10 Pentecost Yr B

I begin today with a story from Dwight Zscheile's book, People of the Way. Melissa had left the church long ago, in her early twenties. After her daughter was born, Melissa struggled with depression, during which time she also suffered a few miscarriages. At an utter loss, she sensed a leading one day to seek a Protestant church where communion was offered every week. She simply wanted to pray and receive the comfort of the Eucharist. Melissa found an Episcopal church advertising a healing Eucharist and showed up. She remembers thinking, I am defective. I don't know how to mother my child or do anything successfully. Please heal me. I haven't prayed much for the last twenty years, but please help me anyway. The lectionary readings that day happened to be all about bread: manna from heaven feeding the starving Israelites, Jesus as the bread of heaven. What she heard whispered in the liturgy was this: You aren't defective. You're hungry. Eat. (page 43)

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

Last week I said that the feeding of the five thousand was a massive picnic in the wilderness. Today we hear Jesus say to them, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Not only is the bread Jesus' body, but it is manna from heaven, the bread of angels. The wine is not just Jesus' blood, but the free-flowing drink at the messianic feast, the substance of joy. It will fill you up, like nothing else can.

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

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

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

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

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

It is I, do not be afraid. You will eat and be filled, you eat and be healed, you will eat and be sent into the world to be Jesus' hands and feet. Our mission is to show others that they too, can feed and touch and heal and love, without fear, without needing to get it right, like Melissa, you don't need to be perfect, because you are perfectly loved.