West Denmark Lutheran Church

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

9 What gain have the workers from their toil? ¹⁰I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. ¹¹He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ¹²I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; ¹³moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. ¹⁴I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. ¹⁵That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

Psalm 67

2 Corinthians 5

¹⁴For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. ¹⁵And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him in that way no longer. 

¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. ¹⁴Let all that you do be done in love.                   (1 Corinthians 16:13)

I have spent a fair amount of time fussing about the right format or proper tone for this final sermon.

The great farewell speeches of the Bible — Moses standing with the twelve tribes of Israel looking out over the Promised Land at the end of their Exodus, and Jesus’ lengthy final discourse in the gospel of John are — well, they are a bit out of my league. 

The Lectionary readings appointed for today are of no help. The gospel reading is from Mark and is Jesus’ commentary on divorce.  We have, in ways, been cleaved together, you and I, but ours is an amicable separation.

It is an ending, though, for both parties involved, with doors closing on one room to open into another — with stages of grief, acceptance of change, and hope for the future all mixed together with prayer, and placed into God’s hands. So, in that regard, it has the components of a funeral sermon — but still, this isn’t the occasion for a funeral sermon. Mike and I are only moving after all, and hopefully, even my houseplants will live through it.

I did pause for some time considering the merits of that passage in Genesis where Adam and Eve are sent out from the Garden of Eden with the flaming swords of the cherubim guarding the gate preventing their return… that might be a bit dramatic.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way (this much)  if I had had more than one call, but my whole life as a pastor has been here, among you, in this place, in this bright and beautiful church. You have filled my imagination for what it means to be church as beloved community — which makes it more difficult to leave than if I had approached my time here as a career move. And, in turn, you have gotten used to my ways, accommodated them, come to know what to expect from me as your pastor, so a change of styles and voice and interests will be noticeable, but with your typical grace and good humor, you will welcome them.

What then shall we say of this?

I did finally find help in scripture — remembering one who excelled at benedictions and encouraging farewells: the Apostle Paul. The records left of his ministry are his letters to congregations helping them remember (and look for) Christ among them. Paul’s ministry was continually on the move (except for when he was in prison) and so he became a master at gracious farewells.

As a faithful Jew living in pagan Roman culture, but convinced of the living presence of a crucified Christ, Paul used whatever imagery or cultural allusion he could draw on to explain this crucified and risen God to new audiences, convincing them of the love and mercy found in true relationships formed through the workings of the Holy Spirit. One of his favorite images was that of a body and the way body parts work together for the functioning of the whole.

While sorting things in my office, I found the bulletin from my ordination service. This is one of the readings I had chosen for that day:

Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome: 12:3 “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” ⁹ Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; … If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”  

I chose that reading 18 years ago because it fit my understanding of the priesthood of all believers. It still does. I felt called and was ordained into an office — as Lutherans say, for good order — not because I was more godly than any of you. We are ordinary humans, each extraordinary in some ways. The particular gifts of each individual stand out in a little congregation. We know who the cooks are (and will soon sample the proof!). We know those who grow beautiful bouquets and have bountiful gardens. We know the great bakers, those who are creative writers, and patient quilters. We know who to call when there’s a problem with the plumbing. We know who shows up to clean the church. We know that the business and finances are cared for and accessible. We know who mows the lawn, who maintains the cemetery and its records. We know who retains the knowledge of Danish ways. (And I pray that the current leadership – who does not have that particular knowledge, will seek it out and consider it well.) We know who provides the wine and the bread for communion, who is the first one here in the morning to make coffee and the last one out the door taking home the trash. We know who has the gift of creating a choir from ordinary voices. We know who can bring order from chaos and propel us forward. We know who are the teachers and exhorters, skit writers and actors, preachers and prophets, artists and musicians, care-givers and peacemakers. We know who can give Jonah a perfectly Yiddish voice when called upon, and those who read scripture with intelligible gravitas. We know those striving for justice beyond these walls and who are engaged in building better worlds, and solid housing, and stacks of firewood. We know who can write grants and who collects the prayers of the people each week. We know those who take time to maintain connections and communication, encouraging and welcoming members and guests alike. These talents are known, but there are also hidden surprises, waiting for their season.

West Denmark is a fully functioning body in and through it’s ordinary, imperfect members.

This congregation has been in existence for 151 years and Mike and I have been here for 24 of those years. I was the first female pastor called to serve here – and it was a touchy thing. I’m sorry to say we lost members over it. I never wanted to be a cause of division and some of my happiest thoughts are of those who have taken issue with me, but stayed to work it through, to realize that we are together the body of our Lord and cannot function as the whole without the various members and our individual gifts and rubbing points. For a body’s joint to bend, for a breath to be drawn, for movement to happen, one muscle must pull and the opposing set must give way. There is always give and take, in and out, someone striving forward and another holding onto the cherished past. It takes all viewpoints and it takes careful listening to be whole.

Along the way, people die or move away and we grieve them and think that the tear in our fabric created by their absence will never mend. While it is true that the person is not replaced, the gap is bridged, new skills rise up, new people take things a new direction. Scars heal. That is the way of nature and of healthy communities. 

I do think this coming year will be an interesting time for you. A time to open the windows and let the wind blow through, to think again of who you want to be as a church in the neighborhood, how you might rearrange the way things have always been to meet new needs. And you have so many gifts already in place to build upon.

We were the first church in the area to become a Reconciling in Christ church – that means we welcome and celebrate the being, presence, gifts, courage, and faith of our gay, lesbian, trans, queer, and non-binary brothers and sisters. We were the first to install solar panels as a statement of our commitment to sustainable energy and care of the earth. Harry and Chris’s choir is seriously good and draws people who love to sing, to make something disciplined and beautiful together. Shawn’s work creating a lay visitation ministry will weave new connections of care. Mark Pedersen has brought not only the Heritage Folk concerts into our doors several times a year, but established a world-class, week-long Fiddle School with Harald Haugaard. The Woodland School is a bold step out in faith to address the local child care desert with the values of our Scandinavian heritage to learn from and within nature. We have strong connections to the Regenerative/Sustainable farming movement – which isn’t a new practice but a refining and intentional return to old practices of soil care that many of your forebears practiced. There is a new flock of little one’s coming to Sunday School this year, and an on-going commitment to their Christian education.

Through these and other ministries, West Denmark is current and alive, at the same time that we celebrate the old customs and festivals of Juletre, Fastelavns, Fishboil, Æbleskiver, Family Camp folk school, July4th festival and Harvest Fest in much the same way as the congregation did generations ago.

It’s a fun, strong mix. Paul’s letters encourage his original hearers to live peaceful, orderly lives, looking out for the welfare of others, attending to the common good. We who believe in God, who are aspiring disciples of Jesus Christ, who strive to discern the Spirit’s calling – do so not so much for our own personal edification or benefit (although there is certainly personal benefit in that), but more, to create a faithful, beloved community; to live with integrity and goodwill with our neighbors – foreign and domestic, flora and fauna, resident or immigrant – all alike — because that is the model ancient scripture and Jesus gave us. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and love our enemies as equal, beloved children of God.

Back to Paul, this time from his letter to the Thessalonians:

5:¹² we appeal to you, brothers and sisters,… be at peace among yourselves. ¹⁴…admonish the idlers, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. ¹⁵See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. ¹⁶Rejoice always, ¹⁷pray without ceasing, ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹Do not quench the Spirit!”

I especially like that last line. The thing about the gifts Paul highlights and the urgings he makes is that they are for living, not simply private believing. He instructs how to live together, how to use one’s gifts in service to others, and, therefore, in service to God. To be Christlike is to listen for God’s calling and offer yourself in humble service and in thanksgiving for all that we have received. 

The Force is strong here – the Spirit of God – and will continue to challenge and guide your new ventures of which we cannot yet see the ending.

And, once more from Paul – Philippians 4 –  echoing the passage from Ecclesiastes: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…. and the God of peace will be with you.” Amen

And at the end….

John 6:56-69

⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This word is difficult; who can hear it?” 

 ⁶¹But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.”   For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”

⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Luke, chapter14

Jesus told this parable: ‘Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. ¹⁷At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, “Come; for everything is ready now.” ¹⁸But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my apologies.” ¹⁹Another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my apologies.” ²⁰Another said, “I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.” 

²¹So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, “Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.” ²²And the slave said, “Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.” ²³Then the master said to the slave, “Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. ²⁴For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” ’

This too, is a difficult word.

This is the fifth and final week spent circling around Jesus’ pronouncement that he is the Bread of Life, the incarnate word that feeds and sustains – much like the miraculous manna that brought the ancient Israelites through the barren wilderness. Bread that came down from heaven, they were fed from God’s hand.

This bread that is Jesus’ body has also come from God as gift and sign. The sign of God’s abiding love for the world.

There have been grumblers all along, we are told – mostly among the Jewish temple leaders who believed it is blasphemy to claim to be of God, to be one with God. The fact that Jesus is talking about the necessity to eat and drink his flesh and blood almost doesn’t matter to them. It comes as a secondary scandal. 

But what we have noticed last week and this, is that others are now falling away, too. Even – as we have just heard – many who were disciples, followers, students. The twelve remain, but among them is Judas, who will betray Jesus, and Peter who will deny him, and the rest who run away (although they do come back). 

So, the sun has gone under a cloud. The winnowing of believers has begun. At the end of Jesus’ life there are just a few left.

And, that, too, is part of the mystery of the gospel. Jesus is the Word of God, the Wisdom of God who calls and invites all the world to a feast. As we know from our own circle of family and friends, not everyone responds to the invitation. In fact, many do not. God gets ghosted. 

That has always been the case, from Genesis on throughout the Bible and out of the Bible into our lives. The call goes out, the word of welcome and promise, of hope and belonging is spoken, but many turn away. That observable fact is what motivates a lot of the gospels’ content.  In John, the first major character we meet is Nicodemus – a pharisee who believed he knew and loved God, but couldn’t quite make sense of Jesus. A character of ambiguity, he does come back at the very end to help bury Jesus’ body. The next story is of the Samaritan woman – an outsider in every way – who is mystified, but comes to believe. These two stories set up the dynamic of doubt and belief that flows throughout the gospel. Even within Jesus’ inner circle, even at the very end, there is doubting Thomas who needs to see and touch, not only hear in order to believe. Matthew, Mark and Luke explore the question with Jesus’ parables, such as the sower of seed who scatters seed on good and bad and hard packed and rocky soil waiting to see what will grow, knowing much of it will not. The story of the banquet is another version of the same dynamic. The invitation goes out, but the invited guests are too busy: fields to see, animals to tend, family obligations… stuff to do, not that hungry now, thanks anyway. “Please make my apologies”, they say.

Early Christians wondered why their stump speeches and leaflets and door knocking had such limited success. Why is it that this word of God has such creative power, and yet is so … ignorable? We baptize our children not knowing if faith will develop, or what life circumstances will draw them toward God or possibly send them away. We baptize in faith and hope that the Spirit will do her work, that, like seed growing deep in the soil, faith will blossom in due course, in the fullness of time. But we don’t know.

This bread discourse tells us that faith is a relationship with God, and with others. We know that relationships take work, some degree of consistency in showing up seems to be required, of being attentive to the needs and ways of the other, time spent listening. Faith, like relationships, is not a static, once and done thing. It changes, ebbs and flows. Sometimes we hear the Word clearly and – often – it gets muffled or muted altogether. In John’s gospel, the word “abide” is used well over 20 times. “The Word was made flesh and abided among us.” It is what Jesus most presses on his disciples – “Abide in me as I abide in my Father.”

⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This word is difficult; who can hear it?” 

I think the abiding is what makes his word hard to hear, not the eating part. Abiding with another requires one to give up many aspects of self-determination. Think of when you brought home a puppy and what that new relationship required of you, or your first year of being coupled and sorting out responsibilities and schedules and how to be together as individuals, or the first 6 to 9 months of being a nursing mom, when even your body is not really your own – and these sacrifices are all done for love! Abiding with Jesus in God is an invitation to dive deep and give it all up. That is a hard invitation to accept.

But, the faith relationship is also communal. We gather to practice abiding, to compare notes in trusting God, to share our efforts at faithful following, and to support those who are struggling. Jesus didn’t just choose one super disciple who could absorb all the wonder; he choose a dozen men, and we know there were a number of women hovering in the inside ring, feeding them, leaning in, listening to the Word. They all had each other to bounce the word around. Faith is personal, but not private; it is held between us, held in our and other hands and hearts, ebbing and flowing, waxing and waning.

Jesus asks if they want to leave, to give it up, if the word is too difficult to accept, and Peter has this wonderful line to deliver. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe in you as the Holy One of God.” They are in it for the long haul. They are willing to throw in their lot with this crazy, remarkable, compelling man they can’t quite get the measure of. They have heard the word, felt the word live within them, take up residence in them, and they trust him, whom they can’t explain, often can’t comprehend, but who speaks a word of God that gives life. 

That is the best we can do for ourselves and for our little ones, too. Make connections, show up – to a community of faith for the benefit it brings to you and for what you might offer others, show up in life for the causes you care about, be available to a word from God through prayer and through the nudgings of those you trust, expect your relationship with the holy One to grow and change – knowing growth is often uncomfortable and sometimes unwanted.

These scripture readings tell us that faith is not a given. I still find that a difficult word, something to wonder about. It’s not a matter of simply deciding to believe, but it does still requires us to choose, to be present to God, even as we are continually invited to abide in the fellowship of love. It seems to be an on-going enterprise for God’s spirit, and open-ended option — and there is hope in that for all.

Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.
²She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.
³She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, ⁴“You that are simple, turn in here!”  To those without sense she says, ⁵“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. ⁶Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

Jesus’ somewhat confusing, disturbing, mystical discussion on bread continues: 

John 6:51-58     

⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

When the verses of a single, short chapter are spread over 5 weeks you can imagine that the commentators are talking about every, single, word – like sports commentators filling air space while a play is being studied by the officials. For example, while the word translated as “eat” earlier in the chapter refers to a general kind of consuming, in these sentences Jesus (or John) changes it, and chose instead a voracious, munching, chomping kind of eating word in Greek. That word choice raises the scandal meter to the breaking point – it’s bad enough that Jesus is saying people must eat his flesh and drink his blood to accomplish eternal life, but he is now describing that eating in graphic terms. It’s disgusting and absolutely against the commandments given by Moses where eating any meat/flesh with the blood still in it is forbidden. Next week we’ll hear the disciples say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”  Indeed. 

There is also the constant swirling, repetition of phrases changing a single word that subtly alters the meaning or emphasis, so that the teaching is doubly difficult to understand.

“He gave them bread from heaven to eat”, in verse 31 is referring to God giving manna to the Israelites through Moses.
“My father gives you the true bread from heaven,” (verse 32) shifts from manna to the gift of Jesus’ incarnation.
“The bread I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Verse 51 is now not referring to Jesus’ being, but to his body. He is not the host of the meal, but the meal itself. 

The message seems designed to drive people away…and as we will hear next week, it did.

Why do this? Why make these difficult statements that were absolutely sure to create conflict? Why not, instead, double down on the gracious invitation of Woman Wisdom inviting everyone to a feast?

Wisdom invites the young and the foolish to her table so they might gain understanding and live the good life, in the best sense of that term. But, maybe that graciousness needs a counterpoint – needed it then and needs it now. Jesus fed a lot of people miraculous bread and fish, and we are told they followed after him, not for the teaching of God’s Word, but for the good life of free bread and fish.

Wisdom was extolling the good life of integrity and wisdom. Today, the good life stands for material prosperity and leisure and plenty. There’s an advertisement, a full-page spread of a gleaming black sports car and, across the top, the words “The key to an extraordinary life is quite literally a key.” At the bottom of the ad is a key fob for a Maserati.

With a base price equivalent to twice the annual income of the average American worker, that Maserati sports car is a lure of the good life. The advertising industry and social media platforms home in on the universal desire to lead a life that is above average. While most of us would not put an Italian sports car on our bucket list of the good life, we do, as a culture at least, admire the trappings of wealth and power over lives of virtue, integrity, honesty, hard work, and faithfulness.

Jesus’ circular teaching started with free bread, and with each round, he shaves away the more straightforward meaning to get to the core, to the meat of the matter – the way that eating and drinking incorporates food into our beings. “You are what you eat”, the old adage goes. If you eat Christ, you become Christlike. If you eat his body and blood, he becomes one with you and you with him. It’s a strange, visceral entry point to talking about abiding in God. Later in the gospel, he assures his disciples saying, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.’  That’s a bit easier to hear.

So, happily leaving behind a discussion of flesh and blood, I turned my attention to thoughts of abiding. What does it mean to abide? We abide in abodes – and they come in all sizes and degrees of permanence. One room studio apartments, mobile homes, tiny homes, hand-made homes, single family homes, town homes, inherited homes, estates. Some people stay in tents or boxes. 

Because I’m in the process of moving, houses and the stuff we live with comes up a lot in the conversations I’ve been having. I’ve also helped two of our children move their things into new spaces this summer. Finding a home, a place to abide, is a huge part of our adult work. Housing ourselves and our families. We look for safety, convenience, affordability, then comfort, aesthetics, and style. If we have the ability, the luxury to be choosy, we look for the right “feel”, and know it almost immediately when we step into a new space. We outfit our abiding place with furniture, decorations, and mementos that help us feel at home, that bring a sense of sanctuary, of peace and belonging.  We use our homes to say “I belong in this place. The things around me speak of my values, my interests, my people.” For most of us, our abodes offer a view, an outer extension or interpretation of who we are. It’s a different, but related concept to, “You are what you eat.”

The church building, this sanctuary, gives an immediate sense of what this congregation is about. Scandinavian culture is evident in the clean, open lines, in the sanctuary ship; the clear glass tells its own story of the appreciation of natural beauty, transparency, a valuing of present life. There was discussion before the grand piano was purchased about whether it would be too grand, too ostentatious or too big. Would it detract or distract from worship? That conversation was important and interesting. Now, we can’t imagine abiding for worship in this space without it.  And yet, I’m sure everyone felt the same way about the furnishings and building of the church that burned. But you did. You did continue gathering for worship, you did move into a different space while this one was designed and built. Because it wasn’t the building you worshiped, and it wasn’t the building that defined the relationships. Churches house faithfulness, but don’t create or contain it.

Housing is temporary – war, flooding, fires, economics – these things can and do alter our address. What is at the core of your abiding place, what do you cherish? I think about the people who live in wildfire and flood zones and have an evacuation kit. What would be in there? If you have a plan, I suppose it is the important household paperwork – insurance policies, bank account information, passports, a few photos, the family jewels…..  In each of the parsonages we’ve moved into – especially when the children were small – I would rehearse the fire evacuation plan in my head before I’d go to sleep. How would I get to everyone, how would we get out if the stairway was blocked? I didn’t want to wake up disoriented by a new house, I needed to know the plan. My evacuation plan didn’t consider any paperwork, no family records or documents, no precious knick knacks – only what really mattered. Only the children, Mike and me, and the pets if we could.

That is what this passage in John leads us to. The thing that really matters is the abiding relationship not the abode. It’s the body of Christ incorporated into our bodies, Jesus’ life into our lives, the Word of God that we take into us so often, so deeply that it becomes part of us, like protein.

It’s significant that the sacramental language of the Eucharist occurs here, early in the gospel, and not at the end as it does in the other gospels.

“To share in the meal is not to remember or commemorate one particular event, but is to share in all of Jesus’ life, including, ultimately, his death,” writes Gail O’Day.  “Participation in the meal creates a relationship between Jesus and the believer that contains within it the promise of new life.”  And it is that new life that we are to find compelling, that we are to be drawn toward and into. A new life now, in Christ’s presence now, that leads, eventually, to life in God’s eternity of being.

Isaac Watts’ beautiful hymn is an interpretation of Psalm 23, but the final verse surely comes from John. He writes,  “The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days; oh, may your house be my abode and all my work be praise. Here would I find a settled rest, while others go and come; no more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.

Is. 58:6-9 

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rearguard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

John 6:35-51

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. ³⁷Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; ³⁸for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. ⁴⁰This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’

⁴¹Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ ⁴²They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ ⁴³Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

 ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

I found a package with two brat buns in the back of my refrigerator. You know how things kind of work their way back, and, especially if they are on the bottom shelf, the container of lettuce goes in and out in front of them, and when the salad is gone, the big leftover casserole fills that space, and then maybe a bag of apples, and it takes a while for the apples to get eaten and other things are tucked into whatever space is created, and all the while there are those two brat buns way in the back … well, months can pass. And they did.  So, when I finally discovered them, I pulled them out with trepidation expecting some kind of toxic black mold.  But they were fine. They looked fine, smelled fine, were still fresh, soft — fine.         Do you realize how wrong that is? 

When our daughter Marnie studied in Ireland for a semester, the informational packet warned students about bread and other baked goods. Only buy what you can reasonably eat in a week, they said, because bread molds. The preservatives we add to everything in this country are not used in Ireland. Food spoils in a natural, timely manner. Not like my brat buns, which seems to be bread that will last forever.

I don’t know why this came to mind as I was considering bread and eternal life – Jesus was not talking about preservatives that the extend shelf life.  He does not make the claim that eating the bread of heaven will extend our lives or protect us from spoilage. 

The life he gives is eternal life, not on-going life – and there’s a big difference between them. But still, he was talking about actual bread to start with. In gospel time, this discussion happened the day after he fed 5000 people with 5 small loaves of barley bread. So it started out being about actual bread to feed physical hunger. But it didn’t stay there.

‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

We know Jesus is not a baked good. By comparing himself to bread, is Jesus simply making himself as necessary to us as the food we eat? That’s part of it. 

In John, we rarely know what Jesus is actually saying even though we know the words he uses. I would refer you to the Celtic knot design on the bulletin cover. It seems natural that the Celtic Christians preferred the gospel of John. They understood interweaving a single strand into something complex and beautiful. Conversations such as this discourse on bread start with a definite topic, but very soon Jesus is talking at right angles: related, but heading in a different direction, doubling back in a parallel track. So it is with ‘bread’, ‘bread of life’, ‘manna and Moses’, ‘bread from heaven’, and the ‘bread’ that is his flesh. There is a thread of logic connecting these “bread” words, and we do end facing the same direction that we began, but the ground has shifted. I find it very confusing.

Beginning with the five barley loaves that he blessed and broke and gave for all to eat, we end this passage with Jesus saying, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

He claims to be our food, enabling us to live life’s call, to be alive to God’s mystery and wonder, to be our source of spiritual energy when exhausted, our consolation when we are troubled, our strength when we are weak. Jesus, the bread of life, sustains us and restores our moral compass and compassionate heart. I get that. But, believing in Jesus in life and in death, and in life beyond death, doesn’t end hunger or thirst either on a physical level or a spiritual one, because we still live in a physical world where bodies matter. Believing in Jesus doesn’t (shouldn’t) end our hunger and thirst for justice, for example, for a world in which all bodies have adequate food and clean water. Strong faith doesn’t end your hunger for healing or companionship or any of the other myriad ways in which our bodies hunger. 

It seems that the whole God-with-us, Word-made-flesh enterprise is sold short if the point of the bread of life is only eternal life. But we move on…

The Word – God’s word – became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s how the gospel begins, and now that flesh, Jesus’ body, is given for the life of the world. Blessed, broken and given for all. These are the words of communion – a meal in which the corpus of Christ, the bread of endless loaves is broken again and again until all are fed the presence of Christ. And filling a hungry tummy becomes a way of talking about eternal life, because we’re actually talking about Jesus, not bread.

If you see the shifts and connections Jesus is making between manna (a physical bread-y substance) that God sent to sustain the Israelites in the wilderness (bread from Heaven), and the 5 little endless loaves, and himself – the word of God that is God, who sustains and feeds our souls, then it might be best to stop there and talk about something else. It’s like trying to explain how bread baking in the oven smells. I mean, why would you try? It’s best just to experience it.

And if this discussion is about Jesus and not bread, then something else stands out – verses actually skipped by the Revised Common Lectionary which I’ve added back in. 

^{Verses 36-39 “}But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe.Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; ³⁸for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. ³⁹And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

Throughout chapter 6, there are multiple references to manna from the Israelite’s time in the wilderness. They were rescued, sustained, and lead by God through Moses’ hand through a 40 year time of testing, and at last sent into the promised land. Manna was their bread in the wilderness, and, along with the quail, was a powerful, daily sign of God’s presence and provision.

The point of God choosing Israel was that they were to be a light to the nations, to draw people into a relationship with God, and so to trust God, to know God. The point of choosing Israel was not to exclude the other nations, but, rather, to attract them, to draw the others in, using Israel as the bait and hook, so to speak. So, in the fullness of time, God came in Jesus in the same way, for the same purpose, to draw others into a relationship with God, so that they would see and trust and believe in God through the physical body of Jesus in his life and teaching, and through the Spirit of Christ after Jesus’ death. 

The goal has always been the same, for all people to be in a relationship of trust and love with God.

So, when we hear Jesus say the will of God is that nothing should be lost or left or forsaken, that is in continuity with the God of the prophets and Moses and Abraham before him. In chapter 17, in his farewell prayer, Jesus says, “³This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Knowing equals believing equals abiding equals relationship equals eternal life.      Eternal life begins in this earthly life, in the relationship we are called into by God’s spirit, and that continues without end, no matter how circumstances change. Our modern concepts of heaven are not very biblical. Eternal life is relational, more than spacial.  So that what we begin here is carried on in the mystery and love of God, in the fullness and being of God, in the life of God, which is eternal – eternal life. 

Passing loaves of bread around, helping physical bodies, working for justice— all of this is tied together with the eternal invitation to come and see and know God. For us, it is through Jesus, and as illustrated in the swirling, Celtic knot, with no ending, holding all things together in one path. 

The gospel reading continues the 6th chapter of John. It is the morning after the meal of five loaves and two fish that fed the crowd of 5000 on a mountain outside of Tiberias. 

John 6:24-34

²⁴So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. ²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” ²⁶Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

²⁸Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” ²⁹Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” ³⁰So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” ³²Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 

Repetition is essential for learning. If you’ve watched the Olympics at all this week you’ll have that impressed on your brain. Athletes spend years preparing for the Olympics repeating the same movements, the same start, the same leap, the same stroke, the same routine so that, when their turn finally comes to perform, their bodies know what to do, almost without thinking — preferably without thinking. One of the commentators for gymnastics said the balance beam is more difficult than the other apparatuses in women’s gymnastics because there is time to think. There are required artistic components that break up the physical flow and allow thoughts to creep in. That’s bad. It’s safer to have muscle memory be in charge and the precision learned in thousands of hours of repetition. 

On a more practical note, repetition helps us find our car keys or coffee cup, helps us form routines for getting to work on time, or getting to sleep at night. Without repetition, every experience is novel. Can you imagine going through even a day when everything you do or experience is for the first time? Maybe it’s why infants and toddlers need so much sleep. Constantly trying to make sense of new experiences is exhausting. 

On the other hand, we all know what it is to repeat ourselves again and again, only to have our words seemly sucked into a black hole. The repetition seems to elicit no learning – muscle or otherwise – in our intended target. 

So, to the gospel of John. For one thing, paired with Exodus, I can’t see why God would keep trying. It is almost a direct repeat. God/ Jesus does something amazing to benefit the people involved – parting the sea, providing a meal – and within a day they are complaining. The Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt because they were thirsty. I mean, yes, it is a huge desert, but still, God got them there through Moses’ leadership in performing nine miraculous acts and then leading them through the water. Can’t they imagine that there might be provision? And once they get water, they complain about food. And once they get food they complain about lack of variety in the food. 

In the gospel version, the crowd following Jesus participates in the meal that keeps on giving, watching him break those small loaves of bread over and over again until everyone had enough and still there were leftovers, and the next day they ask what sign he is going to do so they can believe that he is of God? Really? They followed him in the first place because they saw him heal diseases that no one else could. He taught with understanding and wisdom no one else had. Then he hosted that meal. Then he somehow beat them to Capernaum, and they wonder what mighty acts of God he might perform so they can believe? Wow. 

So, Jesus starts talking and he says the same thing over and over in slightly different ways. Lets talk about bread, he says. You all know what bread is. You eat it every day. And everyday you get hungry again, and want more bread. This is the way of the world. But there is more to your existence than bread. There is more to your life, more to your being, more to do than to scramble around looking for your next meal – as hard as that is to hear when you’re hungry. Life is not defined by your hunger. There is more than the endless repetition of scrounging for bread and preparing bread and eating bread and starting again. The “More” happens in your soul and spirit even while your body continues the routine of acquiring and eating bread. The transcendence happens above that cycle in the realm of relationship with God, trust of God, union with God. 

Let your muscle memory deal with physical hunger, but free your minds and hearts to dwell, to abide with your Creator, your Mother, your Father in heaven who gives you daily bread.

“For the bread of God comes down from heaven and gives life to the world,” Jesus said. And they said, “Sir, give us this bread always.” No, let’s try that again, Jesus will say (again and again).

If we had been reading John instead of the gospel of Mark, we would have just heard the Samaritan woman at the well say the same thing: ¹³Jesus told her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ ¹⁵The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to the well to draw water.’

She thought they were still talking about real water, even though she kind of understood that it wasn’t the water from a well. The crowd is asking the same question. They are thinking of manna given to their ancestors every morning for 40 years. They are looking for a repetition of the daily miracle.

To be honest, Jesus doesn’t help. His part of the conversation is not really related to theirs even though they are using the same words. No wonder they’re confused. 

Bread and water, the very basics needed for life, are what Jesus is claiming to be and what he is offering from God – not as a one-time meal, nor as a daily provision, but as himself, the Word of God made flesh. The physical item, like the miracle itself, is just to get our attention. The way to the heart is through the stomach, right? And it is our heart that God is after. 

As important as it is that all the world be fed, that’s still not what Jesus is about. The Father’s work is more than that. There is more to life than bread. In John’s gospel, bodies do matter – Jesus spends a lot of time healing bodies, feeding bodies – but John doesn’t let us forget that the body is temporary and that a relationship with Jesus endures beyond its limits.

We (and the crowd) are asking for too little if we’re focused on our stomach’s hunger. Being in union with Jesus moves beyond a preoccupation with our temporary physical needs, to ongoing life, to what God is doing and wants to do through us. The signs Jesus performs are not the reason for believing but the beginning of believing. 

I kind of like playing with the idea that Jesus is bread. A couple summers ago I did a sermon series on images of God and suggested that God might be water, not be like water or be in water, but actually be water – the basic necessary component for all life. In communion we accept that the bread Barb baked is somehow the real presence of Jesus, we accept the words, “This is my body given for you” as we swallow the bread. And Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me” or “as often as you eat of it,” not really specifying what.  So, maybe your English muffin or peanut butter toast or sweet morning bun or tortilla is Jesus. Maybe we ingest the living Lord with every mouthful. Maybe we in-corporate, bring into our bodies the body of God every day in constant repetitions. Would it help us live into our calling to believe, to be in union, to walk humbly with the God of all life if we think about this? If Jesus is the living bread come down from heaven to nourish the world, is it worth remembering with each mouthful?

Repetition is essential for learning.

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread that these people may eat?” ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is truly the prophet, the one coming into the world.” ¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and to seize him that they might make him a king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. 

¹⁶And as evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷and having gotten into a boat, they were crossing the sea to Capernaum, and darkness already had come, and Jesus had not yet come. ¹⁸The sea, because a great wind blew, was becoming rough. ¹⁹ Having rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were afraid. ²⁰But he said to them, “I am; do not be afraid.” ²¹They wanted to takehim into the boat, and immediately the boat came to the land toward which they were going.

Chapter 6 in the gospel of John recycles the themes and pattern of Jesus’ first trip through Galilee in chapter 2. At the wedding feast in Cana he provided an outstanding abundance of fine wine from a simple starter of water. This time it’s bread – bread for 5000 from five small barley loaves. In both miracles, he turns ordinary into extraordinary, in the process revealing to his disciples that God’s grace and glory are intimately involved in the person of Jesus.

The feeding of 5000 is the only miracle story told in all four gospels – Matthew and Mark even tell it twice, indicating how prominent a place it had in the early oral stories circulating after Jesus’ death. John’s version also clearly has the Exodus story in mind – Moses calling down bread from heaven – fragments of manna that must be gathered up for the twelve tribes of Israelites, here into 12 baskets of leftovers. We’ll hear more about the Exodus allusions later in the chapter. In this telling, it is nearly Passover, and Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, gives thanks and gives them for the people to eat – we almost expect the words from communion, “take and eat, this is my body.” He distributes the food himself in John, unlike in the other gospels: the gift of finest bread comes from Jesus himself, not through the agency of others. 

“¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is truly the prophet, the one coming into the world.” ¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and to seize him that they might make him a king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” 

We hear over and over again that the crowd’s perceptions can’t be trusted. Jesus will be a king, but not the kind they have eyes for. They see the signs and wonders and they want more bread. The crowds understand the connection to a prophet like Moses or Elisha, but Jesus is an entirely new category of encounter.

When the scene shifts from bread to the sea, the echoes of Passover continue and it becomes even clearer that we are dealing not simply with miracles, but with a theophany, a showing of God.

It begins with the disciples going out ahead of Jesus by boat. Apparently, he was going to walk the six miles from Tiberias to Capernaum. Their trip was about five and a half miles of rowing. But a wind came up and it’s taken longer than it should have, and now it’s dark. They are tired, stressed, only half-way to their destination, and they see Jesus walking on the water. And they are scared! 

The words he says in Greek are “egō eimi”, or I Am, which is the name of God given to Moses. (Or the Greek translation of the Aramaic name that God spoke to Moses). Jesus uses this a lot in the gospel of John. I am the bread of life, I am the true vine, I am the light of the world, I am, when the solders come to arrest him and they fall over backwards at the name. But, it also simply means, “It’s me!” And I think we’re supposed to hear both. Jesus was comforting their fear in a human to human encounter, but it was also an encounter with the divine. The next thing they know, they’re on the beach in Capernaum.

The miracle stories, or signs, as they’re called in John, aren’t told to dazzle, but to reveal. Jesus meets people in their need with God’s compassion, and glory spills over. People were hungry. They were out in the middle of no where, miles from towns and Jesus fed them.  The disciples were in over their heads and Jesus brought them to shore. These were amazing, unexplained activities, but the miracle isn’t the point John is trying to make. It isn’t God showing off to make Jesus popular. The miracles rather show God’s presence in all of life. The crowd was fed, but just one meal. They were hungry again by the time they got home. The people Jesus healed got sick another time, they still eventually died. The disciples will continue to flounder over their heads in the mystery of Jesus’ presence and purpose. God’s glory is momentary. That’s the lesson, perhaps. Miracles are a moment. But they are glimpses of eternity. They reveal the nature of permanence with God.

Bewildered, awed, the disciples wanted to receive Jesus into the boat. It’s a bit awkward both in language and in imagining how and why Jesus would get in. To make it better English, the translation is often ‘take’ (they wanted to take him into the boat), rather than ‘receive’, but there is an important difference. Jesus identifies himself with God’s name and tells them what all emissaries from God seem to say, “Do not be afraid.” The miracle’s function is to rescue them, but the result is to reveal who Jesus is. At the end of the previous chapter, Jesus told his opponents, “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.” In fact, those opponents are intent on ‘taking’ him, controlling the activity of God to match their parameters. After seeing the miracle of bread and fish, the crowd wanted to seize Jesus and make him king. The disciples hear Jesus identify with the Father’s name, and want to ‘receive’ him into their boat. They at least have passed that test.

The gospels, of course, are told about the disciples, but they are for us. We are to put ourselves in the story, trying on various characters, and comparing our reactions.

Like the crowds we often fail to see what God is doing among us. We look for the “wrong” kind of Jesus, one who will serve our desires, answer to our agenda, agree with our belief rather than challenge it. We want bread. We come because of the signs. We want something big. Healing from disease. Help when the house is in foreclosure. A miracle for the child who cannot overcome addictions. Some extraordinary intervention. And sometimes this is the sign we get. Thanks be to God.

More often, though, what we get is a kind of reassurance that, indeed, Jesus is present, as one who reveals God’s will and way and wonder and draws us into the Father’s love without show or fireworks. Jesus comes into the fearful, lonely, empty, threatening times and places, and says “Egō eimi.” “It is I, do not be afraid. “I am” is with you.” 

The key to these miracle stories might be in considering these two words, ‘take’ and ‘receive’, in terms of your relationship to faith, friendship, family – life. We are conditioned – by this culture at least – to take, to get all you can, to manage the agenda, to take Jesus into your boat… rather than receiving the grace offered. Vulnerability, graciousness, humility are the words of receiving, of relinquishing rather than striving, of ratcheting down our ego, to fully receive the “Egō eimi”. It’s a counter cultural mindset – receiving and serving, instead of taking and giving. Turning the tables on our own ego will always be a challenge, but it is the way in which we receive the living God. Hard-packed soil, stiff-necked people, those who need no physician, these are not the ones who receive Jesus with an open heart and run to tell their neighbors, “I have found the Lord! Come and see.”

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. ²Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. ³Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord.

5 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Psalm 23

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

³⁰The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. ³¹He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. ³²And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. ³³Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. ³⁴As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

⁵³When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. ⁵⁴When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, ⁵⁵and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Biblical commentator, Elizabeth Webb, gives a good introduction to the highly edited reading of the day: “A lot happens in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark,” she writes. “Jesus is rejected in his hometown. He sends the twelve disciples on a mission trip. John the Baptist is killed. Jesus feeds the five thousand and walks on water. These are all major events in Mark’s narrative, so much so that the passages appointed for today pale in comparison. Sure, Jesus heals a lot of people in the end, but otherwise these pericopes seem to have missed the dramatic boat.”

She continues: “But in fact, the passages that make up the Gospel reading today serve in important ways to advance Mark’s central concern: the inauguration of the kingdom of God in Jesus. These verses emphasize Jesus’ identity as the true, divine shepherd, who will guide his sheep into the kingdom; and the nature of that kingdom, through healings that disrupt the economy of this world.” 

Okay. As you might have caught, the feeding of 5000 people and Jesus walking on water are the missing creamy center from today’s Oreo reading. I’ve mentioned that I am challenged by the Revised Common Lectionary and the way it chops up readings with some grand plan for preaching. The problem is that it doesn’t tell us what that plan or point is, and so pastors do a lot of head scratching. I may regret this summer experiment, but I’m trying to stay the course and take what each week gives us. So, here we are, with the next 6 weeks hopping over to the gospel of John to tell the parts of the story we’re skipping today. Today, we are pressed to think about these few somewhat boring verses. The disciples and Jesus are busy, pursued, they get no rest, barely time to eat or sleep. The crowds are ever present.

It’s interesting to read this description of Jesus attempting to move around the countryside being mobbed wherever he goes. We have similar current versions of the phenomenon. The crowds who attend the former president offer us a view of what it might have been like. Swifties – those fans who do just about anything to attend Taylor Swift concerts – are another good example. European football teams often garner similarly devoted followings – occasionally with deadly mob crushes resulting. 

I am mystified by the impulse to crowd, swarm, mob, or press in. Imagining it gives me the willies. I hang back by the open spaces of even the small theological conventions I attend, sometimes standing in the back, instead of getting a good seat at a table in the midst of the throng where I could actually read what is projected on the slides. I don’t willingly put myself in the middle of a close crowd, so this is foreign territory to me. 

Is it the organic energy of a crowd itself? – that “we’re all in this together” vibe – the “you and me and we and us” smuush?   Is there some pleasure I’m missing in getting lost, in literally losing yourself, to a mob mentality?    Is it wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself, wanting to be included in the orbit of this popular person –  becoming, by extension, more than who you normally are?      Or is devotion to the person the motivation, and the crowd is somewhat irrelevant, a by-product of the virtual intimacy that one is seeking?   I don’t feel those things in a crowd. I feel anxiety. I identify more with Zaccheaus climbing a tree, or those who no doubt straggled at the back of the crowds described in the gospel, observing more than participating.

Whatever the draw or dynamics of the crowd, Mark tells us about Jesus’ reaction to it. He has been wanting to get away, trying to find a place apart, by himself, for at least three chapters. He just can’t seem to manage it. I don’t want to  give too much power to this tangent, but it is important to note the things that Jesus (the indwelling being of God) can’t do. God’s power is limited in ways and it’s important to acknowledge that. I’ve made a note for another sermon, for another day, so store that away in the wondering part of your brain for now.

We can imagine the rural, open terrain of Palestine of Jesus’ day. They don’t have woods like we have here. The expression, “you can’t see the forest for the trees” does not apply. I imagine even his small inner circle moving around the barren hillsides or on the open roads between villages would be easy to spot from a distance. And “where two or more are gathered”… more will come and they will bring their sick and sorrowful with them, hoping for a touch, a word; hoping to be held in the gaze of the Son of God. Jesus tries to get his disciples away for a short retreat, a respite, but it’s no good. The crowds have spotters. Jesus’ comings and goings are noted.

Instead of yelling at the crowds to leave them alone or refusing to do the godly work expected of him, we are told Jesus feels compassion. The commentaries on this passage want us to be aware of this word. Emotions in our culture are primarily ‘thought’, but with a little encouragement, you’ll realize that we feel emotions in our stomachs, in our bowels – butterflies, anxiety, fear – these are things our bodies recognize before our minds interpret them. The word compassion in Greek is a gut word. Their need affected him. Looking at them, seeing the flock crowding around seeking a shepherd, Jesus felt their longing in his belly and melted. That is another part of the Greek understanding of passion. One’s insides melt.

The healing and teaching activity of today’s reading is a continuation of what was happening earlier in the chapter. Last week was an aside. Herod heard of the activities and success of Jesus and his disciples, of the thousands following them, and Herod became afraid. Mark wants us to make the same comparison that Herod perceived between the one with real power and the poser. He first saw it in John, and then an increase in Jesus. We have been told that Jesus taught with authority unlike the scribes and rabbis – the traditional teachers of scripture and God’s law. He healed conditions the physicians could not cure, but rather made worse. Jesus possessed authentic power given by God, not by government or wealthy benefactors — Herod knew, and his fear grew.

I think the lectionary omits the two miracle stories from this pericope so that we don’t miss the ongoing work, the actual mission of Jesus. He came to teach of the ways and will of God. He came to be an opening, an interface, with the kingdom of God. Approach Jesus and you are near the kingdom, touch even the hem of his garments and you have touched the splendor of God’s glory and have been changed. 

We can get distracted and overawed by the miracles. We can get hung up on issues of faith – is faith a prerequisite to healing? Did people then – do people now – come to believe because of miracles? Is that what Jesus is about? Not according to today’s reading. Instead of signs and wonders, Jesus was intent on showing the everyday, always present, earthly concerns of God for life. Food and healthcare and justice. Compassion and welcome. “What does the Lord require of you, O mortal, but to do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God,” said the prophet Micah. That message was enacted by Jesus, and still holds true today.

And we are still, perhaps always, a people without a shepherd. That’s another reasonable reason to postpone the miracles for a week…so that we can consider our drifting, longing, shallow-rooted lives. I mean, we’re not hopeless and pathetic, we have strengths and resilience and plans and capabilities, but still, deep down, we also have wounds, fears, griefs that our abilities can’t fix. We, too, come to Christ for a reason that is more than tradition or duty. Justice, food and healthcare are evidence of the world working according to God’s design of abundant, thriving life for all creatures — but well fed, healthy, prosperous people still have deep need for a relationship with, a sense of being within, the being of God.

How do we address that? How do we access a relationship or presence with God’s spirit? I wish there was a personal, physical being to touch, a relic to kiss, some tangible, reliable ‘thing’ that would imbue us with certainty, with healing for the wounds we carry. Connecting with an essence, a spiritual awareness is less reliable. It leaves too much room for distraction and doubts. 

Actually, there is a personal, physical body, but we have to create it. This gathering becomes our ‘crowd’. Gathering for communal worship, praying together in word and in song, checking in with one another, shaking hands and making eye contact, sharing a meal hosted by Christ, promoting justice, living into kindness and mercy, providing food — these are all ways we become that body of Christ for one another and for ourselves. We give and receive the power of God if we condition ourselves to see it, to meet it here time and time again, in good times and bad, in ordinary and calamitous days. It may be the intention and repetition that allows us to receive God in all things, even in this small crowd clamoring for Jesus’ touch.

Pastor Linda

As we shift from the Narrative Lectionary to the Revised Common Lectionary, we pick up optional companion readings from the Old Testament or Epistles. Today’s first reading comes from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, the 4th chapter.

¹³But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke” —so we also speak, ¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. ¹⁵Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. ¹⁶So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Here ends the reading.   We will sing Psalm 138 responsively by verse.

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Last week we began nearly six months of “Ordinary Time” in the church liturgical calendar where the readings emphasize the gifts and callings of living out the gospel. The word “ordinary” here does not mean “routine”. Rather, it refers to the “ordinal numbers” used to name and count the Sundays (such as the Third Sunday after Pentecost). It is “ordered’ or “measured” time during which we will move, mostly, through Mark.

This gospel was written during (or just after) the Jewish revolt against Roman imperial occupation, and that conflict, along with Rome’s subsequent destruction of the Jewish temple in the year 70AD, made everything in Mark’s world seem stark, severe, and godforsaken. His prose is sharp and cryptic, the action is swift (his favorite word is “immediately”), and the big ideas that drive the narrative forward are bold and striking: though it seems that evil has the upper hand, in fact, the tide has turned: the Kingdom of God has come near!  The messiah is neither a military conqueror nor a conventional king. Instead, he is a prophet, a healer, and a teacher pointing to an even deeper form of liberation and wellbeing. In a contrast to the way Jesus is portrayed in John’s gospel, in Mark, Jesus’ primary mission is to suffer, die, rise, and redeem – sending his disciples out to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation “to the whole creation” As Jesus bursts onto the scene, a new era of hope, renewal, and restoration has begun.

Mark 3: 13 He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. ¹⁴And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, ¹⁵and to have authority to cast out demons. ¹⁶So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Then he went home; ²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ ²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ ²³And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. ²⁷But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

28 ‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; ²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— ³⁰for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’

31 Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ ³³And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ ³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

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Jesus went up the mountain – to a thin place, the place of epiphanies. It’s a place far away from the crowds, a good stiff climb apart – and he called to himself those whom he wanted, and they came. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, 
to be with him,
to be sent out to proclaim the message, 
to have authority to cast out demons and to heal.

Usually, Jesus’ followers are called disciples, but here he names them apostles. Is there a difference? There is, actually.   A disciple is a student, a follower who sits at the feet of his or her teacher asking questions, learning the lessons. An apostle is one who is sent forth, who goes out from the teacher bearing the message and the authority of the teacher. An apostle might be thought of as an apprentice, practicing the skills of the kingdom of God… under supervision. 

That’s interesting for us to think about all these years later. A first thing to notice is that there were more disciples than apostles. Being an apostle is a steeper climb. But these are two categories of Christian response to the Good News, to the working of the Holy Spirit, even today. 

It can be challenging enough – or rather, it is challenging – to be a disciple. It’s difficult to put ourselves at the feet of Jesus, to ratchet down our ego, to really listen, truly take in the Word of God…… because, it is going to enter our life as a critique. As a critique of our lifestyle, our values, our position of privilege, our preconceived opinions, and traditions – even our relationship to grace. 

To be a disciple is to be transformed by the teaching. It is daily confession and repentance and growth – opening ourselves to change – and we all know what a challenge it is to change.  How many of us listen to this Living Word of God expecting it to be a corrective?  Don’t we more often come to the word of God looking for support, looking for a word of encouragement that we’re on the right path? I think this response must be wired in as a defense mechanism. We look for and are drawn to the parts that affirm us, that support what we already believe or do. And we find those parts or directives to be authoritative.

But, being a disciple could mean we need to take to heart the teachings that challenge and irritate us at least as often as we turn to those that comfort. The word that tells us to get up and do something about it, not simply listen and think about it, pondering in our hearts. Inner awareness, leads to change and is often, then, the stimulus to outer transformation and renewal, recommitment.

And then it gets worse! We might somehow realize we’re being called to be an apostle! 
to be sent out to proclaim the message, 
to be given authority to cast out the demons that cripple and enslave the people of God.

Do you think meeting demons is unlikely? Any number of death-dealing forces today are experienced as “possession” or being “caught up” in dynamics beyond our intention and control. Think of how addiction overwhelms individuals and families; how racism, gender bias, sexism are so pervasive and invasive we often don’t realize we’re participating in degrading other human beings, our siblings in God’s love. Think of how anger consumes; how envy devours; how lies and conspiracies distort. We may or may not call addiction or racism or lies or the objectification of women “demons,” but they are most certainly “demonic.” They move through the world as though by a kind of cunning. Evil may not be personified, but it is personal. These forces seem to resist our best attempts to uncover and overcome them.

As we see from the gospel (and our daily news) the authorities of the status quo will be unhappy about our efforts to change the system. The Pharisees and scribes have made up their minds that Jesus needs to be stopped. They didn’t set out to oppose the kingdom of God. They don’t recognize that that’s what they’re doing, but they also aren’t open to the prophetic promises of their scriptures unfolding around them. They can’t recognize their view of the realm of God in what Jesus is doing because they’ve shrink the kingdom into a much less inclusive, expansive form. Even Jesus’ family is trying to reign him in, bring him home, settle him down. 

Publicly acknowledging and practicing a religious faith (whether as a disciple or an apostle) is a tricky thing. Christianity has been co-opted into belligerent slogans and judgmental movements that Jesus would never recognize or claim on the one hand, and been privatized and watered down into good feelings devoid of the edge of justice and action on the other. Discerning a public, faithful path between these with integrity and genuine hope is tricky. 

Our families might think we’re talking crazy, acting in ways that are embarrassing to them or dangerous to us. Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa are icons of this spiritual path.   Binding the strong man is a dangerous, difficult calling.

Being an apostle is a calling to resist all that works against God’s good will for the common good. And, doesn’t that sound vaguely familiar? Just a couple weeks ago, Mercy and Johanna affirmed their baptismal faith with very similar words.

“Merciful God,” we prayed, “you have called these young women to yourself, enlightened them with the gifts of your Spirit and nourished them in the community of faith… to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.” And you all agreed when I asked if you renounce the forces and powers that defy God, forces that rebel against God and lead us away from that holy love. And there is Micah’s prophetic definition: “What does the Lord require of you, O Mortal, but to do justice, to enact God’s steadfast lovingkindness, and to walk humbly with God.”

So, even for us commoners, being a disciple easily morphs into being an apostle. Being a ‘hearer of the Word’ leads to being a ‘do-er of the Word,’  a ‘bringer of the Word’ through the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Each time the Gospel is taken out of the book and shared in living color, each time the gospel is enacted in love toward others, toward creation, toward the enemy ~ that person is responding to the apostolic nudge. Each time the gospel is presented in a way that opens doors, opens hearts, is characterized by the love of God and the opposition to all that robs God’s children of abundant life, it is being presented by apostles. We are all commissioned and sent out with the message to share in the mission of Jesus for justice and courage and kindness. We may not have the impact of the big names of this calling, but ordinary lives are changed one by one in just this way until each one – everyone – has found a home.

Jesus expands the concept of family from biology to community. We find our identity and kinship in and through the relationship we share in God. All those who live in and work for God’s kingdom are family.

Again and again in Mark’s gospel Jesus breaks down barriers and breaks the rules about who can associate with whom, inviting more and more people to join his family, his fellowship, his new community – and, as we’ve seen, it’s often the most unlikely people who accept this invitation and come in through the door, not the expected ones. It becomes a family formed not by biological birth but by rebirth in the Spirit of God, in the fellowship of the beloved community of saints. Christ’s is a family formed of love, called together, to gather, and then be sent out as apostles…. Like seeds of a dandelion. 

May you, too, be dandelion-ish. Bearers of a tiny seed afloat on the breeze of God’s spirit, that, when it lands, roots deeply, strongly enough to break up hard ground, sending up life giving leaves even through cracks of concrete, that provides brilliant spots of color, sweet scent and beneficial pollen. A super plant, a powerhouse of life; a tiny, ubiquitous seed. Thanks be to God for apostolic dandelions and dandelion-like apostles!

Pastor Linda

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There are several readings this morning to come at the Trinity from different directions.

The gospel of John stresses the one-ness of God in the Father, Jesus, and the Advocate or Holy Spirit, sent by God through Jesus.

²⁶‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. ²⁷You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.      John 15

¹After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth for your word is truth. ¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰ ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.     John 17

In Paul’s letter to the Christians in Ephesus, he describes the actions, the ways of being of God that later became formulated as the Holy Trinity.

Ephesians 3:14-19

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

And one more unlikely verse — from Matthew, chapter 13: Jesus said,  ⁴⁵“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The gospel of the Lord…… thanks be to God

The Sunday following Pentecost is designated as Trinity Sunday. I don’t suppose it’s on your calendar or on any greeting cards, but the Trinity is an ancient doctrine of the Christian church. It is the formulation that was set out in the Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as the formal understanding of the triune (three-part) nature of God that developed as the Christian church evolved into the third and fourth centuries. 

The formula of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” was primarily a teaching tool, a way of talking about the nature of God and the inter-relation between Jesus and the Spirit of God in a way that would create a measure of orthodoxy, or ‘sameness’. It was needed because, as the early Christian community grew and spread, different schools of thought developed and each had a variation. It’s like the children’s party game of telephone, where you whisper something in one person’s ear and they whisper what they think they heard to their neighbor and by the time it goes around the circle, the message is hardly recognizable. 

The variations of belief and teaching in the early church, meant, for example, that some were taught that Jesus was never really a human but just appeared to be human and so never really died, because how could God die? Some were taught that Jesus was only human, not truly God, but was adopted by God – in the same way the prophets were used for a time and a message. But then how could Jesus save?  In sorting out these and other conundrums, the trinitarian formula was developed to talk about the interpersonal nature of God, that God is one in three – three distinct, but united persons, all in one and one in all. The reason we recite the Apostle’s or Nicene creed and why they are part of the Baptism and confirmation services is to hold the community to this core of Christian faith – whatever else the pastor may say (or forget to say), whatever innovations or extracurricular songs or readings find their way into the worship service, this we hold to be true – that we worship God who is made known to us in Jesus Christ our Lord and savior through the working of the Holy Spirit; one God, one faith.

So, the creeds are the tangible result of a confounding concept, but the Trinity didn’t start out as doctrine.

It began with early Christians trying to describe and put words to their experiences of the ways in which God appeared to them — and comes to us, still.

Engaging Jesus was somehow encountering God directly — and at the same time, Jesus spoke of God as both distinct from himself (like when he prayed to God, or spoke of his Father as the One who sent him) and yet somehow “one” with him. There was in some way both a “two-ness” and a “oneness”. In the same way, the earliest disciples experienced the Holy Spirit within their own beings as an encounter with God, promised by Jesus yet separate from him.  And so over time, the church’s doctrine of the Trinity developed — the idea that God is properly conceived as Three ‘persons’ in One. Not three Gods because there is intimate unity within them, and not simply One because that wouldn’t account for the multiple ways God is revealed in creation, in the world, in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. 

So, far from being a stogy detail of church dogma, the doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately about a world saturated with divine presence — creating, redeeming, and sustaining creation at every turn, in and with and under every unfurling leaf and fragrant blossom… and a God “in whom we live, and move, and have our being” as it says in Acts (17:28).

The formulaic “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, is firmly embedded in our liturgy and hymnody, as you either know or will notice if you are being made aware of it this morning. It is so ever-present that I have intentionally veered away from it over the years, substituting other words to wake us up. There is something both comforting and numbing about rote phrases. We cease to think. My job is to comfort and afflict, and so I push against the formula, while, I hope, maintaining the doctrine, because, I don’t imagine you think in trinitarian terms when you pray, or invoke the triune name of God… I expect that you do what I do when I’m out and about on my own. We pray to or converse with some version of God, some image that connects to us personally. Having a proper orthodox teaching is important; but having a proper relationship with God most likely rules out orthodoxy. And I think that’s okay.

I think it’s okay because of Hildegarde of Bingen who was a German mystic who lived from 1098 to 1179. Hildegard has her own day in the church (which means she’s official) and she said God was Verditas, ‘greening growth’. The last two weeks of quickly bursting change from spring buds to fully leafed out luscious green helps us understand what she meant. Hildegard didn’t mean that God was responsible for the greening, or the creator of greening things, but that God is Greening. It’s an interesting image for God. So when we’re gazing out the window at our bird feeders and watching the flutter of colored wings, hearing those sweet trills and songs against the backdrop of intense green, we are not experiencing God in nature, but are experiencing the nature of God. 

Or there is Julian of Norwich who said love is our Lord’s meaning, all is love only for love – all love is Love. So when we love, we are knowing Christ and yes, she includes in her meaning the ‘biblical way’ of knowing. Pretty racy for a nun during the Middle Ages.

Or there is Jesus himself who said he wished he could be a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings. He also called himself the good shepherd who seeks and finds and saves the lost, a vining branch producing fine grapes for fine wine, a spring of living water flowing from the heart of God.

Or Job who said God was a cheesemaker.  “Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?” he asks, disgruntled, of God.

Or images in the Bible of God as a knitter, a weaver, a baker, a house builder, a woman in labor, a winemaker, an eagle, a potter, a bride. 

One of my favorite images is God as a garment. Psalm 104 begins, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment.”   Job complains, “God, you bind me like the collar of my tunic.”  Paul says in baptism we have been clothed with Christ.  Julian again: “I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wraps us, clasps us, and all encloses us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good.”

This is probably why I like the mystics and heretics, because they have latched onto these other ways of thinking and imagining God. Their images might not be as orthodox, but I think without them we limit what and who we consider when we think about the realm and nature of God. What if we were to take these other images as seriously as we take Christ as a shepherd, for example? Where are the stained-glass widows of God at a loom weaving the fabric of life, or God as a calf kicking up his heels? I’m still hoping to discover “Christ the Hen Lutheran Church”.

My point in all of this is to say that the images and language we assign to God matter, and that the more we use, the broader the place and space we open for God in our lives. I don’t think “Father, +Son and Holy Spirit” will expand our view. Your experience of God trumps the doctrine.

God is Trinity, but it’s a big trinity. Expansive. A verb, not a phrase.  God in three persons does things — God heals, saves, comforts, prods, inspires, confounds, overwhelms, loves … us. It’s not enough to say we believe that God is, but we say, we profess, that God acts.

So, finally, to the last scripture reading.

Matthew 13:45-46. Jesus said,  “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; ⁴⁶on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

Contrary to how we usually hear it, I’m going to suggest that this parable is not about us finding the value of the kingdom of heaven hidden in an unlikely place or form.

The parable says that it is about God – God who is like a merchant – a buyer and collector of pearls and things of value and beauty – who is searching, sifting through bins of gems, and baskets of discarded oyster shells at the rummage sale, and finds a magnificent specimen. Pearls in the ancient world were more valuable than gold. The merchant finds  –  you, a pearl of great value, and, to obtain it, sells all that he has. All of God’s godliness, power, and might were given up, and being in human form, being born into humble rank and powerlessness, even that life was given away – ransomed –  so that you, the pearl, could be obtained. 

God so loved the world, that he sent his only son. 

God acts – in three persons – searching, finding, listening, coming, comforting, saving in ways and images enough to fill our lives with hope in every dark corner. Christ in a cup of coffee? The Holy Spirit in a loon’s song? The power of God in a greening wood. God hanging on a cross, the Spirit of God nudging you in a random moment of compassion.

The mystics knew God, and knew God was all around us, and in the midst of every activity, and beyond all our imaginings, and in spite of our fears and doubts. God is and God acts and God comes. For you. Use your words. Use your experiences. Use your gifts and use your needs – describe the nature of the God you love. And come to trust that within the triune realm of Creator, Redeemer, and Holy Guide you have place of great value, you are a pearl beyond price.

 

John 15:9-17 continues the reading from last week. Jesus is consoling his disciples, promising that – even in death – he will be with them, like a vine is connected to the branches.

9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

I am actively avoiding political news because I just don’t need all that crazy, but the world news is hard to avoid, hard to ignore, even though I have no influence or ability to help, and even though it hurts my heart to know there is such hatred and arrogance and dehumanizing, debilitating, overflowing venom within the collective human being. It is evident in so many realms – environmental, cultural, global militarization, politics, civil wars, border wars. We almost get used to it, expect it, normalize it – which is a terrible realization. The current campus protests are giving a new dimension to the ‘forever war’ that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and bringing a distant conflict a bit closer.

It might seem there’s no clear side to champion in the Israel/Hamas tension. How far back in history does one go to find the instigating event? It began, I suppose, with Moses, with God telling Moses and Joshua to clear the Canaanites out Canaan so it could be their land of milk and honey. 

But, in that case, it began with Abraham being led from his homeland in Iraq to start a new people and populate a new land. That went well enough, sort of, until there was a famine and they had to leave and got waylaid in Egypt and lost their placeholder in the intervening generations. The Jewish people survived and thrived, even landless, forming communities maintaining a religiously based culture in whatever land they found themselves. Until WWII. And then the British government ‘gave’ them (already occupied) Palestine, in a reboot of God giving the land to Moses. It’s a lot more complicated than that, obviously, but that religious backstory is still mixed up in the current heartbreak. 

Today, the situation is too enmeshed in wrongful actions, and intermingled religious politics, and money, and strategic military interests to take a righteous stand on either side. Except, as Christians we have a calling and the example of Jesus to stand with the suffering. That’s what is clear. And there is suffering on both sides, and both sides have caused the suffering. So, the sides don’t matter so much, the need is what matters, the need is what we are to address – to clothe the naked and feed the hungry and shelter the homeless and comfort the suffering. To invite them to the table and serve ‘skivers and medisterpolse. To love as Jesus loved – beyond all borders and boundaries, to draw the outside, straggling, struggling in to the center of love and care on those long, reaching tendrils of the vine. To ignore their religion and operate out of the values and mandates of our religion. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Just that. But how? 

It’s easy to be against the terrorist actions of Hamas. And it’s easy to be against the over-the top retaliation of the Israeli leadership and military forces. Destroying Hamas by killing the Palestinian people won’t provide the security Israel seeks. And they do deserve safety, as do the Palestinians. And so in the end, we’re left feeling compassion for the people, for all the suffering, and being angry with the rulers and religions that create the “sides” in the first place.  Which for some reason makes me think about the way Jesus loved. Not the part about laying down his life, but about all the stories in the gospels of how he continually crossed borders and boundaries. That was how he loved. It wasn’t just “his own”, there was always some separation that needed to be bridged, some obstacle that needed to be set aside. Gender, morality, class, purity, illness, ethnicity, culture, faith, doubt – those are the stories recounted by the gospel writers. Every one of those characters had a reason (according to the rules) for being excluded. Everyone with whom Jesus had an encounter, an intervention, was in the “against” column. “Love your enemies,” Jesus says in Luke’s telling, “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Do to others as you would have them do to you…and you will be children of the Most High; for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.    Be merciful, just as your Father in heaven is merciful.”   (Luke 6:27 ff)

“God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Isn’t that in interesting line? ” Love one another as I have loved you.”

I wanted, intended, to write a sermon about Æbleskiver and how great it is to have a community event that we work so hard at, and how everyone comes to chip in, and how enjoyable it seems to be for the diners, many who come every year and who stay around well past their meal taking in the vibe and the buzz. I thought I would be weaving in the baptism of this precious little child for whom we have prayed as a tiny premie, and for Caitlin and Kyle in their anguish and fear and joy all twisted together.  Those things, too, are expressions of love that are valid and real and very worth celebrating.  

But, I worry about being so siloed, insulated, self-contained as we are in this little community of faith — and of preaching the commandment to love one another after a successful Æbleskiver dinner, when we are seriously feeling the love of community. It’s not that we should feel guilty, or not celebrate the fun and camaraderie because the world is suffering,— but, we probably shouldn’t conflate an Æbleskiver high with God’s love, or our exhaustion with Jesus’ commandment to love as he has loved. I think we are to be filled, to have our inner resources topped off with the fun stuff, the communal warmth, so that we have ourselves to offer in the hard work of living active, engaged lives in the world away from West Denmark.

Loving your enemies (if you have them), loving your neighbors in ways that show, in ways that they might recognize and benefit from, loving beyond your borders — that is more to the point and more costly. Praying for the other side. Going out of your way. Offering help where it’s needed, not necessarily where you want to give it. Crossing boundaries of comfort. Taking risks. Stirring up a bit of holy trouble. If these things sound more exhausting and threatening than pulling off another Æbleskiver Dinner, then we might be on the right track. I’m not pushing hardship or misery as holy orders — Jesus did mention to love in this way so that our joy might be complete – but we all know that actual love is costly, it takes work and takes something from us as much as it gives and fills. God is love — and is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. I mean, looking a human history, that’s an impressive understatement.

Abiding in Jesus’ love, dwelling in the mystery, aligning ourselves, somehow, with the vision that all people — all of creation — is on equal terms of importance and value with our own livelihoods and wishes and rights  — that might be enough of a challenge for today. What is the height and depth and breadth of love as Jesus loved? Hold yourself in that tension, and don’t let it go, don’t let it resolve. Stay in the tug and see what happens.