Keeping the Season

"Jesus washing Peter's feet" by Jim Forest, on Flickr

"Visible Judas" by Nicholas Damario, on Flickr

"Crumbs" by Jonathan Green1, on Flickr

Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

--
The world is heavy these days, my friends. You know it as well as I do.

Conflict continues at the Russia/Ukraine border, as both tensions and weapons mount, and as the world still struggles to piece together an investigation of Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down by rebels.

Conflict continues to shake the Middle East, as Israel and Palestine struggle over the Gaza Strip; rockets are flying, violence continues to put civilians and refugees in increasing danger.

Political turmoil and violence churn in Iraq, as terrorist groups continue to sweep through villages and into the mountains, killing women and children in their wake.

The Ebola virus has claimed more than a thousand victims in west Africa, and the Center for Disease Control has issued its highest alert, confirming the outbreak as a world health emergency.

There has been a surge in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children at our border, children who are making a dangerous and uncertain journey for the hope of a better life as they flee violent or abusive or situations in their home countries.

It has been a week of grief in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of Michael Brown, which has given way to protests, violence, curfews, and questions about justice and the reach of law enforcement.

A cloud of suspicion and shock surrounds the death of NASCAR driver Kevin Ward after being hit on the track by rival driver Tony Stewart.

Hollywood and society are shocked and saddened by the untimely death of actor Robin Williams, which has sparked an important national conversation about depression and suicide.

And then, of course, we each have our own personal list of troubles and fears to add to this list. Broken relationships. Illness. Addiction. Food uncertainty. Job uncertainty.

I consider myself an intensely hopeful person; a die-hard optimist. It’s in my nature and in the nature of my faith to see hope beyond despair, to trust the promise of the resurrection. But friends, I’ll be honest. The world outside is dark and heavy right now, and holding on to hope feels a bit like scrambling for crumbs beneath the table.

“Lord, help me,” the Canaanite woman begged.

The woman’s world was dark and heavy. Her beloved daughter was tormented by a demon, and surrounded by the power of darkness. This child was in need of more than healing; she needed salvation.

“Lord, help me,” the woman pleaded to the disciples and to Jesus.

And in what is perhaps the most disturbingly out-of-character moment of Jesus’ whole life, he turns to the woman and dismisses her. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” he says. “I am only for the chosen.”

And just like that, things have gone from bad to worse. The Canaanite woman’s fear for her daughter suddenly becomes fear of being rejected by God himself.

This fear of rejection is also the fear of the Jewish community in Rome to whom Paul is writing in our first reading. They fear that if God, through Christ, has opened salvation to the Gentiles, that it might mean he has rejected - turned his back - on the Israelites, his chosen people.

We can sympathize with these fears that God has turned his back on us. When we see the horrors on the news, and look at a world that seems to be getting worse and not better, it can feel like God has rejected us, because we just don’t know how else to make sense of the darkness and pain that we see.

A friend and colleague of mine has recently been dealing with ongoing relapses with a chronic illness. Earlier this month, she wrote a piece about the difficulty of reconciling faith and hope with the struggles of facing one bad turn after another.

She says,

I don't know where I am on the "how much control does God actually have?" spectrum anymore. I used to attribute every blessing in my life to God. Every good news. Every happy moment. Every joy. Every meaningful coincidence. Every learning opportunity. It was all: thanks be to God. But lately I'm wrestling with how reasonable it is to give God the credit for every good thing but never for the bad things. That's how I've been operating. "Thanks be to God" for the good stuff. But "it's not God's fault...God can't control it" for the bad stuff. [But] It doesn't seem logical [anymore] to try and make a matching pair with those two cards.

This is the struggle of the Canaanite woman, the struggle of the early church in Rome, our struggle: how to deal with the problem of a God who gets credit for the good stuff, and a God who might seem at best, absent, or at worst, at fault for the dark and heavy things in our world.

I don’t think our gospel reading today gives us an answer as to why bad things happen, why it sometimes feels like God has turned his back on us. Our gospel reading is difficult and problematic and forces us to look at a cranky side of Jesus that we don’t quite believe actually should exist.

I could debate with you, as theologians do, about whether Jesus was just testing this woman, or whether he was just grumpy and tired, or whether he really meant it when he said that she wasn’t included in his plan for salvation. I could try to say something clever that would bring a satisfactory resolution to the encounter, tie the story up with a nice, neat bow.

But I can’t do any of that. I don’t pretend to see the obvious moral truth in this story, I don’t know what Jesus was thinking or intending, and all attempts to turn this messy story into something neat and today seem like gloss in the face of a world that appears to be falling apart.

So let me tell you what I do know.

I know that the Canaanite woman had faith. I know that she had heard about Jesus - about his healing power, about his care for the broken and the outcast. I know that she, out of blind faith, chose to believe that there was yet hope for her and for her daughter, even when it looked like the Son of God was going to turn his back on her.

She knew that even a crumb of hope, a speck of healing, a tiny taste of salvation would be enough. Maybe not enough to make everything all better forever and forever, but enough to get her through another day.

When the choice laid before her was hope or despair, she chose hope, and grasped at crumbs, and looked God in the eye, saying “You know that you aren’t in the rejection business. You know that you are in the business of salvation.”

And her reward for having even a few crumbs of hope was receiving wholeness and more hope. Her few crumbs of hope gave way to a giant loaf of hope bread. Because even a little bit of hope, even a little scrap of faith was enough to see through her fear, to see straight into the heart of God’s love, a love that dealt with all of the crap in our world by showing up on earth, in the flesh, and making a beeline for the cross, that we might know that there is no suffering that is unredeemed and no chaos that is beyond reordering and no fears that fall on deaf ears.

I can’t promise you that if you just go toe-to-toe with Jesus you’ll always get what you want. I can’t promise you that if you just pray hard enough, the world will right itself. I don’t want you thinking or worrying that salvation for our broken world somehow depends on how much strength you can muster, because friends, I know how hard it is to keep faith sometimes, and I know that there are days when it takes every bit of energy that you have just to pull yourself out of bed for the day.

But I can promise you that the mystery of God’s love and salvation is brighter than any darkness this world tries to throw at it. And I can promise you that even the tiniest bits of hope and faith will get you through to the other side of this present darkness. I can promise you that God’s gifts and God’s callings in your life are eternal, without strings attached. I can promise you that God hasn’t turned his back on you or the world, even when it really really feels that way.

Because the crumbs of bread that we will share today around this table bind us together in the one hope of Christ, who himself called out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you rejected me?” but who three days later walked out of that empty tomb, stomping down darkness and death beneath his feet. Christ, our bread of life, knows both rejection and resurrection, and when we eat and drink the bread and wine, we share in that hope that our own fears of rejection will also give way to the promise of resurrection, for ourselves and for our world.

So catch a few crumbs from under God’s table today. Taste the bread and the wine that are sweet with salvation. Let these crumbs sustain you through all fear or despair. Hold onto whatever bits of faith you have. Praise God for the light, even if you do not understand the darkness. Even a crumb of grace and a sliver of faith will be enough to sustain you, for God promises that his hold on you is for all eternity. There will be light. There will be hope. There will be salvation. Thanks be to God for that.

Amen.

"Crumbs" by Lewis Taylor, on Flickr

Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon." But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, "Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us." He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." He answered, "It is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." She said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Then Jesus answered her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed instantly.

"Julian of Norwich" by Robert Lentz, posted by Kittredge Cherry, on Flickr

John 10:1-10
Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

---
Growing up, my dad directed the church choir and my mom sang in it. This meant that every Sunday, my sisters and I would sit by my dad in the front row of the sanctuary, in clear sight of the choir loft and my mom’s watchful eye.

Most of the time, I think, we were pretty well behaved. We’d draw pictures on the yellow children’s bulletins, follow along with the hymns, try discreetly to open up our loud velcro wallets to fish out some change for the offering plate. But there were times that we squirmed. That we squabbled. That we poked each other or got the giggles. And in those moments, from behind the organ in the second row of the choir came the mom cough.

Ahem-AHEM.

I could pick that sound out of a lineup.

The whole congregation could cough and clear their voices for the entire service and we’d never notice, but one stifled cough from mom’s throat, and our eyes would dart up to meet her gaze, and we’d sit up a little straighter in our seats, and we’d quit whatever mischief we were dabbling in.

It’s a peculiar thing, isn’t it, that we know so well the sound of our mother’s voice?

Sam is just getting old enough that he recognizes my voice and responds to it differently than other people’s voices. He can be perfectly content in someone else’s arms, but when he hears my voice, he turns to find me, and lurches toward me, and when I take him, he buries his face in my neck, happy to be reunited with the voice that he knows best.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. My sheep follow me because they know my voice.”

Like a child recognizing the voice of his mother, like a sheep recognizing the voice of its shepherd, we follow Jesus by the sound of his voice. Christ, the shepherd and guardian of our souls calls to us in a voice so recognizable that we can pick it out of the crowd.

And what a crowd it is.

We are pummeled with voices, aren't we? Every day, voices of all sorts call out to us and demand things of us.

We hear voices on the radio and on television and through the internet. Some of these voices speak truth, and some speak untruth, and some speak fear, and some speak hyperbole. We hear voices in politics, and some speak fact, and some speak dissent, and some speak out of both sides of their mouths, and some speak persuasion rather than common good. We hear our own voices, and some speak confidence, and some speak self-reliance, and some speak self-doubt, and some speak self-criticism.

We hear good advice and bad advice, voices that challenge us and voices that enable us. I think about Job, and how his friends all had something to say to him in the midst of his suffering, and the way that their advice always seemed good on the surface, but ended up lacking.

So in the middle of such a cacophony of voices, how do we pick out the voice of Jesus?

Well, for starters, we can remember that the voice of Jesus has particular power to heal and to restore life.

During Lent and Easter, we have read three different stories that reveal the power of Jesus' voice. He speaks words of healing to the man born blind, and his sight is restored. He calls to Lazarus, dead in the tomb, who responds to the sound of Jesus' voice by emerging from the tomb, alive. And he speaks Mary's name in the garden, and it is only at the sound of his voice that she sees him not as the gardner, but as her risen savior.

Jesus' voice is one that always speaks with healing and life-giving power.

Jesus is the one who says, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the vine and you are the branches. I am the resurrection and the life. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

There's an early American hymn that says:

His voice as the sound of the dulcimer sweet, is heard through the shadows of death.
The cedars of Lebanon bow at His feet, the air is perfumed with His breath.
His lips as the fountain of righteousness flow, that water the garden of grace,
From which their salvation the people shall know, and bask in the smile of His face.

Love sits in His eyelids and scatters delight thro’ all the bright regions on high.
Their faces the Cherubim veil in His sight and tremble with fullness of joy.
He looks and ten thousands of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word.
He speaks and eternity, filled with His voice, re-echoes the praise of her Lord.

Yes, we can know Jesus' voice by the things he says, by his enduring words of life piercing the shadows of death, by his sweet song of righteousness and salvation, by the sound of eternal and abundant life. Whenever we hear voices that speak forgiveness and mercy, voices that speak peace and life abundant, these are the voice of Jesus.

And the heart of the matter is that the reason we can listen for and recognize Jesus' powerful voice of healing and new life is because we are in relationship with him and he with us.

I know the sound of my mother's mom-cough, and Sam knows the sound of my voice, and we all know the sound of those dear to us, be they parents or spouses or kindred spirits, living or dead, because of the relationship that we have with each other. Knowing one another deeply, and being deeply known.

Jesus says “I know my own and my own know me.”

What a beautiful statement. It's a two-way relationship. One of the failings of popular Christianity is that it overemphasizes our responsibility to come to know Jesus, and underemphasizes Jesus' desire to know us.

But think about the woman at the well, who had no inclination whatsoever that she was speaking to Jesus, and didn't particularly care about knowing the stranger sitting next to her. Jesus was the one seeking relationship. She is amazed that this man, "knew everything I've ever done." Jesus is the first to initiate relationship, and only later does she respond in faith.

Jesus seeks to know us even as he seeks for us to know him. And out of this relationship, we are able, more and more, to hear his voice ringing through this earth, in every song of hope and healing.

The medieval mystic Julian of Norwich describes God in Christ as the one as intimately connected to us as the very mothers who gave us birth:

[Christ] is our Mother in human nature in our essential creation. In Him we are grounded and rooted, and he is our mother in mercy by taking on our fleshliness....In Mother Christ, we benefit and grow, and in mercy He redeems and restores us....This fair lovely word 'mother' is so sweet and so kind in itself, that it can not truly be said of anyone nor to anyone except of Him and to Him who is true Mother of life and of all. To the quality of motherhood belongs natural love, wisdom, and knowledge - and this is God. (from Revelations of Divine Love)

As a mother protects and nurtures her children, so Christ protects and nurtures us whom he loves.

Jesus has put himself into relationship with us, into close kindred with humankind, having himself put on human flesh. He joins us to himself in baptism, in our dying and rising through those waters. He joins us to himself in the bread and wine, as we do something as scandalous and intimate as taking his very body into our hands and hearts and bodies.

He is the good shepherd, leading us beside still waters, along paths of righteousness, through the darkest valleys, to eternal and abundant life. He knows us and we know him, and we hear his voice calling to us, saying to each of us,

"Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. I am your resurrection, and I am your abundant life."

"Painted Woman Feet With Henna, Lamu, Kenya" by Eric Lafforgue, on Flickr

---

My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears
by Mohja Kahf

My grandmother puts her feet in the sink
of the bathroom at Sears
to wash them in the ritual washing for prayer,
wudu,
because she has to pray in the store or miss
the mandatory prayer time for Muslims
She does it with great poise, balancing
herself with one plump matronly arm
against the automated hot-air hand dryer,
after having removed her support knee-highs
and laid them aside, folded in thirds,
and given me her purse and her packages to hold
so she can accomplish this august ritual
and get back to the ritual of shopping for housewares

Respectable Sears matrons shake their heads and frown
as they notice what my grandmother is doing,
an affront to American porcelain,
a contamination of American Standards
by something foreign and unhygienic
requiring civic action and possible use of disinfectant spray
They fluster about and flutter their hands and I can see
a clash of civilizations brewing in the Sears bathroom

My grandmother, though she speaks no English,
catches their meaning and her look in the mirror says,
I have washed my feet over Iznik tile in Istanbul
with water from the world's ancient irrigation systems
I have washed my feet in the bathhouses of Damascus
over painted bowls imported from China
among the best families of Aleppo
And if you Americans knew anything
about civilization and cleanliness,
you'd make wider washbins, anyway
My grandmother knows one culture—the right one,

as do these matrons of the Middle West. For them,
my grandmother might as well have been squatting
in the mud over a rusty tin in vaguely tropical squalor,
Mexican or Middle Eastern, it doesn't matter which,
when she lifts her well-groomed foot and puts it over the edge.
"You can't do that," one of the women protests,
turning to me, "Tell her she can't do that."
"We wash our feet five times a day,"
my grandmother declares hotly in Arabic.
"My feet are cleaner than their sink.
Worried about their sink, are they? I
should worry about my feet!"
My grandmother nudges me, "Go on, tell them."

Standing between the door and the mirror, I can see
at multiple angles, my grandmother and the other shoppers,
all of them decent and goodhearted women, diligent
in cleanliness, grooming, and decorum
Even now my grandmother, not to be rushed,
is delicately drying her pumps with tissues from her purse
For my grandmother always wears well-turned pumps
that match her purse, I think in case someone
from one of the best families of Aleppo
should run into her—here, in front of the Kenmore display

I smile at the midwestern women
as if my grandmother has just said something lovely about them
and shrug at my grandmother as if they
had just apologized through me
No one is fooled, but I

hold the door open for everyone
and we all emerge on the sales floor
and lose ourselves in the great common ground
of housewares on markdown.

"About to gorge on some homemade bread dip before supper!" by Sarah S, on Flickr

---

The Cat at the Last Supper
by Roy Marz

Ghirlandaio let it sit
On the tiles between Judas and Jude,
Brindle and Iscariot's pet,

Bored with John's stricken stutter
And Andrew's fist aghast in the cherries
And Simon's trouble with the pewter.

Though the peacock's lucent pale blue
Spill of tail from the windowsill
Interested as a nuisance value,

Really the carbon irises
Kindled for birds through the open lunette
Or delicacies in the cypresses;

And whiskers rigid for rare spoil
Flicked hauteur at the broken bread
The taut master dropped on the tile...

Needles of shock on the brindle marble
Were affront. It primly mewed
Blood back in the paralyzed table,

And negatives in the nervous beards
Jangled the peacock metred to silence
But tocsined the giddy outside birds.

Increase our faith and love.

What if, instead of wishing that God would give us more faith, we instead prayed that God would make us more faithful?

Increase our faithfulness and love, dear God, that we might know your hope and peace and live accordingly.



Thee we adore
arr. Phillip Moody

Thee we adore, O hidden Savior, thee,
Who in thy Sacrament art pleased to be;
Both flesh and spirit in thy presence fail,
Yet here thy presence we devoutly hail.

O blest memorial of our dying Lord,
Who living bread to us shall here afford:
Oh, may our souls forever feed on thee,
And thou, O Christ, forever precious be.

Fountain of goodness, Jesus, Lord and God:
Cleanse us, unclean, with thy most cleansing blood;
Increase our faith and love, that we may know
The hope and peace which from they presence flow.

O Christ, whom now beneath a veil we see:
May what we thirst for soon our portion be,
To gaze on thee unveiled, and see thy face,
The vision of thy glory and thy grace.

Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

"Perhaps the World Ends Here" from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright © 1994 by Joy Harjo.
Source: The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1994), via The Poetry Foundation

Sunday's gospel began with a discussion of where to sit when you attend a fancy dinner:

"When [Jesus] noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, 'Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 14:7-11)

This idea of where you choose to sit reminded me of a funny diagram I encountered not too long ago, all about how to pick the best seat at the table depending on its shape and size (click the picture for a bigger view):

Alex Cornell's "Choosing the Right Seat"

To read the full blog post behind the picture, check out Alex Cornell's "Musical Chairs (Choosing the Right Seat)" [apologies for a few instances of colorful language].

I first encountered this post as a humorous recommendation to introverts, to figure out how to partake in communal meals when you don't have a personality much inclined to make conversation or small talk easily. But really, the post is all about how to choose a powerful place at the table. It's about how to guarantee that you don't get stuck talking to somebody boring, or get left out of the important and interesting conversations. I chuckled at the last scenario, with the two tables, when he makes the observation that no matter what you do, the other table will always crystallize into "the superior group," because I've thought that at a few points in my own life. That no matter what I do, the other table ends up being the cool table, or at least the dynamic table.

And so it's not just the Pharisees that Jesus is talking to in this gospel reading. He's talking to us. He's talking to the parts of our brains that scan the room when we walk in, that make calculated decisions about who we want to be seen with and who we want to avoid. And he's telling us that maybe, instead of worrying about how people see us, we should be seeing - and seeking out! - those who aren't usually seen. Sitting at the table which is slower to fill up. Chatting up the people longing to be pulled in.

Because when we all gather at the table on Sundays to share in the Lord's Supper, there are no set-apart places of honor, no jostling for position, no better or worse dinner company. We are all equals, all beloved, all honored and deserving of honor. Because we are part of the communion of all the saints, and we are made one in the body of Christ, and every seat at the table is blessed.

"by summer." by land_camera_land_camera, on Flickr

Poking around the Bible, I found clues about my deepest questions. Salt, grain, wine, and water; figs, pigs, fishermen, and farmers. There were psalms about hunger and thirst, about harvests and feasting. There were stories about manna in the wilderness and prophets fed by birds. There was God appearing in radiance to Ezekiel and handing him a scroll: "Mortal," he said, "eat this scroll," and Ezekiel swallowed the words, "sweet as honey," and knew God.

And then in the New Testament appeared the central, astonishing fact of Jesus, proclaiming that he himself was the bread of heaven. "Eat my flesh and drink my blood," he said. I thought how outrageous Jesus was to the church of his time: He didn't wash before meals; he said the prayers incorrectly; he hung out with women, foreigners, the despised and unclean. Over and over, he told people not to be afraid. I liked all that, but mostly I liked that he said he was bread and told his friends to eat him.

As I interpreted it, Jesus invited notorious wrongdoers to his table, airily discarded all the religious rules of the day, and fed whoever showed up, by the thousands. In the end, he was murdered for eating with the wrong people.

And then - here's where the story got irrational. I didn't exactly "believe" it, the way I believed in the boiling point of water or photosynthesis, but it seemed true to me - wholly true, in ways that mere facts could never be. I believed this God rose from the dead to have breakfast with his friends.

I read about the crazy days after Jesus' arrest, death, and burial, when the terrified disciples were scattering, just as I'd seen peasants and revolutionaries run from the violence of soldiers in Latin America. A stranger hailed them on the road to Emmaus. They told him what had happened, and he explained it all by citing Scripture, recounting old prophecies in impressive detail. Then, according to the book, they came to a village and invited the stranger to eat with them, as the night was drawing near. He sat down at the table, took bread, and broke it. Suddenly "their eyes were opened," reported the book. "He made himself known in the breaking of bread, and they felt their hearts on fire." Then he vanished. In another story, he reappeared cooking food on the beach. in another, he showed up to tell his followers that he was hungry and wanted something to eat. They gave him a piece of fish.

All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions - eating, drinking, walking - and stayed with them, through fear, even past death. That love meant giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others. The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could see God by cherishing all those different bodies the way that God did. They spoke of a communion so much vaster than any church could contain: one I had sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of food, particularly with strangers.

I couldn't stop thinking about another story: Jesus instructing his beloved, fallible disciples Peter exactly how to love him: "Feed my sheep."

Jesus asked, "Do you love me?"
Peter fussed: "Of course I love you."
"Feed my sheep."
Peter fussed some more.
"Do you love me?" asked Jesus again. "Then feed my sheep."

It seemed pretty clear. If I wanted to see God, I could feed people.

--Sara Miles, Take This Bread, p. 91-93

"Descenter" by traqair57, on Flickr

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:5-11)

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I’m feeling strangely in touch with emptiness this week.

Our new house here in Decorah is completely empty, just a shell of the home that we hope to make of it once we move in. I went to Empty Bowls last week, and thought of the empty stomachs of brothers and sisters in this community and around the world. My parents, who visited last weekend, went home on Tuesday, and Matt left the same day for a friend’s wedding in New Jersey, so I’ve been heading home each afternoon to empty rooms and an empty bed. And as I sat, writing this sermon in a coffee shop, I looked down right at the end of this paragraph, surprised to find that my coffee cup was empty...for a second time!

So maybe it’s no surprise that this image from Philippians of Jesus emptying himself has stuck in my head, this image of the Fullness of God becoming the Emptiness of the World, this “downward mobility” of God pouring himself out to draw near to us. In many ways, Jesus’ entire life is a series of emptying moments, when he begins full and then pours himself out for the sake of the world.

I think about the way that Jesus, at his baptism, was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, descending upon him as a dove, and how he was then immediately cast out, empty and empty-handed, into the wilderness.

I think about the way that Jesus began his public ministry by filling up huge stone jars with water-turned-to wine at a big wedding celebration in Cana, and the way that he will bring his ministry to a close by pouring out his blood as wine during an intimate meal with his closest friends.

I think about today, Palm Sunday, and the way that Jesus begins his journey through Jerusalem with his ears full of “hosannas” from the crowd that fills the street, whose lips are full of praise, whose hands are filled with palm branches, who have filled the roadway with their robes and their palm leaves.

And I think about the Holy Week which stands before us, where Jesus will go on to take the form of a slave, washing his disciples’ feet, and how he will stand, empty and silent, in front of his accusers, and how his disciples will scatter and leave him empty and alone, and the way that Jesus will, at the end, breathe the very last of his spirit out of his empty lungs upon the cross.

And all of this gets me to thinking about all of those times that we find ourselves empty, in one way or another. Today’s passage from Philippians 2 seems to equate “being empty” with “being in human likeness,” and when you stop to think about it, it’s true. Emptiness is really a pretty inescapable part of our human existence.

We’re heading into Easter, a holiday season, and I know that there are so many people who grieve loved ones, for whom every holiday brings them in touch with the emptiness of a family table that is missing a spouse or parent or child.

We did some calendaring work as a staff this week, and talked a little about Mother’s Day, and I know that there are so many women – and men as well! – for whom these sorts of set-apart days remind them of the grief of losing children, or not being able to have children, or of being single when they want to be in relationship, and the way that any those realities leave somebody feeling empty and alone.

And any one of us sitting here might be feeling empty in a dead-end job, or empty because we’ve retired and feel like we have no more meaningful work to do. We might feel empty because our doubts outweigh our faith, or feel the empty sadness of a winter that has yet to turn to spring. Maybe we feel the void of a world that isn’t what God intended it to be, and the newspaper, full of its stories of violence and hunger and need and injustice all around the world leaves us feeling a little sick and empty about the future.

When Paul says “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” well, I don’t know that it takes a whole lot of work for us to be able to connect with the emptiness that became a part of Christ becoming human. It’s not a huge leap for us to get in touch with the idea of emptiness.

And maybe that’s the point.

I mean, Easter is on its way, and one week from now, we will get to celebrate that God draws life out of the emptiness of death, and we get to sing and dance and rejoice at this crazy, mysterious, unprecedented thing called resurrection. And Philippians certainly points this way, talking about how God will exalt Jesus and give him the name above all names.

But today is Palm Sunday. It is the beginning of a week of emptiness, of Jesus emptyig himself all the way to the cross. And so for today, maybe, just maybe, we are meant to linger around the first half of the Philippians Christ-hymn, spending a little time with Jesus right here, where things are still a little vulnerable and empty. Maybe today we are meant to remember that Jesus kept pouring himself out to beggars and to sinners and to sick, lonely, lost people. Maybe today we are meant to remember that, even in our own emptiness, God empowers us to pour ourselves out in compassion and love and grace and forgiveness. And to trust that God knows our weaknesses, and not just knows them, but has lived them, that we are not alone, that we are not without comfort.

Because, despite what the world might say, there’s no rule that you always have to be strong. And there is no guarantee that believing in the goodness and grace of God will render you invincible. Because the whole point of this whole Jesus-dying-on-the-cross thing is to show us the heart of a God who would rather suffer himself than watch his beloved creation slip away, a God who makes foolish the wisdom of the world, a God who is divine strength in human weakness, a God who fills us up with the very bread and wine that Christ has poured out from himself.

So you, who are weak, come to the table and eat. And you, who are empty, come to the cup and drink. All you, who are weary and heavy-laden, come to the foot of the cross and find your rest.

For Christ has poured himself out for you, and even in your empty moments, you overflow with God’s grace and love, which will never run out.

"In Wine and Water" by DanieleCivello, on Flickr

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. (John 2:1-11)

From there [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, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He 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." But she answered him, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he said to her, "For saying that, you may go — the demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, "He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

--Mark 7:24-37

"Natural Habitat" by bravoechonovember on flickr

Jesus said, "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." He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father."

Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

--John 6:56-69

"Cross Wine Wafers" by Steve Snodgrass on flickr

"bread and wine #3" by khrawlings on flickr

Wisdom calls out,"You that are simple, turn in here!" To those without sense she says, "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight." (Proverbs 9:4-6)

Jesus said, "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." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So 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. 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." (John 6:51-58)
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I’ll answer the question that nobody has asked but everybody is thinking right now: Yes, Jesus is still talking about bread. Yes, we've been talking about bread in worship for a few weeks now, with a few weeks left to go.

In case you haven't been around, let me get you caught up on the story:

A few weeks ago – feels like ages ago! – Jesus borrowed a boy’s lunch and turned it into an overflowing feast for thousands of people. This attracted a little bit of attention, and despite Jesus’ best attempts to go off by himself after cooking up one delicious miracle, the crowds are, understandably, shocked and amazed, and there are a group of people who follow Jesus, seek him out, and want to know more about what they just saw.

The problem is that they interpreted the sign of the loaves and fishes as being about food, when Jesus wants them to understand that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was really supposed to be a sign pointing to him and illuminating who he is – that is, the living, breathing, in-the-flesh Son of God. The loaves and fishes, he says, are a sign to show them that he is the very bread of God that is given for the life of the world, for everlasting life.

The crowds keep pulling the conversation back to manna in the wilderness and the bread that they just ate with 5000 of their closest friends, trying to compare their experience with miracle bread to the miracle bread their ancestors ate. In response, Jesus keeps insisting, “I am the bread. Look at me, touch me, it’s about my body and my blood. It’s not about the physical bread that you ate, it’s about the physical Son of God who is standing right here in front of you, don’t you see?”

On the surface, these crowds seem to be the epitome of sort of people mentioned in our reading from Proverbs: simple, without sense, immature. They aren’t quick to understand Jesus’ teaching, and so he has to go on…and on…and on…about bread. But when we think about Jesus and his audience in their context, there’s something a little deeper to it all.

For starters, the crowds around Jesus were Jewish people and leaders who knew the ins and outs of the law. And so language of consuming flesh and blood would have sent them right back to all of the food laws in Leviticus that tell them what they are allowed to eat…and what they are not. And human beings, according to the law, aren’t supposed to consume the blood of any animals and aren’t supposed to eat certain kinds of flesh. So Jesus talking about them eating his flesh and drinking his blood would have set off some alarms in their heads.

Then there’s the matter of sacrifice. The law also talked at length about sacrifices, and what foods and animals were to be sacrificed to God in different circumstances. Culturally, the crowds would have known sacrifice as the way that humans relate to God. So it’s a huge reversal for Jesus to imply that instead of humans offering flesh and blood to God, God is offering Jesus’ flesh and blood to humans.

And finally, remember that the crowds aren’t reading this passage through a Eucharistic lens. So if you were them and trying to take Jesus’ words at face value, and he tells you that to have eternal life you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood…well…yuck, right?

No wonder these crowds disputed and murmured among themselves and no wonder they questioned Jesus, and how he could even think to say such crazy things. The crowds aren’t simple, or without sense, or immature. They are merely doing the best they can to try to make sense out of something that sounds ridiculous.

They are trying to process the absolutely radical notion that they should depart from their religious and cultural ancestry to commune with God through a man named Jesus. And I don’t think they would have stuck around for Jesus’ long speech about bread if they weren’t genuinely interested in the idea, even if it was troubling and difficult for them and required some serious soul-searching.

I mean, if those crowds are “simple” or “without sense” or “immature,” then we are, too. Because we all have our hang-ups. We all have things that make us, at best, reluctant believers in the grace and mercy of God shown in Jesus.

Maybe you get tripped up by the pieces of the Jesus story that make no sense in the rational world: the virgin birth, or miracles like the loaves and fishes, or even the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Maybe you can’t quite wrap your head around the idea that God-as-trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or you can’t quite put all the logical pieces together as to how exactly Jesus dying on the cross accomplishes forgiveness and salvation and victory over death or you have unanswered questions about heaven or new creation or what the heck Revelation is all about.

Or maybe it’s bigger than that. Maybe you can’t always make sense of the idea that there’s a God in the first place, or maybe you struggle with how to believe in a good God when there is so much violence and evil in the world, or maybe you struggle to believe that God could and would actually love you and forgive you and show you mercy.

We all have our hang-ups. We all have reasons not to believe, and we all have reasons not to make a sharp turn off of our own life paths to follow Jesus’ path instead.

And Jesus knows that it is sometimes hard for us to understand or believe. But he keeps inviting you to follow him nonetheless.

Jesus will talk about bread until you can’t bear it any longer. Jesus will invite you to become a disciple by saying to you “come and see,” and NOT “you have to believe everything about me before you are fit to follow.” Jesus will wash your feet even if you will go on to betray him or deny him. Jesus will not leave you spiritually orphaned or comfortless or without an advocate, even if you need to run away from your Father’s house for a time.

In John’s gospel, seeing is believing. And sometimes people have to see a LOT before they can even begin to believe. The crowds had to see the miracle of the loaves and fishes before they could question and argue and try to understand Jesus as the bread of life. Thomas had to see the resurrected Jesus in person and touch his wounds before he could declare, “My Lord and my God!”

So maybe we, too, need to see Jesus in order to believe. Maybe we need to see Jesus over and over again before we understand…or before we make peace with what we will never understand.

I think that there are plenty of places in our world where we see Jesus. We see Jesus in acts of service and compassion. We see Jesus wherever we are feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and visiting the imprisoned. We see Jesus in acts of selflessness and humility. We see Jesus whenever the broken are lifted up.

But if we need something more immediate, more tangible, we see Jesus whenever we come to this place and eat the bread of life and drink the cup of forgiveness. And in true “seeing is believing” fashion, Jesus makes it clear that his body and blood are given for you and for all people. So it’s not just a meal for people who have it all figured out. Actually, it’s mostly a meal for all of us who don’t have it all figured out. It’s a meal where we hear, every time, over and over again, the promise that this gift is given “for you.” And Jesus will keep saying it to you, each and every week, and Jesus will trust that some days, you might actually find the strength to believe it.

But until any one of us believes it without question – which, let’s be honest, won’t every happen perfectly until God comes down to make our prayer of “thy kingdom come” an eternal reality – until that time, we return to the meal, and we return to the crowds gathered here and throughout sanctuaries across the world and across time, with our fellow saints who are just as “simple” and “without sense” and “immature” as we are.

And we keep coming so that we can keep seeing so that we might keep believing all because Jesus keeps inviting us.

So you that are simple, turn in here! To those without sense, Come, eat of the bread of life and drink of the wine of salvation. Lay aside immaturity, and live. For Jesus is the bread of life, the living bread sent down from heaven, the life of the world. Come, taste, and see.

Jesus said, "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."

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So 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. 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."

--John 6:51-58

"Bread" by masterplaan on flickr

I love that one of the biggest ways that Jesus talks about himself in scripture is to talk about himself as bread. As food. I can't think of a better way to capture something that is so basic, so necessary, so nourishing, so pleasing, so common, and so beautiful.

We send our children off to school with peanut butter and jelly smooshed between common, square pieces of Wonderbread. We pause when we pass the doorway of a bakery (or Jimmy John's, which advertises "free smells")to inhale the pleasing scent of yeasty bread baking in a hot oven. We feed the stale ends of hot dog buns to ducks at the park, and we all wish to be as perfect and picturesque as a Frenchman, riding home from market with a baguette nestled into his bike basket. We tear it up to make stuffing, bake sweet muffins and breads to celebrate birthdays and holidays, we add vegetables and fruits to it, we knead loaves or are jealous of those who have the time to bake.

A seminary professor, talking about the elements used in communion, made the case that we use bread and wine because they are "staple food" and "festive drink." In this way, Jesus comes to us in something fundamental - bread - and in something special - wine.

It's hard not to hear Jesus talking about himself as the "bread of life" without skipping forward to that Last Supper, when he again declared that the bread was his body, and to think of him every time we break bread together.

This is why both Word and Sacrament are at the heart of our worship: we are hungry, and these things feed us. And more than that, they send us out. The table is a launch pad for us, and the bread of life that we feast on together is the very Christ whose hands and feet we become for our world.

On this theme, here's a "sending song," of sorts, that also pushes us to see the bread of life as that which sends us out as ambassadors of grace into the world. It's Derek Webb's song, "Take to the World" from his album She Must and Shall Go Free.



Take to the World
by Derek Webb

Go in peace to love and to serve
And let your ears ring long with what you have heard
And may the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place that you are from

And take to the world this love hope and faith
Take to the world this rare relentless grace
And like the three in one
Know you must become what you want to save
'Cause that's still the way
He takes to the world

Go and go far take light deep in the dark
Believe what's true, use it as all, even you
May the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place you are from

"Street Food" by Alessio Rota on flickr

Logos
by Mary Oliver

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into the many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don't worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it was all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.

--from Why I Wake Early (Beacon Press, 2005)