We read the Scriptures as disciples of Jesus, the living Word of God, and are guided in our reading and understanding by our fellowship with the Triune God that Jesus has given, and by the love of God Jesus has revealed to us and called forth from us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 27, year B; text: Mark 10:2-16

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

If you want, you can blame Martin Luther if you’re feeling a little uncomfortable with that Gospel reading, or if you wish you’d been warned we were going to hear hard words from Jesus before coming today.  If Luther hadn’t insisted that each Christian ought to be able to have their own copy of the Scriptures, in their own language, and be able to interpret for themselves God’s Word for their lives, we’d not have this problem.  And if he hadn’t insisted on the Scriptures being read in the people’s language at worship, you might not read these words or hear them at all.  But here we are, with a second week of hard words from Jesus.

I think we need to take this opportunity and consider how we interpret the Scriptures.  What Jesus said about divorce, remarriage, and adultery couldn’t be clearer.  Yet I’m sure that if I announced from this pulpit today that from this moment on I would not preside at a marriage involving divorced people, and that I was beginning a campaign to get the ELCA to remove divorced clergy from the roster, I might be in danger of losing this call.  I expect that a lot of you would be angry and hurt by such a proclamation.

Now this is what we must understand together, and what each of us must individually consider.  I’ve no intention of making such an announcement.  But if it would anger you, or cause you to want me not to be your pastor, I’d like you to try and think why.  Why.  Because Jesus is pretty clear here.

Now, I’d say there are few, if any, people at Mount Olive who do not take the Bible seriously as a norm and guide for life.  Yet we disagree on things, even amongst ourselves here.  How is this possible?  And how do we read what Jesus says today and act differently than what he says, and still claim the Bible as our norm for faith and life?

We need to take a moment to recall how Lutherans interpret the Bible.

We don’t ignore anything, everything is considered God’s Word.  This is really important as a starting point.  So we can’t skip this passage.  We look at this passage, like all of them, very carefully.

But we look at it with at least three basic interpretive lenses:

First, Jesus is the living Word of God, to whom the written Word, the Bible points.  Therefore, Lutherans would say, everything in Scripture must lead to a deeper connection with our Lord and Savior and an understanding of God’s amazing grace in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We call this a canon within the canon – Lutherans read the Bible through the lenses of God’s free grace in Christ, and consider those many powerful passages about God’s grace not only most important but also the ones which encompass the whole purpose of the Bible and shape its message for us.

Second, Lutherans read the Bible with a sense of context – both the context of the times in which the book was written and the people to whom it was written, but also the context of any passage within the whole of Scripture.

Third, leading from that, Lutherans let Scripture help interpret Scripture.  We try very hard to understand the connection of the whole of the Scriptures to any text, and use the Bible to help interpret itself.  That means that at our best we don’t proof-text.  We don’t take one verse out of any context and make grand claims for its ability to norm us.  We try to use the whole of Scripture.

An example is a seminary classmate of mine who’s a woman and a pastor, who once told me she wouldn’t have accepted ordination if the only reason the church did it was by ignoring the passage that says women should be silent.  What made her feel she could answer God’s call were the many passages describing women in pastoral ministry, the many places where the equality in the family of Christ was proclaimed, and so on.

So how do we read these verses today using these lenses?

First, these are Jesus’ words.  Jesus said them.  And we know Jesus very well.  Jesus, the Living Word of God, is risen from the dead and gives us life even though we are broken people, living too often as opponents of God.  He offers grace and forgiveness to all, even criminals crucified next to him.  So when a couple comes into my office, with one or both of them having been divorced, and they are seeking marriage, my sense of Jesus’ grace, of all that Jesus asks of me as a pastor and a disciple, throughout all of the Gospels, calls me to be open to that request.

We can’t read these words apart from our full knowledge of everything he is and all that he models for us, or from our full understanding of how Jesus then calls us to live, to pray, to love.  In just this small section, we see Jesus indignant that children are being kept from him.  That indignant Jesus, who wants no one excluded from God’s grace, is the same Jesus who says these hard words.  And that matters.

Second, there is a context here.  Jesus is actually protecting women in this passage.  We discover this when we explore the divorce practices in Jesus’ times.  Women could be divorced summarily by their husbands under Jewish law, by the husband simply declaring several times that he divorced his wife, and then handing her notice.  In this culture, if the woman didn’t have a son to protect and support her, divorce would leave her destitute, a beggar, an outsider.

And notice Jesus’ last sentence:  “If she divorces her husband . . .” and so on.  This is eye-opening.  Women didn’t even have the right to divorce their husbands then.  Yet Jesus assumes an equality of standing, even in his prohibition.  Women and men are equal under God’s law, a radical departure from tradition.

And last, Jesus is speaking here to support marriage, to underscore its divine approval, to strengthen families.

Third, Scripture helps us interpret Scripture.  It’s true Jesus is clear here.  Just as he is also clear throughout the Gospels that we are not to judge others.

Just as he is clear when he tells us to forgive each other in unlimited ways.

Just as he is clear when he says the sum of the law of God is to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Given this repeated mandate, I believe we simply have decided not to make a bad situation, or a painful situation, worse, by refusing to give second chances.  We’ve decided to offer forgiveness in Jesus’ name and to be gracious.  This doesn’t mean we like divorce.  I don’t know many Christians who’ve been divorced who do.  But it does mean we’re honest about it.  I still teach new couples that they should plan never to divorce, or else it will come too easily.  It still is not God’s will for marriage.

But we also know that sometimes divorce is the only option that seems possible, sometimes it’s tragically imposed, and sometimes it even must happen if a spouse is abusive.  Divorce is not always the worst evil in every situation.  There are simply too many times when we do not feel capable of being judge over each other on this.

But that doesn’t mean we’re ever completely certain that we are right in how we consider divorce.  And that’s important to remember.

Because of Luther, each of us can interpret the Bible for ourselves.  And as the Church, we collectively discern and interpret the Scriptures.  It’s a great gift.  But it’s also a huge responsibility.  We always interpret prayerfully and carefully, asking the Spirit to lead and guide us, and show us what we are called to be and do.  But we can still be wrong.

That’s why we belong to communities of faith, why we pay attention to what others in the greater Church are saying, why we find places where we are gathered together by the Holy Spirit.  So we check our interpretation with each other.  So we can struggle together, whether as a small group in a congregation or a council of bishops and leaders of the whole Church, or anything in between.

That can correct us when we falter.  But it also can be that, even within a community of faith like Mount Olive, and even in the greater Church, we will not agree on the proper way to do things, the godly thing to do.  As in this case, where the way most U. S. Lutheran congregations deal with divorce is not universally accepted as legitimate across the whole Church.

And that means we must know when it’s OK to disagree and when it isn’t.  What Lutherans have said is that we make our distinction based on whether it is central to the Good News that the Triune God has saved us in Jesus the Son.  The Augsburg Confession says that it is enough for unity in the Church that the Gospel is preached in its purity and the Sacraments are administered according to that Gospel.  What that means is that anything that affects our teaching and hope in the death and resurrection of Jesus for all people and for us is central.

All the rest is not essential for agreement.  It doesn’t mean other things aren’t important.  But it does mean we do not necessarily have to agree in order to remain together.  And ethical stances fall into this category more often than not.  Whether we accept and re-marry divorced people does not affect our salvation in Jesus.  Therefore we can and do disagree on this in the greater Church.

So what do we do if we’re ever wrong?  What happens then?  Well, it’s always good to ask that question of ourselves when we interpret Scripture.  I always try to keep a part in the back of my mind that says, “Keep listening, just in case you’re wrong on this one.”  It’s healthy for us to have that humility before God and before this Word, and before each other.  And so we keep listening to each other, and to the Church as we go, in case we’re wrong.  We’re not all going at this solo, and we need to listen to the Church Jesus has given us.

Even so, we might individually or as congregations or denomination, disagree with the rest of the Church.  If it’s not on an issue of central importance to the Gospel, even that can be OK.  But when we do, we must take extra care that we believe we’re listening clearly to the Spirit’s guidance.

But finally, it’s important that we learn to pray, read, discern, and then make our decisions and act.  We can’t just sit still and never act or do.  If we’re right, we thank God, whether we’re acting as individuals, congregations, or as the whole Church.  If we’re wrong, we trust in God’s gracious forgiveness and guidance to get us back on the path, individually or collectively.  As the Reformation showed, even the Church sometimes goes collectively astray and needs to be brought back.

But we know this is true, because Jesus, God’s Son has shown it again and again: The Triune God will not abandon us in our wrong decisions.  And please hear this:  the only way any of us will have eternal life is by Jesus’ forgiveness of all we have done.  If after prayer, conversation, and discernment, for example, I make a wrong call, I absolutely trust that Jesus will be able to forgive it as much as any other sin I have committed in my life.  I’ll have plenty in my bag that will need to be forgiven when I come to those gates; anything additional that I didn’t know about I’ll still need to trust to Jesus’ forgiveness.  And so will the whole Church.

God has given us a great gift in this written Word that leads and guides us.

And I’m convinced the more I do this ministry that Jesus meant it when he said the Spirit of God would lead us into truth when we’re ready for it.  As we live together in this community and as a part of the greater Church, let us always pray for God’s guidance and direction through the living Word, our Lord Jesus, to better understand what the Scriptures would tell us about how to live faithful lives as disciples and share God’s love with the world, and to fully live the abundant life he offers through this.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Baptized into the life of the Triune God, we do not seek control of where and how God works, nor do we seek to limit those for whom and to whom God gives grace and welcome; we faithfully follow where the Spirit leads.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 26, year B; texts: Mark 9:38-50; Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

One of the many admirable things about the 12 step recovery programs that are available to people struggling with addiction is their grounding in the giving up of control.  The first step is to admit one has no control over one’s life and one’s addiction.  This is a wisdom which transcends addiction recovery and is worthy of all to consider: ultimately we have no control over our lives, over what truly matters, and as our readings today remind us, certainly not over God.  Which leads to steps 2 and 3 in the recovery programs: recognizing that a Power greater than ourselves exists who can restore us to life, and turning our lives over to the care of that God.  If you’re not familiar with these 12 step programs, there’s no attempt to define who God is, who that Power is.  The focus is on each individual recognizing their own faith and need for God.  But there is again much wisdom in this, even for all of us who are baptized into the Body of Christ, marked with the name of the Triune God.

Joshua and John are who got me thinking about this.  Both of these great men are concerned about who’s in control, and are trying to get Moses, in Joshua’s case, or Jesus, in John’s, to share their anxiety and concern.  Remarkably, Moses and Jesus do not.  Rather, they open our minds to the possibility that we have no control over where God acts in the world, and we should be happy about that.

It seems that both the great prophet Moses and the Son of God, our Lord Jesus, are inviting us to a recovery of our own, a recovery from our addiction to determining who is in God’s care and love, our persistent need to control things that are beyond our skill, beyond our wisdom, beyond our compassion.

We begin with these Scriptural issues, the question of control and stumbling blocks.

In both the first reading and the Gospel, there are people who are acting under the grace of the Spirit of God whom faithful followers don’t recognize as authorized to do so.  Moses receives help from the LORD to do his work, with 70 people anointed with the Spirit.  They were all supposed to gather in one place; two of them stayed in the camp.  But the Spirit came upon all 70.  Joshua’s concern is that Eldad and Medad didn’t come to the meeting place, and yet they’re back in the camp prophesying anyway.  Moses wisely recognizes that the Spirit of the LORD goes where she will go, and tells Joshua not to worry about it.  In fact, he expresses his desire that the LORD would so anoint everyone with the Spirit, with no limits to who’s used by God to serve in the world.

In Jesus’ case it’s a little different.  Apparently someone who wasn’t officially part of the larger group of his disciples (not just the twelve) was doing exorcisms in Jesus’ name anyway.  John’s very concerned.  This person hasn’t heard the teachings, he’s not actually following Jesus as a disciple.  Someone should stop him.  Jesus wisely recognizes that if someone is doing good in his name it’s not likely they’ll turn against him, and tells John to let it be.  In fact, he goes so far as to say that if people aren’t against him, they’re as good as for him.

But he then he goes on to warn the disciples not to be a stumbling block to anyone, any of these “little ones,” not necessarily speaking only of children, but of all who would come to him.  It’s not only that the disciples shouldn’t try to control whom God uses as leaders; they’re also warned not to do anything which would drive away potential followers.

So it’s pretty simple: God gets to decide where grace and life go, and the Spirit will flow when and where she will.  This has tremendous implications for us in a pluralistic society and world.  We’re hearing that it doesn’t matter if we necessarily agree with people who are not of our group, or even those whom we perceive as outsiders, unauthorized people in our group.  The Spirit may come upon them nonetheless, and we’re not in control of that.

Now granted, in both cases today, this isn’t an argument for respecting other faiths.  It was Israelites and disciples of Jesus, and even the unknown exorcist was doing it in Jesus’ name.

But that respect is certainly applicable to our world situation.  Though we believe that God is truly known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that Jesus is the Son of God, the Word Incarnate among us, and that he died and rose to give us and the world life, though this is the truth about God’s action in the world, this faith itself commits us to another truth: if God is who we believe God to be then by definition we cannot believe that we control where the Holy Spirit will work and do things.  So it would be folly for us to assume or assert that people of other faiths are not also being influenced by the Triune God through the work of the Holy Spirit, even if they don’t know it.  If there’s anything Jesus and Moses are saying today it’s that we’re not in charge of God.

This warning is necessary because the need to control is widespread in every facet of society.  For today we can simply stick with people of faith.

Somehow we’ve gotten so arrogant in our faith claims as a human race (perhaps because we’re also fearful of being on the wrong side) that we make faith an article worthy of war as we seek to control others and defend what we believe.

It’s easy to look to our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East and decry this sinfulness, but it’s patently clear that it’s our sin as well.  It’s been a long time since Christians waged the Crusades against both Muslims and Jews, but we’re still acting like we’re at war.

This is the chief problem with the proposed marriage amendment, as I see it.  Clearly our practices at Mount Olive are in opposition to what the amendment proposes, and that’s a problem for many of us here.  But the real problem with the amendment is that it is an amendment proposed by one religious group to codify their particular religious beliefs into the state constitution, where they have no place.  It isn’t enough for them to believe what they will; they want the constitution to state that all must believe so.  They want to control how other faith groups view marriage.  Or at least, control whether such views should be recognized by the state.

Regardless of whether or not anyone in the state agrees with the premise of the amendment, then there is this reality: it is fundamental to our life as the United States is the principle that no religious group gets to create laws which restrict or infringe on the beliefs and practices of another religious group.  To say nothing of our constitutional commitment not to discriminate against particular groups of people in constitution or in law, which this amendment also does.

So this call to relinquish control comes to us in a world where we see Christians and other faiths consistently seeking to control others who believe differently.  Whether they exercise that need to control by attacking people militarily or by seeking to marginalize them in constitution and law, it’s the same problem.

But it’s not just the larger groups.  Each of us individually struggles with this control issue.  Whenever we wish that others would do things our way, whenever we’re angry because something doesn’t work the way we want it to, whenever we feel threatened by someone else’s views, we’re struggling with this issue.

So following Jesus and Moses, how might we live as faithful Christians and give up our attempts to control God and others?

First, it would be good if we could remove ourselves from the need to defend God, the Scriptures, the Church, or to determine who is serving God.  There seems to be a tendency, especially in recent years, for people increasingly to fear that God or the Scriptures need defending against those who might disagree.

Yet we’re not called to defend the Triune God anywhere in Scripture.  We are called to believe, to love, to witness to God’s grace.  And it’s good if we have theological debate and try to best discern God’s will for us, for the Church, for the world.  But should we meet those who believe other than we, even those of our faith who disagree with us, it’s not necessary that we work to shut them down or to restrict them.  We’re called to love them and treat them with respect.

Imagine what the environment in the world would be if simply the people of faith acted with the confidence that God’s in charge and we don’t need to fight to protect or defend God or God’s messengers.

In the same way, should some seem to speak with the Spirit of God whom we don’t know, or of whom we have not approved, it isn’t our place to try and stop them.  As Gamaliel said to the other Jewish leaders in the book of Acts when considering what to do with the early apostles, if we wait we’ll see the fruits.  If they’re with God, we don’t want to be working against them, and if they’re not, it will become evident.

Second, as baptized children of God we are called individually and as a congregation and part of the greater Church to seek to break barriers to God’s grace, not set them up.

Jesus’ chilling declaration that we’d be better off tying stones around us and jumping into the sea than to cause someone to stumble, to fall away, is a powerful word today.  Every community of any kind, every group, every institution, has its own culture and tendencies, and those can often seem to exclude others.  Some of these are intentional, some are not.

The Church is no exception; neither is Mount Olive.  What is different about the Church, and this congregation, is that we know we are shaped and called by the One who gave his life for all the world, and therefore we must always be vigilant to how we welcome, how we help others come to God’s grace in Jesus, how we hold ourselves in the world.

And what does this mean for us?

It means we’re called to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves, speak for those who have no voice, and work for justice for those who have no access to it.

It means that our words, actions, decisions, and life as people of God should always be held to this standard.

It means we never ask “what’s in it for me, what’s in it for us,” but rather, “who are the last, the least, the Christs among us who need our help breaking through a barrier, stepping over a stumbling block”?

It’s risky living this way, of course.  It means we can’t control what others do to us because that’s not our job.  But it also means that we’re living as Jesus would have us live, and we’re reaching the ones he needs us to reach, and that’s worth everything.

In the end, Jesus is asking us to lose control by trusting his love.

To give up our need to be in charge of anything related to God and the mission of Christ, and obediently seek to follow wherever the Spirit leads.  Even if the Spirit is working in people we wouldn’t choose, in groups we don’t recognize.  Even if there are some things that we lose by welcoming those whom Jesus has asked us to welcome.  Since God’s grace and plan are beyond our ability to grasp fully, and beyond our skill and wisdom to control, all we can do is be faithful in the place we are sent.

And the only way to lose control like this is to throw ourselves trustingly upon the astonishing love of God Jesus has shown us, and let our lives live in that love, shaped by it, called by it, renewed by it, that all might be reached by such love, and that the Good News be lived in this world to the farthest corners of the creation.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Jesus Christ’s preference often seems to be for the last and least in our society.  Jesus himself chooses place himself on the cross, the last place anyone would want to be.  From Jesus we learn the value of placing ourselves last and least in the world.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 25, year B; texts: Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8b, Jeremiah 11:18-20

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Something you should know about me, your new vicar, is that I am very competitive person. I hate to lose. Growing up, my brother and I would play basketball against each other in the driveway at home. It always started friendly, but on more than one occasion ended with a black eye, or some bruised ribs. I’d like to think that as an adult I’ve got this under control. But then I start playing cribbage against my wife … and I start seeing myself fall farther and farther behind on the board … and my blood starts to boil, and I get a little bit quiet. At least when I lose to her, only my ego is bruised. Maybe you can relate.

I’ve known people in my life that aren’t like this. My Mom, for example would tell me after my basketball games in high school that she rooted for a tie because she didn’t want the other team to feel bad. Which of course, just made me more angry when I lost.

And I always thought that was a bit extreme, but Jesus in our story today takes this to a whole other level. He says, if you want to be first, you must be last. I think as Christians, we think we get it. We’ve heard it before. Serve your neighbor, welcome the stranger … yeah, yeah, vicar, we know.

But if we really think about how that’s lived out in our lives … I think we’ll realize that we don’t actually agree with Jesus all the time … because being in last is the worst! You don’t want to be last in line for tickets, nobody wants to get picked last, and you’ve probably heard the phrase, “nice guys finish last …” Come on… Jesus. Get with the program.

So what is with Jesus’ fascination with being last?

The Old Testament text and the Psalm don’t seem very helpful at first to answering why Jesus chooses to be last. In fact, Jeremiah and the Psalmist want to defeat their enemies, they want to win.  “Let me see your vengeance,” says Jeremiah, “in your faithfulness, destroy them,” says the Psalmist. “Yikes!” says the Vicar, “how am I supposed to preach on that?”

Sometimes it seems like the God of the Old Testament has nothing to do with Jesus … until we look a little closer.

For our Old Testament lesson today, we are thrown into Jeremiah today and we’re in the middle of a story. You see, Jeremiah was being persecuted for telling his people the truth, he was telling the people that God was angry. The people were creating idols of wood and stone and jewels, and as Jeremiah tells us earlier in his book, people were sacrificing their children to these idols.

No wonder God was angry… and Jeremiah was angry too.

And in response to Jeremiah telling Israel that God is angry and they need to change their ways, the people plan on killing Jeremiah. So Jeremiah says to God, “God, I want your justice visited upon them! All I did was tell them the truth, I told them what you told me and now they want to kill me!” And God says, “You’re right. They’re wicked, they have evil hearts, something drastic must be done.”

But then something interesting happens in the following chapter. Jeremiah asks God why do bad things happen to good people like me? And, why do bad people flourish while the righteous die? If God is “just” then good people would be winning and bad people would be losing. It’s that simple. Right?

And God’s reply is a bit cryptic. God agrees that the people are doing evil deeds and that must stop, but God also says that Israel is the beloved of God’s heart and God’s heritage. It’s like God’s mourning their loss, not celebrating a victory.  God even implies that things will get worse for Jeremiah when his people are suffering.

So who’s the winner here? It seems like the people are going to suffer, and Jeremiah is going to suffer, and God is going to suffer along with them.

And at this point … the winner in me just wants to yell, “God, you just won! Why are you putting your head down?” You beat the bad guys! It’s like God can’t stand it when anyone loses.

What’s more, later in Jeremiah God says, I will remember their sins no more. But here’s the problem. If God doesn’t remember what they did, how can they be punished? How do we know who the righteous and unrighteous are if God makes, everybody righteous? Who’s the winner, and who’s the loser here? Jeremiah and our Psalmist get what winning is all about. They are eager for God to strike down their enemies. Why isn’t God?

This got me thinking, I wonder if we’re asking the wrong question. Maybe the question isn’t, whose winning, and whose losing, or why do bad things happen to good people. Maybe the question we need to ask is, what does winning look like to God?

God helps us when he says to Abraham all the nations on Earth will be blessed by your offspring. He doesn’t say, all your children will be blessed by what you’ve done. He doesn’t even say that his country will be blessed by his offspring. No. He says that the whole world will be blessed. And I wonder, is that what winning looks like to God? That everyone is blessed?

Then we of course have to ask, what does losing look like to God?

In the Beatitudes, God blesses all the losers. I don’t mean to say this glibly, but seriously, God blesses those who we might consider to have lost. God blesses those who mourn, or those who have lost a loved one. Jesus says the meek will inherit the Earth: since when have the meek won anything? Don’t the meek get steamrolled by Donald Trump on The Apprentice? Yet our God says they are blessed.

At another point in the New Testament, Jesus tells us a parable us a parable of a Shepherd watching over his Flock. And Jesus tells us that when one sheep wanders away from the Flock, that the Shepherd leaves the 99 in search of the one …

It seems to me that God can’t stand it if even one person loses.

God is telling us something. God hates it when anyone loses. So much so that when we have lost, or that we are lost, that God will find us, and bless us even in our darkest hour.

I think our New Testament and Gospel readings today give us some more clues as to what winning looks like to God. Our text from James says, “17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

I find this statement to be fascinating for our lives today. Think about this, how often are we really willing to yield? How often can we put aside an argument or a fight and really listen to what the other person is saying and care about our enemy in spite of our differences.

This is not about being right or wrong, this is about giving up the fight for the sake of loving the person in front of you. This summer I was a chaplain at Good Samaritan in Minneapolis, and my job was basically to go from room to room and visit with residents, all of whom had extreme mental and/or physical illness. One of the first things they taught us and one of the things I had the hardest time learning, was to put aside your own opinions and beliefs and quit trying to fix people. You see it is easy to give people answers. Eat better, quit smoking, pray more … but our job was to sit with people, and listen to them, and share with them what they were going through.

And I think that is what James was talking about here. He’s asking if we can put ourselves aside, if we’re willing to yield to people for love’s sake and the sake of the gospel. So when James says that God’s wisdom is “without prejudice” he means that true wisdom that comes from God shows mercy and compassion to another without any regard for that person’s status, what they’ve done, or even for the person’s moral character. God shows compassion, to his friends and his enemies, to the people that we want to lose, and to the people we hope will win.

So finally we come to our Gospel lesson today and we find Jesus again telling his disciples that he will be killed and in three days he will rise again. And the disciples don’t get this. Dying on the cross is equivalent to losing their battle. They can’t lose. The good guys just started winning. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, and the word is being proclaimed! How could Jesus lose now, just when it seems victory is in hand? And as if they wanted to prove to Jesus that they didn’t get it, they start arguing with each other about which of them is the best. So he says something that seems backwards. He says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

What the disciples don’t understand, and what we still struggle with today, is how Christ’s loss becomes the world’s gain. Because when you choose to lose, it destroys our me vs. you world view, and creates a world about us, and we don’t know what that looks like.

And he picks up a little kid, and by the way, kids are in the lowest place in ancient Jewish society below even servants and slaves, and he says, “whenever we welcome a child, whenever we feed the hungry, whenever we speak up for the marginalized, whenever we love our enemy, whenever we welcome whoever is last and least important in our eyes, we welcome God.”

Today, I hope we consider that winning and losing is not what God is about. And even if we’re in the right and we are the good guys, like Jeremiah and the Psalmist were, it shouldn’t be about me verses you it should be about us. You see, I think for Jesus and for God, it is not enough for a few people to win. It’s not a real victory for God and Christ unless everybody wins. Because the cross that Jesus takes up is about forgiveness, and love, and mercy. It is for the healing of the world.

Thanks be to God.

Jesus modeled God’s selfless, other-centered love in becoming one of us, dying and rising; followers of Jesus are called likewise to set themselves out of the center of life, the center of reality, and look to the good and need of the other.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 24, year B; texts: Mark 8:27-38; Isaiah 50:4-9a

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

In 1543, as he lay on his death bed, we are told that astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had placed in his hands the newly-published copy of his life’s work, a radical re-thinking of the place of Earth in the heavens.  Copernicus argued that in fact the Sun was the center of the heavens, not the Earth, and the Earth orbited the Sun, along with the other planets.  His theory wasn’t immediately rejected by the Church, but nearly 75 years later it was declared to be “false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture.”  Of course, with the later help of others like Sir Isaac Newton, it eventually became accepted that he had gotten it right.  Except for the idea that the Sun was the center of the heavens.  By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, astronomers began to realize that even our Sun was simply one star among many, and now we understand that our Sun is at the edge of a huge galaxy of stars called the Milky Way, a galaxy which itself is not very close to the center of the universe.  So in less than 500 years, Earth has been moved in human thought from the very center of all that exists to a tiny planet on the fringe of all that exists.

It’s a hard blow to realize that we’re not the pinnacle of creation.  One of the reasons the Church always seemed to resist such data as scientists discovered it over the centuries was in part because of our understanding of the Incarnation.  Surely if the God who created the universe blessed our existence so much by becoming one of us, then we must be the best, the brightest, the highest of all creation.  To consider that we might be living in the boondocks of the universe, to say nothing of the idea that we might be only one of millions of other species of intelligent life scattered across millions of light years can be threatening to some people of faith.

But if that Incarnate One himself, Jesus our Lord, is to be believed today, it’s not merely foolish that we ever thought so highly of humanity.  According to Jesus, his coming as one of us was such an act of self-giving, of losing of one’s self on the part of the Triune God, that it calls those of us who would follow Jesus to the same kind of self-loss, self-sacrifice.  Rather than see our discipleship as a sign of favor and importance, Jesus invites us, urges us, to see our discipleship as the beginning of the moving of ourselves from the center of our universe, and a changing of our focus instead to looking to the reality, the needs, the pain, the suffering of others before our own.

This is such an important point for Jesus, and it’s so often missed.  But it’s core to what Jesus himself experienced.

It’s tempting to think that we’re a big deal because God became one of us.  But perhaps it’s the opposite.  Surely we can say with confidence that the Triune God thought enough of us to become one of us.  John 3 makes that clear, that the Son came because of the Father’s love for us.  A love so powerful it hoped to bring us all to healing, to salvation.

But perhaps we might want to realize how unlikely such attention by the Creator of all things this really is.  Consider the size of the universe, the immensity of space, the uncountable galaxies that exist, let alone stars.  We could learn a lot from the psalmist of Psalm 8 who, in the face of such contemplation, said, “Who are we that you would care for us?”  That the Creator of all that is cared about the bipedal beings on a planet on the edge of the universe enough to become one of us in order to bring us back is nothing short of astonishing.

Yet it is also, from God’s standpoint, a huge step down.  When I was young, people would say: “Think of how different we are from ants.  If you were to imagine what God did, it would be like us becoming ants, so the ants could understand what we really were like, and so on.”  That kind of made sense to me.  But given the expanse of the creation, surely it’s more like comparing us to single-cell amoebas.  Or something even smaller, less coherent.  In the life of this world, we’re actually closely related to ants.

And yet . . . and yet.  The Triune God was willing to lose all to become one of us.  To join our existence, take up our lot, all for the sake of bringing us back into love with God and each other.  To suffer our indignities, to be limited like we are.  And ultimately to permit us to kill him.  This is the One, the Son of God, Jesus, whom we follow.

And so Jesus calls us to do the same.  If we see this reading from Isaiah today as one of many referring to Jesus, and his willing suffering on our behalf, Jesus today invites us to see it as referring to us.  “If I’m willing to lose everything to be with you, teach you, love you, even my life, then I need you to follow that way,” Jesus says.  To be willing to lose all.  That’s what discipleship is.

What Jesus says is clear: following him is not a path to self-aggrandizing, not a path to wealth, not a path to importance.  My followers, he says, become the least, not the greatest.  They turn their cheeks to those who strike them, as he did.  They lose instead of trying to win.  They don’t think of themselves first, but they think of others.

His is not a message for those who would make governments enforce particular religious beliefs by constitutional amendment or by law, or those who would declare that the ultimate goal is that Jesus’ followers rule the world.

He says, “take up your cross,” be willing to face the worst in following me.  Be willing, as I was, to lose everything.  Because – and this is the key – because to bring the healing he needs, the love God envisions, the grace Jesus’ death brings, it will take all of Jesus’ followers to reach all who need such gifts, and those followers will need to be willing to let go of all their needs to accomplish this mission.

But what we are being called to discover is not a false humility or self-denigration, nor is it an explanation for various sufferings we might have.

Too often we’ve taken the expression “take up your cross” and applied it to daily pains and annoyances.  Even real suffering.  We’ll say, “that’s just my cross to bear,” speaking of whatever it is that causes us difficulty.  But as real as pain and suffering are, that’s not at all what Jesus means by this expression.

In “taking up our cross,” Jesus means us to take up suffering and loss for the sake of others and for the sake of the world.  If any of us do bear a cross, it’s when we move ourselves off of the center of our lives and look to where we can be God’s grace and love to others.  It’s certainly not the unlooked for and uncontrollable suffering that exists in the world, hard as that might be.

But a worse problem is the false sense of martyrdom that this call sometimes evokes in Christians, the manufactured humility.  As much as I’m amused by Garrison Keillor, I’m increasingly tired of his caricature of Midwestern Lutherans.  And it’s probably because it’s an accurate assessment of the reality.  There is in us a tendency to talk down about ourselves, minimize our accomplishments, act as if we’re called to think poorly of ourselves in order to follow Jesus.

But even though it’s an accurate take, I think it’s dangerous for us to admire it, or to consider it a virtue, which seems to be an element of our reaction to such humor.  If we were to take the best of what Keillor offers, we would use his humor to laugh at a situation as a way to start changing who we are.

Jesus isn’t asking us to play the part of martyrs, sighing and letting others have their way, while being certain that it is noted by all how much we’ve given up.  Nor is he calling us to think ill of ourselves, knock ourselves down, act as if we’re worthless, crummy people.  Jesus loved humanity enough to become one of us and die for us – that’s honor beyond anything in the universe.  And lastly, we’re not called to play-act humility, to pretend to be humble and lowly as if others can’t see through it.  We’ve all seen that in others, and it’s revolting.  It’s just as bad when we do it, but we often can’t see that as clearly.

And none of these ways of acting out Jesus’ call today look at all like what Jesus is doing, or calling out in us.

In fact, what we are called to do is to see the world without ourselves as the center, the focus, the important thing.  To have our own internal Copernican revolution.

It’s actually as simple as that.  Jesus says, “What if you didn’t filter everything you experience through the question of what’s in it for you, how it affects you?  What would that be like?”  It’s a call to transcend ourselves and learn a way of life where we don’t focus our thoughts, plans, hopes, dreams on what we want and need, but on what God needs, and what God’s world needs.

Every once in a while the Holy Spirit saves time and doubles up on inspiration.  That happened this week, when both your cantor and your pastor were walking down this path separately.  When we met to talk about hymns on Wednesday, and I was telling David where I thought this sermon was heading (much of which you’ve now heard), so he could think about what hymns would work with that, he said that was something he’d been thinking a great deal about with regard to worship and music.  You can see his reflections in the Olive Branch which just came out on Friday.

And he’s right: in worship we are at our best when it’s not about “me” but “us.”  When we put our selves aside for the sake of us.  And even more deeply for the sake of the God around whom we are gathered to worship.

Because that’s the deeper truth here: we move ourselves off the center of our lives and put the Triune God there, where God belongs.  We learn this best in worship, but it’s a learning Jesus today calls us to take with us every moment of our lives.  If the God who made all that is, who loves us with a death-defeating love, who fills us with life and grace, if this God is the center of our thoughts and being, then we will also be focused where God needs us, on those whom our God loves.  Until we’re able to free ourselves from self-centeredness we cannot truly love God as God loves us, and we cannot truly follow the Son of God as disciples.

It’s just as shocking to understand this as it was to begin to see that the Earth might not center all things.

But once we move ourselves off of center, we begin to live the way we were meant to live, and we see its abundance.  We find the joy of self-giving, the hope of being able to see ourselves as given to the world for healing and life.  Best of all, we begin to see how we might actually follow Jesus fully, because we begin to understand how he lived for others, for us, for the world.

Let us pray that the God who once gave up everything for us would help us likewise shake free of our self-centeredness, our antiquated view of our internal universe, and move our lives to circle the astonishing, loving, and gracious Triune God who made all things.  And let us pray that in so doing, we become fully disciples in the mission to bring all the creation back into place, and all God’s creatures into the life and grace God intends for all.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

James tells us how we can know if our faith is alive.  He teaches us that our faith, while a gift, is a dead possession if it is not producing new life and healing for the world, to all people, regardless of who they are.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 23, year B; texts: Mark 7:24-37; James 2:1-17; Isaiah 35:4a-7

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s obvious.  Jesus is clearly from God, God’s Son as proclaimed.  It’s very simple when you have Isaiah and Mark, both in the same book, held in one hand.  Isaiah promises that when God comes to save – and these were needed words, important promises to the chosen people who feel separated from their God – when God comes to save, says Isaiah, the deaf will hear.  The blind will see.  The lame will leap like deer.  And in Mark we see Jesus do just that – the deaf hear.  The blind see.  The lame walk.  Jesus is God’s promised healing.  That’s obvious.

What’s also obvious is this.  Though we have the advantage of the Scriptures completely telling the story of Jesus and his love for us and the world, telling of his death and resurrection, promising us new life now and life after death in a world to come, though we have 20-20 hindsight on all the people of the Bible, we are more often than not living like the desperate chosen people to whom Isaiah speaks.  We act as people of faith who are still worried.  People who are fearful.  People who wonder when and if God will come to this world, to us, and make a difference.  And people who act as if faith has no connection to the way we live.

And it’s odd.  We use words again and again that sound like we believe Jesus is risen and offering us love and life.  We speak of grace, of Gospel, of Good News.  We claim that the Church is God’s gracious ambassador to a broken world, offering life in Christ to all.  We speak of our faith as if it’s something precious to us.  But too often we live with each other and in this world as if we haven’t ever really received such grace, such Gospel, such Good News.

Well, it may be partly because we haven’t spent enough time with the letter of James.  You know what they say, Brother Martin didn’t like it.  His famous observation that James is a letter of straw has led Lutherans to discount it, ignore it, act as if we needn’t pay attention to it.

But James talks about visible signs of one’s faith.  How you can see if faith is real, if faith is alive.  Luther, understandably, got nervous about mixing up works that we do with the grace and love of God that is ours freely.  But if you look at his criticism, he may have been missing James’ point, and even he saw great value in James.  It certainly can be argued that we Lutherans have missed the point of James all this time at any rate.  And that it has cost us.

Because without James’ reminder, faith can become abstract, a concept, a doctrine.

And that’s our great temptation as Lutherans – we can talk about faith until we’re blue in the face.  But we don’t share our faith very well, or very often.  And it doesn’t always shape our lives in the world.

And so we find it endlessly important to debate the smallest of points with each other.  Now, we should value intelligence and good understanding.  But we have made bickering an art form.  Because we have made faith and grace “concepts” instead of realities in our lives, we even fight to the death, almost.  People feel they are defending God, defending truth.  So Lutherans who otherwise seem sane can justify any unkindness, any mockery, any slander, any abuse on the grounds that they are fighting for the truth.

And what’s worse than that, too often we’ve valued such “right thinking,” such “knowing” far more than living our faith.  As long as we’ve got our understanding in order, all is well.  Even if it doesn’t change who we are.  How we live our lives, how we treat others.

Here’s all that James is saying.  This is very simple.  He says, “Faith is good.  It is gift.  But if it is received, if it is real, if you know it, you will look different.  Act different.  Be different.”

James is not substituting works for grace.  Not even remotely.  He’s just saying that once you’ve lived in Graceland (to use a phrase a friend of mine finds helpful), once you know that you are loved completely by God, you will be different.  Nothing will be the same.

James is criticized for not teaching anything of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, but we know nothing of what he would say about that, because that wasn’t the point of his writing.  His point is to challenge people to see that their faith is dead when people are hungry, when people have no clothes, when people don’t know God’s love, and all Christians want to do is talk to them.

Simply, for us as Lutherans, it means this:  If we believe in grace, we want to live in grace, and with grace, and through grace.  Faith as concept says, “God loves all.”  Or argues about that.  Faith as reality lives God’s love for all in the world.  That’s the difference.

It turns out that James and Jesus are in full agreement with how faith is lived.

We see this in other kinds of healing Jesus did, healing that wasn’t necessarily the physical healing promised and fulfilled in Isaiah and Mark today.  Jesus took proud people, people who knew everything, people who were on top, and helped them see that they were loved by God simply for who they were, not for what they had or did, something James sees as well.  And that healing led them to share all they had with the poor and needy, to see them as sisters and brothers.  People like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, important leaders, became servants of Jesus, even caring for his body and its burial and serving the Church after the resurrection.  People like Paul, highly educated, a Roman citizen, a leader among the Pharisees, who became Jesus’ apostle of grace after being a persecutor of the early Church.

Jesus took no-account people, people who were stepped on, downtrodden, and lifted them up with love, something James exhorts his people to do today.  They, for the first time, knew they were important.  And look what they became.  Mary Magdalene, the first apostle and preacher of the Resurrection.  Joanna, Susanna.  All the women who were key leaders.  And poor fishermen, illiterate peasants, who became inspired sharers of the love of the risen Christ in the world, who gave their lives to tell that love, who left fear behind in the joy of faith in Christ.

But we have to take a moment now and look at one odd part of today’s Gospel, because it appears that even Jesus might have had to learn to look for broader consequences of the love he came to bring, changes to his idea of who will get it than what he began with.

It’s a strange story, and we’ll never know if Jesus was just testing this poor Gentile woman whose daughter was possessed, or if he genuinely was focused only on Israel at that point.  But because of that incredibly brave foreign woman, we are able to see something astonishing.  Jesus, this Jewish Messiah, begins doing among the Gentiles what he was already doing among the chosen people.  The deaf man healed today was in Gentile territory, so likely a Gentile himself.  And Jesus next does another miraculous feeding with loaves and fish, but this time in Gentile territory.

Whatever the reason for Jesus’ apparent partiality, it’s gone now.  And suddenly it becomes clear: the grace of God in Christ is for all people, no matter what.  There are no divisions, there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus, as Paul would teach the Church.  And this leads someone like James to chide his people for acting as if they have faith, but living in such a way that it isn’t clear they follow such a Jesus, serve such an inclusive God.

So this is how we know that Jesus is real, Jesus is God’s Son, Jesus is God’s eternal love for us and the world.  By how we are changed by our faith in him.  And by how we live.

It’s how we know our faith is alive, James says.  When like Jesus before us, we open our arms to all who need God’s grace and healing, we’ll know.

So, when people who think that the only way they can be OK with God is to get it right, and they’re convinced that they always are getting it right, when they are changed, we’ll know.  When these people realize instead that they are loved by God for who they are, not for their perceived rightness, and that they are called to love in return, then we’ll know.

And when people who have been told all their lives that they are worthless know God’s love, we’ll know.  People who have been put down and sent away, who can’t believe they could be loved by anyone and so often are not able to love others themselves, when these people realize instead that they are loved, and blessed, and important, and begin to share that love in return, then we’ll know.

And finally, this: when each one of us is healed of the things that block us from living in love, we’ll know.  When that which prevents us from acting in love, giving of ourselves in love, is removed, and we begin to share the love of God that we first saw clearly on the cross – a love that knows no limits, that has no fear, that trusts and gives and changes the world by giving – when we see these things happen in us, and love starts to flow from us, then we’ll know.

This is how we’ll know our faith is alive, when we are changed by it.

And we do not need to be afraid.  If we make mistakes in our loving – and we will – we’ll trust that God will forgive us, just as we trust in God’s forgiveness of anything else we have done.  If we face fear in our lives, such as facing pain or suffering or even death, we’ll know that we are not alone, because the God of the universe holds us firmly by the hand.   And when we see someone hungry, we won’t argue about what faith is.  We’ll live in our faith and give them some soup.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s book The Poisonwood Bible, she tells that at one point the Southern Baptists had spent a whole convention debating over a very important theological doctrine: they were debating the size of heaven, how many cubits wide it was, and so on.  What made me want to weep in her story was the response of a little girl.  All she was afraid of was this: once you are done measuring, will there be enough room for me?  That’s the concern of our woman for her daughter today, the concern of the world as they hear our proclamation but look at our lives, the concern of James for the lives of his people.  If our failing to live the Good News causes any little one to wonder if there’s room for them in God’s love, we don’t have any reason to believe we even know what Good News is.

Let’s not be afraid to live grace, live faith, instead of keeping them as concepts.  When we do, we will find the healing love of Jesus that has no end, and we will wonder how we ever lived any other way.  Once you’ve lived in Graceland, there’s no place else that will do, for anyone.  Because it’s for everyone.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Our baptism anoints us for a life being Christ in the world, where we live lives which fully integrate our hearts, our heads, our hands, and our voices to bring the Good News of God’s grace into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 22, year B; texts: James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We’ve had a rash of horrible violence again this summer, where we barely process one shooting spree when another one comes along.  What’s strange about the aftermath, beyond the obvious ridiculousness that we apparently still aren’t permitted to have a rational debate on gun control in this country, no matter how many of these incidents occur, is that the media instead spends a great deal of time trying to sort out whether anyone could have predicted that this person would do such a thing.  Somehow we seem to want to know that there was something wrong here, that a normal person wouldn’t do this, that the signs were all there if only someone had seen them.  In the case of the Marine veteran this past week, apparently he didn’t keep it a secret and even posted online that he was going to do something horrible.  But in many cases, including the one in Colorado, it seems we get the standard line, “He was really quiet, a nice person; no one had any idea he could do something like this.”  How many times have we heard it in any number of different tragic scenarios: “He was a nice neighbor, he helped the kids”?

Clearly there is something about the human nature which permits us to show one side to other people, while feeling and thinking something very different inside.  In literature, Robert Louis Stevenson explored this idea with the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who have become iconic emblems of this phenomenon.  But even in our own lives, where we’re not turning into nightly monsters or going on shooting sprees, we have a tendency to not have integrity between our inner selves and our outer lives.  Whether or not we admit it about ourselves, when someone whom we trust or love, a friend or a family member, or someone to whom we look as a trusted authority, someone whom we have come to admire, shows that they are not as good a person as we thought, we feel betrayed, let down, we consider ourselves foolish to have allowed ourselves to be duped.

The point is, we know this phenomenon exists.  So when Jesus and James today begin questioning our integrity, when they speak of hearts being in different places than words or actions, we understand what they’re talking about.  We may not agree they’re speaking of us; that we must consider today.  But this is not uncharted territory.  And given how badly we feel when we encounter this in others we have trusted, perhaps we can understand the intensity with which this point is made in both these readings today.

James and Jesus actually come from opposite sides of the same metaphor to say the same thing, to call us to an integrated life in Christ.

We’re going to spend all of September hearing from the letter of James in our worship, and this theme we hear today will continue in various ways in the next weeks.  Today he speaks of being doers of the Word, not just hearers.  Next week he’ll talk about our faith only being worth anything if it’s seen in our works, in caring for those who need help.  On Sept. 16 we’ll hear his admonitions on our words, our tongue, and how we speak in the world.  In the fourth week he turns to the problem of conflict and antagonism between sisters and brothers in the same community.  Finally, we’ll hear some comforting words about how we might pray for and support each other in our need and suffering, even illness and death.

But today he sets it all up by describing people who “deceive” their own hearts by thinking they’re religious but not living or acting in that way.  Along with admonitions to put aside wickedness and to be quick to listen and slow to speak, setting aside our anger, he comes to the main point:  “Be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

James is speaking to disciples who have heard the Word of God but for whom it isn’t evident in their lives.  For James, they’re saying that their hearts and minds are with God, but their actions aren’t showing it at all.  So they’re deceiving their own hearts.

Jesus, on the other hand, sees the same problem from the other direction: people whose actions are good, but whose hearts are wicked.  This is part of a long section where Jesus challenges the leaders of the people on their criticism of his disciples for not following proper rituals, of handwashing, of which foods to eat, and so on.

It’s important to note that Jesus isn’t necessarily criticizing the rituals themselves.  Each of the ritual actions and structures the Pharisees helped set up were intended for good, as ways to be sure the people of God kept the law of God.  The laws in the Torah are many and complex.  So many systems, including a special ritual handwashing before meals, were set in place to keep people from sinning.

Jesus doesn’t seem interested in shutting these down.  Rather, he’s bothered by the hearts of the people who are criticizing his disciples’ practice.  So he tells them that instead of worrying about all these externals, they might want to look into their hearts, because that’s where all the bad stuff is found.  Fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.

It’s a standard first century list of vices.  But Jesus says that the source of such evil is inside.  And he challenges his disciples, and the Jewish leaders, to pay attention to where their hearts are.  Just doing the rituals God has commanded, or even the ones people have set up to help obey God’s laws, is no substitute for having our hearts cleansed and changed.  Because the state of our inward lives is far more indicative of who we really are, Jesus says.

Both Jesus and James help us see the disconnect in our own lives, the gaps between our inner selves and our outer lives, and they call us to honesty about who we really are.

And for both of them, the key question is one of deceit, lying to ourselves.  We might be feeling very good about our faith and our lives, and where our heart is, but if we’re not acting on that to care for others, there’s no point to our religious lives at all, James says.  Ultimately, he says, we’re deceiving our hearts to think that we need do nothing.  He goes so far as to say that if you want real religion, care for orphans and widows and keep your lives clean, and that’s enough.

On the other hand, we might find ourselves doing lots of things that look Christian, like worship, prayer, even Bible study, but our hearts might be in a completely different place, Jesus says.  If what we do in this room each week doesn’t change our hearts, make us new people, cause us to be different in the world, there’s no point to it, Jesus would say.  Then we’re only honoring Jesus with our lips, but our hearts are far from him.
So the question is, can we be honest with ourselves, about our own lives and about the life of the congregation and the greater Church, to seek God’s healing and restoring of an integrated life?

We will be confessing our sins before each liturgy this month, in part because of James’ pointed concerns and the importance he makes of our integrity, and our need for honest assessment of our broken reality.  So when we confess, when you confess, when there is that silent time, what goes through your mind?  What do we consider?

Are we merely looking for a divine “Get out of jail free” card, hoping that if we’ve done things wrong we won’t be punished?  Do we, as we considered last week, seek forgiveness from God but without wanting God to change or transform us in any way?

James tells us today that every perfect gift, every generous act of giving, is from above, from our heavenly Father.  His whole letter is about such generosity, such giving, and he starts by saying its source is God.  What if in our confession we not only confessed things we’d done, but we also confessed our lack of integrity, the gap between our thoughts and our actions, our hearts and our words, and asked God to bring these together?  If we considered our confession not only as a series of things we did wrong that need to be wiped out, but a whole state of our being – whether individual, or the congregation, or the whole Church – which needs not only forgiveness but transformation?

Were we to confess in that way, we’d better be ready for what happens next.  We’d better be ready to be changed, and become new people.  Because that’s the gift God has prepared for us.

What we hear today is that we are not what we are meant to be, but the first step is happening, the recognition of the truth about ourselves.

Today we admit that we do not have the integrity of our lives that is meant to be our gift in our baptism.  That we have hidden agendas, gaps between our inner selves and our outer lives.  And that we are called to integrate our whole selves into the kind of person Jesus was, the kind of person we want to be.  Into the kind of institution the Church could be, but rarely is, the kind of congregation which could change the world were it to exist.

It’s a question of lining up our hearts and voices, our hands and minds, that they all reflect the grace of God which gives us life and hope and joy, the grace we come here each week to receive, praise, celebrate, eat, sing, and share.  If this experience each week does nothing to our hearts and lives, nothing to bring us to integrity of life as a congregation and as individual people, then Jesus’ criticisms are apt and true.

But in fact, we have already experienced that change, that transformation as we worship and are fed.  With the help of James and Jesus, we know there is much more God needs to do, there is integration yet to come.  But with hearts cleansed in confession, souls fed with Jesus’ body and blood, and voices filled with the grace of God which surpasses all understanding, we go from here each week joyfully anticipating what God will do next, what the Spirit will continue to do in us, until hearts, hands, voices, and minds are joined in bringing God’s Good News to all the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

What we eat and drink changes our bodies, changes who we are from within.  Today Jesus invites us to take him in, be filled with him, eat him – and we also will be changed, from the inside out, into different people, people like Jesus.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 20, year B; texts: John 6:51-58; Ephesians 5:15-20; Proverbs 9:1-6

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

This is where it gets really difficult, isn’t it?  For some weeks we’ve been working through this sixth chapter of John, and a grouping of Jesus’ teachings about himself and his life for the world.  We’ve heard people compare him to Moses who gave them manna, and we’ve heard his response that he isn’t Moses, he’s the bread from heaven, the new manna.  He’s called himself the bread of life, and said that those who come to him will never be hungry.  All this after miraculously feeding thousands with only a few loaves and fish.  This has challenged us.  But today’s words really cross a line.

Now he says that the bread he will give is his flesh.  And then he says, “very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  Five times today he tells those who follow him that they are to eat him.  Even drink his blood.  And in Greek, the verbs change from a regular verb for eating in the first instance to later uses of a verb that is better translated “gnaw, crunch, munch.”  So the language gets more intense as the passage goes on.  Don’t just eat and drink me, Jesus says, chew on me, gnaw on me.  This is really hard stuff to hear, to comprehend, to understand.

Now, it seems obvious that we tie this passage to our understanding of the Eucharist.  Surely this is what we mean in the Lord’s Supper when we say that we eat and drink the body and blood of our Lord.  We use this language.  It seems likely that John’s community, for whom this Gospel was written, would have made connections of their own to their practices of sharing the Lord’s Meal when they heard this.  But it may be too easy and too quick to jump to the Eucharist right away.  Martin Luther, in a sermon on John 6, says this cannot refer to the Sacrament because Jesus promises eternal life in this eating and drinking and some people have eaten of the Sacrament and still faced damnation. [1]

Well, that may not be an argument we want to make.  But I do want to hold off thinking of Holy Communion for a moment and focus on this very real, very disturbing, but potentially life-giving image Jesus is laying before us.  What does it mean to eat him, drink him?  Why such visceral language here?  It’s so powerful, such strong language, that perhaps it is meant to signify something equally powerful, equally strong, and worthy of our attention.

We have this expression, “You are what you eat.”  And we know from science that is literally true.

Originally it seems to have come from nineteenth and twentieth century healthy food initiatives.  People were encouraged to eat healthily so that they would also be healthy.  There wasn’t a sense that you became the thing that you ate, though.

But increasingly I’ve read of studies which show that what we eat actually does have a serious effect on us, changes us.  The chemicals we take in our food, for example, show up in our cell structure, and change our systems, from our immune system to our nervous system.  We know that if we eat fatty foods, we’ll have fatty deposits in our blood vessels.  But now it looks like some things we ingest literally change our body into something different.

I’m now straying to the edge of my scientific knowledge on this subject, but here’s my point: if in fact what we eat changes us even at a cellular level, maybe that’s our inroad into what Jesus is saying, to his metaphor today.  And while we hold that thought, let’s consider the drinking imagery of the other readings for a moment.

In Proverbs, Wisdom personified offers a feast, a rich banquet, for those without sense, those who are immature.  And she invites them to drink of her wine she has mixed.  To take in Wisdom’s wine in this image is to become wise, to become mature.  To become what you drink. But just as we’re thinking we’ve been told to have a little wine, Paul slams that door shut in Ephesians: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.”

So Wisdom says, “come, drink my wine.”  And Paul says, “Don’t get drunk on wine.”  But this inspires a little word play.  It seems that what these two readings offer is a distinction between intoxication (being drunk) and inspiration (being filled with the Spirit of Wisdom.)

Intoxication has the word “toxic” in it – it means that we are literally poisoned, filled with toxins to the point of inebriation, where we act differently than normal, we are different.  It’s easy to see why Paul would advocate against it.

But inspiration is being filled by the Spirit to the point of becoming something different, too.  Only instead of poison we are filled with God’s Spirit of life, and so we are acting differently in a way that brings life and grace.  To use Proverbs’ image, we’re filled with wisdom when we drink of Wisdom’s wine.  We are given a new mind, not new knowledge, but wisdom to know how we are to be in the world, to know and trust in God’s providence for the world, wisdom to see God’s hand in all things.

So the question before us today seems to be: what is it we take in ourselves of Jesus that gives life, and what is it we take in ourselves of the world that leads away from life, to death?

Surely this is the critical point Jesus is making here: we are invited to be reshaped from within by him, and not by the world.

If we think of what we eat and drink, or, more broadly, what we consume in the world that is not healthy, the list is long.  And it’s not just food, though that’s on the list.

We fill our minds with media that may or may not be edifying and uplifting.

Our society obsesses on commercialism and a consumer culture, where we are bombarded, and truthfully we permit ourselves to be bombarded by endless messages of what we lack, what we need, why our lives would be better if we only had this thing.  And so we live in abundance as if we lack everything.

We’re constantly spending our time and our lives on things that do not bring us to God, that distract us from the needs of the poor and needy, that fill us but only last minutes after the fill, and we need more and more.

When Paul cautions against drunkenness, he certainly would look at such a list and call it the same thing.  The prophet Isaiah named this nearly three millennia ago, when he said, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Is. 55:6)  Why, indeed?

Let’s change metaphors to see if this helps.  We can consider what happens when a computer gets a virus.  Software is written which runs a computer, tells it what to do, when to do it.  Modern software can have a computer do marvelous things.  But someone can write a virus which if implanted in the computer completely rewrites its programming and tells it to do things differently.  Even to the point of destruction.

What do we consume, seek, spend our lives and time on that does that, re-writes how we think, act, live in the world?  And is it good, or ill?  Of the Spirit or toxic?  That’s the question.

So when Jesus invites us to eat him, drink him, he’s really saying that we are to take him in us in such a way that we are changed at the cellular level, at our core software, at our deepest roots.  To take in his teachings, his wisdom, his grace, his love, his warnings, his life, his very person, and be changed by it.  What he’s saying is that following him is not following an abstract idea, a good set of teachings.

It’s taking him into ourselves until we look like him.  Until we are him.

So this is what Jesus means by “abiding” in him, something he says a lot in John’s Gospel.  And it’s a matter of life and death, that we abide in him until we become him.

We know this because he says it today: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  That’s what’s at stake here, the life of the world.  Take him into yourself and you will have life.  Or don’t, and you will find death.  And that life is meant to restore the whole world.

But of course being changed into Christ is a matter of life and death, too.  We know this.  If our spiritual DNA is rewritten by Jesus, if our internal programming is reformatted, if our cells are changed in their composition by taking Jesus in – whatever metaphor we want to use, we are changed.  We lose things, even while we gain.  Why else would Jesus describe discipleship as “losing one’s life to save it”?  (Matt. 10:39, 16:25 and parallels)

What we gain is life, eternal life now and always, abundant life now and always, life lived in the grace and love of the Triune God.

But we will be changed.  Our selfish natures will be transformed into giving natures.  Our destructive natures will be changed into creative natures.  Our hateful natures will be re-made into loving natures.  All that sounds good, but let’s not underestimate our desire to cling to some of those bad natures and what they seem to offer us.

And now we can finally come to the Lord’s Table.  Because even though we Lutherans teach that our Lord Jesus is truly present in, with, and under the bread and wine, is truly present in his Body and Blood, I’m not sure in practice we don’t fall into the habit of thinking it only a symbol.  We don’t imagine crunching or gnawing Jesus when we come to the Table, even though he uses those words.  We’ve sanitized it to the point of even getting nervous about crumbs going in the wrong places.

But in fact, Incarnation, flesh, is messy.  God becoming flesh for us was incredibly messy.  Even bloody, as Jesus was crucified for us.  Maybe we need to open our minds and eyes to consider the truth that Jesus gives: we are eating and drinking him.  In all the messiness that implies.  And in so doing, we are taking in his very essence and are being changed, bit by bit, day by day.

We are becoming what we eat, and what we drink.

I realize that this is an uncomfortable thing to think about this way.  But that’s what Jesus has left us with, this graphic image.

And in the end, it actually is so powerful an image it’s the only thing that conveys properly what Jesus expects to happen.  That we become changed from the depths of our being into him, into children of God, into the people God had in mind from the beginning.  Let’s not fear the changes Jesus will make.  Let’s eat, and drink, and welcome the transformation in store for us and for the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s works, vol. 23: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 6-8, p. 118.  (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.) Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

In baptism we are washed into Christ, into love that lets us begin anew.  And in baptism we are given work to do, our mission in Christ to love God, to care for one another, and to serve our neighbors.  We need the bread of life, Jesus Christ, who strengthens us to take on our baptismal call together, following the cross of Christ, and serving in the world around us.

Vicar Erik Doughty, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 19, year B; text: John 6:35, 41-51

In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit; Amen.

Baptism, bread of life, life together, mission and service.  That is what the texts and the liturgy bring to us today.  Children of God, eating this bread of life you will live forever; and so now how will you live?

We prayed last Sunday for farmers in drought, for the hungry poor, for all those in need.  And as we were praying, a misguided man was headed to a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, to do terrible violence.  Meanwhile, the Olympics is going on, dedicated to the potential of humanity in sport.  Curiosity landed on Mars, sending back data and photos.  We are a human family with incredible potential, and with terrible weaknesses.

We understand that combination, that reality of our humanity, not just from the news but from our own journeys in life.  Along the course of our lives, including our lives in the church, we know of the absolute transcendent moments of music, of liturgy, of relationships; and we become aware, if we weren’t before, of the faults, weaknesses, and sins within us as individuals, within our congregation as a whole and within our entire society, our world.

We become aware of our fear of other people, our hunger to be in control or our wish to completely abdicate responsibility.  We realize our own racism, sexism, we see the assumptions we make about other people and at the same time we see how difficult it is to change; and we experience how slowly society changes – and when society changes, or even when our liturgical practice changes, we get anxious.  We get mad.  We feel somehow betrayed, we focus in on our fears and wants, and we get defensive, possessive.  “Curved in upon the self,” is one apt description . . . of our brokenness.  Our sin.  Our need to begin fresh.

Our journey together in Christ begins at baptism, then.  With Water and Word, we wash away that selfish, control-minded, other-blaming, defensive, shamed and anxious self; we are washed right into the arms of love; Christ’s arms, holding us close with pierced hands.  We’re flooded with the presence of the whole Triune God, sheltered under the savior’s Holy Wings.  And it is wonderful there, safe and warm, at home with the love that brought us to life, to which we will be borne at death, back to that holy love with all the sinner-saints, Olympians of the faith and average everyday folks too.

But you know, eventually you – we – have to leave that warm nest, to go out on our own road.  Once washed with grace and warmed with divine love, we are given a baptismal vocation, a mission, a job to do.  As simple as a lemonade stand and as complex as a visioning process, there is always something we are invited to do:  “Your mission, should you choose to accept it . . .”  Feed the poor.  Learn Spanish and welcome the neighbors in their own language.  Teach about liturgy.  Pick up trash along Franklin Avenue.  Give the homeless guy sleeping on the church lawn a cup of coffee.  Help somebody afford diapers or a load of laundry.  Or maybe Christ will happen across your path as someone who needs a listening ear; as someone who is depressed; as a couple of guys who want to be legally married to one another; as a drug addict; as a friend saying, “Can I talk to you about something?”  Or Christ may show up in your path as someone who names your life as a blessing to them, when you did not realize it.

Christ is always in our path in the friends and sojourners here at Mount Olive; and also in our neighbor, Christ asking us to follow, calling us to love and serve; giving us opportunities to practice the sort of life Paul talks about in Ephesians.  The sort of life where we live together in love; where we avoid speaking evil; life together where we put away bitterness, wrath, and slander.  Life together where we forgive.  Life together where we remember we are sealed by the Holy Spirit for redemption, members of one another in Christ.
All of this is much easier said than done.  Life together is work!

You and I are on an in-between place; we are still walking together on the journey of life together.  We have begun, in baptism into Christ.  The end – the homecoming, and the great reunion with all who belong to love, all whom Christ wills blessing and marks with the cross – is sure; but in the meantime,  the road does go off into the horizon.  Our sister Katie is preparing to teach at Valpo in Indiana; I am going back to school at Luther Seminary, and in the process leading toward ministry of word and sacrament.  Your next vicar, Neal Cannon, is preparing for his wedding and his vicarage here, soon.  You surely have stuff going on in your own life!  And this whole congregation, just yesterday, began thinking and praying and discerning what life on the path together; what mission – what baptism! – means.

Here are the questions before us:  What does it mean for us, for Mount Olive, to be a faithful community of the baptized, working at life together, to eat bread of life that is given for the life of the world?  What does it mean for us to be those whose lives together are held in love, washed in Christ, bearing the bread of life for the life of the whole world, here at this corner in the city?  I don’t know; God knows, you are in the beginning process of discerning it, together.  But it will take all of your prayers and all of your service and all of your gifts and all of your failures; it will take all of you, to work, intentionally, cognitively and prayerfully, liturgically and lovingly, to serve Christ in the poor and needy of this neighborhood, to serve one another as you build community on this corner in Christ, to figure it out faithfully.

Now in this visioning process you together can say,”Yes, by the help of God, we will undertake this mission, working for the kingdom of God and the love of God and the love of neighbor,” here, now.  Reverently, radiantly, musically, gladly.  Life together in Christ, bearing the bread of life to this neighborhood and one another will mean that you cannot be curved in upon the self – the individual self, or the “self” that is Mount Olive.

It will mean you will have to face down the spectre of Death, and hopelessness, and cynicism.  It will mean we say to our neighbors in our neighborhoods, and our neighbors in this neighborhood, at least two things:

First, You Are Welcome.  And Second, life in Christ, life fed by the bread of life, is life in community – life together.

So we who are in Christ just have to forgive.  We have to build one another up.  We have to share with those hungry in need of bread; we have to share with those hungry who need the bread of life.  We have to check in with, and take care of, one another.  We have to serve the neighborhood around us.  We do all this because of our faith; we do all this in response to the grace of our baptism; we do all this because the bread of life from heaven has made us strong enough to go out and do it!

There is no other way to accomplish our baptismal call, our vocation as Christians alive in Christ, together in the world.  The life of service formed in faithful, forgiving, gracious and welcoming community, centered on baptism and Eucharist – It is what the life of the Church, the life of the baptized-into-Christ, is.  It is discipleship and mission, the journey of the communal, baptized body of Christ, which we are washed into at the font.  That is the life Elijah John will begin with us today.

All of us, together in Christ, need something to sustain us, or the journey will be too much.  So we journey into this holy space, led by the life-giving cross.  We come to gather around grace in water, in the Word proclaimed, in bread and wine.  We eat the bread of life at this altar, it nourishes us into forgiven and strengthened children of God; and we process back out, still following the life-giving cross of Christ.    Following with purpose: to serve the Lord individually and together, one in our baptismal mission in Christ.

Right now, we are, along with friends and sojourners, on that path of life together behind Christ’s cross.  Right now we are gathered with all our gifts and needs, with one another.  Take and eat, beloved, because you all need your strength; and more important you all need Jesus Christ, the bread of life.  This bread of life, Jesus Christ, will nourish you and me unto our next steps, through our next challenges.  It will give to us Christ’s own life.  It will make us strong enough to enter into faithful mission, together and apart.  Christ’s body becomes ours; we become Christ’s body in the community here and beyond these doors.  Baptism was the gracious beginning; now Christ’s mission is waiting for Elijah John and for you, too.

Children of God, eating this bread of life you will live forever; and so now how will you live?  This bread of life from heaven is for you and for all, Jesus for the journey.  Take and eat.  Live and serve, together in Christ’s mission and grace.  Amen.

We have great needs, the world has great needs, and we wonder why God doesn’t seem to provide for all.  Instead of giving us what we think we need, Jesus offers us himself, what we and the world truly need, and through him, life abundant and eternal.


Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 18, year B; texts: John 6:16-35 (adding 16-21 from last week); Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Last week I was reading on the Internet about a magician who invented an astonishing card trick back in the 1970s, a man named David Berglas.  Once he hands the deck to the people from the audience who’ve volunteered to help, he never touches it again, yet is able to predict the card they will pick.  What’s interesting is that no one has ever been able to figure out how he does it, not even professional magicians, and the only other person who does this trick is his close friend, whom most assume he taught.  Berglas has said he will never reveal how he does it.

Of course, that’s the only way he keeps it valuable and impressive, isn’t it?  Sleight-of-hand artists aren’t interesting except for the tricks they do that amaze and befuddle us.  The trick is everything; once we know how he or she does it, it seems easy, the mystery is gone.

What we learn today is that Jesus is exactly the opposite.  The last reason he’d want anyone to follow him is because of his miraculous signs.  He makes no attempt to hide that his power comes from God, in fact, through what he does people begin to believe that he is himself God.  But what he makes clear in today’s story is that he’d rather people believe in him for his own sake.  The sign, the miracle, is not important to what the people need.  He, however, is.

And that’s something of a challenge for us, even today.  When Jesus says things like, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” we tend to get confused.  What exactly is he offering us?  How is it possible never to hunger?  Like the woman at the well a couple chapters earlier in John’s Gospel who wanted never to be thirsty and for Jesus to provide a never-emptying pitcher, we wonder what all this means.  How is he our food?

We have company.  This entire sixth chapter of John, which provides the Gospel readings for the whole month of August this year, tells of people struggling to understand what Jesus is saying, even his closest disciples.  It’s an exploration of what Jesus is offering and what people would rather have, an examination of the difficulty in believing in Jesus instead of magic tricks, and a beginning of a series of promises in John’s Gospel that whatever Jesus is offering, it is life for us.

And we start by talking about signs.  Because John seems to suggest that signs are important, but at the same time, they’re not the point.

You may recall that John is the only evangelist who uses the term “signs” to refer to Jesus’ miracles.  It’s intentional.  In his Gospel, he tells far fewer of these stories, but each in more detail, and claims that these things Jesus did were signs to lead to faith.  Water becomes wine, a man blind from birth now sees, even a dead man lives.  If John is to be understood properly, these signs point us to the Son of God, present with the Father from the beginning of time, who is come to give us life.

But the confusing thing is that John also seems to ask for and commend faith without signs.  Thomas, who wants to see Jesus’ wounds before believing him alive, is told that those who believe without seeing are the blessed ones.  And in today’s story, immediately following last week’s account of the feeding of the 5,000, an admittedly enormous sign, Jesus dismisses those who have come to find him because of their meal yesterday.  “You are looking for me,” he says, “not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”  Well of course that’s why they’re looking for him.  But what does he mean, they didn’t see signs?  And apparently he’s right, because even though they’ve witnessed that awe-inspiring miracle of bread and fish, here the next day they ask him, “What sign are you going to give us?”

The point seems to be that the signs themselves are not the point.  Believe in me, Jesus says, and find life.  In other words, if you’re only looking for the miracles you’re missing the point of everything.  Someone at Tuesday’s Bible study suggested, and I think they’re correct, that when they ask for a sign in today’s story, it isn’t that they didn’t think the miraculous feeding was a sign.  It’s that they want it again.

They bring up Moses, whom we heard about in our first reading, and through whom God provided manna, bread from heaven, not once only, but daily for years in the desert.  For hungry, poor people, one meal only fills your stomach for one day.  It makes sense that they were hoping for another round.  That’s why they wanted to make him king, as we heard last week.

But if we pay attention, John seems to be telling this story in a way that he downplays the importance of the miracle in order to point to the importance of Jesus.  We get a hint of that in the walking on water story with which we began.  It was assigned to finish last week’s Gospel, but I moved it to this week because it makes more sense to split the story this way, and start today with the episode on the sea.

But if you look at how John tells this story compared to Matthew and Mark, he almost implies it wasn’t a miracle.  He uses the same expression in John 21 where it’s always translated Jesus walked “beside the sea.”  Commentators are split over whether he even wants to suggest Jesus walked on water here, very unlike the other Evangelists who clearly tell that he did.

And look what he does emphasize: when Jesus says, “it is I,” then they want to receive him, take him into the boat.  Then they believe in him.  They do what Jesus asks of the crowds after the feeding today: the disciples believe in Jesus, not the sign.

In fact, that expression “it is I,” “I’m the one,” is the big clue here.  The phrase in Greek is “ego eimi” and it can be translated “it is I,” or, “I am he,” or simply, “I am.”  By it John ties Jesus to Moses’ experience at the burning bush when God’s name was revealed as “I am.”  When Jesus persistently uses this expression, his hearers would clearly connect him to God.  It occurs about 25 times in John’s Gospel, including seven great “I am” statements, the first of which we have here, “I am the bread of life.”

With the incident by the sea, it could simply be read as identification.  They’re afraid, he says, “it is I,” and they are relieved.  But once he starts saying it with these images – here bread, and in later chapters, light, resurrection, life, Good Shepherd, vine, way, truth – he makes it clear.  He is the one we are to believe in.  As he says to the people today, the only work they need to do is believe in the one whom God has sent.  As for Moses, he says, Moses didn’t give you daily manna, God did.  And I’m not a prophet like Moses, I’m the bread from heaven itself.

And this is the hard place we find ourselves: Jesus says, I am.  It is I.  I’m the answer from God, not miraculous signs.  And we say, “What do you mean?  It’s incredibly abstract.  How are we to make sense of this?  Jesus says, “I am.  “I am food.  I am bread.  And I will keep you from hungering ever again.”  He says “don’t worry about miracles, don’t focus on them.  Focus on me.  I am life for you.”  And that’s what we need to understand.

The problem we have comes from not knowing what we really want or need.

The request of the people here is reasonable.  They’re poor, hungry.  He fed them.  They’d like this daily.  If we were to compare ourselves to these people, it would be on less dire grounds.  We’re not starving or desperately poor.  But we do live by the same sense, that there are things we need from life, from God, from others, from ourselves, that will make it all worthwhile.  How often do we say to ourselves, “If I only had this, or that, then all would be well.”  “If only these things were different, if only this blessing were mine, then I’d have what I need.”

It’s important to note that Jesus doesn’t dismiss these things as foolish, at least in this story.  After all, before ever getting into this conversation he feeds the crowd first.  The miracle came first.  Then he said, “But what you really need is not more bread.  You really need me.”

So that becomes our great question: what does it mean for us to really need Jesus more than anything else?  To receive him as the disciples did, as the great I AM from God, the one who answers all our deepest needs?

It all has to do with life, real life.  That’s what Jesus is offering here.  And it’s only the start for Jesus.

In all seven of the great I Am statements in John (and remember, today’s is the first), life is a part of the promise in one way or another.  Abundant life, he calls it in John 10 when he says “I am the Gate of the sheep.”  The gift Jesus offers in each of these is life, full life.  Abundant life.  In fact, the key to this seems to come in chapter 5, just before this whole episode we’re focusing on this month.  Jesus is involved in a dispute with some Jewish authorities who are unfavorably comparing him to Moses, a theme which we heard continue today.  And Jesus says this: “You search the scriptures because you think that is where you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.  Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”  (5:39-40)

It’s all there, he says, in the scriptures, which point to him.  Yet somehow we don’t know how to come to him to have life.  Somehow we’re settling for second best, for less than life.  So what is this life he offers?  How does this life look among us?  Or maybe we should ask, “what do we really need?  What truly sustains life?”

Of course the physical things: food, clothing, shelter.  Without these we would die.  But what makes life truly worth living?

Well, look at the things Jesus has given us in the Church, in our discipleship and we begin to understand.

He has given us the gift of community, people around us who make life worth living, people who support and pray for us, who are life to us.  Without the fellowship of the community of believers, would we know life?

He has given us the gift of forgiveness and restoration to God.  Regardless of whether or not we’re always ready to admit our brokenness or failings, the incredible gift of God to us in Jesus is the forgiveness of our sin, and the way to healing of our lives and of this world that this gives.  That in forgiving us God restores our relationships with each other and with God is a tremendous source of life.

And he has given us the gift of eternal life, life with God in relationship that begins now and continues with God even after we die, for we are brought into newness of life.  There is meaning and purpose to this life and a promise of life with such meaning and purpose in the world to come.  This is the greatest part of the gift of life Jesus gives.

And that, my friends, is our bread.  These gifts are life to us.  Without them, we’d starve.  It’s true that people can live without knowing this life from Jesus.  But we who know it would claim that knowing these gifts makes life abundant, powerful, different.  It feeds our heart, our soul, our spirit – in ways that nothing else can.

And that also doesn’t mean that we don’t care about people’s physical and emotional needs, the things that literally fill stomachs, quench thirst, provide shelter and clothing, provide love.  It’s pretty hard to think about abundant life if you’re starving to death, or oppressed and persecuted, or homeless.  The letter of James helps make that clear.

But it’s our job to take care of those things.  Jesus, before feeding the 5,000, tells the disciples to give the crowd something to eat.  In John’s version, he asks them what they should do.  That’s their job.  It’s our job.  As Jesus said in this very Gospel after the resurrection to Simon Peter: if you love me, feed my lambs.  So our job is to help people meet those needs.  And to point to Jesus.  Because once those needs are met, we can introduce the One who really gives life.

And that’s the point: in our love for each other and the world we make it a place where all physical needs are met, and in our love for God we become part of God’s love for the world in Jesus which gives life.  Abundant, rich life, in spite of any circumstances.

Maybe Jesus shouldn’t have fed the 5,000 at all, since it obviously distracted people from what he wanted them to know about him.

But of course he did it because his compassion compelled it.  And that’s our reason for working for justice and peace in this world in his name.  And these signs can mislead and distract, that’s true.  But they also can point us to the One who gives us, and the world, life.

Because that’s ultimately what we want to remember: there is nothing that gives us what we need that is comparable to life with our Lord Jesus.  He feeds and fills us in ways nothing else can.  It’s why we can go from here to make a difference in this world, because we’ve been fed abundant life by the risen Lord of all, and there is nothing else we need.  Our deepest hunger has been filled, and that gift is ours to share with the whole world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen