Pentecost 10 B: The Surprise of our Lives
Dear Partner in Preaching,
How do you feel about surprises? I’ll be honest: I’m not wild about them. In fact, I’ve always been a bit leery of people who love surprises. Call me dull, but, for the most part, I like the predictable, the planned, the ordered. For surprises, good or bad, have this way of upsetting plans and catching you off guard, of making you feel all unsettled and unprepared and insecure. Now, don’t get me wrong, surprises in some areas of life are fine, even fun; but I still get rather nervous around people who love to surprise other people. Now, I know, I know, most people are well-intentioned when they plan their surprises, which, of course, only makes things worse, as then I really can’t get too mad at them, can I?
All of this came to mind this while reading this week’s gospel, the second in the five-part series on John 6 and the sacraments. And I have say that it made me wonder just how I would have taken to Jesus, as he seems, particularly in John’s Gospel, to delight in surprising people.
Today’s reading is no exception. Jesus comes and encounters a crowd and surprises them with what he says. And while I know that I am supposed to identify with Jesus and the disciples, I find myself irresistibly drawn to the crowd Jesus fed in last week’s gospel reading and who follow after him in this week’s. For they, too, have been caught off guard, surprised, upset. And I gather that they don’t like it much either.
It started last week, of course, with the miraculous feeding, which, when you think of it, isn’t too bad of a way to be surprised: to get a free and unexpected dinner when you’re hungry. But, as we noticed last week, right after the miracle Jesus vanishes, leaving them behind feeling rather confused and disappointed. And so they follow, finding him, finally, on the other side of the lake.
And from here on out, things only get worse. First, Jesus accuses them of opportunism: “Ah, you’re only here because you want another free meal,” he scolds. And, truth be told, he was probably right. But Jesus isn’t content with being merely right, and so to rub it in a bit he goes on with his lecture: “Do not work for the food that spoils,” he persists, “instead, work for the food that lasts for eternal life.”
Hmm. Well, that gets their attention. Sounds pretty good – a little suspicious, maybe, but tempting. “Okay,” the crowd says, “we’ll go with you on this one, what kind of work do we have to do to get this food?” “Just believe,” Jesus says, “just believe that I am the One God sent.” At this point the crowd balks, wondering just who in the world this guy thinks he is. After all, lets be clear about what Jesus is offering. I mean, he’s holding out the shinny apple, the first prize: he’s offering the bread of life – you know, the food of myth and legend, the nectar of the gods, the stuff which grants life eternal.
And so they’re skeptical, and who wouldn’t be. It’s as if, after you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you have a terminal illness, the doctor tells you the latest tests suggest it might be something else altogether, something more treatable. I mean, you want to believe it, this surprise for the better, more than anything in the world. But, my word, what if they’re wrong, these well-intentioned people who have surprised you with good news? What if they’re just plain wrong?
This, in a nutshell, is what is so hard about the gospel and the sacraments. For they come into our lives, disrupting the neat order we’ve arranged, and surprise us, even shock us, by making these audacious promises of life and wholeness. And that’s hard. For on a day-to-day basis, most of us have gotten pretty good at defending ourselves from the pain and frustration and hurt and despair of life in this world. And then these promises of God are announced to us and they only betray the foolishness of our self-reliance and at the same time promise us more than we could have ever hoped for.
I mean think about it: at Baptism we pour water over an infant’s head and announce to her God’s promise to be with her forever, to go with her wherever she may go, to hold on to her through all that life has to offer – including even death – and to grant her life eternal. My word, but that’s some promise. And exactly the same happens in the Lord’s Supper. For each time you come to the Table you are promised nothing less than forgiveness, acceptance, wholeness: in a word, life, both now and forever.
And the thing about all this – about forgiveness and acceptance and the like – is that such things, as we know, just can’t be gained or earned, coerced or accomplished. Like love, they can only be given as a gift by one person to another.
A quick side note: I suspect that at one time or another you have been told that we must love or forgive ourselves first, for if we don’t love ourselves than it can be pretty hard to love others. And I think there’s a lot to that. At the same time, I have my doubts as to whether it’s really possible absent being loved by another.
Allow a brief illustration: Some years ago I had the opportunity to talk this over with a psychiatrist while serving as the chaplain at a major metropolitan hospital. “The goal of all counseling,” he once said to me, “is for a person to love him or herself. For if you aren’t going to love yourself, who will, and if you don’t start now, then when?” “But doctor,” I asked, “have you yet encountered a single person who has had the ability to love himself without first experiencing love from another person? Have you known even one person like that.” After a moment of silence, “No,” he said quietly, “No, not really.”
This, you see, is the sacraments. Communion and baptism are God’s external and objective words of love and forgiveness, given in a form which we can receive, for, as we said last week, the sacraments are God’s physical, visible words for God’s physical, visible people.
And the thing is, just as with Jesus’ words to the crowd, such a promise is as frightening as it is comforting, for such a promise raises hopes and expectations to dizzying heights. And so St. John reports that the people naturally ask, “what miracle will you perform so that we may see it and believe you?” In other words, “Prove yourself, Jesus.” And my, but doesn’t that sound familiar, for how much easier faith would be if God would just do what God’s supposed to do and give us a miracle.
But God, you see, our God rarely does what God is supposed to do. For our God is a God of surprises, of upheavals, of reversals. And so rather than do what God is supposed to do, God does the unexpected: instead of pronouncing judgment in the face of our sin and selfishness, God offers mercy; instead of justice, love; instead of condemnation, forgiveness; instead of coming in power, God came in weakness; and instead of giving us a miracle, God gives us God’s own self. For as Martin Luther would remind us, the whole of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are summed up both succinctly and eloquently in the two words we hear when coming to the Table: “for you.” This is Christ’s body, given for you. This is Christ’s blood, shed for you.
This is the heart of the faith, Dear Partner, the faith we are privileged to proclaim: that the Eternal Word who was with God and is God from the beginning and participated in the creation of the heavens and the earth is the same Lord who cares so desperately for us that he gave his life for ours on the cross and gives himself still in the bread and wine.
Perhaps this, in the end, is the hardest thing of all for us to accept about the sacraments: that they contain God’s unexpected, surprising, unforeseen gift of God’s own self. For, as we’ve already said, against much of the pain, and disappointment, and grief of this life we can defend ourselves. But against this gift, against this surprising and disarming love, we are helpless, as at this Table God’s promise comes to us again just as it did when as helpless babes we were brought to the Font.
So this week, Dear Partner, let’s announce this surprising, audacious, some what startling, and ultimately life-giving promise. And then let’s invite our people to come to not only hear God’s unexpected word of forgiveness and mercy, but also to take and eat it. Let’s invite them, that is, to come and receive the surprise of their lives. For those who comes to Christ will never be hungry, and those who believe in Christ will not thirst. Thanks for sharing this awesome promise.
Yours in Christ,
David
I can’t believe I’m about to write this given my proclivity toward Progressive Christianity. I’m going to offer it nonetheless. What about accountability? What about not showing up to just observe another miracle? How shall we develop a sense of demonstrated communion and discipleship from a place of Thanksgiving and devotion if we preach that it is enough to simply receive the bread of life each Sunday?
I can’t speak for Lutherans, but in the Episcopal Church one of our eucharistic prayers includes this petition: “Deliver
us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace
only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for
renewal.” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 372)
I like that and hadn’t come across it before. Thanks Richard.
Ahh-the great paradox of what Gordon Lathrop calls the hungry feast. A sip of wine and scrap of bread; yet also the gifts of forgiveness and salvation. A meal that satisfies our deepest desires, yet also is intended to create a hunger for peace, justice, etc. We are fed in order that we might feed others. We receive the body of Christ so that we can be the body of Christ in the world.
It is not a transaction. Jesus doesn’t say “I am the bread of life IF” That is part of the Mystery of Christ – it is grace it is free but it isn’t cheap. It cost Jesus life.
Wow, deeply powerful stuff as ever, David – and thank you for that; it’s challenging and exciting and wonderful. I’m going towards preaching about love from a standpoint of mimetic rivalry, particularly thinking about the migrants in France trying to get into the UK. Sacramental love; love for Self, for the Other and for God in an eternal triangle … thank you again.
I keep coming up against the theodicy problem. God creates (at the very least, the conditions for evil and suffering), and then comes to us in Jesus to forgive…who?…..himself?……limited human beings born into this condition through no fault of their own?
Hasn’t science and laws of physics put this Payton Place God to rest?
One has to really believe that we DESERVE punishment, death, etc, for sin (again, which God created). Why? Do we treat mere human mothers or fathers who have that judgment as “normal”? Yet we attribute this ghastly scenario to God?!
Why should (how could) I judge hungry people in the first century, most of them poor, who probably had NO guarantee if they would eat from day to day? Having worked with poor and hungry folk, I would not begrudge them for one minute looking for even a hint of either a “free meal” or, even more unlikely, assurance of food for the next day.
The promises of eternal life are meaningless to children starving much less the theological reasons for “believing” in Jesus as God.
I think it’s these kinds of stories and interpretations that make the church irrelevant in the world today. Theology seems more interested in making arguments for Jesus’ divinity and “dying for sin” than in helping the world which has so many issues to be dealt with from billions in poverty to climate change killing the planet.
I would argue that the human Jesus who confronts the powers to be on the side of the poor and hungry is much more remarkable than the God man Jesus who dies for sin. In my opinion, as long as the church is more about heaven than this world, it will continue to die in irrelevance. So much for Jesus praying for “this world”, “on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Heaven is fine, it doesn’t need our help as either theologians or go-between priest. IThe earth, on the other hand, is in dire need for people to stand up for life, justice and equality and the health of the planet which, in the final analysis, if not taken care of, will make all religion moot.
Brad, Thank you!! For me it is about the life and teachings of Jesus and his passion for compassion and justice despite the fear of persecution and a horrible death (that he was familiar with as thousands died on the cross,) that make him so remarkable.
so reframe the question. What is it that got Malcolm X to go from street hustler to one willing to give his life? How did he get past ‘missing the point’ (hamartia – translated as ‘sin’) to getting it? What gets folk to see that the center of life isn’t ‘me and mine’ – be it family, race, class or nationality – but something wider?
I think it makes more sense to act upon our shared suffering as a human species rather than believing I am a “sinner” who needs conversion. Nonetheless, we all have the challenge to act out of compassion from our shared suffering rather than anger or vengeance. “Sinner” is a theological construct, and a bad one at that. It suggests I need change and, if not change (for the better), then punishment (eternal if need be). There is nothing, ultimately, loving or compassionate about that kind of theology. For me, there is more power (and humility) in accepting our shared vulnerability and suffering as a human family and trying to find ways to alleviate that suffering as best as we can primarily through, as a social justice activist, changing those systems that cause suffering and violence.
Do you have a blog, Brad??
No. I’ve been encouraged to have one. Why? Why does the world need another blogger?
I’m not so sure that Jesus spoke with rebuke toward those who followed him after eating his free bread. Perhaps it was more with disappointment that they were unable to see the bigger picture, to look beyond their immediate hunger to the “bread of life” that feeds the spirit. Still it’s hardly their fault, it’s hard to focus on anything when you are starving. I wrote about this passage on my blog this week: https://benmcintire.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/trail-of-breadcrumbs/ discussing the way God leads us by his grace with a “trail of breadcrumbs.”
As always, your commentary confirms God’s message for me and the people as I contemplate what would God have me to share this week. I realize that even when miracles surround us daily, the horrible human assaults upon other human beings, the plight of the poorest of the poor, the sick who lack adequate health care insurance make it impossible to see the miracles. These people had just experienced a miracle much like that of Moses. It’s obvious they are seeking relief from the atrocities of this world. The bread that Jesus offers is not natural but sustains those who par takes of it in the midst of adversity, poverty, outright injustice, and racism to resist the temptation to be satisfied when those around us are dying…
Its not the physical food of the bread and fish Jesus was giving them that was the important thing…it was the spiritual food being fed to them by his presence. The connection to the physical person of Christ handing them the food, just a crumb of bread was enough to fill them. They didn’t understand that they were also receiving spiritual food, the gift of eternal life wrapped up within the crumb of bread. They simply didn’t understand what they were getting….isn’t this still happening today? Do people really understand what they’re getting when they come forward to the table? In my humble opinion, I think many people are still not getting the point.
How could this be possible in today’s world? Good Christians come forward to the table for all sorts of reasons….not understanding the true gift being given.
How can they truly receive when they don’t understand what they’re being given?
I disagree. How can a starving child (or adult) be taught “spiritual” things when they are physically hurting from hunger? So Jesus only came to help the world spiritually? Really? He had no concern for the religious and political injustices that made families hungry to begin with? What kind of God wants to be known spiritually over and above physical suffering??? I find that kind of God disgusting and unhelpful.
David; I had the chance to be at a conference at Lutheridge in NC where you and Carolyn were the main speakers. I have enjoyed following your journey ever since. Communion and Baptism are sacred and holy to me. I liked your words about the surprising nature of this meal; also we love because God first loved us. I have experienced the power of that knowledge in my ministry of over 50 years. I expect to use many of your thoughts on communion Sunday. Thanks for taking the time to share with us even though you serve a very large church.