Abide

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 26, 2018

16 Proper B

          Several months ago, we had a technology meltdown in the church office.  For some unknown reason, the phone and internet were out and our computers were not working.  Kathy Garber, our parish administrator, put in a call to our tech support and we spent the morning cleaning out old file drawers.  We found lots of treasures that morning, including a service bulletin from the dedication of this church on January 18, 1995.  From the bulletin, I can tell that the music was spectacular.  The processional hymn was “Lift High the Cross,” which was elected this parish’s number one favorite hymn in our voting this summer.  The prayers were deeply moving.  The baptismal font, lectern, and pulpit were dedicated and the altar was consecrated.  There were five communion hymns, so I’m guessing the church was packed.  I can only imagine how glorious the celebration was as this beautiful space was offered to God.

          This morning, we hear about the glorious dedication of another place of worship, the temple in Jerusalem.  The year was likely around 960 BC.  Solomon has built this temple as a house for God.  The temple is large and ornate-a fitting home for the God who led the people out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.  We watch as the priests of the temple place the Ark of the Covenant in the inner sanctuary, the most holy place in the Temple.  The Ark of the Covenant contained the tablets on which the 10 commandments were written and were thought to contain the very presence of God.  Once the priests come out of the inner sanctuary, the whole temple fills with a cloud as the glory of God fills the temple. A pillar of cloud led the Israelites through the wilderness and protected them as they entered the promised land.  That cloud signified the presence of God with them.  Now that same cloud fills the Temple.  Finally, Solomon prays that God will hear the prayers of all people who pray in the Temple, so that all people might know God and fear God.

But even in the midst of the dedication of this great temple, Solomon asks "But will God indeed dwell on the earth?  Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house I have built."  Even as Solomon dedicates the elaborate, ornate Temple, he knows that God will not actually live there.  The God who has wandered with God's people is not likely to be confined in a temple.

But will God indeed dwell on the earth?  John's gospel, from which we hear this morning, tells us that, in Jesus, the very God who wandered through the wilderness with God's people and led them into the Promised Land has chosen to dwell among us, wander with us, if you will, on earth.  The gospel begins with the words "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  A few verses later we are told that "the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, full of grace and truth."  This morning, we hear Jesus say "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them."  The Word has not only become flesh, the Word invites us to abide or dwell in him and he in us.  And many of his disciples understandably say "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?"

On the day this church was consecrated, the Sr. Warden, who, according to the service bulletin was Gretchen Green, prayed this prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, make this a temple of your presence and a house of prayer.  Be always near us when we seek you in this place. Draw us to you, when we come alone and when we come with others, to find comfort and wisdom, to be supported and strengthened, to rejoice and give thanks.  May it be here, Lord Christ, that we are made one with you and with one another, so that our lives are sustained and sanctified for your service.”  We come to this holy place to seek comfort and wisdom, for support and strength, and to rejoice and give thanks.  We do this so that our lives are sustained and sanctified for Jesus’ service.  And Jesus is to be found in the world around us, wandering among all people and in all places.  So we are called to take that comfort, strength, joy and gratitude out into the world.  We live together as a people of faith here, so that we know how to live as people of faith in the world.  We encounter Jesus in the bread and wine here, which teaches us to recognize and experience Jesus where ever we break bread.  In this holy place, we learn how to abide in Jesus and let Jesus abide in us.  When the disciples say, "This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?" Jesus doesn't say "No, it's not."  He says, "Does this offend you?"  Abiding in Jesus is hard, because abiding in Jesus demands that we see the world as Jesus sees and follow where Jesus goes.  The gospels tell us that Jesus went, not just to the synagogue, but to the cities, villages, and remote places where people were sick, hungry, or in any need or trouble. 

          Jesus answers Solomon's question "But will God indeed dwell on earth?" with the words "Abide in me and I in you."  We respond to Jesus' promise to abide in us and his call to abide in him with the words of our baptismal covenant as we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to work for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human person.  These promises are difficult but holy work, requiring God’s comfort and wisdom, support and strength, along with much joy and gratitude.  But through that work, nourished in this place, the world will experience our belief that Jesus is the holy one of God.  

                                                                                      Amen.

Living

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 19, 2018

15 Proper B

           “Live Like You Were Dying” is a great country song written and sung by Tim McGraw.  The song has a lively tune and a compelling message.  A friend has received some scary test results and McGraw asks “How’s it hit you when you get that kind of news?  Man, what’d you do?”  The friend’s answer is that he “went skydiving, rocky mountain climbing, loved deeper, lived sweeter, and gave forgiveness that he’d been denying.”  Then, in the song, the friend says to McGraw “Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.”  The song urges us to take our mortality seriously and make a bucket list so we can squeeze every possible bit out of life before we no longer have the opportunity.

          This morning, we hear Jesus say “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”  Then Jesus says “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” Those words call to mind Jesus’ words at the last supper where Jesus took a loaf of bread, broke it and said “Take, eat.  This is my body.”  Then Jesus took a cup of wine and said “Drink from it, all of you.  For this is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  We hear these words every week as the bread and wine are blessed in the Eucharist.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as Jesus nears the end of his earthly life, Jesus gives the disciples this bread, this meal, as a way to both remember Jesus and be connected with him after he is gone.  The focus of the meal is on Jesus’ upcoming death.

Today, however, we hear from John’s gospel, and John tells the story differently.  In John's gospel, there is no meal involved on the night Jesus is arrested. Instead, as Jesus gathers with his disciples that last night, he washes their feet.   The passages we have heard over the last four weeks about the bread of life all come in early in John's gospel, right after the feeding of the 5000, not at the end of his life.  In the middle of Jesus' life, after he has fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fish, Jesus says "I am the living bread that came down from heaven."  In the middle of Jesus’ life, he says “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

          In the 7 verses of our gospel reading this morning, the word "life" or "living" occurs 8 times.  "I am the living bread." "Whoever eats of this bread will live forever." “Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.”  In another few chapters, Jesus will say “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”  And in yet another few chapters, Jesus will say “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”   With all due respect to Tim McGraw, in John’s gospel, Jesus is not calling us to live like we are dying.  Jesus does not give us a bucket list of things we need to accomplish before we die.  Jesus calls us to live like we are fully alive, abiding in the life Jesus has given us.

          What does living like we are fully alive look like if there is no bucket list involved?  The reading from Ephesians gives us part of the answer to that question.  The writer exhorts us to “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  When we live like we are fully alive, we live as grateful people and we see the world as grateful people.  Our lives and our actions are shaped by that gratitude.

          The second part of the answer comes, in a round about way, from our reading from I Kings.  On the surface, the reading gives us the impression that David and Solomon have been wonderful examples of the faithful life.  We hear God say that David kept God’s statutes and commandments, and God is so pleased with Solomon that God asks Solomon what God can give Solomon.  When Solomon asks for wisdom, God throws in riches and honor as well.  Surely, David and Solomon must be models of faithful life.

          But, what about David and Bathsheba?  And what about Solomon’s sacrifices at the high places?   What about Solomon’s marriage alliance with Pharaoh, King of Egypt, which happens in the two verses immediately prior to our story this morning. Has God forgotten about all of this decidedly unfaithful behavior?

          And this is the second point about living as people who are fully alive.  God clearly loves David and Solomon despite their mistakes.  And the two men love God. People who live like they are fully alive can do that because they know they are loved unconditionally by God, even when they make grievous mistakes, and in turn, they love God unconditionally.    Their lives are defined by God’s love for them and their love for God, not the sum total of their successes minus their failures.

          This morning, we baptize Piper Josephine Althouse.  Baptism is the sacrament by which we are joined with Christ in Christ’s death and resurrection, assuring us of eternal life.  In baptism, we are given our identity as people who are loved by God, regardless and forever.  Through the baptismal covenant, baptism calls us to shape our lives in gratitude for God’s gift of life.  Both Jesus and baptism call us to live, not like we are dying, but like we are fully alive. Forever.                                                                     

 Amen.

Bread

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 5, 2018

13 Proper B

          To celebrate my grandmother’s 80^th birthday, my dad threw a family reunion.   Our family wasn’t large.  My grandmother had two sons, my dad and his brother, both of whom were married and had three children. Some of the grandchildren were married but none of us had children of our own yet.  So, by the time we added a few other relatives, about 15 of us gathered at the Capital Hotel in Little Rock to celebrate the birthday.  We had a wonderful time reuniting with relatives we had not seen in years, telling stories, enjoying a wonderful dinner, laughing ourselves silly, and in general feeling like one big happy family.  Our grandmother soaked up the love and attention.  Whae all left the next day wanting more, wanting to have another reunion, wanting to have the same experience all over again, and wanting that same feeling of being nourished beyond the food.

          I think the people in this morning’s gospel lesson may have experienced something similar.  Last week, we heard the story of the feeding of the 5000, which immediately precedes today’s gospel reading.  In that story, a little boy offers his lunch of 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, and Jesus turns that small offering into a meal that fed thousands.  The people will be talking about this experience for years.  My guess is that there was much excited chatter as the people saw what Jesus had done, and people who came as strangers left as friends.  Perhaps people shared stories about previous encounters with Jesus and wondered what Jesus might do next.  In my imagination at least, the people left with the sense of unity that comes from a shared meal. 

So this morning the people have followed Jesus across the sea wanting more.  They would like another miracle.  They may want that feeling of community that is created when something extraordinary happens.  Perhaps they just want to be with Jesus.  The people are looking for something to fill their hunger and their thirst, the longing in their lives, and they hope another meal of bread and fish will do that.

Jesus is not interested in recreating the Feeding of the 5000 to satisfy a hunger that will only reappear over and over again.  Jesus tells the crowds that he is the Bread of Life and that whoever comes to him will never be hungry and whoever believes in him will never thirst.  How can that be? Jesus is not talking about physical hunger and thirst, which cannot be permanently satisfied.  Jesus is talking our deep spiritual hunger, which often gets mistaken for physical hunger.  Jesus wants to give us that sense of unity with him and with each other which comes from having our spiritual appetite satisfied so that we are not driven by our physical appetites.

          I wonder if the little boy who offered his bread and fish is the one person in the story of the feeding of the 5000 who recognized Jesus as the Bread of Life.  The little boy must have known something of Jesus, otherwise offering his small bit of lunch would have been a waste among so many people.  In our story from 2 Samuel this morning, David forgets that God is the source of the bread that satisfies forever and we are reminded of what happens when we are driven by our physical appetites.  Last week, we heard the story of David and Bathsheba, in which David has an affair with Bathsheba, who is married to Uriah, who is off at battle.  When David finds out that Bathsheba is pregnant, he tries to manipulate the situation so that Uriah appears to be the father.  But Uriah is far too ethical a person to sleep with his wife when his soldiers are out in the field.  So, in order to protect himself, David has Uriah deliberately killed in battle, then takes Bathsheba as his own wife.  This morning, we hear God's fury and God's hurt.  David's actions will have consequences that will extend for generations to come and David will be publicly shamed before all Israel.  What David thought he did in isolation to satisfy his own desires ends up having consequences that will hurt many.  David has forgotten that the deep hunger inside us can only be satisfied by God.  He has sought to satisfy that hunger himself, with disastrous consequences.

On the other hand, the little boy who shared his lunch lived much more in keeping with the reading from Ephesians.  The writer of Ephesians begs us to live "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."  The writer goes on to say "But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love."  The Bread of Life nourishes us to be that body, which is hard work, as we put our individual desires and needs aside and use our gifts for the greater good. 

          Jesus calls us to believe that he is the Bread of Life who satisfies our deepest hunger and greatest thirst.  Jesus also calls us to live out that belief.  If we believe that Jesus is the one who satisfies our hunger, we can more easily live with humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another in love.  If we believe that Jesus is the one who satisfies our thirst, we, like the little boy who offered his lunch, can know God’s abundance and can live with glad and generous hearts.  When we know Jesus as the Bread of Life, our question is transformed from “What can Jesus do for me?” to “What can Jesus do with me?”

                                                                                      Amen.