Sunday, September 19th, 2021 – Small, a sermon on Mark 9:30-37

Gospel: Mark 9:30-37

³⁰[Jesus and the disciples went on] and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” ³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. ³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Prayer

Have you ever been too small for a carnival ride? Can you remember that feeling? Of waiting in line and then seeing the required height and….ummm…I don’t know – am I gonna make it? And then turning your back against that wooden measuring plank for your fate to be revealed in the eyes of others?

That’s the whole premise of the 1988 movie Big. Where 12-year-old Josh Baskin stands in line for the coolest and scariest carnival ride – the Super Loops – trying to look brave and mature in front of Cynthia Benson. When he’s next in line, he charges on to the ride, only to be stopped. He can’t go on. He’s not tall enough. He’s too small. You can feel in your bones the embarrassment of the moment. To make it worse, the carnival workers says to Josh, “Look – why don’t you just go try the kiddy-wheel.”

As Josh walks away through the crowd, deflated by his smallness, he comes across a fortune teller machine – ZOLTAR. He puts in his quarter, the lights go on, the mechanical fortune teller comes to life and Josh is instructed to make a wish.

“Make a wish, make a wish…” Josh whispers to himself, “I wish I were…big.”

A card drops down from the machine declaring – Your wish is granted. And then Josh looks at the ground – and guess what? The machine has been unplugged the whole time. That’s when you know something unusual is going on.

Well, as you some of you know, Josh wakes up the next morning – he’s big. A full-fledged adult, played, of course, by Tom Hanks. Josh goes on to live life as an adult, horrifyingly and hilariously, for a few weeks before tracking down that same fortune teller machine, which in the end returns him to his regular-sized self.

I wish I were big…have you ever thought that? Or felt that?

Or maybe a better question is – when was the last time you felt small? Even big people can feel small. When was the last time you felt not tall enough and you just wish the world would treat you as if you were bigger?

Was it when you were talking to your father on the phone recently, and that same subtle condescending tone invaded the conversation?

Or perhaps was it when your adult children sat you down and suggested…maybe it was time to start touring the local nursing homes.

Or was it when you found out your friends had gotten together but no one bothered to call you?

When was the last time you felt so small? I’m not just talking to the adults here. Even the youngest among us can feel small. Few children want to be treated like someone younger than them…absolutely not.

In our gospel reading, Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where the cross happens. Jesus is teaching the disciples. Teaching them some rather mature-level material. Teaching them about betrayal and death. That he, the Son of Man, will be betrayed and killed. And on the third day he will rise again.

But they…well…they didn’t really understand it. And like many of us when we don’t understand something – they were afraid to ask the teacher about it.

Instead, in what feels like vulnerability and fear, the disciples start to argue about which one of them is the greatest. They want to know who is the best. Who is the biggest. Who is number 1. And nothing reveals one’s own insecurity, one’s feeling of being small inside, quite like arguing for who’s the best at something.

And when that happens, it just brings everything to a halt for Jesus. Full stop. He sits down, gathers the disciples around and says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And then he takes a little child and puts it among them. Takes it in his arms, and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

In this serious moment of teaching, Jesus takes a little child and places it among them. Among the big disciples.

Consider for a moment the question “What is a child?” How would you answer?

Would you say a child is…precious? Beautiful? Innocent? Pure? Would you say…free? Unburdened by life? It’s these sorts of words that allow adults to say after a day at the waterpark and with a big smile on their face, “I felt like a kid again.”

But there is another side to this coin.

A child is also vulnerable. Fragile. Dependent. Needy, even. Uneducated, perhaps. Children need to be cared for, fed, washed, taught.

It is these sorts of words that lead adults to say things like, “Don’t treat me like a child.” Don’t treat me like I can’t do it on my own. Don’t treat me like I’m 12 years old. Don’t treat me like I’m not tall enough.

Sometime even us grown-ups will say to our grown-up parents…”Don’t treat me like a child.” And yet we are their children.

Everyone wants to be a kid again but no one wants to be treated like a child.

So, what is a child then, and when, if ever, do we stop being one?

Jesus take a child and set it among them…so, before we get too sentimental about Jesus gathering up a cute, little child in his arms, ready for their family photoshoot at 3 months, in Jesus’ society and perhaps even our own (though we’d never admit it), children were considered lowly and “last of all.” In Jesus’ day, perhaps as a result of the high infant mortality rate at the time, children were rather ignored and marginalized, even seen as not fully human just yet. That seems unthinkable to many of us – until someone treats us like a child, that is.

Even the word for “child” in this text is the same word used for servant. People would refer to servants in their household, regardless of age, as “my little ones.” The person of littler worth.

Children were not seen as the cute and cuddly human being to be cherished and to carry all our future potential. Children were rather small, useless, dependent and needy resource drains that couldn’t be trusted to live past the age of five.

And yet Jesus takes THIS little one – this child – and places them in front of him, actually in the crook of the arm, and says, “Whenever you welcome a child, when you welcome a little one, you welcome me. And you welcome God.”

Jesus knew his disciples. He’d traveled for years with the on the road. He knows them – knows when they are afraid. Perhaps when Jesus takes the child and places it among them, he’s holding up a mirror to the disciples. Revealing their own smallness. And when Jesus says, when you welcome one such as this you welcome me, he is saying, “I am with you, even when you feel small.” Jesus is binding himself not to our greatness, but to our smallness.

Remember, they are on the road to Jerusalem. Again, Jerusalem is where the cross happens. On the cross, Jesus becomes small. And weak. He is stripped nearly naked like a baby. He becomes thirsty and dependent upon others. Like a young person too small for the carnival ride, he gets picked on and bullied by those pointing their fingers at him. He doesn’t even hang in there very long – he dies rather quickly, much to everyone’s surprise. And in the end, he too needs to be cradled in the arms of another, as he is carried to the tomb.

On the cross, God becomes small. The Rev. Sally Hitchner says, “This is God bound to our smallness… to the parts we wish others didn’t see. The parts we are not proud of.” To our failures and weaknesses.

Maybe this passage isn’t about feeling big and righteous and learning to be really good at welcoming all kinds of people into your life. Maybe this is more about how when we are at our most vulnerable, when we feel at our most useless and powerless, that God stitches God’s self to us.

This past week, I heard the story of Chuck Sereika. On September 11^th, 2001, Chuck Sereika, who lived in New York City, woke up late. He had slept through Monday, working off a hangover. His life was kind of in shambles. He was drinking and acting out in different ways…he was depressed, sleeping a lot. But that day, he turned on the TV and saw that the planes had hit the two towers.

In his own words, he wasn’t that connected to the city. He wasn’t connected to anything really, and he didn’t really grasp what was happening and didn’t have many thoughts about it. But that morning, his estranged sister had left a message on his voicemail. She said, “Chuck, I hope you are okay. You are probably down there helping.”

“She thinks I’m down there helping,” Chuck said, “why would she think that? Nothing was further from my mind than to be down there helping…why would I be down there helping? I’m an ex-paramedic, trying to recover from drugs and alcohol…and she thinks I’m down there helping.” Chuck didn’t want to help, but he also didn’t want to let his sister down. So he goes down to Ground Zero, but with no intention of putting himself in harm’s way. “I might go to a triage area. Help bandage people. Help give them water. Things of that nature,” he said. “I just wanted to be able to call my sister and say, ‘Hey. Guess what? I’m down there helping.’ That’s it. That was my whole motivation.” He simply wanted his sister to think he was someone who helped people. You can imagine how small and insignificant Chuck felt.

Eventually, Chuck’s down at Ground Zero, waiting around like everyone else, not knowing what to do, as it’s getting dark. “I’m standing on the edge of the rubble,” he said, “And you could look down and see fire coming up. I’m extremely scared of fire. I’m extremely scared of smoke and heights. I have no plans to crawl on any rubble to rescue any person. My plans were to be able to call my sister Joy and tell her that I am down there helping.”

But then, Chuck took a first step onto the rubble. He doesn’t know why he did it – he just did. And as he crawled and walked over the rubble, he sees a Marine standing out there…in a hole, with smoke and fire coming out…and shouting that there were people who needed to be rescued.

Chuck was thinking “Where are all the men and where is this rescue happening?” And the Marine is looking at him like, “Hooray! The rescuers have arrived.” After learning that Chuck was an ex-paramedic, the Marine pointed down into the hole. Chuck thought, “I am not going down in there.” But then he could see a hand waving 50 feet down into the rubble. Chuck thought to myself… “Maybe his life is worth more than my life. My life wasn’t going very well.” And he crawled down into the hole – a firey smoky hole.

In the rubble, Chuck finds Port Authority Officer Will Jimeno, who is trapped. They started to dig him out. But with the fire and smoke coming through, they were obviously in grave danger. Every cell in Chuck’s body said, “Get out of here.” It felt like the hole was about to collapse. No one felt like they were strong enough to make it through this moment.

But Chuck and this Marine decide that they would not leave Will. They said, “If we die, we die with each other.” No one was gonna leave without Will. In that moment, they stitched their lives together.

Eventually more and more people found them and came to help…and with the jaws of life, Will Jimeno was freed from the rubble and brought to safety.

But in the end, even now, 20 years later, Chuck says, “I give myself no credit for any part of that rescue. God uses the weak to confound the wise. God uses the low. The low people of the world to confound the wise. There is no way I could turn around and say it was me. I had no desire, no will, no strength, no power, to accomplish what the Lord used me to do that night.”^[1]

On September 11^th, 2001, Chuck’s life felt pretty small. Nothing was going all that well. He wasn’t measuring up to much. But it is in these moments – when everything feels fragile and no one – no one – feels great about just about anything…when we all feel pretty useless…Jesus takes the smallest one and places them among us, like a mirror, and says “Whenever you welcome one such as this, you welcome me.” Jesus meets us in the rubble of life and Jesus says, “You don’t have to be the greatest. You don’t have to be big. You can be small. I will be with you there.”

Amen.

^[1] This story is retold from Episode 6 of National Geographic documentary 9/11: One Day in America, 2021.

Sunday, September 5th, 2021 – Under the Table and Dreaming, a Sermon on Mark 7:24-37

Sep9

Gospel: Mark 7:24-37

²⁴[Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

This past week, I was coming home one day from church, and as I opened the front door, I discovered it was blocked from fully opening. I peeked my head through and there is my wife Lauren practically laying the full weight of her body on top of our dog, Potter, having wrestled him to the ground. Now, this isn’t the first time this has happened – this is dog trainer approved. No dogs were harmed in the writing of this sermon. But whenever this happens, I know that Potter got a little rambunctious in the kitchen, probably somewhat destructive too, and Lauren has tried everything else to calm down this 65-pound creature.

So, there’s Lauren, with our dog pinned to the ground, and she looks up at me with these gentle but firm eyes and simply says, “He hasn’t sighed yet.”

He hasn’t sighed yet. What am I talking about? So, the multiple handful of times we’ve wrestled our dog to the ground, there is this moment we wait for. It’s a moment when Potter lets out this big sigh and finally relaxes his body. He sort of gives in. And says, “Okay. I get it.”

Well, on this particular day, eventually Potter sighed. Lauren was fine. Potter was fine. It’s all good.

But I tell you this story because, like a little gift from the angels of preaching, it contains three things we find in our gospel reading that I want to talk about.

Homes. Dogs. And sighs.

First, homes. More specifically – a house. Someone’s house.

At the beginning of the Gospel reading, we learned that Jesus has gone to a place called Tyre, which is outside Galilee – Gentile territory. He’s just fed the 5,000 people, he’s healed a few others, he’s argued with the pharisees and scribes about the distinction between defilement and sin. And now, he’s headed out of town. He’s crossed the border from Galilee to Tyre. He’s entered foreign territory. He’s outside his homeland. But then with what appears like no hesitation, he just enters a house. He just walks right in. The text reads…

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.

Whose home is this? Do they know Jesus squatting there? Is this like a 1^st Century Airbnb/couch surfing kind of deal? Where is he and how on earth is this a thing? Out of all the commentaries I have read on this text, no one seems alarmed or bothered by Jesus just breaking into homes outside of Galilee.

But the interesting thing about entering houses that don’t belong to you is that Jesus actually talks about them in the gospel of Mark. Way back in chapter 3, Jesus describes his ministry as breaking into the house of the evil one (the “Strong man” as Mark calls him) and tying him up.

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand…no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man;”

And now, we’ve got Jesus in chapter 7 – outside his home and homeland – he’s in foreign territory and he’s entered a house. Whose house?! And he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. Is he worried the owners might come back? Is someone tied up in there? Creepy, right?

But then this woman shows up. And she enters the house. Did she knock? Did he open the door? Or was Jesus hiding behind the door, like when sales people come to the house, and you’ve turned off all the lights and you’re trying to be as quiet as possible, whispering, “Please go away, please go away.”

We don’t know. She just shows up. Because her daughter is sick and she’s desperate. That’s what desperate people do. They just show up. At clinics, at airports, at food shelves, at back-to-school socials. Any place there might be a chance of rescue and hope.

So now we have two people in this house neither of them own. And we’ve got a whole crockpot full of social and cultural boundaries that have been crossed. Jesus is a Jew in Gentile territory. She is a woman meeting alone with a man who is not her husband or family member. So these boundaries are set up to divide them. But remember, “a house divided cannot stand.”

Okay, we’ve talked a bit about houses. And now we need to talk about dogs.

So, this woman finds Jesus and begs him to heal her daughter of the demon that has possessed her. Think for a second about the amount of desperation and hope and trust that is contained in this moment. This mother has left her sick child – who knows how far away – to take a chance that this foreigner she’s heard so much about can and would even be willing to heal her. It makes me think of the image of parents in Afghanistan handing their infant child over the barrier to strangers at the Kabul Airport. Utter desperation and hesitant trust and fragile hope.

She begs Jesus to heal her daughter. But then Jesus says that line, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Dogs. Jesus does here what most of us can’t stomach Jesus doing – like an ill-behaved Jewish adolescent, Jesus uses a slur to refer to someone who isn’t Jewish. Here, Jesus – who proclaimed a house divided cannot stand – tries to divide this house he’s in even futher. To split it in two – children of Israel….and dogs.

Now there are many ways one could respond to an insult.

Preacher Anna Carter Florence says, “you can endure it, with a bruised dignity. Or…You can refute it – ‘No, I am not a dog. Thank you very much.’

Or…You can return the insult in kind – ‘So, I’m a dog, am I? Well, you are a circumcised, son of (a carpenter, and born in a backwater town like Bethlehem).’ You can escalate the verbal violence, insult for insult until words turn into fists, and fists into guns, and guns into wars. It happens all the time.”

Or you can find another way to respond, Anna Carter Florence says. Listen.

“It isn’t fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs…”

“Yes, Lord…but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Yes, Lord – but even the dogs. She takes this derogatory phrase used against her to separate her and she reclaims it. She retools it in a way that makes room.

In his book, Tattoos on the Heart, Father Greg Boyle tells stories about being a priest at a church in Los Angeles. In the late 80s, his church declared itself a “sanctuary” church – meaning a place where undocumented people were safe. As a result, each night, undocumented people from Mexico and Central America were sleeping in the church. This brought a lot of attention from the local media. One day, Father Greg was driving to the church, only to discover that the night before someone had spray painted across the front steps – WETBACK CHURCH. “Wetback” being a derogatory term for an undocumented person.

At a meeting that morning, Father Greg reassured members of the church that he would get someone to clean up that offensive graffiti as soon as possible. But then Petra, a relatively quiet member of the church spoke up and said, “You will not clean that up…If there are people in our community who are disparaged and hated and left out because they are mojados (wetbacks)…then we shall be proud to call ourselves a wetback church.”^[1] She reclaims the insult.

“It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs…”

In fact, the Syrophoenician woman does, in this moment, this subtle and yet incredible thing. Jesus says it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs. As theologian Sharyn Dowd points out, Jews did not keep dogs in the house. They weren’t house pets. Dogs were meant to stay outside – which is why you might throw food to them from the front door. Because they are outside. Gentiles, like this woman, however, would domesticate dogs and would let them in the house.^[2] And so this woman says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord. Dogs. But even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Eric Hesse (United States, b. 1971)
*Nora-loo*
Used with permission

Under the table, Jesus. Inside. Where there is no need to take from some and throw to others. No, even we dogs are inside the house. Not outside the house. Up here – in Tyre and Sidon, Jesus, where you are…you know, this place outside your home land, where you get to come inside. Inside this house that is not yours –here, even the dogs get to come in, don’t they?… and sit under the table, waiting for the abundance that might fall from above. You know, maybe some of that abundance from the feeding of the 5,000 everyone has been talking about. Do you remember it, Jesus? Where there were 12 baskets of crumbs left over?

She brilliantly and bravely takes Jesus’ metaphor and repurposes it. She twists his own words and images from one of scarcity where there is not enough and we must take from each other, to a world where there is more than enough – where tables and cups runneth over with crumbs and drips. She turns this house divided into a house where all are allowed inside.

“If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand…no one can enter a strong man’s house … without first tying up the strong man.”

She enters this house where Jesus is, and ties him up with his own words, demanding the abundance of God’s grace. Who’s the strong one now? Like Jacob wrestling with God into the night, unwilling to let go until he receives a blessing, she too will not let up. For the sake of her daughter, she’s got Jesus pinned. And Jesus knows it.

“For saying that,” Jesus says, “you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

He hears her. His ears are opened to her. He’s changed by her. Thank God.

We’ve talked about houses. We’ve talked about dogs.

Now, we talk have to talk about sighs.

Immediately after Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus is confronted with another gentile….another dog. Only this time – things appeared to be different. Changed. Wider. More abundant. The people bring to Jesus a deaf man with a speech impediment. They are begging Jesus to heal him. And Jesus knows better now – to not put a border around God’s mercy and grace. To not try to limit or prioritize or contain it to just a few. Because the prophets and the poets and the parents will grab a hold of it and stretch the grace of God if need be.

And so Jesus took this man to the side. Put his fingers in the man’s ear. Spat and touched the man’s tongue. And then he looked up to heaven…and he sighs. He sighs and says, “Be opened.”

I don’t know about you, but a sigh seems to be about one of the most spiritual thing we can. To be reminded that we still have the breath, the spirit of God within us – to both sustain us and to share with others. As some of have said, a sigh is like a biological reset button. A chance to start again. In fact, can we all just take a deep breath and let out a sigh, and at the end, “Be opened.” Ready, deep breath in. *sigh*…be opened.

I wonder what that shakes loose in you. I wonder what in your life needs to be broken open. To be reset. Where do you need to be wrestled to the ground so that you can start again?

As one theologian said, “we’re living through times when the possibility of a divine sigh resonates so deeply. I can relate to it. I can feel it in my body, from my lungs down to my toes. Exhausted sighs. Bewildered sighs. Impatient, frustrated, angry sighs. Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs. Thank God.”^[3]

Jesus puts his fingers in this man’s ears, and he looks up to heaven and sighs. And then he says, “Be opened.” He’s clearly talking to or about the man’s ears – for them to be opened and restored. But I can’t help but wonder after his encounter with the Syrophoenician woman if Jesus isn’t also talking to himself.

Be opened.

Be opened, he says, with eyes cast towards the heavens.

Like my wife and our dog Potter, this Syrophoenician woman wrestles Jesus to the theological floor and will not let up… until he sighs. Until he gives up and lets go and is opened and the kingdom of God is stretched a little wider to include those still under the table and dreaming.

Amen.

^[1] Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, pg. 72.

^[2] Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel

^[3] Debie Thomas, https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3131

Sunday, August 15th, 2021 – Life in You, a Sermon on John 6:51-58

Sep9

Gospel: John 6:51-58

[Jesus said,] 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.” ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So 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. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This 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.”

A few years ago, when our high schoolers went to Houston, Texas, for a mission trip, we visited and were introduced to Nu Waters Food Co-Op. We were told this was one of few food co-ops in the state of Texas, and its mission and ministry was to end the food dessert in its neighborhood and to heal its community. A food desert is the phrase for an area where it is difficult to buy affordable or good quality food.

At this visit, the manager of the store was teaching us about the neighborhood and the history of Nu Waters which began in 2014. When she learned that we were from Minnesota, she said, “Oh! You have lots of really good Co-ops up there. We are the only one around. Up in Minnesota, the competition for your co-ops is places like Cub Foods and Hy-Vee. Around here, we are competing with the gas station down the street – that’s where people go get food around here.” She went on to tell us about how there were so few options for healthy and affordable food in the neighborhood, that adults and kids a like were surviving on gas station food. Kids having rainbow slushies for breakfast, young adults having chips and fried hotdogs for lunch each day. Let me be clear – this isn’t a situation of simply people making poor choices. This is about what people can afford and have access to. And they neighborhood was learning that there was a physical, bodily cost to this. Their community was dying from lack of nutrition. Diabetes and heart disease were plaguing them. Slowly but surely they were losing the life within them. And so members of the community came together to start Nu Waters, where people not only had access to fresh and affordable food, but membership at the co-op also included health insurance, dental insurance, and help with their prescription medication costs, and not only that, but they also offered space to sell the pottery and scarves and art from their community too.

All at the tiny shop on the corner of the block.

It’s this amazing place that was concern about what their people were putting into their bodies that was slowly causing problems, and they decided to do something about it. And they knew they had an uphill climb and work to do to show people there were good things out there for them and their bodies.

In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus too is worried about what we take in as nourishment for our bodies. Spiritual nourishment. He says to the people this haunting but also curious line – “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” I want us to think about what Jesus means when he says that line.

Now – to begin, we are still in chapter 6 of the gospel of John – what’s known as the Bread of Life Discourse. We’ve been hanging out here the past few weeks. It all started a few weeks back when we heard about the feeding of the many thousands. This crowd of people were following Jesus and his disciples around, because they had heard about this guy who brought good news and hope wherever he went. And they were hungry for that. Hungry in their bodies and in their souls. And when that hunger got to a loud and ear-splitting grumble, Jesus had everyone sit down on the grass. To rest awhile. And with what looked like not-nearly-enough, everyone was filled with good things.

And the people? They couldn’t get enough. They wanted more from wherever that came from. So they chased after Jesus for more of this bread. As one preacher put it, Jesus simply says to them, “It’s me. I am the bread. Cling to me. Take me in. Put your trust here. I am the story of God that will feed you and continue to feed you. I am the bread of life.”^[1] Feast on me. Let me sustain you.

And then we get that line from today – Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. You have no life in you. That’s kind of a scary line. Sounds like a punishment if we don’t get in line and get on the Jesus train – no life for you.

But what if it isn’t punishment, but rather just truth. Remember in the gospel of John we hear that Jesus is full of God’s grace and truth. And not just truth – but worry too.

Throughout this long Bread of Life discourse, it’s easy and important for us to think about this story from the perspective of the people, as the ones to whom Jesus offers bread. But I’ve been helped this week by a person named Debie Thomas, who invites us to think about this text from God’s perspective. She invites us up from the table and into the kitchen. “If Jesus is the bread of life, what is it like for him to feed us?” How does a feeding, nourishing God feel when we say yes to that food? And what’s it like for God when we say no to it?

As she wonders about this…Debie Thomas goes on to share her story as a mother whose child struggles with an eating disorder.

She writes, “Wrecked by anxiety, perfectionism, and American culture’s toxic obsession with thinness, our daughter had developed anorexia nervosa, one of the deadliest of all mental illnesses. Within a matter of months, our family dining table became a battlefield. Grocery shopping became an exercise in desperation and agony. All attempts at persuasion failed, and my husband and I faced the real prospect that our child might starve herself to death in the name of what her illness insisted was ‘health.’

There are no words to express what I felt as a mother as I watched my child waste away. All I wanted in the universe was to feed her. To cook anything she’d eat, to place warm and nourishing plates of food in front of her and coax her — even if it took hours — to take those essential nutrients into her weakened body. When she kept refusing, my heart broke, hardened, and broke again. Too many times to count. I panicked. I seethed. I grieved. I begged. I experienced a kind of powerlessness I hope never to experience again. I was her mother. The one who was supposed to nurture, nourish, feed, protect, and sustain my children. What was this monstrous sickness that made basic, elemental feeding impossible?”^[2]

And what must it have been like for her daughter, to be stuck in the cement of worry and anxiety of wanting to be well, but feeling like what you think you can control and trust, you can’t – and those you can trust are suspect too.

And so when Jesus says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you,” it’s easy to hear those words as words of religious morality. “You must do things this way or life will be withheld from you.” But what if we hear them as words of worry. And truth. As the words of the people in Houston – who want nothing but to fill their neighborhood and their neighbors with good things. Good food. Good health care. Good love. What if we hear them “as the desperate words of a parent who knows exactly what makes for life and what makes for death.”^[3] A parent who just desperately wants their beloved child to eat and have food that gives life.

I am the bread of life, Jesus says. Cling to me. Take me in. Put your trust here. I will feed you.

I was reminded this past week by a preacher named Jodi Hogue, of a little book that looks like a children’s book but it’s for people of all ages. It’s called Sleeping with Bread. If you get all the way through the book, you’ll see that it leads you into a prayer practice. It asks questions like “What part of your day felt like life, and what felt like dread?” “What are you most grateful for and what are you least grateful for?” It’s about asking, where did I notice the presence of God? Where did I taste the bread of life today?

It’s called Sleeping with Bread, because it is based on the story of the children who came out of World War II, who were traumatized and hungry. They knew a hunger that most of us I suspect will never know. It was a hunger that even after the children had had a really good and filling meal, it was still so hard to get to sleep at night because they were so worried that there wouldn’t be food in the morning. But then their caregivers figured something out – that if they gave each of child a piece of bread to sleep with, they’d fall right asleep, knowing that there would be bread in the morning.

But Jesus says, I am the bread of life. I am the living bread. In our reading, he says, “Whoever eat this food that never perishes abides in me and I abide in them.” Abide is like the gospel of John’s favorite word – it’s used over 40 times to describe God’s relationship with God’s people. It means to remain, to stay, to continue to dwell with.” Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Take me with you. Tuck me under your arm. I’ll stay with you at night. Everything else you think will give life just fades away and leaves you hungry. Leaves you with no life in you.

So let me ask – what kind of spiritual food are you surviving on these days? What are you carrying with you? Is it Jesus – the bread of heaven – and his fulfilling promises that says you are enough? You are worthy to be loved and to give love. Or are you living on food that will give you spiritual heart dis-ease? Where all the other things we worship – like work, products, success, and other people’s expectations – simply offer us empty promises. I don’t know about you, but I don’t go to sleep with good, nourishing, spiritual bread next to be, I go to sleep with my phone. Right beside me on the nightstand. We carry with us the things that make us think we are full, but don’t sustain us one bit. Things that numb us, preventing us from ever really feeling the presence of God. We cling to all sorts of things that do not give us life.

But Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Cling to me. Take me in. Put your trust here.” Like the food co-op in Houston, like the mother of a sick child, God just wants good things for us. To have bread from heaven that we can carry with us each night, and tuck under our arms as we fall asleep.

And here’s the thing: I think we know we are hungry for this bread of life. And here’s the thing: I think we know we reach for other food that does not give us life. I know I do.

But the gift of grace, the gift of forgiveness, is that Jesus never stops reaching out with bread for us. Jesus comes to us over and over and over again. Jesus shows up in communities like this one – doing church as best we can. Jesus shows up in small interactions with familiar faces whose names we can’t remember on the sidewalk. Jesus shows up in the quilt of people that come together to give thanks for and grieve the loss of a loved one. I could keep going.

I don’t know about you, but when I am honest, I am hungry for this bread always.

I leave you with the words of Debie Thomas…

I wonder if Jesus sounds the alarm so urgently because he knows how much and how badly we need the nourishing, life-sustaining food he alone can provide. I wonder if he, too, grieves and weeps, seethes and pleads, fears and hopes, when we walk away from his table, refuse his bread, and say no to his outstretched hands. I wonder how he sits with his own vulnerability, his own powerlessness — the terrible cost of the freedom he’s given us to starve ourselves if we so choose. I wonder how our Mother God yearns to gather us around her table, coax the bread of life into our mouths, and watch us once again thrive and flourish under her care.

“Whoever eats me will live because of me,” Jesus says. He is our bread, he is our bread, he is our bread. (We’ve been given 5 weeks to chew on this truth for a reason) – this teaching is (essential). It is rock bottom (of our faith). It is the core of who (this nourishing) God is, and who we are (as her people). May we ever eat, and live.^[4]

Amen

^[1] Jodi Hogue, sermon preached on August 8^th, 2021, at Humble Walk Church.

^[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3109-unless-you-eat

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/3109-unless-you-eat