Singing Faith

by The Rev. Roger Bowen

This sermon is based on John 6:56-69.

[Sermons are meant to be living, immediate, listened-to experiences. Often reading a text can help us ponder a sermon's words more carefully; but for most sermons the best connection is in the listening. Today's sermon is one for the listening.]

The audio for this sermon may be listened to here.

Sacrifice and Example

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on John 6:51-58 and the Collect for Proper 15. An audio version of this sermon may be found here.

One of the things I love about being an Episcopalian is our via media, our way of seeking out what is best in both sides of a question or issue, and then trying to hold what is best together in one comprehensive understanding.

For instance: From the earliest days of the Christian tradition, there have been two basic ways of trying to understand how Jesus saves us, two fundamental approaches to the theology of salvation, or soteriology as it’s technically called.

One way of describing how Jesus saves us is to say that Jesus gives us a great moral example, that he shows us, by his teaching and by his living, how we ought to live. Jesus exemplifies for us an ideal of how to love, how to show compassion, how to serve the needs of others, how to welcome the stranger, how to include the other, how to break down barriers that separate us, how to speak truth to power, how to make the decisions and take the actions that will add up to a good and moral and fulfilling life. Jesus saves us because he shows us how to live — and when we follow his example, when we accept his ideal as our ideal, when we live like he lived, then we avoid the traps of sin and we become truly pleasing to God.

This notion that Jesus saves us by being a moral example can be found all through the Christian tradition. It was favored by Jewish-Christians in the early generations of the Church. It was taught by Peter Abelard in the Middle Ages. It was embraced by Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, who thought that all the miracles and supernatural elements of the New Testament had to be done away with in modern times, leaving the moral teaching of Jesus as the really important and meaningful message. It is the sentiment behind the “What Would Jesus Do?” slogan that was so popular a few years ago — and its more recent spin-offs like “What Would Jesus Drive?” and “How Would Jesus Vote?” and “What Would Jesus Occupy?”. Jesus as moral example is deeply woven in our faith history.

And there is truth in that: Jesus’ example is saving for us. But there’s also a problem. We know, all too well, sometimes from painful experience, we know that having an example and following that example are not the same thing. We’ve all had the experience one time or another of knowing perfectly well what we ought to do and then doing something else, something that we know is not right and good and true, but something that we do because in the moment it seems easier or quicker or less threatening or something we can get away with. It is a sad fact of sinful human nature that simply knowing the good thing is not enough to guarantee we will have the strength and courage and will and heart to do it. We need something more to save us.

So there is a second way of describing how Jesus saves us, a way that says Jesus does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This way of understanding emphasizes that Jesus is the supernatural Son of God who becomes human in order to offer the perfect atoning self-sacrifice that we are too imperfect to offer; that Jesus pays the price for sin that we are too flawed to pay; that Jesus bears the punishment for sin that we are too weak and feeble and broken to bear for ourselves. Jesus saves us because he sacrifices himself to make us right with God in way that we ourselves could never do.

And this understanding of salvation is also woven all through our history. It was embraced by Hellenistic Christians in Alexandria in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries. It was taught by Anselm of Canterbury in the Middle Ages. It was deeply influential in Calvin’s theology during the Reformation and in the Presbyterian church that grew from that. And you will still find it as a cornerstone of the teaching of many Evangelical Protestant churches today. Jesus as the supernatural savior who reaches down from heaven to pull us out of the muck of sin in which we are stuck by ourselves is very much a part of our tradition.

And there is truth in that: Jesus does bring to us something we ourselves do not have. But there’s also a problem. Focusing too much on how Jesus does what we cannot do tends to leave us obsessed with what we cannot do: it tends to concentrate our attention on sin and failure and the fear of punishment: it can lead to being scrupulous and anxious about who’s saved and who’s not saved, who’s in and who’s out, who’s with us and who’s against us: it can lead to precisely the kind of religion of fear that many people today say turns them against any kind of religion at all. Too much emphasis on Jesus as superhuman savior can leave us ordinary humans feeling pretty worthless, pretty much like we cannot do anything worthwhile at all.

Two approaches to salvation. Two ways of understanding how Jesus saves us. Both have their strengths. Both have their weaknesses.

And one of the things I love about being an Episcopalian is how our via media strives to hold on to what is best in both sides in one comprehensive understanding. It’s there in our collect today, when we pray to God who has given Jesus “to be for us a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life.” A sacrifice and an example. Not either/or. Both/and.

And I think the meaning of that both/and comes through very clearly in our Gospel reading today. “The bread that I will give for the life of the world,” Jesus says, “is my flesh” — and I think that is pretty clearly a reference to Jesus’ sacrificing himself, his flesh, to death on the cross. But more than that, Jesus speaking about giving himself as bread is a reference to sharing his life. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” Jesus says, “and they will live because of me” — and I think that is a symbolic and graphic and arresting way of saying that Jesus is willing to share his way of living, his vital essence, the thing that makes him alive, with anyone who comes to him. Jesus in his perfect devotion has his life from God; and anyone who shares Jesus’ life shares life that comes from God; and sharing life that comes from God makes it possible for us to do all kinds of things we would never be able to do in the power of our human life alone. Abiding in the life-power that comes from God gives us courage to venture good deeds we never thought we’d be able to do; it gives us compassion to reach out to others’ suffering even though it may lead to suffering of our own; it gives us strength to make difficult decisions that we know are the right thing to do even though they will certainly not be easy; it gives us love to respond to what is best in others even when they themselves might not see it; it gives us joy to sing and make melody to the Lord in our hearts as we co-create with God the New Creation in Christ that God wants us to be. In this Gospel promise of communion in Christ’s body and blood, Jesus saves us by sacrificing to make us right with God so that we are empowered to follow his example and live with his life. Both/and.

And that’s what I invite you to be thinking about as you come forward to receive this communion today. As you take this bread and wine, as you partake of this substance of Jesus’ own life, I want you to be mindful of how Jesus is sharing with you a dimension of divine vitality, how Jesus is communicating to you an energy of living, that is more then you’d have on your own. And as you leave this communion rail, as you leave this church today and go out into the world, I want you to ask yourself how you will use that energy of communion, that vitality dwelling in you, to do Jesus-like things, to follow Jesus’ example in how you live. Who will you show love to today? With whom will you share compassion? Whose needs will you serve? Whom will you forgive? How will you bear witness to good news? What beauty of creation will you reveal? How will you know in your inmost heart that God is with you, that you are God’s beloved daughter, God’s beloved son? Today, how will you follow the example set by Jesus, using the life that dwells in you from Jesus’ redeeming work?

That is what we pray for today. Let us live that prayer in all we do. Amen.  

Under the Shade of a Broom Tree

by The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen

This sermon is based on 1 Kings 19:4-8. An audio version is available here. 


When our children were small, we took a trip to the beach.  Our youngest child Sam had been told by his big brother and sister just how wonderful the beach was, and so he was looking forward to this first trip, at least this first conscious trip, to the beach.  So at age two, when Sam came over that large dune to see the great big wide ocean, the vast expanse of beach and the loud roar of the crashing waves, he instantly withdrew and said, “Don’t want it! Don’t need it!”  The experience was just too much for him.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, we find the great prophet Elijah crying a similar tune.  At this point Elijah has just experienced amazing success as a prophet.  If the job description for a prophet had been written out, he would have achieved every goal beyond expectation and would have had every reason to be fulfilled.  In a world that is politically ruled by Ahab and Jezebel, a world entrenched with false prophets of false gods, Elijah has boldly proclaimed the one and true God, he has been used for miracles through prayer, even raising the dead, he has called down fire from heaven and has eliminated 450 of Baal’s prophets.  But in today’s passage we see the humanity of God’s servant.  As Jezebel, who is a fanatical devotee to Baal, has vowed to kill Elijah, he runs like mad for his life. Once he reaches Beersheba, a city in Judah where Jezebel has no legal power, he flings himself down under a broom tree and cries out, “It is enough, Lord.” The NIV says, “I have had enough, Lord.” The closer Hebrew translation says simply, “Too much!” You can almost hear him saying, “Too much! Don’t want it! Don’t need it!”  

Elijah, who is running for his life, says to God, “I want to die.” He is exhausted and full of despair. Where just days before, he is at the pinnacle of his prophetic career, Elijah now has sunk to a new low.  He is not feeling up to the task of leading God’s people, and he is worried, full of fear and very possibly clinically depressed.  “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life for I am no better than my ancestors.”  He feels as though he would be better off dead than alive. So under the shade of a broom tree he escapes into the world of sleep.  Then he has a double epiphany.  An angel appears to him and says, “Get up and eat.”  So he eats the cake that has been baked on the hot stones and he drinks the jar of water.” And then…he goes back to sleep! Yes, I think he is depressed.  “The angel appears a second time, telling him to eat and drink again because otherwise the journey will be too much for him.  The Hebrew reads, “the way is too much for you.”  The ambiguity of the text allows for both his present need as well as his future need.  The heat of the day, both the physical heat of the Negev desert in which he finds himself and the emotional heat of the tempest of Jezebel’s wrath is unbearable and overwhelming for Elijah.   We see a man who has been very much in need of shelter of this broom tree.

The broom tree is a desert shrub and is one of the main shade trees for wilderness travelers. And yet, it is often pretty scrawny and sometimes barely provides enough shade for one person.  The image of a broom tree gives the impression perhaps that this shade is “just enough.”  It is  “just enough” shade so Elijah can cool off and rest, “just enough” shade so Elijah can be refreshed and take the next step in his journey, “just enough” shelter so this man can be reminded he is in the care of a God who provides and sustains.

How many of us find ourselves at times in that place of despair?  How often do we get to a point when we want to cry out to God. “Enough!” “Don’t want it. Don’t need it!”  How many of us feel sometimes that the way is too much for us, the heat of the day is literally or figuratively unbearable or overwhelming?  Perhaps we are overtaxed by our schedules, overcome by our financial situation, worried about our health or the health of someone we love.  Perhaps we struggle to make sense of senseless violence (I could make the argument that all violence is senseless), violence such as we have heard of recently at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin or at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado or even the minor scuffle at noon day lunch here at Trinity Church week before last.  The way is too much for us at times.  The heat is sometimes unbearable and overwhelming.  Sometimes we, like Elijah, need the shade of the broom tree, a place of refuge, a place of rest, a place of shelter.  

This past week we buried a long-time member of this church Peggy Brackman.  Her ashes were interred right outside the Lewis Street side of the church in our columbarium in the heat of the day.  It was indeed a very hot day and there her family and friends sat and stood for her service--- in the shade of a tree, in the shade of a tree that Peggy and her husband Brack had planted many years before in memory of her first husband.  The shade of that tree provided a cool shelter from the hot summer sun.  What this couple had planted had provided a space of “just enough” comfort for the rest of us.

Today we will baptize EricJason and Mikayla Foster.  They will be officially welcomed into Christ’s family as members of the church.  They will make promises to follow Christ and to make him known, and just as Elijah did, they will experience joy and victories and sometimes great difficulties along the way.  They will experience the heat of the day at times in their lives.  Sometimes they will want to curl up under the shade of a broom tree.  When I ask you to support them in this life in Christ, you will respond, “We will!” but what will you mean by that?  Might you provide for them a place of shade or refuge where they can be fed the spiritual nourishment that all of us need, so that they can have strength for their journey?   

Just as the angel said to Elijah, “Eat; otherwise the way is too much for you,” Can we remember that in order to have strength for our next step in life, we, too, must eat?  We, too, must take refuge and eat of the bread of Jesus, the bread that is “just enough” to get us where we need to be.

Amen.

Spiritual Hunger, Spiritual Food

by the Rev. James E. Gilman

This sermon is based on John 6:24-35.

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

A friend of mine lives financially on the edge every day. This past week he shared the last of his food with a hungry friend. Later that night he woke up starving; he had no food in his apt. He was so hungry that at 1:00 am he walked from New Town in Staunton to Kroger grocery store and back, to spend the last of his money on some food. Now that’s hunger! That’s a powerful craving.

In his own day, Jesus cared for people who were hungry. Our Gospel lesson last week recorded the story of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000. He saw that they were hungry; he had compassion on them; and, based on available resources, he miraculously fed them. Today’s Gospel is a follow up story about hunger and food.  Many people from that same crowd of 5,000 track Jesus down; they find him on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They’re after him for more food. And who wouldn’t be. If you’re hungry, you’re driven, like my friend, to find food.

The crowd’s interest in food is an occasion for Jesus to talk about another kind of hunger and another kind of food and another kind of eating. He says, “Do not concern yourself with the food that perishes, but concern yourself with the food that endures for eternal life.” What is this food that is eternal? And what kind of hunger is Jesus talking about?

Well, what he’s talking about is a spiritual kind of food, that satisfies a spiritual kind of hunger in the human soul. There is a hunger for food that helps us live  physically; there is another kind of hunger for food that helps us live spiritually; a hunger for food that helps us not just to live but to live with purpose and meaning and dignity. That’s the kind of hunger and soul food Jesus tries to get the crowd to think about. “Hunger” in this metaphorical sense is a spiritual kind of hunger, a craving for meaning and fairness in life, for direction and love, for peace and happiness. We all have that kind of hunger? We feel it especially when disastrous events occur—like the recent devastating storms or the Colorado shooting or the death of a loved one. A hunger for answers: Why do random tragedies like these happen?

Many in the crowd don’t really get what Jesus is talking about. They can only think of physical perishable food for the stomach. But others sort of get what Jesus is talking about. They mention the prophet Moses and their ancestors “who ate manna in the wilderness.” Recall, that story of the Israelites: liberated from Egypt and aiming for the Promise Land, flowing with milk and honey. Along the way they get lost and wander for a while in the wilderness. At one point they are without food and “complain against Moses and Aaron,” accusing them of trying (as the text says)  “to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” This story provides Jesus with an occasion to talk about spiritual hunger and spiritual food.  The Israelites were not only wandering in a geographical wilderness, but they were lost and wandering in a spiritual wilderness. The food sent to them from heaven, was not only the physical food of manna which they ate, but also the spiritual food of Torah revealed to Moses on the mountain.  Jesus tells his Jewish audience that just like their ancestors, they needed to eat not only physical manna, but also spiritual manna from heaven, bread that is eternal and satisfies the eternal hunger is their souls.  

So, what is this spiritual food that lasts forever? What does Jesus mean when he says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty?” 

What is Jesus is talking about? Jesus’ answer to us today is not surprising, but to people then it must have been rather shocking. In essence he says I m that manna from heaven; I am the food you are to eat, I am the food that gives you spiritual energy and direction through the wilderness of life.

Whatever we hunger for, Jesus is saying, whatever we are searching for in this life, we can be sure that by consuming Jesus our hunger will be satisfied. That’s why heaven sent Jesus like manna to earth; to satisfy our hunger and to quench our thirst.

So, do we hunger for?

*Truth, love, fulfillment? Jesus is the food for us. 

*Justice, freedom, and dignity? Jesus is the manna for us.

*Meaning, purpose, and happiness? Jesus provides.

These are the big bold questions that we all face in some form or another. But there are smaller, everyday kinds of hungers that Jesus also satisfies: *loneliness, *depression, *getting through another day, *the heartache of a broken relationship; *the erosion of life by illness, *how to get my kids to adulthood in one piece, *how to get myself through parenting in one piece; *how to overcome fears and anxieties an anger, *how to overcome addiction? These are all hungers of the human for which Jesus is the bread from heaven.

We could discuss how Jesus satisfies each of these spiritual hungers, but that might take a year or so.  The point I want to make now is that often even Christians seek to satisfy these spiritual hungers not with soul food but with various sorts of biological foods that cannot satisfy: self-help books, accumulated material possessions and pleasures, professional prestige, power over others, and all manner of self-indulging amusements; by doing so, we are substituting perishable food for eternal food and our souls’ hunger remains unsatisfied.

In contrast, how does Jesus satisfy these hungers?? He says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” How so? How can this be?  Answers are not simple or easy.

We are about to participate in the sacrament of Holy Communion. In it we eat a meal of bread and wine, we consume ritualistically Jesus’ flesh and blood. What does doing that mean to us when we eat them? Do we really believe (as Jesus asks the crowd to believe) that the work of God is to trust Jesus as manna from heaven, food that satisfies all the cravings of our souls? Do we really act like Jesus is soul food that satisfies us?

Even more challenging! Do we realize that in eating the bread and drinking the wine, we, as a Christian community, become the Body of Christ in the world today; that by consuming the bread and wine we commit ourselves to providing soul food for others; as the Body of Christ we are promising to satisfy the soul hunger others have for manna, for spiritual food. As a congregation, are we offering food that satisfies the spiritual hunger of our community? In many ways I think we already are: noon lunch; bible studies; dinner groups; missions to Honduras and Haiti, worship services, healing services, Sunday School, counseling; we are ears that listen, hearts that care. One food Trinity provides that goes a long way toward satisfying hunger in my soul is the choral and organ music.

What other ways might Trinity provide spiritual food for the spiritual hunger in our community?  What other imperishable bread might we add to the smorgasbord of foods we as the Body of Christ provide? This Fall what ministry might you get involved in to help satisfy the hunger of starving people? How hungry are you/we? Would we walk miles at midnight to satisfy our spiritual hunger? Would you sacrifice for spiritual food in the same way you sacrifice for physical food? Are you that hungry?

May God give us here at Trinity the courage to be the bread of life for hungry people here in Staunton and in the Shenandoah Valley.