14 Pentecost, Yr B, Proper 16, Aug 25 2024, Grace Church, Minneapolis

14 Pentecost, Yr B, Proper 16, Aug 25 2024, Grace Church, Minneapolis

1 Kings 8:[1, 6, 10-11], 22-30, 41-43, Psalm 84, Ephesians 6:10-20, John 6:56-69

 

So we come to our last Sunday reading this sixth chapter of John. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is eternal life. And we hear some of Jesus’ disciples say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

 

Are we some of those people? Do we ever say, following Jesus is just too hard? Do we ever say, this teaching is difficult; this one I’ll just pretend isn’t there? Some of it is really hard, following Jesus is hard, but we can do hard things. So today let’s take a look at what Jesus asks of us. Let’s take a look at how Jesus empowers us to be followers. And most especially, let’s take a look at how Jesus fills us with food, nourishment, and life, so that we may have new life. Let’s take a look at how Jesus abides in us.

 

And to get there, we need to remember what John asks us to recall. John assumes that we know our bible, and the story of Moses and the Hebrew people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They did a bit of whining while they were wandering, wouldn’t we all, and yet they were fed manna. They were sustained in the wilderness, but John is making a point that even that food was not the bread of life, the living bread. The trouble in this text is that people don’t believe Jesus is who he is. The trouble is that people don’t believe Jesus is God in the flesh.

 

It’s important for us to remember that John’s story is told many years after Jesus lived, suffered, died, resurrected, and ascended. John finds it very hard to understand that anyone who has an encounter 

with the story of Jesus would not believe that Jesus is indeed God in the flesh, the incarnate one. John shows us the truth of who Jesus is by showing us the signs that Jesus did, turning water into wine, healing the woman who bled for years, healing the man who was ill for 38 years, feeding 5000 people, healing the man blind from birth, and raising Lazarus from the dead. So the disciples make the statement we are thinking in our heads. This is hard, not only to wrap our minds around, but to open our hearts, and to follow.

 

What makes it so hard? Maybe because we didn’t see it ourselves or hear it ourselves. The trouble in our world is that talk about being faithful rather than successful is all foolishness. You all know this. You all have experienced this. Talking about things not seen makes your sanity suspect. Commitment to gathering in Jesus’ name, prayer and study makes your priorities questionable in some circles. And abiding in Jesus’ real presence in bread and wine, body and blood, is foolish.

 

So this good news is hard because it calls us away from a narrative of rugged individualism into community and interdependence, it calls us to accountability, it calls us to lay down our own desire for power. That’s why the Jewish and Roman authorities of Jesus day tried to trip him up, why tried to snare him. Their power was being threatened. And it is not so different today.

So in this last story of John’s gospel about the bread of life, the living bread, let’s see what may be going on. Remember the word John uses for the deep relationship Jesus has with us, to abide, or dwell. John is very interested in showing Jesus’ followers that is you and me, what incarnation looks like. Incarnation, God stooping to be born in a barn, God coming into this world as one of us, God taking on flesh. Incarnation means God dwells with us, God in our midst, God in the flesh. This relationship between God in the flesh, who is Jesus, and God’s creation, you and me, is cellular, it is so deep and so broad and so wide, it is so intimate, that Jesus’ presence is nourishment, sustenance, life, it is bread for our souls.

 

John uses this verb, abide, throughout the gospel, and it means the mutual indwelling of God, Jesus, and the disciples. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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.” There is a sense of divine presence and companionship, and friendship.

 

Could this also be what is so hard? And maybe even scary. That God, who is creator of all that is, seen and unseen, creator of the cosmos, sees fit to walk this journey of life with us. That Jesus is so very present with us. Really present, present when we are so broken, we have no hope that the bits and pieces could ever be made whole again. Really present, present when our joy is so intense that we feel it throughout our bodies. Really present even in our worries, and in our mistakes that deep down inside we believe cannot be forgiven. Really present when we are filled with bread that is body 

and wine that is blood. Really present, and that presence fills us with fear, fear that is awe.

 

We have lost the sense of awe. Everything is awesome, but what about awe - full? Jesus, really present in the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, fills us with fear, with awe. How can this be? This is really hard, and somewhat scary. Jesus abides in us, Jesus calls us into relationship, Jesus nourishes us. Because when we are filled with Jesus, filled with bread and wine, body and blood, we are changed, we are transformed, and we are deepened, we are made into who God means for us to be. It is this abiding presence that empowers us to let go of and to lay down our burdens, our addictions, our worries, and be made into the new creation of God’s dream. And letting go is hard, giving up power, and the illusion of control is hard, but you can do hard things.

 

God’s dream for us is to be people who love. Because, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God. We are people who follow Jesus, who each day face the realities of our lives, our joys and our sorrows, our anxieties and our loveliness. We are people who get out of bed each day to face ourselves with integrity and honesty, with the heart knowledge that Jesus abides in us. We step out into the world in love. We leave this place filled with the real presence of Jesus. We love, we follow Jesus, because God first loved us.

 

Risen lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. 

Lord Jesus, abide in us, as we love one another. 

Amen.

“Life is short, my friends,

and we do not have too much time

to gladden the hearts of others.

So be quick to love,

and make haste to be kind.

And the blessing of God Almighty,

who created you in love,

who walks with you in love,

and who will bring you home in love,

be upon you and all whom you love,

this day forth and forever more. Amen.”

3 Easter Yr A April 23 2023

3 Easter Yr A April 23 2023

Acts 2:14a,36-41, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35, Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. From the moment my journey in the Episcopal church began, this is the scripture, the prayer, the action, that made the presence of Jesus Christ real for me. There is nothing about church, about community, about family, about faith, about compassion and justice, about baptismal promises, about a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is not contained in this little collection of words, if only we can recognize. Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

 

As a child, I lived in a community of people. I am five of eight. There were most always people around, and the liveliest times of the day were our dinner meal. We would scrunch around our kitchen table, someone would have to sit on a stool at the counter, actually, the bread board, remember bread boards? in order to get us all in. I wonder if then I recognized the wonder in all that chaos. When my extended family would gather for holidays, there were 23 of us grandchildren. We would enjoy a meal together, but not much quiet. Often many of us little ones would end up staying the night wherever we were, eating breakfast and lunch together the next day, and playing of course. I think the seeds of understanding Jesus’ real presence were planted in those gatherings.

 

In the summer of 2013, Rick and I, and Tom and Amanda, and Willie went on an incredible journey, and among many amazing things we did, we met some of our Norwegian relatives. They were as happy to meet us as we were to meet them. A cousin, Jan, took us to see the land on which our ancestors farmed. We were profoundly moved as we stood on that land, and felt the timeless connection to those who came before us, and those who will follow us. We recognized that connection, that story that joins us all together. At Jan's home, we ate a wonderful meal of Norwegian porridge, and pork, and cheese, and bread, of course. The next day we gathered with my cousins Kjell and MaryAnn and had heart shaped waffles with cloudberries.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

 

It makes so much sense, as we journey together through this life, that breaking bread together is the central activity for us, we come from farmers after all. The most radical activity that Jesus engaged in was to invite people to a meal. And everyone got that invitation. Not only were there religious leaders, there were tax collectors, there were women, single women at that, women who were protected by no one. At table Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. At table Jesus disrupted the social order. At table, Jesus nourished not only the body, but the spirit and the soul as well.

 

When we gather at the communion table we come from home and work and school; we come from far away and down the street, we come and we tell our story, and we tell the story of God’s activity in our lives; we tell the story of creation, blessing, turning away, God loving us back into relationship, repentance, reconciliation and restoration. We tell the story of life, death, and resurrection. We tell the truth.

 

The story that we know and we tell, is about how God saved God's people from the flood waters, and God freed God's people from slavery in Egypt. God brought God's people out of exile back into their land and God came to live and die as one of us, Jesus is in our midst.

 

We read and we study and tell these stories. We listen and talk about what God did and continues to do in this world. We tell these stories to our children. And we do because they help us remember who we are. We remember who we are and we recognize one another and we are recognized in the breaking of bread and the prayers. We give thanks for our blessings; we ask for healing for ourselves and others, we eat together.

 

That is what happened with the two in our story today, who were walking away from Jerusalem, dejected, alone, afraid. Wondering what it was all about, wondering how it all went so very wrong. And the One who told the story of Moses and all the prophets, who told them the story of Jesus, joined them. They invited him to stay, he did, they ate together, and they recognized him.

 

We recognize Jesus in the people with whom we gather to share and tell our stories, and the stories of our faith; we recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread, we see Jesus in the hands, and in the eyes, and in the faces of the people who are at our table.

 

But we also recognize Jesus in the stranger, and the alien, and the immigrant. We see and hear Jesus in those who are out there, those who continue to live in isolation, in loneliness, in hurt, in this broken world. We recognize the freedom, the peace, the community that can be theirs as well.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. But it's not just in the baking of the bread, or in the breaking of the bread, the bread broken for you and for me. Our wholeness comes from brokenness, our healing rises up out of broken hearts that are mended by God’s love. Humanity is made whole once more by the real presence of Jesus in our midst, in our lives, in our brokenness, the broken bread.

 

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Help us to recognize you in word and sacrament, in story and in food, help us to see you in the midst of community. Help us to be agents of your new creation, standing on the ground that you have already won in your resurrection.

 

It is in the bread, broken for us and for all, that we recognize the Love that wins. Amen. 

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 14 Aug 8 2021

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 14 Aug 8 2021

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33, Psalm 130, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, John 6:35, 41-51

 

This portion of the Bread of Life discourse reminds me of some of the rhetoric that is carried on in some circles today. Who do we listen to? The experts, or sketchy shared stories on Facebook? That rhetoric has diminished some experts that we really need to listen to. I’m not saying we always defer to experts, that would disempower those of us who write, or sing, or dance just for fun. But in many things, it is important to listen to the experts. 

 

Jesus is the expert here, and Jesus says, I am the bread of life that came down from heaven. Jesus then says, do not complain among yourselves, the father draws you through love, and I will raise that person up on the last day. The people in this story want to diminish Jesus, “isn’t he just Joseph’s and Mary’s son? We know them, they live here in the neighborhood, Jesus can’t be who he claims to be.” But over and over Jesus continues to point them to the truth. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Jesus reminds them of the manna their forebears ate in the wilderness, Jesus reminds them that that nourishment came from God. And Jesus shows them that now, Jesus is making a direct connection between himself and God. 

 

Let’s take a look. Listen again to verse 35, where we begin today and where we ended last week. 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.” As you hear this what you might be reminded of is Jesus and the woman at the well. In that story Jesus says, “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.” Jesus is building, bread crumb by bread crumb, the truth that he is this living water, this bread of life. Jesus is the source of this abundance. Jesus is I AM, God in our midst. No one has ever seen God, except for the Son. Jesus is saying “in me you see God.” What John the gospel writer does is to heap grace upon grace as the disciples and us are led to the place where deep in our hearts and souls we take Jesus in.

 

But the disciples see but do not trust. They are not unlike those Facebook posters who ignore the science in favor of what the guy down the street or Aunt Harriet has to say. And the people begin to complain, just like the wilderness wanderers complained that they were hungry, and the food God gave them wasn’t good enough. Jesus is trying to move the disciples, and the onlookers, and you and me deeper into the reality that is abundantly offered, because in this relationship with Jesus there is eternal life, salvation, belief, love, grace. 

 

We often define “eternal life” as our future resurrected life in heaven with God but in John, Jesus is clear that eternal life is abundant life with him here and now. Eternal life is not a postponed existence after we die but meant to be experienced in the present. Because eternal life is a relationship with Jesus now, salvation is also a present reality. Salvation, or “being saved”, simply means an intimate relationship with God and Jesus. Eternal life = salvation = belief. And when Jesus says I am the “bread from heaven,” heaven is then given to us. For Jesus in John, heaven is not a place, but a person. 

 

So you see, this is all about how we live our lives today in response to this amazing gift of love, this grace upon grace, this abundance. And what does that look like? 

 

It looks like love. Because love is not something that we feel all mushy about, love is who God is and what God does. It is for love that God, who creates all that is seen and unseen, God who creates the cosmos, comes into our world, to walk this path with us, to show us the way, to carry us when we cannot walk it our selves.

 

 

And how does God carry us? In love, through you. You are God’s hands and feet, you are God’s love in this world. You and you and you, all of us, this community of faith that comes together to pray, to eat bread and drink wine, to share meals, and tears, heartache and joy, and who is sent out into the world to do what we are called to do.

 

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we hear that call as clearly as we’ve ever heard it. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 

This bread of life is Jesus’ body and feeds us. This bread of life is Jesus’ body that is broken for us, so that the bits and pieces of our brokenness may be put back together. Believe it, Jesus says. Live it, Jesus says. And Love. For Love is the recognition of the truth that we are neighbors. The Love we show is the recognition of the truth that as bad as we think we can get, God’s grace upon grace can embrace us anyway.

 

God’s promise of forgiveness and acceptance, of wholeness and of life, is given to each of us in a form we not only can hear, but also see, taste, touch, and feel. And so the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, bid us to raise our eyes from the confusion and ambiguity of life for a moment, so that we may receive God’s grace upon grace, God’s abundance, and return to our lives in this confusing world with courage and hope.

 

But don’t wait, don’t wait until the time is right, or until you have more or know more, eternal life is now. Don’t wait, until tomorrow or the next day, loving your neighbor is now. Don’t wait, until the world is a better place, make it so today.

 

This is the bread of life, broken for you. Thanks be to God.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 13 August 1 2021

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 13 August 1 2021

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a, Psalm 51:1-13, Ephesians 4:1-16, John 6:24-35

 

The fragrant smell of fresh bread is one of my fondest memories from my childhood. When I would enter my house after walking home from school, my mom would have fresh bread ready for an after-school snack. We’d smother it in butter and eat a whole loaf. My memory of that is infused with love and abundance. A mother who was home when I got home from school, fresh bread, brothers and sisters, time to play outside. It was grace upon grace, it was absolute and abundant love. There was no question about my place in my family, even with eight kids I always knew I was loved. This remains one of my most grace filled memories. Today families are made up of all shapes and sizes, with constellations of people who care for children, grammas and grampas, other family members, day cares and clubs, all with the same ability to show children they are loved abundantly.

 

Beginning last week and for the next four weeks we will be reading through the Bread of Life Discourse in John’s gospel, the entire sixth chapter. In these seventy-one verses, John’s themes of grace upon grace, and God’s abundance are mixed in and rise to offer us the fragrant gift of eternal life. 

 

In these next few weeks, I encourage you to read all of John, and most especially this sixth chapter. And, I encourage you to attend Friday morning Bible Study. We’re recording the discussion, so you can listen to it with a click from our website. 

 

But even my experience of love and grace and abundance, pales in comparison to what John is doing in the gospel and in this sixth chapter specifically. John gives us Jesus, who offers the disciples, and you and I, an invitation into a deep, deep, relationship. Jesus reveals more and more of who he is, the bread of life. 

 

Today John offers us the bread of life that fills us, and sustains us, in Jesus whose relationship with us heals us. 

 

We wander around trying to fill up on that which cannot fill us, that which cannot sustain us, that which cannot seep into the cracks of our broken hearts. We look for something that we believe will make us happy and successful. And we come here, looking for something, maybe not quite sure what it is. What we get is Jesus. Jesus is the food that fills us, Jesus is the blood that seeps into the cracks of our hearts and souls and makes us whole. Come and I will feed you. Come, and you will never be hungry or thirsty again. When you eat this bread and drink this wine, you will be healed, you are a new creation, your hunger will be satisfied. That is what the gospel writer John means when he refers to eternal life.

 

The feeding of the five thousand, last week’s reading and the beginning of this Bread of Life discourse, was a massive picnic in the wilderness. Today we hear Jesus say to those who, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Often, those who followed Jesus were confused, they misunderstood. They cannot see beyond the sign to Jesus, whom they have already received. Not only is the bread Jesus' body, but it is manna from heaven, the bread of angels. The wine is not just Jesus' blood, but the free-flowing drink at the messianic feast, the substance of joy. It will fill you up, like nothing else can.

 

A loaf of bread is as practical as it is mysterious. It will fill our hunger in so many ways. And as we partake of the bread we become the body, the body of Christ. We become a new creation, we are made whole. We become a community of faith. We are healed, we are put back together, we are re-membered.

 

As we take the bread into our bodies, and as we are healed, we are formed as followers of Jesus. We come here, finally again, and we take into our bodies the bread of life, we ingest the Word over and over again. Jesus seeps into our very being and fills the cracks and fissures. In this practice, we become the people of God, we become who God creates us to be, who God dreams we can be. Part of the mystery is that the loaf of bread teaches us who we are as well as transforms us into whom we may be. Our practice and prayer surround the loaf of bread with word and action.

 

As we take the bread into our bodies we become followers of Jesus, and as followers of Jesus we embody God's promise and reconciliation in the world. That is our mission. What does God call us to do? God calls us to embody healing and reconciliation in the world. We are a holy community, sanctified by the presence and Spirit of God, sharing the Lord's meal, and as a holy community, God works through us ordinary people, to do extraordinary things.

 

We are a witness to the world of an alternate way of living. We are followers of Jesus, we are the Jesus movement. In the world, the strongest wins, the one who has the most wins, in the Jesus movement, Love wins. In the world the powerful, the well-known, the stars, get the attention, in the Jesus movement, the first will be last, and the last will be first. Our identity as followers of Jesus is found in participating in God's life and love for the world, in creating Jesus' community wherever we find ourselves. We care for our own members, and we love our neighbors the same way God loves us in Jesus. We go into the world bearing a spirit of humility, compassion, and mercy, and we bring Jesus' healing wherever we go.

 

We also receive Jesus' healing from others, we receive Jesus' hospitality from others, and Jesus' body is completed by others, because we don't have all the answers, we don't know it all, we don't have the right way or the only way. There is so much we have yet to learn, so many ways we can be Jesus' body that we do not know yet.

 

It is I, do not be afraid. You will eat and be filled, you will eat and be healed, you will eat and be sent into the world to be Jesus' hands and feet. You don't need to be perfect because you are perfectly loved. It is this love relationship that is faith, that is belief, and that is eternal life. It is grace upon grace. Amen. 

3 Easter Yr B April 18 2021

YouTube recording

3 Easter Yr B April 18 2021

Acts 3:12-19, 1 John 3:1-7, Luke 24:36b-48, Psalm 4

 

When my kids were little boys, we would love to go to the Science Museum in St. Paul, MN. It was a great museum because you could touch and feel everything. I suppose that means it is designed for kids, but I’ve always liked it too. There would be boxes that you would put your hand into and touch whatever thing was in it and try to figure out what it was. Was it soft or hard, hairy or smooth, round, square, oddly shaped, squishy, slimy, all of these were important questions to figuring it out. You can’t really learn much about anything, whether it’s an animal, or a fossil, or even a person, without really encountering it. Just standing back and looking at stuff not only is boring but doesn’t really register because you haven’t accessed all the important learning centers, like touch, smell, taste etc. Jesus seemed to know all this.

 

This story begins that day of resurrection, two of the disciples were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was, not until they invited Jesus to stay with them, and as they were sitting down to their meal, Jesus took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And they recognized him. Our Eucharistic Prayer C repeats this refrain, we say “Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

 

Be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Jesus’ appearance in this story at the end of Luke, his words touch and see, even having a little fish snack, should bring us right back to the meals Jesus shared with his friends, he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Appearing to his friends like this, after they watched him die, after they watched him being taken down from the cross, after they watched him being laid in the tomb, must have been so much more than shocking. They thought what they were seeing was an apparition. And Jesus had to show them that he wasn’t a ghost, but that he really was Jesus. So he reminds them of what they did together, he reminds them of the meals they shared, he reminds them that each time they bake the bread, each time they combine the wheat, the water, the yeast, each time they smell the bread baking, each time they bless it and break it, they are to remember. This is how we remember our loved ones, isn’t it? We remember the time we spent together, the things we did, the touch and the smells. Touch and see. Smell and feel. Remember who you are. 

 

Resurrection and resuscitation are not the same thing. This is Jesus that these followers are feeding. It is not a ghost, and it is not some sort of resuscitated Jesus, a Jesus who narrowly escaped a horrific death. This is the resurrected Jesus, the promise and fulfillment of God as revealed in the story of God’s activity in the life of God’s people. We are shocked and surprised. We wish to believe and yet are wary of belief.

 

Touch and see; the truth is in front of our eyes if only we put ourselves aside and see it. The truth is in living each and every day. The truth is in the seeds that must be buried in the ground and be created new before they can erupt from the ground to become the wheat that becomes the flour that becomes the bread that becomes the body of Jesus broken for us. The truth is in the transformation of a broken body into a healed body, not a perfect body. The truth is in a life lived in pain and sadness with the constant striving to acquire and have, and the transformation of that life into a life in service to others.

 

God has begun the new creation in Jesus. God has inaugurated all that God has promised 

with the resurrection of Jesus. You and I then are participants in the new creation, or the Kingdom of God. There is a moral dimension to resurrection, and it is not about being good in order to go to heaven. If we are in fact re-membered, or put back together as the Kingdom of God, as Jesus’ body was when he appeared to his friends, we have a moral obligation in the here and now. We are called to revere and care for our physical bodies, God will make them new at the resurrection at the fulfillment of time, but what we do with them today bears on being created in God’s image. We are called to revere and care for the earth on which we live, as a living, breathing body that sustains human life as well as animal and plant life. And we are called to revere and care for all of God’s creatures. We are created in God’s image, every one of us. We have a moral obligation to treat each other as God’s image. When we look into another’s face, we see the face of God.

 

I must say, in light of the seemingly endless violence against people of color in our country in these days, somewhere that has been lost. You all know this, but it never hurts to remind ourselves, that all bodies have value because they are created in God’s image. No body is worth more or less than any other body. Black bodies, brown bodies, indigenous bodies, gay bodies, trans bodies, Christ's body. There is no hierarchy of worth or value. 

 

When we speak of love, love wins, Jesus died for love, we are not speaking of a feeling. We are speaking of the activity of Jesus de-marginalizing all those who have been thrown to the curb, thrown down and beaten. This love challenges us to engage the world differently, and to figure out ways in which we contribute to a community in which all bodies are treated with respect, not because any of us deserve or don't deserve it, but because our bodies are created in God's image.

 

God calls us to show people this reality. God calls us to witness to these things. Bearing witness to God’s amazing and abundant love for all of creation is always about being in relationship with God and showing forth God’s love. It is nothing more than that, but it is also nothing less. We are called forth into the world to proclaim God’s love and God’s forgiveness. We are called forth to be God’s hands and feet of love. 

 

Alleluia. The Lord has risen indeed: Come let us adore him. Alleluia.

Third Sunday of Easter Yr A April 26 2020

 Video

Third Sunday of Easter Yr A April 26 2020

Acts 2:14a,36-41, 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35, Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. From the moment my journey in the Episcopal church began, this is the scripture, the prayer, the action, that made the presence of Jesus Christ real for me. There is nothing about church, about community, about family, about faith, about compassion and justice, about baptismal promises, about a passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is not contained in this little collection of words, if only we can recognize. Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

As a child, I lived in a community of people. I am five of eight. There were most always people around, and the liveliest times of the day were our dinner meal. We would scrunch around our kitchen table, someone would have to sit on a stool at the counter, actually, the bread board, remember bread boards? in order to get us all in. I wonder if then I recognized the wonder in all that chaos. When my extended family would gather for holidays there were 23 of us grandchildren. We would enjoy a meal together, but not much quiet. Often many of us little ones would end up staying the night wherever we were, eating breakfast and lunch together the next day, and playing of course. I think the seeds of understanding Jesus’ real presence were planted in those gatherings.

In the summer of 2013, Rick and I, and Tom and Amanda, and Willie went on an incredible journey, and among many amazing things we did, we met some of our Norwegian relatives. They were as happy to meet us as we were to meet them. A cousin, Jan, took us to see the land on which our ancestors farmed. We were profoundly moved as we stood on that land, and felt the timeless connection to those who came before us, and those who will follow us. We recognized that connection, that story that joins us all together. At Jan's home, we ate a wonderful meal of Norwegian porridge, and pork, and cheese, and bread, of course. The next day we gathered with my cousins Kjell and MaryAnn, and had heart shaped waffles with cloudberries.

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.

It makes so much sense, as we journey together through this life, that breaking bread together is the central activity for us, we come from farmers after all. The most radical activity that Jesus engaged in was to invite people to a meal. And everyone got that invitation. Not only were there religious leaders, there were tax collectors, there were women, single women at that, women who were protected by no one. At table Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. At table Jesus disrupted the social order. At table, Jesus nourished not only the body, but the spirit and the soul as well.

When we gather together at the communion table we come from home and work and school; we come from far away and down the street, we come and we tell our story, and we tell the story of God’s activity in our lives; we tell the story of creation, blessing, turning away, God loving us back into relationship, repentance, reconciliation and restoration. We tell the story of life, death, and resurrection. We tell the truth.

The story that we know and we tell, is about how God saved God's people from the flood waters, and God freed God's people from slavery in Egypt. God brought God's people out of exile back into their land and God came to live and die as one of us, Jesus is in our midst.

We read and we study and tell these stories. We listen and talk about what God did and continues to do in this world. We tell these stories to our children. And we do because they help us remember who we are. We remember who we are and we recognize one another and we are recognized in the breaking of the bread and the prayers. We give thanks for our blessings; we ask for healing for ourselves and others, we eat together.

That is what happened with the two in our story today, who were walking away from Jerusalem, dejected, alone, afraid. Wondering what it was all about, wondering how it all went so very wrong. And the one who told the story of Moses and all the prophets, who told them the story of Jesus, joined them. They invited him to stay, he did, they ate together, and they recognized him.

We recognize Jesus in the people with whom we gather to share and tell our stories, and the stories of our faith; we recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread, we see Jesus in the hands, and in the eyes, and in the faces of the people who are at our table.

But we also recognize Jesus in the stranger, and the alien, and the immigrant. We see and hear Jesus in those who are out there, those who continue to live in isolation, in loneliness, in hurt, in this broken world. We recognize the freedom, the peace, the community that can be theirs as well.

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. But it's not just in the baking of the bread, or in the breaking of the bread, the bread broken for you and for me. Our wholeness comes from brokenness, our healing rises up out of broken hearts that are mended by God’s love. Humanity is made whole once more by the real presence of Jesus in our midst, in our lives, in our brokenness, the broken bread.

Risen Lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread. Help us to recognize you in word and sacrament, in story and in food, help us to see you in the midst of community. Help us to be agents of your new creation, standing on the ground that you have already won in your resurrection.

And yet, we sit in our homes today, having not broken bread together for weeks. And we ask the question, Risen Lord, when we are not breaking bread together, are you still present? We miss you so much. We miss communion and community so much. But Jesus' gift of love and life is as real now as ever. If we were never to have bread and wine together again, Jesus would continue in our midst, of that I am sure. My heart and soul yearn to break bread together, with all of you. But Jesus in our midst is not dependent on us. Jesus is really present with us, wherever we are, socially distant or socially proximate. Jesus is present in the bread we break around our tables at home. Jesus is present in the ways we break for others, in our time given, in our phone calls made, in the cards written, in the prayers offered. Soon we will gather again, but always remember that Jesus is with us even when we are absent, one from another.

Maundy Thursday Yr C April 18 2019

Audio  Maundy Thursday Yr C April 18 2019

Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35, Psalm 116:1, 10-17

Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end. It was suppertime. Jesus got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of his friends, drying them with his apron. 

In this fourth gospel, we hear the story that takes place during the last meal that Jesus spends with his friends before his death. Jesus washes the feet of his friends, and asks them to do likewise. In this fourth gospel, John, the gospel writer points us to two central activities that show us who we are. Washing one another's feet, and eating together. God provides for God's people and God's people serve one another. So it is significant that this is what we do as we participate in these final days of Jesus' life. We eat this meal together, and we wash one another's feet. 

Imagine having been at this particular passover meal. Hoards of people have arrived in Jerusalem for the festival. All clamoring for a place to eat the meal. You, being a friend of Jesus, are in this room, with these people, reclining at this table. Bartholomew, James, Andrew, Judas, Peter, John, Mary, Thomas, the other James, Joanna, Philip, Matthew, Susanna, Thaddeus, Simon, and all the other men and women and children who were gathered that night. The meal is spread before you, the unleavened bread, the roasted lamb, and the bitter herbs. And in the middle of the meal, Jesus gets up, he takes off his robe and ties a towel around himself.

How odd, how extraordinary. He pours water into a basin and begins to wash everyone's feet. They surely needed washing, there are no clean feet in all of Jerusalem after a day of walking about, gathering supplies for the meal, visiting friends and relatives. But who does he think he is? That job is not his, Peter insists, it is the servant's work. We call Jesus King. A King, who does servant's work? Something here is astoundingly different. Something here shows us what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Wash one another's feet. Love one another by serving each other.

One of the people I really miss in our world is Fred Rogers. Recently we’ve had the opportunity to watch documentaries of Mr. Rogers, to learn more about his life. But first and foremost, Mr. Rogers taught us about being a neighbor. Fred Rogers invited a friend of his, in fact someone he had heard singing in church, to be his neighbor on his television show. Francois Clemmons joined the cast of the show in 1968, becoming the first African-American to have a recurring role on a kids TV series. Mr. Clemmons played the police officer on the show. He said he wasn’t really interested in this role initially, because growing up where he did, he did not have a good opinion of police officers. On one episode, Mr. Rogers was resting his hot feet in a plastic pool, and asked Mr. Clemmons, playing a police officer, to join him in resting his own hot, weary, feet. They sat and chatted, as Mr. Rogers did, and eventually the police officer got up to leave and get on with his day, and Mr. Rogers got down on his knees, and wiped dry the feet of his friend. In one fell swoop, Mr. Rogers shows all those watching, who is our neighbor, and how we serve one another.

The act of washing feet is sacramental, it is the outward sign of an inward grace. Something that is sacramental, or a sacrament is not beyond or above us, not holier, not necessarily even mysterious. Sacrament is what shows God’s love and grace: ordinary water, ordinary bread and wine, that invite us into love and relationship.

Sometimes life's events feel so big, and wide, and broad, and overwhelming. The pain and the joy of life bring us soaring to the mountaintops and to the depths of despair. And much of life is lived somewhere in between, in the mundane sacramental moments of making dinner for those we love, or driving our children to dance and music class, or doing our taxes, or taking a bath, washing feet or dreaming dreams. It is in the ordinary Jesus shows us sacred. In the muck and mess that is washed from our feet.

In the ordinary meal, our cracks are filled, our fissures healed, we are made whole. In the mundane washing, we overflow with mercy and compassion. Jesus seeps into our very being, washes us, feeds us, heals us. Jesus shows us who God is, and Jesus teaches us who we are, and then we may show that love to others.

Let me wash your feet, take this bread, and you will be healed. Jesus offers love, and forgiveness, healing and compassion. And Jesus shows us how to do what we are called to do.

On this night, the night Jesus is handed over to be tortured, betrayed by his friend, Love really does win.

The violence perpetrated on Jesus is hard to hear, hard to watch, because you and I are implicated in it. We have not been perfect. We have judged, we have bullied, we have missed the mark. We have offered ridicule when mercy was called for. We have fallen asleep when we should have paid attention. But, we are loved perfectly. Love still wins.

The gift we are given this night, mercy and compassion, foot washing and food, washes over us, nourishes us, puts us back together. We are re-membered. Come and receive the gift. Come, and remember who you are. Jesus, is here, in our midst, walking with us. Come, be filled with the love that gives everything and takes nothing. And you will know what love looks like.

14 Pentecost Proper 16 Yr B Aug 26 2018

14 Pentecost Proper 16 Yr B Aug 26 2018 Audio

So we come to our last Sunday reading this sixth chapter of John. Jesus is the bread of life. Jesus is the living bread. But some of Jesus’ disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

Do we do that too? Do we ever say, this teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” I do, I think this is difficult, following Jesus is hard, but we can do hard things. So today lets take a look at what Jesus asks of us. Lets take a look at how Jesus empowers us to be followers. Lets take a look at how Jesus fills us with food, nourishment, life, so that we may have new life. Lets take a look at how Jesus abides in us.

And to get there, we need to remember what John asks us to recall. John assumes that we know our bible, and the story of Moses and the Hebrew people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They did a bit of whining while they were wandering, wouldn’t we all, and they were fed manna. They were sustained in the wilderness, but John is making a point that even that food was not the bread of life, the living bread. The trouble in this text is that people don’t believe Jesus is who he is. The trouble is that people don’t believe Jesus is God in the flesh.

It’s important for us to remember that John’s story is told many years after Jesus lived, suffered, died, resurrected and ascended. John finds it very hard to understand that anyone who has an encounter with the story of Jesus would not believe that Jesus is indeed God in the flesh, the incarnate one. John shows us the truth of who Jesus is by showing us the signs that Jesus did, turning water into wine, healing the woman who bled for years, healing the man who was ill for 38 years, feeding 5000 people, healing the man blind from birth, and raising Lazarus from the dead. So the disciples make the statement we are thinking in our heads. This is hard, not only to wrap our minds around, but to open our hearts, and to follow.

What makes it so hard? We didn’t see it ourselves or hear it ourselves. And it is very apparent in our lives today that nothing and no one can be trusted and that facts are not really facts at all. The trouble in our world is that talk about being faithful rather than successful is all foolishness. You all know this. You all have experienced this. Talk about things not seen makes your sanity suspect. Commitment to gathering in Jesus’ name, prayer and study makes your priorities questionable in some circles. And abiding in Jesus’ real presence in bread and wine, body and blood, is foolish.

So many in leadership positions rely on their own perceived power, and get into a heap of trouble. In all walks of life we see people who have come to believe that they are above or beyond being accountable to the community, to us.

So this good news is hard because it calls us into community, it calls us to accountability, it calls us to lay down our own desire for power. That’s why the Jewish and Roman authorities of Jesus day tried to trip him up, tried to snare him. Their power was being threatened. And it is not so different today.

So in this last story of John’s gospel about the bread of life, the living bread, let’s see what may be going on. Remember the word John uses for the deep relationship Jesus has with us, to abide, or dwell. John is very interested in showing Jesus’ followers what incarnation looks like. Incarnation, God being born in a barn, God coming into this world as one of us, God taking on flesh. Incarnation means God dwells with us, God in our midst, God in the flesh. This relationship between God in the flesh, who is Jesus, and God’s creation, you and me, is cellular, it is so deep and so broad and so wide, it is so intimate, that Jesus’ presence is nourishment, sustenance, life, it is bread for our souls.

John uses this verb, abide, throughout the gospel, and it means the mutual indwelling of God, Jesus, and the disciples. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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.” There is a sense of divine presence and companionship, and friendship.

Could this also be what is so hard? And maybe even scary. That God, who is creator of all that is, seen and unseen, creator of the cosmos, sees fit to walk this journey of life with us. That Jesus is so very present with us. Really present, present when we are so broken we have no hope that the bits and pieces could ever be made whole again. Really present, present when our joy is so intense that we feel it throughout our bodies. Really present even in our worries, and in our mistakes that deep down inside we believe cannot be forgiven. Really present, when we are filled with bread that is body and wine that is blood. Really present, and that presence fills us with fear, fear that is awe.

We have lost the sense of awe. Everything is awesome, but not filled with awe. Jesus, really present in the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, fills us with fear, with awe. How can this be? This is really hard, and somewhat scary. Jesus abides in us, Jesus calls us into relationship, Jesus nourishes us. Because when we are filled with Jesus, filled with bread and wine, body and blood, we are changed, we are transformed, and we are deepened, we are made into who God means for us to be. It is this, abiding presence that empowers us to let go of and to lay down our burdens, our addictions, our worries, and being made into the new creation of God’s dream. And letting go is hard, giving up power, and the illusion of control is hard, but you can do hard things.

God’s dream is to be people who love. Because, if it’s not about love, it’s not about God. We are people who follow Jesus, who each day face the realities of our lives, our joys and our sorrows, our anxieties and our loveliness. Who get out of bed to face ourselves with integrity and honesty, with the heart knowledge that Jesus abides in us. We step out into the world in love. We leave this place filled with the real presence of Jesus. We love because God first loved us.

Risen lord, be know to us in the breaking of the bread. Lord Jesus, abide in us, as we love one another. Amen.