Pentecost 19
October 11, 2009
When I was a teenager, the poet Archibald Macleish wrote a very popular play in which JB, a corporate executive in the course of a few weeks lost everything that mattered to him—his job, status, wife, children. A few weeks ago the Coen brothers who wrote and produced the movie Fargo, came out with their latest film, A Serious Man, about a Jewish college professor who struggles to cope with the collapse of his life and stay decent and upright at the same time
Both the play and movie were inspired by the Book of Job which we will be reading as our first lesson for the next few weeks. This ancient book, probably written about 500 BC, still has the power to move and challenge writers and readers.
Like a fairy tale the Book of Job begins, “once upon a time”: “There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.”
He was a good and righteous man, with a loving wife, ten healthy children, not a rich man but comfortably well off.
The story moves to a fantastical scene. At a gathering in heaven, the story goes, God brags about Job, how good and righteous he is. Satan, who strangely enough is sitting right there with God , says, “Of course he’s a good man. Why not?—he has everything a human being could want. But, God, what if we were to test him? What will happen if you take everything he possesses away from him? I’ll bet you that he won’t love you then!”
God agrees to the wager. Job’s troubles begin. First all Job’s beasts are killed, then his servants, then tragically, his children.
At first Job bears it. He refuses to complain. Then Satan says to God, “Ah, but what will happen if his body is stricken with disease? Will he still endure in silence?” Satan then inflicts loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” Job’s response?—he still will not complain “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
Three friends come to console Job in his misery.
They don’t do a very good job.
Have you ever been in pain of some sort and the pastor or relative or friend drop in and you know they’re good people and they’re just trying to help, but they manage to say all the wrong things?
Job’s friends are like that. Specifically, the friends think they’ve got an explanation. “Job,” they say, “You must have sinned against God. Repent and God will return to you all that has been destroyed.”
Instead of consoling Job, their words prod him into defending himself. He knows himself, knows he has not sinned. “But you must have,” his friends argue.
Job refuses to give in. Almost in a frenzy, he cries out, “I am innocent!,” and he challenges God to listen to his case. He wants to bring God into court.
He’s sure he’ll win: “I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. . . . he would give heed to me . . . and I should be acquitted forever by my judge.”
Strong words. But then Job’s defiance cracks and he seems to lose his nerve. Job admits that he’s terrified. Because now suddenly the worst thing happens—JJob can’t feel God, can’t hear God, can’t in any way sense God’s presence. When he calls out, God doesn’t answer. For Job—God is utterly hidden.
One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 139. “Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also . . . “ All places on earth and in heaven: “Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.” Such confidence in God’s constant presence, no matter what is happening.
But Job reverses those words of confidence and it’s chilling—: “If I go forward, God is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him.”
Anyone who has lived to adulthood has walked through those terrifying times when nothing makes sense, when we are stripped of what we love. When someone we love is stricken with a terminal disease, or our wife or husband leaves us, or our adult child rejects us, or we suddenly take a clear eyed look at the world around us crawling with cruelty and injustice.
It’s then that we need to know that it is ok to pray like Job. “Where are you, God?” “I can’t bear this anymore,” “Why, why, why?” It is not only ok, it is Biblical to cry out our indignation, our anger, our sense of abandonment.
It is always ok to pray the truth of ourselves. What is not ok is to lie to God about who we are or what we are feeling.
This is what I most dread in my role as pastor: when I am called to a hospital room or a funeral home, and someone demands that I defend God.
A grieving wife asks me, for example, “Why did my good husband have to die so young when terrible criminals live long lives?”
The worse thing I can do is give her what she wants—an explanation.
If I did, I’d be like one of Job’s “friends,” trying to second guess God. Trying to make sense of what just doesn’t make sense.
The best thing I can do is to walk alongside her and help her to pray Job’s prayers: “Where are you, God?,” “I can’t bear this anymore,” “Why, why, why?”
When you go through a hard time in your life, don’t be afraid to pray with Job’s honesty. Lightening will not strike you, God’s hand will not rise up against you.
Remember that it is not only Job who prayed this way. On the cross, Jesus, God’s Son, bleeding, straining for each breath, cried out in pain and terror the Job-like words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Only once he’d cried out his despair, could he go on to utter words filled with trust: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Pentecost 17 September 27, 2009
Pentecost 17
September 27, 2009
When I was a girl, whenever my parents left me at my grandparents’ house, I’d take their big black bible off the shelf and settle down with the Book of Esther. Here it is in the Old Testament, only ten chapters wedged between Nehemiah and Job. It was my favorite Bible story.
For good reason: it’s got romance (sort of), humor, suspense, and best of all for a ten year old girl—a poor girl who not only becomes a queen, but also a hero.
During the whole church year we only read the little bit of the Book of Esther in today’s first lesson, so here’s a refresher on the plot:
We travel to Persia, where many Jews made their home after they were released from captivity in Babylon. In Persia, they lived mostly without persecution, easily Integrated with the rest of the population.
One day King Ahasuerus, reveling with his friends, orders his queen, the beautiful Vashti, to display her beauties before the court. She refuses. Irate and pressed by his courtiers who are worried that their wives might learn a lesson from Vashti, deposes her as queen.
In good fairy tale fashion, Ahasuerus orders all the young women of the kingdom to come to the palace so that he might—after they’ve undergone twelve months of spa treatment—choose a new queen.
Esther and her uncle Mordechai are Jews living in the capital. Esther enters the contest for queen and Ahasuerus chooses her. Meanwhile a lowly courtier named Haman is promoted by the King to be his Chief Officer. The honor goes to Haman’s head and he demands public honor by all the citizens, but Mordechai won’t bow down. Haman finds out he’s a Jew and decides to get rid of him by destroying the whole Jewish people.
Mordechai, terrified for their people, tells Esther to go into king and reveal that she’s a Jew. But to go in without an invitation means death. Even though she’s frightened, she takes on the responsibility. She orders Mordechai to ask all the Jews to fast on her behalf; she fasts as well. Meanwhile, Mordechai publicly protests the decree by lying in sackcloth and ashes at the court gate. Haman so infuriated that he builds a gallows 75 feet tall and goes into persuade the king to execute Mordechai on it. But by coincidence the king has a sleepless night and reads in the court annals that Mordechai earlier had foiled a plot to overthrow the king. King wants to reward Mordechai, and is shocked when Esther tells him that Haman is preparing to execute him as well as Esther and all the Jews in Persia. King Ahasuerus sentences Haman to death. After the King leaves Esther’s room, Haman throws himself on her couch to plead for his life. The king thinks he’s attacking her and orders Haman to be executed on the gallows he has built for Mordechai.
It’s a great story!
But over the 2500 years since it was written, it has been controversial.
Martin Luther hated it: “I am so hostile to this book that I wish that it did not exist for it .. . has too much heathen naughtiness.”
Ordinary Jewish people have always loved the Book of Esther, and read it aloud on the annual feast of Purim. But some scholars and authorities disliked it. For one thing, neither Esther nor Mordechai act much like Jews. Even by today’s standards they were not observant Jews.
That means that Esther and Mordechai were apparently living outwardly at least, completely assimilated (in that case, Persian) lives—no kosher, no ritual baths, no peculiarly Jewish dress.
And there was an even more important problem with the Book of Esther. In the entire book, there is no reference to “God.” Not one! A bit surprising for a book of the bible.
Those peculiarities are why now, as a grownup, I still love the Book of Esther.
Because it’s just for those reasons that the story of Esther can speak in a special way to us. We’re Christians trying to live good Christian lives while looking, talking, and acting a whole lot just like everyone else around us. We’re mostly not super-religious and we certainly wouldn’t describe ourselves as holy.
Like Esther and Mordechai, we live our lives in a society which worships many things other than God—wealth, power, beauty, possessions, status
In our lives, as in Esther’s, God does not appear as a burning bush nor does God knock people off a horse with any frquency There are no hugely extraordinary events, there are no stunning miracles.
There’s just—well—life. The situations we find ourselves in, the people and communities we care about.
And as faithful people in a world without God’s direct word and without miracles, how do we live? Like Esther and Mordechi, we make the best choices we can in the circumstances we have. Like Esther and Mordechi, we hope, quietly, that we and God are going in the same direction, and then do our best.
For most of us, as for Esther and Mordechai, the closest we’re going to get to a miracle are coincidences.
Mordechai’s hanging out in the marketplace in just the right place and time to overhear the plot against the king. Chance? God’s prompting? Who knows?
The king’s insomnia—Indigestion? God’s prompting? Who knows?
I suspect we’ve all had those experiences in which we’ve wondered—is this a coincidence? Or the brush of an angel’s hand?
I just had an experience like that. I’m the volunteer chaplain on duty at Speare Hospital this weekend. On Friday, I got to the hospital around quarter of two in the afternoon to begin my shift.
I’d signed in and was heading down the corridor to stash my purse when I heard a voice say, “You’re the lady who did the funeral for my grandmother, aren’t you?” It turned out that yes, I was that lady. I’d deeply loved the grandmother, and through her illness and death, I’d become acquainted with the whole family.
The woman went on: “You’ll never believe this, but my mother-in-law is in intensive care and people are coming from my church to do a healing service in ten minutes.” And at the same instant we spoke together. She said: “Wouldn’t you love to come?” and I said, “I’d love to be part of it, if it’s all right.”
So at 2:00 I was standing at the woman’s bed, in a circle with family members and others, praying for peace and healing for her. And all the time, I was shaky with awe. If I’d come into the hospital in the morning as I’d planned, or even a half an hour later in the afternoon, I would have missed this moment of grace..
The upshot of all this is this:
All we have is our ordinary lives and every once in a while an amazing coincidence. No burning bushes, no miraculous healings—but standing at that bedside that day, it was enough, it was enough
September 27, 2009
When I was a girl, whenever my parents left me at my grandparents’ house, I’d take their big black bible off the shelf and settle down with the Book of Esther. Here it is in the Old Testament, only ten chapters wedged between Nehemiah and Job. It was my favorite Bible story.
For good reason: it’s got romance (sort of), humor, suspense, and best of all for a ten year old girl—a poor girl who not only becomes a queen, but also a hero.
During the whole church year we only read the little bit of the Book of Esther in today’s first lesson, so here’s a refresher on the plot:
We travel to Persia, where many Jews made their home after they were released from captivity in Babylon. In Persia, they lived mostly without persecution, easily Integrated with the rest of the population.
One day King Ahasuerus, reveling with his friends, orders his queen, the beautiful Vashti, to display her beauties before the court. She refuses. Irate and pressed by his courtiers who are worried that their wives might learn a lesson from Vashti, deposes her as queen.
In good fairy tale fashion, Ahasuerus orders all the young women of the kingdom to come to the palace so that he might—after they’ve undergone twelve months of spa treatment—choose a new queen.
Esther and her uncle Mordechai are Jews living in the capital. Esther enters the contest for queen and Ahasuerus chooses her. Meanwhile a lowly courtier named Haman is promoted by the King to be his Chief Officer. The honor goes to Haman’s head and he demands public honor by all the citizens, but Mordechai won’t bow down. Haman finds out he’s a Jew and decides to get rid of him by destroying the whole Jewish people.
Mordechai, terrified for their people, tells Esther to go into king and reveal that she’s a Jew. But to go in without an invitation means death. Even though she’s frightened, she takes on the responsibility. She orders Mordechai to ask all the Jews to fast on her behalf; she fasts as well. Meanwhile, Mordechai publicly protests the decree by lying in sackcloth and ashes at the court gate. Haman so infuriated that he builds a gallows 75 feet tall and goes into persuade the king to execute Mordechai on it. But by coincidence the king has a sleepless night and reads in the court annals that Mordechai earlier had foiled a plot to overthrow the king. King wants to reward Mordechai, and is shocked when Esther tells him that Haman is preparing to execute him as well as Esther and all the Jews in Persia. King Ahasuerus sentences Haman to death. After the King leaves Esther’s room, Haman throws himself on her couch to plead for his life. The king thinks he’s attacking her and orders Haman to be executed on the gallows he has built for Mordechai.
It’s a great story!
But over the 2500 years since it was written, it has been controversial.
Martin Luther hated it: “I am so hostile to this book that I wish that it did not exist for it .. . has too much heathen naughtiness.”
Ordinary Jewish people have always loved the Book of Esther, and read it aloud on the annual feast of Purim. But some scholars and authorities disliked it. For one thing, neither Esther nor Mordechai act much like Jews. Even by today’s standards they were not observant Jews.
That means that Esther and Mordechai were apparently living outwardly at least, completely assimilated (in that case, Persian) lives—no kosher, no ritual baths, no peculiarly Jewish dress.
And there was an even more important problem with the Book of Esther. In the entire book, there is no reference to “God.” Not one! A bit surprising for a book of the bible.
Those peculiarities are why now, as a grownup, I still love the Book of Esther.
Because it’s just for those reasons that the story of Esther can speak in a special way to us. We’re Christians trying to live good Christian lives while looking, talking, and acting a whole lot just like everyone else around us. We’re mostly not super-religious and we certainly wouldn’t describe ourselves as holy.
Like Esther and Mordechai, we live our lives in a society which worships many things other than God—wealth, power, beauty, possessions, status
In our lives, as in Esther’s, God does not appear as a burning bush nor does God knock people off a horse with any frquency There are no hugely extraordinary events, there are no stunning miracles.
There’s just—well—life. The situations we find ourselves in, the people and communities we care about.
And as faithful people in a world without God’s direct word and without miracles, how do we live? Like Esther and Mordechi, we make the best choices we can in the circumstances we have. Like Esther and Mordechi, we hope, quietly, that we and God are going in the same direction, and then do our best.
For most of us, as for Esther and Mordechai, the closest we’re going to get to a miracle are coincidences.
Mordechai’s hanging out in the marketplace in just the right place and time to overhear the plot against the king. Chance? God’s prompting? Who knows?
The king’s insomnia—Indigestion? God’s prompting? Who knows?
I suspect we’ve all had those experiences in which we’ve wondered—is this a coincidence? Or the brush of an angel’s hand?
I just had an experience like that. I’m the volunteer chaplain on duty at Speare Hospital this weekend. On Friday, I got to the hospital around quarter of two in the afternoon to begin my shift.
I’d signed in and was heading down the corridor to stash my purse when I heard a voice say, “You’re the lady who did the funeral for my grandmother, aren’t you?” It turned out that yes, I was that lady. I’d deeply loved the grandmother, and through her illness and death, I’d become acquainted with the whole family.
The woman went on: “You’ll never believe this, but my mother-in-law is in intensive care and people are coming from my church to do a healing service in ten minutes.” And at the same instant we spoke together. She said: “Wouldn’t you love to come?” and I said, “I’d love to be part of it, if it’s all right.”
So at 2:00 I was standing at the woman’s bed, in a circle with family members and others, praying for peace and healing for her. And all the time, I was shaky with awe. If I’d come into the hospital in the morning as I’d planned, or even a half an hour later in the afternoon, I would have missed this moment of grace..
The upshot of all this is this:
All we have is our ordinary lives and every once in a while an amazing coincidence. No burning bushes, no miraculous healings—but standing at that bedside that day, it was enough, it was enough
Pentecost 12 August 22, 2009
Pentecost 12
August 22, 2009
I’ve been edgy all week.
At first I thought it was the weather—in the immortal words of Cole Porter, it’s just been “too darn hot.”
But then I noticed that I’d stopped listening to the news, started ignoring the newspaper. Hmm, I wondered, what’s that about?
Then I realized what’s going on. I’m scared. The health care “debate” has dominated the news and the level of anger and hostility at the town hall meetings has escalated and I’m feeling the threat of violence in the air. Something feels seriously wrong.
I’d like to ignore it and get on with my summer.
But like you in my lifetime I’ve witnessed violence in this country and certain of these incidents changed forever the way I see the world, especially the Vietnam War and the horrific string of assassinations during the 1960’s—John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and others.
September 11th traumatized whole new generations of Americans and undermined their trust that peace and civility will prevail.
What can we Americans Christians do about hostility and violence?
Jesus gives us a clear answer about what we should be doing. In the Sermon on the Mount he says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The catechism of the church (in the very back of the BCP) tells us that the basic mission of the church is to make peace: “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”
Does that mean that we Christians are called to be wimps? Does God want us to give in and give up our principles and beliefs in order to “keep the peace”?
The writer of the second lesson today certainly doesn’t think so. He tells Christians to suit up (spiritually speaking) like a Roman soldier in full armor complete with the “sword of the Spirit.”
So does that mean, as opposed to being wimps, are Christians supposed to wade into disputes like the Crusaders of old full of self-righteous zeal and the conviction that “God is on our side”?
Nope—neither wimps nor militants. The passage from the Book of Ephesians is clear that the spiritual armor we’re talking about is not ours—not our strength, our “truth,” our righteousness—but God’s, God’s, bestowed upon our powerlessness by God’s grace.
When we try to construct our own armor, to forge our own sword, that’s when we get into trouble. That’s when we’re self-righteous, rather than righteous. When we have faith in our own opinions rather than in the mystery of God’s will. When we fight to the death with the sword of our own self-will.
The passage also says—and this is terribly important— the battle is not against our fellow human beings, our enemies, the bad guys.
No, the battle we’re armed and armored for is a lot scarier than that. It’s against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Against, that is, demonic powers, especially those of violence and hatred which can, like the demons in horror movies, take us over and possess us.
How can we become Christ’s peacemakers in a place and time that desperately need them? We need to start small.
First of all—and maybe this is the hardest thing—we’ve got to recognize the hatred and hostility, the rage and wrath we find within ourselves.
I’m slowly learning that if I’m angry a hefty percentage of the time, it’s probably not the other person or people I think I’m angry at that I’m really angry at.
There’s a good chance that the demons are really inside me and not in the other person—resentments from my past, triggering reactions way bigger than they deserve. So I try and remember that wonderful line from the old cartoon “Pogo”: “we have seen the enemy and it is us.” I’m learning that this is a good time to beat a strategic retreat and do a bit of soul-searching and a lot of praying.
Secondly—as Christian peacemakers-in-training we need to look at how we act in the small things, how we are every day with one another in our families or in the church. Can we disagree with someone without hurting or degrading them? Can I admit that I may be wrong and you admit that you may be wrong and can we then stay in that uncomfortable place of disagreement until God’s wisdom and God’s Spirit has had time to work in us?
.
This week I happened to pick up a book on what’s called “the new monasticism,” Christians who choose to live together as communities in the world.
One story has stuck with me: The writer describes two men—one white and one black— who lived and worked together for years in an interracial religious community in the South. They finally admitted to each other and the community that they really didn’t get along very well and the reasons stemmed from race.
They finally went to a counselor. He showed them that they couldn’t make peace when one was always trying to triumph over the other.
The only thing that could help them, they finally realized, was to trust that God’s grace is powerful enough to work through and in them if only they could get their own egos out of the way. One of the men reported, “John [the counselor] taught me what was enough. It is enough to get the love of God into your bones , , , ,. It is enough to care for each other, to forgive each other, and to wash the dishes. The rest of life, he taught me, is details.”
I’m still afraid of the anger seeping through this country right now.
But I know that God’s grace is infinitely stronger than the demonic powers of anger and hostility.
It’s not easy—but each day we can each in our own lives and in our lives together apprentice ourselves to a peace-making God, praying: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Or, in other words, care for each other, forgive each other, do what needs to be done, and . . yes, wash the dishes.
August 22, 2009
I’ve been edgy all week.
At first I thought it was the weather—in the immortal words of Cole Porter, it’s just been “too darn hot.”
But then I noticed that I’d stopped listening to the news, started ignoring the newspaper. Hmm, I wondered, what’s that about?
Then I realized what’s going on. I’m scared. The health care “debate” has dominated the news and the level of anger and hostility at the town hall meetings has escalated and I’m feeling the threat of violence in the air. Something feels seriously wrong.
I’d like to ignore it and get on with my summer.
But like you in my lifetime I’ve witnessed violence in this country and certain of these incidents changed forever the way I see the world, especially the Vietnam War and the horrific string of assassinations during the 1960’s—John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and others.
September 11th traumatized whole new generations of Americans and undermined their trust that peace and civility will prevail.
What can we Americans Christians do about hostility and violence?
Jesus gives us a clear answer about what we should be doing. In the Sermon on the Mount he says: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” The catechism of the church (in the very back of the BCP) tells us that the basic mission of the church is to make peace: “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”
Does that mean that we Christians are called to be wimps? Does God want us to give in and give up our principles and beliefs in order to “keep the peace”?
The writer of the second lesson today certainly doesn’t think so. He tells Christians to suit up (spiritually speaking) like a Roman soldier in full armor complete with the “sword of the Spirit.”
So does that mean, as opposed to being wimps, are Christians supposed to wade into disputes like the Crusaders of old full of self-righteous zeal and the conviction that “God is on our side”?
Nope—neither wimps nor militants. The passage from the Book of Ephesians is clear that the spiritual armor we’re talking about is not ours—not our strength, our “truth,” our righteousness—but God’s, God’s, bestowed upon our powerlessness by God’s grace.
When we try to construct our own armor, to forge our own sword, that’s when we get into trouble. That’s when we’re self-righteous, rather than righteous. When we have faith in our own opinions rather than in the mystery of God’s will. When we fight to the death with the sword of our own self-will.
The passage also says—and this is terribly important— the battle is not against our fellow human beings, our enemies, the bad guys.
No, the battle we’re armed and armored for is a lot scarier than that. It’s against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Against, that is, demonic powers, especially those of violence and hatred which can, like the demons in horror movies, take us over and possess us.
How can we become Christ’s peacemakers in a place and time that desperately need them? We need to start small.
First of all—and maybe this is the hardest thing—we’ve got to recognize the hatred and hostility, the rage and wrath we find within ourselves.
I’m slowly learning that if I’m angry a hefty percentage of the time, it’s probably not the other person or people I think I’m angry at that I’m really angry at.
There’s a good chance that the demons are really inside me and not in the other person—resentments from my past, triggering reactions way bigger than they deserve. So I try and remember that wonderful line from the old cartoon “Pogo”: “we have seen the enemy and it is us.” I’m learning that this is a good time to beat a strategic retreat and do a bit of soul-searching and a lot of praying.
Secondly—as Christian peacemakers-in-training we need to look at how we act in the small things, how we are every day with one another in our families or in the church. Can we disagree with someone without hurting or degrading them? Can I admit that I may be wrong and you admit that you may be wrong and can we then stay in that uncomfortable place of disagreement until God’s wisdom and God’s Spirit has had time to work in us?
.
This week I happened to pick up a book on what’s called “the new monasticism,” Christians who choose to live together as communities in the world.
One story has stuck with me: The writer describes two men—one white and one black— who lived and worked together for years in an interracial religious community in the South. They finally admitted to each other and the community that they really didn’t get along very well and the reasons stemmed from race.
They finally went to a counselor. He showed them that they couldn’t make peace when one was always trying to triumph over the other.
The only thing that could help them, they finally realized, was to trust that God’s grace is powerful enough to work through and in them if only they could get their own egos out of the way. One of the men reported, “John [the counselor] taught me what was enough. It is enough to get the love of God into your bones , , , ,. It is enough to care for each other, to forgive each other, and to wash the dishes. The rest of life, he taught me, is details.”
I’m still afraid of the anger seeping through this country right now.
But I know that God’s grace is infinitely stronger than the demonic powers of anger and hostility.
It’s not easy—but each day we can each in our own lives and in our lives together apprentice ourselves to a peace-making God, praying: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” Or, in other words, care for each other, forgive each other, do what needs to be done, and . . yes, wash the dishes.
Pentecost 11 August 16, 2009
Pentecost 11
August 16, 2009
The last Sunday I preached before my vacation I spoke about Jesus and the feeding of the 5000.
By the following Thursday, preparing a wedding for 175 people felt like feeding 5000. I’d learned something I’d never known before—weddings are all about the food.
From Tuesday before the wedding literally until the wedding bells were sounding, we were slicing and chopping and mixing and baking and frosting.
Of course for a do-it-yourself potluck-style wedding you’re a little closer to the food issues than you might be otherwise.
But no matter who prepares or serves it, for the wedding couple, families and friends eating together comes right up there with the rings in making weddings special. Sharing food is an expression of sweetness, love, and joy, a way to act out generosity and affection. What better way to celebrate two people giving themselves in love to one another!
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is still talking to the same crowd whom he fed with the loaves and fishes. They loved the free food and they think they love him and they’ve followed him back to a synagogue in his home town with one idea in mind: to make him king of Israel so he can keep right on feeding them.
He’s been talking for a while and he suspects they’re not really listening. So he turns to an effective ploy for public speakers—shock.
“Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever!” ok. But then the zinger: “The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”
Whoa! Now they’re paying attention. As one translation says, “At this, the [people] started fighting among themselves: ‘How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?’”
Jesus knows he on to a good thing, so he keeps pushing it: “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you.” It gets even weirder: “The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life . . . My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”
It was shocking to them—especially the mention of “drinking blood” which was forbidden to Jews.
It can be shocking even now.
I’ve mentioned before how a friend brought her two daughters to my ordination. They’d never been to church before. As the bishop said the words you and I probably don’t even hear anymore we’ve heard them so often—”This is my Body” and “This is my Blood.”—they whispered to their mother, “We’re supposed to eat a body?”
When I invite you forward to Communion, I deliberately use the (I hope) slightly shocking words, “to share in the Body and Blood of Christ.”
Because it is a constant temptation to consider sharing in Holy Communion a nice thing to do when it’s convenient.
But Jesus doesn’t want a “nice,” “convenient” relationship with us. In wedding terms, he’s after marriage not just an occasional date.
So he offers himself—himself, his own true whole and holy self to us, to you and to me in Holy Communion.
I’m not going to start an argument about what happens to the bread and wine during the Eucharistic Prayer and Who/What it is exactly that we receive when we come forward to the Communion rail.
I don’t know—nobody does—although there’s a wide range of thoughts about it. But I do claim to know a couple of things from my own experience:
First, Holy Communion feeds real hunger. That’s part of what Jesus was trying to tell the crowd. We hunger physically, yes. We all know what that feels like, although probably few of us here this morning have ever felt the kind of physical hunger women, children, and men experience when they have no idea when they will be able to eat next.
But have you ever felt a hunger for something “more,”? for a life that’s deeper, more meaningful, more grounded in things that really matter? A hunger for what Jesus calls “eternal life”? A hunger for a love that will never desert you?
Those hunger pangs can strike when we’re shopping or watching the Red Sox or getting up and going to work even to a job we love and we suddenly feel empty and say to ourselves, “Isn’t there more to life than this?”
Second, in Holy Communion, Christ gives himself to us to feed that deep hunger. We “become what we eat.”
The Creation story says that God created us, men and women, in God’s own image and likeness. When we spoiled it, when we humans besmirched our godly image by sin, Jesus came to live among us. Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us.
Because he himself was human, Jesus knew from his own experience how weak and easily tempted we are. To become more like Jesus, more like the likeness of God, we humans need something stronger than words.
Jesus’ amazingly creative idea was to offer us the possibility of taking his divine life not just into our heads, not just into our emotions, but into our whole selves, our souls and bodies. And Jesus doesn’t hold back—he gives himself to us without reservations, without boundaries.
When we receive Holy Communion, Jesus promises us, we are eating and drinking Christ’s life. And Christ’s life is the same as God’s life. And more and more, as the sacrament works in us, nourishes us, Christ gives us the power to become what we eat—to become more and more like Christ—more compassionate, more merciful, more patient, more just, more kind.
We seem to have drifted pretty far from a wedding feast.
But I know that one big reason we were all there sharing that marvelous food, was that Hannah and Paul had both felt a deep hunger for a loving companion to walk through their lives with.
And for me, one of the most touching moments at the wedding was when Hannah and Paul fed each other the wedding cake. They were offering to each other without reservation the gift of love.
And when later I invite you to come forward to share in the Body and Blood of Christ that’s what’s on offer here at the altar rail: a full, pure, given-without-reservation gift of Love.
August 16, 2009
The last Sunday I preached before my vacation I spoke about Jesus and the feeding of the 5000.
By the following Thursday, preparing a wedding for 175 people felt like feeding 5000. I’d learned something I’d never known before—weddings are all about the food.
From Tuesday before the wedding literally until the wedding bells were sounding, we were slicing and chopping and mixing and baking and frosting.
Of course for a do-it-yourself potluck-style wedding you’re a little closer to the food issues than you might be otherwise.
But no matter who prepares or serves it, for the wedding couple, families and friends eating together comes right up there with the rings in making weddings special. Sharing food is an expression of sweetness, love, and joy, a way to act out generosity and affection. What better way to celebrate two people giving themselves in love to one another!
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is still talking to the same crowd whom he fed with the loaves and fishes. They loved the free food and they think they love him and they’ve followed him back to a synagogue in his home town with one idea in mind: to make him king of Israel so he can keep right on feeding them.
He’s been talking for a while and he suspects they’re not really listening. So he turns to an effective ploy for public speakers—shock.
“Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever!” ok. But then the zinger: “The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”
Whoa! Now they’re paying attention. As one translation says, “At this, the [people] started fighting among themselves: ‘How can this man serve up his flesh for a meal?’”
Jesus knows he on to a good thing, so he keeps pushing it: “Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you.” It gets even weirder: “The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life . . . My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.”
It was shocking to them—especially the mention of “drinking blood” which was forbidden to Jews.
It can be shocking even now.
I’ve mentioned before how a friend brought her two daughters to my ordination. They’d never been to church before. As the bishop said the words you and I probably don’t even hear anymore we’ve heard them so often—”This is my Body” and “This is my Blood.”—they whispered to their mother, “We’re supposed to eat a body?”
When I invite you forward to Communion, I deliberately use the (I hope) slightly shocking words, “to share in the Body and Blood of Christ.”
Because it is a constant temptation to consider sharing in Holy Communion a nice thing to do when it’s convenient.
But Jesus doesn’t want a “nice,” “convenient” relationship with us. In wedding terms, he’s after marriage not just an occasional date.
So he offers himself—himself, his own true whole and holy self to us, to you and to me in Holy Communion.
I’m not going to start an argument about what happens to the bread and wine during the Eucharistic Prayer and Who/What it is exactly that we receive when we come forward to the Communion rail.
I don’t know—nobody does—although there’s a wide range of thoughts about it. But I do claim to know a couple of things from my own experience:
First, Holy Communion feeds real hunger. That’s part of what Jesus was trying to tell the crowd. We hunger physically, yes. We all know what that feels like, although probably few of us here this morning have ever felt the kind of physical hunger women, children, and men experience when they have no idea when they will be able to eat next.
But have you ever felt a hunger for something “more,”? for a life that’s deeper, more meaningful, more grounded in things that really matter? A hunger for what Jesus calls “eternal life”? A hunger for a love that will never desert you?
Those hunger pangs can strike when we’re shopping or watching the Red Sox or getting up and going to work even to a job we love and we suddenly feel empty and say to ourselves, “Isn’t there more to life than this?”
Second, in Holy Communion, Christ gives himself to us to feed that deep hunger. We “become what we eat.”
The Creation story says that God created us, men and women, in God’s own image and likeness. When we spoiled it, when we humans besmirched our godly image by sin, Jesus came to live among us. Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us.
Because he himself was human, Jesus knew from his own experience how weak and easily tempted we are. To become more like Jesus, more like the likeness of God, we humans need something stronger than words.
Jesus’ amazingly creative idea was to offer us the possibility of taking his divine life not just into our heads, not just into our emotions, but into our whole selves, our souls and bodies. And Jesus doesn’t hold back—he gives himself to us without reservations, without boundaries.
When we receive Holy Communion, Jesus promises us, we are eating and drinking Christ’s life. And Christ’s life is the same as God’s life. And more and more, as the sacrament works in us, nourishes us, Christ gives us the power to become what we eat—to become more and more like Christ—more compassionate, more merciful, more patient, more just, more kind.
We seem to have drifted pretty far from a wedding feast.
But I know that one big reason we were all there sharing that marvelous food, was that Hannah and Paul had both felt a deep hunger for a loving companion to walk through their lives with.
And for me, one of the most touching moments at the wedding was when Hannah and Paul fed each other the wedding cake. They were offering to each other without reservation the gift of love.
And when later I invite you to come forward to share in the Body and Blood of Christ that’s what’s on offer here at the altar rail: a full, pure, given-without-reservation gift of Love.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
