Sermon: Twelvth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector
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Where did the summer go? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, wearing our best red ties and red dresses, listening to the cacophony of languages in the reading from Acts? Wasn’t it just yesterday our children were coming home from the last day of school, anticipating summer vacation and wasn’t it just yesterday we were still hopeful that the Braves might win the division?

This summer did seem to go by quickly, though if you’ve been coming to church lately and paying attention to our readings from the gospel of John, it might seem things have really slowed down. Back on the last Sunday of July, we listened to the first of five readings from the 6th chapter of John’s gospel. And if you’ve stayed the course over the past few Sundays, you’ve perhaps gotten your fill of stories about Jesus and bread. Jesus has had lots of words to say about bread, hasn’t he?

You’ll remember that all this started with John’s version of the feeding of the 5,000—a story so important to the church that it’s included six times in four gospels. It’s the story of Jesus taking a few loaves of bread belonging to a young lad, blessing that bread, breaking it into pieces and putting it into the hands of hungry people. And out of that story, Jesus has been talking about bread, the bread of life, the bread of heaven. Bread that reminds us of the manna God gave our ancestors in the wilderness, but bread that contains deeper meanings and a life-giving promise. Jesus promises us that he is that bread and that if we eat that bread he will abide in us and we in him.

And you’ll recall that earlier in the story, this kind of talk caused some rumblings among the crowds. At the end of last week’s reading and repeated again this morning, we listen to Jesus say "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them." And today it’s the very people following Jesus, his disciples, who are mumbling and complaining. One or two of them are overheard to say "This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?"

Even with the benefit of 2,000 years of Eucharistic theology behind us, we still struggle with the question. "What does it mean, Jesus? How are we supposed to understand this talk about flesh and bread, wine and blood?"

I talked with a friend of mine in Louisiana the other day. She’s a Presbyterian pastor and I knew she’d be preaching on this text today. I was also curious what a Presbyterian would have to say about John’s Eucharistic theology—in a congregation where they normally have Communion once a month. I was surprised to hear Patti say that during the month of August, they were celebrating the Eucharist every Sunday, alongside listening to the readings from John about the bread of heaven. We laughed together because I’ve been telling her for years that she really is an Anglican at heart and this proved my point. In her preaching and in their worship together, I take it that they’ve been exploring the mystery of the Word made flesh, dwelling for a little while in the mystery of bread and wine becoming the very presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Now, that’s where we live as Episcopalians, but for these Presbyterians who are so very saturated by the spoken word on most Sundays, it represented a new opportunity. And then I came back to today’s lesson and found myself drawn to this verse:

It is the spirit that gives life;
the flesh is useless.
The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Yes, the words Jesus speaks today may unsettle us, may cause us to wonder what he’s talking about. But you sense the truth in these words. Jesus’ words give us spirit and life. They have the capacity to empower us, to compel us, to change us. The words Jesus speaks abide with us, as Jesus who is the Word incarnate abides with us.

Anything is possible when the Spirit has invaded our hearts and inspired and enlivened us. Anything.

But the opposite of that is true as well. When we try to limit the meaning of scripture, to coral it and say things like “It means this and only this” we end up killing the possibility.

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Who can understand this?

Jesus gives us ideas, Jesus gives us words that suggest, not define. Our friend, author and priest, Barbara Crafton, who led Holy Trinity’s Lenten Quiet Day last March writes

The words of scripture are never just one thing. They aren’t true in the two-dimensional way a newspaper story might be true: “Yesterday, so-and-so did such-and-such at such-and-such a time in such-and-such a place.” The truth of them plumbs truth to its very bottom, and searches it out to its widest expanse. It is as much the truth of possibility as it is the truth of history. By its very nature, it is bigger than we are. We must never cut it off at the knees by insisting that we know exactly what the words say. We do not know. We will never know, not here. We struggle to understand them, but we cannot know, because we can’t see what comes next. We can only read them, discuss them, pray them and then trust them to reveal their mystery to us…

Let me tell you about one such moment of mystery, a moment of spirit and life, from the summer of 2006 and the last time the Episcopal Church gathered for our General Convention. It happened on a Sunday morning, in Columbus, Ohio. Several thousand of us or so were gathered in a huge convention center for the Eucharist that morning. After worship, the bishops, all 300 or so of them, departed in a solemn procession and were transported by bus to Trinity Church a few blocks away. There they were sequestered to vote for the next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The candidates before them were all fine bishops of their own dioceses. They were mostly white and they were, of course, mostly male. With one exception.

Conventional wisdom held that one of the 4 or 5 male bishops would be elected. This was the first time a woman had even been nominated and no one, I mean, no one, thought she had a chance. We heard things like There is too much controversy in the church already, there is no way the bishops will elect a woman this time and even if she is the best candidate, it’s not the right time.

And then the moment came when the chairperson of the Nominating Committee came to the microphone, looked out at the 800 of us in the House of Deputies and another thousand or so observers awaiting the results and announced:
“On the 5th ballot, the Right Reverend…Katharine”…and there were gasps of surprise and scattered applause…”Jefferts Schori was elected.”

Later in the afternoon, after the allowed time for debate had ended and the House of Deputies had voted to confirm her election, Bishop Katharine was escorted into the hall. She was greeted with a prolonged standing ovation and loud, enthusiastic cheers. It was an unforgettable moment. It was a risky thing those bishops did, it offended a few people, it thrilled many others and it was clearly the work of the Holy Spirit.

So what does this have to do with the Gospel today? Just this. If we, as a Church, were bound to a literal reading of scripture that claims women cannot speak in church, that women must submit all their spiritual questions to their husbands, Bishop Katharine would never have been made a priest, much less a bishop. For beloved St. Paul says exactly that in his first letter to the church in Corinth. Robyn and Deborah (and my predecessors, Anne, Melissa, Alicia and Susan) would never have been able to serve at this altar, you’d have never heard them preach, or benefited from their teaching. But the words of scripture are never just one thing. The truth of scripture takes us places that surprise us, that startle us and disturb us because it is the “truth of possibility every bit as much as it is the truth of history.”

None of us, not me, not you, not any bishop or your Sunday School teacher or college religion professor or the Archbishop of Canterbury, has a corner on scripture. This side of heaven, the complete, full meaning of Holy Scripture will remain hidden from us. I believe each generation will continue to find new meaning, new depths of understanding in the timeless words of life.

Every now and then, we will get glimpses of truth, glimpses that show us the way home. They will come to us in bits and pieces, something like the bits and pieces of bread that fall into our hands, as we come to the feast of abundant life prepared for us today. Amen.

Sermon: Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

Joe Pearson, Deacon

Invocation of God’s Spirit

God of all ages past, our present today, and for years to come, be with us as we seek your presence in our lives and anticipate what you have to teach us today. Amen.

The Introduction

Last week, Bishop Alexander had us hanging on a pendulum arc that swung from our baptism and our history on one end and our individual and collective future on the other. He talked about our tendency to look back and to work hard to hold on to what was. He encouraged us to stand in the present, respecting and honoring our traditions, and to embrace the unknown tomorrow with anticipation. With reference to the “transfiguration,” he recalled how the disciples wanted to build dwellings to “house” the spirits of Elijah, Moses and Jesus. Instead “a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘this is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’" Without diminishing what was, God wanted them to focus on the present—what is and what is to come.

So here we are again, one week later, sitting smack in the present. As we sit, each of us brings our own unique remembered past. Everything and everyone who has brought us here is also here—along with Elijah, Moses and Jesus. But none of us knows what will transpire in the next second or minute. Will someone faint? Will someone be struck by God’s grace? Will others be struck with boredom--thinking perhaps of golf dates, or lunch plans, or work challenges…?

The pendulum of life swings and we are caught here and now at the center of that which was and is and will be. We are part of the long arc of history and active participants in the shorter arc of our lives in this day and time.

Just a little over ten years ago, I was caught in one of those moments “between the no longer and the not yet” and wanted, like Solomon, some direction, some discernment about my future:

• Should I retire now or work a few more years—maybe make it to 70
• When I retired what did I want to do
• Where did I want to live
• Did I want to seek ordination

Bottom line: I was at one of those milestone crossroads……and the temptation was to “stand pat,” to hold on to what was and slide quietly into the future. But something was nudging me to move forward, to move beyond the present into uncharted waters.

My spiritual director at the time, John Westerhoff, encouraged me to engage in a specific period of discernment. With his support, I decided to go on a spiritual retreat. I spent eight days in solitude and silence at a Jesuit retreat center in Colorado. For this retreat, each attendee was assigned a spiritual director. We spent the entire time in silence—except for one hour each day when we met with our director. On the first day, I shared my list of concerns and said that I was hoping for some discernment.

At the end of my time there, I came to a strong realization. You could say, and I do, that I experienced a major breakthrough—something like a conversion.

Exegesis and Mid-Rash

With this memory in mind (I want to hold for now sharing details about my breakthrough experience) I find our texts for today extremely interesting and quite frankly, somewhat confusing.

For the past several Sundays, the gospel texts (with the exception of last Sunday when the Transfiguration text from Luke took precedence), have come from the 6th Chapter of John.

The long arc of this chapter begins with loaves and fishes and the feeding of an estimated 5,000 (including rumblings from the flock present of a Kingship for Jesus) and ends with grumblings, defection of some followers and Jesus’ forecast of betrayal. Consider the following:

• Feeding thousands with real food from undisclosed sources
• The food sated crowd (now convinced that Jesus is their Messiah, their once and future King) seek him out
• Jesus, not wanting to be so confronted, departs and crosses the Sea of Galilee. En route he takes a walk on the water. At first this seems out of context. Why would John inserts this here—almost as an afterthought? I suggest, for extra reading, that you check this out at home and see what you think. But I digress….
• The people, not finding Jesus, go looking for him. It seems they want to make him their long ago promised candidate for King, and along the way to provide more food, to perform more miracles. For them, it seems that Jesus validity depends on his being willing to perform signs and wonders.
• When they find him they ask—and I greatly paraphrase: What must we do to keep these miracles coming? What signs will you give us? Moses provided manna. You provided loaves and fishes.
• Jesus counters and my vivid imagination suggests he counters with a flash of anger: It was not Moses who provided manna. It was God, my Father, and your God. Don’t you get it? It is not about the food; it is about me. I am the bread of life.
• The disciples, the crowd, (whoever was still around) are astonished. How can that be? We know you. Are you not the son of Joseph the carpenter? What are you talking about?
• Again and again, it seems, Jesus responds: I am the bread of life. Moses gave you, by the grace of God, physical food. Yesterday I provided loaves and fishes for you to eat. But this is not what I am about. I am the bread of life. This bread brings eternal life.
And this is where our gospel text for today enters the narrative. Jesus says, “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.”
• But again, the people cry out in disbelief: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?

The gospel reading for next Sunday concludes this narrative arc. In this reading the disciples say: “This teaching is too difficult. Who can accept it? Chapter six ends with some followers leaving and the commentary from John that Jesus knew from the first who would betray him—and even identifies Judas as the betrayer.

From Miracle to Betrayal. John has provided us with a lot to ponder.

What in the world is going on? It is obvious that Jesus and his disciples are not on the same page. The disciples are caught up in 1) tradition and their expectations based on it, 2) the practical world of survival where food is scarce, 3) the thrilling rush of adrenalin as they hear Jesus preach, experience miraculous events, and bask in his charismatic presence. Imagine how they must feel as their excitement mounts that this man, this carpenter’s son from Nazareth, may well be the long expected Messiah.

From this hoped for King, they want food (read miraculous signs and wonders), substance, mission, political leadership. What they get is mystery-- ambiguity. They are asked to replace their desire for things with Jesus desire for people to come directly to God through him.

It seems, though, that at every turn they misunderstand what he means, what he teaches, what he desires for them. He has been sent to show them the deep love that God has for them. He has been sent to alter their focus on things, and principalities and powers and to refocus on one thing only—the mystery and power and glory of the living God.

Jesus affirms: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate….”

Implications for Us.

It is no wonder that they were confused. Those disciples wanted substance. What they got was metaphor.
Are we, two thousand plus years later, still somewhat confused ourselves?
Don’t we want, downright expect, answers?
Don’t we demand substance?
Don’t we seek guidance and direction?
Don’t we allow our expectations, our desires, our needs to frame what we want—even expect—from God?

Instead of just giving us what we want and say we need …
Jesus offers Jesus.
Jesus offers God.
For Jesus, that should be enough!

It is clear that Jesus is not talking about disciples actually eating his literal flesh. He is speaking symbolically. Keep in mind that in the gospel narratives Eucharist has not yet been instituted. That comes later. These disciples did not have centuries of theological dialogue and struggle about whether wafers and wine were the real presence of Jesus or just some mystical symbol. In fact, there is no institution of the Eucharist in the gospel of John. The symbolic activity that takes place at John’s last supper is the washing of feet. I have often wondered why John did not include this Eucharistic and symbolic feast in his gospel.

It now occurs to me that in Chapter 6 John is essentially presenting a Eucharistic metaphor. It is symbolic and deeply incarnational. God is in Jesus, and when we take in Jesus we literally take God within us. This is, first and foremost, about human life—your life and mine—with God. The word Immanuel—used quite often to refer to Jesus--simply means, “God is with us.”

To accept this, to believe this, to respond to this is an act of faith. It requires a bold leap from the realities of human expectation to the promises of divine blessing.

This in no way implies that guidance, or mission, or purpose, or answers will not come through a life of Faith—a life of God’s incarnation with us. It is nothing more or less than getting our priorities straight and putting first things first.

I believe that God created the universe, is omnipresent, is always with us, always seeking us, always wanting to be in relationship with us. As I read the Bible—the story of God’s attempts to relate to and lead a people—it is clear to me that most of the time the people just didn’t get it.

And while I am speaking of “not getting it,” this brings me back around to the time mentioned earlier when I went on a silent retreat—seeking answers to what I thought then were important life issues. I thought, as I entered into the time of silence, that answers would come. Like Solomon, I wanted God to provide a concrete plan of action—or at least a hint of direction.

I got my answer, and it was a complete shock. I realized that all of my life I had been an active participant in the life of the church, had accepted leadership positions, taught classes, preached sermons, went on mission trips, prayed, fasted, visited the sick…. I was very active in the business of the church.

I discovered at that retreat, that I was missing something primary—a deep and abiding relationship with God. Jesus was a hero, a servant, a role model. God was the architect of the universe. I believed in God and Jesus, I gave thanks and praise and worship, but in the final analysis I was not in a specific and personal relationship with them.

The answer that I got, important as those life decisions were, was this: until I accepted the living presence of God in me, understood God’s desire, through Jesus, to be in relationship with me, and began to develop that, then NOTHING ELSE MATTERED.

That is what most of the disciples did not get. That is why Jesus consistently, and insistently, implores the disciples to come directly to God through him.

T. S. Eliot, in his Four Quartets poem, talks about leaving home, going on life’s long journey of learning and experience only to come back home and experience it again for the first time.

John’s gospel today brings me back home—seeming yet again for the first time—and brings me back out of my head and my searching and reminds me of something fundamental, yet easily overlooked through the struggles of life.

This is why I can say, one more time, what I said as I child, and you, surely, must have said or sung it as well.

“Jesus loves me;
This I know;
For the Bible tells me so.”

Amen!

Sermon: Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector

I am the bread of life.

These words of Jesus are familiar. We read them, say them, and sing them. In the Eucharist we even say “the bread of heaven”. What is interesting about this bread of salvation is that it does not always come to us in planned or predictable ways. The bread and wine of the Eucharist feed our souls every Sunday. But sometimes food for the soul, and even communion, come to us like manna from heaven, unexpectedly, and as a pure, unearned gift of grace.

This morning I want to share with you a story about how I encountered the bread of heaven unexpectedly. Several years ago, I traveled to Russia for a month long summer sabbatical with a friend who was a Lutheran college professor. We went first to St. Petersburg where we engaged in study at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary. From there we flew to Biysk, a city in Southern Siberia, to meet a family we had both befriended on a previous Russian trip.

During our stay in Siberia, our host family took us on an excursion to a village south of Biysk in an area near the Altai Mountains (not far from the Chinese and Mongolian border). We went there to visit the newly restored Church of the Icon of the Kazan Mother of God. While touring the inside of the church, we met two young Russian Orthodox priests serving the church, and a Russian woman named Antonina, who was an active lay leader.

The priests and Antonia told us that sometime after the Bolshevik Revolution, the holy icons had been ripped from the Iconostasis and used on the street in front of the church as paving. The building was then turned into a storage place for chemical fertilizers to be used by the local collective farms.

A few courageous villagers carried off some of icons, which had been thrown into the street and hid them in their homes. Though they were now in somewhat poor condition, five or six of these icons were back in the newly restored church.

During the conversation, Antonina also shared that she had the honor of baking the large, round loaves of communion bread used each Sunday during the Eucharist.

Since it was lunchtime, Antonina invited us, all four adults and two children, whom she had never met before, to come home with her for lunch.

To turn down such an invitation would have been considered quite rude in Russian culture, so we accepted her kind offer. We walked a quarter of a mile through the streets of the village and over the fields to her "izba" (log house). While we became acquainted with her husband and son, Antonina busied herself in her "summer kitchen" located across the garden from the house. In preparation for our meal, Antonina's husband took us outside to wash our hands at the family's cleverly constructed "sink". Next to the basin hung the family towel, which was offered, to each one of us to dry our hands. We later learned that this act of offering the family towel was considered an honor according to Russian custom.

In less than 20 minutes, Antonina set out a magnificent luncheon table for her guests. Lunch consisted of a first course of fresh, uncooked garden vegetables, followed by a "borsch" of vegetables into which she lobbed huge spoonfuls of fresh sour cream. This was topped off by some kind of ground beef served with huge slices of bread covered in fresh butter.

Antonina did not serve just any bread to her guests. She brought to the table the large round loaf of bread that she had baked for communion. As she proudly held up the bread for all to see, I could not help thinking about the Eucharistic act of consecrating the bread. As she broke and passed around the bread, accompanied by cups of tea, I sat there in amazement.

What struck me was the parabolic power of a simple act of hospitality transformed into an authentic form of communion. While orthodox women are permitted to bake the bread of communion, they are not permitted to serve it. Neither are "strangers" -- the non-orthodox -- permitted to receive the bread of communion. This dominant patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church had been turned upside down when Antonina welcomed strangers to table fellowship and served as the "celebrant" of this simple "communion".

In our tradition, bread broken at communion is offered to each communicant with the words, "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven". This bread lovingly baked, broken and served by Antonina was nothing less than manna, or bread of heaven. Such an act of hospitality surely gives us a glimpse of the One who is the Bread of Life.

This story suggests that we can encounter communion and food for the soul in unexpected forms, along unfamiliar paths and with people who differ from us in every way imaginable. Come to think of it, this seems to be the way of Jesus portrayed over and over again in the gospels.

By the simple act of breaking bread with those in whom he came in contact, Jesus demonstrated an all inclusive, non-hierarchical divine hospitality that crossed all barriers of nationality, class, gender, race and creed. Perhaps, this story of a Siberian family's hospitality can serve as a reminder of the love of Christ that knows no boundaries. Perhaps it can remind us that food for the soul can be discovered in the most unlikely places, offered by those who seem to have the least to give.

Let us pray: Gracious God, grant us the wisdom to recognize the need to nourish our souls as well as our bodies. Enable us to perceive food for the soul even in unexpected places and to have the grace to accept gifts from those who may seem to have the least to give. Lead us daily to embrace your hospitality and grow in neighborliness so that we may be nourished and transformed through the Bread of life. Amen.