10th SUNDAY
AFTER PENTECOST PROPER 14
August 09, 2009
the Rev. Ken Kroohs
(1st Kings 19:4-8; Ps. 34:1-8; Ephesians 4:25-5:2 John
6:35 & 41-51)
St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church,
High Point, NC
MAY
THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH ... AND THE MEDITATIONS OF ALL OUR HEARTS ... BE ALWAYS
ACCEPTABLE TO YOU --- OUR STRENGTH AND OUR REDEEMER AMEN
I
am intrigued by the relationship between our Gospel reading and our Epistle –
letter – reading. This is the same
relationship that many such pairing have but for some reason it hit me this
week.
In
essence, in the Gospels Jesus is giving a broad overview of what it means to be
a Christian. Then in the Epistles we
hear the details.
It
might be like Jesus stood up and announced “we are going to build a house” —
then others announced how big it would be, how many rooms, whether it would
have a garage, etc.
Today
Jesus announced: whoever believes has eternal life ... and whoever eats of this bread will live forever. Word we have heard many times but words
which could easily generate the questions: So what? What difference does this make?
How does it actually work?
To
which it is easy to respond that Jesus is announcing our eternal life. But that creates a problem if we link what
Jesus says only to eternal
life. Only to the next life. Only to life after death because Jesus
clearly was NOT making that link. In
fact, most of what Jesus says in this passage is about today – this life – now.
Jesus
says several times “I am the bread of
life” ... as important as that statement is ... I mean in many ways you can
argue it is the basis for much of what we do each Sunday ... as important as it
is we cannot really connect with that statement because bread is not as
important to us as it was to the people in Jesus’ time. Bread was life. Bread was essential to life.
Heck, we go on low carb diets to avoid bread! We are told that too much bread is a bad thing. So when Jesus says He is the bread of life –
it does not have much impact on us.
Jesus
was trying to illustrate the point that He is essential to life. Jesus is essential to life. .... Consider
that for a moment ... Jesus is essential to life. ... The bread part is not
important. If those people had better
understood science Jesus might have said “I
am the oxygen of life” ..... of course then I would not have been sure how
to do communion but we would have managed!
Jesus
tells us He is essential to this life.
Remember when He said “I am the
vine, you are the branches?” ... Jesus said, in essence, that everything
which matters comes from God. If we are
not receiving from God it is as if we are a plant not being watered. We struggle to survive.
Unfortunately
for us, sometimes the symptoms of struggling to survive are not very
clear. Sometimes we look around and
think “I am doing pretty good. This is OK.” without realizing what we
are missing.
Consider
what happens when we do eat bread. ... It quickly becomes part of us. All of us is affected by it. We grow from it. If Jesus is our “bread of life” than He is part of every
moment. He is not simply an occasional
thought.
What
happens? What happens when Jesus
becomes OUR ‘bread of life’? What
happens when we accept Jesus into our lives?
That’s
where Ephesians comes in! Most likely
this was intended as a letter to a specific community but soon was recognized
as speaking about the general human condition.
The challenges the Ephesians faced were no different from the challenges
faced by other people ... and by us.
Notice
too how much of what we read here is now accepted as general psychological
advice. I wonder how many self-help
books and shows have said “don’t let the sun go down on your anger” without
knowing that quote comes from the Bible?
You
may want to look at the passage as I go over it. .... Notice in the very
beginning the “why”. Why behave in
these ways? Because we are members of
one another. .... Today we might say: because
we are family. Because Jesus is our
bread of life, that makes us all connected.
Most importantly, it makes us all have responsibilities towards each
other.
Most
importantly we have a responsibility to God. ... An awesome responsibility to
God. An awesome responsibility to represent God. Many people look at the people in church in
an attempt to understand .. to see God.
If those people see us ... see us as not significantly different from
the people who do not attend church — what are we saying about God?
If
our visible actions, the way we use our time and money, are not significantly
different from non-church goers ---- what does that say? ... Representing God
is an awesome responsibility.
If Jesus is our bread of life. If
Jesus is part of us. If we follow
Jesus and want to grow closer to God — then we are to take these lessons from
Ephesians to heart and show those people that Christians are different.
“Speak
the truth” — notice later it says “let no evil talk come out of your mouths” so
it is not about attacking people but about helping us both grow.
“Be
angry but do not sin” is another good piece of advice. A secular therapist would phrase it slightly
differently but the same point would be made.
My mother phrased it “when you jump into the sewer to fight you come out
just as dirty as the other guy”.
I
would argue that a person who does not get upset, even angry is not behaving as
a Christian. God got angry but go back
and notice when that happened. It
happened when God’s people were being mis-treated. Sometimes they were mis-treating themselves by mis-behaving but
many times it was when people were mis-treating other people.
I
like the phrase “righteous anger” — which means the kind of anger God might
have. It means anger at people who are
mis-treating other people. Anger at
injustice.
Such
anger seeks to correct the wrong. The
bully abusing a weaker person ... and this happens more often in adult society
with words than in middle school with fists ... the bully abusing a weaker
person should generate anger. But anger
that results in some action to end the injustice. This is not the fuming, screaming, let’s see if I can hurt the
other person kind of anger – that is sinning.
The
Rev. Mary Louise Bringle explains: “God
would not be a God of righteousness if Holiness were not outraged by acts of
cruelty, exploitation, and abuse. We
would not be a righteous people, made in the image of such a God, if were were
not also moved to indignation by wrongs committed. The danger for us as creatures, however, is to mistake our own
limited vision for that of the Almighty.
Hence we must be vigilant and self-critical. “Be angry” we are reminded, but be careful.”
Or
to phrase it another way, directly from Ephesians, “do not make room for the
devil.” When we seek revenge rather
than restitution we are in danger of being servants of evil.
The
next sentence is absolutely fascinating.
“Thieves must give up stealing let them labor and work honestly with
their own hands ” – yeah! Right
on. Of course. .... “with their own
hands so as to have something to share with the needy.”
Isn’t
that fascinating? ... The Bible says it is not as much about not robbing from
me ... as it is about giving to the needy! .... I invite you to spend time with
that this week. Ask yourself what God
is saying to you ... You who are not
stealing but are laboring and working with your own hands. What is God saying to you?
“Let no evil talk come out of your mouth,
but only what is useful for building up” Boy this one is hard for many of
us! We are not intending to say
anything evil, we honestly mean to be “constructively critical”
Let me just say that religious communities —
churches — are in more danger from this kind of talk than anywhere else. That’s because churches touch us at a deeper
level than other venues. If we are in
the office and someone says “that was a dumb way to do it”
that
hurts. But it hurts much, much more at
church because we believe .... and we
should believe ... church is different.
If
we are in the office and someone says something nasty about another person we
might just ignore it or shake it off but when it happens in church ... when
people who are supposed to be followers of Jesus Christ, say something nasty
about another person that effectively eliminates the Christianity in the
moment.
Back
to being angry but not sinning .... we need to confront those situations
without, as my mother would say, jumping into the sewer with the speaker. Frequently simply expressing disagreement
solves the problem. Frequently the
complainer is looking for power and when we say we will not give them that
power, they stop. That allows our words
to “have grace to those who hear.”
Paul
apparently felt this point was important enough to expand on it: “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.
........ Act like this because God in Christ has
forgiven you. ... Strong rationale. ... Or do all this because Jesus is the
bread of your life. .... Strong rationale.
But
for me ..... for me Paul gives even a stronger rationale a couple of verses
earlier. Paul says: “do not grieve the
Holy Spirit” .... Have you ever hurt someone you love? Your parents? Your spouse? Your
children? Have you ever hurt and
disappointed someone you love? .... Have you ever grieved someone you
love? Do you want to do it again?
Do
you want to grieve Jesus who provides all that we are?
AMEN
We
have previous sermons on our website.
To read an earlier recent sermon just enter: www.st-christopher.org/sermon.html.
CLICK HERE TO RESPOND: I would enjoy reading your comments about this sermon. Please feel free to discuss content or presentation. (If you wish to use another email system send your comments to: ken@st-christopher.com)