October 14 sermon: Did He Really Mean Everything?

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.” Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age - houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions - and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

(Mark 10:17-31)

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

     “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Wait a minute here. I mean – hang on for one second. Did he really mean – everything? Seriously? Everything? I mean – surely not. Because – well, everything would mean a lot of things. It would be – I guess – everything! He couldn’t have meant everything. Could he?

     That’s what really makes this a tough passage for a lot of people to deal with. “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” Let’s face it – even the most hardened fundamentalist who insists that the Bible has to be taken absolutely literally is going to start looking for some escape clause on this one. Jesus was talking to someone who was apparently a man of wealth. So, maybe that’s our out. I’m not rich. Not me. So, sure, Jesus wants the wealthy to sell all that they have and give the money to the poor. But I’m not wealthy so I don’t have to worry about this one. Right? That’s a relief. Except. When we were in China in 2005, people on the streets constantly asked us for money. We had been warned by our guides never to give money to anyone who asked for it. It’s heart breaking, because they would send little children out of the shadows (3 and 4 year olds) to approach our group to beg for money. You wanted to give – but we were told that if we gave to one child, there were dozens of others watching and we would be immediately swarmed by others demanding money, and by their parents, and things would get out of control, and the police would have to be called to restore order, and – as we were told – “you don’t want to get involved with the police in Beijing.” I said to one of our fellow travelers that people must think that we were rich. My friend (who had been to China before) said “We can travel from Canada to China and back. To them we are rich.” And I thought about the fact that every morning I was going down to the front desk of our hotel and cashing $100 or $200 in travelers cheques without a second thought, being greeted by someone earning about $15 a month. So I have to wonder - who’s rich and who’s poor? The reality is that we here are a tremendously blessed people indeed, by any measure, and Jesus wants us to share our blessings with those who have less. But, still - “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor ...” It seems a bit extreme. It grates on us. At the very least Jesus is reminding us that whatever we have, none of it is ours. Everything comes from God. John Wesley once said that “if I die with ten pounds to my name, I’ll have stolen it.” And he was making the same point – nothing he had was his own. It came from God and God expects us to use our blessings in order to be a blessing to others. Some people talk about “tithing” - the idea that we should give 10% of our income to the church. I don’t talk much about tithing – for two reasons. First because it’s easy for tithing to become a form of legalism, so that I do it grudgingly, only because I have to. Secondly, it gives the impression that actually only 10% of what I have belongs to God and the other 90% is mine to do with as I please. But Jesus seems to say “no.” Whatever we have and everything we have is God’s and our overarching God-given purpose is to use what God has given us to be a blessing to others.

     Part of the problem in this story was the rich man himself. He thought he could earn his way into God’s good book. He thought that if he just did enough things, everything would be fine and dandy and God would be so proud of him. But – maybe deep down inside – he seemed to realize that something was lacking. So he went to Jesus. “I’ve kept all the commandments. But I still don’t feel it. So what more do I have to do?” And Jesus basically said “everything.” So if you’re going to try to earn your way into God’s favour then you better leave no stone unturned. You better be willing to give everything and to do everything. So this rich man had a problem because he was willing to do things, but he had a lot of stuff, and he wasn’t willing to give his stuff away. You see stuff – whether money or any other possession – can easily replace God; it can become an idol; people can live for their stuff rather than for God; they can live to get more and more and more rather than to give abundantly and be a blessing. The rich man had done a lot of things – but most of what he had done hadn’t cost him anything. “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honour your parents.” Those things don’t “cost” us anything. In fact they come with a reward. We’re admired for doing those things. The rich man was admired because of all he had done, but now because he had been pious enough to gain all that admiration from people he expected to be admired by God as well. But he hadn’t really done anything for God. He had all the trappings of religion, but nothing particularly life-changing and he couldn’t figure out why that hadn’t given him any assurance. Gandhi, in a book called “The Seven Dangers To Human Virtue,” identified one of those dangers as “religion without sacrifice.” If our faith calls us to give up nothing (or as little as possible, or only so much that we don’t notice that it’s missing) then there’s a problem in our relationship with God. That, I think, is what Jesus was getting at. When he said to the rich man “…  go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor,” I don’t think he was calling so much for a material sacrifice but for a spiritual change of heart that would cause the rich man to understand that what he possessed was really God’s and that he needed to be constantly aware of opportunities to serve God by using what he had for the benefit of God’s people, regardless of the costs involved. That’s the point.

     We shouldn’t be too hard on the rich man of the story. At least he understood that something was wrong; something was missing. That’s why he went to Jesus. “I’ve done it all,” he said. “So what more is there?” In a sense this was a confession – a moment of blinding self-realization as much as anything. He realized that for all the stuff he had, he actually had nothing. He had been blessed, but he had missed out on the fact that God by blessing him wanted him to be a blessing. And there’s the challenge for us all: to live in such a way that not only acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (which is easy) but also to live in such a way that acknowledges that all that we have is God’s (and that’s hard because it calls us to make sacrifices.)

     Put this story into the context of where Mark places it in relation to Jesus’ life. By the next chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus would be making his entry into Jerusalem, being hailed by the crowds as Messiah, and then rejected by them mere days later but then confirmed with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Think about that story for a moment, and then think back to this story. We don’t actually know what happened to the rich man. Did he ever find the secret of eternal life that he was looking for? Jesus explained that secret to him rather well: “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” I think what Jesus was saying was that those who follow him have to be willing to give up everything – to give of themselves and their very being for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of sharing good news with the world and for the sake of being the good news to the world by how we give of ourselves for others. As I said, we don’t know what happened to the rich man, but I’d like to think that perhaps he followed Jesus into Jerusalem and saw – on the cross just a few days later – what Jesus really meant when he told the rich man to “… go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” It’s not just the material things – Jesus does mean that we have to be prepared to give out of that which God has given us for the sake of others, but there’s more. Jesus, I think, wants a change in our attitudes; a change in our perspectives; a change in our hearts. Jesus wants us to live each day knowing that, if necessary, we can give everything because we really possess nothing – it’s all God’s.

     So, let me ask you one more time: Did he really mean ‘everything’? Yeah. He did. Because ultimately he did it himself.

October 7 sermon - Who Are You Trying To Convince?

Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

(Psalm 26)

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

     Whose opinion do you really care about? If there was one person you could name whose opinion of you really counted, who would it be? That strikes me as a relevant question in the world today. People seem to spend a lot of their time these days trying to convince others of how good they are, how successful they are, how talented they are – maybe, when you boil it all down, of how worthy they are to have the respect of others. Some people’s concern about how other people perceive them can make them seem a little desperate. They go so overboard in their desire to be loved that the end result is that others actually look at them with a sort of contempt. It’s too much. And the truth is that you can’t force someone to respect you. They either will or they won’t. But a lot of people try.

     I have to confess that the very first verses of Psalm 26 caused me to take a bit of a step back and ponder. It sounds as if the author is guilty of some of what I just mentioned. It sounds as if he’s trying just a little too hard to say how great he was. In a way, he reminded me a bit of Judge Kavanaugh – who you’ve probably heard of from Senate confirmation hearings in the United States – who gave an interview to Fox news in which he painted an altogether too virtuous picture of himself. In Psalm 26, it sounds as if the author is boasting about the depth and intimacy of the relationship he’s established with God; even being prideful of how obedient he’s been to God’s will. “I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering,” the author says. Those are bold words. How many of us here today would be able to say that we’ve never (not even for a moment) wavered in our trust in God? I can’t honestly make that claim for myself. But the author of Psalm 26 does.

     In the opening words of the Psalm, the author opens himself to God. He’s almost challenging God with some of his words: vindicate me, prove me, test me. There’s a sense in which he sounds self-righteous, but a self-righteous person is either showing off to themselves – trying to convince themselves of their own goodness, or they’re showing off to others to convince them of their own goodness. And once I get through the first few verses of the Psalm, I start to realize that this is not a self-righteous person who’s showing off; this is a person who’s confident in their faith and who’s convinced of the love of Good. The author of the Psalm isn’t self-righteous; they’re “righteous.” And there’s a big difference between those two things. A truly righteous person opens is willing to open themselves to God’s scrutiny, because they’re certain that they’ll be found acceptable in God’s sight. I thought the Psalm gave us an opportunity to understand righteousness and how righteousness is different from self-righteousness

     The first point I might make is that a truly righteous person understands God’s judgment; they understand what it is that God is looking for from us. So the author of the Psalm invited God to “test my heart and mind.” That’s important. Think for a moment about what the author didn’t say. He didn’t say “look at all my good deeds.” He didn’t say “look at all the money I’ve given to charity.” It’s too easy for our actions to be for show. – the basis of God’s judgement isn’t our actions or appearances - it’s what’s in our heart.

     Second, a righteous person understands God’s love. “Your steadfast love is always before my eyes,” the author said.  That’s a way for the author to say that we are never – even for a moment – separated from God’s love. As Paul would later write in Romans nothing in all creation can ever separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Sometimes we may feel very distant from God’s love. Sometimes we may feel as if something we’ve said or done has made us either unworthy or unlovable in God’s eyes. The author of this Psalm reminds us that isn’t true. God’s love is always before us. God love is with us now and God’s love is our destiny.– that God is always yearning for us to come closer.

     And third, a righteous person understands God’s welcome – that God is always willing to accept us. “I walk in faithfulness to you.” At least in English there’s a potential double entendre to this verse. “I walk in faithfulness to you” might be a statement of the author’s faith – or it might be a statement that the author knows he is being welcomed by God – I’m walking “to you.” And either way, the emphasis on faith is the author’s way of showing that his trust in God is deep and abiding and will not be shaken.

     All that points out the main difference between righteousness and self-righteousness – it’s the audience. A truly righteous person is focused on God and on what God sees in us and is simply thankful to God for the opportunity to serve as they serve. A self-righteous person is concerned about others – how they’re perceived by others; whether they get credit or thanks for all that they do. So after being jarred a bit by the opening words of the Psalm, I came to the conclusion that the author wasn’t engaging in an orgy of self-righteous arrogance. Instead, this was an expression of humble righteousness. And in a way that’s a key question for us today: Are we most concerned with what God sees in us or with what others think of us? I liked the way that question was framed by Rev. Kevin De Young, whose words I cited in today’s bulletin: “I try to keep in mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good?” That strikes me as a good question on a Communion Sunday.

     Verses 6-7 of Psalm 23 struck me as what I’d call a Communion moment: they tell us that we approach the altar (the Lord’s table) thankfully and remembering the work of God within us and around us. We enter God’s presence not so that others can see how good we are, but because we know how good God is. When I served in Central Newfoundland many years ago I always found a Communion service to be a strange service indeed. There was the same phenomenon in every one of my three congregations: almost all the women would come forward to receive Communion, while all the men (except for one) would remain noticeably in their seats. I finally got so confused that I asked about this and was told by one man “I’m not worthy.” I told him that the table was for all Christians, and didn’t he think he was a Christian? “Yes, boy, but I know I’m too much of a sinner to take Communion.” And yet the looks on at least some of the men’s faces wasn’t a look of shame over some past sin; it was almost a look of pride; as if they were showing off. As they sat steadfastly in their pew while others came forward it was almost as if at least some were saying “Look at me. I’m so good I know how bad I am.” At least that’s how it often came across to me.

     Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Today is also World Communion Sunday. The point of receiving Communion isn’t to show others how good or worthy we are, or even to make a show of letting people know that we know how bad we are. The purpose of receiving Communion is simply to gratefully accept that which God has done for us. “My foot stands on level ground,” the author said as he finished the Psalm. “In the great congregation I will bless the Lord.” In this great congregation, may we all approach the Lord’s table with humble righteousness today, thankful to God for welcoming us, even if it might be in spite of ourselves.

September 30 sermon - Heaven And Earth And Us

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

(James 5:13-20)

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

     You've all heard of "thoughts and prayers." It's a phrase that's become kind of commonplace in the world today. When something terrible happens it tends to be the first port of call for politicians - they rush to Twitter and type "thoughts and prayers" on their keyboard, and then - seemingly more often than not - they seem to forget whatever it was that they were thinking and praying about, and they go on as if nothing had actually happened. We see it a lot every time there's a mass shooting. We're not immune to the phenomenon, but American politicians seem particularly stricken by it. "Thoughts and prayers" for the victims, followed by paralysis when it comes to actually trying to do anything about gun violence. It also happens when natural catastrophes strike. Terrible floods, killer heat waves, raging wildfires, massive tornadoes, devastating hurricanes and typhoons - all happening with increasingly alarming frequency. "Thoughts and prayers" for the victims, but not much action really. I don't want to be too hard on our politicians. I think all of us do it from time to time. I sometimes wonder how often "I'll pray for you" gets followed up on, or whether they're just words without much substance.

     James would have understood my doubts, I suspect. He believed in the power of prayer, and one doesn't pray about anyone or anything unless one is thinking about them. So, "thoughts and prayers"? Absolutely? But James would have expected more. Throughout this letter, James makes the point that "thoughts and prayers" with no intention of following them up with some sort of concrete action are relatively meaningless. His basic point about “thoughts and prayers” seems to be – don’t bother thinking and praying about things if you have the ability to do something about them but choose not to. In other words, there’s no point to praying if you’re expecting God to do everything afterward. That’s a pretty common theme in James’ letter. But there’s also another way of looking at things. In this passage, James suddenly segues into a brief discussion about the great prophet Elijah. In 1 Kings 17 and 18 there are stories about a terrible drought in Israel that 1 Kings said was the result of Elijah intervening and calling the drought down upon the land because Israel had turned away from God. The drought lasted years. Finally, Israel repented, and Elijah called down rain, and the rains come.  Why did James include this strange story in the letter? Maybe it was because in addition to wanting to say to people “don’t pray unless you’re going to do something about it,” he’s also saying “don’t pray unless you believe that God can do something about it.” Sometimes we wonder why we don’t get answers to our prayers (and for today at least I’ll avoid pointing out that when we say we don’t get answers what we really mean is that we didn’t get the answers we wanted.) I do wonder, though, if at least in part it’s because we’ve misunderstood the whole point of prayer. Prayer is so much more than just me speaking to God one on one. It includes that, but prayer is about establishing what I’d call spiritual relationships; prayer is about holding in balance ourselves with God and with all that God has created. Prayer is about recognizing that there’s a spiritual connection that’s established through prayer. I’ve sometime shared with people that my personal working definition of spirituality is that it is the sense of one-ness that exists between and among God and everything God has created, including us. I think James would agree with that.

     The Letter of James is about how Christians should live together in community. Someone like Martin Luther actually wanted James tossed out of the New Testament. He called it “the Epistle of Straw” because he thought it was too legalistic. But – with all due respect to Martin Luther – I think he was wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. I mean – I’m just me, and Martin Luther was … well … Martin Luther. But still, I think he was wrong. James wasn’t laying out rules and regulations for Christians to obey. It’s more that he was laying out the patterns of behaviour people should expect to find in a Christian community. In a way you might call this letter a tourist guide. “If you visit a Christian community here are the things you should be looking for,” is essentially what James was saying. And, mostly, James was telling people that the word “community” is, in fact, what really matters. This passage basically gives us a vision of a caring community whose members truly look out for one another. But as I read the Letter, and especially this passage for today, I started to wonder: a community of whom? It’s not just the people in that particular church. The community is created first and foremost by prayer – and prayer binds together the community praying with God, and with all of the creation. I think the example of Elijah was included by James as a way of demonstrating the powerful impact our prayers can have if they’re offered in faith.

     Truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayer impacts not just us and not even just those around us; it has an impact on all of creation; it even impacts God in some way because we are involved in a relationship that’s in balance. The impact comes from the fact that truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayer changes us: it becomes the engine that helps make us who God wants us to be and that empowers us to do what God wants us to do – and since we’re the stewards of what God has created that has the potential to change all of creation, just as Elijah’s truly faithful, deep and heartfelt prayers impacted the whole creation.

     I said a few moments ago that prayer is about a balance of ourselves with God and with creation. I don’t think it takes much imagination to realize that things in our world are horribly out of balance right now in so many ways. Our churches are being reduced to businesses whose motivation is the bottom line rather than the mission of God. Our politics is increasingly dominated by anger and a lust for power rather than humility and a desire to serve people; our cities and towns are increasingly becoming increasingly fearful as we become more and more suspicious of newcomers and those who are different; our environment is on the verge of collapse as we see those terrible floods, killer heat waves, raging wildfires, massive tornadoes, and devastating hurricanes and typhoons in numbers and places we haven’t seen them before. I’m not suggesting that thoughts and prayers alone could solve those problems – heaven forbid I suggest that! - but I am suggesting that as the people of God we perhaps need to take prayer more seriously and more faithfully as a way not of changing the world but of changing ourselves and of making ourselves better stewards of the creation God has given us to care for.

     It was Franklin Roosevelt who said that “a nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” He seemed to understand the balance. It’s equally true that a world that destroys its lands, its waters and its air destroys itself, or that a world filled with fear and anger and hatred and suspicion is no longer the world God created. It’s just as equally true that a church that stands by and watches it happen while offering nothing more than thoughts and prayers in response is destroying itself by making itself irrelevant. I don’t have all the answers to the problems plaguing the world. If I did, I suppose they wouldn’t be plaguing the world anymore. But I do know that we need to challenge one another to always be a part of the solution. Too often our thoughts and prayers are really about ourselves – we pray for others, but even so it often seems like little more than an attempt to display our piety; to show others just how faithful and religious we are – but without much follow up action. Actually, our prayers should be just the opposite: they should an admission that we have a long way to go, but also a commitment that we want to make as much of a difference as we can; that we care not about ourselves but about all that we see around us.

     God will work. And God will work through us. But we have to believe that. We have to make sure that our words are more than just mere words – that they spur us to action; action that becomes a sign of God’s presence and activity in the world around us.

September 23 sermon - The Greatest

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

(Mark 9:30-37)

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

     I have to confess that when I hear the words “the greatest,” I do not think immediately of these words of Jesus. No, when I hear “the greatest” I inevitably think of Muhammad Ali. He was “the greatest.” As he admits, he said he was the greatest even before he knew he was the greatest! His greatness mostly stems from his boxing career. Many people forget that in 1960 he was the Olympic heavyweight gold medalist representing the United States in the Olympic Games in Rome. And of course most people know that after that as a professional he became the three-time heavyweight champion of the world. That does mean that he lost the title twice – but only once did he lose it in the ring, and he followed that up by winning the title back a few months later! But it wasn’t only what he accomplished in the ring. He was a man of strong beliefs and principles and he was willing to stand up and pay a price for them. After returning home as Olympic gold medalist in 1960, he assumed that he would be respected and even honoured for being an American Olympic champion. Instead he found that the people of his home state of Kentucky (and perhaps most other Americans) still thought of him as just another … well, I won’t use the word. But he threw his Olympic gold medal into a local river in disgust. A few years later his religious convictions changed and he became a Muslim – which earned him the wrath of many and there were people who for many years refused to call him “Muhammad Ali” but insisted on using “Cassius Clay” instead. And a few years after that Ali risked jail time by refusing to be inducted into the United States Army to fight in Vietnam. No Vietnamese had ever hurt him, he said. The only people who had hurt him were other Americans, so why would he go to war for America against Vietnam? He didn’t go to jail, but he was stripped of his title for that. Those things perhaps stand out as a sign of greatness. And perhaps it was just his colourful and larger than life persona. But there were reasons for thinking of Muhammad Ali as “the greatest.” There are others. In hockey there was Wayne Gretzky. And in baseball there was Barry Bonds. And basketball today has LeBron James. World champion – most goals – most home runs – most points. That’s usually how we define greatness. It’s about accomplishments. The great ones are those who are better at something than anyone else and who get noticed for it. That’s why it’s fascinating for us to have had the chance in today’s Scripture passage to see how Jesus defined greatness.

     A lot of things can distract us from the work of God. One of those things is human pride; the desire for greatness. This story today illustrates that. It tells us that as the disciples traveled with Jesus, they got distracted. As they walked with Jesus, the passage tells us, even though they were supposedly devoted to him, “they had argued with one another who was the greatest.” I’m sure it was a fascinating argument. Peter said, “It’s me – because I’m the rock!” and John said, “No way! It’s me, because Jesus loves me the most!” and maybe Matthew, being a tax collector, said “It has to be me because I have the most money.” And maybe Thomas was the tallest, and Andrew was the most handsome. Judas probably even had something he could point to. You get the point. They had argued about which of them was the greatest – using very worldly definitions of greatness, no doubt. Now you would have thought that being in the presence of Jesus they might have conceded that title to him, but human pride can get in the way of what seems to be reasonable and it can get in the way of doing God’s work.

     The disciples seem to have thought that they had carried on their argument very discretely and so it must have been an embarrassing moment when Jesus suddenly turned to them and said, “What were you arguing about on the way?” There were probably red faces and feet scuffing the ground and eyes turned away. Some hemming and hawing. Mark tells us that “they were silent.” It was one of those awkward moments when you get caught doing something that you know you shouldn’t be doing and you just really don’t know how to respond – but you do discover how fascinating it is to be counting the number of tiles on the floor, because the last thing you want to do is look the other person in the eye. But the good news for the disciples – and for us, I daresay – is that Jesus didn’t become angry. Instead, he saw a teaching moment emerging from this silly argument.

     If human pride was the problem afflicting the disciples, then a good dose of humility would be the solution. It’s said that Benjamin Franklin once made a list of character qualities that he wanted to develop in his own life. And he would work his way down the list, and as he mastered one virtue he’d move on to the next one. But he could never finish the list, because he finally reached humility. And, he said, then he encountered a problem, because every time he made progress in developing humility be became proud of himself for doing so! Pride is a hard thing to overcome and pride may be the thing, more than anything else, that pulls us away from God. Ultimately, it’s pride that makes us say “i don’t need God. I can figure this out all by myself.” And I’ve known all sorts of people who profess to have deep faith but who, when push comes to shove, demonstrate in all sorts of ways that they really want to handle problems and answer questions by themselves without making any room for God in the process – and sometimes, I confess, I have to fight that temptation myself. And it’s pride – nothing more; nothing less. It’s pride that puts the idea into my head that I can do it all by myself, and the Book of Proverbs tells us that “pride goes before destruction ...” Then, in the very next verse of Proverbs we’re told that “it is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.” This was advice Jesus obviously agreed with.

     “He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’” For the next few weeks, I’m going to be taking a bit of a look at pride and its consequences and the challenges it presents to us, and then in about a month I’m going to be coming back to this idea of the followers of Jesus being servants and asking what that really means. But today I just want to focus on this obsession we have with greatness and with how we define it. I find the Guinness Book of World Records a fascinating thing, and it always amazes me how many silly and even dangerous things people will do to get in on being a part of a world record. Just a few days ago – at a Presbye=tery meeting of all things – I heard about people who tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by being a part of the picture of the most people holding stuffies! I’ve personally never done anything dangerous for that purpose, but I did once try to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. It was several years ago in Port Colborne, and the City organized what they hoped would make Guinness as the biggest water gun fight ever. Hannah and I both took part. This is us after the fight:

     It doesn’t show up too well in the picture but we were soaked from head to toe. We had spent about half an hour running around the local park firing water pistols at everyone we saw and having everyone we saw firing water pistols at us. Unfortunately, even though there were about 850 of us in the fight, I think we fell a little bit short of the record – but we tried. I have some other claims to greatness. I am one of the relatively few ordained people in the history of the Christian faith to have preached in two different millennia! And about 15 years ago I may have become the first (and maybe still the only) ordained minister to have baptized baby boys named Jackson on two consecutive Sundays. I mean – it’s not a common name, and it’s a pretty recent name! Whatever it might be, the ways we define greatness from a human perspective are a bit silly – because as Christians the only thing that should really matter to us is how Jesus defined greatness. Right? “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” From a worldly perspective, that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s true: real greatness is defined not by our spectacular accomplishments, but by our humble service. That’s easy to forget.

     Jesus was a model of humility. Humility doesn’t mean never speaking out or being noticed – Jesus did plenty of that – but it means being noticed in such a way that you don’t always make yourself the centre of attention. So in response to the argument of his disciples about who was the greatest “he took a little child and put it among them ...” Even without the words he spoke (I’ll get to those in a second) the simple symbolism of putting a child among them was important. Children were looked on as weak and vulnerable and they didn’t belong in the company of adults. In the context of the time, they were to be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen if possible. But Jesus took the time to find a child, and put the child in their midst. The point was simple – Jesus took the time to focus on the weak and the vulnerable of his society; he invited them into his presence; he put them in the centre. He made them the most important people of all. But Jesus was doing more than just illustrating for his disciples that greatness is defined not by importance but by service to the weak and vulnerable. Jesus actually claimed identity with the child; he made himself one with the child: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” It is in those who are the weakest and most vulnerable and least privileged of our society that we truly find Christ; it is in serving them (not paternalistically as in “we know best” but as true servants who hear them and listen to them) that we truly serve God.

     With all due respect to Muhammad Ali or Wayne Gretzky or anyone else who has either claimed the title of “the greatest” or has had it thrust upon them, greatness isn’t defined by how many people you’ve knocked out or by how many goals you’ve scored. Greatness is defined by humble service, and by a person’s willingness to give of themselves for the sake of the least, and by our willingness to make the most vulnerable the most important of all.

   

September 9 sermon - The Unnamed Woman Who Changed The World

From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

(Mark 7:24-30)

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

     Labour Day is over, school is back and Sunday School starts today! So it’s time to ask the age old question: how did your summer go? I can remember that was often one of the first assignments I’d be given in school – I had to write some sort of story about what I did over the last couple of months. I don’t have to write those stories anymore but it’s always interesting to look back. Some of us probably had nice vacations; some went to the cottage; some just stayed home; some probably worked the summer away. And for some – for a variety of reasons – the summer probably didn’t turn out the way you expected. That’s life, as they say. I don’t know what time of year it was when the incident recounted in today’s Gospel reading occurred – but it might have been summer, because it seems that Jesus was looking for some time off; a bit of time away. “He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there,” we’re told. It might well have been summer – a time when a lot of us are looking forward to taking life at a slower pace and just getting away from it all for a little while. Jesus needed to get away. He had been experiencing a very busy time in his ministry. He had been surrounded by crowds of people in different parts of Galilee, and he had spent time teaching them. In the synagogues and in the countryside, on top of mountains and at the seashore he had been busy teaching. He was in need of a break. And so he found a spot on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (and doesn’t that sound nice!) and he set himself up in a little house to rest and relax; to do away with his weariness and stress. And then – the most irritating thing happened! This woman, who undoubtedly had heard about him from stories that were circulating, found him there and invaded his privacy and interrupted his rest, in order to make a request of him.

     This was a woman who – at least as far as Mark was concerned – had no name. It sounds a bit like today to be honest. How often do we neglect to learn the names of the desperate and the hurting people around us? Instead of learning their names we ignore them, we pity them or we make them statistics – but how often do we learn their names? This was a Greek woman, apparently from the region of Syrophoenicia, which was basically what we would call Syria today. Mark doesn’t tell us why she had traveled to where she encountered Jesus, but while there she had heard stories about this miracle healer who had come to stay in the area, and the stories interested her, because she was in need of healing – not for herself but for her daughter. We don’t know really what was wrong with her daughter. Mark says that she “had an unclean spirit,” but exactly what that meant we don’t know. There are a lot of diseases we understand today that were once thought to be demonic. Perhaps she had a mental illness; perhaps she was an epileptic and suffered seizures. Mark doesn’t explain, but something was definitely wrong with the little girl and her mother was determined to get her help. So if there was a worker of miracles around – a healer who had demonstrated power over even demons – then she was determined to find him and get his help, even if he was tired and in need of rest. And so she found out where Jesus was staying – and she showed up. She explained her story to Jesus and told him that she needed him to work a miracle; to heal her daughter.

     Jesus’ response is very un-Jesus-like. Actually, this passage is one that reminds us that as much as we talk about Jesus as the Son of God, he was also very much the Son of Man – and his humanity sometimes shows forth so clearly that it can make us uncomfortable. We see it in the grief that he sometimes expresses and in the anger he sometimes explodes with. In this passage what we see is an irritated Jesus who not only dismisses this woman – but who insults her in the process. He actually compared this woman to a dog: “… it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs,” were Jesus’ actual words. In a 1960 book the biblical scholar Floyd Filson wrote in reflecting on this passage that he believed Jesus must have winked at the woman when he said that, suggesting that Jesus was being playful and friendly rather than rude and condescending. But I don’t see any evidence of that. First, it sounds a bit whiny. The words “it’s not fair” always get under my skin to be honest. Who ever said everything was going to be fair? But basically, this was a somewhat rude way of saying what Jesus said at another time as “I only came for the lost sheep of Israel.” His point was that then – at that time – his ministry was directed to a specific group of people. And we should understand the meaning of the word “dog” in this context. He wasn’t using it in the way it would be used today – to refer to a woman’s appearance; basically he was comparing her to an animal that at the time was seen as no better than a detested scavenger; a pest to be eradicated. In that context, Jesus was basically trying to shoo the woman away. It’s not what we expect from Jesus – but it’s perhaps moments like that that make Jesus a little more approachable. Who among us hasn’t at times been irritable and perhaps even a little bit insulting when someone interrupts our down time? So Jesus really isn’t that much different than we are. But while I actually appreciate this very human portrayal of Jesus, I’m even more interested in the woman with no name.

     You have to recognize and admire this woman’s love for her daughter and for her commitment and persistence. She was a very clever woman, and she understood what Jesus’ answer meant; she knew he was trying to shoo her away. But she didn’t give up. Jesus could help her daughter and that was all that mattered, so – no matter what – he was going to help her daughter! No ifs, ands or buts about it! “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” It seems that her words softened Jesus up. Maybe he took a deep breath; maybe he counted to 10. Maybe he just thought regretfully, “I shouldn’t have said that.” What said was, “For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.” And the woman went home, and found her daughter lying on the bed, and the little girl was healed. The demon was gone. All was well.

     So – it’s a really good story, but does it justify the extravagant title I’ve given to today’s message? Did this unnamed woman really change the world? Did this one little event that takes up seven verses of Mark’s Gospel (and seven more in Matthew’s) really make such a difference? I think so. We need to look at the bigger picture of how this fits into the story. Let’s go backward for a moment. A few weeks ago I preached from a passage in Mark 6 just before this one: the feeding of the five thousand. That’s a mind-boggling story. Then comes this story in Mark 7, and then we get another feeding miracle in Mark 8, as Jesus feeds four thousand with very little food to start. The first feeding story takes place in Galilee – in Jewish territory. The second takes place in an area called the Decapolis – which was Gentile territory. The point is that between the first and second feeding miracles Jesus has shifted from a ministry that was directed only to Jews to a ministry directed to all. And, for Mark at least, the hinge between those two events – where the world turned, you might say – was this encounter Jesus had with an unnamed Gentile woman, whose plea leads him to broaden his horizons, so to speak, and expand his ministry. In a way, you might say that this was Jesus’ “AHA!” moment. Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had to grow in wisdom, and this might have been the point at which he suddenly realized “this is bigger than I ever thought!” That woman’s persistence might, in fact, have changed the world. If she hadn’t interrupted Jesus’ Mediterranean vacation when would Jesus have encountered Gentiles, since most of his life was spent in Galilee? And if he had never encountered Gentiles that it’s quite possible that the whole history of the Christian faith (and, therefore, the whole history of the world) would have been different! It’s at least possible to think that maybe Jesus would have been remembered by a few people simply as a rejected Jewish Messiah rather than being celebrated by billions of people as the Saviour of the world!

     Perhaps not surprisingly, this unnamed woman is not one of the better known women of the Bible. Without a name, she fades away into a bit of obscurity. And yet, you could argue that she’s one of the giants of the Christian faith. This unnamed woman reminds all of us who follow Jesus to display open doors of welcome, open arms of compassion and open hearts of love to all; to set aside our differences and to celebrate that we are all God’s children. She exemplifies love for her daughter, persistence in caring for her daughter and faith through her belief that Jesus could help. And Jesus responded to this woman. Maybe her qualities reminded him just a bit of God – God’s love for all people and God’s persistence in caring for us. Maybe this woman shows us that by acts of sincere and deep love – by God and by God’s people - the world is changed – even just a little bit at a time, person by person. John McAfee wrote that “the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.” This unnamed woman is just a bit player in the Bible – probably because she has no name for us to remember her by. But she was crazy enough to believe that she could convince Jesus to help her daughter, and by her faith in Jesus’ healing power and her love for her daughter she really did change the world, and her example – if it’s followed – continues to do so, if those of us who follow her today are crazy enough to believe that each one of us can make a difference.

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.