Participation Needed John 6:51-58 Lawrence Jackman
It is clear to some of you, but probably not to all. There is this thing called a lectionary in many churches. Today, for instance, the readings we just read from the bible were read and are being discussed in Catholic churches, United Church of Christ, Disciples, Methodists, Episcopals, and a variety of other places. No one has to follow this set of suggestions, but I choose to. I choose that for two reasons—over the period of a year it makes me deal with a broad area of scripture. It becomes a sort of discipline rather than a focus on my pet issues. Secondly, I am forced to try to make sense of some things that just do not make much sense to me on the surface.
So it is today, I am forced to try to deal with some concepts that might be left out in my choices.
There is something absolutely primal here in the Gospel passage for the day. Anybody who says that the passage is easy to understand and accept is kidding themselves. This is “over the top” and on a literal level is a discussion of cannibalism.
That word and thought – eating human flesh – was as foreign and as totally repugnant to the first century Jew as it is to you and me. It is unthinkable. It was unthinkable. So Jesus’ statements are almost beyond heresy. It is no wonder that those listening to him were repelled and disgusted with this very literal discussion.
And yet, yet there is a level at which we may be able to at least consider something that is normative here. My daughter, my son, my grand girls all went through an interesting time of development. I am trying to remember how old they all were and I can’t. My best guess is it was about the time they were say eight months to one year of age. In that pre-critical state, without very many negative judgments, they totally adored me.
They got to a place where what appeared to be a kissing ritual was norm when they were held. Rear back, open the mouth, fall forward against your face and slobber all over creation. They would stand supported on your lap and continue that again and again till they ran out of slobber or something. That developmental behavior would go on for several months and then gradually wear out. Here is what I think really goes on in a nine month old brain. They totally adore the object of their love. The message is one of love, but it has a twist—the twist is, “I am going to devour you”. All that “kissing” is really an attempt to take in the person they love—to just eat them up.
Adults sometimes respond to the child with exactly the same verbal message. You hear people playing with a child and state, “I’m just going to eat you up.” OK so it isn’t quite the same as the “flesh eating” conversation in John, but the words themselves are pretty much the same sounding. Why do we use those words? Why do we talk that way?
We do it because the whole business points toward a primal expression that is deeper than any words. It is a reality that certainly is way past being Christian only. It is probably a reality that dates to human experience about the time we came down from the trees and began to walk upright. Now I don’t want to press this Sigmund Freud/ Desmond Morris/ primitive anthropology thing too far. I do want to call it all to mind. You can fill in the blanks and extend the logics on your own.
Bottom line is this. Belonging is the ultimate human drive. It is what the baby means when they give those massive messy kisses—I am going to take you in, you will be a part of me and I will be a part of you.
We do not often think out loud about this drive. This drive to belong. If we are being religious we talk about the prime search being for meaning or perhaps for God. If we are being very secular we may talk about the primal human quest being for reproduction or life itself. If we are talking biology we think in terms of the survival of the species. Somehow that all makes more sense to us.
But underneath any of those quests – secular or sacred – is the single real drive and primary need of humankind. That is the absolute need to belong.
This is the factor for which people will willingly die if need be. It is the element that nations bank on when they are creating wars—cause that is the only way to get men to make the ultimate sacrifice—to convince them it is about belonging. It is the component of life that drives family, and holds together institutions, even those of risky viability. It is so deep and so profound that we are not even aware of what it is all about—it is like the atmosphere that humans walk in.
Here is what I believe to be the most dramatic example. Marriage. Women and men will like up by the millions every year to pledge each other their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” We bet it all on an institution that makes no statistical sense. Half the time first marriages will end in divorce. If folks end up on the loosing side of that, they will go out and bet it all again. Second marriages will end in divorce two times out of three. Loose again and the same people will line up for the “third place” window where the odds are one in four. That is just not logical; BUT, we need to belong and we will do anything to achieve that. This is way deeper than logic.
This is not a negative comment about marriage—it is just the opposite. It is a statement that the institution addresses a need that is written so deeply into our fibers that it probably shows in our DNA.
We do not seem to search for our souls, for God, for meaning, truth or beauty near as much as we quest for belonging. Look at the sensational success of “My Space” and “Facebook”. I signed up for “Facebook” a few weeks ago. People from 50 years ago and some from 50 days ago began to find me. In a couple of weeks I began to have “my people” in a defined virtual space. It is real belonging, just virtually enabled across time and geography. The kid in Guam, the octogenarian in Illinois and he high school fellow misfit in Virginia all are herded together into my connection list. They are “my people” and I am theirs. It is about belonging.
I always contended when working with kids that gangs were all about belonging. The campaigns to eliminate them were always doomed to failure unless a substitute form and format for belonging was part of the plan.
Normal teens who need to stretch beyond family and family defined institutions are successful only when offered other ways to belong. Fail to enable the good choices and the bad ones will express themselves. The need is so strong and so valid.
Well, as Yul Brynner said in the “King and I”, “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”.
It is the whole point of the John passage where Jesus says, “we are going to have such a close belonging relationship with each other; that ‘you are going to eat me up’. “I will become a part of you and you will become a part of me”.
There is a lot of Old and New Testament testimony to God and from God. It says, “I will be your God and you will be my people”. Even God seems to want to belong. We are not servants, not subjects. We are instead God’s people. We are not little half finished works of art on some shelf, not players in a drama. We are instead God’s people.
That calls out all sorts of active participation in the salvation drama. Belonging is a two way process or more than two ways.
So what does this all mean in the here and now for the church? It is pretty clear that it means everything out there in the world. What about inside the “stained glass curtain”?
I see two profound messages for us at the moment.
One is that we practice, work on and evolve the most profound belonging experiences that we know how. That has implications for everything that we do and say. We need to raise with each other questions about , “How does this enhance our belonging?” and “Can we do it anyway that would make belonging more profound?” “What gets in the way of belonging in this place and how can we change that?”
Does that sound too obtuse to you? OK, how does this room filled with fixed pews that only face one way (and even the choir is over there) – how does that enhance belonging? Can we do it any better? Where in this congregation’s life is enhanced belonging to each other most profound? In what experiences of our life do we best belong to each other?
Two. It is time for us to discover what it is we can offer……. It is belonging in the most profound way and manner. That, boys and girls is what I believe our real product can be in this world. We are long on this product and the world is hungry for it. What do you say we figure out how to feed them?
Amen
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
August 9, 2009 Sermon
About another World John 6:35,41-51 Lawrence Jackman
A week ago last Wednesday was July 29. It is a date remarkable to me, but probably not to many others. It would have been my brother’s birthday. You may know he died a year ago next month. Butch passed from a cerebral trauma following a fall. He was younger than me by enough years for me to have had a sort of almost parental role in his life. Lots of long stories are there for the telling, but the real content is that the anniversary of Butch’s birthday causes me to think about all this ultimate stuff that we refer to as “life and death”.
Then comes along today’s lectionary passage. It is filled with more of this “life and death” discussion and content. So I tell you the personal part of this in order to let you know this is a very personal piece of thinking that I am trying to do.
John’s Gospel portrays Jesus in a very different way than the others. The other Gospels are similar in pattern and content though each has a differing emphasis. Mark tells a quick impact tale that perhaps took less than a year to complete the entire ministry. Matthew tells a story of a Jesus who was totally consumed with teaching about the Kingdom of God. Luke’s special emphasis is a Jesus who burns with compassion for the outcasts and the damaged members of society.
John, on the other hand, has not a single parable in it. The discourses are long teachings about this world and another world. There is a profound interest in knowledge and in what is almost a route from this veil of wrath and tears to another and higher plane of existence. Knowing is saving for John. John is mystical, in a broad sense Gnostic, and filled with content fixed for something other than our normal Christian thought. Parts of it are more like Star Trek than they are like biography.
Take this passage from the sixth Chapter that we read today. It is clear in the thought process that there are two levels of reality being discussed. Bread starts as a physical and tangible reality and quickly moves. First it becomes some sort of special or ultra-substance and then goes even further to be an almost metaphysical reality. Jesus himself is first discussed as an ordinary human being. “Is this not the son of Joseph? Are those people over there not his family? We know his people, how can he make these exaggerated claims?”
Step two, Jesus is claiming a unique role and proximity to God. “God alone directs and draws people to me”, Jesus says. And again the quantum move onward toward the truly metaphysical, Jesus says, “I am the living bread from heaven come down. Anyone who eats will never die.”
The promise is eternal life. The promise is, however, really not so clear. The Bible does not spell out the particulars of eternal life very clearly at all. Instead it settles for this promise. Our images of the afterlife are all born of strange times and images that are no longer part of our lives. Many are born of mythology and of the fantasy of medieval poets like Dante who have about as much authority as you or me. One of the problems is, I believe, the fact that we have evolved our understanding of the total context of Christianity without, at least sometimes, evolving our appreciation of the faith itself. For instance, once a long while back Elizabeth Ross was just starting to become known. I had some dealings with her and was convinced that we could bring her to our Presbytery in the Saint Louis area to help us understand this great mystery. My colleagues puffed their pipes and pontificated about how Doctor Kubler-Ross had unusual theological concepts. Well yes she did, and so we kept our middle ages theology in tact rather than try to work with a new thought.
The new thought may actually be not so new. I want to focus you on several words and thoughts this passage from John 6. The words are life, death, belief and world. Each one of those words enlightens for me an understanding of the promise—though the promise itself is still far from clear. I find for myself that the more I understand even the words of the promise, the more I can actually live like a person who claims the promise.
Taking those words backwards from how I just said them and the first word to lift up is the word “world”, in Greek “Kosmos”. It is the word from which we get terms like cosmic. For the Gospel of John the target consumer for all this saving activity is “the world”. All by itself and even in English that is a massively inclusive thought. The promise says “the world” and not nice folks, people who go to church, people who pray, people who are pious, or people who don’t swear, or people who are conventional in their lifestyle. None of that is the Godly target, the “world” is.
And when you go to the Greek the word has an even more inclusive meaning. “Kosmos” in New Testament meant the “worldly world”. It referenced the underbelly of life and of society. It referenced the things we would rather not be associated with. That means my Unitarian brother, it means my non religious Grandfather, it means all people of any stripe or conviction. It also means all the people I do not like and anyone I might actually happen to like. God loves them all—the goal is to save them all. Now can God accomplish the goal? I am betting yes.
I find comfort in the notion of universal salvation. I also know in every fiber of my being that the core issue of life is that of “trust” which brings me to the second word. I need to go and count the actual times that the Greek word “pistis” or some form of it is changed from its core meaning in the New Testament. The word means “trust” and we always change that to “belief”. And we make belief into an intellectual work. If I believe something that is hard to believe, then I have accomplished my part of the saving drama. So ideas become more important than anything else. Well baloney!
Jesus actually addressed this misunderstanding. You remember when he said, “You believe? Big deal ! The devils believe and tremble”. Now here is the issue – that we trust. Indiana Jones (in the movie The Last Crusade) must make his way across a chasm armed with only a clue about what to do. In desperate action he steps out to walk an invisible bridge across a perilous drop. It works.
Now you could say that the person who sat down and read the clue and agreed that it was true as a statement “had faith”. But the person who steps out and places their foot where there may or may not be support—that person has trust. It doesn’t matter a lick what is going on in the head—it is the feet that express trust. I find great comfort in that notion that I do not need to bend my brain to live in the promise. I need instead to move my feet.
The passage also includes the terms death and life. Here is a fundamental fact of New Testament study. There are a couple of words for life that point to a basic thought contrast and even point of misunderstanding. One word is the one we normally think about when it comes to the concept of dead and alive. The word is “bios” from which we get things like Biology. This means basically, “having vital signs”—a pulse, breathing, brain activity etc. That word is used I think, three times in the New Testament.
The other word in the New Testament and used most often used (and used here in John 6) is the word, “zoe”. It means life but life with spirit, quality, gusto, meaning. It is ironic that in the church we so often focus on “bios” and so little focus on “zoe”. There are parallel concepts about death. One could be said to be “clinically dead” and the other “spiritually dead”. The New Testament is most concerned with the spiritual—both life and death.
The more I focus there, on qualitative life, the more I can live like a person of the promise. And the less I worry about the physical realities.
There are, at least, two levels of reality. There is the tangible and the spiritual. Beneath every tangible reality are spiritual realities. This is not about wispy and sentimental. It is all so very practical.
There is a man in Taylorsville who use to work sometimes on my mower for me. I forget how old he told me he was, but it starts with an 8. He has pretty well given up working on mowers for the time being because his wife had a stroke and needs more constant care. I saw him the other day and stopped to ask how his family was. He explained the very tangible problems and issues. He explained those with clear love and devotion toward his ailing wife.
He points me toward the dual level of reality. You know he has a mate. That is tangible and it means very little. The way he explains and talks tells me he has a “soul mate” for all time. That means everything.
The promise is spiritual and lies in all things spiritual. Life and death are incredibly complex and beyond understanding. There is a promise out there that life does not end when we can no longer see. Understanding that promise is impossible.
Claiming life in that promise, living as a person of the promise, that is fully achievable.
A week ago last Wednesday was July 29. It is a date remarkable to me, but probably not to many others. It would have been my brother’s birthday. You may know he died a year ago next month. Butch passed from a cerebral trauma following a fall. He was younger than me by enough years for me to have had a sort of almost parental role in his life. Lots of long stories are there for the telling, but the real content is that the anniversary of Butch’s birthday causes me to think about all this ultimate stuff that we refer to as “life and death”.
Then comes along today’s lectionary passage. It is filled with more of this “life and death” discussion and content. So I tell you the personal part of this in order to let you know this is a very personal piece of thinking that I am trying to do.
John’s Gospel portrays Jesus in a very different way than the others. The other Gospels are similar in pattern and content though each has a differing emphasis. Mark tells a quick impact tale that perhaps took less than a year to complete the entire ministry. Matthew tells a story of a Jesus who was totally consumed with teaching about the Kingdom of God. Luke’s special emphasis is a Jesus who burns with compassion for the outcasts and the damaged members of society.
John, on the other hand, has not a single parable in it. The discourses are long teachings about this world and another world. There is a profound interest in knowledge and in what is almost a route from this veil of wrath and tears to another and higher plane of existence. Knowing is saving for John. John is mystical, in a broad sense Gnostic, and filled with content fixed for something other than our normal Christian thought. Parts of it are more like Star Trek than they are like biography.
Take this passage from the sixth Chapter that we read today. It is clear in the thought process that there are two levels of reality being discussed. Bread starts as a physical and tangible reality and quickly moves. First it becomes some sort of special or ultra-substance and then goes even further to be an almost metaphysical reality. Jesus himself is first discussed as an ordinary human being. “Is this not the son of Joseph? Are those people over there not his family? We know his people, how can he make these exaggerated claims?”
Step two, Jesus is claiming a unique role and proximity to God. “God alone directs and draws people to me”, Jesus says. And again the quantum move onward toward the truly metaphysical, Jesus says, “I am the living bread from heaven come down. Anyone who eats will never die.”
The promise is eternal life. The promise is, however, really not so clear. The Bible does not spell out the particulars of eternal life very clearly at all. Instead it settles for this promise. Our images of the afterlife are all born of strange times and images that are no longer part of our lives. Many are born of mythology and of the fantasy of medieval poets like Dante who have about as much authority as you or me. One of the problems is, I believe, the fact that we have evolved our understanding of the total context of Christianity without, at least sometimes, evolving our appreciation of the faith itself. For instance, once a long while back Elizabeth Ross was just starting to become known. I had some dealings with her and was convinced that we could bring her to our Presbytery in the Saint Louis area to help us understand this great mystery. My colleagues puffed their pipes and pontificated about how Doctor Kubler-Ross had unusual theological concepts. Well yes she did, and so we kept our middle ages theology in tact rather than try to work with a new thought.
The new thought may actually be not so new. I want to focus you on several words and thoughts this passage from John 6. The words are life, death, belief and world. Each one of those words enlightens for me an understanding of the promise—though the promise itself is still far from clear. I find for myself that the more I understand even the words of the promise, the more I can actually live like a person who claims the promise.
Taking those words backwards from how I just said them and the first word to lift up is the word “world”, in Greek “Kosmos”. It is the word from which we get terms like cosmic. For the Gospel of John the target consumer for all this saving activity is “the world”. All by itself and even in English that is a massively inclusive thought. The promise says “the world” and not nice folks, people who go to church, people who pray, people who are pious, or people who don’t swear, or people who are conventional in their lifestyle. None of that is the Godly target, the “world” is.
And when you go to the Greek the word has an even more inclusive meaning. “Kosmos” in New Testament meant the “worldly world”. It referenced the underbelly of life and of society. It referenced the things we would rather not be associated with. That means my Unitarian brother, it means my non religious Grandfather, it means all people of any stripe or conviction. It also means all the people I do not like and anyone I might actually happen to like. God loves them all—the goal is to save them all. Now can God accomplish the goal? I am betting yes.
I find comfort in the notion of universal salvation. I also know in every fiber of my being that the core issue of life is that of “trust” which brings me to the second word. I need to go and count the actual times that the Greek word “pistis” or some form of it is changed from its core meaning in the New Testament. The word means “trust” and we always change that to “belief”. And we make belief into an intellectual work. If I believe something that is hard to believe, then I have accomplished my part of the saving drama. So ideas become more important than anything else. Well baloney!
Jesus actually addressed this misunderstanding. You remember when he said, “You believe? Big deal ! The devils believe and tremble”. Now here is the issue – that we trust. Indiana Jones (in the movie The Last Crusade) must make his way across a chasm armed with only a clue about what to do. In desperate action he steps out to walk an invisible bridge across a perilous drop. It works.
Now you could say that the person who sat down and read the clue and agreed that it was true as a statement “had faith”. But the person who steps out and places their foot where there may or may not be support—that person has trust. It doesn’t matter a lick what is going on in the head—it is the feet that express trust. I find great comfort in that notion that I do not need to bend my brain to live in the promise. I need instead to move my feet.
The passage also includes the terms death and life. Here is a fundamental fact of New Testament study. There are a couple of words for life that point to a basic thought contrast and even point of misunderstanding. One word is the one we normally think about when it comes to the concept of dead and alive. The word is “bios” from which we get things like Biology. This means basically, “having vital signs”—a pulse, breathing, brain activity etc. That word is used I think, three times in the New Testament.
The other word in the New Testament and used most often used (and used here in John 6) is the word, “zoe”. It means life but life with spirit, quality, gusto, meaning. It is ironic that in the church we so often focus on “bios” and so little focus on “zoe”. There are parallel concepts about death. One could be said to be “clinically dead” and the other “spiritually dead”. The New Testament is most concerned with the spiritual—both life and death.
The more I focus there, on qualitative life, the more I can live like a person of the promise. And the less I worry about the physical realities.
There are, at least, two levels of reality. There is the tangible and the spiritual. Beneath every tangible reality are spiritual realities. This is not about wispy and sentimental. It is all so very practical.
There is a man in Taylorsville who use to work sometimes on my mower for me. I forget how old he told me he was, but it starts with an 8. He has pretty well given up working on mowers for the time being because his wife had a stroke and needs more constant care. I saw him the other day and stopped to ask how his family was. He explained the very tangible problems and issues. He explained those with clear love and devotion toward his ailing wife.
He points me toward the dual level of reality. You know he has a mate. That is tangible and it means very little. The way he explains and talks tells me he has a “soul mate” for all time. That means everything.
The promise is spiritual and lies in all things spiritual. Life and death are incredibly complex and beyond understanding. There is a promise out there that life does not end when we can no longer see. Understanding that promise is impossible.
Claiming life in that promise, living as a person of the promise, that is fully achievable.
Friday, August 7, 2009
August 2, 2009 Sermon
Fresh Every Morning Exodus16:2-4, 9-15 John 6:24-35 Lawrence Jackman
The story of manna from heaven is a great one. It is a bit longer than what we usually read or tell. Part of what we do not say is really an interesting twist. The people are out there whining and complaining. “Our bellies are empty”. “Moses, you idiot, you brought us out here in the wilderness to starve to death. What were you thinking?”
So bread comes from heaven. We are going to eat and not starve. Like the dew it drops on the ground in the morning. But there is a catch. You are supposed to go out and pick up a day’s provisions. You have been hungry. That has gone on for some time. Now there is food all over the place and the instruction to only take a day’s worth.
Folks being folks, they go out and pick up a day and a half, maybe two days worth of the manna. And the stuff turns rotten. The incredibly simple lesson being, “you can not store up God’s grace. There is enough to be sustained throughout a day, but that is it.”
If you try to hold onto yesterday’s grace you end up with a pretty stinky mess.
All relationships are designed to be “dynamic” that is alive and filled with all the stuff that life is full of. Relationship is meant to be in a kind of constant state of change and perhaps even evolution. Relationship is meant to grow.
I couldn’t love my grandchildren any more than the day I first held them. It is the same me and the same them now as it was then. But the expressions of that love, the qualities it has, and outward appearance has changed mightily and will change in the future. So, what makes us think that a relationship with God isn’t something like that. God loves you just like the day your first met. The quality of that Divine love, the outward appearance and the expression has doubtless changed.
That is what dynamic means—growing, changing and moving. That is what relationships are—dynamic. And yet…….yet, we try always to make things static. We try to create relational realities that maintain, that are constant, that are always working the same way that they did in the past. And we end up with a rotten mess. Even our attempt to make things static does not deny the reality that things will change no matter what. The critical issue is will they change for the better or will they turn “foul”?
So the static versus dynamic tension acts itself out in our religious lives again and again. We have a book of writings. We refer to it as the Bible. Individual pieces of that book are very difficult to avoid as calling out parts of who and what we are for attention. Most pieces of the book require work to glean understanding. Lots of parts of the Bible are nearly impossible to extract anything from.
The gift of the Book is a dynamic one. That means we need to live in relationship with it and see it as a sort of living reality. It changes, it moves, it expresses itself differently as we evolve with it. So we can’t just sit with a book and a concordance ready to look up the definitive answer to something. It is not a phone book. And even a phone book is somewhat dynamic.
I think that means, if you don’t ever talk about the Bible, read it, or talk it through with others; please just be quiet about it. You confuse others into thinking this is a static gift and then they can’t find the answers to moving questions and issues.
We attempt to serve static faith when we decide that ideas are more important than the realities toward which they point.
I was in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In the middle of a large cavern of a room stands a stone structure. It is revered as the burial place of Jesus. An orthodox priest guides pilgrims through the storage building sized tomb. He shows us exactly where Jesus was laid. He has an answer for every question and offers candles for sale which you can light as a sort of prayer ritual.
After taking the tour, I walked to the back of this little structure. In the darkness there was a little Byzantine monk in very humble attire. He beckoned me over to where he squatted. Reaching under his outer garment he brought a treasure out for me to see. It was a plain piece of rock—like 10,000 others I could have picked up that day. To him it was a jewel, a treasure and a mystery. In badly broken English he explained, “I have a piece of the real tomb.” He didn’t want to sell it to me, he just wanted me to share in his joy in this limestone gem. I touched his treasure and we shared his mystery.
One tomb was static and one was alive.
We try to make the faith static by devoting ourselves to theology. I was engaged in a discussion with some non Presbyterian folks and another Presby pastor not long ago. The conversation moved somehow toward how Presbyterians might treat a baptism of an infant who was at risk of dying. The non Presbyterians wanted to call that an emergency baptism. My colleague began to intone, “you must remember that in Reformed theology there is no such thing as an emergency baptism.” “The questions you should be asking the family are…” Then there were a short list of questions about religious perspective and belief about things.
That is the sort of response that makes me want to choke the life out of the next person who talks about Reformed Theology as though it is something to be served. There is only one question of substance in that case and it is, “Where is the water?”
Talking about God (even in Reformed Theology terms and thoughts) does not substitute for living with God. Nothing wrong with theology, as long as you remember it has limits. I think I can be tried for heresy for thoughts as benign as these. I’m good with that.
If you truly believe that the faith is dynamic, then you can move rather quickly to the truth that needs an expression today. Our denomination struggled mightily in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s of the last century to get to the point where we could recognize women and ordain them to elder roles and minister roles. We had to move so many pieces of static stuff and put it in new places in our rigid systems. Eventually we got it done.
How much easier it was for the Pentecostals! They see the faith as moving and changing and alive. They see it as dynamic. All you have to do is watch them worship to know that in a dramatic way. I can’t quite get there with them, but I sure can appreciate what they are doing. One step for them from a male exclusive club of clergy and other church leaders to an inclusive group. Someone observed, “The spirit seems to be active in Sister Margaret.” Sister became clergy. Point to point when you actually believe that the faith is dynamic and alive.
Now if I have only one point/application to suggest today it is this. Communion is an expression of a dynamic faith—one that wants to be alive.
Many of you, like me, were raised on the thoughts of Ulrich Zwingli. His ideas made a lot of sense in the context of the 1500s. He taught us that the Lord’s Supper was a memorial service. We bought it. We carved the words “In Remembrance of Me” a million times in communion tables.
For the past thirty to forty years the sacrament has labored toward becoming alive again.
“This is the joyful feast of the people of God.” It is not static nor is anything else that matters in this world. It is alive and charged with change and the promise of change. It is a celebration of one of life’s primal dramas. Lets not serve it up in somber sadness. Rather let us partake and eat and celebrate like a people in love with their God and with each other.
This is the manna God offers to us this morning. Take and eat.
The story of manna from heaven is a great one. It is a bit longer than what we usually read or tell. Part of what we do not say is really an interesting twist. The people are out there whining and complaining. “Our bellies are empty”. “Moses, you idiot, you brought us out here in the wilderness to starve to death. What were you thinking?”
So bread comes from heaven. We are going to eat and not starve. Like the dew it drops on the ground in the morning. But there is a catch. You are supposed to go out and pick up a day’s provisions. You have been hungry. That has gone on for some time. Now there is food all over the place and the instruction to only take a day’s worth.
Folks being folks, they go out and pick up a day and a half, maybe two days worth of the manna. And the stuff turns rotten. The incredibly simple lesson being, “you can not store up God’s grace. There is enough to be sustained throughout a day, but that is it.”
If you try to hold onto yesterday’s grace you end up with a pretty stinky mess.
All relationships are designed to be “dynamic” that is alive and filled with all the stuff that life is full of. Relationship is meant to be in a kind of constant state of change and perhaps even evolution. Relationship is meant to grow.
I couldn’t love my grandchildren any more than the day I first held them. It is the same me and the same them now as it was then. But the expressions of that love, the qualities it has, and outward appearance has changed mightily and will change in the future. So, what makes us think that a relationship with God isn’t something like that. God loves you just like the day your first met. The quality of that Divine love, the outward appearance and the expression has doubtless changed.
That is what dynamic means—growing, changing and moving. That is what relationships are—dynamic. And yet…….yet, we try always to make things static. We try to create relational realities that maintain, that are constant, that are always working the same way that they did in the past. And we end up with a rotten mess. Even our attempt to make things static does not deny the reality that things will change no matter what. The critical issue is will they change for the better or will they turn “foul”?
So the static versus dynamic tension acts itself out in our religious lives again and again. We have a book of writings. We refer to it as the Bible. Individual pieces of that book are very difficult to avoid as calling out parts of who and what we are for attention. Most pieces of the book require work to glean understanding. Lots of parts of the Bible are nearly impossible to extract anything from.
The gift of the Book is a dynamic one. That means we need to live in relationship with it and see it as a sort of living reality. It changes, it moves, it expresses itself differently as we evolve with it. So we can’t just sit with a book and a concordance ready to look up the definitive answer to something. It is not a phone book. And even a phone book is somewhat dynamic.
I think that means, if you don’t ever talk about the Bible, read it, or talk it through with others; please just be quiet about it. You confuse others into thinking this is a static gift and then they can’t find the answers to moving questions and issues.
We attempt to serve static faith when we decide that ideas are more important than the realities toward which they point.
I was in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. In the middle of a large cavern of a room stands a stone structure. It is revered as the burial place of Jesus. An orthodox priest guides pilgrims through the storage building sized tomb. He shows us exactly where Jesus was laid. He has an answer for every question and offers candles for sale which you can light as a sort of prayer ritual.
After taking the tour, I walked to the back of this little structure. In the darkness there was a little Byzantine monk in very humble attire. He beckoned me over to where he squatted. Reaching under his outer garment he brought a treasure out for me to see. It was a plain piece of rock—like 10,000 others I could have picked up that day. To him it was a jewel, a treasure and a mystery. In badly broken English he explained, “I have a piece of the real tomb.” He didn’t want to sell it to me, he just wanted me to share in his joy in this limestone gem. I touched his treasure and we shared his mystery.
One tomb was static and one was alive.
We try to make the faith static by devoting ourselves to theology. I was engaged in a discussion with some non Presbyterian folks and another Presby pastor not long ago. The conversation moved somehow toward how Presbyterians might treat a baptism of an infant who was at risk of dying. The non Presbyterians wanted to call that an emergency baptism. My colleague began to intone, “you must remember that in Reformed theology there is no such thing as an emergency baptism.” “The questions you should be asking the family are…” Then there were a short list of questions about religious perspective and belief about things.
That is the sort of response that makes me want to choke the life out of the next person who talks about Reformed Theology as though it is something to be served. There is only one question of substance in that case and it is, “Where is the water?”
Talking about God (even in Reformed Theology terms and thoughts) does not substitute for living with God. Nothing wrong with theology, as long as you remember it has limits. I think I can be tried for heresy for thoughts as benign as these. I’m good with that.
If you truly believe that the faith is dynamic, then you can move rather quickly to the truth that needs an expression today. Our denomination struggled mightily in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s of the last century to get to the point where we could recognize women and ordain them to elder roles and minister roles. We had to move so many pieces of static stuff and put it in new places in our rigid systems. Eventually we got it done.
How much easier it was for the Pentecostals! They see the faith as moving and changing and alive. They see it as dynamic. All you have to do is watch them worship to know that in a dramatic way. I can’t quite get there with them, but I sure can appreciate what they are doing. One step for them from a male exclusive club of clergy and other church leaders to an inclusive group. Someone observed, “The spirit seems to be active in Sister Margaret.” Sister became clergy. Point to point when you actually believe that the faith is dynamic and alive.
Now if I have only one point/application to suggest today it is this. Communion is an expression of a dynamic faith—one that wants to be alive.
Many of you, like me, were raised on the thoughts of Ulrich Zwingli. His ideas made a lot of sense in the context of the 1500s. He taught us that the Lord’s Supper was a memorial service. We bought it. We carved the words “In Remembrance of Me” a million times in communion tables.
For the past thirty to forty years the sacrament has labored toward becoming alive again.
“This is the joyful feast of the people of God.” It is not static nor is anything else that matters in this world. It is alive and charged with change and the promise of change. It is a celebration of one of life’s primal dramas. Lets not serve it up in somber sadness. Rather let us partake and eat and celebrate like a people in love with their God and with each other.
This is the manna God offers to us this morning. Take and eat.
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