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Sermon for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Clay Center, Kansas
10th Sunday after Pentecost
August 2, 2015
“The work of God”
May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Where does the time go? And how is it possible that three weeks of vacation can pass so quickly – and, at the same time, it can seem like ages since we were last here together, you all and I? I wonder if the crowds who followed Jesus felt a similar sense of the complexity of time and space as they experienced periods of both togetherness and separation with the man they called “Rabbi.” Let’s catch up a little.
Something significant has happened with our lessons from the Gospel since we were last together. On July 5, my last Sunday before vacation – and for a few succeeding weeks – we heard from Mark’s Gospel about Jesus’s travels and ministry in the areas around the Sea of Galilee. He was teaching the people and healing them. He was casting out demons of various kinds. The people began following him in droves – by the thousands, even – and Jesus felt compassion for them, so much that he presided over a miraculous meal for five thousand men (plus women and children, on top of that number)! We didn’t actually hear that from Mark; it was skipped over from the lesson two weeks ago. But there it was.
And how did the people respond, according to the evangelist Mark? They continued to track down Jesus wherever he went. They brought more and more people to be healed – wherever they heard that he was. Think of it, will you? They mobbed him!
They demanded more healing. More of his time. More, more, more! More of everything. He had to sneak off with his disciples to get a little time of rest.
Then suddenly, last week, the Lectionary oddly interrupted the narrative from Mark to plop us intothe Gospel of John. And there we heard about that spur-of-the-moment meal for five thousand men… and more. Now, today… today those same crowds show up in Capernaum, having taken their boats across the sea in pursuit of Jesus, almost seeming to demand an accounting from Jesus for his whereabouts. “When did you come here?” they ask. They also seem to imply, “And why? Why didn’t you tell us you were going?”Do they simply want more food? Or is it some sign? A sign thatwould prove his authority, his credentials? Are they seeking reassurance? Or understanding?
Jesus essentially calls them out. “You’re just here for another meal,” he says. And then he calls them to something more: “Do not work for the food that perishes. Work for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
All they have to do, Jesus says, is to believe in him – the Son, whom God has sent… to nourish them, to provide for them. Simply believe… and live. Believe in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God… and trust in his abundance of love and grace. You don’t earn it. You don’t “deserve” it. But you do need to receive it, accept it. “Believe,” Jesus says. That’s it. That’s it? It sounds simple, but it doesn’t always feel that way to me. What about you?
I can imagine those folks were confused. They were talking about food, physical elements of bread and fish. And Jesus is talking about the vague concept of belief.
This crucial chapter of John’s Gospel – which we’ll be reading for five weeks – is significant for Jesus’s followers… to develop their understanding of who he was. And it is significant for us too… inour understanding of the holy sacraments. Recall, if you will, that our Book of Common Prayer defines a sacrament as the “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Outward and visible – likewater andbread and wine. Inward and spiritual – like beliefand grace. Simple, right? Well, not always.
Aren’t we just as confused as those folks who sat on the mountainside and witnessed Jesus taking five loaves of bread (and a couple of fish), and giving thanks to God, and then breaking and distributing those measly rations… so generously multiplied that they satisfied the hunger of so many? How does God bestow grace on each one of us through the tangible water of baptism? How does Jesus, the Word of God, come to us each week through the physical bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist?
God chooses to connect with us through the physical aspects of life – water, bread, wine, human companionship – because we are physical beings, residing in a physical world. God continually calls us into relationship… and generously lavishes us with acceptance, forgiveness, and divine love. We experience God’s outpouring of love and grace in the waters of baptism, in the anointing oils of healing, in the vows of marriage and ordination, and in the gifts of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist.
Sometimes we frail and limited human beings struggle to understand God’s unlimited power and work in the sacraments. We’re more comfortable working things out for ourselves, being in control of our own decisions and outcomes. We’re used to defending ourselves from the hurts and disappointments that life thrusts upon us. We demand answers when things don’t go our way, when our loved ones are taken away from us by illness or tragic accident. Like those folks so long ago, we are confused. We are angry. We want to trust that God is in charge… but why is there so much destruction and suffering and loss all around us? That is a mystery, not yet revealed to us, and maybe someday we will know the answer. But in the meantime…
“What must we do to perform the works of God?” the people ask Jesus. And he answers: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom [God] has sent… The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world…. I am the bread of life.”
Perhaps the hardest thing for us to understand – and accept – about the sacraments is that they contain the surprising, unanticipated gift of God’s very own self. A gift to us, no matter how undeserving we may feel ourselves to be. God invites you here.
So, come to this table… come and receive the gifts of bread and wine. Come as yourself – your very own, humble, hurting, hoping, unadorned self – come as you are. Come, each one and all together, wherever you are on your journey. Come… and meet Jesus here. Come… and receive your God – into your bodies and into your hearts.
AMEN.