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| On the road to Valdosta, GA, through Jefferson County, Florida. |
Below is the text for my first sermon at one of the two congregations I am serving in Valdosta, GA. St. Barnabas Episcopal Church has been without priest for more than 18-months, and I am now serving as the Deacon-in-Charge. It's a challenge to love and serve people in a city 80+ miles away. And I am only quarter-time, which makes this task even more difficult. Hence, I was feeling all the pressure of (1) hoping to make a favorable impression and not bore the mighty congregation of 20 to death; (2) rolling in some teaching about Scripture while preaching (which is my tendency anyway but feels especially important when there is no Christian Education program happening) and most importantly (3) hoping that something in the sermon might touch someone and give them something to think about for the week. Adding to my difficulty: the Gospel text has imagery that sounds weird...and is pointing to the Eucharistic feast. Sadly, as Deacon-in-Charge, I can't preside at the table, and this congregation only gets Eucharist once a month when a supply priest comes in. Ah, the joys and confounding nature of church!
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Sermon for Sunday August 15, 2021
Good morning! I’m happy to be back with you this morning…though I
have to say…I wish I had picked a Sunday with a less complex and even
troubling…Gospel passage. The more I poured over this sixth chapter of John,
the more I realized that inch-by-inch…Jesus is revealing to the crowd two
things: One: God has come down from heaven to feed them in a way that satisfies
more than their grumbling tummies. This food brings them eternal life…and two:
it comes from taking in Jesus…who goes to the cross…and becoming so changed by
him that our ways are more loving and less self-involved.
Whoa!
So let’s unpack all this…and see where go.
To begin…imagine for a moment what it must have been like for this
crowd to hear these words about bread and flesh and blood. Remember this whole
thing begins with the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.
They were fed. But the crowd did not disperse. They want more.
They’re still hungry.
“A-ha!” says Jesus, “Yes, you are hungry and thirsty!”
Jesus knows the crowd understands bread. They know about the manna
in the wilderness. They have bread and wine as part of their ritual of celebrating
the fruits of the earth.
But now Jesus is reinterpreting the meaning of bread and what it
represents.
This bread has come down from heaven.
This bread is the living bread.
In fact…this living bread which has come down from heaven is flesh.
And blood. His flesh and blood.
And we must eat and drink this flesh and blood to have “eternal”
life.
(Pause)
What in the world is he talking about?!
Eating his flesh?! Drinking his blood?!
It’s a weird thing even for us to contemplate and may conger up
images of zombie movies.
But if we get stuck here…and stay fixated on literal things…the
stuff of actual bread…real flesh and blood…we’ll miss his point.
Jesus is saying he is the incarnation of God…the “living bread”
that has “come down from Heaven” and has entered the world. This hearkens back to the opening lines of John’s
Gospel:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God” (John 1:1)…and “the Word became flesh and lived among us…” (John
1:14)
The Word…God…has become flesh and blood…Jesus.
Jesus…God is living among us.
Now, this idea of God being with the people is not new. The stories
from the Old Testament speak to the idea of God traveling with the Israelites
throughout their wanderings in the desert.
But here comes Jesus taking that idea one step further.
This isn’t just God being with the people.
Jesus is now saying to have eternal life…to have our deepest
yearnings met…we must eat…or bring God…into our bodies so
that our very flesh and blood becomes vibrant and alive and
intimately infused with God and transformed from the inside out.
Jesus is talking about an intensely intimate relationship with God.
That level of intimacy…where we give up ourselves…our self-interests…not hold
back anything in self-preservation and allow God into our lives to
transform us?
That’s a struggle, isn’t it? And it’s not easy.
I can see it playing out in our global community.
On the one hand…I hear the report about what’s happening with the
warming of the planet. We feel it…don’t we…and certainly our famers can
understand how the increasing temperatures is leading to greater and greater
challenges for their crops and livestock.
Worldwide…this is going to have dramatic effects on people…leading
to more mass migrations…which leads to more tensions over land and where people
can live.
All of this grieves me deeply…maybe it grieves you, too.
And then I get in my car…and stop at the gas station…to drive home.
I’m certainly not about to walk here from Tallahassee!
As St. Paul might say, “I do not understand the things that I do. I
don’t do the things that I want, but what I do is the thing that I hate.” (Romans 7:15) And
so I am driving and grieving…while contributing to the very thing that’s
causing me to grieve…and hurting others on the planet.
But I still see some hope…even in this tension of a serious
environmental threat.
I see it if I look to the way Solomon…a man taking over as
king…turned to God in prayer, seeking transformation.
He doesn’t ask for riches or things to make himself comfortable; he
desires wisdom.
He wants his heart and mind to be infused with that spirit which moves
throughout the Hebrew Scriptures…to be closer with the One who knows our all in
all…so that he could make good and right decisions for the people.
Truthfully, Solomon already had enough wisdom to know to ask
God for wisdom. Because Solomon knew he could not do this task of
leading the people without God.
And we see how that delighted God!
And so I wonder if…we had the wisdom of Solomon…what it would be
like if we became vulnerable and humble enough to pray to God for deeper wisdom?
Ask for the way to let go a little more
of our self to make room for God to transform us?
Might it lead us to make changes in how we live and move and have
our being?
Are we able to be vulnerable enough to let God so deeply into our
souls…our minds…our bodies that we might feel genuine satisfaction of hunger
and maybe even accomplish more than we can ask or imagine?
I believe such transformations…and internal shifts…are possible…especially
if we commit to making prayer not just something we do in church on Sundays,
but as a regular habit. Prayer doesn’t have to be elaborate…or doing pew
aerobics as I like to call it. It can have words…like praying the Lord’s
Prayer. Or it can meditative…praying a favorite phrase of Scripture as a way of
grounding us and centering us during times of crisis. This regular engagement
in prayer has certainly helped and transformed me. I remember a time when I was
at a county commission meeting in Tallahassee. There was an issue the
commission was debating that was hotly contested and tempers were flaring. I
mean, it was getting personal and ugly. And I found myself dipping into the
words of one of our collects in the back of our Book of Common Prayer:
“O God the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our
enemies; lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and
us from cruelty, hatred and revenge. And, in your good time, enable us all
to stand before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
I must have prayed that at least a half dozen times that night. And
what it did for me is center me back into God in a way that I could look at the
people “on the other side” with more compassion. And it showed. One of the TV
stations grabbed me for an interview…as well as someone from the other group.
And when I saw the video later, I was struck that my demeanor was calm, and my
face was relaxed. My opponent on the other hand was scowling and the anger was
palpable. I credit God and my prayer for making me lighter and making me look
good on TV.
We all have that ability to be a person others see as radiating the
love of God. We can all pray like Solomon and seek the wisdom that brings our
hearts and minds closer to God. And the more we allow God into us…allow God to
claim and reshape all our being…the brighter we will shine for others who are
still searching.
Ideally…we would be having a Eucharist…so that we can physically partake
in this moment of John’s Eucharistic discourse…with bread and wine…the body and
blood of Christ…and experience bringing God into our bodies.
But we what we do have is God in our midst…through our prayers and
our worship.
We do have God dwelling in us which can be seen in the ways each of
us in this community care for one another and have concern for each other.
Through our prayers and worship, we can continue growing in our relationship
with God and giving Jesus a chance to renew our hearts and minds as we meet the
challenges before us.
May our lights keep shining brightly so that others may see and
come to know God in Christ through us.
+ In the name of God…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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