This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 30, 2009, the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
On Wednesday evening when we got together for our reading of Mark’s gospel, a lot of thoughts started running through my mind. One of the things on my mind had to do with how things tend to run downhill. There is the polite example where we know that water runs downhill. One trip to the manse in a downpour shows that. Another way to look at this downhill flow is political. The word comes from above and those of us who live below have to deal with the follow through. The unfunded mandate, a requirement imposed by Congress on state or local governments with no funding to pay for it,[1] is a wonderful example of what government rules and regulations running downhill means.
There is something that I think I need to make clear about this first; many of these mandates are well intentioned, like the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. When many of America’s most polluting industries were getting started, there was so little efficiency that there was often considerable waste and pollution. The effects of this pollution were so far down the pike that they meant little at the time. Unfortunately, sometimes these inefficient ways became SOP, standard operating procedure. So today, the culture of many industries is to not change not simply because of the expense, but also because of red ink in the profit column too. In the meantime, air, ground, and water become polluted creating a whole new industry, the super-fund clean-up industry.
So yes, many mandates are well intentioned but at the same time, profits are lost to pay for them. Because they aren’t funded any other way, investors become leery and move their money out of these formerly more profitable industries. This creates twists and turns to the economy which can be felt at every level of society. President Reagan talked about “trickle-down economics” and how a rising tide lifts all boats. From what I have seen in life and in ministry, I am more familiar with the “trickle-down” that means the poor get poorer.
So, how does this relate to scripture? In Mark 7:3-4 we learn that the Pharisees and all of the Jews do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands observing the tradition of the elders and do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are many other traditions that they observe including the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. What this scripture only alludes to is that it isn’t just the Pharisees and all of the Jews who observe these rituals; they insisted that those they did business with also followed these rituals.
While the “they” of “they wash it” meant the washing performed by the temple kitchen patrol, it also included handling long before it ever reached their kitchen. The long-drawn-out laws of hand washing extended far beyond the hands of the Pharisees. This ritual cleanliness had to include all of the planting, harvesting, and preparation from the field. It also included the artisans, workers, and merchants who created and sold the cups, pots, and bronze kettles. The rules created its own little closed system to serve the temple; and the Pharisees ruled over it all.
It’s sort of like a small business getting a government contract. But before you sign the contract, you had better be aware of all of its terms and conditions. You had better be aware of every little provision and clause in the contract, every jot and tittle. You had better be careful because violating any piece of the contract makes the whole thing voidable. If your contract gets voided, there goes your investment, your profit, and the wages you owe your employees, and from there it just keeps running down hill. So beware of all of the terms of the contract. Beware of all of the terms in the law.
In Judaism, traditionally there are 613 commands, the Taryag Mitzvot. The Mitzvot are separated into two categories. There are 248 mitzvot aseh, or positive commands; one for each bone and significant organ in the human body. These are the things we are to do. There are also 365 mitzvot lo taaseh, or negative commands; one for every day of the year. These are the things we are never to do.[2]
Some of these rules make perfect sense to us today, things like, “Know there is a God,” “Know God is One,” and “Entertain thoughts of no other god except for the One True God.” We’re familiar with these rules from the Old Testament. These are lessons Jesus teaches us in the gospels.
Then again, there are others we do not follow. For example, the mitzvot includes prohibitions against eating non-kosher fish. Sorry, but I enjoy shrimp. They’re not kosher, but they’re tasty. Pork isn’t kosher either, but bacon makes everything better. In fact, a note to anyone who brings shrimp wrapped with bacon in two weeks for potluck Sunday: I will make it my purpose in life to make sure you don’t have to worry about leftovers.
On top of the mitzvot, human rules and traditions designed to protect the law created barriers to the law. It literally became impossible to follow the law because there were so many barriers to it. These barriers are bad enough when they create unintended consequences, but the step that is even worse is when people intend to take advantage of others using the barriers and the law.
One of the best examples in the last twenty years of people taking advantage of the law deals with home ownership. As long ago as the Clinton presidency, the government policy was to encourage and enable people to get mortgages so they could own their own homes. Home ownership is the greatest source of personal wealth for the majority of Americans, so encouraging home ownership is as American as apple pie. People own their own homes, they gain equity, personal wealth increases, and the American dream starts to become true for people who never imagined the dream could be theirs. Unfortunately, this is where the dream ran amok.
The Christian Century recently ran the story of an elderly woman named Mabel[3] who was a client of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. She needed just a little more money than her social security and house cleaning job provided. Between Mabel’s niece April and the loan salesman “Bill Sykes,” Mabel and her house went from the frying pan into the fire.
Bill Sykes knew that Mabel wouldn’t be able to handle the new level of debt, especially since Mabel owed back taxes and back water bills on the house. There were also a couple of judgments against the property so this new level of debt would soon become impossible to repay.
To quote the article:
The day before the signing, Sykes had not been happy. Two deals had tanked already that morning when a stubborn appraiser had refused to bring him high enough home values. He wouldn't use that bozo again. And now with Mabel's loan in doubt, he'd be lucky to gross $5,000 for the week—half his usual. He'd have to call the car dealer and tell him to put the Jaguar on hold.
A year ago Sykes would've given up. But that was before the big lunch he'd had with a representative of a subprime lender. The rep had displayed his employer's array of aggressive loan products: no doc, low doc, doc lite. All Sykes needed was a cooperative appraiser and a friendly closer, and he would be set: with these new products he'd be able to finance anybody. A year later, Sykes could see that the rep wasn't far wrong.
The vulnerable and overly trusting homeowner sitting on a ton of equity, the nice mortgage broker worming into the homeowner’s life, the greedy family member helping things along, the high up-front fees, the cash payment to cushion the deal, the risky mortgage products and the broker schooled by a lender's rep on how to push them. All this story needs is an out of tune piano to sound like a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t have an out of tune piano. Even more unfortunately it doesn’t have a Mountie.
The article ends like this:
Many have asked who is to blame. Some would blame the homeowners themselves. It is true that some borrowers bought homes they couldn't afford, but this happened mostly at the end of the lending spree and especially in certain highly publicized markets. The majority of borrowers sucked into bad subprime loans were long-term homeowners like Mabel who had equity that could be stripped and were on the receiving end of relentless marketing.
Some also point a finger at the Community Reinvestment Act, arguing that it forced banks to extend overly risky loans to unworthy borrowers. But the CRA was passed way back in 1977, some 25 years before the boom in subprime lending, and the biggest subprime lenders were nonbank entities not regulated by the CRA.
The chief culprits in the subprime lending crisis are the brokers, lenders, ratings agencies and investment banks that set up the system and pushed it beyond its breaking point, together with the policy makers and regulators who ignored warning signs and failed to apply the brakes.
As for Sykes, he's doing well these days. The meltdown has been good for the many entrepreneurs in the business who are now engaged in the mortgage-rescue industry that sprang up overnight. Just as before, Sykes sends out mailers by the thousands to homeowners in foreclosure. But now, instead of offering refinancing, he presents himself as an expert in foreclosure prevention and loan modification. He says he knows how to help homeowners get good results with their lender. He says he can gain a sympathetic hearing if he discovers that the homeowners were duped when they got their loan. He should know.
There are some people who would say that I as a pastor have no business talking about this from the pulpit. Some people would tell me to be quiet about political things; about law and government and clean air and talk about Jesus. Friends, the plain truth is that the gospel is political. In a time when church and state were completely interconnected, the gospel preached by Jesus was for the leaders of the synagogue and the political leaders because the synagogue leaders were political leaders. Separating church and state is not a biblical concept; it has only been around for about 240 years. So when we talk about the mandates that are a burden on the people, those mandates come from every seat of power and are put upon those who are subject to the power and the powerful.
So what we must do as Christians, as followers of the one true Triune God is to find the mandate of the faith. First and foremost, our mandate is our Lord Jesus Christ, in his person, his words, and his work. It is found in his life, and his death, and his resurrection.
This is perhaps the most difficult, the most scandalous part of the gospel. By emptying himself of his Godly status, taking earthly form, and joining with us, Jesus teaches that it is in weakness and in poverty that real strength is found and exercised. Our society teaches us that we are to gain and exert power in strength. Our culture teaches that it is better to be Bill Sykes; make a ton of cash and get the Jag. Jesus teaches from the mitzvot not to withhold charity to the poor.[4]
Our mandate is found in the word of God. To find God’s will, we need to go to the best source of information about God, scripture opened by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of the testaments brings us words thousands of years old; words as important today as when they were written. Some will say the Bible is out of touch with our lives, but I say that words about the human condition and the one who created humanity are never out of vogue. This reading from Mark is a fine example. The injunctions from 1James are another.
Our mandate is found in the sacraments, the water of our baptism, and in the plate and cup of the table. At the font, we join with Jesus as members of his church. In the plate and cup we are nourished by the food of his body and blood. These symbols instituted by the Lord our God are what we use to define who we are in community with Christ and how he continues to feed us.
Our mandate is found in the church, the body of Christ. It is found in the worship and the fellowship we share together. It is found worshipping Christ, even with people we do not agree with, as long as we can all agree that Jesus is Lord.
There are all sorts of mandates in our world and in our lives. As a mandate, the law, the mitzvot, is important. Yet first we are called to follow Jesus, and the advice Jesus gave the Pharisees. To rephrase verse seven, worship Jesus, worship him, not the concepts and precepts we put in his path. We don’t have to protect Jesus from one another. We don’t have to build barriers to protect him. He proved he could take on death and hell. Let us follow Him, do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God protecting the sick, the orphan, the widow and the oppressed. Doing these things, not following selfish human traditions and evil intentions, God’s good will comes from us and we will not be defiled.
[1] Unfunded Mandate, http://www.c-span.org/guide/congress/glossary/unfunded.htm, retrieved August 29, 2009.
[2] 613 Mitzvot, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_Mitzvot, accessed July 2, 2007.
[3] Lindsey, Daniel P. “Foreclosing on Mabel.” The Christian Century, August 11, 2009, pages 30-33.
[4] Deuteronomy 15:7
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Last Resort
This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday August 23, 2009, the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time.
1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Today is the end of our time with the sixth chapter of the book of John. We began with 5,000 men being fed bread and fish on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After dinner, Jesus shares a little one-on-one time with some disciples while the twelve sail across the lake. Later in the evening, leaving everyone unaware, Jesus follows the boat using only his sandals and his very being to make his way across the water. The twelve were shocked and amazed to see Jesus water skiing without the benefit of a boat across the lake, and those who Jesus left on the other side were just as shocked and amazed because Jesus was gone and all of the boats were still there.
This is when Jesus begins teaching lessons about the true bread of eternal life; and many of these lessons are repeated and repeated again so that all may hear, so that all may know. Some of his words are hard truths, like when he told the people that they came to see him because he could fill their bellies with bread, not because he is the bread. Some of his words are offensive. Jesus uses the “I AM,” the holy name of God when referring to himself. Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This freaks out the people who take this too literally. This really freaks out those who make the connection between drinking his blood and the Genesis 9 prohibition against consuming blood. Those who make the connection between blood and atonement found in Leviticus 14 are ready to rent their robes and cry “Blasphemy!”
So for those who were going along with the difficult teachings about flesh and blood, Jesus then tells the disciples that flesh is useless! It’s the Spirit that gives life. His words are spirit and life; as are his flesh and his blood. The twist is not that his flesh and blood are useless, it’s that our flesh and blood are. There is nothing we can do to create truth. There is nothing we can do to make good. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Our flesh is the source of nothing. By him all things are possible. Life is found in him, by him, and through him. Just as the living Father sent him and he lives because of the Father, so too we live because of him; because of his flesh and because of his spirit.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
A missionary told how she was once describing the loving character of the Christians’ God to a company of her Chinese sisters. As she went on in her holy enthusiasm, picturing God’s real character as full of mercy to the sinful and the suffering, one of the Chinese women turned to her neighbor and said, “Haven’t I often told you there ought to be a God like that?”[1]
These women had obviously believed in what we would call other gods. I don’t know what these other gods were. We could speculate and consider and think ourselves more enlightened because we don’t believe in the same sort of god-play that they do. But to what end?
When I was a young man, I would go on walks with my father. He would tell stories and impart wisdom. One evening crossing Brush Creek in Kansas City he told me, “You know, I tell you these stories so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.” I answered him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make my own.”
We can say we don’t make the same mistakes these Chinese women made, not knowing about the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we have other Gods.
One recent example of this sort of idol worship is a sense of security and protection emboldened by American power. In the third episode of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” the liberal democratic President Josiah Bartlett learns that his former chief physician, a naval officer, was killed going overseas to a new deployment. As the President laments this death he asks, “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”[2]
Whether in ancient Rome, a fictional Washington D.C., or a real life Hometown, U.S.A.; this sentiment is not without appeal. When I heard that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans, in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was set free to die at home,[3] a choice he did not give his victims; I don’t wonder if “Civis Romanis” is American Imperialism. I’m thinking it’s a good idea.
This is the sort of thing we might expect to hear from a pundit on Fox News, not the liberal President Bartlett.
What we would expect from this fictional president, a character whose fictional opponent called him a weak, lily-livered, intellectual, elitist snob, is something more of what we knew as a nation in the 1970’s in the morass of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, hyperinflationary times. This quicksand of indecision which was often coupled with a hand-wringing of guilt over national sins, some of which are older than the nation itself, was caused by actions and inactions which needed then and continue to need national atonement. Still, handwringing and being ashamed are not the acts of atonement scripture prescribes. I looked it up.
It’s easy to say that these are two different sins; one of vanity and the other inferiority. I see them as mirror images of the same sin, one of an overblown sense of self held over the blessings of the Lord God. In our oh so enlightened culture, we often think that there is something that we could do to make things better; something we can do with our power, or something we can do with our wealth, or something we can do with our intellect, where without God we can do nothing. Without God, we can do nothing.
We as individuals and as a nation must remember that Jesus offered everything he had to end the separation between God and God’s good creation. He offered his flesh and his blood, his human life so that we may know eternal life. He emptied himself of his Godly status to be fully human, flesh and blood, so that he may be exactly like we are, though without sin. The man who could have brought himself off of the cross and changed life as we know it through power and might stayed there unto death, changing life as we know it by the power of weakness and submission.
When we depend on our strength more than we rely upon the Lord, we look to a god who is not our God. When we allow our weaknesses to overwhelm us, we fall before a god who is not our God. Have we made the same mistake that the Chinese women made? Not really, in truth, we have made our own. This tension between divine action and human choice has been a theme of this chapter from John’s gospel, of the past month of Sundays.
This might be a hard teaching. It may cause some to turn away. It may even offend. Jesus knew this. He knew his teachings would divide families, he knew his teachings would cause separation. Not because of anything he does, on the contrary. God the Father sent Jesus so that all may come to know God not only as Spirit but as flesh and blood. By sending Jesus, God the Father grants us the ability that we may all come to the Lord. But Jesus knew that because of who we are, because of human choice, because of the freedom we have to love God and one another, because of who we are, Jesus knew his hard teaching would cause some to turn away.
In this case, more than five-thousand turned away, the five-thousand who came just for the bread that fills the belly. The twelve who came because Jesus is have the bread that fills the soul, the words of eternal life; they stayed because they knew Jesus was their last resort. They stayed because they had come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
Jesus knew they would stay, for a while; but in his perfection, he knew that we are not so perfect. Jesus knew Judas would betray him to the Roman Legions. Jesus even knew Peter, the speaker for the twelve, would deny him. Yet Jesus loved them. He loved them all. He loves them all.
Peter is held in this piece as the paragon of virtue. But we know better. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know Peter will draw a short sword and take the ear off of one of the slaves of the Pharisees. Peter will deny Christ just because he wanted to hear what was happening and keep warm. Some days we will act like Peter, professing and proclaiming the name of the Lord. And there are days when we abandon the Lord just to keep warm. Yet Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us all.
If you ever get the chance, the next time you are in Tulsa, go to the Great Harvest Bread Company store. Great Harvest is a maker of fine artisan breads and the smell alone is worth making the trip. The first time I went to Great Harvest was to the store in Colorado Springs. I walked into the store and was overwhelmed with the scent of the grains, yeast, spelt, berries and melting butter.
The most wonderful thing about going into the store is the free samples. They cut off a big hunk of bread, slather it with real butter—none of this margarine or “it’s not butter”—they slather it with real butter and hand it to you to taste that it is good. In line you find yuppie mothers with twin strollers, business people in high dollar suits, and homeless folks coming in from the weather. They don’t give you a tiny little spoonful of heavenly goodness like a Baskin-Robbins sample; they give you a thick slice of bread with butter.
It’s amazing; people come in as much for the experience and fellowship as they do for the filling of their bellies. This is a foretaste of the bread of life which fills our bodies and feeds our souls. Even more than great artisan bread, Jesus feeds us on every level. Jesus is the last bread we will ever want—not just for the physical fulfillment—but because once we experience God in Christ nothing else is the same.
Our flesh is useless; in his flesh is eternal life. As Jesus shares in our life we are to share in his so that we may live together in God’s peace and love. It is in his spirit that we have eternal life, life worth living.
It is this bread and this cup, his body and his blood that we share together at the table set by him so that we may be fed body and soul. It is by this bread and this cup that we are fed and strengthened to go into the world taking these hard lessons and the knowledge that there is no one and nothing else that compares to life in Christ.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
[1] “Dome on the Range,” HomeliticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000158, retrieved August 13, 2006
[2] “The West Wing: A Proportional Response,” TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/a-proportional-response/episode/790/summary.html, retrieved August 22, 2009
[3] Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_lockerbie, retrieved August 22, 2009.
1Kings 8:22-30, 41-43
Psalm 84
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
Today is the end of our time with the sixth chapter of the book of John. We began with 5,000 men being fed bread and fish on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. After dinner, Jesus shares a little one-on-one time with some disciples while the twelve sail across the lake. Later in the evening, leaving everyone unaware, Jesus follows the boat using only his sandals and his very being to make his way across the water. The twelve were shocked and amazed to see Jesus water skiing without the benefit of a boat across the lake, and those who Jesus left on the other side were just as shocked and amazed because Jesus was gone and all of the boats were still there.
This is when Jesus begins teaching lessons about the true bread of eternal life; and many of these lessons are repeated and repeated again so that all may hear, so that all may know. Some of his words are hard truths, like when he told the people that they came to see him because he could fill their bellies with bread, not because he is the bread. Some of his words are offensive. Jesus uses the “I AM,” the holy name of God when referring to himself. Jesus teaches that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. This freaks out the people who take this too literally. This really freaks out those who make the connection between drinking his blood and the Genesis 9 prohibition against consuming blood. Those who make the connection between blood and atonement found in Leviticus 14 are ready to rent their robes and cry “Blasphemy!”
So for those who were going along with the difficult teachings about flesh and blood, Jesus then tells the disciples that flesh is useless! It’s the Spirit that gives life. His words are spirit and life; as are his flesh and his blood. The twist is not that his flesh and blood are useless, it’s that our flesh and blood are. There is nothing we can do to create truth. There is nothing we can do to make good. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Our flesh is the source of nothing. By him all things are possible. Life is found in him, by him, and through him. Just as the living Father sent him and he lives because of the Father, so too we live because of him; because of his flesh and because of his spirit.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
A missionary told how she was once describing the loving character of the Christians’ God to a company of her Chinese sisters. As she went on in her holy enthusiasm, picturing God’s real character as full of mercy to the sinful and the suffering, one of the Chinese women turned to her neighbor and said, “Haven’t I often told you there ought to be a God like that?”[1]
These women had obviously believed in what we would call other gods. I don’t know what these other gods were. We could speculate and consider and think ourselves more enlightened because we don’t believe in the same sort of god-play that they do. But to what end?
When I was a young man, I would go on walks with my father. He would tell stories and impart wisdom. One evening crossing Brush Creek in Kansas City he told me, “You know, I tell you these stories so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did.” I answered him, “Don’t worry, I’ll make my own.”
We can say we don’t make the same mistakes these Chinese women made, not knowing about the one true Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we have other Gods.
One recent example of this sort of idol worship is a sense of security and protection emboldened by American power. In the third episode of the NBC drama “The West Wing,” the liberal democratic President Josiah Bartlett learns that his former chief physician, a naval officer, was killed going overseas to a new deployment. As the President laments this death he asks, “Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words ‘Civis Romanis’ I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.”[2]
Whether in ancient Rome, a fictional Washington D.C., or a real life Hometown, U.S.A.; this sentiment is not without appeal. When I heard that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the man responsible for killing 270 people, many of them Americans, in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was set free to die at home,[3] a choice he did not give his victims; I don’t wonder if “Civis Romanis” is American Imperialism. I’m thinking it’s a good idea.
This is the sort of thing we might expect to hear from a pundit on Fox News, not the liberal President Bartlett.
What we would expect from this fictional president, a character whose fictional opponent called him a weak, lily-livered, intellectual, elitist snob, is something more of what we knew as a nation in the 1970’s in the morass of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, hyperinflationary times. This quicksand of indecision which was often coupled with a hand-wringing of guilt over national sins, some of which are older than the nation itself, was caused by actions and inactions which needed then and continue to need national atonement. Still, handwringing and being ashamed are not the acts of atonement scripture prescribes. I looked it up.
It’s easy to say that these are two different sins; one of vanity and the other inferiority. I see them as mirror images of the same sin, one of an overblown sense of self held over the blessings of the Lord God. In our oh so enlightened culture, we often think that there is something that we could do to make things better; something we can do with our power, or something we can do with our wealth, or something we can do with our intellect, where without God we can do nothing. Without God, we can do nothing.
We as individuals and as a nation must remember that Jesus offered everything he had to end the separation between God and God’s good creation. He offered his flesh and his blood, his human life so that we may know eternal life. He emptied himself of his Godly status to be fully human, flesh and blood, so that he may be exactly like we are, though without sin. The man who could have brought himself off of the cross and changed life as we know it through power and might stayed there unto death, changing life as we know it by the power of weakness and submission.
When we depend on our strength more than we rely upon the Lord, we look to a god who is not our God. When we allow our weaknesses to overwhelm us, we fall before a god who is not our God. Have we made the same mistake that the Chinese women made? Not really, in truth, we have made our own. This tension between divine action and human choice has been a theme of this chapter from John’s gospel, of the past month of Sundays.
This might be a hard teaching. It may cause some to turn away. It may even offend. Jesus knew this. He knew his teachings would divide families, he knew his teachings would cause separation. Not because of anything he does, on the contrary. God the Father sent Jesus so that all may come to know God not only as Spirit but as flesh and blood. By sending Jesus, God the Father grants us the ability that we may all come to the Lord. But Jesus knew that because of who we are, because of human choice, because of the freedom we have to love God and one another, because of who we are, Jesus knew his hard teaching would cause some to turn away.
In this case, more than five-thousand turned away, the five-thousand who came just for the bread that fills the belly. The twelve who came because Jesus is have the bread that fills the soul, the words of eternal life; they stayed because they knew Jesus was their last resort. They stayed because they had come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
Jesus knew they would stay, for a while; but in his perfection, he knew that we are not so perfect. Jesus knew Judas would betray him to the Roman Legions. Jesus even knew Peter, the speaker for the twelve, would deny him. Yet Jesus loved them. He loved them all. He loves them all.
Peter is held in this piece as the paragon of virtue. But we know better. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we know Peter will draw a short sword and take the ear off of one of the slaves of the Pharisees. Peter will deny Christ just because he wanted to hear what was happening and keep warm. Some days we will act like Peter, professing and proclaiming the name of the Lord. And there are days when we abandon the Lord just to keep warm. Yet Jesus loves us. Jesus loves us all.
If you ever get the chance, the next time you are in Tulsa, go to the Great Harvest Bread Company store. Great Harvest is a maker of fine artisan breads and the smell alone is worth making the trip. The first time I went to Great Harvest was to the store in Colorado Springs. I walked into the store and was overwhelmed with the scent of the grains, yeast, spelt, berries and melting butter.
The most wonderful thing about going into the store is the free samples. They cut off a big hunk of bread, slather it with real butter—none of this margarine or “it’s not butter”—they slather it with real butter and hand it to you to taste that it is good. In line you find yuppie mothers with twin strollers, business people in high dollar suits, and homeless folks coming in from the weather. They don’t give you a tiny little spoonful of heavenly goodness like a Baskin-Robbins sample; they give you a thick slice of bread with butter.
It’s amazing; people come in as much for the experience and fellowship as they do for the filling of their bellies. This is a foretaste of the bread of life which fills our bodies and feeds our souls. Even more than great artisan bread, Jesus feeds us on every level. Jesus is the last bread we will ever want—not just for the physical fulfillment—but because once we experience God in Christ nothing else is the same.
Our flesh is useless; in his flesh is eternal life. As Jesus shares in our life we are to share in his so that we may live together in God’s peace and love. It is in his spirit that we have eternal life, life worth living.
It is this bread and this cup, his body and his blood that we share together at the table set by him so that we may be fed body and soul. It is by this bread and this cup that we are fed and strengthened to go into the world taking these hard lessons and the knowledge that there is no one and nothing else that compares to life in Christ.
It’s all in a day’s work for the bread of life.
[1] “Dome on the Range,” HomeliticsOnline.com, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93000158, retrieved August 13, 2006
[2] “The West Wing: A Proportional Response,” TV.com. http://www.tv.com/the-west-wing/a-proportional-response/episode/790/summary.html, retrieved August 22, 2009
[3] Lockerbie bomber freed, returns to cheers in Libya, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090820/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_lockerbie, retrieved August 22, 2009.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)