Connections

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 7, 2018

22 Proper B

          After our father died back in April, my brother, sister, and I needed to figure out how to celebrate his life and that of our mother who died five years earlier.  For those of us who live and breathe in the church world, we have a starting point for that celebration.  We will have a funeral or memorial service.  My family of origin-my parents and siblings-does not have that starting point.  I am the sheep who left the fold in search of other pastures.  So, my siblings and I threw the great memorial cocktail party. We set the date in late June and sent out invitations by email, snail meal, word of mouth, and any other means we could think of.  Our goal was to invite anyone who wanted to come and celebrate the lives of our parents.

          When the day arrived, my brother, sister, and I were bowled over by both the people who came from far and near, and the deep connections we felt with people we had not seen in decades.  George, our babysitter when we were elementary school children, came from California. I’m pretty sure I had not seen George since 1970.  I had not seen Burton, our cousin from Nashville, since our grandmother died in 1988.  Julie was our dad’s friend from elementary school in New York during World War 2, and I hadn’t seen her in at least 40 years.  And 90-year-old Harry was our next door neighbor in New Jersey in the 1980’s.  Despite the time and distance since our last encounters, the deep and lasting connections we had with each other were renewed in a single short afternoon.  Our friends and family span the religious and political spectrum from one end clear to the other.  But our shared stories, laughter, and memories gave us an experience of our common bond and deep connection that I will not soon forget.

          Job, on the other hand, is feeling quite the opposite this morning.  In a story that develops over many chapters and raises more questions than answers, Job finds himself tested by Satan and disconnected from his health, his family and friends, his belongings, and his future.  The story raises disturbing questions about God when we hear God agree to let Satan test Job's faith right up to the limit of taking Job's life.  While the intent of the story is to wrestle with the problem of why bad things happen to good people, the story also points to the fundamental importance of being connected with other people as part of our being connected to God. 

The Pharisees have no interest whatsoever in connections this morning. In fact, their intent is quite the opposite as they arrive to test Jesus.  They ask Jesus "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This is perhaps one of the most difficult and painful gospel lessons in the lectionary and I know from your faces as the gospel lesson was read that you are wondering what I will do with this text. However, the Pharisees are not really interested in Jesus’ teaching on divorce.  They are interested in trying to trap Jesus in a loose/loose situation.   The Pharisees ask Jesus "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" If Jesus says "no," he will contradict the teaching of Moses, which allowed a man to write his wife a certificate of dismissal and divorce her. He will also be in trouble with the Romans, since just 4 chapters earlier John the Baptist lost his head, literally, for being critical of Herod Antipas who had divorced his wife to marry his brother’s former wife. If Jesus says "yes," he will raise a whole host of legal and theological questions about marriage. Jesus appears to be trapped.

          Our response to this gospel reading often divides us in one of two camps.  For those of us who have never been divorced, we can easily think that finally there is one hard teaching of Jesus does not apply to us.  For those of us who have experienced the pain of divorce, this passage can make us feel judged, alienated, and condemned by the church, if not Jesus.   Whenever we think Jesus is dividing us, however, we should probably read a bit more closely. 

To respond to the Pharisees’ test, Jesus appeals to Scripture as he usually does when being tested. But Jesus does not appeal to the law of Moses, which would give a straight forward answer to the question put to him. Instead Jesus raises the stakes much higher and appeals to the Creation stories which remind us that we are all connected. Jesus’ answer to the question about divorce is really a teaching about all those places where hardness of heart has caused separation and division that is contrary to creation as God intended it.  The rancor, finger pointing, and name calling we have seen over the past weeks on all manner of issues have brought out the worst on all sides of every issue. I believe God’s heart is broken by the way human beings treat each other.  God created us to be connected, even when we disagree.

Jesus is not letting any of us off the hook this morning.  The Pharisees came to test Jesus with a question about divorce. The answer they anticipated would give separation and division the final word. Instead, Jesus reaches all the way back to the creation of humankind to give them and us an answer that applies to all occasions of human brokenness and gives our connection with each other the final word. Then Jesus takes little children into his arms and blesses them. Little children understand that their survival depends on their connection to God and other people.  This morning, Jesus holds before us the deep connections God intended for us in creation and intends for us now and always.

                                                          Amen.

Radical Generosity

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 23, 2018

20 Proper B

          When I was a child, I loved going to church. We did not go to church as a family-rather my mom dropped the three children off at the little Presbyterian Church close to our house and our parents enjoyed some peace and quiet at home by themselves.  Mom always gave each of us 25 cents for the offering plate, because, as she said in 1965, you shouldn’t pay less than a quarter for good babysitting.  That was my first introduction to stewardship, which is theologically suspect, but made perfectly good sense to my mother.

What I loved about church was that the playing field was level there. Church did not require a person to be athletic, which I was not, smart, which I was not, outgoing, which I was not, or any of the other qualities the world thought a person should have. Church was a place where people were happy to see us just because we were there. We could sing in the choir without tryouts, sit in Sunday School and say nothing, and no one chose teams for games of any sort. There were pictures of Jesus, who seemed to like children and sheep; arts and crafts that required more glue than skill; and some nice grown ups to make sure we all shared at snack time. Church was a place where we felt accepted and valued as children of God.

          When my own children were growing up, I valued the same sorts of things for them about church.  At church, the successes and failures they experienced in school or on the playing field were not where they got their identity.  At church, their identity was as a beloved child of God as it is for each of us.  In every church they attended, there were adults who were interested in them as people, asking about their week, or their concerns, teaching their Sunday School classes and arranging to spend time with them outside of church.  When we baptize a child, the whole congregation promises to support the child in his or her new life in Christ.  As a church, we strive to give children the nurture and support they need to grow in their knowledge and love of God.

          So, this morning, when I see Jesus take a little child in his arms and hear him say "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and who ever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me," I am so much happier than last week when we heard Jesus say "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it." That sounds hard. Welcoming children is easy.

However, cuddling babies and nurturing children is not what Jesus has in mind. Jesus is not talking about 21st century children. Jesus is talking about 1st century children. In the first century, children were liabilities, not assets. Sixty percent of all children did not make it to their 16th birthday, so parents had many children in order to have a few survive. Children had no rights; no status. If an adult male needed an heir, he adopted another adult to inherit his wealth, not a child. Children ranked below women and only slightly above slaves. So, for Jesus, an adult male, to bring someone from the very margins of society right into his own arms was outrageous. For Jesus to tell the disciples that whoever welcomed one such child in Jesus’ name, welcomed him, and welcomed the God who sent him was shocking. 

The gospel lesson begins with Jesus’ prediction that he will be betrayed into human hands, be killed, and three days after being killed, rise again. We are told that the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying and they were afraid to ask. Their lack of understanding is emphasized when their immediate response to Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death is to argue among themselves about which one of them is the greatest. Jesus settles their argument by telling them that whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. Taking the child into his arms is an object lesson of sorts, to emphasize his point about the last being first. But Jesus is doing much more than simply settling an argument among his disciples and teaching them about true greatness. Jesus is teaching them the appropriate response to his teaching that he will be betrayed, killed and rise again. The appropriate response is not to argue over who will get first class tickets and reserved seating. The faithful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is radical generosity. The faithful response is to imitate the radical generosity of God, in which Jesus gives his life for the life of the world, a world that betrayed him, rejected him, and handed him over to death and God’s response is to redeem the world nonetheless.

If the faithful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection is radical generosity, what does that generosity look like?  The reading from James gives us a clue.  The letter from James describes a generosity that is peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. Conflicts and disputes, we are told, come from selfish ambition, or the opposite of radical generosity. A community that is torn by strife and disagreement is not capable of genuine and radical generosity because they are all about themselves, not others. But a community infused with the wisdom from above, which is pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy, is able to embrace everyone from each other to those who could not be more different, with equal warmth and hospitality, demonstrating the generosity of God.  James’s instructions sound a lot like our theme this fall, which is to live with glad and generous hearts, reflecting for the world and each other the depth of God’s generosity. 

Jesus calls us to make our response to his suffering, death, and resurrection a radical generosity, not arguing over who is the greatest, or who is right, or even who is the most generous, but welcoming and serving all people with the generosity of God.  Jesus calls us to a life of radical generosity, because radical generosity is the faithful response to the gospel. 

                                                                   Amen.

Promise

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 16, 2018

19 Proper B

          Several years ago, a friend and I went to England at the request of our bishop to study the ordination process in the church there.  While we spent a good bit of the two weeks working on this project, we also had time for what we affectionately called our “Pew and Pub” tour.   One Sunday afternoon in London, we managed to make Evensong in three different churches and visit several others.  At St. James Church in Piccadilly, we found a remarkable mission statement posted outside the building.  St. James has vibrant outreach, a diverse congregation, and is very engaged in their community, all wonderful attributes in a church.  Their mission statement proclaims their values of inclusivity, the ability to question, and their solidarity with the poor and marginalized, all of which are common in church mission statements.  But what got my attention was the very last sentence.  At the bottom of the mission statement are these words: “We don’t mange this all the time, so we try again.”

          This morning, Peter has managed to give Jesus the correct answer to the question “Who do you say that I am?”   Peter says “You are the Messiah,” which is obviously the right answer.  Peter must be feeling pretty proud of himself.  The problem is that Peter has no idea what his words mean.  When Jesus tells the disciples that he will “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,” Peter objects.  Messiahs do not suffer and die, and Peter has no clue what “and after three days rise again” could possibly mean.  Peter has not only managed to get his understanding of the Messiah completely wrong; he has completely ticked Jesus off in the process.  “Get behind me Satan,” are words no one wants to hear.

          As hurt as Peter must be by Jesus’ stern rebuke, he does not walk away, nor does Jesus, in his anger, send Peter packing.  Instead, Jesus calls the crowds and the disciples together and begins to teach them, hopefully with some measure of patience, about discipleship.  How does one follow a messiah who will suffer, die, and on the third day rise again?  The answer is very different from the way one would follow a messiah who is successful by the world’s standard.  Jesus says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

          Jesus has given the crowds, the disciples, and us three clear, if not easy steps to being his followers.  Step one: Deny yourself.  In other words, Jesus is saying “It’s not about you.”  Seek and serve Christ in all people.  Respect the dignity of every human being.  We don’t get to pick and choose, because following Jesus is not about us. 

Step two: Take up your cross.  This step gets confused with hoisting all of our burdens onto our shoulders and trudging off to follow Jesus.  This is the same Jesus who says in another gospel “Come to me all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”   Jesus is telling us to pick up the cross of Christ, the cross with which we were sealed in baptism and which is now our own cross.  Pick up the cross that proclaims the triumph of light over darkness and life over death. Proclaim the Good News of Christ with our words and our actions. 

Step three: Jesus says “Follow me.”  Being a disciple of Jesus is about following Jesus where Jesus goes, and Jesus goes to the sick, the poor, and those on the margins, working for justice and peace.  Jesus goes to the cross, not around the cross, calling us to follow, knowing that the cross will not have the final word.  Jesus calls us to follow, promising that he will go first, where ever our journey takes us.

          This morning, we will baptize Alexa Scheiferstein.  In baptism, she will be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Jesus’ cross will become Alexa’s cross.  We will all reaffirm our commitment to follow Jesus with the promises of the baptismal covenant, promising to seek and serve Christ in all people, work for justice and peace, respect the dignity of every human being, and proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus.  As Peter found out this morning, however, following Jesus is not easy.  The first two promises of the baptismal covenant recognize that fact.  First, we promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.  We need each other, and we need the nourishment that comes from worship to be able to follow Jesus.  We cannot follow Jesus alone.  This is also why the congregation will be asked in a few minutes if we will do all in our power to support Alexa in her life in Christ.  She cannot do this by herself.  Secondly, we promise to “persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.”  The Baptismal Covenant assumes that we will not always get this right.  We are called not to walk away, but to try again and again and again.  We promise not to give up.  In the spirit of the St. James, Piccadilly mission statement, we won’t manage to keep all of these promises all the time, so we promise to try again.

          Jesus never said following him would be the easy path, or the most convenient, or the cheapest.  But Jesus does promise that being his follower leads to life.   And being a follower of Jesus means following Jesus.

                                                                             Amen.

         

Hearts

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 2, 2018

17 Proper B

When Don and I were first married, we lived in Nashville, Tennessee where Don was in graduate school at Vanderbilt.  In Nashville, there are many Episcopal Churches from which to choose.  We sampled Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Episcopal churches, a historic downtown broad church, friendly churches, decidedly unfriendly churches, and everything in between.  One Sunday we made our way to one of the smaller churches in Nashville, one we really didn't know anything about.  The service was a standard Rite 2 Holy Eucharist, so nothing unfamiliar to us.  But when we went to the altar rail to receive communion, before placing the bread in our hands, the priest looked us in the eye and said, not "The body of Christ the bread of heaven," but "Have you been confirmed?"  Now, before the current prayer book, adopted in January of 1979, the official teaching of the Episcopal Church was that confirmation was admission to communion.  The idea was that a person needed to have made a mature affirmation of faith before receiving the Eucharist.  But this was 1982, and the 1979 prayer book understands that baptism is full initiation into the life of the church and that includes receiving communion.  So I was stunned-not only by the priest's question but at his nerve to ask the question at the altar rail of someone with their hands outstretched waiting to receive Christ in the bread and the wine.  There was no question in my mind that had the answer been "no," we would have been refused.  We had been called out for being strangers and possibly unfit for the sacred meal.  I felt judged, even though I met the requirements.

I wonder how Jesus' disciples felt when they were called out by the religious authorities for eating with defiled hands.  On the one hand, Mark does not portray the disciples as the brightest lights in the building.  They are forever misunderstanding Jesus.  In fact, just prior to the story we heard this morning, we were told that the disciples did not understand the feeding of the 5000, because their hearts were hardened.  But on the other hand, the disciples have given up everything and followed Jesus.  Earlier in Mark's gospel, we are told that the disciples had successfully cast out demons and anointed the sick with oil and cured them.  How many of us can claim success like that?  Had I been one of those disciples, I might have been a tad bit offended when called out for not living according to the tradition of the elders and keeping my hands clean.

On a first reading of the gospel lesson, we might think that Jesus is criticizing the tradition of the elders in favor of good works. Jesus quotes Isaiah who says "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines."  Then Jesus teaches the crowd that evil comes from within; that there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile the human heart.

The reading from James teaches likewise.  We hear these words: "Be doers of the word and not merely hearers."  Like Jesus' quote from the prophet Isaiah, the emphasis seems to be on works.  James writes "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."  Merely hearing the word is not sufficient.  Right action is what is required.

So, what does Jesus want?  The intent of the Jewish ritual was to make all of life holy.  So, what a person ate or drank, or how a person kept clean, or what a person did on the Sabbath, or how a person worshiped mattered. All of life was to be holy and pleasing to God.  But on the other hand, Jesus was clearly concerned with the commandments of God that have to do with our relationships with our fellow human beings.  Everything in Jesus' list of evils has to do with harming other people.  Which does Jesus want?

What Jesus wants is our heart.  Jesus wants ritual that forms our hearts so that the actions that come from our hearts honor God and each other.  Jesus is not an either/or sort of Savior.  Jesus is a both/and Savior. If we come to this place for beautiful worship, and our hearts are not formed to do gospel work, then Jesus has some harsh things to say and our worship is empty.  If we work at our Welcome Table, or Open M, or First Serve, or go about our day to day lives, and we do not see Jesus in the people we encounter, then our actions are empty, too.  In worship, we sing great hymns, pray the ancient prayers of the church, hear the sacred story, break bread, connect with God and each other, then hear the words of the dismissal "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord."  That worship opens our hearts and sends us out into the world to encounter God.   Then our hearts are more open and patient with people who view the world differently than we do, or who have needs we may or may not be able to meet, or who need to hear a bit of Good News and be treated with kindness and respect.  Those encounters drive us back here to worship, pray, and connect.  Which sends us back into the world in an endless cycle of ritual or worship, and works.  On Labor Day Sunday, we offer the Blessing of Hands as part of our worship as a reminder of the connection between what we do with our lives and what we profess with our lips.  Jesus tells us that neither worship nor works are complete without the other because both are needed to form our hearts as people of God. And our hearts are what matter to Jesus.

                                                                          Amen.

                                                                    

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.