August 12 sermon - The Sunday After

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 be thirsty. ... Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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.”

(John 6:35, 41-51)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

     I want to look back to some of the words that were included in our closing prayer last week, often called the Post-Communion Prayer, since we had just celebrated Holy Communion: “Grant that what we have done and have been given here, may so put its mark on us that it may remain always in our hearts. Grant that we may grow in Christian love and understanding, and that ours may be lives of faithful action, poured out for all in Christ’s name.” And having heard those words again, let me ask you in the famous words of Dr. Phil: “how’s that working for you?” Now – I quote Dr. Phil with some hesitation. When he began his television odyssey I actually thought he was a rather serious psychologist dealing with some serious issues. Over the years he became (along with Dr. Oz) what I’d call an “Oprah celebrity” and his shows became – to me – less and less serious and more and more sensationalistic and more driven by the desire for high ratings than anything else. And I’m aware of the fact that on his website Dr. Phil identifies “how’s that working for you?” as “the one question you need to ask to get what you really want.” From a Christian perspective I’m pretty sure that getting what I want is not and should not be my priority. But that question, raised on the Sunday after we celebrated Holy Communion and prayed that prayer still seems important. How’s that working for you? Has Communion put its mark on us? Does that mark remain always in our hearts? Are we growing in Christian love and understanding? Are our lives lives of faithful action? Are they poured out in Christ’s name? Or is what’s said in that traditional post-Communion prayer empty rhetoric with no substance? Are we just the same as we were when we gathered last Sunday? Has Communion made a difference in us? Has faith made a difference to us? Has Jesus changed us? Surely, we should be changed! Communion is a means of grace, and after being confronted by grace, after experiencing grace, we should surely in some way be impacted by what we did last week and by what it symbolized for us, but two things seem to get in the way of us actually allowing ourselves to be changed.

     The first thing that we learn from today’s passage is simply that not everyone wants to be changed. Today’s Gospel reading is a continuation of last week’s Gospel reading. In fact the first verse we read today was the last verse we read last Sunday. The emphasis of the passage is the same: Jesus is the bread of life. Some of the people who responded to Jesus’ in today’s passage found themselves confronted with an image or understanding of God that they had never encountered before – a God who simply gave and who asked for no works in return. That was a shaky proposition for a lot of people, and the passage tells us that many of the people “complained.” They weren’t happy about the fact that the image of Jesus as “the bread of life” that was available to everyone was contrary to their view of God – that others might have access to that divine love that they themselves had worked so hard for. That also might explain why we might find it difficult to allow the experience of grace in Holy Communion to change us – because that would remind us that we don’t have God cornered, and that God isn’t just what we want God to be and that God isn’t just for whoever we want God to be for and that God doesn’t just do whatever we want God to do, and that God doesn’t just love only those whom we deem worthy of God’s love, and we often work very hard to make sure that the God we talk about is the God we want and not necessarily the God that is. Edwina Gately is a British Catholic and author and feminist who illustrated the problem in one of her books called “Mystics, Visionaries and Prophets” this way:

Once upon a time we captured God and we put God in a box and we put a beautiful velvet curtain around the box.  We placed candles and flowers around the box and we said to the poor and the dispossessed, "Come!  Come and see what we have!  Come and see God!" And they knelt before the God in the box. One day, very long ago, the Spirit in the box turned the key from inside and she pushed it open.  She looked around in the church and saw that there was nobody there!  They had all gone.  Not a soul was in the place.  She said to herself, "I'm getting out!"  The Spirit shot out of the box.  She escaped and she has been sighted a few times since then.  She was last seen with a bag lady in McDonald's.

     That’s what happens too often. We want people to accept God on our terms, but not necessarily on God’s terms. We want to be the gatekeepers who control access to God – forgetting that God is, perhaps most powerfully of all, with that bag lady in McDonald’s rather than being confined to our church or our experience.

     The second thing that the passage tells us gets in the way of of our transformation is that the message is too good to be true. The passage tells us that Jesus will satisfy us; that Jesus will feed us in such a way that we will never hunger again and in such a way even that we will not truly die. That’s incredible news that should transform our entire existence and everything about how we view life. But instead of embracing what Jesus offered them, Jesus immediately faced doubt for what he had revealed about himself. “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” The immediate response of many people to Jesus was to say “it’s too good to be true.” I sometimes get concerned that Holy Communion becomes a sort of empty ritual for many people. We go through the motions, we say the words, we take the bread and the juice – but maybe we’re not sure why. We forget that the whole purpose of Holy Communion is to be a sign of the grace of God; a sign of the fact that God welcomes all without hesitation or condition. And we tend to be suspicious of anything that’s “unconditional.” If it’s free, if it’s too good to be true – then it can’t be real. I think all the “get rich quick” schemes that abound in the world today make it difficult for us to believe the promise of a God who says that there are no conditions, that there’s no price tag attached to this bread of life that we’re offered. What’s the old saying? “If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is!” And while, in a worldly sense, there may be truth to that – with God that’s just the way it is. God’s love is so extravagant and God’s grace is so abundant that it can be hard to believe. So sometimes perhaps we fail to see in the symbols of bread and wine the sign of the abundance that God gives – abundance not in material things, but abundant life and abundant spirit and abundance in eternity. If we understood that and took it seriously, surely we would be changed, and ours could “be lives of faithful action, poured out for all in Christ’s name.” It’s not too good to be true; it’s so good that it must transform us.

     Either of those responses to the grace of God shown so simply in Holy Communion – whether we think it’s too good to be true, or whether we just don’t like what it tells us about God – cause us to harden and resist the call of God’s Spirit on our lives. On the Sunday after celebrating Holy Communion we need to reflect on the experience within ourselves, and ask ourselves how it changed us, how it impacted us, and how it challenged us to be confronted by Jesus with an image of a God who tells us that all are loved and provided for and who reminds us that we cannot hold God captive. Indeed, God tries to bring people together and not to drive them apart, and as people who one week ago  were shown the symbols of what God does for us, let’s remember that we are called to be transformed into those who will share the same love and grace to the world that Jesus shared. Indeed, in the words of Henri Nouwen, “in a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.”

August 5 sermon: The Right Question

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 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 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.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 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 be thirsty.

(John 6:24-35)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

     I recently listened to a radio interview with a neuroscientist (a scientist who studies the brain) who had been conducting research on the brains of various of God’s creatures in an effort to determine the respective levels of intelligence and cognitive abilities of each. She analyzed a diverse group of creatures, and basically, her research revolved around how many firing neurons each creature had in its cerebral cortex – the most important part of the brain. She came to some interesting conclusions. Cat people are not going to like this, but she concluded that dogs were twice as intelligent as cats. She explained that by saying that for thousands of years dogs have been specifically bred by humans to do certain jobs for us and so they’ve had to expand their brain activity in order to learn, whereas basically we just expect cats to be cats and to do what cats do. Bears and raccoons are at about the same level as dogs. Humans have 30 times the number of firing neurons as dogs and 60 times the number of cats, and we have double the number of firing neurons of gorillas. And she said that the truly unique thing about humans is that our brains cause us to ask questions. All higher animals, she said, are curious about their environments. I know that from watching my birds. Put something new in their cage and they’ll be apprehensive about it for a little while, but curiosity will eventually win out and eventually they’ll be trying to figure it out. But humans alone, she said, are more than curious. We ask abstract questions. What she meant was that we alone as far as she can tell have the ability to ponder and ask questions about things that aren’t right in front of us. We can ask “big questions.” Questions about the meaning of life; questions about our origin; questions about our destiny. No other creatures do that. The ability to question is what makes us by far, she said, the most intelligent creature on earth. It’s not having answers that makes us intelligent – it’s having the ability just to ask the questions in the first place. That’s what sets us apart. Perhaps that’s the divine spark – the image of God within us.

     The Gospel passage today seemed to be appropriate for a Sunday on which we celebrate Holy Communion. “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 be thirsty.’” On a day when the table is set, when the bread will be broken and the cup will be raised and the feast will be shared, what’s more appropriate than to be reminded of the fact that Jesus is the one who leaves us always nourished and satisfied. But the passage isn’t really about Holy Communion. It seems to revolve largely around an abstract question – those questions that apparently only human beings - blessed with the spark of the divine presence within us; made in the image of God – are able to ask. And, remember, it’s not the ability come up with answers that fundamentally makes us human – it’s the ability so simply formulate the question. The question itself tells us a lot about ourselves – and this question, raised in this context, and shared in this context today, tells us a lot about who we are as the people of God: “‘What must we do to perform the works of God?” the people who sought Jesus asked. “What must we do to perform the works of God?” It’s an interesting question from this crowd because, remember, these are not disciples of Jesus. They’re following Jesus, but they’re not followers of Jesus. But the question rings true  to me for followers of Jesus as well, and I wondered: Is this the question asked by the people of God today? I hope so, because I think it’s an appropriate question – the right question to ask – and I want to explain why.

     My gut reaction when I read the passage and first pondered this question was one of angst. “What must we do …?” is how it starts. And I was immediately taken aback by what at first glance appeared to be this query about legalism – the idea that somehow we have to do something to earn God’s grace, which is an oxymoron, since grace by its very nature is freely given to those who have done nothing to have earned it. But legalism is the bane of the Christian faith. So many well meaning Christians are locked into the cell of legalism, desperately thinking that they have to do something to earn their standing before God, and either then patting themselves on the back because they’re convinced that they’ve done it and they want the world to know, or falling farther and farther into fear because they realize that they haven’t done it and so they’ve lost hope – even in God. But that was a gut reaction. As I thought about the question more, I realized that there was something subtle happening here – something that revolved around the question itself. “What must we do to perform the works of God?” And as I focused on those words and that specific question, I suddenly realized that there was something important in the wording of the question. Simply scratching the surface of it wasn’t enough. One has to go deeper, beneath the surface – which is usually a good way to approach any Bible passage. And going deeper, I realized that the question asked is not “what must we do to be saved?” It is “What must we do to perform the works of God?”

     Those are two very different questions. The truth is that in many ways it seems more natural to ask “what must I do to be saved?” That sort of question reflects self-interest, and what’s more natural for us – or for any creature – to be concerned with our own well-being, and for humans (with our ability to ask abstract questions) what’s more natural than to be concerned with our eternal destiny? But interestingly (and perhaps surprisingly) that isn’t the question that the  people asked Jesus, and – again, if the questions we ask tell us a lot about ourselves – that question tells me two things about these people (and, hopefully, about ourselves.) The first is that even though they weren’t well acquainted with Jesus, the knew enough that they were not afraid. Had they been afraid or uncertain about where they stood with God they would have asked about salvation or eternal life – but they didn’t. Second is that they weren’t focused on themselves. Although they asked about what they could “do” their focus was elsewhere. So, if the question they didn’t ask tells me what the people were not thinking about, then the question they did ask tells me something even more important.

     Their question was “What must we do to perform the works of God.” There’s a confidence in that question; a sense of determination. Already, something about their encounter with Jesus has meant that the people are not afraid for themselves or their destiny and they’re not just acting in self interest and they aren’t worried about getting anything in return. Their desire, expressed in this question, is simply to please God – apparently, since they don’t express any uncertainty about salvation or eternity, simply because they want to please God. And Jesus’ reply to their question was “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” And then comes the narrative about Jesus being the bread of life.

     When we gather at the table, we’re showing that we believe in the one whom God has sent, and the gathering is symbolic of what Jesus himself tried to create: a community of people, among whom were no distinctions, among whom the differences of race or creed or gender didn’t matter, among whom were both wealthy and poor – but all of whom shared equally, joyfully and abundantly in the gifts God provided.

     When I reflected upon this question “What must we do to perform the works of God?” I thought of these words that were once spoken by Michelle Obama – the former First Lady of the United States: “Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” I might put it a little differently for us, though. Performing the works of God isn’t about serving ourselves, it’s about treating others as equals, with respect and dignity always.” Sharing some simple nourishment from a simple table together is one way we show that.