25 October 2009/Proper 25B – Hebrews 7: 15-17, 23-28/Mark 10:46-52
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Lessons From Bartimaeus and Melchizedek
Listen for the echoes. This is what these stories in scripture demand of us – a listening heart. We are meant to remember James and John the Zebedee brothers, the rich young man, Melchizedek, and all the way back to brother Abram before he even became Abraham, the father of all three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Oh yes, and Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, a blind beggar outside of Jericho where the walls come tumbling down. An apt metaphor for all of scripture – ancient words and stories attempting to break down the walls we place around our hearts, minds and souls. Tumbling walls, opening eyes, metaphors asking us if we can see.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,” cries Bartimaeus as he throws off his cloak – the cloak which was stretched on the ground about his feet to catch the coins people might toss his way. The cloak holds his entire fortune. He casts it aside to get to Jesus, to regain his sight, and to follow Jesus. Despite Jesus telling him to go on his way, Bartimaeus instead follows Jesus into Jerusalem. This is the last stop on the way to the Passion and Resurrection.
This blind beggar gets it like James and John could not get it, like the rich young man could not get it, like the disciples do not get it. The brothers wanted power, the rich young man could not bear to part with his wealth, only this blind beggar is willing to give it all for a chance to follow Jesus.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything,” says Timothy Geddert in his commentary, Mark, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001) 256.
Bartimaeus gets this. Begging the question (no pun intended), Do we?
Then there is Hebrews. What a marvelous, fascinating, dense and complicated epistle it is! I remember being on silent retreat on the shores of Lake Michigan in the middle of winter in Racine Wisconsin studying Hebrews. The wind was howling, the waves crashing, ice formations crusting the shoreline, and the words of Hebrews were “living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow!”
It says Jesus is a new kind of Priest, and at the same time he is a very old kind of priest, and that he holds this priesthood forever. We know we are made the Body of Christ by water and the Holy Spirit in Baptism. So that we hold this new and yet ancient priesthood forever as part of our very Being – it is who we are called to be in this world: “and share with us in his eternal priesthood,” we pray at every baptism. (BCP 308)
Last Sunday Hebrews told us that the type, the model, for this eternal priesthood which we share is Melchizedek. “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Who on earth is Melchizedek?
He only shows up for three verses way back in Genesis chapter 14. We may recall, God sent Abram and Sarai and their nephew Lot on a journey of faith. Keep going until I tell you to stop. When they stop life is as God promises, fruitful, bountiful, even prosperous and affluent! Abram and Lot’s herds are so prolific they need to spread out, move away from each other to have room to continue to prosper.
Of course some of the local tribesmen want some of the blessing, attack Lot, capture Lot and all his herds. Abram springs into action, and with his “trained men” frees Lot and the herds. As Abram returns to the valley to give thanks, in rides Melchizedek, the “King of Salem.” Salem, of course means shalom, which means Peace, which makes him the King of Peace. And Salem was of course the ancient name for Jerusalem. Further, we are told, Melchizedek is a priest of God Most High.
Melchizedek gives Abram bread and wine, and then blesses him, announcing that it is indeed God Most High “who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” This is the message from the King of Peace, Prieset of God Most High.
Abram’s response is reported in one short declarative sentence: “And Abram gave him one-tenth of everything.” Everything, as in every thing.
This is long before God dictates any commandments to Moses about the Tithe. Abram’s immediate, spontaneous act of gratitude is to give one-tenth to thank God Most High.
This all has something essential to say about who we are and whose we are – we are Christ’s own body. We are children of Abram long before he became Abraham. We are priests after the order of Melchizedek. We are called to give thanks to God – one tenth of everything.
Bartimaeus, Melchizedek and Abram show us how.
“Rich or poor are asked to give up only one thing, everything.”
Bartimaeus gets it. Abram gets it. Do we?
The world looks at us to see if we can demonstrate in any concrete way that we are in fact who we say we are – followers of Jesus Christ. The most ancient Holy Habit of Tithing is one such concrete act.
Will we be like James and John and the rich young man?
Or, like Abram and Bartimaeus? Only time will tell. Amen.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Draw Near To God
20 September 2009/Proper 20 – James 3:13- 4:3, 7-8a/Mark 9:30-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Draw Near to God
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” – James 4: 8a
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” -Mark 9: 37
This is the time in the Liturgy of the Word when we seek to find a way to apply the Word of God to our day to day lives, and our life of corporate worship. We recall that one of the Four Holy Habits is Weekly Corporate Worship – The Eucharist, an act of Thanksgiving.
Whatever else our Epistle and Gospel may be about, one readily sees a common theme at the end of each lesson: draw near to God, welcome God – the one who sent Jesus to be among us.
At the core of what we believe our Sunday mornings are all about is a belief that Jesus is present – in theological parlance we call this The Real Presence of Christ in the Breaking of the Bread. That’s a mouthful, for sure.
So how have and how do God’s people welcome God’s presence? How do we acknowledge God’s presence?
There is a full spectrum of behaviors ranging from silence and taking off one’s shoes to flat-out joyful celebration. The Eucharist attempts to blend all of this together.
One thing we evidently are not to do is argue with one another! Arguing is not only a poor way to welcome Jesus and draw near to God, but it just does not appeal to visitors and others who might come in the door. Jesus repeatedly shows little interest in “getting things right” or finding out who is right and who is wrong when it comes to worship and life in general.
Jesus comes from a tradition that begins with taking off our shoes. Recall Moses at the burning bush where the bush, the voice of God, tells Moses to take off his shoes. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is Holy Ground.” Exodus 3: 5
Now in a number of places and cultures this is still taken literally: enter a Mosque and you are required to take off your shoes. Enter a home in Japan and you are expected to take off your shoes. It is a sign of respect, and a sign of humility. It is such humility that Jesus finds lacking in his disciples. The same is true today.
In God’s kingdom there is no room for those who think they are the greatest! There is plenty of room for those who welcome the least of our sisters and brothers into their midst – children represent those people who live every day at the bottom of the human totem pole – at the bottom of our society.
Children had the status of just above dog or slave in those days – so the metaphor is rich and telling of the kind of people we are. Children were not cuddly, and fawned over, but were generally cast aside – if they survived infancy, so be it. If not, so be it. By placing a child in the disciples midst, Jesus makes a statement of radical acceptance of all people among his followers.
Jesus wants us to take off our shoes. The Letter of James has been explicit about the radical inclusion of all people into the fellowship of Christ, the Church.
Taking off our shoes may also be a metaphor – remove those things that might signify stature among one another. Show respect for others by treating each person we meet as Holy Ground – as we stand before one another, do we respect one another as Holy?
There is no more important question to ask ourselves. In our baptism we promise to Seek and Serve Christ in ALL persons – see others, all others, as Holy, Sacred, God’s own Beloved. Treat others as we would treat God’s presence.
And God asks us to take off, take off our shoes. It is something to ponder as we gather week by week for corporate worship. In many places it means not talking during the prelude and postlude – treating that as Holy Time, quiet time, time to draw near to God.
It may mean observing the Silence called for before we Confess our Sins, and as the Body of Christ is Broken at the Altar. There are many ways to draw near to God. As we do, God draws near to us.
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
( Words - Woody Guthrie)
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
Draw Near to God
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” – James 4: 8a
“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” -Mark 9: 37
This is the time in the Liturgy of the Word when we seek to find a way to apply the Word of God to our day to day lives, and our life of corporate worship. We recall that one of the Four Holy Habits is Weekly Corporate Worship – The Eucharist, an act of Thanksgiving.
Whatever else our Epistle and Gospel may be about, one readily sees a common theme at the end of each lesson: draw near to God, welcome God – the one who sent Jesus to be among us.
At the core of what we believe our Sunday mornings are all about is a belief that Jesus is present – in theological parlance we call this The Real Presence of Christ in the Breaking of the Bread. That’s a mouthful, for sure.
So how have and how do God’s people welcome God’s presence? How do we acknowledge God’s presence?
There is a full spectrum of behaviors ranging from silence and taking off one’s shoes to flat-out joyful celebration. The Eucharist attempts to blend all of this together.
One thing we evidently are not to do is argue with one another! Arguing is not only a poor way to welcome Jesus and draw near to God, but it just does not appeal to visitors and others who might come in the door. Jesus repeatedly shows little interest in “getting things right” or finding out who is right and who is wrong when it comes to worship and life in general.
Jesus comes from a tradition that begins with taking off our shoes. Recall Moses at the burning bush where the bush, the voice of God, tells Moses to take off his shoes. “Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is Holy Ground.” Exodus 3: 5
Now in a number of places and cultures this is still taken literally: enter a Mosque and you are required to take off your shoes. Enter a home in Japan and you are expected to take off your shoes. It is a sign of respect, and a sign of humility. It is such humility that Jesus finds lacking in his disciples. The same is true today.
In God’s kingdom there is no room for those who think they are the greatest! There is plenty of room for those who welcome the least of our sisters and brothers into their midst – children represent those people who live every day at the bottom of the human totem pole – at the bottom of our society.
Children had the status of just above dog or slave in those days – so the metaphor is rich and telling of the kind of people we are. Children were not cuddly, and fawned over, but were generally cast aside – if they survived infancy, so be it. If not, so be it. By placing a child in the disciples midst, Jesus makes a statement of radical acceptance of all people among his followers.
Jesus wants us to take off our shoes. The Letter of James has been explicit about the radical inclusion of all people into the fellowship of Christ, the Church.
Taking off our shoes may also be a metaphor – remove those things that might signify stature among one another. Show respect for others by treating each person we meet as Holy Ground – as we stand before one another, do we respect one another as Holy?
There is no more important question to ask ourselves. In our baptism we promise to Seek and Serve Christ in ALL persons – see others, all others, as Holy, Sacred, God’s own Beloved. Treat others as we would treat God’s presence.
And God asks us to take off, take off our shoes. It is something to ponder as we gather week by week for corporate worship. In many places it means not talking during the prelude and postlude – treating that as Holy Time, quiet time, time to draw near to God.
It may mean observing the Silence called for before we Confess our Sins, and as the Body of Christ is Broken at the Altar. There are many ways to draw near to God. As we do, God draws near to us.
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The place you’re standing, is Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
This place is Holy, Holy Ground
God made this place, His Holy Ground
( Words - Woody Guthrie)
Amen.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Just Say The Word!
6 September 2009/Proper * Mark 7:24-37
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Crumb Is Enough
This is perhaps the most remarkable story in all of Mark’s Gospel – all the more so when we consider that until the Revised Common Lectionary restored it to Sunday Reading in Year B, it had been excluded from the Prayer Book Lectionary of readings.
It is easy to see why: it features a woman, a woman of remarkable chutzpah and faith, a woman of passion, a woman of wit and wisdom. It also features Jesus saying the most disturbing thing we ever hear him say: he calls this woman, and by inference her daughter and her people in general, a dog.
But in the past we skipped over the Syrophoenician Woman to the healing of a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Which is a good place to begin, since both stories feature people who advocate for the healing of others – that is, the people coming to Jesus ( the woman and the unspecified “they”) do not ask for healing for themselves, but rather ask on behalf of others: the girl and the man. The real surprise is just who really gets healed in this story – but on that later.
A lesson in discipleship? Are we meant to be advocates for the needs of others? The story means to provoke us to answer just this question.
Jesus wants to be alone. He did not want anyone to know where he was. Enter a woman. Not just a woman but a Gentile woman. Not just a Gentile, but a Syrophoenician woman, and the Jews in Jesus’ time did not like Syrophenicians at all. So on the face of it, three strikes and you’re out!
And so it seems. She asks for her daughter to be healed. Jesus, not content simply to say, “No,” instead hurls an insult at her, at all Gentiles and at Syrophoenicians specifically: I am here to feed God’s children, ie the Jews, not the dogs of the world like you, your daughter and your people.” Not exactly Jesus meek and mild. Not exactly “In Christ there is no East or West....”
Undeterred, the woman replies famously, “Yes sir, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Please note: this is the only person in four gospels who argues with Jesus and wins. Because of her willingness to advocate for her daughter, and her willingness to confront Jesus’ discriminatory attitude, her daughter is healed.
And at that moment, the world changed – and it was a big, huge, cosmic, axial shift! Jesus includes gentiles, even historically hated gentiles, into his mission, that would be into our mission. He will no longer discriminate. He crosses the boundaries of gender, ethnicity and even socioeconomics since the Syrophoenicians were infinitely more affluent than the Jews in that region. The demon is gone. Not just the demon in the girl, but the demon that might have stalled Jesus and God’s mission.
Because of this woman Jesus changes his mind. Because Jesus changes his mind, a larger, more faithful vision of God’s reign among us is called forth. Rather than insulting her, Jesus compliments her by saying, “Because of this word you spoke, go! The demon has left your daughter.” And Jesus knows a demon has left him because of this woman’s courage to speak truth to power.
And note the new dimensions of his power – no longer does he lay hands on someone, or speak directly to the demons. He is in hiding, the girl is at home, and yet she is healed. Jesus’ power is not restricted by time or space.
And note, according to what the woman has said, it only takes a crumb of our Lord’s power to be healed, transformed, made new.
Most amazingly of all, this story suggests that mere gentiles like ourselves share in our Lord’s power. If the woman speaks a few words and the world and all of history is changed, so can we.
There are those who would have us believe otherwise. There are those who thrive on our willingness to be quiet and accept things the way they are. There are demons at work who count on us to remain quiet when a few words from any one of us has the potential to shape an alternative reality – for instance, fewer hungry people, fewer homeless people, fewer people without health care, a culture that no longer discriminates against gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, sexual orientation, age and the like.
That’s what the second story is all about – opening our mouths and speaking plainly – opening our mouths and speaking truth to power. And even if Jesus tells us to be quiet, it is not to be! The more zealously the crowd proclaimed his power and glory.
So as to be clear, the church throughout the ages, and even today, can be and has been prone to tighten the boundaries of “righteousness” to keep “outsiders” at bay. This story says that will not work. It never has. Jesus tried and was changed.
This story is not about the woman, the daughter, or the man – it is meant to be a story about us, and how a crumb of Jesus’ power can change us forever. It is about how disciples of Jesus are meant to advocate for the needs of others, especially around healing! And how a word from us can change the world. Forever. And, as we say, ever!
A crumb is enough to change the world, to change us, and most astoundingly of all, to force God to change God’s mind.
As a girl in my class on Thursday said, “Wow!”
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
A Crumb Is Enough
This is perhaps the most remarkable story in all of Mark’s Gospel – all the more so when we consider that until the Revised Common Lectionary restored it to Sunday Reading in Year B, it had been excluded from the Prayer Book Lectionary of readings.
It is easy to see why: it features a woman, a woman of remarkable chutzpah and faith, a woman of passion, a woman of wit and wisdom. It also features Jesus saying the most disturbing thing we ever hear him say: he calls this woman, and by inference her daughter and her people in general, a dog.
But in the past we skipped over the Syrophoenician Woman to the healing of a man who is deaf and has a speech impediment. Which is a good place to begin, since both stories feature people who advocate for the healing of others – that is, the people coming to Jesus ( the woman and the unspecified “they”) do not ask for healing for themselves, but rather ask on behalf of others: the girl and the man. The real surprise is just who really gets healed in this story – but on that later.
A lesson in discipleship? Are we meant to be advocates for the needs of others? The story means to provoke us to answer just this question.
Jesus wants to be alone. He did not want anyone to know where he was. Enter a woman. Not just a woman but a Gentile woman. Not just a Gentile, but a Syrophoenician woman, and the Jews in Jesus’ time did not like Syrophenicians at all. So on the face of it, three strikes and you’re out!
And so it seems. She asks for her daughter to be healed. Jesus, not content simply to say, “No,” instead hurls an insult at her, at all Gentiles and at Syrophoenicians specifically: I am here to feed God’s children, ie the Jews, not the dogs of the world like you, your daughter and your people.” Not exactly Jesus meek and mild. Not exactly “In Christ there is no East or West....”
Undeterred, the woman replies famously, “Yes sir, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Please note: this is the only person in four gospels who argues with Jesus and wins. Because of her willingness to advocate for her daughter, and her willingness to confront Jesus’ discriminatory attitude, her daughter is healed.
And at that moment, the world changed – and it was a big, huge, cosmic, axial shift! Jesus includes gentiles, even historically hated gentiles, into his mission, that would be into our mission. He will no longer discriminate. He crosses the boundaries of gender, ethnicity and even socioeconomics since the Syrophoenicians were infinitely more affluent than the Jews in that region. The demon is gone. Not just the demon in the girl, but the demon that might have stalled Jesus and God’s mission.
Because of this woman Jesus changes his mind. Because Jesus changes his mind, a larger, more faithful vision of God’s reign among us is called forth. Rather than insulting her, Jesus compliments her by saying, “Because of this word you spoke, go! The demon has left your daughter.” And Jesus knows a demon has left him because of this woman’s courage to speak truth to power.
And note the new dimensions of his power – no longer does he lay hands on someone, or speak directly to the demons. He is in hiding, the girl is at home, and yet she is healed. Jesus’ power is not restricted by time or space.
And note, according to what the woman has said, it only takes a crumb of our Lord’s power to be healed, transformed, made new.
Most amazingly of all, this story suggests that mere gentiles like ourselves share in our Lord’s power. If the woman speaks a few words and the world and all of history is changed, so can we.
There are those who would have us believe otherwise. There are those who thrive on our willingness to be quiet and accept things the way they are. There are demons at work who count on us to remain quiet when a few words from any one of us has the potential to shape an alternative reality – for instance, fewer hungry people, fewer homeless people, fewer people without health care, a culture that no longer discriminates against gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, sexual orientation, age and the like.
That’s what the second story is all about – opening our mouths and speaking plainly – opening our mouths and speaking truth to power. And even if Jesus tells us to be quiet, it is not to be! The more zealously the crowd proclaimed his power and glory.
So as to be clear, the church throughout the ages, and even today, can be and has been prone to tighten the boundaries of “righteousness” to keep “outsiders” at bay. This story says that will not work. It never has. Jesus tried and was changed.
This story is not about the woman, the daughter, or the man – it is meant to be a story about us, and how a crumb of Jesus’ power can change us forever. It is about how disciples of Jesus are meant to advocate for the needs of others, especially around healing! And how a word from us can change the world. Forever. And, as we say, ever!
A crumb is enough to change the world, to change us, and most astoundingly of all, to force God to change God’s mind.
As a girl in my class on Thursday said, “Wow!”
Amen.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
We Are Home With God
Saint Timothy’s School Convocation 2009
Deuteronomy 6:10-12/I Corinthians 13:1-13
In all cultural and religious traditions, throughout all time, it is customary to stop before the beginning of a new journey and reflect: reflect on where we have been and where we are going.
Typically, like we are doing this morning, this means listening to the ancient wisdom for clues about why we are here and where we are going. So we consult texts as old as three thousand years from Torah and nearly two thousand years from the Christian Scriptures. What on earth can they tell us about beginning a new school year?
In Deuteronomy, the last book of Torah, we find the people of God who had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years. That’s a rather long vacation – longer than we have just enjoyed!
During this time God had led them and fed them. He had satisfied their hunger and thirst. We are told everyone had enough, no one had too much.
But now they were about to cross over the River Jordan to a new land and life lived more or less on their own.
Moses stops to review all the lessons they had learned along the way: lessons like love God, love your neighbor, and choose life. Lessons like, I chose you because I love you - there is no other reason at all but my love for you. I believe we can safely say everyone in this room is here today because we surrounded by such love.
And where we enter the story God, through Moses, assures everyone that crossing over into a new land, a new life, and a new world, that all shall be well because where you are I will be, says the Lord, and where we are will be home! Do not forget me, says the Lord.
It’s rather touching, really. You will have all these new things, go new places, learn new things, have new experiences – and here is God saying, please, don’t forget me, don’t forget where you come from and where we are going, together.
Not a bad message to hear as we begin a new year together - many of you leaving home to make a new home here for the next nine months, and others who make this their home day by day: we have been called here to love God, love one another, know we are loved and cared for, and know that Saint Timothy's is home!
Such knowledge provides the very foundation of our motto, Verite Sans Peur - Truth without Fear.
And to make sure we fully understand how all this love which forms the foundation of Verite Sans Peur is meant to work, Saint Paul lays it all on the line in his letter to the young church in Corinth: such love requires patience, kindness, rejoicing in the right, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping and enduring all things. Faith, Hope and Love, abide these three.
Those who rejoice, hope, believe, and endure with patience and kindness, says Paul, will transition from childish ways to a new way – a new kind of spiritual maturity. It is the promise of a new beginning – a new start.
What an exciting prospect! What an exciting promise! Spiritual maturity is ours for the taking if only we have faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.
Perhaps the single most misunderstood word in scripture. When I had to memorize this chapter in high school in the King James Version, the word was Charity, not love. The Revised Standard Version was out, it was the 1960’s, and we mounted a revolt to use the RSV which used “love” instead of “charity.” Mrs. King held her ground, and today I am grateful. Throughout the Bible Charity or Love means something like doing something helpful or useful for others whether or not you like them let alone love them.
A community committed to these values of faith, hope and charity is a community that will endure. A community committed to these values will embody the very essence of Verite Sans Peur. As long as we remain committed to these values of faith, hope and charity Saint Timothy's will be a home for all of us and for all those who are sent to visit, work, live, play and ride with us this year!
And for this we all say, Amen!
Deuteronomy 6:10-12/I Corinthians 13:1-13
In all cultural and religious traditions, throughout all time, it is customary to stop before the beginning of a new journey and reflect: reflect on where we have been and where we are going.
Typically, like we are doing this morning, this means listening to the ancient wisdom for clues about why we are here and where we are going. So we consult texts as old as three thousand years from Torah and nearly two thousand years from the Christian Scriptures. What on earth can they tell us about beginning a new school year?
In Deuteronomy, the last book of Torah, we find the people of God who had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years. That’s a rather long vacation – longer than we have just enjoyed!
During this time God had led them and fed them. He had satisfied their hunger and thirst. We are told everyone had enough, no one had too much.
But now they were about to cross over the River Jordan to a new land and life lived more or less on their own.
Moses stops to review all the lessons they had learned along the way: lessons like love God, love your neighbor, and choose life. Lessons like, I chose you because I love you - there is no other reason at all but my love for you. I believe we can safely say everyone in this room is here today because we surrounded by such love.
And where we enter the story God, through Moses, assures everyone that crossing over into a new land, a new life, and a new world, that all shall be well because where you are I will be, says the Lord, and where we are will be home! Do not forget me, says the Lord.
It’s rather touching, really. You will have all these new things, go new places, learn new things, have new experiences – and here is God saying, please, don’t forget me, don’t forget where you come from and where we are going, together.
Not a bad message to hear as we begin a new year together - many of you leaving home to make a new home here for the next nine months, and others who make this their home day by day: we have been called here to love God, love one another, know we are loved and cared for, and know that Saint Timothy's is home!
Such knowledge provides the very foundation of our motto, Verite Sans Peur - Truth without Fear.
And to make sure we fully understand how all this love which forms the foundation of Verite Sans Peur is meant to work, Saint Paul lays it all on the line in his letter to the young church in Corinth: such love requires patience, kindness, rejoicing in the right, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping and enduring all things. Faith, Hope and Love, abide these three.
Those who rejoice, hope, believe, and endure with patience and kindness, says Paul, will transition from childish ways to a new way – a new kind of spiritual maturity. It is the promise of a new beginning – a new start.
What an exciting prospect! What an exciting promise! Spiritual maturity is ours for the taking if only we have faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.
Perhaps the single most misunderstood word in scripture. When I had to memorize this chapter in high school in the King James Version, the word was Charity, not love. The Revised Standard Version was out, it was the 1960’s, and we mounted a revolt to use the RSV which used “love” instead of “charity.” Mrs. King held her ground, and today I am grateful. Throughout the Bible Charity or Love means something like doing something helpful or useful for others whether or not you like them let alone love them.
A community committed to these values of faith, hope and charity is a community that will endure. A community committed to these values will embody the very essence of Verite Sans Peur. As long as we remain committed to these values of faith, hope and charity Saint Timothy's will be a home for all of us and for all those who are sent to visit, work, live, play and ride with us this year!
And for this we all say, Amen!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Eternal Life - Now!
16 August 2009/Proper 15B – Proverbs 9:1-6/John 6:51-58
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD
Have Eternal Life – Now!
When our oldest daughter, Harper, was in about the fifth grade, she had a teacher who gave the children a Hershey’s Kiss as a reward for good work and good behavior. There was one condition – they had to savor it. They could not chew it up or swallow it whole, but they had to let the chocolate linger in the mouth, slowly melting, even more slowly giving the pleasure of its deep, dark chocolatey flavor to ease itself into a lingering moment of pure pleasure.
Long before that I recall learning from the culinary discipline of Macrobiotics that one ought to chew each mouthful of food at least 30 times, not simply to savor the flavor, texture and delight of the meal, but to better digest the food so that it might better nourish our bodies and souls.
This penultimate portion of the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, when paired with the portion about Lady Wisdom in Proverbs chapter nine, is an invitation to stop, savor and be more fully nourished by the very “daily bread” for which we pray in our Lord’s own prayer.
For those who “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,” there is the promise of eternal life. And as it had been said before by Lady Wisdom: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight!” Proverbs 9:6
This talk about drinking blood and eating flesh is not about some kind of Twilight vampire kind of thing, or any kind of flesh eating aliens or bacteria – we are not talking cannibalism here either. Or, as Martin Luther so quaintly put it, “this is not the sort of flesh from which sausages are made…nor as such as purchased in the butcher shop.” Although, at the time Jesus was alive, and in certain tribal societies to this day, people eat certain animals specifically to acquire the attributes of said animal. So one might eat a lion to acquire strength and courage, or one might eat a gazelle to acquire swiftness and speed, and so on. As odd as it sounds, this is not so far off-base from what is being said here in Proverbs and John.
The promise in these two invitations to feast at Lady Wisdom’s and Jesus’ table is 1) of a spiritual maturity, and 2) eternal life.
The spiritual maturity piece asserts that there is something more than just bread and wine available to satisfy our hunger and thirst. There is the Word of God, identified by John as Jesus, the Word made flesh. The Word can satisfy deeper hunger and deeper thirst. In fact the Word satisfies our deepest hunger and deepest thirst. This has everything to do with our spiritual maturity and life as we live it here and now.
Similarly, eternal life has nothing to do with “timelessness and death, but is full-filled life here on earth that makes us yearn it will never end. Living life to the fullest as disciples brings great joy in the present and a hope for the future.” Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, p 291
As one preacher once put it, “We are on the road to heaven now if today we walk with God. Eternal life is not a possession conferred at death; it is a present endowment. We live it now and continue it through death.” William Sloan Coffin, Credo, p170
It is life lived with, in and through God in Christ here and now – this is eternal life.
And I suspect it comes about only as we savor the meal. I suspect it only comes about if we savor the Word of God. I suspect it only comes about if we take the time to sit down at the table and linger awhile. We need to savor His flesh and savor His blood if He is to live in us and we in Him.
Christian faith would be so much easier if it were a matter of mere belief or intellectual assent. Our rather scandalous, carnal and incarnational gospel reminds us that Jesus intends to have all of us, body and soul. He intends to course through our veins, be digested fully, and nourish every nook and cranny of our hearts, bodies and souls! He wishes to consume us as we consume him.
This is why we come to the table week by week, day by day. This is why some of us gather weekly on Thursday evenings to gaze upon our Host, to linger in His presence, to savor each moment we do nothing but experience the Word of God made flesh.
He wants all of us. He wants us to have all of him.
Like the manna in the wilderness, those who sit at table with Him, those who linger and savor each moment, there will be enough. For every one there is enough to go around. There is sufficient bread and wine that gives eternal life for all of us.
We moderns are not usually inclined, says John Booty, to give thanks for that which is sufficient. But this is exactly what Lady Wisdom and Jesus have in mind here. This is why we call this Eucharist – literally Greek for Thanksgiving.
The real question for all of us is whether or not we are willing to take time out of our daily lives and even on our Sundays to linger with the Word of God? To savor the fullness of life He means to give us?
Give us this day our daily bread – this we pray. After our prayers will we give God in Christ – the Word of God – the necessary time to give us the bread we need to satisfy our deepest hunger and deepest thirst? Will we linger at the table and savor His presence? Not even God knows the answer to this question – only we do.
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, MD
Have Eternal Life – Now!
When our oldest daughter, Harper, was in about the fifth grade, she had a teacher who gave the children a Hershey’s Kiss as a reward for good work and good behavior. There was one condition – they had to savor it. They could not chew it up or swallow it whole, but they had to let the chocolate linger in the mouth, slowly melting, even more slowly giving the pleasure of its deep, dark chocolatey flavor to ease itself into a lingering moment of pure pleasure.
Long before that I recall learning from the culinary discipline of Macrobiotics that one ought to chew each mouthful of food at least 30 times, not simply to savor the flavor, texture and delight of the meal, but to better digest the food so that it might better nourish our bodies and souls.
This penultimate portion of the sixth chapter of the Fourth Gospel, when paired with the portion about Lady Wisdom in Proverbs chapter nine, is an invitation to stop, savor and be more fully nourished by the very “daily bread” for which we pray in our Lord’s own prayer.
For those who “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,” there is the promise of eternal life. And as it had been said before by Lady Wisdom: “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight!” Proverbs 9:6
This talk about drinking blood and eating flesh is not about some kind of Twilight vampire kind of thing, or any kind of flesh eating aliens or bacteria – we are not talking cannibalism here either. Or, as Martin Luther so quaintly put it, “this is not the sort of flesh from which sausages are made…nor as such as purchased in the butcher shop.” Although, at the time Jesus was alive, and in certain tribal societies to this day, people eat certain animals specifically to acquire the attributes of said animal. So one might eat a lion to acquire strength and courage, or one might eat a gazelle to acquire swiftness and speed, and so on. As odd as it sounds, this is not so far off-base from what is being said here in Proverbs and John.
The promise in these two invitations to feast at Lady Wisdom’s and Jesus’ table is 1) of a spiritual maturity, and 2) eternal life.
The spiritual maturity piece asserts that there is something more than just bread and wine available to satisfy our hunger and thirst. There is the Word of God, identified by John as Jesus, the Word made flesh. The Word can satisfy deeper hunger and deeper thirst. In fact the Word satisfies our deepest hunger and deepest thirst. This has everything to do with our spiritual maturity and life as we live it here and now.
Similarly, eternal life has nothing to do with “timelessness and death, but is full-filled life here on earth that makes us yearn it will never end. Living life to the fullest as disciples brings great joy in the present and a hope for the future.” Jurgen Moltmann, The Coming of God, p 291
As one preacher once put it, “We are on the road to heaven now if today we walk with God. Eternal life is not a possession conferred at death; it is a present endowment. We live it now and continue it through death.” William Sloan Coffin, Credo, p170
It is life lived with, in and through God in Christ here and now – this is eternal life.
And I suspect it comes about only as we savor the meal. I suspect it only comes about if we savor the Word of God. I suspect it only comes about if we take the time to sit down at the table and linger awhile. We need to savor His flesh and savor His blood if He is to live in us and we in Him.
Christian faith would be so much easier if it were a matter of mere belief or intellectual assent. Our rather scandalous, carnal and incarnational gospel reminds us that Jesus intends to have all of us, body and soul. He intends to course through our veins, be digested fully, and nourish every nook and cranny of our hearts, bodies and souls! He wishes to consume us as we consume him.
This is why we come to the table week by week, day by day. This is why some of us gather weekly on Thursday evenings to gaze upon our Host, to linger in His presence, to savor each moment we do nothing but experience the Word of God made flesh.
He wants all of us. He wants us to have all of him.
Like the manna in the wilderness, those who sit at table with Him, those who linger and savor each moment, there will be enough. For every one there is enough to go around. There is sufficient bread and wine that gives eternal life for all of us.
We moderns are not usually inclined, says John Booty, to give thanks for that which is sufficient. But this is exactly what Lady Wisdom and Jesus have in mind here. This is why we call this Eucharist – literally Greek for Thanksgiving.
The real question for all of us is whether or not we are willing to take time out of our daily lives and even on our Sundays to linger with the Word of God? To savor the fullness of life He means to give us?
Give us this day our daily bread – this we pray. After our prayers will we give God in Christ – the Word of God – the necessary time to give us the bread we need to satisfy our deepest hunger and deepest thirst? Will we linger at the table and savor His presence? Not even God knows the answer to this question – only we do.
Amen.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
They Shall Be Taught By God
9 August 2009/Proper 14B – 1 Kings 19:4-8/Psalm 34: 1-8/ John 6: 35, 41-51
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
They Shall Be Taught By God
This is our prayer for today: “…we, who cannot exist without you.” How odd it sounds in a world in which we are expected to be responsible for ourselves. Yet, here is Jesus saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”
We do not come to faith by ourselves.
We do not come to faith by our own deduction, reasoning or insight.
According to Jesus it is not our religious experience, not our philosophical insight, not the accident of birth or economic status that places us in the realm of Light and Life that is the presence of Jesus within the community of Faith.
We are wooed, invited, even cajoled. We are saved by Grace alone. Amazing grace! Generous grace!
Conversely, we do not save anyone. God does all the saving, thank you. And those of us who have been invited to eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation can only bear witness to the abundance Jesus brings to the hearts and souls and lives of believers.
It has ever been thus. Jesus knows this. Those who, as he says, are “taught by God” are those who know about being drawn, wooed, invited and even cajoled by God!
Look back at the Exodus/Wilderness journey: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number…but it is because the Lord loves you…” Deut 7:6-8a
Those taught by God remember this: God chooses us only because God loves us.
Nor does God draw us into God’s presence because of anything we do. Just look at Elijah. Elijah has just defeated the Gods of Baal on top of Mount Carmel in a blazing display of God’s power, and yet Jezebel, instead of being impressed and cajoled herself, takes out a contract on Elijah.
Elijah sits beneath a broom tree feeling like a failure. All that he has done seems to count for nothing now that he sits alone, by himself, in hiding. “I am no better than my ancestors!” he cries out. Remember them last week? Wishing to either return to the bondage of slavery in Egypt, or to die in the wilderness? So Elijah also prays, “Lord, take my life away!”
In a culture that values extremes of success, extremes of acquisition, extremes of consumption, it is easy to feel extremes of failure. In a culture that values competition over cooperation, independence over inter-dependence, it is easy to feel utter loneliness, despair, and at the end of one’s rope as we say.
Those of us who are taught by God, however, can remember just how it is that God touches Elijah with an Angel, and gives him bread to eat and water to drink. And as if that were not enough, the Angel returns a second time – providing bread enough for the journey of the next forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, Sinai, the mountain upon which God chooses us because God loves us: the place of making a Covenant with the Lord our God.
Jesus knows that the Psalmist is speaking a life giving truth when we sing, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
We who have been deceived, lulled, into notions of evolutionary progress are surprised to learn that we now represent the decline of homo sapiens – a decline from the Stone Age to the present. It is estimated that Paleolithic hunters and gatherers were far more affluent than we are – affluence measured as a ratio between means and ends. Keeping their ends modest, three to five hours of “work” per day was sufficient to meet their needs, leaving the rest of the day for gossiping, entertaining, dancing and even napping - whereas we have willingly consigned ourselves to lives of hard labor. Cited by Huston Smith in Forgotten Truth [Harper One, San Francisco:1976] p.125-127
And looking at what our industry has gotten us, ironically it is an age of unprecedented Hunger. Now in the time of our great technical achievements, starvation has become an institution. The amount of hunger seems to increase relative and absolutely with the “evolution” of culture. Begging the question, is it evolution or devolution? Anthropology or Entropology? ibid
Institutional starvation is just the tip of the iceberg of our modern predicament. William Willimon observes, “Our hungers are deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire. Can it be that our bread, our wine, our fulfillment stands before us in the presence of this crucified, resurrected Jew? Can it be that many of our desires are, in the eternal scheme of things, pointless? Might it be true that he IS the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek? Is it true that God has come to us, miraculously with us, before us, like manna that is miraculously dropped into our wilderness?” Feasting on the Word Vol 3 [Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville: 2009] p.337
Can we adopt any measure of humility and allow God to minister to us? To allow God to draw us near to Jesus? To allow God to teach us, feed us and love us? Not because of what we do or who we are, but “it is because the Lord loves you”?
“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.”
Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
They Shall Be Taught By God
This is our prayer for today: “…we, who cannot exist without you.” How odd it sounds in a world in which we are expected to be responsible for ourselves. Yet, here is Jesus saying, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…”
We do not come to faith by ourselves.
We do not come to faith by our own deduction, reasoning or insight.
According to Jesus it is not our religious experience, not our philosophical insight, not the accident of birth or economic status that places us in the realm of Light and Life that is the presence of Jesus within the community of Faith.
We are wooed, invited, even cajoled. We are saved by Grace alone. Amazing grace! Generous grace!
Conversely, we do not save anyone. God does all the saving, thank you. And those of us who have been invited to eat the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation can only bear witness to the abundance Jesus brings to the hearts and souls and lives of believers.
It has ever been thus. Jesus knows this. Those who, as he says, are “taught by God” are those who know about being drawn, wooed, invited and even cajoled by God!
Look back at the Exodus/Wilderness journey: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number…but it is because the Lord loves you…” Deut 7:6-8a
Those taught by God remember this: God chooses us only because God loves us.
Nor does God draw us into God’s presence because of anything we do. Just look at Elijah. Elijah has just defeated the Gods of Baal on top of Mount Carmel in a blazing display of God’s power, and yet Jezebel, instead of being impressed and cajoled herself, takes out a contract on Elijah.
Elijah sits beneath a broom tree feeling like a failure. All that he has done seems to count for nothing now that he sits alone, by himself, in hiding. “I am no better than my ancestors!” he cries out. Remember them last week? Wishing to either return to the bondage of slavery in Egypt, or to die in the wilderness? So Elijah also prays, “Lord, take my life away!”
In a culture that values extremes of success, extremes of acquisition, extremes of consumption, it is easy to feel extremes of failure. In a culture that values competition over cooperation, independence over inter-dependence, it is easy to feel utter loneliness, despair, and at the end of one’s rope as we say.
Those of us who are taught by God, however, can remember just how it is that God touches Elijah with an Angel, and gives him bread to eat and water to drink. And as if that were not enough, the Angel returns a second time – providing bread enough for the journey of the next forty days and nights to Mount Horeb, Sinai, the mountain upon which God chooses us because God loves us: the place of making a Covenant with the Lord our God.
Jesus knows that the Psalmist is speaking a life giving truth when we sing, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.”
We who have been deceived, lulled, into notions of evolutionary progress are surprised to learn that we now represent the decline of homo sapiens – a decline from the Stone Age to the present. It is estimated that Paleolithic hunters and gatherers were far more affluent than we are – affluence measured as a ratio between means and ends. Keeping their ends modest, three to five hours of “work” per day was sufficient to meet their needs, leaving the rest of the day for gossiping, entertaining, dancing and even napping - whereas we have willingly consigned ourselves to lives of hard labor. Cited by Huston Smith in Forgotten Truth [Harper One, San Francisco:1976] p.125-127
And looking at what our industry has gotten us, ironically it is an age of unprecedented Hunger. Now in the time of our great technical achievements, starvation has become an institution. The amount of hunger seems to increase relative and absolutely with the “evolution” of culture. Begging the question, is it evolution or devolution? Anthropology or Entropology? ibid
Institutional starvation is just the tip of the iceberg of our modern predicament. William Willimon observes, “Our hungers are deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire. Can it be that our bread, our wine, our fulfillment stands before us in the presence of this crucified, resurrected Jew? Can it be that many of our desires are, in the eternal scheme of things, pointless? Might it be true that he IS the bread we need, even though he is rarely the bread we seek? Is it true that God has come to us, miraculously with us, before us, like manna that is miraculously dropped into our wilderness?” Feasting on the Word Vol 3 [Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville: 2009] p.337
Can we adopt any measure of humility and allow God to minister to us? To allow God to draw us near to Jesus? To allow God to teach us, feed us and love us? Not because of what we do or who we are, but “it is because the Lord loves you”?
“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.”
Amen.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Whoever Comes to Me
2 August 2009 * Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15/Ephesians 4:1-16/Matthew 6: 24-35
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
We will be reflecting on “the bread of life” for the next several weeks. There is much that demands our attention. And we will get to all that in due time. But like Maria in The Sound of Music, let’s start at t he very beginning.
Which of course is the story of manna. Note how the people are already grumbling. They want to go back to being slaves where you at least got three squares a day! What is interesting for us to note is that the Lord hears their complaining and addresses the problem immediately. Of course they have no idea what this stuff is – they call it “whatizit”? It is up to Moses to point out that “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
Note also that this all happens after Aaron calls them to “Draw near to the Lord.” So after we complain, we are to draw near to the Lord – whatever that may mean. It is worth considering, for it may be the most important step between complaining and getting the bread the Lord gives us to eat.
Which of course begs the question, what constitutes “whatizit” for us? It’s obviously not bread, but it is what the Lord provides, and the Lord seems to know what they really need. So as we draw near to the Lord, what do we really need?
Looking at the Gospel for a moment, not a dissimilar circumstance. Jesus has just arranged for the five thousand to be fed, and then takes off for some quiet time. Not to be. As soon as the crowd figures out he is gone, they get into boats and went “looking for him “ in Capernaum.
When they find him Jesus gets a bit snippy: You only followed me because you want more bread and fish! Don’t you realize there is something more important going on here? Don’t you see that you can have bread that endures for eternal life?
Leave it to a view of religion providing for our wants – a religion of convenience – rather than seeking religion that endures for eternal life. Such religion of convenience sees our relationship with God as a kind of lobbying effort on a grand scale. The Romans called it do ut des, “I give so you will give.”
So they ask, “What must we do (give) to perform the works of God?” To which Jesus rather succinctly replies, “Believe in me. For the bread that comes down from heaven gives life to the world.” Which means something more like, “Trust in me, align yourself with me and my life.” Or, as Paul so quaintly puts it in Ephesians, “Be a prisoner of the Lord.”
Still not really getting it they cry out, “Sir, give us this bread – always.” Which echoes throughout the Gospel of John. Recall the Samaritan woman at the well who says, “Sir, give me this water (the water of eternal life) so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Do we see how people just do not get it? He is speaking to her of a well of eternal life that springs up within her, and she is still thinking of drawing buckets from a well!
And does she not echo that pivotal phrase coming in chapter 12 when some Greeks come looking for Jesus like the crowds in the boats today, and they say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Which, like the hokey-pokey, is what it’s all about: seeing Jesus. Drawing near to the Lord. Getting in our boats and looking and looking and looking until we find Jesus. And upon finding Jesus, or Jesus finding us as he did with Paul, we are to dedicate our lives to him – believe in him whom God the Father has sent – and so become prisoners for the Lord so that we might lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called.
Which Ephesians asserts is building up the Body of Christ – his Church.
Looking at page 299 in the Book of Common Prayer, do we see that these words come from Ephesians? And on the page facing, it says that the bond established in Baptism is indissoluable, incorporating us into the Body of Christ! This is the calling to which we have been called.
So let us find ways to draw near to the Lord. Let us get into our boats and go looking for him. And like all the people in all these stories, may we persist in our looking for and seeing of Christ so that we might indeed live lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Let us partake of the bread the Lord provides – the bread we need, not the bread we want - and the wisdom to know the difference.
To be continued. Amen.
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter’s at Ellicott Mills, Maryland
“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life
worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
We will be reflecting on “the bread of life” for the next several weeks. There is much that demands our attention. And we will get to all that in due time. But like Maria in The Sound of Music, let’s start at t he very beginning.
Which of course is the story of manna. Note how the people are already grumbling. They want to go back to being slaves where you at least got three squares a day! What is interesting for us to note is that the Lord hears their complaining and addresses the problem immediately. Of course they have no idea what this stuff is – they call it “whatizit”? It is up to Moses to point out that “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
Note also that this all happens after Aaron calls them to “Draw near to the Lord.” So after we complain, we are to draw near to the Lord – whatever that may mean. It is worth considering, for it may be the most important step between complaining and getting the bread the Lord gives us to eat.
Which of course begs the question, what constitutes “whatizit” for us? It’s obviously not bread, but it is what the Lord provides, and the Lord seems to know what they really need. So as we draw near to the Lord, what do we really need?
Looking at the Gospel for a moment, not a dissimilar circumstance. Jesus has just arranged for the five thousand to be fed, and then takes off for some quiet time. Not to be. As soon as the crowd figures out he is gone, they get into boats and went “looking for him “ in Capernaum.
When they find him Jesus gets a bit snippy: You only followed me because you want more bread and fish! Don’t you realize there is something more important going on here? Don’t you see that you can have bread that endures for eternal life?
Leave it to a view of religion providing for our wants – a religion of convenience – rather than seeking religion that endures for eternal life. Such religion of convenience sees our relationship with God as a kind of lobbying effort on a grand scale. The Romans called it do ut des, “I give so you will give.”
So they ask, “What must we do (give) to perform the works of God?” To which Jesus rather succinctly replies, “Believe in me. For the bread that comes down from heaven gives life to the world.” Which means something more like, “Trust in me, align yourself with me and my life.” Or, as Paul so quaintly puts it in Ephesians, “Be a prisoner of the Lord.”
Still not really getting it they cry out, “Sir, give us this bread – always.” Which echoes throughout the Gospel of John. Recall the Samaritan woman at the well who says, “Sir, give me this water (the water of eternal life) so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Do we see how people just do not get it? He is speaking to her of a well of eternal life that springs up within her, and she is still thinking of drawing buckets from a well!
And does she not echo that pivotal phrase coming in chapter 12 when some Greeks come looking for Jesus like the crowds in the boats today, and they say to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
Which, like the hokey-pokey, is what it’s all about: seeing Jesus. Drawing near to the Lord. Getting in our boats and looking and looking and looking until we find Jesus. And upon finding Jesus, or Jesus finding us as he did with Paul, we are to dedicate our lives to him – believe in him whom God the Father has sent – and so become prisoners for the Lord so that we might lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called.
Which Ephesians asserts is building up the Body of Christ – his Church.
Looking at page 299 in the Book of Common Prayer, do we see that these words come from Ephesians? And on the page facing, it says that the bond established in Baptism is indissoluable, incorporating us into the Body of Christ! This is the calling to which we have been called.
So let us find ways to draw near to the Lord. Let us get into our boats and go looking for him. And like all the people in all these stories, may we persist in our looking for and seeing of Christ so that we might indeed live lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called. Let us partake of the bread the Lord provides – the bread we need, not the bread we want - and the wisdom to know the difference.
To be continued. Amen.
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