How long, O Lord?

The massacre in San Bernardino today was the second mass shooting in recent memory to occur during Advent. The first, of course, being in Newtown in December of 2012. It's upsetting to me that this is is a thing that occurs so regularly that it has sub-sets and patterns.

During Advent, these mass murders strike a different chord.

A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

In 2012, the children in Newtown were killed on December 14--my mom's birthday--squarely in the middle of our season of hope. Of expectant anticipatory waiting for the Christ child to burst forth into our world of pain, crying out that God will make us new.

Pastor Dave put those words from John out on our marquee. We changed the hymns for Sunday morning.

Three years later, I'm in my car, thinking "do we have enough candles to light one for each victim at worship?" again. [#altarguildproblems, amirite?]

It's really painful to sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" and read John's cry from the wilderness...because we so desperately need it.

In a few hours, I'll be leading our Lessons and Carols service, where we'll read the prophecies and the familiar tales, and sing the words we likely know by heart--though with all the verses because this is church!

At first, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to do it. Like, that I'd get four words out and then cry.

But I'm reminded that this is what we do here. The world around us crumbles, and we gather to sing and pray and eat.

Do this for the re-membrance of me.

Flesh and Blood -- A Sermon on John 6

I preached this sermon to the good people of Messiah Lutheran Church, usually pastored by my seminary classmate Tyler.

--

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

Preachers often call these several weeks in the summer the “bread” season, because each week, Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life, or something similar, and we reflect on what it is to consume the bread and the wine that are the body and blood of Christ.

In my life, in August, I have heard sermon stories about bread-baking, and family traditions, and mealtime rituals, and theological explications of the real presence, and lists of people allowed and disallowed at the table, and calls for returns to full dinner church, and any number of things that weasel their way under the umbrella of bread.

But is this, truly, bread season? It sounds to me like this is flesh season. This week, the words of Jesus are:

“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….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.”

The key word in this passage to me does not seem to be “bread” but rather “flesh.” These days, we don’t get a lot of use out of the word “flesh.” Maybe we talk about things being flesh-toned—like fabrics or crayons. And maybe we say “fleshy” instead of “fat” to talk about a rotund body. For the most part, though, we’re so averse to anything visceral—fleshy, bloody, guts, eew—that we’ve abandoned the word altogether.

However, this context—eat my flesh, drink my blood—has become so familiar to us, as Christians. We are not scandalized by these words, we are comforted. We recognize this command, and we nod. In a few minutes, we’ll follow those directions and receive the bread and wine together.

If you’ve been attending a Lutheran church for any length of time, you’ve heard the words of institution over and over and over again—take, eat, this is my body; take, drink, this is my blood—to the point where it may, on some Sundays, not feel like it means much of anything.

But, if you, like me, are a lover of words, you may see in this gospel text the glorious promise in these words: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.”

You’ve heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” yeah? Truly, you are, because the nutrients your body gets from the food you put in your mouth is what the cells, as they reproduce, are building themselves of. I, for one, am largely made of coffee, of spinach, and of strawberry ice cream.

So what could these words of Jesus mean, then? That Jesus wants us to be made of flesh and of blood? Looking around, we seem to have that covered.

A 13th-century French rabbi named Ramban said something really interesting about this whole eating flesh and blood thing. Remember how, in the Torah, God gave the Israelites very specific prescriptions for their meat—they had to be sure to drain all the blood out of the flesh.

As a vegetarian, these details are all sort of gross to me, but, Ramban explained that the reason for this is that in the time of the Israelites—and in the time of Jesus—it was believed that if you ate meat that contained the blood of the animal, the blood, which contained the soul of the animal, would sort of transfuse with your blood and your soul and you would start to become like that animal.

So what Ramban is saying is that Jesus wanted people to consume that which would imbue them with his best characteristics—compassion, hospitality, love, justice.

What Jesus is explaining to us is that, if we do not consume the bread of life and wine of salvation we will have no life in us. We will not literally die of starvation if we do not receive the Eucharist on a regular basis. But we will not truly live. We will not thrive.

Sometimes I worry about this line “your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died,” because one could be led to think negatively of our Jewish forefathers, that their consumption of the manna God provided them was somehow in error. Their deep faith and the manna from heaven led them to the Promised Land. Their covenant was kept.

And Jesus is talking not about literal food, like manna—though his ministry does not ignore physical hunger—but rather he is setting the table for a new covenant. Times have changed. The Jews are up against new powers and principalities, new challenges, new fears. They needed a new way to thrive.

Because what we consume consumes us. We live in a very consumptive world right now—the United States of America is built on our consumption. Our economic stability is reflected in “consumer confidence”—I don’t think I have to tell you about the volume of food, gasoline, water, and other resources we consume on a regular basis. We know.

We know because it is so easy to be consumed by the idea that we live in a world of scarcity, where there is not enough food, or water, or gasoline to go around; we believe we have to grab and hoard. Part of why we consume in this manner is because we are also consuming and being consumed by dangerous things like fear. We are consuming a 24-hour news cycle predicated on keeping us glued to the TV—we are told about disasters, and accidents, and dangerous people, and scandals, and wars, and violence. Many of us start our days this way! No wonder we’re so harried.

When we consume all of this fear, we are bound to perpetuate it. When we consume the world around us—full of its prejudices, hatred, racism, sexism, imperialism, xenophobia—we will continue to be people of fear.

The good news is that there is good news! Jesus has come to us this morning—once again!—to say that he is the bread of life from heaven—true food, true drink—by which we will have life and life abundant.

If we eat this flesh and drink this blood, we will consume his love of neighbor, his work for justice, his prophetic speech, his hand outstretched. We will become people of truth, people of grace, people of love.

If we turn down the fear once in a while and listen, instead, to the Word, we will hear the world anew.

So, come—eat, drink, and live.

Get Up. Eat.

[I preached this sermon to the good people of Calvary Lutheran Church, usually pastored by my seminary classmate Kirsten.]

I Kings 19:4-8

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

John 6:35, 41-51

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always. Amen.

We're in the midst of several weeks—like every summer—in John’s gospel, talking about bread. Why the composers of the lectionary chose August for this task, I’m not sure. I’d much more easily conjure delightful images of steaming loaves of bread coming out of the oven and warming my kitchen if this were November or February—instead, I’m sweltering in the Sacramento heat, reluctant to consider turning on my oven.

Fortunately, bringing the good news and breaking bread with you this morning did not involve any time in an overheated kitchen, just a while with these words, listening for what God is telling us about the bread life again this time. 

I did a fair amount of listening this week. Thursday night was the GOP’s first televised debate of the primary season. Don’t worry—the guest preacher is not about to take sides from the pulpit! It’s amazing to me that several months prior to a single vote being cast, we’re already knee deep in political conversation, advertising, debating, accusing, demeaning vitriol. 

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has something to say about this behavior. How we conduct ourselves in social disagreements is always a challenge, but Paul reminds us to control ourselves. 

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths,” he says, “but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” 

We should, in all exchanges, build one another up. In what ways do the words of our Presidential hopefuls build us up? Build up our nation? Build up the opposing party? Fat chance.

“Putting away falsehood,” Paul writes, “let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” 

We’re members of many things. This church, maybe. A book club, a PTA, a gym, a political party, a frequent flier program, a family, a union, a food co-op, a neighborhood association. 

We are members, first and foremost, of the Body of Christ. As members of one body, we are called to be Christ’s hands, feet, ears, heart in the world. God’s work, our hands, our t-shirts might say.

In this Gospel text today, it’s very clear that Jesus’ words about bread were, well, not very clear. He opens with “I am the bread of life.” And immediately, his hearers are like, “What? First he’s Jesus, now he’s bread, who is this guy? He can’t’ve come down from heaven…he grew up around the corner from me.”

Jesus repeats himself, as usual, hoping that some form of the sentence will reach them. “I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that you may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Now we’re talking. Not only is Jesus the metaphorical bread of life, but the bread he intends us to eat is his flesh. As we can imagine, this is not exactly what his Jewish hearers were used to hearing. We have chapters and chapters of Mosaic law that explain just what Jews are supposed to eat, and human flesh is definitely not kosher. 

It’s language like this that got Jesus in trouble in the first place—and got Christians the grisly, incorrect rumors of cannibalism. The important, lasting piece here, though, is that the first thing the world knew about Christians is that they ate together. 

An Episcopal priest named Cathy Campbell wrote a book about the Christian relationship with food. She says, “Food is a social good. Throughout history, people have used food to express hospitality. Christ’s ministry was no exception. Yet Jesus’ table etiquette subverted all the ways in which we commonly create distinctions among food, people, or places at the table. Jesus took his faith into the company of tax collectors and sinners, of thieves and criminals, of the forsaken.”

When we gather at the table, we gather with all people at all tables. We are all members of this diner’s club. 

There are no rules, here. There’s no etiquette class, no dress code. Jesus ate with whomever was hungry—not who was wealthy or worthy or socially acceptable. Jesus did not exclude people from the table, and neither should we. 

We don’t have to know anything about theology or be able to explain the “real presence” to experience it. All we need to know is that we are hungry. 

And boy, are we hungry. When Jesus said, "I am the bread of life," he did not specify that he was the bread of life for some, but that whoever eats this bread will live forever. This morning is the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, infamously gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri last year. The ensuing Black Lives Matter movement has come from a deep hunger for justice, and has spread across this great nation to every community, in some way, black and white. Many preachers, some maybe even this morning, will say that Jesus said "all lives matter," but they will not know what they are doing. Jesus said marginalized lives matter--women's lives matter, the poor's lives matter, sick lives matter, ostracized lives matter. Black lives matter.

When Jesus broke bread with the disciples at the Last Supper, he acknowledged their hunger. He knew that every day for the rest of their lives, they would gather around a table to eat. Each time they did this, they were to recall that moment and that ministry. He knew that, very soon, they’d be broken—he’d be broken—we’ll be broken. But he knew, too, what words to say. “Do this for the remembrance of me.” That word, remember. It’s the opposite of the grisly dis-member. To re-member is put back together. To re-unify. To make whole. 

When we remember Jesus in this bread and wine, we are re-membered, to God and to one another. 

In the Old Testament reading from 1 Kings, Elijah lies down in the desert defeated. It’s a little dramatic, if you ask me, but I’m sure there are days when I, equivalently, lie down on the couch, defeated. But a still, small voice says “Get up. Eat.” The journey is long, and you need to be nourished. 

This final stretch of summer, this may be a journey of great joy—maybe it’s been full of family vacations and days at the lake and the state fair and weddings and grandparents. Maybe it’s been exhausting.  Maybe it’s full of deadlines at work or the stress of getting the kids out the door to the lake, or the expenses of back-to-school shopping, or the relentless 106-degree temperatures. Maybe you’re lying down in the desert, defeated. The good news is that there is good news. God comes to you, too, today. 

Our God created us and so understands us—our bodies need nourishment to function. Our spirits, too, need nourishment. We need water and cakes in the desert, and we need bread of life from heaven. We need to get up and eat. 

So, sisters and brothers, come to the table. Eat this bread that has come down from heaven, so that you may live. Amen.