August 12, 2018 Pentecost 12 Lectionary 19 Second Reading: Ephesians 4:25--5:2 Christians are called to be imitators of God. This does not mean Christians are perfect. Rather, the Spirit is at work in our lives so that our actions and attitudes genuinely reflect the love and forgiveness we have received through Christ and his death. 25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 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. 29 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. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51 After feeding more than five thousand people in the wilderness, Jesus teaches them regarding the true significance of this remarkable sign. 35 Jesus said to [the crowd,] I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. 42 They were saying, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I have come down from heaven? 43 Jesus answered them, Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 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. 18PENT12LECT19 1
Have you ever learned a new word and then it seems like for the next month you hear that word come up in a friend s conversation, on a television show, or in a book you are reading? Sometimes we wonder about how that is. Is it just that the word has always been around us, but somehow now we are paying attention, our radar is out on it, so somehow the antennas of our brains just pick it up more? Or is it more than that? What do we make of these coincidences? Some people say there are no coincidences, just God-incidences. One of my favorite authors talks about this in this way. He writes: Coincidence. I think of a person I haven't seen or thought of for years, and ten minutes later I see her crossing the street. I turn on the radio to hear a voice reading the biblical story of Jael, which is the story that I have spent the morning writing about. A car passes me on the road, and its license plate consists of my wife's and my initials side by side. When you tell people stories like that, their usual reaction is to laugh. One wonders why. I believe that people laugh at coincidence as a way of relegating it to the realm of the absurd and of therefore not having to take seriously the possibility that there is a lot more going on in our lives than we either know or care to know. Who can say what it is that's going on? But I suspect that part of it, anyway, is that every once and so often we hear a whisper from the wings that goes something like this: "You've turned up in the right place at the right time. You're doing fine. Don't ever think that you've been forgotten." I think whatever we think about coincidences, it is tied with story. The story of our lives. The story of the places and people we have met along the way in this journey through life. When we think of these memories, when they jumped into our heads by whatever mechanism or proceeding 18PENT12LECT19 2
event that may cause certain brain synapses to fire, it often has to do with the way were treated in a certain situation. The way others may have responded to us, welcomed us, accepted us, connected to us, as well as perhaps the way others may have rejected us, perhaps even made fun of us, or ignored us. These experiences are often etched upon our brain, and even though we may go years between passages of such thoughts, whenever all of the sudden they come rushing back to the forefront of our thinking, we attach meaning to them, and they still often impact us in the moment. Often what we primarily remember about others is how they acted toward us. Were they kind, generous, loving, or did we experience the opposite? This morning we heard again about Jesus being the bread of life, that Jesus is our source for being, our source of love, acceptance, and welcoming throughout our lives. We are in the midst of these several Sundays with the bread of life being a major theme in our Gospel readings from the book of John. Jesus likely uses bread as a metaphor, because it resembled a core aspect of existence, not only for people living then, but it is also one that has lasted, and likely will continue to last, throughout the history of humanity, because we all need to eat, and bread, in its many permutations and presentations, has far from gone out of style. However, we have also been reading in our second lessons, these last few weeks as well, passages from the book of Ephesians. In it, we hear the apostle write about another key ingredient to living, that of relationships. If Jesus is the bread of life, which we as Christians certainly claim as foundational, if Jesus is the bread of life, relationships are often the stuff of life. Relationships to places and things for sure, but ultimately relationships, not only to our God, but to one another. The author writes 18PENT12LECT19 3
this beginning with verse 29: 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. A fragrant offering to God. Our relationships, the way we treat each other in this life, are a fragrant offering to God. How we act and do not act toward each other are not merely coincidences, but our relationships to each other are reflective of God-incidences. In our discipleship we are to be a fragrant offering to God so how are you smelling? How is your living room smelling? How is your office or classroom smelling? What is wafting to God from you and your neighbors, you and your spouse, you and your children, as we think of the way we treat each other in relationship as part of our fragrant offering to God? How about our country right now? How is our country smelling in relationship to be Christian, to be Christ like, to be imitators of God, to one another? I do not care on what side of the aisle you sit politically. If we think of ourselves as a Christian nation, how are we doing regarding our discipleship in following the verses from the Bible in this book of Ephesians of how we treat each other as a reflection of believing and trusting Jesus as our bread of life, and our behaviors toward one another? Again, those words: 18PENT12LECT19 4
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. We are a divided nation. We, as citizens of this country, disagree on a wide range of issues. We may agree with each other on this issue but disagree with each other on another. The disagreements are not the sole issue. If you go back to the founding fathers of our country, they had major disagreements. In a way our country and democracy has thrived because we have allowed differing viewpoints to hopefully enrich the good we do for the building up of our country in long run. It is not the disagreement of views that is a roadblock to our working together; it seems today division as risen new heights because of the way we treat the other. The way we categorized, dismiss, demean, bully or attack one another does not model a way that brings out what we hope is best for our country, and particularly for those of us who claim to want to be an imitator of Christ. This just doesn t apply to our country either. It is true in our faith traditions, it is true in our churches, it is true in our pews, it is true in our schools, it is true in our households. Whatever arena in which we interact with others, what we believe about our faith matters, what we hold to be the stuff of life, the bread of life, makes a difference. I know that I fall short sometimes. It is easy to succumb to villainizing the other. However, we as 18PENT12LECT19 5
Christians are called not to be perfect, but to be strident imitators of God; not so that we can earn our way to rewards and eternal life, but because we are called to reflect God s love of us to others. 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. Amen. 18PENT12LECT19 6