He's Behind the Drapes

John 6:56-69

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

I grew up in Northwest Florida… otherwise known as the Redneck Riviera… and… I was a Lutheran.  Northwest Florida was not the Lutheran midwest where my parents grew up.  Where THEY grew up there was a Swedish Lutheran, a Norwegian Lutheran, a Finnish Lutheran, and a German Lutheran church in each small town… often on the four corners of the same intersection.  No, where I grew up, most folks thought Lutherans were some kind of a cult.  As a result, I got asked if I had been saved… a lot.  Whenever I got asked that I’d say, “Yes” and, because in addition to being a Lutheran, I was also a smart… let’s go with “ALEC” here… smart-alec... I’d add, “Yeah, I got saved on the very first Easter 2000 years ago.”  That was NOT what they were looking for… which is why I said it… because… (pointing at self) smart-alec… but it also happens to be excellent theology.  

You see, while some folks obsess about whether you are “going up or down” are “in or out” or whether or not you’re going to “the hot place” after you die or a location with a more temperate climate, OUR theology believes that God made that decision FOR US in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection AND that decision was, “You’re ALL IN!”  So, here’s the Good News… You’re ALL IN!  

The question OUR theology asks is not IF you’re saved or not, or IF you've made a decision for Jesus or not, because like I said, those are God-level decisions which God decided on the very first Easter with, “You’re ALL In!”.  No, the question our theology asks is, “Now that you understand God has grabbed hold of you in unconditional love and promises to never let you go no matter what, how are you going to live your life on this planet going forward from here?”  

It’s the same question Joshua asked the people of Israel in the first lesson for today.  How they answered Joshua wasn’t going to get them to the Promised Land… because… well, they were already IN the Promised Land!  What Joshua was asking them was “How are you going to LIVE, now that God’s gotten you here to the Promised Land?”  

It's also the same question that Jesus asked the crowd in the Gospel lesson.  How they answered wasn’t going to bring them the Messiah or keep him from coming… because… well, he was standing right there!  What they were being asked was “How are you going to LIVE in this world now that God's given you Jesus, unconditional love, acceptance, and eternal life... up front?  Will you “drink in” the Jesus Way of living... a life that leads you to do what is in the other’s best interest rather than a life focused on what’s in it for me and what makes ME feel good?  Will you live your lives the Jesus Way, OR... the world’s way?    

In today’s Gospel, a huge number of people chose to return to living the world’s way… they chose to go back to the “me, myself, and I” way of living in the world.  For them, the Jesus Way was too radical… too hard to imagine how it could possibly work in the world they knew.  After they left, Jesus turned to the disciples and asked them the same thing.  Would they continue to follow the Jesus Way of living or not?  You see, neither Joshua nor Jesus wanted the people to “PLAY” at their faith any longer.  "Playing" at faith just doesn't lead to the abundant life... a live filled with meaning, peace, and purpose... that God created us to live.  Both Joshua and Jesus challenged the people to go ALL IN and live full-time God’s Way… the Jesus Way.  They wanted that for the people NOT because "otherwise you're going to hell" (because, remember, God's already decided you're not) but simply because the Jesus Way of living is a path to FULLY living into this incredible life we've been given!  

That continues to be the real question for us as individuals, for our country, and for our world.  Knowing that God’s love for you is unconditional and that, in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, you are eternally “IN” no matter what, the REAL question now is HOW will you try to live the rest of this life you’ve been given?  Will you try to live it the Jesus Way, living life with generosity, compassion, radical inclusion, love and grace for ALL PEOPLE so that ALL PEOPLE might experience this life overflowing with meaning, purpose, direction and joy?  Or not.  

THAT is the decision that you and I have to make... except... we all know its not just a one-and-done decision, is it?  It’s really the millions of little decisions we make in every moment, of every day, all throughout our lives.  It is in each of those particular moments, that we choose to either live the Jesus Way, OR the world’s way.  Will we welcome the stranger or send them away?  Will we feed the hungry or demonize them?  Will we stop to heal the sick or walk down the other side of the road?  Will we calm the storm or stir the pot?  Will we insist on the truth or settle for a lie?  Will we forgive the thief or seek revenge?  Will we make a friend or create an enemy?  Will we admit our faults or double down on them? Will we celebrate diversity or try to homogenize it?  Will we build up or tear down?  Will we crucify others to get our way or will we raise others up to new life?  May we all, in the light of God’s infinite and unconditional love already given, choose in each of these moments to walk the Jesus Way.  Amen.  

Discipleship is not Fast Food

John 6:51-58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

“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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.”  Okay, GROSS!  But wait, it’s actually worse than that.  The translators softened this up, believe it or not!  Jesus didn’t actually say “eat” here.  Jesus did not say, “with one’s linen napkin in one’s lap, one is to take nice, polite, little bites.”  NOPE!  Jesus said GNAW!  He said roll up your sleeves, put your elbows on the table, grab the bone with both hands and GNAW!  Jesus said, “Get into it!  Get obsessed with it!  Get messy with it!  Get it stuck in your teeth!”  GNAW on that sucker all the way down to the bone!  Which would sound great if we were talking about baby back PORK ribs, but he’s talking about his own baby back HUMAN ribs here and that, understandably, freaked the people out back in the day! 

Most of us these days, however, have heard this “eat the flesh and drink the blood” stuff our whole lives… so much so that we just gloss over how genuinely shocking it really is!  But Jesus said “GNAW” on purpose so that the people hearing it back then would STOP and NOT gloss over it.  Jesus used this strange, cannibalistic, gnawing language to shock people then and now out of our usual habit of running on autopilot and actually THINK about what he was trying to tell them... and us.  So what was Jesus trying to shock the people then and us people now, into hearing?

I think at least a part of what Jesus was trying to tell the people then, and us people now, is that discipleship isn’t something that you can do on the fly, in between this and that.  Following Jesus can’t be done like you’re horking down a paper wrapped burger on your way from one thing to another.  This shocking imagery, at least in part, is trying to let us know that discipleship is instead, much more like a fully focused, all consuming, sit-down, get into it up to your elbows kind of culinary experience!  It needs to be a deeply intensive, completely immersive feast, requiring menu development, selecting and sourcing ingredients, prepping, cooking, serving, and savoring.  Following Jesus is… a whole-life-consuming project and that shocking imagery is calling us to tuck in full time and completely make Jesus, a down and dirty part of every single moment of our lives.  He is our “true food” and we are being called to sink EVERYTHING we’ve got... all our time, all our skills, and all our being into the Jesus Way, the Jesus Truth, and the Jesus Life so that, just like the food we eat, Jesus becomes a part of every molecule of our bodies and the fuel we need to live our lives and live them abundantly.

Like we would for an amazing feast, Jesus is asking each one of us to invest REAL time, not just our left-over time or our in-between time… but to really slow down like we would for a eight course meal and not just grab a bite of faith in a paper sack from a drive through window.  Jesus wants us to slow down and invest REAL time to SEE… deeply see the people around us… to see and then care for those who live on the margins… to study, pray, and live each day with deep care, patience and passion.  Jesus is calling us to gnaw on the gift of God’s infinite love and unconditional grace, and make that an integral part of every molecule of our being, so that the Jesus Way of living and loving ends up seeping out of our pores and out into the world… like the smell of garlic through the skin.  

Discipleship isn't drive through.  Discipleship is meant to be slow food.  Discipleship is about lovingly, miraculously, patiently, and beautifully transforming something tough… someone tough… you and me… into something… into someone amazing… into the person God created us to be.  It is setting a table for a feast that stretches long into the night around a table where everyone has a place:  family and friends… addicts and apostles… sojourners and strangers… lovers and losers… rebels and refugees… a seat and a place set for EVERYONE.  Discipleship is making the deep commitment to gnaw and to savor every morsel of life we’ve been given, in the company of the whole community… all of us saints and sinners… all of us together!

Our friend Jack, who died this week, lived that sort of full-time, gnaw at the bone, continual feasting sort of life of discipleship.  I saw a cartoon this week of a couple opening a letter from their church.  “What is it Bob?” the woman asked.  “We’ve been called up to active duty!” he replied.  Jack never had to be called to active duty.  He was always active and always on duty.  Jack the furnace man.  Jack the buildings and grounds man.  Jack the 12 step man.  Jack the Breaking Bread Man and of course… Jack the Clam Man were just a few of the names he went by during his lifelong feast of discipleship.  

May you and I answer the call to active duty discipleship.  May we treat our faith not like some drive thru burger but a slow-food feast, and may we all strive toward the sort of commitment, dedication, generosity, love, and grace that, ends up running through our blood, and saturates our lives, right down to the bone.  Amen.  

Lying at the Speed of Light

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

In today’s second lesson, the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians saying, “Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.”  You see, back in Paul’s day, people would tell completely fabricated tales and pass them off to other people as the truth!  Can you imagine such a thing?  People back then called those stories, “LIES”.  I know!  Its almost too much to wrap our modern minds around that people would do such a thing, but they did!  

Sarcasm aside, its passages like this that remind us that the Bible isn’t actually filled with ancient, un-relatable situations at all!  There are many, many things in there that are just as much an issue today as they were all those thousands of years ago.  “There is nothing new under the sun” the Teacher would say.  Lies and their spreading were just as much an issue in the papyrus age as they are today in the internet age.  The speed they travel may be different today but at the headwaters of every lie, in every age, there is a human being.  Falsehoods, as Paul calls them, are not a technology problem, they are a human problem.  They are human brokenness, human sin.  

One of the compounding problems with living in our world, where the old, human, sin of falsehoods are uploaded at 100 Megabits per second, is that spreading those falsehoods becomes super easy and almost routine.  With each of us literally drinking from a firehose of falsehoods every day, we see it so often that, as Hannah Arendt says, “If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. ” Spreading falsehoods were indeed an Ephesians’ problem, but it turns out spreading falsehoods, is an “us” problem too.  Each of us, me included, do our fair share of passing on falsehoods.  Falsehoods about sofas are just VERY tempting!  So when it comes to telling falsehoods, we have met the Ephesians and the Ephesians is us!  

Fortunately though, we, like the Ephesians, have Paul’s advice for living in a world of falsehoods.  First, he tells us, when falsehoods fly… Be angry!  The bible is telling us it is okay to be angry!  It is understandable to be angry!  The inaccuracies, falsehoods and lies used to justify, endorse or cover up inhumanities done to our neighbors are all legitimate reasons for us to use that God given emotion… anger!   BUT, Paul advises, don’t let that anger rule your life.  Anger needs an expiration time and Paul suggests that anger should expire… at sundown.  In the New Zealand Prayer Book’s Night Prayer, there’s a prayer that goes in part: “Lord, it is night. The night is for stillness. Let us be still in the presence of God. It is night after a long day. What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done; let it be.”  Paul warns us that holding on to anger past sundown leaves room for the devil to muck about. I’m not so sure what that looked like back in the camel age, but in here in the computer age I think this is Paul’s warning to us not scroll, comment, or post after sundown. 

But Paul has more for us and our Ephesian counterparts here than just telling us how we should fight AGAINST falsehoods.  When we see and hear the injustices of our world we are often quick to be angry, and like I said, anger is a God given emotion and there is a time and a place for that sort of righteous anger. But all too often we end up living our lives perpetually AGAINST.  “Against” is important and anger can be useful, BUT… because the horrors of the world are so very horrible at times, we find ourselves wanting to stay perpetually angry until the world is finally healed.  But here’s the thing St. Paul knew back in the donkey age that still holds true in the digital age:  The world ALSO needs to be shown what the love of God in Christ looks like, JUST AS CLEARLY as the world needs to be shown our anger at the things that grieve the Holy Spirit!  

It most certainly IS our task to see injustice, to be angry at it, and fight against it… AND, it is ALSO most certainly our task to model what the world will look like when God’s will is finally done, “on earth as it is in heaven.”  Paul wanted both us, and our Ephesian friends to know that the world needs us flawed but faithful people, to BOTH… speak words that build up the world around us in grace and love AND to hear us flawed and faithful people name the sins of greed, cruelty, racism, and violence.  The world needs BOTH from us in equal measure.  The world needs to see us being forgiving, being tenderhearted, and being kind to one another JUST AS OFTEN as the world needs to see us stand up for those pushed to the margins and then over the edges to be forgotten.  The world needs us not only to be imitators of Christ in turning over tables and standing up to Empires, but the world ALSO needs us JUST AS MUCH to be imitators of Christ, living in love as Christ loved us, giving all of ourselves to God and our neighbor.  

This world of ours moves fast these days.  Lies travels on fiberoptic cables at the speed of light!  But remember, just like our Ephesian friends way back then… we too have been marked with the cross of Christ in the waters of Baptism and sealed for the day of redemption… and because the love of God travels even faster than the speed of light, we are well equipped to wield... in equal measure… righteous anger at injustices and flat out lies AS WELL AS unconditional love and unlimited grace.  May we do just that for the next few months particularly but also for the rest of our days.  Amen.  

Look Beyond the Food

John 6:24-35

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

When the crowd woke up from their post Feeding of the Five Thousand food coma, they realized that Jesus and his disciples had packed up the loaves and fishes and moved on.  Immediately the crowd shoved off to catch up with Jesus, his disciples, and most importantly, those free loaves and fishes!  Now, remember, the people had all been fed to a Thanksgiving level of fullness… for FREE… AND, as Bishop Jack reminded me after church last week, we should not forget that they were ALSO all sitting down in a place where, according to the Bible mind you, “there was a great deal of grass.”  SO, for one reason or another the crowd had completely missed Jesus and the disciples leaving.  But once the fog or haze, or maybe both had cleared, the crowd became understandably VERY eager to catch up with Jesus, the disciples, and particularly… the FOOD!  

The crowd was ready for more free loaves and fish and maybe another place with a great deal of grass!  But Jesus was hoping to move them on from the lessons of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, which were?  Anyone?  (1.  We feed people for no other reason than they are hungry.  2.  A spirit of gratitude and generosity does miraculous things.  And 3. the problems of our world are not solved by sending people off to fend for themselves as individuals, but by gathering people together and generously sharing all we have with one another.)  Good job remembering!

But now, Jesus was hoping to move the crowd on to something more, but the crowd wasn’t having it!  “You’re here for more food!” Jesus told them.  “But I want to teach you how you can have not just a full belly but eternal life!”  In other words, “I want to show you how to have a life filled with purpose, meaning, dignity, and peace.”  To which the crowd responded, “Yeah eternal life!  Sounds great!  Let’s start that eternal life by you showing us how to do that “five loaves and two fish feeding five thousand people” thing!”  Jesus replied, “If you want to know how to do God stuff, you have to WALK through life following the model of the One God sent.”  “Alright” the crowd said, “then WALK us through how to make more food!  At which point Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you.”  Which I believe you can also translate as, “Oh my God, people!  Could you stop for just a minute with the loaves and fishes obsession and maybe focus on what I am trying to tell you NOW?”  

The people then it seems, simply could not do that.  They were stuck on the food.  Maybe it was because the food was free.  Maybe it was the “great deal of grass”.  Maybe it was just the regular old, human tendency to obsess over the shiny object that happens to be in front of us at the moment.  Whatever it was, the people were not able in that moment to move their focus beyond those literal loaves and fishes and onto the person of Jesus… the ONE who said, “I… am the bread of life.”  

The crowd back then could not, for whatever reason, make that move.  The question for us today, is… can we?  Can we figure out a way to stop living life as a frantic, never ending chase after our next meal, our next thrill, our next outrage, our next obsession, our next notification, our next shiny object, our next whatever?  Can we find a way to stop living our lives like rats with ADHD racing around a never ending maze… even for just a moment?  Or perhaps the better question for folks like us gathered here together as the Body of Christ… is how can WE help ONE ANOTHER find a way to step off the treadmill the world has prescribed for us and finally see Jesus.  Who is after all the ONE trying to show us the WAY to eternal life! 

In this Gospel story, Jesus challenged the people to move their focus beyond the food and onto the One behind the miracle.  He tried to expand their vision beyond just MY mouth, MY tongue, and MY belly, NOW… so they might be able to see the ONE who is the Bread of Life for all of eternity.  That’s what Jesus wants for all of us as well.  To certainly give thanks for the fish sandwich and all the other THINGS we are given in our lives, but then Jesus would really like for all of us to look beyond that THING and begin to SEE that Jesus is not JUST the source for loaves and fishes, but that Jesus is the Bread of Life, which means Jesus is the one that gives us ALL we need, in abundance, to live a full and abundant life now and for all eternity to come!  

The world may not be oriented that way but we can help one another learn to look beyond just the food and SEE more.  It can start the same way it started in this story… with giving thanks for the fish and the loaves… for the regular day to day things we need to live.  But from there, we are being called to help one another practice seeing more deeply… first by looking beyond the thing and GENUINELY SEEING the human who has handed us that thing.  Then, after seeing the person beyond the thing, we can remember that person is someone made in the image of God… and from there we can begin to look even deeper and perhaps get a glimpse of the Divine, the Bread of Life, the One from whom all blessings flow.  Amen.  

Don't Fill Up on Just the Bread!

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, gives thanks, and has the disciples start serving out a bread course and appetizers!  At which point the people back then do exactly what you and I do today… they completely filled up on the bread and apps and had 12 doggie baskets of leftovers to boot!  Jesus’ answer to people who are hungry is simple… you feed ‘em!  An absolutely beautiful answer and if you went home today with your belly filled with the idea like the 5000 were with bread... that Jesus feeds people for no other reason than that they were hungry, you’d be good!  

But Jesus did have more planned than just bread and apps.  Its true, most people, then and now, fill up on the bread and apps and end up missing out on the little amuse-bouche… Jesus’ complimentary little bite he was offering.  But if you have a little room today, I’d be happy to give it to you now.  Do you have some room?  It’s small.  It’s free!  Yes?  Good!  This free little bite is Jesus’ reminder to us that when we take the time to notice and are thankful for WHAT WE HAVE rather than obsessing, lamenting, and whinging over what WE DON’T HAVE… incredible things ALWAYS happen out of that spirit of thankfulness!  Was I right?  A small delicious bite, right?      

Now then, you’ve had the bread and apps.  You were good enough to make room for that little amuse-bouche as well, but to be honest, I’m really hoping that today, YOU might still have room for what I believe is the actual main course Jesus wanted to serve back then to those thousands and right now to you and me.  Again, don’t get me wrong, the apps are excellent.  Feeding people simply because they are hungry (chef’s kiss!) perfect.  The complimentary taste reminding us of the power of thankfulness and generosity over the weakness of selfishness and scarcity… delectable.  Just those two courses alone have been filling people up with great take-home messages for literally millennia so I don’t want to imply that there is anything at all wrong with them.  They are fantastic… its just that because they are so good, people almost always fill up before they have the chance to get to the main course.  But if you’ve saved some room… see what you think about this course!

When confronted with the problem of let’s say 15,000-ish hungry people, what did the disciples suggest?  Here in John’s Gospel Jesus tests the disciples by asking them where they could buy bread for all these people.  In the other Gospels, the disciples suggest that Jesus send them away to find food for themselves.  In both versions Jesus was setting them up to learn this main course lesson.  The disciples did as Jesus knew they would, and so the disciples suggested their era’s equivalent of telling the crowd they should get a job and buy their own food.  That they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and feed themselves.  That they should mount their horse, grab their gun, tip their hat to the little lady and the young-uns and ride off to rustle up some grub like the real, rugged, independent, beholden to no one, MEN, that God made them to be!  The disciples suggested that because THAT was all they knew.  THAT was the worldview they grew up in… THAT was the world view they were taught… THAT was the worldview they learned from childhood.  That was the worldview in which they lived their entire lives, without a second thought that there could EVER be another way to look at or live in the world.  

But here, in addition to Jesus showing the disciples that folks who follow Jesus feed people with no other consideration than that they are hungry and that a spirit of thanksgiving does miraculous things… Jesus was ALSO trying to teach the disciples that a worldview that sends people off to fend for themselves is NOT the worldview in which God had created humanity to live!  Instead, Jesus directly confronted, and clearly puts down THAT individualistic, go it alone, bootstrap pulling worldview as something NOT from God!  That’s what Jesus was doing when he said, “They need not go away.  YOU give them something to eat.” 

The solutions to the needs of this world, Jesus was trying to teach them, will NOT be found in sending people away to fend for themselves as individuals!  THAT is simply NOT how God created humans to live in this world!  NO!  The solution to ALL the needs of this world (not just hunger) are to be found in doing what Jesus had the people do on that hillside… gather people together, sit them down together, give thanks together for ALL of the abundant gifts we have together as a community, and then sharing all those gifts out in the same way that those loaves and fish were shared… generously, abundantly… some might even say recklessly!  Sharing them out as if you were CERTAIN from the beginning that no matter how much you give away, there will STILL be twelve baskets left over when you’re done!  I know.  I know.  Some will call that communism.  I know.  I know.  Some will call that socialism.  But what Jesus calls it is the WAY God created humanity to live abundantly as part of God’s creation!  What Jesus calls it is the TRUTH of what it is to live this life as a full fledged human being!  What Jesus calls it, is the worldview in which God created us to live, and to have life, and to have that gift of life which God has so generously given us… abundantly.  Amen. 

The Day Has Already Come, Says the Lord!

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Most of our country, and indeed most of the world, is beyond stressed out when it comes to U.S. politics right now.  We are bombarded each day by promised horrors like rounding up millions of immigrants and putting them into camps, taking away health care, stripping hard-won rights from women, from minorities, and from the LGBTQ community.  We hear the plans to get rid of things like the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, Farm Crop Insurance, and the National Weather Service.  We see the Supreme Court giving itself the sole, unelected, unaccountable power to decide what is, and what is not, an official presidential act, and what can and can’t be delegated to the executive branch for administration.  We hear threats against people in the media, people in institutions of higher learning, and political rivals, and so when we hear Jeremiah passing on God’s anger about “shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture” it feels a whole lot more like a now-ish thing, than just some disconnected-from-reality, 2600 year old, bible thing.

  

The stakes are so high right now.  The threat of the end of our democracy is so very real right now.  So many of the proposed policies are literally anti-Christ, against the teachings of Christ, right now, that many of us… me at the top of that list… look at that lesson from Jeremiah and the first thing we do is to long for exactly what Jeremiah was longing for.  We want more than anything for it to be true that “The days are surely coming, says the Lord.”  That the solution is on the way!

And we don’t just WANT it… we genuinely NEED it.  We NEED it for our fellow humans who will be affected in very real, life or death ways.  We NEED it so that you and I, our friends, loved ones, and fellow human beings can simply be safe to live their lives fully and freely as the persons God made them to be… to be included among those who are able to genuinely and hopefully and continually reach toward the ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… to live in a place where we are allowed to differ on a million different things, but not on the ideal that liberty and justice should be for all, where all genuinely means ALL.    

The political angst is so high right now that we read Jeremiah’s words and long for exactly what God promised Jeremiah would be coming.  But in our angst we seem to forget… me at the top of the forgetful list… that what God promised, first through Jeremiah, and then by extension to all of us, HAS ALREADY BEEN GIVEN TO US!  The Day has ALREADY come, says the Lord!  Jesus has already HAD compassion, and continues to HAVE compassion on us because today we are, as people have always been, like sheep without a shepherd.  The truth today is that the Lord IS my Shepherd… not “will be” or “was”, but IS my Shepherd.  Every day we are tricked into believing that our only options for finding a Good Shepherd is among the political candidates we’ve been given.  It is a relentless campaign of bamboozlement and it works all too often on me, and even on the most level headed and intelligent people I know.

THAT is why we need to remind each other and the whole world, about the GOOD SHEPHERD we have already!  We need to tell each other that Good Shepherd’s desire is that WE SHALL NOT BE IN WANT and that God will get what God wants!  It’s GOD after all!  We need to remind each other that God desires all to have ENOUGH.  Enough like sheep get with green pastures and still water.  Enough like the people of the Exodus got with manna from the heavens.  Enough like the 5000 got with loaves and fishes.  God’s desire is that everyone have enough, not because anyone deserves it but simply because that's what God wants, and God will get what God wants because God is God!

 

Telling each other the story of the Good Shepherd who is already on the job will not magically change our country.  But it can change US.  It can change us from fearful beings with a narrow vision of our future possibilities, back into the Children of God that we are… a people who embrace the truth that with the Good Shepherd, there are actually infinite possibilities beyond our current political options and no matter what happens, the God who has never left God’s people before is not about to leave God’s people now!

The political stakes in our country right now could not be higher and our calling to love of neighbor demands we pay attention.  Faithfulness still includes being informed and giving our support and our votes to the candidates who we believe will best move our country toward the ways of living which Jesus modeled for us… the ways of love, compassion, radical inclusion, care for the least, lost, and last in society, care for the immigrant, healing for the sick, feeding of the hungry, care for creation and all the rest.  Faithfulness calls us to all of that… AND… AND… and… it also calls us also to never forget, that even in the midst of this almighty mess, God is at work!  That God has promised that no matter how the world might look or even be… that somehow, God will make sure that it is goodness and mercy that will persue us all the days of our lives.  Amen.