18th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 21 Sept 27 2015

Oh my gosh, what's a preacher to do with a collection of scripture passages such as we have before us today? What are they even about? The beauty of the lectionary, the lectionary is the proscribed set of bible passages that we hear each week, the beauty of the lectionary is that we don't get to ignore the parts of the bible we don't like, we must at the very least listen to hard passages, and at our best, deal with them. Today I am somewhere in between listening to them and dealing with them.

So, I'll begin with a little about myself today. I had the amazing opportunity, along with Rick, and our adult children, to go to Norway. I grew up attending Monson family reunions, for a long time we got together every year. I heard my Monson family story. It's a story that has formed and shaped who I am today.The paternal branch on my father's side came from a farming community in the west of Norway, near a little town called Stryn, in a green valley called Nesdahl. The family lived in a small farmhouse in that valley, until the day an avalanche destroyed it. Only one of the sisters was injured,  but after that, my great grandfather Jacob, came to America and ended up in North Dakota. There he married Anna Braaton, and they began to have children. Eventually moving to the cornfields of central Minnesota. This story formed my identity. When I was 23, right out of college, I took off and traveled to Norway to meet my relatives, and see this land upon which they lived. And then recently, at our latest family reunion, we heard another part of the story. This was the story of the maternal branch of my father's side. This family, the Braaton's, Anna's family, farmed much closer to Oslo, in the beautiful Hallingdal Valley. And in the summer of 2013, we went to Norway to be in the land of our ancestors, to walk on the land that our ancestors farmed. It was a profound experience. We stood high up on the mountainside which was the farmland, it was no wonder it was subsistence farming and that many of them came to America.

The point of all this is that these stories form much of my identity. And I wonder if what we have before us is about identity, the disciples identity as followers of Jesus, our identity as followers of Jesus. 

This passage appears to be about Jesus admonishing his disciples to lighten up, to stop worrying about others who are following him (but not, apparently, to the disciples’ satisfaction) and instead focus on what matters or, perhaps even more, on avoiding those things that can cause one to stumble and stray from the narrow road.

Scholars tell us that this particular section reflects some conflicts between early Christian communities. Mark is framing this part of his narrative, in other words, to address some of the problems his folks are having with other Christians. Apparently the early Christian church wasn’t all united in their beliefs, sometimes clashed with each other, and occasionally even berated one another over differences in practice. Sound familiar? In other words, Mark was trying to help his congregation answer the question of who they are. Will they, he asks, define themselves over and against other Christians or will they discover their identity in their attempt to follow Jesus, to care for the vulnerable, and to avoid those things that are destructive to self, neighbor, and community.

Who are you? How did you come to your particular answer? Do you define yourself by your accomplishments, or your history, or particular critical experiences, or your relationships, or some combination of all of this? What is the story you tell about yourself? 

The disciples were trying to figure themselves out by not being like their neighbors. "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." The disciples were complaining because these other people were not playing by their rules or following their lead. One of the funny things about this passage is that it follows on the heels of the passage where Jesus admonishes them because they were arguing about who would be the greatest. These disciples are as slow as we are sometimes!

So Jesus says to the disciples, and to us, you are God's beloved, and with you God is well pleased. This is our story, this is the story we must live and tell about ourselves. This is our identity. You have been claimed as God's hearts desire, you are marked as God's own forever. There is nothing you can do to rub that indelible mark off, there is nothing that you can do that would make God not love you.

And the reality in which we live and move and have our being tries so very hard to dissuade us of that truth. So much tries to convince us that we are not worthy, that we are not pretty enough, smart enough, rich enough, sexy enough, good enough. So much tries to tell us a story that we are so guilty, or bad that we are beyond the possibility of God's love. But that is not the story Jesus' life, death, suffering, death, and resurrection tells, that is not the story we tell.

The story we tell, the story of who you are, is the story that indeed Love wins on the cross. It is the story of Jesus, who could have hardened his heart with retribution and revenge, but instead whose last prayer was "Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing."

We do indeed identify with this story, because we too are broken, in need of being put back together. We try so hard to do this on our own, but until we fall on our knees and lay down the burden of perfection, or control, or wealth, or whatever it is that keeps the pieces of our heart from being whole, our heart will never be whole, and soft, and perfect. 

Our identity as God's children, as God's beloved is what heals us. And our identity as followers of Jesus is what gives us the courage to do what we are called to do. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless. Our country has been host in these last days to the leader of the Catholic church, the leader who holds before the church and our nation, four people who lived their lives courageously as followers of Jesus. Abraham Lincoln, who struggled with the right thing to do with God's people. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. whose life was given so that all God's children may be equal. Dorothy Day, who fed the hungry and housed the homeless. And Thomas Merton, who taught us about this spiritual journey and discipline. 

Who are you? How are you called? What is your identity? 

Amen.

17th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 20 Sept 20 2015

 17th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 20 Sept 20 2015

Leaving there, they went through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know their whereabouts, for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive.” The disciples didn’t know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it. They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?” The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest. Jesus sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.” He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.”

In the gospel of Mark, whenever the disciples and Jesus were passing through, they were on their way to Jerusalem. And you and I know what happens in Jerusalem, Jesus is hung on the cross. The disciples in this story were afraid, as they so often are, but not sure of what it was they were afraid. And, as fear often is expressed as argument and anger, we hear the disciples arguing. On the road, Jesus surmises that they are arguing about which one of them was the greatest, something that Jesus was not concerned with at all. Jesus' concerns had to do with teaching the disciples how to live out God's dream of reconciling love. The disciples were only  concerned about themselves.

And so Jesus tells them that following him is not about them at all, and Jesus sets as the example of the kingdom, the welcome, the embrace of a child. Jesus shows us that following him is about that sort of welcoming embrace, following him is being the servant of all, following him is not being the greatest, but being vulnerable. This is truly a radically counter-cultural image. 

History shows us various views of children in society. In contemporary American culture we have gained much around the protection of children in families and with child labor laws in the workplace. Children were taken out of factories and the public education system was established only recently, as late as the 19th century. Children have been variously valued as workers in the fields, as extra mouths to feed, and as dispensable commodities.

In the first century Mediterranean world, where space is divided into women's space and men's space, men's space was public space, women's space was private space in the home. A child was most definitely not seen and not heard in public space, and not in men's space in the home. For a child to be in the same space as these men is quite odd and unusual. For Jesus to embrace the child is a radical statement of the change that takes place because Jesus is in the world. What Jesus does in this seemingly tender embrace is to show that even a child, with no status, no possessions, no honor, is loved abundantly by God. What Jesus does is to confer new life on this child.

Jesus also sets as the example of the kingdom a description of what it looks like to be a follower. Followers of Jesus are to be like servants, followers are not to be the greatest, but are to be vulnerable, like the child.

You'd think after reading these stories about Jesus and the disciples we'd have it all figured out by now. But is seems like we have to keep being reminded what discipleship looks like, it seems like we keep forgetting that following Jesus is not about being the best, or the greatest, or the most honored. But following Jesus is about being vulnerable, following Jesus is about being a servant. The disciples kept forgetting, the disciples needed reminding, so do we.

It's tough, in this world where we just keep seeing and hearing about people who grab power, who grab attention, who grab money, for us to follow the path of giving, of serving, of laying down our selves. But that's what following Jesus looks like. And that is where Love really does win. what we really want to do is to hide our true selves. The self that is not perfect, the self that gets hurt and hurts the ones we love most. We try to stuff our brokenness and our warts and our shallowness, and our inability to forgive and our desire for life to be all about me, into our briefcases and our backpacks, or maybe under our beds or into the dark recesses of our basements, so that we don't have to look at all of that darkness, and so that no one else need see our imperfectness. We work so very hard to keep all of that away from the light of the world, away from those who love us most, because, like the disciples, we are afraid. But Jesus says, "take the last place, be the servant." Jesus says, let go of your control, put down your burden, be vulnerable, let my love seep into the hard places of your heart, let my love soak through that hard exterior, let love win.

When we do, amazing things happen. Discipleship is not just about doing the right thing, it is that but it is so much fuller, so much more complete. Following Jesus is about being loved and offering love. Following Jesus is about being treated to grace, and mercy, and compassion, and treating others with grace, and mercy, and compassion. Following Jesus is about being broken, and being healed. Following Jesus is about laying our selves down, and when we do that, we can truly be ourselves and be filled with God's spirit. We then can truly be disciples.

And following Jesus is not just about you, but about all of us. Which brings us back to the children. Here at Trinity, we are one part of the body of Christ, and one of the ways we live that out is in offering hospitality to all who come, no matter what, no matter who, because we believe that Love wins. We believe that God's love, grace, and mercy are available to all, no matter what. We believe that God calls us, as individuals and as a community, to participate in the building of God's kingdom. God's kingdom that looks like embracing children, and everyone. God's kingdom that is revealed in the wisdom and the innocence of the youngest of these. God's kingdom that is made real in the bread and the wine, in the body and the blood. God's kingdom that looks like the community of children sitting in a circle, embraced in the word of God. God's kingdom that looks like hands held up, to be filled with Jesus. God's kingdom that looks like the least who are first. God's kingdom in which Love wins.

16th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 19 Yr B Sept 13 2015

16 Pentecost Proper 19 Yr B Sept 13 2015 Audio

The Vikings and the Packers had an ice fishing tournament. 

The first day the Vikings caught 100 fish 

and the Packers didn't catch any. 

Oh yea, that's right, I can't tell that joke anymore!

It is my habit to walk each morning. So, on my first morning here, because I don't know my way around very well, I put an app on my phone so I could map a route, I could know where to go and how far I walked. I reviewed the map, and was pretty confident I knew where I was going. I got out a couple of miles, and the streets weren't quite the same as the ones on my map, I figured I could work out my way back, and, got myself all turned around. And then of course, it started to rain. What was I to do? Well, I pulled out my phone, and google mapped my way back. A little later and farther than I had planned, and soaking wet, I made it back to where I had begun. 

And I was reminded, again, that despite our best laid plans, things go array. The way back was not what I had planned, it was surprising and it was beautiful. And on my very first morning as your priest, God reminded me of my baptism. All ministry, your ministry and my ministry begin in baptism. And  as we follow Jesus together, most assuredly we will plan a path and be rerouted, we will be reoriented, we will be sure of one direction and God will take us another. We will be surprised and it will be wonderful. We will get wet and we will remember that in baptism we are God's children, abundantly and amazingly loved. 

All of the work of kingdom building that we do together begins in baptism. All of the work we do together is in response to the amazing and abundant Love of God for us, God's people, God's beloved. 

It is good to remember these things when we are like Peter, and believe me, I am like Peter quite a bit. Like Peter, I answer Jesus at least three times, yes Lord, I love you, and like Peter, I deny Jesus at least three times, no, I do not know him. Like Peter, I can get so excited about who Jesus is that I jump out of the boat to go meet him, and like Peter in today's gospel, with my words and my actions, I deny who Jesus is. Why is this?

I wonder if it is because this Good News of God's kingdom is so radically different than the world in which we live. This good news is just so very hard for you and for me and for Peter, and for those who are not yet here in our pews, to believe. "You are the messiah" they say. And Jesus says, don't tell them, I think, maybe because this life of following Jesus is so counter-cultural and therefore threatening.

Like Peter, we look for a savior who will get us out of this mess, who will make life easy for us, who will tell us what to do and how to do it, so that we might enjoy the accolades, the notoriety that comes along with showing off our wealth, or our talent, or whatever it is that we have. But following Jesus isn't like that, that's not the way it works, no matter how much we wish for salvation from the difficulty of the situation, no matter how much we wish for prosperity and ease of life, following Jesus doesn't get it for us.

You see, the truth of our lives speak about the path of pain and suffering, the truth of our lives speak about the path of poor decisions, misplaced trust, love gone wrong. The truth of our lives speak about the effects of the ravages of disease. And there is no one and nothing that can just swoop into any of that and make it all pretty.

But the truth of our lives speaks to the truth of the Good News. The truth of our lives points to hope rising out of the ashes of despair. The truth of our lives points to crashing and burning followed by baby steps of recovery. The truth of our lives, the truth of Jesus' life, shows us that there is always resurrection. And resurrection never goes around pain and suffering, resurrection is on the path of pain and suffering.

So today's gospel is all about this path of following Jesus. This path doesn't result in success as defined by culture, it's not about wealth or possession. This path isn't about ease of living or absence of disease. It is not a gospel of prosperity. This path, Jesus says, is to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and follow.

Now, just in case any of you hear that as a call to suffer in silence, or just to take what the world throws at you, or even taking abuse at the hands of the one who professes to love you, that is not what this is about and it is not what I am saying. Jesus is talking about the new creation, Jesus is talking about reorienting the culture as they knew it, Jesus is talking about being the change that makes the world just, Jesus is talking about the kingdom that is God's love for all of creation, no exceptions, no exclusions. Jesus is saying that Love wins.

That reorienting that Jesus does with us, is radically different. Jesus is saying that we indeed must lose our lives to save them. But what looks to the world like loss is not loss at all. You see, as we follow Jesus, new life is what we live on the way. On this path, we lay down ourselves for the sake of the kingdom and relationship, for the sake of compassion, for the sake of mercy, justice, and healing. 

And as we follow Jesus, we are about God's healing mission in the world. When we follow Jesus, together, we bear witness to God's love and healing in this hurting world. We make real to the world God's amazing and abundant love for all of creation. Following Jesus is about breaking bread with outcasts and sinners, healing the sick, and proclaiming good news to the poor. Following Jesus is about changing the structure of this world to be justified with the rule of God's kingdom. 

As Episcopalians we make a unique proclamation as we follow Jesus. People make that proclamation on our behalf when we are baptized, and each time we baptize in the community of faith. And we may be reminded of that proclamation and that promise every time we get wet, whether that is at this font or when we get soaked in the rain. 

I am so very happy to be part of you today, to follow Jesus with you in the world, to bear God's love to all the ends of the earth, to be marked and claimed as God's beloved, to invite all God's children to give worship and praise here at Trinity.

Thanks be to God.

13th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 16 Yr B August 23 2015

I'm telling my best Vikings Packers joke, because after today, I don't think I'll be able to tell it again.

The Vikings and the Packers had an ice fishing tournament. The first day the Vikings caught 100 fish and the Packers didn't catch any. The second day the Vikings caught 200 fish and the Packers didn't catch any. The third day the Packers were getting worried so they dressed Aaron Rogers up like a Viking and sent him with the Vikes to see why they were catching so many fish and the Packers couldn't catch any. That day the Vikes caught 300 fish and the Packers caught none. They said what's the deal Aaron, are they cheating or what's going on? Aaron said you bet they are, they are drilling holes in the ice!

You have heard me say over and over again, I place all of my faith in the truth of resurrection. I place all my faith in the reality in which we live, the reality that God's creation is death and resurrection. This community of faith has experienced it's share of death and resurrection. We all know that, and we walk that road together. So today, I want to talk about baptism, and ministry, and resurrection.

My baptism, Salah's baptism, your baptism, is what empowers each of us for ministry. Baptism reminds us that we are God's beloved creation, and in baptism we are claimed and marked as God's own forever. Baptism matters. Water is a powerful force that can kill as easily as give life. In it we join with Jesus in death, and in new life. Baptism reminds us that it is in the letting go, letting things die, that we are free to be the amazing creation God intends for us. 

So we are baptized for ministry, what does that mean? And what does that look like? We show up. We are people of incarnation, we don't just attend church, we are the church, and the church shows up. The church shows up to care for one another, to advocate for those with no voice, to feed each other and those who are hungry, to love those whom society will not.

We listen, to one another. We listen to those with whom we most vehemently disagree. We listen to those who are most different from ourselves. We listen to stories of lives, when they are much like our own and when they are so very different from our own. We listen without needing to inflict our own opinion, judgement, or morality. We listen, as if it Jesus is in our midst. And indeed, it is, because we also know the reality of incarnation, Jesus in our midst. 

We tell the truth, the truth that love wins, the truth that death does not have victory, but that the work that Jesus does on the cross is the victory. The truth that we miss the mark, we often slog through the muck and the mess,

and God loves us, and we love one another, anyway. The truth that perfection is an illusion, brokenness is the reality, and healing possible because God shows up for us and we show up for each other, bearing light and love into all the dark places. Truth is that prosperity and success are not what God's heart's desire is for us, but God's dream for creation is love, and relationship and connection. The truth that this life is not really even about any one of us, but about all of us together and God's love in the midst of us.  

And we let go. We let go. This may be the very hardest part. We cannot control God's love, or even who God loves. We cannot control what dies and how new life arises out of that death. When we don't let go, we get into all sorts of trouble. 

So, you, you individually, you St. Andrew's, you, have shown up as church, and shown me what that looks like. We have prayed with each other in this space, and in the parish hall and the garden and the park and the hospital. You have shown me what communion and community look like. We gather here, at this table, shoulder to shoulder, standing and kneeling, holding hands and holding each other, to be created as the body of christ, to offer our brokenness to be healed, to be filled with the healing bread and wine. You have shown forth communion and community in your homes, around your tables. You have fed one another and you have fed me, and Rick, and our children, as family. You know what being a minister is, you live that out day by day.

You show up for the Cornerstone meal, you show up for Love INC, you show up at United Campus Ministry. You are church for so many.

You show forth God's kingdom, you are part of God's love for all of creation. Our work, our call is to bring God's love, God's healing and wholeness into the world, into our workplaces and our playplaces. Don't ever be discouraged by numbers, always be encouraged that you get God's mission in the world, and you get on board with God's love in the world. 

Always know that new things are hard, and you can do hard things. Always know that God's dream for you is that you love and welcome everyone into this sacred space. Always know that you have shown me, and us, love and compassion and mercy, and that love always wins.

Thanks be to God. 

12 Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 15 Aug 16 2015

12 Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 15 Aug 16 2015 Audio

When my mom died, we spent some time going through her things of course, and I went through her recipe box. I looked at and read many of her recipes, some I remembered with fondness, others where forgettable. I took pictures of some, the ones in her handwriting, places where she had taken notes about changes. I have her pie crust recipe, with the corners and the edges of the paper all folded and ripped. It's a little like talking to her about it. Kathy, if the air is dry you need a little more flour, or for the lefse recipe, if the potatoes are a little moist, just throw in a little extra flour. A recipe is not just a recipe, it's a story, a story of how it used to be, or a story of scarcity that proves to be abundance. Isn’t that the way it usually happens, you go looking for a good recipe, and in return you get wisdom, maybe it also happens the other way around too, you share a good recipe, and you share a bit of wisdom as well. 

We have the same pairing in our readings today, wisdom and good food; maybe there is not one without the other. Wisdom in scripture is not just about being wise, as opposed to being foolish; God has built wisdom into the fabric of the cosmos. And we learn from wisdom that there are certain ways of living in which people thrive, and other ways of living which lead people to death. Ordering your life to wisdom is what we read about in these scripture passages today. We've been reading through the story of David, from shepherd to king, from young boy to powerful and maybe foolish man. The story is continued today in Kings. King David’s son Solomon is now on the throne, at the ripe old age of 12. You and I know that Solomon is famous for being wise, and it is already evidenced at this young age in his prayer to God, give your servant an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil. In Ephesians we hear about wisdom as right living, be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise. Do not be foolish, but understand what the will, which also may be translated desire, understand what the desire of the Lord is. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, giving thanks to God the father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

One of the marks of following Jesus is intentionality and spiritual practice. A mistake is made when people, Christians and others, think morality is the marker. It is not. I believe that intentionality, spiritual practice and our prayer together, or common prayer, forms us into the people who God desires us to be, who God dreams we can be. Not a perfect people, but a wise people, a people who can love one another. Paul’s words for the Ephesians are about wisdom as right living, and that God’s desire for us, God’s people, is to live wisely. 

In John’s gospel, the wisdom tradition is applied to Jesus; Jesus now is the embodiment of wisdom. We continue to hear about the living bread, the bread that is Jesus. John is making a claim about the radical presence of God in Jesus, essentially John is saying that in Jesus, God provides everything; God’s abundance is made real in Jesus. We are invited to be present in God’s bounty. We are invited to feast on wisdom; we are invited to eternal life, all contained in this loaf of bread. 

What does it mean for us that God has built wisdom into the fabric of the cosmos, that ordering our lives to wisdom brings abundant and bountiful life, that Jesus is the embodiment of wisdom, and that we feast on wisdom? I think it means that even like the ordinary bread, our ordinary lives are made extraordinary by God’s abundant love. 

I am reminded of the movie Chocolat. The story is about a young mother who with her young daughter blow into a rural French village on the first Sunday of Lent. She opens a Chocolate shop, and prepares amazing confections that seem to transform those who eat them. She has opposition however by those in the town who live by a certain set of rules, a morality, that doesn’t allow for the ordinary pleasure of chocolate, most especially during Lent. 

Our main character in the movie dispenses wisdom along with chocolate and other confections. Entering her chocolate shop through the ordinary front door results in extraordinary nourishment. And yet, there remain those who will not cross the threshold for fear of what may happen and how they may be changed. 

We are changed by the ordinary bread, into an extraordinary community. We are changed by the wisdom feast into the body of Christ teeming with extraordinary life. Wise or foolish, that is the reality. And that reality is scary to some, some will not cross the threshold into love because it changes them. 

The call to follow Jesus is a call to a foolish life of love. To follow Jesus is to believe ordinary bread that is made extraordinary, can fill you up and heal your heart. To follow Jesus is to practice the intentionality of love, even when you don't feel like it. To follow Jesus is to buck the conventional wisdom that the first will be first and the last will be last, it is to be fools for Christ and witness that the first will be last, and the last will be first. To follow Jesus is to let the truth that loves wins, take hold of your heart and your mind.

Following Jesus takes practice, it takes foolishness and wisdom, it takes brokenness and healing, it takes listening to our mistakes, like King David had to listen to Nathan, and forgiveness. Following Jesus is hard in this world where money and power seem to matter more than wisdom and love. Following Jesus means walking the road together, and sharing some bread along the way, oh, and some chocolate too. 

11th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 14 Aug 9 2015

11th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 14 Aug 9 2015 Audio

The people of the world have been planting the seed, growing the grain, harvesting the grain, grinding the grain, making the flour, adding the yeast, letting the dough rise, punching it down to rise again, forming the loaves, laying the fire, and baking the bread, for as long as stories have been told around those fires.

Every ethnicity has a bread that arose from its particular place, the particular grain grown in its region, baked in the fire. From Mexico there are corn and flour tortillas, from the Middle East there is pita, from Ethiopia there is injera,  from Italy there is foccacia, from Scandinavia there is flatbread and lefse, and our native american sisters make fry bread. In all of these places people gather and break bread together. Breaking bread together is a powerful symbol of our commonality, our humanity, our unity and our brokenness and vulnerability.

Breaking bread together is one way we experience the presence of Jesus Christ in our midst. We gather here at this table and share a loaf of bread; we share a cup of wine. We gather around our tables at home and in our friend's homes, and something in us changes. We are transformed into the new creation that Jesus promises for us by eating this bread and drinking this wine, we are transformed into the beloved community. I think in this particular case, you are what you eat.

My earliest memory of communion was my first communion, probably when I was around six. I remember kneeling at the altar rail in my white dress and my white veil. I was a little scared, and I remembered that the nuns (this time, n-u-n-s) had told me to look straight ahead, it wasn’t polite to look around, and that I must not chew the host, that would be like crunching on Jesus bones.

As I got older, I attended the mass that was held in the church basement, it was the guitar mass of the liturgical emergence of the sixties and the seventies. It was there that I began to really experience community, I worshipped with those people every Sunday morning, I sang and played my flute in the music group. Our surroundings were part gymnasium, part cafeteria, by no means beautiful, and it is there where I knew I was part of the body of Christ. It was there where I learned that you know we are Christians by our love, it is there that mystical body of Christ became real to me in the breaking of the bread. I knew those people who gathered together, and they knew me. They knew the family I belonged to; they knew my brothers and sisters.

I have spoken about my years as a volunteer on the staff of the Minneapolis Catholic youth center. Whenever we gathered together for retreats, for trainings, for community time as we called it, we celebrated Holy Communion together. We sat on the floor around the altar, we sang together, we stood around the altar and held hands during the Lord’s Prayer, and we fed one another around our circle. We prayed for one another’s concerns, for the families that we were growing up in and leaving to make life on our own. We were nourished to go out and do the work we were called to do.

When Rick and I were married, nearly 31 years ago, we began our life together with communion. Our families and our friends gathered together in the rectory, we sat together in the living room in front of the fire, and we read the sacred stories and prayed together, and by then it was actual bread that a friend of ours made for us, that we broke together. In that bread and in that place, in the power of the life that bread gives, we pledged to live our lives together for all time, no matter what. So far….. so good.

In our home church, St. Luke’s in Minneapolis, we had Tom and Willie, they were baptized in the midst of the community of faith that nurtured us, that held us up, and to which we contributed our time and talent as Sunday school teachers, Rick as a vestry member, and me as the Christian Education coordinator. The bread and the wine were central to what we did together. Our loaf of bread was delicious, it came from Great Harvest Bakery, just as we do now at St. Andrew's, there were always leftovers, and the children clamored to get the leftovers from the deacon after we were sent out to do the work we were called to do. It was there that we really experienced what Jesus’ companions on the road to Emmaus said, “Risen lord, be known to us in the breaking of the bread.”

The bread and the wine that we share together are bread and wine and so much more. We gather together here in this place, we look each other in the eyes, especially in this wonderful sanctuary where we can really see one another, and Christ is made real to us. Christ is in us and through us around us and over us. We sing together the beautiful hymns of our tradition, and we sing together songs that are new to us, and Christ is made real. We pray the beautiful words of our tradition, and we pray the words that are on our heart alone, and Christ is made real. We share one bread, one cup, and Christ is made real. We are sent out into the world to do the work that God gives us to do, and Christ is made real.

You satisfy the hungry heart, with gift of finest wheat. Come, give to us O saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.

In John’s gospel, we continue to hear about the living bread, the bread that is Jesus. John is making a claim about the radical presence of God in Jesus, essentially John is saying that in Jesus, God provides everything; God’s abundance is made real in Jesus. We are invited to be present in God’s bounty. We are invited to eternal life, all contained in this loaf of bread.

We are changed by the ordinary bread, into an extraordinary community. Through the practice of Eucharist, through the practice of Thanksgiving, through the practice of eating together around the table, we become the community God desires for us to be, the community that God dreams we can be, filled with the Spirit, singing and making melody to the Lord and giving thanks at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus.

What was comfort food becomes radical presence. And we are filled with God’s soul food, rather than the fast food that only satisfies us briefly. We are filled with God’s radical presence in Jesus, and we are sent out into the world to practice God’s wisdom, we are sent into the world to show forth the Good News, we are sent into the world to live intentionally, sacramentally, as agents of resurrection and reconciliation. We are sent into the world to bear the good news that Love wins.

10th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 13 Aug 2 2015

10th Sunday after Pentecost Yr B Proper 13 Aug 2 2015 Audion

I begin today with a story from a book we read together a couple of years ago, People of the Way, by Dwight Zscheile. The story is about Melissa, who 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 really 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, who God dreams we can be. Part of the mystery is that the loaf of bread teaches us who we are as well as transforms us into whom we may be. Our practice and prayer surround the loaf of bread with word and action.

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

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

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

It is I, do not be afraid. You will eat and be filled, you will eat and be healed, you will eat and be sent into the world to be Jesus' hands and feet. Like Melissa, you don't need to be perfect, because you are perfectly loved. God's abundance is enough, spread it around.