Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on August 26, 2018
Preaching text: John 6:56-69

I remember it well. 1986 or so. The time I purchased my first Michael Card album. It was Scandalon. It was an odd choice for a teenage Christian music lover. It was not rock-n-roll or rap. Michael’s more of a singer-songwriter type, mellow, calm, quiet. Think James Taylor with a Bible. But there was something about his music that drew us in. Yes, us. Myself and all my teenage friends who listened to Christian music. There was just something to it, something rare and unique. A depth and a sincerity that we weren’t getting in the other musicians we listened to. It was grown up music.

The title track of the album was “Scandalon.” That’s the Greek word from which we get the English word “scandal” and it means to be offended or scandalized. Unsurprisingly, the song is about how truly offensive Jesus was.

That wasn’t something people liked to talk about. It still isn’t.

He will be the truth that will offend them one and all
A stone that makes men stumble
And a rock that makes them fall
Many will be broken so that He can make them whole
And many will be crushed and lose their own soul

That’s the chorus to Scandalon and the whole album is like that. You quickly realize that what it’s pointing to is a truth we Christians don’t like to admit. This isn’t really a religion. It’s not something you’re supposed to just put on once a week and be done with it. This will be your whole life. Jesus asks, no, demands, nothing less of us.

And that’s exactly what the crowds listening to Jesus’ teaching about the bread of life are starting to realize in today’s lesson. The metaphysical cannibalism is hard enough to understand, but the implications of it once you do are overwhelming. We are his and he is ours. All of our life is found in him and all of him is found in all of our life. There’s not separation. No division.

The crowds cannot accept this. Even among the Twelve there are those who question (Judas in particular), but Peter silences them for the moment with his wondrous confession. “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter’s right, of course, but we all thought this was supposed to be easy.

We all did. All of them then and all of us now. To back to Michael’s amazing lyrics....

It seems today the Scandalon offends no one at all
The image we present can be stepped over
Could it be that we are like the others long ago
Will we ever learn that all who come must stumble

Last week, I spoke of substitute Jesus’s. Of turning the Christ into a tabula rasa onto which we can project all our desires and how often we prove true the atheist saying that we create God in our own image. For the prosperity preachers and their followers, Jesus is a get-rich-quick scheme. To the white supremacists, he is a symbol of their racial idolatry. To the culture warriors, he is the personification of an unyielding judge that holds sexual sins like abortion and homosexuality as unforgivable abominations. To the jingoist, Jesus is the truest true American who wrote out founding documents like holy writ. He becomes us, not we become him.

No, to the prosperity preachers, I say Jesus is the bread of life. He is all that we need for life and meaning and purpose. To the racial supremacists, I say he is the one who came, lived, died, and rose again for the sake of all the world, not just your part or your people. To the culture warriors, I say he is the one who cried from the cross “Father, forgive” and then gave his life a ransom for all sinners of all stripes. To the jinoists, again, he is the one who came for all the world, not just our part.

And if that is who he is, that is who we are meant to be. At least in as much as we are able. That is our goal, unachievable perhaps, but something to which we are called to constantly and continually strive. That calling becomes, not surprisingly, our whole life.

Why? Why put such a monumental effort into a herculean task? Because of the greatest scandal of all. You are so important, you are so valuable, you are so precious that God himself died for you. You with all of your failings and vices and mistakes and flaws. You with all the times you’ve embraced false Christs and chased after them, heedless of the pain it caused the real one. You, who like the crowd, has wandered away so often. And me, the same. And everyone else.

The greatest scandal of all is that God values you more than himself. He values me more than himself. That’s how much he loves us. That’s why he died for us and it’s why he rose again for us to grant us life eternal. It was all for us. And if he loves me that much and if I know he loves you that much, how then can I live my life believing that I am in some way better than you? How can I live my life believing that I am in some way better than anyone else? How can I use him as a bludgeon upon those who don’t know him as well or at all? How can I do any of that when I know how much they matter to God?

Our lives must become a conduit for him. We must draw people to the Christ by showing the world who he truly is. I know I don’t do that perfectly; far from it. But every day, I wake up determined to show the world who our God truly is. And yes, he’s offensive. To love the unlovable. To forgive the unforgivable. To embrace the outcast. These are sins for which the world has little patience. But we are Christian and we follow one greater than the world. One who demands our whole life to his service and the services of those he loves. That’s what we’re to do. To love the unlovable. To forgive the unforgivable. To embrace the outcast. Just as he did. We are a scandal. We are the Church. Amen.

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Was to be preached on August 19, 2018 (Illness intervened)
Preaching text: John 6:51-58

Last Sunday, I ended my sermon with a question. Do we believe Jesus when he claims to be the “bread of life?” Do we trust that he is, indeed, all that we need for life, meaning, and purpose? Do we take him at his word when he makes these profound claims?

Given all the evidence, I think the answer is an obvious no. It’s hard to blame us. We humans are skeptical creatures. Life in this broken world has taught us to doubt most claims, especially those which seem too good to be true. The world is not trustworthy and the people who populate it less so. How can we believe such wild promises? We don’t. Not easily.

And that’s okay. Most of us here, I suspect, would certainly claim to want to believe them. After all, why come to church if not to nurture our often flagging faith? “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief” is our sincere prayer. Help us, Lord, to accept these promises. Help us to believe in you.

That’s all well and good. Doubt isn’t so much where we get in trouble. Where we get in trouble is when we start looking for substitutes. Instead of the “bread of life,” we start looking for what one might call “spiritual junk food,” stuff that looks good, promises a lot, but is ultimately empty. And we in the Church have been devouring that spiritual junk food like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

So much so that I happened upon an article this week with the title “The Church has a real problem with Jesus.” And it certainly seems that we do. I’ve noticed this. I’ve experienced this. You see, I’ve always been a little baffled by the fact that I have been perceived as this radical super-liberal preacher. Now while I’ll admit I’ve overstepped the boundaries of political discourse on more than one occasion, I don’t believe that’s where I’ve really earned this reputation. I’ve earned it because of my more general preaching of caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter. You know, what one might call basic human decency.

I just don’t get it. When did that become something radical or political? We used to call it having manners or being polite or just being a decent person. But then we started calling it “being PC” and we decided as a society that was a bad thing, so instead of being decent to one another, we complained about not being able to be total jerks to one another. “Waah! Why can’t I call black people the n-word?” I don’t know. Maybe because it’s really rude and offensive and it’s not something decent people do. This isn’t hard.

And ironically, it has often been Christians who’ve bellyached the loudest about this. Doubly ironic since I learned how to be a “decent human being” from Jesus of Nazareth. Not directly, of course, but through Sunday School teachers, pastors, and folks in the pews like you. People who taught rightly that caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter was stuff Jesus did. And if we’re Christians, you know maybe we should at least try to be a bit like the Christ.

But nope, instead of eating the bread of life, we have dived in to the junk food the world offers: hate, bigotry, greed, gluttony, lust, self-superiority, and all sort of vices. For the prosperity preachers and their followers, Jesus is now a get-rich-quick scheme. To the white supremacists, he is a symbol of their racial idolatry. To the culture warriors, he is the personification of an unyielding judge that holds sexual sins like abortion and homosexuality as unforgivable abominations. To the jingoist, Jesus is the truest true American who wrote out founding documents like holy writ. Regardless of particulars, he is ever and always a bludgeon, a weapon, to be turned on those we feel do not measure up.

The real Jesus is none of those things. We’ve made Jesus into what we desire, instead of allowing him to be what he truly is.

And who is he? He cares nothing for riches and actually promotes his followers to surrender their wealth for the sake of others. He gives no heed to race, creed, or national origins: Greeks, Samaritans, Romans, Jews, he welcomes them all. And those sexual vices we get so bent out of shape over are of little regard to him. In fact, some of the worst violators, the prostitutes and adulterers find places of honor at his side in the Gospel stories. That’s the bread of life. That’s who he is. Giving, caring, loving all people.

But we’ve sought our substitutes for one reason and one reason only. We are afraid. We’re afraid we’re going to die. Why is greed so popular? Because we need more and more, otherwise we might not have enough. Why is hate so popular? Because those people over there, those people, they’re going to kill us all!!!! They’re coming to get us! Be afraid!

To which Jesus says “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.” You will not die, but live. Have no fear.

I am the bread of life, Jesus tells us. He is all that we require for life and meaning and purpose. He is our all. He is our everything. Do we believe it? Perhaps not yet, but a good start might be to stop looking to our fears, for they are the illusion. Focus instead on the one who came to give his life for the world and follow in his footsteps, live (in as much as we can) as he did. Doing as he did, acting as he did. You know, like caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter. Being human to one another. If we focus on that, then we won’t have time or energy to worry about our fears. I think we’ll find in the meantime that Jesus will take care of us. That is what he means when he calls himself the bread of life. All that we need we have in him. It’s ours. There is nothing to fear. Trust in God and live as Christ would. Amen.

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Preached at Grace and Canadochly on August 12, 2018
Preaching text: John 6:35, 41-51

There are a lot of things that are not fun about being in the hospital recovering from illness. But, for me, having done this far more times now than I care to think about, there is one thing that just drives me bonkers. Ulcerative Colitis is a digestive disorder, which means the very first thing that happens to me when I go with a flare is that I am immediately put on a very restricted diet. Five days straight of clear chicken broth. Yay me!

Now, it helps settle things. But there’s an added factor. Flip on the TV. Let’s see what’s on to entertain me while I lie here and heal. “Arby’s! We have the meats!” “Unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks at Olive Garden.” “Pizza, pizza!” Ah, man, I can’t handle this. Let’s try the internet. Facebook. “Hi, here’s my lunch at this delicious restaurant.” “Oh, here’s a recipe for this wonderful new appetizer.” ARRRGH!!!

Food becomes almost an obsession when you can’t have it. But isn’t that just so human? We’re always focused on what we lack instead of what we have. I’m there in the hospital, under the care of an immensely skilled and talented team of medical professionals doing all they can to help me get better and I’m bellyaching (literally in some cases) about not being able to eat a hot dog.

But I think that’s one of the big points that keeps being driven home by these “bread of life” stories from the Gospel of John. We always get so hung up on what we don’t have that we are often blinded to what we do. That theme continues with today’s lessons. As Jesus teaches about what it means to be the “bread of life,” the great religious teachers take offense at him. Why? Because he doesn’t, in some way, measure up to their expectations. They echo the complaint of Jesus’ hometown synagogue, “This is just the son of Mary and Joseph. Who is he to make such bold claims?” Whatever else they may think, Jesus clearly doesn’t measure up.

Keep in mind that this all occurs, after all, after a great sign, the feeding of the 5000. Hardly the sort of deed an ordinary man could perform and yet they’ve missed it entirely because they want to focus on the superficial and the irrelevant.

To his credit, Jesus shows his detractors a great deal of patience. “This isn’t going to look like what you think.” he essentially says. “You’re here because the Father has brought you here, but it’s not like it was before in the wilderness with the manna. It’s different this time.”

And that may be the hardest lesson of all. We humans are creatures of consistency. I may joke, as I did at the beginning, about my chicken soup diet in the hospital, but I know it’s coming. It’s expected and there are no surprises there. We go through life searching for that consistency, those patterns that tell us that things are going to work out like they did before. When this was true, that was also true. When pews were full, we didn’t worry about the church. When money was abundant, we didn’t worry about the church. When jobs were plentiful, we didn’t worry about having enough money for bills and food and other things in life. Now all those things have become less certain and if we just get them back, if we just repeat the old pattern, things will be good again.

Jesus however promises no such assurances here. The old is gone and what remains is something new. With that comes a seeming uncertainty. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. What Jesus offers instead is the promise of a faithful God who has dedicated everything to the salvation and care of his people.

God provides all that we need. The trick is whether we believe him or not.

It’s not easy. When we take that good hard look at ourselves and our lives, we don’t typically come away with the impression that we have everything we need to live and thrive and succeed in our callings as disciples of Jesus. We see the lack; we see what we don’t have. We lack strength or knowledge or health or confidence or charisma or whatever. The list can become endless. But that’s not what God sees. And God sees us as we truly are and calls us to our tasks according to his purpose. He’s given us everything, even his very self, and then sits back waiting to watch the magic happen.

God believes in you. God trusts in you. Do you believe in that? Do you believe that God, who knows everything about you, trusts you enough to call you to his service, fully aware that you are capable of doing what he asks? This is the heart of faith. Do you trust that God knows what he’s doing? Do you believe that he’s given you all that you need? Do you believe?

That’s what Jesus is driving at here. Can we, as disciples, place our whole trust in the one who has given all for our sake? Are we confident that his promise will never be broken? Are we assured that our tasks, our calling, is doable? Do we believe it when he says we have life eternal? That we will never be parted from him? That we are his forever? Do we believe it?

We do not lack. We have God. That’s everything. That’s his promise. That’s what it means for Christ to be the “bread of life.” All that we require for life is given to us. All that we require for success is given to us. We have everything we need.

What’s stopping us? Amen.

Pastoral Letter to the people of Canadochly

Read in worship at Canadochly on August 5, 2018

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ of the congregation of Canadochly Lutheran Church,

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from our Lord Jesus Christ. I truly give thanks to God for you, for our life together, for our partnership in ministry, and specifically for all your prayer and support of me in these difficult days. I write this from my hospital room so I have not yet gotten home to see your cards, but I have seen your texts and received your phone calls. I am immensely humbled by your love and care. Thank you all.

I wanted to model this pastoral letter on Paul’s epistles, beginning with the sort of greeting he might employ when writing to the Corinthians or the Ephesians. Paul has been on my mind during my convalescence because it was he who famously wrote of his “thorn in the flesh,” an unknown malady that plagued him much as my UC does me. God’s answer to Paul’s prayer for healing of that thorn has often troubled me: “My grace is sufficient for you.” That sounds suspiciously like a “no.”

No is not something we want to hear from God. Oh, it’s one thing to hear a no when we pray for the trite and unimportant. No to a winning lottery ticket or a victory for our sports team is expected and acceptable. But, no to an end to our suffering? No to the end of a horrible illness? No to sparing a loved one from pain? Those no’s are hard to bear.

But as I reflect on my experience here, I’m increasingly convinced that God’s answer to Paul is not a no. In addition to my personal experiences, I am also drawn to that conclucion by these stories that surround one of the most famous miracles in all the Scriptures, the feeding of the 5000. No other miracle besides the resurrection of Jesus appears in all four Gospels, so there is likely some fundamental lesson here beyond “Voila! Here is food to eat. Enjoy.” But what manner of lesson is it?

When Mark writes of this event and its aftermath, he often criticizes the crowds and the disciples for “not understanding the lesson of the loaves.” Here, in John, Jesus says much the same thing, that the crowd doesn’t get it either since they came only “because they had a fill of the loaves,” implying they are more interested in the physical than the meaning behind it all. Jesus uses this opportunity however to begin a lengthy discussion about how he is the “bread of life.”

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus boldly proclaims. There’s a lot to unpack in those six words. Like all “I am” statements in John’s Gospel, Jesus invokes the divine name of Yahweh (Hebrew for “I am”), implying rightly that he and God are one and the same. But what about the bread? What does that mean? Well, what is bread to us? A staple food. It is sustenance. Nutrition. That which sustains the biological function of our bodies. That which sustains life. Expanded, “bread” symbolizes all that we need to live. Not just physically like air, water, food, and shelter, but also meaning and purpose, understanding and wisdom. God provides all these things. God gives all these things. God is all these things. God gives life. God is life. And we have all these things through God.

In other words, God gives us all we need to live. Or, to put it yet another way, “my grace is sufficient for you.” We already have all that we require to live, to thrive, to accomplish that which God has set before us.

It becomes a question of perspective. We are so accustomed to operate from a position of lack and scarcity that we often do not see what we truly have and what we truly are. Our society does not help in this matter. Consumerist culture is devoted to convincing us that our lives absolutely require this latest product or new gadget or whatever that is being offered for sale. Without it, our lives will be incomplete, they tell us. Without it, we will not be the talk of the town. Our society thrives on envy and jealousy, two emotions that find their origins in a perception of lack.

But the lesson of the loaves is that we do not lack anything at all, that we have all that we need to do what God has called us to do. This has been the lesson of my hospital stay. Yes, it seems that I lack: I lack health and wellness, strength and stability. But I have your love, care, and support. I have the wonder of medical technology, the advancement of science, and the skill of physicians and nurses. I have time, freedom to rest. And my illness has hardly robbed me of my mind, heart, courage, and passion. I have all that I need.

We may look around us now and see only scarcity. No people. No money. Empty pews. But when I look out over the lot of you, as I hope to do again soon, I see a mighty people, filled with gifts, talents, passion, resources, and compassion for others. I see a people who can make a real difference in people’s lives. You prove the truth of that time and again when I find myself in need. You prove the truth of that in the way you care and support one another. Our scarcity is not what we think it is. God’s grace is sufficient here.

The core of the Gospel is simple. God takes care of us. He is our bread, our whole means and mechanism for life and living. Freed from worrying about such things, we are now able to care for one another and the whole world around us. Most of my sermons consist of a simple plea: take what you do so well for me and one another and apply it more broadly, to the world beyond these walls. Change the world, one soul at a time. You have all that you need to do just that, so go and do it. Let God worry about the rest. There is bread enough to sustain you no matter what you face in life. God is there. God has always been there. God will always be there.

I never doubt that, because I see God in you all the time. All I ask is that you make that real for others. May others see God in you as I do.

Be well. God bless you all. I look forward to returning to work among you again. Amen.

Pastor Allen