participating in another miracle that will provide them with more food. Jesus points out to them that they are more interested in sign or miracle than they are in the meaning of what the sign and miracle meant. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” We do get the impression that the crowd is somewhat dimwitted or at the very least not getting the point. They even become argumentative. “What shall we do to perform works of God?” they ask. What will Jesus do to authenticate his ministry, which is what was expected of a true prophet? Even Moses in the wilderness provided manna in the wilderness for a desperately hungry Israelite people.
The people are referring to the Exodus story that we read as the first reading this morning from Exodus. A complaining frightened band of Israelites were in the wilderness following Moses, and became hungry for food. A miraculous event occurs, migrating quail too tired to fly any further and weakened by their journey land in the wilderness, and are able to be easily picked up and consumed for dinner that night. So too there is in the morning what is called manna, or “bread” from heaven. Some scholars think it was sap-like droppings from tamarisk trees, or the excretions of some kind of beetle, that was white and sweet, which evaporated in the heat of the sun. Whether is was a “miracle” or a natural occurrence, the story indicated that food, even though it may not have been gourmet, or like the leeks and melons of Egypt, it was sufficiently nourish, and quenched their hunger. Jesus makes it clear that it was not Moses who provided for them, and that the miracle authenticated Moses’ ministry. IT was God that provided the nourishment. It was from and of God. Jesus is making the clear point that it is through God that the bread in the green pasture came, and that the bread of life was came through Jesus and his teaching and his relationship with them. It was in their relationship with him that they were fed and freely given a spiritual food that would give them eternal quality of life. It is the call to be faithful, to believe in, and maintain a relationship with him.
The crowd responds, “Sir give us this bread always.” Jesus responds, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.” Be reminded that “I AM” is the Hebrew name for God. God is the Bread of Life, and Jesus Christ is the Word of what God speaks and has to say to the world. The point is that embracing, having faith in Jesus Christ is the way to God, and being in relationship with him, is to be in relationship with God. We are inclined to think of faith as modern Americans as a mere intellectual pursuit. We, as Christians, believe Jesus was and/or is. We believe there is a God. For us it is an act of the mind. For the Gospel of John, to be faithful meant something more than an act of the mind. It meant to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. Faith meant loyalty, commitment, and solidarity with Jesus Christ. It meant that Jesus was the Lord of you and this new community. You didn’t just walk out on it, and you certainly didn’t take you faith commitment lightly.
How many times have I mention that in the 1st century Middle Eastern Culture and even today, your family was everything. Walk out on your family and you were a dead duck. Remember the prodigal son who walks out on his family; he ends up in the pigsty. His only salvation is to get back to his family. Jesus was considered deviant at the time, because he had abandoned his family, but he established a community based on the premise that they were the children of God; God is Father, and with Christ his followers were sons and daughters. Loyalty, commitment, and solidarity of community with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ was essential, and that’s what faith was and meant. Perhaps we should regroup today in our understanding of faithfulness. In John’s Gospel account, maintaining faithfulness was his community’s salvation, and ours today. Solidarity with the Bread of Life, with God, is the stuff of our preservation uncertainties of the world. That’s all we need, and you are spiritually full up and running over.
Today we are not particularly faithful in that sense of solidarity with God, with Jesus Christ and the family of God. We are very individualistic. We saw this some years ago, when the church changed the Prayer Book. “If they change the Prayer Book,” some people said, “I will leave the church!” And they did. “If they, the national church, give money to black civil rights groups, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. “If they ordain women to the priesthood, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. Now it’s:
“If they give consent to a practicing homosexual man to be consecrated bishop, I’ll leave the church.”
“If they give consent to same-sex unions, I’ll leave the Church.”
Leaving the church to start another branch is also a way of breaking-up, as in anger breaking something up to scare another person, or to inappropriately express anger.
What of our relationship with Jesus Christ, our commitment to him, and our solidarity with him, with the Father? What of our relationships with one another our fellows, and the people we have shared Eucharist with for years, sitting next to them in the pews Sunday after Sunday? What of our relationship with them and all the times we’ve shared coffee and doughnuts (the other sacrament) at Hospitality Hour week after week after week. What of the homosexual clergy and laity that for centuries have pledged their loyalty, solidarity, commitment to God, to Jesus Christ, to the family of God’s people down through the centuries? What of the secret sins people hide, in spite of their longing to remain in the community of God? Should we excommunicate people on the basis of activities of their private lives, when they desire a loyal relationship with Jesus Christ?
Interestingly enough, Jesus mingled with all types of folk, calling them to faith in God. Unity, loyalty, devotion, solidarity with that mission seems to be at the heart of our own faithful journey, leaving judgment with and to the Father.
Some of you today, or even during this sermon are probably already wondering what you will have for supper tonight. Did you remember to get one thing or another out of the freezer this morning? Remember that around the world there are millions of people who have another question: I wonder if I will eat at all today? We Americans are a very affluent, and sometimes a very self-righteous people. We are stuffed on our affluence. Sometimes that keeps us from worrying much about our relationship, faith, and solidarity with God. Yet, notice that it is finally being revealed that while we are bountifully nourished, we by and large are mal-nourish. The large majority of us (No pun intended there) are too large. The word is obese. And that obesity is killing us with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and sluggishness. We diet, we exercise, and yet the pounds persist. Both old and young folk alike are too fat, the man in the pulpit as well. We are material gluttons. We love all you can eat buffets, big Macs, big gulps, whoppers; we love holiday sales of all kinds, and TV cable service that provides 250 channels, and every novel fad thing. How many telephones in your house, VCR’s, TV sets. Life can get so abundant and oh so cluttered. But all this stuff is not what gives us healthy lives, meaningful, full lives. If anything, too much of everything is to our detriment. Our present day world reminds me a little bit of a coffee commercial that appeared on TV awhile back. It shows a large cruise ship, and the steward announces that some wonder coffee is being served on the port side of the ship. Then, you see the cruise liner tilt over to the side as if the ship is about to sink. The ship is out of balance; it could capsize! We do have to be careful that we keep our lives balanced. We could be actually drowning in our obesity and affluence. We need the spiritual side of life as well. We need the spiritual bread that comes from God through Jesus Christ. It is the bread of love and forgiveness. It is the bread of acceptance, patience, understanding, and being non-judgmental. It is the bread that nourishes us for service and kindness, and involvement in the needs of other. It is the bread you give away sacrificially, and sometimes when you aren’t really sure it is the best thing in your opinion to do.
We do get so anxious, and Jesus said look around you. The lilies of the field don’t operate spinning wheels, but they are every bit as grand as Solomon in all his glory. The birds don’t gather into barns but are fed enough. Seek the food that lasts and fills the spirit, and maintain your loyalty, your relationship, and your commitment to the family of God. There are still a lot of storms and what we see as adverse winds, but Jesus Christ in time stills the waters.
SEASON: PENTECOST 8
PROPER: 13 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 3, 2003
TEXT: John 6:24-35 – Jesus answered them, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” . . . . . . Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.”
See also Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
ISSUE: In this passage from John’s Gospel account, the people appear to be most interested in Jesus as a miracle worker in terms of his feeding the multitude. They have a fascination with his providing them with an abundance of bread. Yet Jesus attempts to re-direct their understanding, that he is the Bread of Life. He is the way to God, and he is the way of love and his message is hope and healing for the world. His miracle is a sign of something far more nourishing and life giving, a food that never perishes which is from God.
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In the past several weeks we have been involved in a sequence of several stories that are peculiar to both Mark and John’s accounts of the Gospel. Jesus feeds the 5,000 peasant folk. The crowds and the disciples are dismissed; the crowds return home full, and disciples are to return across the lake while Jesus goes up the mountain to pray. However, he sees the disciples straining against an adverse wind; he walks out on the water, steps into the boat with them and the sea is calmed. In the combination of these miraculous stories, I can’t help but see a kind of fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures being played out. The 23rd Psalm in particular. The crowds follow Jesus into green pastures where they are seated, and receive a bounty whereby their cup runneth over or at least their twelve baskets with an abundance of food. Jesus is truly the shepherd of a flock of folk who are like sheep without a shepherd. The disciples and the disciples return home beside stilled waters, and a new day dawns.
As the new day dawns in John’s Gospel, the crowds once again are in pursuit of Jesus and his whereabouts. Jesus senses that the crowd is now pursuing him in the hope of participating in another miracle that will provide them with more food. Jesus points out to them that they are more interested in sign or miracle than they are in the meaning of what the sign and miracle meant. “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” We do get the impression that the crowd is somewhat dimwitted or at the very least not getting the point. They even become argumentative. “What shall we do to perform works of God?” they ask. What will Jesus do to authenticate his ministry, which is what was expected of a true prophet? Even Moses in the wilderness provided manna in the wilderness for a desperately hungry Israelite people.
The people are referring to the Exodus story that we read as the first reading this morning from Exodus. A complaining frightened band of Israelites were in the wilderness following Moses, and became hungry for food. A miraculous event occurs, migrating quail too tired to fly any further and weakened by their journey land in the wilderness, and are able to be easily picked up and consumed for dinner that night. So too there is in the morning what is called manna, or “bread” from heaven. Some scholars think it was sap-like droppings from tamarisk trees, or the excretions of some kind of beetle, that was white and sweet, which evaporated in the heat of the sun. Whether is was a “miracle” or a natural occurrence, the story indicated that food, even though it may not have been gourmet, or like the leeks and melons of Egypt, it was sufficiently nourish, and quenched their hunger. Jesus makes it clear that it was not Moses who provided for them, and that the miracle authenticated Moses’ ministry. IT was God that provided the nourishment. It was from and of God. Jesus is making the clear point that it is through God that the bread in the green pasture came, and that the bread of life was came through Jesus and his teaching and his relationship with them. It was in their relationship with him that they were fed and freely given a spiritual food that would give them eternal quality of life. It is the call to be faithful, to believe in, and maintain a relationship with him.
The crowd responds, “Sir give us this bread always.” Jesus responds, “I AM the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never by thirsty.” Be reminded that “I AM” is the Hebrew name for God. God is the Bread of Life, and Jesus Christ is the Word of what God speaks and has to say to the world. The point is that embracing, having faith in Jesus Christ is the way to God, and being in relationship with him, is to be in relationship with God. We are inclined to think of faith as modern Americans as a mere intellectual pursuit. We, as Christians, believe Jesus was and/or is. We believe there is a God. For us it is an act of the mind. For the Gospel of John, to be faithful meant something more than an act of the mind. It meant to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ, with God. Faith meant loyalty, commitment, and solidarity with Jesus Christ. It meant that Jesus was the Lord of you and this new community. You didn’t just walk out on it, and you certainly didn’t take you faith commitment lightly.
How many times have I mention that in the 1st century Middle Eastern Culture and even today, your family was everything. Walk out on your family and you were a dead duck. Remember the prodigal son who walks out on his family; he ends up in the pigsty. His only salvation is to get back to his family. Jesus was considered deviant at the time, because he had abandoned his family, but he established a community based on the premise that they were the children of God; God is Father, and with Christ his followers were sons and daughters. Loyalty, commitment, and solidarity of community with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ was essential, and that’s what faith was and meant. Perhaps we should regroup today in our understanding of faithfulness. In John’s Gospel account, maintaining faithfulness was his community’s salvation, and ours today. Solidarity with the Bread of Life, with God, is the stuff of our preservation uncertainties of the world. That’s all we need, and you are spiritually full up and running over.
Today we are not particularly faithful in that sense of solidarity with God, with Jesus Christ and the family of God. We are very individualistic. We saw this some years ago, when the church changed the Prayer Book. “If they change the Prayer Book,” some people said, “I will leave the church!” And they did. “If they, the national church, give money to black civil rights groups, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. “If they ordain women to the priesthood, I’ll leave the church!” And they did. Now it’s:
“If they give consent to a practicing homosexual man to be consecrated bishop, I’ll leave the church.”
“If they give consent to same-sex unions, I’ll leave the Church.”
Leaving the church to start another branch is also a way of breaking-up, as in anger breaking something up to scare another person, or to inappropriately express anger.
What of our relationship with Jesus Christ, our commitment to him, and our solidarity with him, with the Father? What of our relationships with one another our fellows, and the people we have shared Eucharist with for years, sitting next to them in the pews Sunday after Sunday? What of our relationship with them and all the times we’ve shared coffee and doughnuts (the other sacrament) at Hospitality Hour week after week after week. What of the homosexual clergy and laity that for centuries have pledged their loyalty, solidarity, commitment to God, to Jesus Christ, to the family of God’s people down through the centuries? What of the secret sins people hide, in spite of their longing to remain in the community of God? Should we excommunicate people on the basis of activities of their private lives, when they desire a loyal relationship with Jesus Christ?
Interestingly enough, Jesus mingled with all types of folk, calling them to faith in God. Unity, loyalty, devotion, solidarity with that mission seems to be at the heart of our own faithful journey, leaving judgment with and to the Father.
Some of you today, or even during this sermon are probably already wondering what you will have for supper tonight. Did you remember to get one thing or another out of the freezer this morning? Remember that around the world there are millions of people who have another question: I wonder if I will eat at all today? We Americans are a very affluent, and sometimes a very self-righteous people. We are stuffed on our affluence. Sometimes that keeps us from worrying much about our relationship, faith, and solidarity with God. Yet, notice that it is finally being revealed that while we are bountifully nourished, we by and large are mal-nourish. The large majority of us (No pun intended there) are too large. The word is obese. And that obesity is killing us with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and sluggishness. We diet, we exercise, and yet the pounds persist. Both old and young folk alike are too fat, the man in the pulpit as well. We are material gluttons. We love all you can eat buffets, big Macs, big gulps, whoppers; we love holiday sales of all kinds, and TV cable service that provides 250 channels, and every novel fad thing. How many telephones in your house, VCR’s, TV sets. Life can get so abundant and oh so cluttered. But all this stuff is not what gives us healthy lives, meaningful, full lives. If anything, too much of everything is to our detriment. Our present day world reminds me a little bit of a coffee commercial that appeared on TV awhile back. It shows a large cruise ship, and the steward announces that some wonder coffee is being served on the port side of the ship. Then, you see the cruise liner tilt over to the side as if the ship is about to sink. The ship is out of balance; it could capsize! We do have to be careful that we keep our lives balanced. We could be actually drowning in our obesity and affluence. We need the spiritual side of life as well. We need the spiritual bread that comes from God through Jesus Christ. It is the bread of love and forgiveness. It is the bread of acceptance, patience, understanding, and being non-judgmental. It is the bread that nourishes us for service and kindness, and involvement in the needs of other. It is the bread you give away sacrificially, and sometimes when you aren’t really sure it is the best thing in your opinion to do.
We do get so anxious, and Jesus said look around you. The lilies of the field don’t operate spinning wheels, but they are every bit as grand as Solomon in all his glory. The birds don’t gather into barns but are fed enough. Seek the food that lasts and fills the spirit, and maintain your loyalty, your relationship, and your commitment to the family of God. There are still a lot of storms and what we see as adverse winds, but Jesus Christ in time stills the waters.
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