Our Living Identity

 

13^th Sunday after Pentecost, August 30, 2009

James 1:17-27, with Mark 7:1-23 in the b.g.

 

 

I have a number of exercises that I like to do with couples who are preparing for marriage. One of the first exercises that I ask them to undertake is to tell me who they are. I do it in this way. I ask each one to tell me a bit about who their fiancée is. I don't want to hear only about the externals, their job, the color of their hair, eyes. Instead I am much more interested in who they truly are: What matters to them so much that they would be willing to give their life for that cause, those people? What/who is their fiancé deeply passionate about? Finally why have they become so committed to their fiancee, to want to invest the rest of their life journeying through life with that one particular person? Let me tell you, it's amazing to hear what people then say. 

 

This morning I want to invite you to reflect on who you are. I am not talking about your externals, what you first notice in a mirror about yourself or even what you have worked at or are working at now. Rather, I want you to ask yourself what/who you are passionate about. What really matters to you. What and whom are you committed to? You don't need to tell anyone else this but I want you to wrestle honestly about this. (30 second pause)

 

Did you come up with any answers? Yes? Great! If not, well there is food for thought.

 

Now, I invite you to think about this. Where have your attributes , your identity come from? Have you always had this identity? Did your parents, your friends, even God contribute anything to your identity positively or negatively? Do they now contribute to your identity?

 

The author of the letter of James is writing to a small Christian community that is wrestling with living out its identity in their particular culture as followers of Jesus. They are experiencing various struggles, even temptations. Some of these may be familiar to us. How can they live authentically? How can they deal with the tragedies of their lives, the tragedies of those around them? How can they live with a hope that is real even though they are still broken people in a world that is often bitterly fractured?

 

Can you identity with any of that? Our world is certainly fractured. When 2 people are stabbed in a local McDonald's restaurant, there is brokenness. When thousands of women and many children can not sleep safely or live quietly and assuredly in their own homes there is brokenness. When children are among the most frequent clients of our food banks in this, one of the wealthiest nations of the world, there is brokenness. And when we as human beings continue to war with each other on many different levels, even literally blowing each other up, there is brokenness. Tragedies abound: personally and collectively. 

 

And yet we are here, claiming to or at least wondering about following Jesus. Does such following mean anything, can it mean anything for our brokenness and the brokenness of this world? Do we impact our world, or does the brokenness of the world and our own brokenness shape and severely limit our identity? Does Jesus get swallowed up by all of that or relegated merely to some personal rules and piety that have little or nothing to do with the hunger, illness and brokenness of so much and so many?

 

The author of James wonders deeply about this. He or she desperately wants their community to live out their identity as followers of Jesus. The author has a strategy. He/she reminds them of who God is. This is a good place for us to begin also. The author says that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, that is the Creator of the universe, who does not change. But there's even more. This Father of lights, this Creator of the universe, gives those people in that community birth by the "word of truth". It is that author's way of saying that God, the Creator brings new life to people not just physically or even emotionally but totally and wholly in Jesus of Nazareth. How can this be?

 

Well, in Jesus the people not only hear about but are encountered by One who acts. He gives His all to love them. In His life, suffering, death and resurrection Jesus reaches out to those people in the midst of any and all of life's tragedies. He seeks to restore them to relationship with God. He wants them to experience unconditional love. Each day, regardless of what they done or been in the past, can now be new and different. Death, hatred, anger and fear do not control Jesus! Nor do they need to control his followers. Jesus' followers then can live differently. Because of Him we can too.

 

It's vitally important to hear that Word of Jesus, that Word which is Jesus – again and again and again. When we don't hear Him we lose track of who we are. We are encountered by God's love in Jesus. We are being, we can be forgiven! This is good news, incredibly wonderful not only for us but as the author of James says it is intended to be wonderful for others too! We who are so touched by and realize the love of God being showered upon us are to be first fruits of "his" creatures. We are to share this amazing love with all of the gifts God is giving us!

 

As with James' community following Jesus means that we are to be an example in such being loved and loving.  No more hatred! No more grabbing and hoarding. Our identity is not to be found in things. The author of James spells out to so live means developing a  discipline, a joyful and amazing discipline through which and in which we can hear this word of life in ongoing ways and so again and again be enabled to live it.

 

Hear some of the parameters of that discipline for those people: "Be quick to listen and slow to speak". Listening allows space for the other, so that we might cherish their perspective, refusing to try to come up with a retort or thinking only or primarily about ourselves and our point of view while others are speaking.

 

The author continues on about this discipline of hearing the word that gives us life and living from it. "Be slow to anger". Again, anger does not produce harmony with God or ultimately with others. How difficult this is for us! Anger seems to arise so quickly and almost easily within us. It is tempting to try to justify our anger. 

 

The author of James summarizes the importance of all of this by saying to his people: "be doers of this word and not hearers only". Again the key here is "word". Word is that word that God meets us with in Jesus. This is a "word" that helps us to see ourselves as we are in the light of who God is: needy and broken with all of our unique manifestations and yet by God's grace in Jesus also deeply loved, uniquely gifted. In Christ we are given new life with real purpose here, now and always.

 

Indeed our lives are to be ongoing journeys of discovering and living such purpose through our identity as followers of Jesus. Each of us may have different passions, different realities we seek to invest our lives in. But these passions and realities must be much broader than just ourselves or merely for ourselves if we are to follow Jesus.

 

So I ask, who are you? Who do you want to be? May your identity, may my identity flow from God the "Father of lights"- the giver of every good and perfect gift – the One who seeks to implant that word in us which brings about new life for us and for the world. Listen for that word. Live from it, from Him, now and always.  AMEN AND AMEN.

 

To Whom Shall We Go?

 

Pentecost 12b, August 23, 2009 (John 6:56-69) with Ephesians 6:10-20 in the b.g.

 

I speak today of a mystery, so grand, so awesome, that even the most intelligent human beings are incapable of explaining or understanding it. Yet at the same time this mystery is offered freely to all from the oldest to the youngest, the richest to the poorest, the most learned to the illiterate. This mystery, this most awesome of gifts is given by God that all may have life and have it in its fullest measure – with God, with others and with creation.

 

How can I, a person with limited mind, failing memory, whom you have you heard speak again and again speak to you in ways that you may hear of this great mystery, this wonder?

 

In faith and hope, I attempt to speak of this mystery employing two stories.

 

A woman, my friend tells a bit of her story. For many years she left the church. Her marriage had failed. More proximate to truth – her marriage had been horrible. I don't know all the painful details. Even of the ones she has shared, I do not tell them here – as if we might hunger to hear of her pain and struggle. But I do know this. Accompanying everything that occurred in her marriage she felt at least 2 realities for a long time: firstly, that she was not willing to forgive her husband for all that he had done to her and her young child; secondly she had failed in her marriage vows and therefore at least at some level was not acceptable to God.

 

That faith community, which in the formative years of her life, even up until her early 20's had been an integral part of shaping her identity, part of a larger whole to which she belonged, she had now abandoned. To see the full picture, we must also admit this. That faith community had also abandoned her. Rarely did anyone call to check on her, to offer any assistance to she and her daughter.

 

So it was for 10 a long time. She knew both pain and growth in that time. One day, by God's grace, she was in conversation with an older person, one who lived with a deep natural sense of who she was, a child of God, one who daily needed to be blessed by God's forgiveness and strength – and who received both as a gift. That one said something like this to my friend: "Your marriage vows are broken. Yet in the midst of that brokenness, loss and death, don't you believe that there can be new life for you, new beginnings with God and with others?"

 

My friend listened. She thought about that. Eventually it was like a light went on, not only in her head, but throughout her being. She IS STILL GOD'S CHILD, loved, forgiven. She could be – at times she could see that she had been guided by God. Now, she intentionally began anew her life. One of those "new" ways was that she returned to Church – to receiving the Sacrament at the table of the Lord, to hearing the WORD proclaimed. She came regularly, joyfully, in anticipation of what she would hear, receive and be able to give.

 

The man, also one whom I am privileged to call friend, lives his story. He is an excellent provider for his family. He is respected in his community. Yet, he struggles. When I first met him, I learned after awhile that though he came to worship virtually every week he rarely if ever came to Communion. One day I carefully broached the subject with him. He told me that once "quite a while ago",  he had been standing in line waiting to go to the communion table, when someone sitting hear the front of the church had said something to him like this, "Why was HE going to Communion? He wasn't good enough!" And ever since that day, he hadn't received the Sacrament.

 

He admitted that he wanted to come. But he was unsure and afraid. "Afraid of what?" I asked. Well he might get near the front of the church and not be able to go all the way to the front. He might get close and then bolt for the door. "So", I offered, "At least you would be 100 feet closer than last week". He smiled sardonically and replied, "But what would people think and say about me then?"

 

That was a number of years ago. Today my friend rarely goes to church. I suspect that he hasn't received communion in years. I also happen to know that he struggles deeply in many of his relationships, misunderstanding, misconstruing what others say to him and think about him. He feels deeply criticized, when often the others are offering nothing more than offhand comments or honest questions. Indeed having a relationship with him is often like walking on egg shells. I ache with him, for him and with a number of people like me who struggle to love him.

 

Am I then saying then that coming regularly to receive the Lord's Supper, even to hear the Word proclaimed will mean that your life will automatically get better and better and be easy? NO! Receiving our Lord's presence in the Sacrament, even hearing God's Word proclaimed in music and reading, in preaching is not some bit of magic, that someone else does to us and then alla kazaam, we are done. God is not a magician or a genie.

 

But hear Christ as proclaimed in John's Gospel: "I 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."

 

Christ gives of Himself out of love for the world. He offers Himself for us so that we can have new life – with God, with others, with creation.

 

I shouldn't need to tell you that our world is a broken place. We know such brokenness in our relationships – between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, children and parents. Elder abuse and child abuse are pain-filled realities. Nor is the Church innocent in such matters. Within congregations, within denominations, between denominations there is so much anger, hurt, separation. Creation itself continues to groan: fires scorch and consume the earth and her creatures; water shortages reach unprecedented levels. In the production of "goods" we also produce toxins that kill us.  Indeed, entire nations are torn apart by war and poverty – Iraq, the Sudan, Israel and Palestine, Haiti to name a few.

 

In the midst of all this Christ gives Himself, emptying Himself so that there may be healing – between ourselves and God, between ourselves and others, between ourselves and the rest of creation. In His love and sacrifice we may become keenly aware of our deep brokenness. But in and through Him lights can also go on and change occur. By God's grace we can move forward regardless of what others think or say. We are not alone. Jesus calls us to follow Him – even though it is risky, dangerous, involving all kinds of "costs" to us.

 

Will we follow Him? Dare we? Many are not interested. They want proof not any kind of trust. They want to be able to calculate costs. They may even desire the path of least resistance. Sometimes we are with them.

 

Ah, but what are the costs to not following? To get as much as we can and hoard it jealously? What has that is that already "costing" us?  To trust only that which we can understand, analyze, figure out will definitely impoverish us on many levels! There would be no love and no sacrifice, not even any birthing pains. How poor would we then be?

 

Christ asked Peter and the other 11, if they too would leave following him, because it was difficult. Peter supposedly responds by asking Jesus a rhetorical question we do so well to hear: "Lord, to whom should we go, YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE.

 

Ah yes, to whom will we go? Whom are we following?

 

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief. Move us to follow you – to new beginnings, whatever the cost, knowing that though the way be difficult and unknown, you still are leading! Amen.  

 

Whatddya Need?

 

11^th Sunday after Pentecost, August 16, 2009

Focusing on John 6:51-59

What do you need to live? Think about this in terms of your life, your commitments, that is the expenditure of your time and money. What do you absolutely need, have to have, to live? I invite you to think about this for 30 seconds. Then I invite you to turn and tell someone else at least one thing that you need to live.

 

What do we need to live? This is an important question. It is a question that frequently surfaces in my life. Sometimes this is because I am a Pastor. As a Pastor I am regularly faced with the reality of our mortality. What is the meaning of life as we are born, as we live and as we die? These questions surfaced again this past week as Marilyn discovered that she needed heart surgery right away. Even yesterday, as my wife and I went to renew our mortgage I again thought about, what do I really need to live?

 

This question arises again and again as we live and move and have our being. Yesterday I spoke with my parents on the occasion of their 58^th anniversary. As I heard their (from my perspective) "simple" plans for the day, I thought about what they needed to live.

 

Be careful about how we are answer this question. Sometimes our temptation, particularly when we are young, is to act as if we are going to live forever. You know, get in your car and drive hell bent, as if nothing could ever happen to you. Even now there are times when I'm tempted to do that. It's not only the young who must deal with temptations about what we need for life.  I remember an acquaintance of mine, a fine father, a good husband, a successful partner in a very successful business dropping over and shortly after dying while he was participating in a run for cancer. He was 44 years old. None of us are going to live as we are, forever. And the stuff that seems so important right now, that absolutely can't wait because it just has to be done, well we would do well to asses that.  At times it may need to be done right now. But at other times, think also about what we are sacrificing with others to do all those things right now. What do we give up in terms of our family members, friends, God, the rest of creation to do all those other things right now? What is the cost of our busyness to our relationships? What do we need to live?

 

There are a variety of temptations that run through our lives in this regard. A great one is to try to function as if we don't need any help. Someone asks, "Do you need any help?" "No, I'm fine", runs off our lips almost before the question has even been asked. How we long to be independent. How we must pretend, even to ourselves, that we can manage on our own, physically, emotionally, financially – even as the load becomes greater and greater. And our gender at this point doesn't' really seem to make much difference. Men and women are both equally guilty. Yah, sure, we can do it!

 

Oh, really? Can we do "it", on our own when our spouse dies? Can we do "it" on our own when our child denies us in some manner, shape or form, or runs the risk of really getting lost on their life's journey? Can we do "it" on our own when a friend that we counted on, betrays us? Can we do "it" on our own when we receive a diagnosis that knocks our socks off, cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's?

 

And on an even grander scale can we do "it" on our own while millions of children starve, while the planet enters an ecological crises, mostly because of our human actions? Can we do "it" on our own when others hate us because of what we have or because of what we believe? I ask, can we care for them, love them, refuse to hate them, simply by our own power?

 

There are some people, perhaps even many who claim that trusting in God, taking Jesus' promise that in Him there is life both now and after death, is a crutch, a convenience. I wonder about that.

 

Take today's Gospel text. Here Christ claims to be the living bread that has come down from heaven. At its climax Christ makes this incredible statement about himself: "But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

 

There are many Christians who want to spiritualize this claim of Christ – to say that what Christ is saying here is only about what happens to us when we die. There is truth in their statement. Christ does promise to raise up all who receive Him, who trust Him with their living. But there is also much more here! Yes, even more than life after death - as amazing, as wonderful, as incredible as that is.

 

The word that is translated in Christ's statement as "eat", that "the one who eats this bread will live forever" comes from a Greek word that literally means to gnaw on, to eat vigorously, as if our very lives depended on it. This is the key. What Jesus calls us to isn't somehow merely a polite or even a reverential reception of a communion wafer or bread. Instead Christ calls us to be nurtured by all that He is and does in His suffering, life, death and resurrection. In such a reception we literally can't wait – for what He is, who He is and what He brings to us: life that joins us to God. Such anticipation, longing to receive and eat is like my Chocolate Labrador who waits at our table or by my couch wanting so desperately to share what I already have. My dog Abby just can't wait for what she thinks she needs! 

 

Truly there are many things that we want. We live in a time where advertisers capitalize on increasing and over emphasizing our "wants". What we want changes throughout our lives. What we want to do, perhaps what we want to be, or even what we think we must have can change. But for a life that knows unconditional love, experiences that and can gladly, joyfully give such love away no matter what – this life can only be received from God, the Creator of the universe. This life comes to us in very real ways through God's Son, Jesus the Christ. He gives His flesh – that is his body, his very being for us in unconditional love, so that we can experience new life with God, with others and with creation.

 

We could never achieve this on our own. It is absolutely impossible. Think about this, we can't even make dirt on our own, let alone rise up from our own dirt, that is our grave. At times we are hard pressed to love ourselves, to say nothing of loving our enemies. To be sure as human beings we have developed a propensity to end life. But on our own we cannot create life. 

 

So, whatddya need? Think carefully people. The community birthed by the risen Christ, through which His very Spirit blows, tells us that the One reality we need for life is to dine on, to receive from, yes even gnaw on Jesus. Of course such gnawing is a metaphor, but as such it points us to profound reality. Hear Jesus' words. Receive his body and blood. Be moved by His Spirit to listen for Him, be open to Him, receive Him. In Him is life, eternal life that which  for John's Gospel is a quality of life here and now, that God wills to gift us with even through any and all realities. In Christ even then, especially then we are joined to God with this new life beginning now and forever! 

 

Jesus is the One we cannot live without. By the grace of God may our living prayer be, "Give us your bread, O Lord!"  In receiving this bread new life comes both for us and for the world. Amen.

For Sure?

 

Sometimes we ask others, almost as a greeting or an opening remark, "Hey, whatddya know?" But we should pay more attention to such a question. I want to ask you something this morning. What do you know for sure: one thing, one reality, one experience? I invite you to share that "knowing" with a person beside you. (give them 30 seconds to a minute).

 

Now, you are sure, right? Wonderful. But be careful. Here are some things that I have been sure of – that turned out either not to be true, or which I now understand in a completely different way now than I did at an earlier time. Moving from the less significant to the more important. Just over 2 weeks ago the football team that I cheer for was ahead by 22 points near half time. I was sure that they were going to win but THEY LOST. A second example: one of my parishioners in Vernon had a large malignant mass while he was in his early 70's. His physician told him that he then had less than 3 months to live. He did die but nearly 10 years later.

 

I used to be very sure about the power of gravity. But about ten years ago I witnessed  a person levitate off the ground right before my very eyes. Now I think about gravity in different ways. And lastly - I have met many different people who were sure they could trust someone. However later days or months or even years they discovered that their trust was misplaced. I have also witnessed the opposite where one hadn't been trustworthy for years and then changed.

 

So, we need to have some humility about what we are sure of, both positively and negatively..

 

The people who are quizzing Jesus in today's gospel are dubious about what he is saying. Jesus makes the most remarkable assertion: "I am the bead of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." They question all of this. They ARE SURE that they know Jesus. To be sure, they do know something about Jesus. To be sure, they also know something about the people that they think are Jesus' parents. And these people think that because they are very familiar with Jesus' parents, that Jesus must have exactly the same or very similar limitations to his parents. You know that old thing about the apple not falling too far from the tree! How then could Jesus come from heaven – if he had lived as a young child among them? As a result of their so-called certainty they are not open to the full reality of Jesus' presence, even though he is right there with them. 

 

Now, before we are too harsh on these people, we will do well to examine our own preconceptions. What do we know? People don't change because very few if any people we have ever known (including ourselves?) have dramatically changed. We may say that we know that God is good but what happens to such "knowledge" when cancer strikes or violence rips those we love from our presence? Even the so-called laws of science have been reexamined in the last 40 years that I have been reading and studying them. At the very least they have expanded dramatically. Read history and discover that what the church claims to know also changes. I hope that we wouldn't excommunicate Galileo today. 

 

All of this directs towards humility when it comes to what we think we know and the limitations such knowledge directs us to place on others, ourselves and yes, GOD!

 

Jesus makes declarations then and now. "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty". It is very likely that Jesus' meaning here is not literal. Regardless of our trust in him we continue to need material sustenance. So the meaning here must be deeper, more expansive.

 

In this regard I think that he is talking about a quality of life now and forever. And we are convinced that death is certain? In so many ways it is. I observe those who had the direct hands in creating my life. They are becoming more physically frail. As their earthly life draw closer to death  I cannot deny the reality of death. I have also been bedside while one of my closest friends has died this year. And I await a call as another fades way too quickly. I have painfully observed relationships that were once fueled by mutual compassion and joy wither and die, giving way to acrimony, apathy or even hatred. Death is powerful! Death has its own sting!

 

But Jesus comes making this audacious statement: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry".. "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever."

 

Watch Jesus live? Do we dare? Watch him bring life to people: to disciples who don't get it. Yet he keeps on trying with them. He even says that Peter, the one who denies him, will be the rock – the one who will in his living point others to Jesus. And Jesus gives those disciples peace, even after they have denied him.

 

Most importantly watch Jesus die. He doesn't die returning hatred for the hatred that kills him. See him turn hatred upside down. Jesus loves the world. His love is manifest as we gather today to receive him in such seemingly ordinary forms of bread and wine. He invites us, he can enable us to trust that in this bread and wine, coupled with the words of his promise, he is present bringing us new life and then even through us, new life for the world.

 

How can we know this? Well, what we have is His word, that is His promise, his life, death and resurrection. Others receive him too and spreading the word as He takes root in them and gives them flight! Thanks be to God for all of this.

 

It is good for us to wrestle with what we know for sure, by directly asking where our sustenance, our nurture is coming from? Oh, yes we need our daily bread. That's why Jesus encourages us to pray for it. But we also need much more than that. We need the "bread" that can fill our hearts and minds with the ongoing impetus to love. We need the "bread" that can give us hope in the face of death and evil, that propel us to respond by working for life ourselves. We need the "bread" that can make us sing and dance, gives us the freedom to lament and mourn in the midst of all reality.

 

Let me tell you that the witness of the Scriptures, the experience of my limited life is that this bread, this One is Jesus, just as he claims.

 

One further thin: amazingly we don't have to find him ourselves – we can't. Through the work of the Holy Spirit he is working to draw us to himself. The words of Scripture, the Sacraments and sometimes the words and actions of others, even the working of creation can all become part of that grand and wonder-filled mystery. May we be open to His action in our lives to leading us to new trust even opening us up to all kinds of possibilities as we are led beyond our security need to be so "sure"

 

Christ tells us that he is the bread from heaven. Even now he invites us to come and receive, just as we are. Amen. 

Who Are You?

9^th Sunday after Pentecost, August 2, 2009 (John 6:24-35)

Who am I?

 

Who are you?

 

Am I the person that others respect, that others experience as kind, patient, generous, even faithul? Are you that person? Or am I the person who "loses it" in my car when someone cuts me off in traffic, who from time to time makes very rude comments about the size of their brain, even their genetic makeup? Are we people who hide a part of ourselves from others as we hide from them what we are reading, watching, actually even thinking? Am I the generous person whose heart and money goes out to those in need from time to time or am I the person who sometimes refuses to read the paper, watch the news, or actually encounter those people on the lower East Side or in our parks for fear that I may be called to actually give deeply of myself, even to change the way I think about myself, my place and function in this world. Really, who are you?

 

These are important questions but not new ones. The Biblical record time and again helps us to actually see other people in very honest ways.

 

So I ask you this morning, who is King David? Is he chosen by God, through Nathan from the line of Jesse's sons, the supposedly least likely of all those sons? Is David that young shepherd boy, we may think of as kindly, even meek, who then goes out to battle with the giant Philistine Goliath, who with his sling shot sinks a stone into that large man's forehead and then proceeds to amputate Goliath's head? Who would cheer for that – even if Goliath was nastier than nasty? Or is David the one who writes at least some of the Psalms that we read in our Bible? The Bible itself notes that David was somewhat of a skilled musician. Finally is this David the great, great, great ( I didn't count how many greats there are in the biblical genealogies) grandfather of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God? Does that say something about who David was? Indeed isn't David the one of whom God said that he is a man after my (God's) own heart?

 

This morning we hear that David is also an adulterer. Now a King, David sees Bathsheba bathing. He wants her for himself. At times what kings want kings take. King David orders Bathsheba to be brought to him. Then he impregnates her while her husband is off battling a war on King David's behalf. If that weren't enough King David then tries to cover up his own sin by sending for her husband to return home. Bathsheba's husband Uriah is then ordered to go home to his wife. But Uriah unlike King David is a solider of honor. He refuses to do so. David realizes that the gig is up, that his sin of adultery will come to light. But David is willing to go further. Through his "kingly" authority he has Uriah murdered.

 

The writer of II Samuel tells us that all this displeased God. Duh! 

 

At first David doesn't see it his own guilt. It takes Nathan to tell David a story in a way that reveals the great wrong that David has committed. David says that the rich man who took the poor man's one and only lamb for himself to feed a guest while keeping his many lambs all for himself deserves to die, or at the very least make a 4 fold recompense. Then Nathan speaks the truth to David in an uncompromising way. You are the man who deserves to die! Why, asks God, why oh why, did you disobey me after I had given you everything you needed and so much more? What a question!

 

In the light of King David's multi-faceted actions I ask us to reflect upon who we are!

 

I also tell you a second more contemporary story. A young baby had been born prematurely. The baby had lived for 17 days in an intensive care unit, and was struggling for life. The baby had contracted an infection and was now on life-support systems. There was grave concern that the baby would not live. The parents asked their Pastor to come to the hospital because they had been told that they needed to remove their baby from these life support systems. 

 

The Pastor goes to the hospital and meets with the family and the parents in a waiting room. Together they pray and cry. Eventually the young mother says, "It's time." Together they walk to the doors of the neonatal intensive care unit. At the door the young mom stopped. She takes a deep breath. She looks at the door. There were all the names of the babies in that intensive care unit.. She looked at her son's name. She put her hand on his name and said, "I am his mother." Then she takes the name off the door, places it in her hand and enters the unit.

 

The family and the pastor gather around that baby's bassinet; a baby struggling for life, being kept alive by machines. Again they pray. The Pastor reminds the family that this little baby boy is a child of God. Whether he lives for 17 days or 100 years, he is precious to God. God will not leave him whatever happens today. Then one of the nurses asks the young mother, "Would you like to hold your son?"

           

"Yes", she replies.

 

They bring a rocking chair. Then they unplug the baby from all of the machines, wrap him in a blanket and place him in his mother's arms. She rocks back and forth, holding her baby as he breathes his last. Tears run down her cheeks but she starts to sing to her baby as he dies. Everyone else is weeping. The nurses are hardly able to stay in the area. But the young woman remains composed as she sings for her baby and rocks him into eternity.

 

At a deeply profound level this young mother knows who she is. She isn't only a daughter, a wife, or a friend. She isn't only afraid, very sad, full of questions, overwrought by loss. In all of this she is also her baby's mother. She has been gifted with amazing privilege and enormous responsibility. By God's grace she was and is that little boy baby's mother. This mother lives in relationships that are defining.

 

St. Augustine in his Confessions points to the underlying truth of all our identities quite clearly: "Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in thee."

 

So, what can we do people, we who can be amazing in one moment and disgusting almost in the next breath, whose "old Adam" as Luther called that part of ourselves, refuses to die rearing its ugly head time after time? Who will love us as we truly are, unconditionally? Who will transform us, lead us in St. Paul's words from this body of death here and now to new life both now and forever.?

 

Let me assure you that no thing and no strictly human person, regardless of how bright or caring they are, can do this.

 

BUT hear the Gospel. Jesus is standing among those to whom he had  given daily bread the day before. This bread was never to be an end in itself. Instead this bread was also to point beyond itself to the giver. But the people don't get it. Their appetite is for more "stuff", more bread! They think that if they can just get more stuff then everything will be OK.

 

Looking at Jesus feeding them they do see a miracle. Miracles can be good. But the miracle isn't an end itself. Who is the source of the manna in the wilderness, who sends the friend that calls when we are most desperate, the one who listens when no one else seems to care or understand.? Who has died or would die so that we might have life forever?

 

Jesus says and he backs up what he says with his death, "I am the bread of life. He who believes in me will never be hungry. He/she who believes in me will never be thirsty!"

 

What an audacious claim! Many laugh derisively. We often like to think we can feed ourselves, or at the very least pump water up out of the earth to moisten our parched lips. Sometimes by the grace of God, we do so for a time.

 

But Jesus speaks here about more than daily bread or daily water as important as they are. Jesus is speaking of new life, transformed minds and hearts, the ability, a new will that refuses to hate, but rather works at persisting in love, in dreaming and working for the well being of others especially those in need. Jesus is talking about making us and all people into new people, giving us an identity as his sons and daughters that no one, not even our actions or inactions can destroy – not even death! He is talking about joining us to Himself.

 

What are you eating? What are we drinking? Who are we? We do well to listen to the author of the Ephesians who says, "I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love". In order to do any of that we need help beyond ourselves, a bread that lasts and nurtures, living water. Jesus is the living bread who comes down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever and the bread that Jesus gives is his flesh.  This is his promise!

 

Are we trusting him? Will we receive Him? God help us, for we contend not only with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities much more powerful than ourselves! Amen.