Blind

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 24, 2021

                                                     25 Proper B

If you have been in my office over the last two and a half years, which I realize hasn’t been easy thanks to Covid-19, you will know that I am madly in love with two small humans named Evelyn and Collins.  Photos of the two girls line the front of my desk, facing outward for anyone who enters my office to enjoy.  The girls are also in photos around my computer monitor where I can easily see them.  There are photos of them playing, photos when they were infants, photos with their great-grandfather, photos of the family, and on and on.  Feel free to drop by anytime and watch them grow up on my desk.

On Tuesday, when I returned from my trip to England, my hands were full when I entered my office and I was thinking about the many things I needed to do that day.  I was in the office early thanks to the gift of jet-lag so no one else was here yet.  When I went to turn my computer on I noticed that something was horribly wrong.  The photo of Evelyn that is by my computer was now a photo of an angry, wild orange cat!  This was not jet-lag.  This was a real photo of a cat.  Cats are not my favorite of God’s creatures-my apologies to all the cat lovers-and I am allergic to them, which made the photo all the more shocking.  There are only two people who have the kind of access to my locked office that would allow such a thing to happen.

When Mario-the organist- and Kathy-the Parish Administrator came in, I held up the photo and said “Do you know anything about this?”  They looked both guilty and puzzled simultaneously.  We all had a good laugh at their clever prank, then Kathy asked “Did you not see the rest of your photos?”  I had walked right past the long line of photos on my desk without noticing that every single one of them with two exceptions was now a photo of a cat.  A cat in a snow hat.  A cat wrapped like a burrito.  A cat in a tie.  A flying cat.  A puzzled cat.  And on and on.  I had been so focused on getting into my office, putting my things away, and getting on with my to-do list, that I had not noticed what my colleagues had done to the photos of my beloved granddaughters.  I was blind to the hysterical prank that was staring me in the face. 

The disciples are also focused on the work ahead this morning, and they don’t see much either.  They are headed to Jerusalem and were it not for a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, they would have passed right through Jericho.  When the blind man hears that Jesus is coming, he cries out “Jesus, Son of David! Have mercy on me!” The disciples try to hush the blind man but Jesus comes to a stop and says “Call him here.” And Jesus says to Bartimaeus “What do you want me to do for you?” 

“What do you want me to do for you?”  We heard those very words from Jesus last week when James and John approached Jesus and said “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”  What James and John wanted Jesus to do for them was to grant them to sit, one at Jesus’ right hand and one at his left, in his glory.  Jesus cannot grant that request because it is not his to grant.  What Bartimaeus wants is to see again.  Apparently sight is Jesus’ to grant, because Jesus says “Go, your faith has made you well” and immediately Bartimaeus regains his sight and follows Jesus on the way.

What do we make of these two stories, which we hear on back to back Sundays?  In both stories Jesus asks “What do you want me to do for you?”  In one, Jesus’ very own followers are denied their request.  In the other, a blind man on the side of the road, an outcast, is granted his request.  And the underlying question is “how do we make sure we are among those for whom Jesus will grant our requests.”

There is a lovely passage in the book of Isaiah (59), a book Jesus knew well, in which the prophet describes darkness as a condition where justice is far from us, where righteousness does not reach us, where salvation is far from us, and truth is lacking.  Darkness is that place where the outcasts and the marginalized are invited to stay on the outskirts and remain on the margins.  Jesus could not grant the disciples’ request last Sunday to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in glory because that request perpetuates their blindness to see the world as Jesus sees.  On the other hand, Bartimaeus knows he is blind and he asks Jesus to let him see.  There is the difference in the two stories.  Bartimaeus knows he is blind.  The disciples do not.  Jesus cannot grant a request that perpetuates darkness. 

The real question these stories raise is not “how do we make sure Jesus will grant our request.”  The real question is “what do we not see?”  What, or who, do we not see that Jesus does see?  Just as I did not know I missed the transformation of my photos until it was pointed out to me, I believe there are people and issues right in front of us that we do not see because we are so caught up in getting where we are going, or what we are doing, or because we choose not to look or because we are blind.  However, Jesus does see them.  There are people who feel they have no place in Hudson because of their color, religion, sexual orientation, or marital status, and we seek to include them.  We know that there are people in our community who need groceries at the end of the month, or help with rent or utilities, or Christmas presents, and we try to help.  We know that the needs of the larger community of Summit County are great, and we work to help through Open M, or the Domestic Violence Shelter, or Habitat for Humanity, or Family Promise.  But my guess is that there is injustice that we walk right past, not because we do not care, but because we cannot see.  Those of us who are white may be blind to the situation of people of color. Those of us who have much may be blind to the culture of poverty.  Those of us who are educated may be blind to what life is really like for an adult who cannot read.  But Jesus sees everything and wants to heal our blindness so that justice can be near us, righteousness can reach us, salvation is close and truth is abundant.  To sit at Jesus’ side in glory is not Jesus’ to grant.  But “Teacher, let me see” is a request Jesus can grant.  And the darkness will be lifted, we will see what Jesus sees, and we can be people of light.       

Amen.

Belonging

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 3, 2021

22 Proper B/Alexander Crummell 

          I would hazard a guess that none of us came to church this morning to hear Jesus talk about divorce.  Our gospel reading is perhaps one of the most difficult and painful gospel readings in our lectionary and evidence, once again, that I don't pick them-I just preach them.  We hear hard words from Jesus, ones we would rather not hear and ones that cause great pain.  The Episcopal Church takes the issues of marriage, divorce, and remarriage very seriously, but Jesus' words this morning are far more strict than church teaching.  Jesus' words are uncomfortable at best, and at worst leave people feeling alienated from the church and from the gospel.  Is making people feel marginalized and vulnerable what Jesus intends?  And for those who have never been divorced, can we just walk away from this passage, glad Jesus’ words do not apply to us?

          When the Pharisees ask Jesus “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” we do not have to guess the motive behind their question.  We are told that they are out to trap Jesus.  Jesus, as is typical, takes their question to another level.  He takes the conversation not back to the teaching in Deuteronomy that the Pharisees have in mind, but goes all the way back to the stories of creation.  Those stories remind us that we are all connected, not just those who are married.  Jesus' answer to the Pharisee's question about divorce becomes a teaching about all those places where hardness of heart separate us from each other, where the vulnerable are exploited and people are pushed to the margins of society.  And the vulnerable and the marginalized are exactly the people Jesus seeks to draw into the Kingdom of God.

          In the Episcopal Church, we honor the life of the Rev. Alexander Crummell, a brilliant, well-educated black man born in 1819 to a free black woman and a former slave.  While there is much to commend about Crummell’s life, and I encourage you to read about him, one thing in particular stands out to me.  Crummell’s desire and life’s work was to make a place where black people were fully welcome, a place where they could be connected with the world around them, and a place where they truly belonged.  In other words, Crummell sought to create a place where black people were neither vulnerable nor marginalized, a place that more closely mirrored the Kingdom of God than 19^th century America did. When Crummell discerned a call to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church, he was denied admission to General Seminary because of his color.  The message of the seminary was that he did not belong.  Eventually, Crummell studied for holy orders independently and was ordained in Massachusetts in 1842.  But when Crummell went to Philadelphia in search of a church to serve, he was told by the bishop that he could come to the diocese but that he would never be given a seat at the diocesan convention nor would any black church ever be seated there.  Crummell declined.  The message of the church was that Crummell did not belong.  And, of course, in these years even before the Civil War, the message of society was that black people did not fully belong in this country and could not call this place home in any real sense of the word.

          Because as a black man Crummell could not find a place to belong in his own country, or in his own church, Crummell went to Liberia where he worked for 20 years to form a country for free American blacks.  Part of his motive was to Christianize the African continent and part was to provide a place for free black Americans to have a place where they would belong, really and truly belong, a place they could call home.  The experiment did not work as well as Crummell hoped for a variety of reasons, so after 20 years, he returned to the US to work for civil rights here so that black people could find a real home and deep connections in their own country.  Among his many accomplishments, he founded the American Negro Academy to give 19^th century black intellectuals, of which there were many, a place that would support their scholarship unconditionally.  The original academy members included such well known people as W.E.B. Dubois and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

          Both the reading from Job and Jesus’ words this morning point to the fundamental connections we all have as human beings.  Job would be cut off from his family, health, friends, and even his livestock.  He would be totally marginalized and vulnerable.  From that experience, he would learn the way that his connections with others and with creation are fundamental to his relationship with God.  Jesus points us to our connection with all of humankind when the Pharisees ask about divorce. Instead of getting a direct answer to their question, they are pointed back to creation.  Jesus’ words “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one put asunder” refer not only to marriage, but to the connection among all of humankind by virtue of our creation in the image of God.  I am reminded of the story in John’s gospel where the Pharisees and scribes come before Jesus with a woman caught in adultery and say “Now the law of Moses commands us to stone such a woman.  What do you say?”  And Jesus’ says “Let whoever is without sin cast the first stone.”  And one by one the woman’s accusers walked away.  And through out the gospels, the way Jesus treated sinners of all kinds, including adulterers, was to eat with them which is one of the most fundamental means of human connection.

          The life of Alexander Crummell calls us to recognize the deep connection between all humans, to tear down barriers that divide and disconnect, and to create a church and a society where everyone can fully belong and be completely at home, regardless of race, or gender orientation, or faith, or marital status.  Crummell’s life and the gospel call us to create a church and a society where no one is marginalized or vulnerable and everyone has a place of honor at the table.  Jesus’ words this morning apply to each and every one of us.

                                                          Amen.

         

Our Parable

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 26, 2021

21 Proper B 

          On July 15 of last year, the vestry met in the old Parish Hall, masked and a full 6 feet apart, to hear the report from our architects and construction manager and decide whether to proceed with our Building for Community construction project.  On the plus side, the cost of the project plus contingency funds had come in right at the amount we had in pledges, which was the goal.  Also, because of the pandemic, the building was not in use by our own or outside groups for the foreseeable future, making gutting the space less inconvenient.  On the negative side was the pandemic, economic uncertainty, questions about the availability of labor and supplies, and the general feeling that embarking on a major construction project in the midst of a global pandemic might not be the wisest course of action.

          After a few minutes of very amicable and respectful conversation, our vestry decided unanimously to step out in faith and forge ahead.  Fast forward to today, and after much hard work on the part of the project leadership, a few hiccups of varying degrees, and a lot of toil and labor on the part of many workers, we are here to celebrate, bless, and give thanks to God for our beautiful new and renovated spaces.  Who knew a church could be so excited about new restrooms? 

          While we may be excited, joyful, and grateful this morning, no one in our readings seems to share our joy.  In fact, Jesus and King Ahasuerus seem downright angry, and the writer of James must not be happy with the people to whom he is writing or he would not be telling them how to pray and what to do when someone wanders from the faith! 

          Jesus is angry with his disciples because they fail to see what God is doing in their midst.  John says to Jesus “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”  The disciples cannot see God at work in anyone other than themselves, but earlier in this very chapter of Mark, the disciples themselves had failed to cast out a demon.  Jesus uses very strong language to get the disciples attention and express his anger at their narrow mindedness. 

          King Ahasuerus is also angry.  Furious, in fact.  The story of Esther is a great story, full of humor and plot twists, suspense and intrigue, along with no small amount of violence and other scenes that would disqualify the story for a PG rating, which a sermon must have.  However, at the end of the day, the King is furious because his own Prime Minister, Haman, has plotted to kill all of the Jewish people, of which the King’s wife, Esther, is one.  The King has Haman hung on gallows in a scene that is just about as grizzly as what Jesus says will happen to anyone who puts a stumbling block before a little one who believes in him. Ugh.

          Interestingly, nowhere in the book of Esther is God, the Torah, prayer, or worship mentioned.  The deliverance of the Jewish people in Persia is due strictly to the cunning and conniving of Esther, with some help from Mordecai.  The pairing of this story with Psalm 124 in the lectionary makes it clear that, in Hebrew thought, God gets the credit for delivering God's people every time they are delivered, which is why Esther is included in the Hebrew scriptures despite the lack of any reference to God.  Again, God is at work in the most unlikely of people.

          On a happier note, the writer of James describes the power of prayer, forgiveness, and reconciliation.  While the letter was likely written to people who needed to know these things because they were not practicing them, at least James is not hanging anyone on a gallows or amputating body parts!

          The disciples could not see God at work in the lives of unlikely people.  In the story of Esther, we see God working, unnamed and unmentioned, through the Persians, to liberate God’s people.  The people to whom James is written clearly needed to hear about the life of faith and God’s power to mend their lives.  Today, we have gathered to celebrate God’s work in our lives, moving us into the future, using us to make a gospel difference in our community and the world with the message of God’s love and forgiveness.  We are here today because people, this congregation, you, opened your hearts to what God might be doing in our midst, gave generously of both financial resources as well as time and talent, and took a bold step into the future by completing a fully pledged construction project during a pandemic.  The completion of this project is not an end in itself, but shows us what we can do, the difference we can make when we all give what we can of our time, talent, and treasure.  If we can do this, which we did, there is no end to what God can do through us.

          A faithful church is called to vision, to see what God is doing in our midst and calling us to do.  We are doing that this fall through our cottage conversations as we have done two other times over the past 5 years as no one person or group can do that visioning alone.  We are all called, each one of us, to be listening for what God is doing in our midst and calling us to do.  But visioning alone did not get us a renovated parish hall and new restrooms and will not move us into God’s future.  The commitment of the time, talent, and treasure-financial resources-of each of us is required for a vision to become a reality.  That commitment is just as important now if not more so than it was for the Building for Community project as we re-engage after the many months apart. Everyone in the parish will receive an invitation to a cottage conversation so that we can all dream together about our future.  And everyone will receive a pledge packet so that we can all work together to make our dreams a reality.  The vestry has already made their pledges for 2022 and together the leadership of the parish increased the total of their pledges by over 10 percent to help turn dreams into reality.

          Our readings today call us to see what God is doing in our midst, even when God is working in unlikely places and times, and through unlikely people.  Our Building for Community adventure is a parable for what we can accomplish when we vision together about what God is calling us to do and be and commit together to making that vision a reality.  Our celebration marks not the end of a project, but the beginning of a new season.  There is no end to the amazing and surprising things God can do in our midst when each of us offers our time, talent, and treasure and we all work together.                                                                 Amen.

Darkness

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 12, 2021

19 Proper B 

          The morning sky was a brilliant blue and I was looking forward to a meeting with some colleagues in a town about a 40-minute drive from home.  I was enjoying the day and mindlessly listening to my country station on the radio, when a voice broke in to announce that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center.  My first thought was that the weather in New York City must be pretty awful for a small plane to hit such a towering building.  But by the time I arrived at my meeting, clearly pilot error was not the problem, nor was the weather.  My colleagues and I quickly realized that we needed to head back to our respective churches and figure out what we should do.

          On the way back to the church, I stopped at the gas station and topped off my tank.  I ran by the bank to get enough cash to buy groceries and other necessities for a few weeks, and then went to the grocery store to stock up.  On the one hand, these were practical actions to care for my family in the face of great uncertainty about the future.  On the other hand, I will freely admit that I was acting on fear of the unknown, wanting to feel like I had some control over my life when everything seemed to be spinning out of control.  On a beautiful fall day and in an instant, our world had changed in fearful unimaginable ways.

          I felt much the same way in the days before Covid-19 shut down much of life.  I went to the gas station, the bank, and the grocery store so that Don and I would have what we needed in the event that stores closed, or supplies were disrupted, or we got sick.  And again, on the one hand, these were practical actions of preparation.  And on the other hand, fear of the unknown was driving a lot of my actions as life spun out of control.  All of a sudden, our world had changed again in fearful ways we had never imagined.

          The people for whom Mark’s gospel was originally written were also in a frightful situation.  When the gospel was written, the Romans were either about to destroy Jerusalem and the temple or had already done so.  Either way, military occupation was a fearsome reality and the Romans had little use for Jews or Christians.  The great hope of Christians was that Jesus would return and save his followers from the Romans, but that was not happening.  Where was Jesus when his followers so desperately needed him?

          This morning, we hear Jesus say to his disciples “Who do people say that I am?”  We are a little more than halfway through Mark’s gospel.  Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing his way through the cities and the countryside.  Who do people say that Jesus is?  Clearly the people hold Jesus in high esteem as they believe him to be John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets, any one of whom would have had to return from the dead to be Jesus.  Then Jesus asks “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter replies “You are the Messiah.”  But instead of saying “Right answer!” Jesus commands the disciples to tell no one about him.

          Why?  Perhaps because Peter has the right title but the wrong identity.  When Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah, perhaps Peter is thinking of someone who is going to right all wrongs, end Roman occupation, and restore Israel to her former glory.  But Jesus teaches his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be killed, and after three days rise again.  Peter only hears the part about great suffering and being killed.  This is clearly not in Peter’s Messiah job description for he rebukes Jesus for even thinking such a thing.  Jesus replies with perhaps the harshest statement Jesus ever makes in the gospels.  “Get behind me Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

          In times of darkness, whether after 9/11, or in the midst of a global pandemic, or in whatever personal or systemic darkness we might find ourselves, Jesus asks us “Who do you say that I am?”  We can all too easily think, like Peter, and like James and John who will soon ask to sit on the right and left hands of Jesus in glory, that if we are faithful in following Jesus, there should be no darkness.  But Jesus says “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  In telling the disciples that he will undergo great suffering, and be killed, and after three days rise again, Jesus is telling the disciples and us, that as the Messiah, the anointed one of God, he will go through the challenges, through the darkness, even through death, and not around it, but that the darkness will not have the final word.  In telling the disciples, and us, to take up our cross and follow him, Jesus is telling us to take up our cross, the cross with which we were anointed in baptism, the cross of Christ and follow him.  Jesus will go first into the darkness, not around the darkness, and Jesus calls us to trust and follow where he leads.  Jesus never says following him will be easy, or painless, or risk-free. Jesus says “Those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” 

          In the darkness, Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?”  In the darkness, Jesus reminds us that there is no darkness he has not already encountered in his suffering and death, and that after three days he did rise again.  In the darkness, Jesus calls us to follow where he leads, which is through the darkness, not around it, and to remember that darkness, hatred and death did not have the final say.  Love, light, and life won, as Jesus said they would.  In the darkest of times, Jesus calls us to be people who follow Jesus, whose very lives demonstrate in all we say and do that even in the darkest of times, love, light and life have won.

                                                                             Amen. 

Our Labor

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 5, 2021

18 Proper B 

          Apparently, Jesus has gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, as my mother used to say when one of her children came downstairs in the morning grumpy and out of sorts.  As a good southern woman, Mom might also add a “Bless his heart.”  Jesus is inexplicably rude to the Gentile woman this morning when she begs Jesus to cast the demon out of her daughter.  Jesus’ response is “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs.”  Jesus is not talking about household pets waiting patiently for any morsel to be dropped to the floor from the highchair.  Comparing the woman to a beloved household pet would be bad enough.  But he is comparing the women with a mangy wild dog foraging for food. 

          This is totally unexpected behavior from Jesus.  The Gentile woman is of Syrophoenician origin.  She does not live in Israel.  She does not practice Judaism.  Her ancestors were enemies of Israel.  And yet, she approaches Jesus believing that he can heal her daughter.  Jesus seems to be telling us that we should take care of our own people first, and the others can have whatever crumbs are left.  We expect Jesus, based on many of his parables, healings, and teachings, to remind us with his words and actions of God’s call to care for all people.   The reading from Proverbs says “Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the Lord pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.”  And the reading from James reminds us “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Jesus would do well to listen to those words this morning!

          There is no good explanation for Jesus’ rudeness toward the Syrophoenician woman.  Some commentaries chalk it up to Jesus’ being tired and having his time away interrupted by yet more human need.  Others say he was just having a bad day, or he is teasing the woman, or testing her faith.  Still others suggest that Jesus did not understand that his mission was to both Jews and Gentiles until the woman in this story challenges him.  But I do know this: if we let ourselves get hung up on Jesus’ rudeness, we will miss the larger and more important point of the story.

          In the end, Jesus does cast the demon out of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter.  Not only that, Jesus also heals a deaf man with a speech impediment.  The way Jesus goes about that healing is not exactly good pandemic hygiene!  But hygiene aside, Jesus’ healing is effective, and the man can hear and speak clearly.                                                                                                          

Throughout the gospels as well as the book of Isaiah, the sign that the Kingdom of God has come near is that the lame can walk, the deaf can hear, the blind can see, and the oppressed are freed.  In today’s story, the child oppressed by a demon is freed and a man is healed of his deafness.  Jesus’ actions this morning tell us that the Kingdom of God has come near.

The real question this morning is not “Why was Jesus so rude?” The real question is “What are we doing with our lives as followers of Jesus to make the Kingdom of God come near?”  The news of late is filled with images of Afghan refugees fleeing for their lives, devastation from the earthquake in Haiti, mindboggling damage from hurricane Ida, and Covid-ravaged parts of the country and the world.  In some cases, like the Syrophoenician woman, the people do not live here or are not from here. They do not worship like we do and come from a very different culture.  They may even have been our enemies at some point.  In another place in the gospels, Jesus is clear about how we treat our enemies when he tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who harm us.  In other cases, we know victims of the wrath of Hurricane Ida, or know people who know victims, or have visited the affected communities and feel some connection with them.  But whether we feel connected or not, the call of the gospel is to use our lives to make the Kingdom of God a more present reality in the world today, doing what we can to liberate the oppressed, heal the sick, and care for those in need, whoever and wherever they are.  How can we make the Kingdom of God a more present reality for those who will resettle in northeast Ohio, or who have lost everything in Hurricane Ida, or who are grieving the loss of a loved one to Covid-19? 

On this Labor Day Sunday, we ask God's blessing upon all of our labor, on all that we do with our lives.  In a few minutes, we will pray a litany for our labor and you will be invited forward for the anointing or blessing of your hands.  All of our labor, whatever we do and wherever we do it, can be work that makes the Kingdom of God come near, whether here at home, in our country, or around the world.    Jesus calls us to open our hearts to make the Kingdom come near for those close by and those far way, for those we know and for those we don’t know, for those we feel a connection with and for those we don’t. Jesus' work was simply to make the Kingdom of God come near.  Period.  Jesus calls us to do likewise.

                                                                             Amen.

 

 

Flesh

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 15, 2021

15 Proper B 

          Some years ago, I was doing a Bible study on this morning’s gospel lesson with a group of bright, theologically astute middle school students.  You have really not lived until you have talked with 7^th and 8^th graders about Jesus and what sounds a lot like cannibalism.  They were appalled at Jesus’ words “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  The kids were as horrified as the people in John’s gospel this morning and were no less shy about voicing their disgust. 

          In order to prevent a major rebellion among the kids and rescue our conversation, I asked them to think of ways to express the depth of a relationship or to describe great love.  They came up with ideas like devouring a novel, or sayings like “I could just gobble that baby up.”  They talked about the way having a meal together was about more than just eating and nourishing their bodies-this after they had just consumed a mind-boggling amount of pizza and a large pan of brownies while we talked.  Thinking about relationships and love naturally brought them around to thinking about food.

          In John’s gospel, there is no last supper where Jesus takes bread, breaks it, gives it to his disciples and says “Take, eat, this is my body given for you.”  Jesus does not take wine and say “Drink this all of you.  This is my blood, given for you.”  Those things happen in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and that meal is described in 1 Corinthians.  But not in John’s gospel.  In John’s gospel, at the last supper, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.  So when Jesus talks this morning about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he is up to something else, something even more outrageous. 

          Jesus is describing a relationship so organic and so intimate than only the language of eating and drinking will suffice to explain it.  Jesus is describing a relationship in which his followers are made one with him.  Through out John’s gospel, oneness with Jesus is a theme.  Jesus will use the metaphor of the vine and the branches later in John’s gospel when he says “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” (John 15:5).  Jesus also says “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.”  (14:19-20) And “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (15:11)  Over and over again in John’s gospel, Jesus uses language that shows how deeply he and his followers are connected.  But none of that language is as jarring as the language about eating flesh and drinking blood.

          This morning, we also hear about God’s great love for David and Solomon, and if this passage gave us all we know about David and Solomon we could easily assume that they were perfect, easy to love people.  God says about David “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statues and my commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your life.”  And God gives Solomon the wisdom and discerning heart he asks for, plus a bonus of riches and honor all his life.  Solomon must be one faithful guy. However, God seems to be experiencing a bit of divine amnesia!  Has God forgotten about David and Bathsheba and the way David had Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle so he could take Bathsheba as his wife?  And in the verses just prior to this morning’s reading from 1 Kings, Solomon has made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and he marries Pharaoh’s daughter. He finishes building his own house before building God’s house, which means the people had to make their sacrifices at the high places, the places of pagan worship, since they had no temple of their own. We are told that Solomon, too, sacrificed at the high places.  Has God completely forgotten what these two men have done?  Or is God’s love so outrageous that God loves these two men despite their faults?

          Being connected with God, being loved by and loving God, does not make us perfect.  David and Solomon clearly were not always perfect or right.  Jesus’ disciples were not always perfect or right.  Jesus never asked or expected his disciples, past or present to be perfect.  What the love of God and the depth of connection with Jesus give us is not perfection, but an identity, an identity that transcends our own successes and failures and is rooted entirely in the love of God.  In the Episcopal Church, our baptismal covenant spells out what that life of connection looks like.  In the baptismal covenant, we are called to corporate worship, to stay connected even when we have done wrong and would prefer to flee, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, and to use our words and our lives to proclaim the gospel-the good news that in the death and resurrection of Jesus we are all connected and that love and life are more powerful than hate and death. 

          These days, the stresses of Covid-19 are working hard to drive us apart and make us each more concerned about our own welfare and our own desires than the common good.  Arguments over masks, vaccines, and what is safe and what is not are rampant in our community and all over the country, making us look a bit more like David and Solomon on their bad days, wanting to satisfy our own desires, than perhaps we would like.  In the midst of the stresses and strains of our current life, we hear Jesus tell his followers that real life, the depth and richness of eternal life, comes from a connection with him that can only be described with the language of eating and drinking and that and our true identity comes from that connection.  As horrified as those middle school students were at Jesus’ language about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, much pizza and many brownies later they realized that, as Christians, their identity comes from their connection with Jesus and that their actions are a reflection of that connection.

                                                                   Amen.

Sign

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 1, 2021

13 Proper B 

          One of the most memorable lines in “The Wizard of Oz” comes at the end of the film when the good witch Glinda descends in a bubble right in front of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion.  Dorothy and her companions have been following the yellow brick road to find the Wizard who can help Dorothy get hone to Kansas.  Many adventures and misadventures later, Dorothy and her companions finally find the Wizard of Oz who turns out to be “a good man, but a bad wizard,” or in other words of no use to them whatsoever in helping Dorothy get home. When all hope seems lost, Glinda the good witch appears before them and says to Dorothy “You’ve always had the power, my dear.  You just had to learn it for yourself.”  All Dorothy needs to do to get home is to click the ruby red slippers she has been wearing since she arrived in Oz and say “there’s no place like home.”  She had that power all along, but the power was useless until she knew she had it.

          Our gospel reading this morning reminds me of Glinda’s words to Dorothy.  The people have just witnessed the feeding of the 5000, a story we heard last week, where Jesus took a small bit of bread and fish and turned it into such a feast that there were 12 baskets full left over.  This week, the same crowds are chasing Jesus down and when they find Jesus, Jesus says to them “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”  Last week, Janet Daniels reminded us in her sermon that while in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the feeding of the 5000 is a miracle story, in John’s gospel the feeding of the 5000 is a sign, a sign that points to Jesus as God.  The people have seen the miracle and been fed physically by the loaves and fishes, but they have missed the sign that Jesus is the Son of God who satisfies them with life itself.   Then the people ask Jesus “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  In other words, tell us how to do such a miracle.  But Jesus answers “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”  Finally, they ask Jesus, “What sign are you going to give us that we may see it and believe you?”  This after Jesus has turned a bit of bread and fish into a meal for thousands complete with leftovers. At the end of the reading, when the people say “Sir, give us this bread always,” I hear Jesus heave a big sigh and say to them “I am the bread of life.”  The bread for which they so long, the bread of life, is standing right in front of them but the people are completely unaware.    

          When the people ask “What must we do to perform the works of God,” Jesus’ response is “Believe in him who he has sent.”  On the one hand, we could take this to mean that if we believe that Jesus is the bread of life, then we will be able to create massive amounts of food from almost nothing.  That is not an unworthy goal.  We could solve the problem of world hunger if we could just replicate Jesus’ miracle.  But on the other hand, I wonder if Jesus is telling us that if we believe that Jesus is the bread of life, our lives will become a sign that points to the living God just as the loaves and fishes did.  The reading from Ephesians calls us to live with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, in other words, putting the needs of others ahead of our own wants and desires and living as people who believe in the Bread of Life.  The reading also reminds us that each of us have been given gifts for the purpose of building up the body of Christ and being signs to the world of the love of God.  Some will be pastors and teachers, others apostles, prophets, or evangelists, and still others parents, medical professionals, trades people, business owners, or chefs. And the list goes on and on.  We have been given those gifts as specific ways to show the world humility, gentleness, patience, and love and be signs to the world of the living love of God.   

The truth is that living lives filled with humility, gentleness, and patience, lives that bear all others in love is hard work.  Even when we want with our whole hearts to live that way, caring for the vulnerable and putting the needs of others ahead of our own as Jesus did, and using our lives as a sign that points to the living God, we sometimes fail.  When we are tempted to think that our particular lives cannot possibly be a sign that points to the living God, we only have to look to David, a great king but a very flawed human being, whose sinfulness is on full display in the reading from 2 Samuel.  Despite his brokenness, sinfulness, lust, deceit, and adultery; despite being the exact opposite of the characteristics described in the reading from Ephesians, David loved God and was beloved of God.  God used David to create a great kingdom that, at its best, pointed to the living God.  The story from 2 Samuel is God saying “no excuses, people.”  If God can use David, God can use us.

The people are looking for Jesus to satisfy their hunger or at least teach them how to do a miracle so they can satisfy their own hunger and perhaps the hunger of others.  Jesus is looking for followers who know him to be the bread of life that satisfies their deep hunger and the hunger of the world.  Jesus is looking for followers who want to use their lives as signs that point to the living love of God.  Like Dorothy, we have already been given every gift we need to be the people Jesus is calling us to be.  Unlike Dorothy, we don’t have to learn it for ourselves.  Jesus stands in our midst to show us the way and says time and time again “I am the bread of life.”

                                                                             Amen.