Tag Archives: Gospel of John

Jesus’s Prayer for Unity

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a Sermon for Easter 7C

Text: John 17:20-26

Listen to the Audio here: Jesus’s Prayer for Unity

A hopeless prayer

If you are ever self-conscious about praying in public, don’t be. Just remember how the writers of the gospel we call John portray Jesus:

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

And that’s like the second time he said that. John isn’t doing Jesus any favors with this gobbledy gook. Can you at least string together a coherent sentence? Then you’re good.

In spite of this rambling style, Jesus is praying for three things: understanding, intimacy, and unity.

Understanding: that they might know GOD and what GOD is doing.

Intimacy: that GOD, Jesus, and the people may be “in” one another—that they may be so close that they are joined.

Unity: that all of us may be brought together as one.

This begs the question: if even Jesus’s prayer for unity is not answered, then what hope do we have?

We are not one

Clearly we aren’t one. And despite what many would have us believe, we never were.

From the earliest moments after Jesus’s ascension, His followers had different things to say about Him and His ministry. They spread around the region with their own takes on the Jesus Event. We inherit four different gospels from four different communities, with four different sets of priorities.

Even the great councils of the first millennium, which produced our creeds, among other things, were not moments of great unity, but sources of division. They didn’t gather to determine what we do believe, but rather, eliminate what we don’t.

As a church and as a culture, we don’t seem united at all. In fact, we seem all the more divided. Divided by interpretation of scripture, theology, and ethics; how we treat each other, the outsiders, and the enemies; how we minister to the sick, the suffering, and the disadvantaged. Our churches, our communities, our politics, our neighborhoods, our schools, our civic organizations are all divided. We are not one.

Going back to the skipped steps

Of course, we are looking for that unity by skipping steps.

Jesus prays not only for unity, but for three things:

understanding, intimacy, and unity

Jesus says

Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

Jesus knows GOD. He understands what GOD is about. He doesn’t say that the disciples understand. He seems to say that they get Jesus and they get that He has intimacy with GOD. But that He, Jesus, will build a bridge to that intimacy.

I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

So Jesus helps reveal who GOD is to those that follow Him. He makes GOD more vulnerable by stripping away the layers of mystery and distance—the things that create power and separation. Jesus does this because there is no other way to have intimacy with GOD, or anyone, without vulnerability.

And through intimacy, we become one. Not uniform. Not identical. Not subservient to a single, dominant bureaucracy. Not ordered—with first and last. One.

In blessed community

Our problem isn’t unity, its intimacy. And to be fair, we should probably do some work at understanding, while we’re at it. We’re a culture of proud know-it-alls. Our men don’t stop for directions and our women don’t want an honest response to “does this make me look fat.”

Even our churches are places which shun intimacy. We want to look good, we attack mistakes, and punish the vulnerable. But Jesus gives us a way out. A way of His being vulnerable to us, that we might be vulnerable to one another. Two examples from earlier in the night were washing feet and anointing for burial.

As followers of Christ, we learn about GOD’s ways that they may become our own. Ways of love and vulnerability. Ways of generosity and sacrifice. That we might find an intimacy that is not of this world, but one that might be sanctified by GOD.

That we, gathering in blessed community, learning the name of GOD, becoming close to one another, may become one.

A Parting Gift

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a Sermon for Easter 6C

Text: John 14:23-29

lonely tree

 Jesus the Rambler

In the gospel we call John, Jesus is a rambler. Again this week we are in the farewell discourse that runs through chapters 13-16. It is Thursday of Holy Week and Jesus is giving the final teachings. And He seems to have slipped into repetitiveness and circular arguments. He is going away but He is still here. It is so metaphysically confusing, we might not know which way is up.

This week, we get a tangle of familiar elements: love, loss, presence, relationship: elements we’ve been tangling with for several weeks.

Just before our reading, in verses 18-20, Jesus says:

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

What a powerful testimony. “I will not leave you orphaned”.

Throughout this section, Jesus is giving them assurance. He is announcing what is to happen and assuring them that they need not fear it. We hear these words as comforting, but I wonder if the disciples did. I wonder if these words didn’t frighten them more. Like a parent telling the children not to worry, we’ll be back soon.

Not so comforting

In dealing with this we might also be tempted to dwell on the timing. The day before His crucifixion, Jesus says I’m leaving, but I’ll be back. Reading this now, in Easter, when Jesus has come back, we may ear this as the resurrection. That, in rising from the dead, Jesus has fulfilled this claim and returns for a time to be with his disciples.

Later this week, on Thursday, we celebrate the Ascension, when Jesus leaves again.

We believe that Jesus died and was raised. And we usually stop there, making the stories of Jesus’s return and ascension less considered. As if the death and resurrection was the entirety of the story. Much of Christian theology has been obsessively concerned with and reduced all of our belief to the ramifications of those two moments. Are we then to take Jesus’s second departure as the permanent one? Jesus’s claim that He won’t leave us orphaned rings hollow when we recognize that Jesus goes away…twice. And, in the narrative at least, stays away.

And to add insult, He seems to leave behind a babysitter in the Holy Spirit. No offense to the Spirit, but when a kid feels abandoned, some replacement Mom just isn’t enough.

Who is the Advocate?

The word used here is Advocate. The Greek is “Paraclete” which seems to have a legal application here. A legal advocate, like an aid, counselor, or lawyer. The word also has a physical association of “standing next to”. Of being with someone, by them, in the midst of adversity. This is a more telling understanding than we know, for in departing from us, Jesus will take with him future teaching, leaving behind only His past teaching.

And yet, Jesus focuses on his disciples knowing that teaching. In verse 15, which kicks off this section, Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. This, of course, is almost immediately after giving the command to love one another. Keep what I have taught you he seems to say, and the Holy Spirit will dwell within you. Jesus can say to His disciples that they won’t be orphaned because GOD will take up residence within those who continue to follow Jesus after the physical form goes away.

What Jesus leaves behind and continues to give is not order or structure or rules or advice or tips or pithy words of encouragement, but peace. Something that can’t be bought or sold or manufactured or mass-produced or copyrighted or made proprietary or grown organically or bartered or given away. It isn’t born here or made here. It is given to those who know GOD and let GOD take up residence within them.

Gift giving

What Jesus is promising to us is way bigger than we think, and certainly beyond what the disciples were worried about. They worried that their messiah was going away. Jesus tells them He isn’t really leaving, so there is certain comfort in that assurance.

But Jesus’s presence signals a change. Like last week, in which we explored the new power of the community, born of the Spirit, to succeed Jesus in ministry, Jesus is setting us up for a new understanding. An understanding that is not trapped in a historical event or encased in the amber of analysis, but lived out in the experience of living a present relationship with the divine. That in following Jesus, we have within us what others do not. We have purpose. We have love. We have peace.

And most importantly, inside of us, we have GOD.

These things, this relationship, cannot be taken away or destroyed. We have what we need. We have the Paraclete beside us and GOD within us.

It begins with remembering what Jesus has taught us. About love, relationship, and sacrifice. So we remember.

What I Might Have Preached

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Since I was on vacation, I didn’t preach this morning. The gospel reading was John 20:19-31, known to many as the Doubting Thomas passage. There are a ton of ways to preach this one, particularly if you aren’t wedded to the idea that Thomas is an unbelieving jackass. Here are a few thoughts that struck me today.

Thomas wanted what the other disciples had–physical proof.

The other disciples had the proof that Thomas didn’t have, creating an inequality among them. To expect equality from unequal circumstances requires, well, a leap of faith. Less Thomas’ deficiency than Jesus’ incredible expectation.

Such an inequality could be a real moral hazard, not just for Thomas, but for the community.

But isn’t this a story about faith? If we are to read it as such, then we shouldn’t see it as a story of Thomas’ lack of faith.

In fact, none of the disciples expresses the faith glorified in countless sermons this week every year. Thomas is actually the exception that proves the rule.

It seems John’s resurrection story, as the end of a story that begins with a glorious statement about the Word and its presence with God, ends with a statement about passing on the story about the Word. Much like the evangelist himself, supposedly the Apostle, living decades longer than humans are able. Or even better, the Apostle’s community, living out the example themselves what none of the apostles could.

Isn’t it strange that a story about faith centers on a man who supposedly has none? Stranger still, that the other, more faithful disciples, including The Beloved, are locked in a room? Oh, and lest we neglect to notice, lock themselves in that room even after their moment with Jesus, proclaiming the risen Christ from the safety of a locked room?

I normally preach a pro-Thomas sermon this week. I’m more inclined to look at how the story of the Christ Event got past these scared, disbelieving apostles and in just a couple of generations is telling an amazing story of a poor carpenter who died and was raised from the dead.

Damn good story, that one is. Something tells me this story is supposed to be about the story, not the storyteller.

Drink Up!

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a Sermon for Epiphany 2C
Text: John 2:1-11

wine

first things first

Jesus has been baptized by John in the Jordan. GOD has spoken. The Spirit has descended like a dove. Last week, we got the kickoff to Jesus’s ministry in the world with a big show. All three parts of the Trinity showing up in a single passage. A moment so important to Christians throughout the early church that it was the first big day celebrated. Jesus is not simply baptized with that little silver shell, sprinkled with droplets of water over His head, but he is submerged in the river and a booming voice announces that in this moment, this person, this man is the beloved they have been waiting for. This is serious, big time theological stuff.

Immediately, Jesus gets moving. He collects some disciples. First Andrew and his brother Peter, James and John, and the rest join Him on the journey. Then he and his Mom and these student followers are invited, of all things, to a wedding.

A wedding seems to be an odd place for Jesus to be, particularly now. He’s full of the Spirit. He’s collected his people. It’s time to get moving! It’s time to get out there and do! It’s time to transform the world! And yet here he is, the adult son, sitting with his Mom at a wedding reception.

It is an odd inauguration, isn’t it? The end of the story even names the significance of the moment as Jesus’s first miracle. Not feeding 5,000 hungry people, but turning water into wine so that drunk people can keep drinking!

Hello, Party People!

It’s probably safe to say that we’ve all been to a wedding before. And we know what is expected at them. It begins with an invitation and it is expected that we reply, letting the couple know whether or not we will be attending so that they can count heads. As guests, we expect a lot: directions, a good show in the liturgy, a reminder in a sermon about the true meaning of love, a reception and free food, some music, and perhaps dancing and alcohol. In some situations, plenty of alcohol. But not always. I was once in a wedding party in which the groom and the groomsmen were all under 21 and the bride and her attendants were all over 21. Only half the wedding party was served the champagne!

As participants in a wedding, we have a lot of expectations on how we are going to be treated: the invitations, the food, the opportunity to share a personal moment with the couple. Part of what the couple is obsessed with going into the big day is managing Aunt Ethel’s expectations. It is kind of weird if you think about it. What is even more weird, however, is that this story isn’t about Jesus and His Mom at a wedding, but Jesus, Mary, and the disciples. Did Jesus write the family back and ask “I know the invite said +1, but can I add a 2 on the end? Make that a+12?” Can you imagine bringing your whole crew to this shindig? I don’t know. Seems presumptuous.

I used to assume that they ran out of wine in the story because the host was cheap; that he didn’t order enough for the gathering. That the point was that Jesus saves his butt. But now I’m thinking it is the other reason: that the party was just getting started.

about the Big Reveal

Let’s go back to that great exchange between Jesus and his Mother. So much of what is really being communicated is happening below the surface.

Mary: “They have no wine.”
Jesus (irritated): “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

Mary doesn’t say to Jesus, Hey, do something! Or Get off your butt and help them out. She simply observes that they are out of drink. It is Jesus who seems to think that He is supposed to do something about it.

It is also interesting because “the hour” is often a reference to Jesus’s death and resurrection, that it isn’t His time to die. But perhaps it is better to say it is not His time to be revealed. It is not His moment to be seen by everyone. That’s future Jesus.

And yet, what happens?

Mary does seem to know what Jesus is capable of. She tells the servants “Do whatever he tells you.” Despite Jesus’s grumblings, she knows He’ll fix things. Then when the steward is served the new wine, it says that he didn’t know where it came from “(though the servants who had drawn the water knew)”. As is the case throughout all the gospels, Jesus is revealed to some, but not all. The big reveal hasn’t happened yet.

attending the party, or working it?

What’s telling for us is who does get to see this are the servants. We normally read this as Jesus supporting the good Jewish tradition of hospitality and not wanting the host to look the fool. But I am moved by the fact that the text points out that the servants get to see what is really going on. Perhaps the disciples are, too. Since someone has to record the event, right? Those attending this big party don’t see who Jesus really is. Just the servants. Just those not enjoying themselves. Those not invited to the party, but those making the party happen.

Therefore, Jesus’s first miracle, His first bit of ministry in the world after gathering his student followers: the disciples: is witnessed by the servants; the underclass. Jesus makes Himself known first to His immediate followers and now to the people that are the working poor.

For us, then, this first moment of ministry is a conflicting vision. In this story, Jesus isn’t ready to reveal Himself to the upper and middle classes. He is focused on the poor and under-served. And yet this expression of generosity, to transform water into wine—and not just any wine, but the really good stuff—comes to us as something of an invitation. An invitation to drink, to gather, to dance, and to revel in the beauty that comes in gathering around two people, called by GOD to become one flesh. To celebrate and be intoxicated by the joyous cup of community. For it will be soon; all too soon; that we will be called to do something more. Something that requires that joy be there already. When Jesus is revealed to all. And our mission is made clear. We’ll need that joy. That celebratory spirit.

So for those with eyes to see: watch. And for the rest, drink up.

When Pilate Finds Jesus

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a Sermon for Proper 29B
Text: John 18:33-38a

Here Jesus stands. It is Friday morning. This is what condemning the Temple and the order of things gets you. Face to face with Rome’s appointed commander for the region: Pontius Pilate. Jesus is quizzed like a commoner.

What is truth? Deutsch: Was ist Wahrheit? Fran...

What is truth? Deutsch: Was ist Wahrheit? Français : “Qu’est-ce que la vérité ?” Le Christ et Pilate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those that attend our Good Friday worship get the whole Passion gospel from John each year. And today, the last day of the church year, we are given an interesting snippet from Jesus’s final hours. A discourse between a rebellious rabbi and Rome. Jesus is asked simply and directly about the charge brought against him: that he is calling himself King of the Jews.

And every Good Friday we are given the opportunity to explore what brought Jesus to this moment and what happens next: he is convicted and punished and killed by crucifixion. Then late Saturday night or Sunday morning, we acknowledge that Jesus has left behind an empty tomb.

Since it isn’t Good Friday, but the 26th Sunday after Pentecost, our church’s New Year’s Eve if you will, we have a different view. We have Jesus, our teacher, in perhaps his last teaching moment.

“Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus could simply say “no.” It would be honest in every way. King Herod is literally the King of the Jews. And spiritually, Jesus has spoken of a much broader ministry than that. But as always, Jesus answers in the form of a question:

“Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”

Here we should acknowledge that Pilate, the Roman authority always believes he has the upper hand in a situation. And in every conceivable way, he does here. But Jesus isn’t here on accident. He put himself here. He is still working on bringing the Kingdom of GOD closer. Therefore he isn’t on trial, but working on the Kingdom. It is Pilate who has been put in the strange situation: deciding on religious and spiritual matters that aren’t his to mediate.

And yet he is there with Jesus. He is the one standing before Jesus, asking spiritual questions of the great rabbi. Did he hear the Good News? Does he know of what is happening in the world? Was he invited to the party?

“I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”

Clearly Pilate recognizes he isn’t the one to try Jesus, for this isn’t his work for the Emperor. He isn’t to mediate a religious spat. He is to keep the peace. He is curious about who this stranger is before him. He has heard about Him. But what has he heard?

“My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

Instead of answering the question Pilate gives Him, Jesus makes a much bolder statement. He is not the leader of the Jewish people: he is the leader of all people. Instead of claiming Herod’s throne, Pilate hears Jesus claim a throne; a different one. Perhaps it is the emperor’s throne.

The lectionary tries to give Jesus the last word: that Jesus was born to testify to the truth and everyone with ears to hear it will get the truth. But Pilate responds with a provocative question

‘What is truth?’

before telling the people that he has found no reason to punish Jesus.

I don’t know if the lectionary preparers were aware of the deep irony in putting last week’s gospel next to this one. That Jesus condemns the Jewish leadership, bringing with him an anti-king self-identity. That the leader is to be the servant of all; that power is expressed through humility; that the poorest among us should be treated like wealthy benefactors. The kind of kingdom Jesus brings is an anti-kingdom that doesn’t need bankers and lawyers, but generous servants, giving not from their abundance, but out of their poverty.

That is what we’ve been talking about. Then they tell us to see Jesus as a king.

We don’t need a king.

We need Jesus.

We need the Jesus presented here. He is asked if he is a king. His response: “you say.” This is one of the few things absolutely consistent in all four gospels. When Pilate asks if he is a king, Jesus doesn’t say “yes,” but “you say.”

“You say.”

We say. We make Jesus a king. Like Peter making Jesus a messiah—the sort that will lead a bloody revolution—as opposed to the sort that will lead a revolution in death.

The trouble we get ourselves into is that we think Jesus said “yes.” And some translations actually have Jesus say “Yes, I am!” We think that Jesus is a king. That if only stores were closed on Sundays or more people came to church, we’d have a better look at that Kingdom that we are called to bring closer. As if we can force the world to join our way. Or trick it. Or coerce it through legal measures. Or put it on our currency. Like any of these violent, reckless approaches moves the kingdom. They simply install Jesus in a position that He doesn’t want.

Jesus isn’t our king.

Jesus is our teacher. Our savior. Our liberator. Our guide. Our lover. Our friend. Our coach. Our inspiration. Our devotion. Our faith. Our understanding. Our Way. Jesus is all of these things and so much more. And it is in recognizing what it is that Jesus has been telling us all of our lives that we can begin to understand that very thing Pilate doesn’t get: the truth. We get there by following Him. We don’t arrive, like some all-knowing holy man perched on top of a mountain, but we journey with Jesus. We follow. We explore. We learn. We see. We listen. And we hear. We’re going to need those ears to hear in the coming weeks as we prepare for the coming of Jesus after Advent.

We don’t need the church to dominate the world: we need to be Jesus for the world. As everyone else is running around trying to buy love, we’re finding it in the one place Jesus told us to look: GOD. And we’re sharing it with everyone, not in a preemptive wish of “Merry Christmas” well before it is time, but in generous and humble service to friends, family, and strangers. This isn’t an order to go and do something for Jesus, but an invitation to follow where He is already going.

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Faith Before Understanding

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a Homily for Proper 16B

Text: John 6:56-69

What is this?

Jesus has brought the people here through a swirling storm of teachings about faith, understanding, and love. As they arrive to the safety of the synagogue, he takes all of that teaching and he mixes in their likely confusion about literal and metaphorical hearing into one big stew and He says “eat!” For the last month we’ve wrestled with this. And going into this morning, we’ve been sitting with that call to eat what Jesus is offering, even if we aren’t sure we understand how. How we are to eat that offering when it is the body and blood of Jesus.

This is where the gospel pericope’s listeners are, too. They ask how they are to do this when they still aren’t sure what “this” is. They’ve heard a bunch of different things and it sounds like a lot.

So Jesus explains again that their heads are wrong. If you’re having trouble with this eating and this eternal life, then what of focusing on where you are from? What if I were to go back to where I’m from? What about my return to my father who sent me? This isn’t the origin. We don’t start on earth and are then taken to Heaven. We start there and return there. What does that do to your pathetic questions about the now? Because a bunch of you are going to take off; you’re not up to that challenge.

Stuck in the middle with you

It feels as if we’ve once again drawn Jesus the Jerk. In this story, Jesus doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to bring everyone to Himself. He’s pushing most of them away. Including people that are called Jesus’s disciples.

So what about us? Those of us that are His disciples. Are we suffering with this literalist affliction of seeing our physical existence up there and in the future? Are we so afflicted that we see this as finite and that as beyond us? Of course we do. We’ve inherited the Greek’s dualistic philosophy. We understand our origin through the physical world: our earthbound parents produce real-life offspring. Our mothers give birth to us and we inhabit these physical bodies. And it is our hope that some spirit within us is released from an earthly prison when we die. That seems to be what we’re taught. This teaching’s gnostic problems aside, it is one that seems to be a natural response to Jesus as He calls flesh “useless”.

However, Jesus’s challenge to us, then, is that our origin is not here but beyond. When our time here is up, we return home. The power of GOD is then shown through incarnation: in the heavenly being made earthly. As the old song goes “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ through.”

In other words, this is the middle.

“Hey, um…Jesus, look at the time…”

When Jesus says this, a bunch of followers indeed take off. He’s left with the inner circle. He asks them Do you want to go, too?

Peter’s response sounds like a let down:

Where else are we going to go.

We expect the next line to be

I guess we’re stuck with you.

How surprising then that Peter seems to finally be getting it. He responds by affirming that in following Jesus they become something else. Whether Peter understands it or not is less important than His coming to internalize the relationship.

They follow Jesus then they understand.

This is what that whole swirling storm of ideas was about: follow Jesus and then come to understand. Faith before understanding. And faith is in following.

  1. The Feeding of the Five Thousand—faith in following.
  2. Walking on the Water—lack of faith in leaving Jesus behind, then faith in following Jesus again.
  3. The Bread of Life, Jesus—faith in following.

The question Jesus is asking them isn’t metaphysical. He isn’t asking them to explain where Heaven is, how the world was created, or what GOD looks like. He isn’t looking for them to solve the physical riddle of the cosmos. He’s asking them Are you with me?

Jesus asks a simple question

That’s our question: Are we with Him? Do you believe? Yes! Then let’s go. Notice He isn’t saying Tell me what you believe in 10,000 words or less. He isn’t saying What do you think of my Mom’s virginity? or Do I get to send the Holy Spirit, too, or is it just Dad? He’s simply asking Are you coming with me?

Such a simple question. That is the question He’s asking. And we respond as if He’s asked us to respond to a doctoral thesis. Are you coming, or what? We’ve been fools. We’ve wedded Greek philosophy to Hebrew and fought one another about right belief. We’ve made our children memorize and regurgitate and called it “teaching”. We’ve demanded newcomers swear oaths to rigid sets of beliefs we’ve written about the Trinity. But Jesus knows we can’t hope to understand until after believing. We follow Jesus in faith, come to believe, begin to understand.

I can’t give you a pithy truth and expect to pass it off as a substitute for all of that first work that each of us does by faith and learning to believe. But as a follower, I can help other followers move toward belief. As a believer, I can help other believers toward understanding. And as followers and believers, all of us here are called to learn, to teach, and to proclaim the Good News. Because understanding isn’t the beginning, it’s the ending.

Take a Bite Out of Jesus

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a Homily for Proper 15B
Text: John 6:51-58

The first thing we notice about the gospel pericope we read this morning is that Jesus is still talking about eating. It seems as if he is always talking about food, doesn’t it? The manna, the bread, the bread of life. I am the bread of life. But Jesus takes it a step beyond. He talks about people eating Him. And he gets graphic. He talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

As if this weren’t enough, He gets all mystical and talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood and attaining eternal life and Jesus abiding within us and all of that. Let’s take a moment to recognize that what Jesus is saying is pretty freaky, isn’t it? Get over here and take a bite out of my arm! Really chomp down. Let me show you. Like this—just kidding. But we can see why this is confusing, can’t we? Why the Jewish leaders were confused.

What it takes to peel back the confusing bits of this is a pretty sophisticated mind, that we all have. We have to do a little dance with the text between hearing words like eat and know that Jesus isn’t literally inviting people to vampiricly feast on Him. And yet, He is saying something that is more than metaphor. He is saying something physical and real. For us to get there, we need to take a short trip through what they are hearing and why the Jewish leaders were so confused.

To start, Jesus doesn’t begin by implying a metaphorical reading. The Greek word He uses for eat implies a very physical act of consuming—like crunch. He is sending the hearer into a very physical realm. He is saying bite into it, taste it. Feel it in your mouth. The it just happens to be His flesh and blood.

As Russell Rathbun, a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota reminds us this week that “Leviticus 17 forbids the eating of blood or flesh containing blood; the blood of a slaughtered animal must be spilled out on the altar as a sacrifice to God.” The reason is because of what blood represents: life. We are not to consume the life essence of another creature.

There is a long history among many cultures around the world that believe that if we eat the flesh and blood of an animal, we gain their essence, power from them. We take them into us. Even today there is a small tribe of cannibals living on an island far from here (don’t worry) that ritually eats the fallen so that they may gain their power and preserve their life within them.

So eating the flesh and blood is forbidden among the Jewish people. What you do is drain the flesh of its blood so that you might ritually purify the flesh and offer the blood to GOD. And Jesus comes along and tells them, using physical language, to do to Him what they are not to do to any living thing so that they can have what they are not to have: another person’s life force.

This is why they are confused, still focused on the physical, literal when Jesus has been talking metaphorical for several verses already. Because He is tapping into a headspace in which they are bound to hear him literally. He is intentionally getting them mixed up in their brains. Why? Because He wants them to understand that He is talking about big, weighty, rule-breaking matters. And simply saying “here are the 5 things I want you to do to have a better life” won’t do it. He wants them to see and hear and feel it. “Crunch on me and let me in.”

Jesus seems to play up that emotional confusion, boldly flouting the law, and its intention by speaking about that internal piece, the eating, the taking in, and being transformed by the power of Jesus’s life force. This discussion comes to a crescendo as He once more makes a reference to the Exodus story of manna from heaven, which sustained the Hebrew people in the wilderness. And once again, He says that that food isn’t enough. I am food that can be what literal food cannot. I can give you Life +. Bonus life. More life. Incredible life. Juicy, crunchy life. GODlike life.

We ignore the boldness in Jesus’s assertion here at our own peril. Jesus publicly speaks of flouting an important Jewish law that is still practiced by many today, and He does so with very vivid and forceful language. He seems to want to gross them out; make them uncomfortable. He wants them to get that He is deadly serious about what He is offering: a true GODlike life. Life+ or Life 2.0. A life that is different than the one we were born into. And the way to do that is to become a spiritual cannibal.

When we hear this, we too are confronted by an idea that is uncomfortable and confusing if we are unused to Jesus’s style of messing with expectations. He wants us to be thinking literally and metaphorically at the same time. We are to hear and dwell on the idea that Jesus is inviting us to crunch on and chew Jesus and let Him transform us from the inside out.

Therefore, this isn’t for us just a story about Holy Communion: our physical act of chewing Jesus. It is much more. It is about the power of Jesus to transform us when we allow ourselves to be changed. This is about imbibing Jesus and becoming something new. To literally be changed. More than once. And it all starts with a taste.

A few years ago, Rose and I went wine tasting on the Leelanau Peninsula. The man pouring wine at the first place we stopped (which was a common first stop outside of Traverse City) gave us these important instructions. The host said that we should swirl the glass, sniff the wine and consume its scent, and then bring the wine into our mouths. Let it sit there a moment. Then swallow. He told us that much of how we taste comes through our nose and that to truly taste something, we must smell it and let it sit in our mouths before consuming.

The same for chewing and imbibing Jesus. To consume Him, we must taste, sense, internalize, and break the rules. As we sang last week, “taste and see that the Lord is good!”

Grumble if you must, but then trust

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a Homily for Proper 14B

Text: John 6:35, 41-51

In our gospel story, Jesus turns his attention from the crowd to the Jewish leadership. He has been talking about bread—the bread from heaven. He makes reference to the story told in Exodus. It goes a little like this.

The Hebrew people, living in Egypt for generations, are promised liberty by GOD through the power of GOD and the leadership of two brothers, Moses and Aaron. Aaron is the trained leader and Moses is the stutterer called by GOD to lead them. Plague after plague, Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrew people leave. Until finally, in a horrifying act of destruction, celebrated for thousands of years as the Passover, the Hebrews are liberated. Yet, Pharaoh changes his mind and chases the Hebrews out into the wilderness. And in a final awesome act, the people cross the parted sea and Pharaoh’s soldiers chasing after them are drowned in it.

The people aren’t in the wilderness very long before they start to grumble. After such shocking displays of power, being left silently in the wilderness would get us confused, too. However, they give more than just a collective sigh of “now what?” They start attacking Moses. They miss their creature comforts. This whole endeavor is taking too long. They aren’t sure it is actually going anywhere. I can’t help but wonder if GOD hears this grumbling the way I hear my daughter ask from the back seat “are we there yet?” When we are only 5 minutes out from the driveway. And when I tell her, “well, we’ll be driving awhile, so no” she responds with a shout of exasperation “it’s taking too long!”

The people grumble out of confusion, but the grumble is angry, aggressive, and scapegoating. They are angry with GOD, but they yell at Moses.

What follows the liberation in Exodus are the Three Grumblings. In chapters 15-17, the people grumble three times about their conditions. Each time, they take it out on Moses and wish they could just go back to Egypt. Each time, GOD hears their request, and each time, they are surprisingly given what they ask for. First, it is for the swampy water they find to be made clean. Then it is about food. And finally, it is about drinking water again.

The Israelites Gather Manna in the Wilderness ...

The Israelites Gather Manna in the Wilderness (illustration from the 1728 Figures de la Bible) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the story that Jesus is referencing. Specifically, He is making reference to the means of feeding that GOD offers the Hebrew people in Exodus 16. He gives them Manna in the morning and quails in the evening. The manna is a sort of sticky bread flakes that is scraped from the grass that appears each morning when they get up. But GOD gives them specific instructions: collect the manna, distribute it, and eat all that you can. Don’t save it. And on the sixth day, collect a double portion so you won’t collect it on the Sabbath.

Many in the group push the envelope, both on the first morning and on the seventh. They first try to save some, and it goes bad quickly. And then they try to collect some on the Sabbath and find the fields empty. After both cases, GOD holds Moses and Aaron accountable for this rule-breaking, and yet he still shows mercy on the people anyway, even though they broke GOD’s primary condition of trust.

We’ve long taken this story as an exceptional story of trust. That GOD provides, even in the midst of the desert wanderings. And one of the primary teachings is not just the goodness and mercy shown the people by GOD, but as a lesson about trusting GOD. That attempts to squirrel away blessings for a rainy day are an act of distrust. This has a profound impact on the way we talk about stewardship, by the way.

It is just as important that we take it in the whole context. The context of mighty, visible acts of liberation, and then the testing of the community through silent trust. I’m entirely certain we would do the same. We’d grumble after a few days, maybe a few hours, of being liberated. We’d be those small children wondering how long it was going to take and grumbling that it is taking too long. Because we do this already.

This is all of the stuff that Jesus is bringing up with the people when he talks about bread from heaven. Trust and distrust, liberation and confusion, patience and impatience. And He takes it upon Himself and says that He is that bread from heaven. He is the matter of trust and liberation and patience. That they must feed on Him. But He flips it over, doesn’t He? He says:

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.

The Hebrew people didn’t die because they ate the manna, but because they never learned to trust GOD. This happens later in the Torah, but in effect, GOD kept them in the wilderness for 40 years because they failed to trust GOD for all of 40 days. They didn’t learn the lesson of the Manna. Just like the disciples didn’t learn the lesson about the bread during the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Jesus is now saying that Jesus is the new manna. And unlike the original, simply eating is your display of trust.

It may be hard for us to feel this level of trust or recognize what Jesus is talking about. We are often so busy trying to figure out what Jesus means by His being the bread and how that gives us eternal life. The metaphorical gets mixed up in the literal. Especially if we treat this as Jesus talking about Holy Communion and the “bread”. Many of us were taught to let the wafer dissolve on our tongues so that “we don’t chew Jesus”! And yet Jesus uses the language of eating the bread! How easily we could get confused!

This is our wilderness. Our theological disagreements, church politics, arguing over how we use GOD’s money, how to be Christ for all of the people around us—that is wilderness. And in the middle of it, Jesus directs us to see that He is our food. He is our lifeline. He is our direction. He is our guide. He is our Way through the wilderness. Like the disciples earlier in this chapter, just 2 weeks ago, we just need to want Him in the boat and we arrive at the other shore.

Jesus brings up this story of trust to tell the people that they don’t yet trust enough. And we receive it this morning because we don’t yet trust enough. We trust by doing the work GOD gives us, not the stuff that preserves our prestige. We trust by loving GOD and our neighbor. We trust by gathering in blessed community and sharing in a common meal. We trust by praying and singing. We trust by moving over to the co-pilot’s seat. We trust by wanting Jesus in the boat.

We trust by doing what we’ve been called to do. Feed, evangelize, trust, praise, welcome. The rest is not our job. Doing only what we are called to do and none of the other stuff: that is our best expression of trust.

About the Bread

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a Homily for Proper 12B 

Text: John 6:1-21

Focus on the Feeding

 

English: Jesus feeding a crowd with 5 loaves o...

Jesus feeding a crowd with 5 loaves of bread and two fish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With the Feeding of the Five Thousand, we get one of the most recognizable stories of Jesus in the Bible. To many of us, this is quintessential Jesus. He feeds people. He performs a miracle. He instructs the disciples. He transforms how people are able to see the Almighty. It is iconic. Put up against the other iconic images of Jesus: Baptism, Good Shepherd, Transfiguration, Triumphal Entry, Crucifixion, etc.: this stands near the top.

What does that to us, do you think?

Is it the mystery? The “how’d he do that?”

Is it the majesty of the event? That it happened with five thousand people?

Is it the surprise? Turning five loaves and 2 fish into a feast?

Is it the generosity? That so many were given so much from so little?

Whatever the cause, this iconic message of GOD’s power in Jesus sticks with us. The same can’t be said for the second half of the story. The story of how the disciples went on ahead without Jesus, how Jesus avoided the grip of the crowd looking to crown Him king, how the storm and the walking on water make the disciples fearful. How Jesus hops in the boat and suddenly they reach the shore. For some reason, this part of the story is harder to stick with. Perhaps it sounds too much like other moments of surprising power.

Mark’s version of the story concludes with the daunting line:

And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

I wonder if the reason we focus on the feeding and not on the walking on water is because we don’t understand about the loaves.

The Loaves

On Friday Night, Rose and I ate at this little restaurant in Gladwin. We had the best fried whitefish we had ever had. Our plates were stuffed with two big pieces of fish, at least two handfuls of french fries, and bowl of green beans. The meal also began with a house salad and a roll. We were so stuffed! After eating our salads, we had no hope to finish the food off. We were sunk. Nevertheless, we tried. And our stomachs were over-filled. It was uncomfortable. But it seemed worth it.

From GOD giving the Hebrews manna while wandering in the desert to Jesus feeding these thousands of people, GOD’s focus is on enough. They eat enough. Not sufficient, right? Not the minimum necessary. They eat their fill. They eat enough. And yet too often, we are confused by this. Particularly in our realm of abundance. We eat, not until we are filled, but until we are overfull. And I think there is a difference.

More to the point is that what they are given is bread. In Jesus’s world, bread is your food. Bread is the difference between life and death. Bread gives life. Jesus teaching us about our daily bread, that each of us must have our daily bread, He is making a truly troubling statement. All of us must survive. All must be fed. All must have a meal on our table every day. And not scraps or the trimmings. Some good, fresh bread. It seems as if we do not understand about the bread.

Come to the Table

 

Mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication of ...

Mosaic in the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves und the Fishes at Tabgha near the Sea of Galilee (Yam Kinneret), Israel. According to the pious legend, in this place Jesus fed 5000 pilgrims with five loaves of bread and two fish. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How this story fits into the wider scope of this gospel is much more than a magic trick, as if this is one more proof of how awesome Jesus is. It is a profound testimony to faith. Faith in GOD’s abundance in a world of scarcity.

The people following Jesus are most interested in the miracles. They have seen great feats of power. They have watched demons get banished, the sick have been healed. They have witnessed a powerful servant who represents to them something more than prophet. But what? They aren’t willing to face the truth.

The disciples are similarly stuck on the tangible issues: how can we get these people to go home and eat dinner with their families, how much will it cost to feed all of them, how might we find food at Jesus’s request, how might we fashion a dinner out of so little? And what Jesus provides isn’t tangibles, but something more. His power exists outside of the tangible world. Where 5 loaves and 2 fish not only feed 5,000 people, but from the abundance, 12 baskets of leftovers are collected. This doesn’t happen in a land of scarcity. This can only happen in a world of abundance.

The disciples leave that world of abundance when they hop in the boat and leave Jesus up the mountain. The storm rages, hope seems to be lost. Last time, they were upset at Jesus for sleeping in the back of the boat, but now? They left him behind! And as he approaches the boat, He announces who He is. He says “I AM, do not be afraid!” He bears the power of GOD, the great I AM. And as he comes to them, they want Him in the boat. Then the chaos ends.

Wanting Jesus In Our Boat

At St. Paul’s it is far too easy to be like the disciples who make two big mistakes: they are fixated on their land of scarcity and they hop in the boat without Jesus. Looking at the Michigan economy, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. Reading our financial reports, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. Trying to put together a budget for next year, using last years numbers and only adjusting for inflation, we certainly appear to live in the land of scarcity. But Jesus brought the disciples to this spot to witness a break from that reality: a glimpse of not another world that lives far away, but a world that is so very near, we could touch it if we wanted. A world of such abundance that even the tiniest mustard seed could grow into a remarkable bush, and a boy’s grocery run suddenly feeds 5,000 people following Jesus plus all of the people they will meet. We aren’t to fixate on the land of scarcity but invest in the world of abundance.

The other mistake we can make is that we forget Jesus is up that mountain. We take off from the shore, certain Jesus has gone on ahead of us or that He’ll meet up with us later. It is a strange moment in the text, really. But there is something to it. Something to that idea that we move ahead without Jesus, without the One Whom We Follow. Perhaps our storms are so big and scary because they are created by Jesus’s absence, or by our failure to allow Him to participate in our plans. Maybe we take off without Him.

This morning we worship. We worship God in praise and prayer. We will gather around an abundant Table, sharing in the Common Meal. Then we will gather out in the Fellowship Hall for our Semi-Annual Meeting. May we learn from the mistakes of the disciples. May we see the abundance and know GOD’s work is enough. May we want Jesus in the boat with us. And may we be filled with bread; the very substance of life.

In Two Worlds

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a Homily for the First Sunday After Pentecost, year B
Text: John 3:1-17 

click here for the audio

seeing with different eyes

The most important verse in this morning’s pericope is not John 3:16, but 3:8. Here’s how we get there.

Nicodemus and Jesus

Nicodemus and Jesus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As you may have noted, we covered this part of Scripture back in Lent. We had this same conversation with Nicodemus, good ol’ Nick. Then, we were focused on darkness and light. Nick visits Jesus in the dead of night, in secret, so he wouldn’t be discovered. Jesus expounds later in the chapter about light/goodness/public and dark/evil/secret. That in coming to Jesus in secret, Nick is starting from an evil place.

We encounter this Scripture again this morning with different eyes. We have gone through Lent and endured Holy Week. We have praised the Risen Christ and been prepared for His departure. We celebrated His Ascension. And last week, we encountered the Mighty Wind which swept in as something more powerful and important to us than Jesus. This Scripture for us today speaks not about secrecy, but the power of the Spirit.

The structure of this pericope is a dialogue between Nick and Jesus. The heart of this discussion is how confusing Jesus is being! We must admit that there is reason Nick doesn’t follow Jesus’s line of argument. “Born from above”? What is this nonsense?

blinded by dualism

Jesus’s teaching of Nicodemus is confusing. We are just as likely to not follow Jesus here because we are only using half of our vision. Jesus talks about “born of flesh” and spirit and earthly vs. heavenly things and in it, we hear Western Philosophy’s natural dualism. Things are black or white, either/or. This goes back to the philosopher Plato, who described the world as having a dual nature: the light and the dark, the flesh and the soul. He saw our bodies as grotesque and evil while within us resides a soul that is pure and perfect. You can see how this Greek influence pervades the Roman interpretation of Jesus and the church. The Jews, like Jesus, however, did not possess such a philosophy. There’s was more holistic and less confrontational. So for Jesus and Nicodemus, being earthly and heavenly need not be mutually exclusive. We may be born of flesh and spirit.

Yet, this still brings up all of the big church fights:

  1. What is the nature of baptism?
  2. What is heaven?
  3. What of evil?
  4. How do we know what is GOD’s doing and what is ours?
  5. Is Jesus the only way?
  6. What does Jesus mean by “belief”?

Ugh! It makes my head spin. Is Jesus really saying all that we attribute to Him here?

where earth and heaven meet

Many say so. I don’t.

It sounds more like Jesus is trying to teach this teacher to see what it means to live in two worlds at once. The world he was raised in and the world GOD has called for. The world that is and the world that could and will be. Both worlds he should know about already.

How we know that other world; the world of being born from above and of heavenly things; is the Spirit. Hence verse 8:

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

The Greek word for Spirit is also the same as wind. “The Spirit/Wind blows where it chooses…so it is with everyone who is born of the Wind.” Same goes for verse 6:

What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

“What is born of the wind is wind.”

This earthly image of our spiritual connector shows both that essential tie between the two worlds and the vehicle by which Jesus is trying to get Nick to catch fire! He will see heavenly things when he hears the Spirit in the wind and sees the work of GOD in this world and by these people.

in both worlds

The Spirit’s work is all around us. Jesus says “don’t be astonished.” This is how GOD is moving us. And make no mistake that we are being moved. We are always being moved. Like the Hebrew people in the desert after GOD liberates them from Egypt, we are being led on a huge journey. And the sooner we realize that we “hear the sound of it, but [we] do not know where it come from or where it goes” the better off we are. Because this is how we get there.

Our earthly selves may find that thought troubling—that we are following something we can’t see, we don’t know where it came from, or where it is going. But our heavenly selves are ecstatic. Because this is trust. This is the ultimate faith in GOD. Our fates are not ours to control independently. We aren’t the masters of our individual destinies.

Instead, we are promised something better. We are partners: with God and one another: dwelling in two worlds and moved by the wind; whose power surpasses all understanding. It is with this wind and this dual nature, that we are a kite rising up and taking flight.