When truth is not truth

We live in a time when government leaders tell us not to believe what we read and hear.  We live in a time when 'alternate facts' is somehow a 'thing,' and 'truth is not truth'.  (a quote from attorney Rudy Guliani on national TV).

So we won't find it hard to stand with the crowd around Jesus who is claiming that to eat his flesh and drink his blood will grant them eternal life.  We've heard some outrageous claims in recent history; this is a 1st century whopper.  Yet, Jesus is dead serious as we wind our way through the 6th chapter of John.  "the one who eats this bread will live forever" and "the bread that I give to the world to eat is my flesh".

I don't want to water down this promise of  'eternal life' with some fanciful picture of people with wings living in the clouds.  Our picture of 'heaven' makes for good comics but very poor theology.  I don't want to water this down to 'grandpa is looking down on us' wishful thinking which eases our grief but doesn't provide any vision for living today.

I want us to believe that because Jesus lives, we live too.

.....that, our life, when hidden in the life of Jesus, is likewise hidden in the Divine Creator for all time.

.....that eternal life is not an endless stretching out of days and months and years; it is not a endless succession of seasons but rather it is all time and no time, it is before time and after time, it is eternally now, beginning today.

.....that to abide in Jesus is to enter into the deep mystery of God where our earthly powers of reason and understanding are not useful.

There is nothing out there in the world which will explain this to you.  In fact, I think it is the stuff that is out there in the world that drives us to seek God, to listen for an answer beyond the talking heads and loud politicians.  Hope that is linked to the economy or our personal work ethic or politicians or doctors or even (in this age of rampant sexual abuse) in clergy is hope which will disappoint and betray.  Only hope in a living Lord Jesus will prove faithful beyond this temporary world.

Come to the table to eat and drink.  Come to meet the living Lord.

This bread and wine can be a source of strength and hope or it can be a stumbling block because in this meal we come face to face with Jesus..........

the Jesus who is either strength and hope ..........or a snake oil salesman.

the Jesus who is either full life, all life, with no qualifiers......or he is nothing.

Here there is no compromise.  There is only covenant; relationship; intimacy and trust.

Eat and drink trusting that the living Lord will now become the center of your being, the north star of your life, the one who will hold you and never let go.

Standing at the intersection

Most days we stand at the intersection of "I don't think so" and "We can only hope."  Whether it is a car salesman's claim that this new car gets 50 mpg, or a child's claim that she is perfectly innocent or a spouse's assertion that it was a late meeting with the boss, most days we stand between incredulous skepticism and the chance possibility of our dreams coming.true.  This is especially true when it comes to faith.

So when Jesus says "I am the bread of life" "the living bread" and "whoever eats of me has eternal life," there we are right at the intersection of "I don't think so" and "We can only hope".

You can hear it in the confused crowd who is trying to make sense out of Jesus' words. They are caught between looking like a bunch of fools for believing this guy, and at the same time, not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to be fed forever. It is hard because Jesus is making some outrageous claims.

Some of the folks know Jesus from the neighborhood; he lived right down the street.  They want to deflate Jesus' elevated opinion of himself.  Some of the folk must have thought Jesus was talking jibberish:  I am the bread come down from heaven, and the bread that I give to the world is my flesh.

We are caught at this intersection because we want to believe that Jesus is living bread, that we can taste and experience life eternal, but life has taken us to some deep, dark places were trusting in God is almost more than we can bear.  Did you read about that 5 year old boy whose family was caught in one of the wild fires?  He calls out from the house, about to be engulfed by flames, "Grandpa, come and get me!" as Grandpa stood helpless - in safety but unable to re-enter the already burning home.  This is deep darkness; we must take this reality seriously when we consider Jesus' words.


But what if Jesus is simply speaking the truth?  "I am" he says.  Not 'I will be' or 'I once was' but "I am".  "Whoever eats of me has eternal life"  Has.  Not 'will have' or 'could have' but "has" - the eternal present. The gift of Jesus is not for some distant time but begins the moment you turn towards him. Commit to this Jesus and begin tasting eternal life today.  Who couldn't use a little taste of the eternal on any given day of the week?

So, today, let's begin with now.  Let's believe that today I will taste the eternal; I will see God.  I will experience or witness mercy or forgiveness or grace or love.  I will be given the strength to be mercy or forgiveness or generosity or grace or love to another.  Today.

Today we begin to taste the powerful presence of the eternal in the ordinary.

All that bread

Perhaps the confusion comes when we think that the miraculous feeding of 5000 is just about the bread - literally.  5 loaves and 2 fish become enough to feed 5000 until everyone is full - satiated - and there are 12 baskets leftover.  Got to admit, that's a lot of bread.

But since we are reading about this miracle in the gospel of John, the 12 baskets are far from the end of this story.  As one commentator put it, Jesus fed 5000 and then spent 4 weeks explaining what he just did.  That alone tells you that for the writer of John, bread is more than bread.

But we've all known that, right?  Although it might be miraculous for 5 loaves and 2 fish to effectively feed 5000; and if, in fact, it was a feeding for those peoplen with no implications for now, then it is similar to the George Washington cherry tree incident.  Clever, but not really meaningful.  I am no scholar of John, but you can trust me that everything in John is meaningful, and it is all meant to point us to who Jesus is, not just today, but for all eternity.

It starts in the very beginning.....as the gospel begins with "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  No simple annunciation or birth story for this writer.  The writer takes us back to the very beginning, echoing the opening words of the book of Genesis when the Divine Creator begins to move over the chaos.    Somehow this story of Jesus is another beginning, but in perfect harmony with the first beginning.  Somehow this Jesus is more than a prophet, here today and gone tomorrow.... 

 ....and, somehow, bread is more than bread.  In fact, the bread is Jesus' body:  broken and given to all who gather to nourish them into a new kind of life.  Although, this is not a metaphor, Jesus' really does offer his own body for the sake of the world.  Metaphor.  Not a metaphor.  That's John.

Notice - this is not just life like what we currently know but without the stuff we don't like.  It is a new kind of life - a life that is so full it is eternal (in contrast to some of our lives that are so full of struggle and pain that they only seem eternal). 

But this is just week one.  This week we are reminded that people are hungry in every sense of this word, and the work of Jesus and Jesus' followers is to feed them.  Literally.  That is the first step to our call as servants.

But wait, there is more to come.

A reading for today....

From Ted Loder, poet, spiritual guide, author.  In Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle

Sometimes It Just Seems to Be Too Much

Sometimes, Lord,
it just seems to be too much:
     too much violence, too much fear;
     too much of demands and problems;
     too much of broken dreams and broken lives;
     too much of war and slums and dying;
     too much of greed and squishy fatness
        and the sounds of people
            devouring each other
                and the earth;
     too much of stale routines and quarrels,
          unpaid bills and dead ends,
     too much of words lobbed in to explode
        and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
     too much of turned away backs and yellow silence,
        red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.

Sometimes the very air seems scorched
     by threats and rejection and decay
        until there is nothing
            but to inhale pain
                and exhale confusion.
Too much of darkness, lord,
     too much of cruelty
           and selfishness
                and indifference....

Too much, Lord,
     too much,
         too bloody,
              bruising,
                  brain-washing much.

Or is it too little,
     too little of compassion,
too little of courage,
     of daring,
        of persistence,
             of sacrifice;
too little of music
     and laughter and celebration?

O God,
make of me some nourishment
     for these starved times,
some food for my brothers and sisters
     who are hungry for gladness and hope,
that, being bread for them,
     I may also be fed
          and be full.

The miracle of feeding

"There's a hunger beyond food that's expressed in food, and that's why feeding is always a kind of miracle.  It speaks to a bigger desire.  The feeding of the five thousand....the miracle wasn't that Jesus multiplied the loaves.  It's that the disciples took the bread and did what they were told, got up and started feeding, and something happened." *

What is that bigger desire that is addressed in bread and fish?  Could it be a desire to be connected to one another?  Could it be the recognition of our shared humanity in the sharing of food?  Does the passing of the bread invite us to open up to one another, to give the other a second glance?

In Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth he writes, "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves."  (11.29)  Many denominations have used this passage to insist on examining all who step up to the Lord's table, and therefore, refusing the bread and wine to any who are unable to pass the examination.  What is this bread?  The body of Christ.  What is this wine?  The blood of Christ.

I believe Paul was speaking of an entirely different body.  I believe Paul is speaking about the body of Christ formed by the sharing of the meal; the body of Christ which is formed by those who gather at this time and in this place to become once again a part of the great mystery of God's love for us in Jesus.

Paul warns us not to step up to the Lord's table while rejecting another who the Lord has invited.  When you look across the table to those who are gathered for the meal, you need to be able to see the body of Christ and every single person gathered there as a part of that body.  You don't get to choose who is worthy and who is not.  If you cannot look with love on all the others, then step back and save yourself.  Come back when you are ready to open yourself to those whom God loved before time and who through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus are offered new life.

But is the communion table the only table of the Lord?  Are not all our tables filled with the bounty that comes from God's hand?  Are we ever to step up to a table and not see Christ's body poured out for all humankind?  Are we to take of any bread while judging others unworthy?

Those canned peas you brought to the food drive.....they too are the body and blood of Jesus, a love poured out for all whom God created.  Are you able to see it now?  The body of Christ, formed and re-formed again and again in diner and dining room and rescue mission.  The body of Christ feeding our deepest, biggest desires.


*thanks once again to Sara Miles for her book "take this bread".  The quote comes from page 175.

The body of Christ...........

"I still can't explain my first communion.  It made no sense.  I was in tears and physically unbalanced: I felt as if I had just stepped off a curb or been knocked over, painlessly, from behind.  The disconnect between what I thought was happening - I was eating a piece of bread; what I heard someone else say was happening - the piece of bread was the 'body' of  'Christ,' ....and what I knew was happening - God, named 'Christ' or 'Jesus' was real, and in my mouth - utterly short-circuited my ability to do anything but cry."  

"And so I kept taking communion, unprepared and unreformed.  I figured communion would take me, too - wherever I was going." 

Yes.  That's it.  God's holy supper will take you - your life - wherever you are going.
Where is God taking you?

Thank you Sara Miles for sharing this wonderful description of your experience of  Christ in the meal.  How powerful it is to be invited into that place, around that table,  with Christ as host week after week after week. Quotes are from Sara Miles' book, "take this bread", pages 59 and 83.

In the breaking of the bread......

"I broke the bread, big chunks from Tom's round wheat loaf, and put a piece in the hand of the person standing in front of me, and looked at her.  Something happened......again."

There is power in the words "in the breaking of the bread," power beyond the simple meaning of the words.  Two travelers heading to Emmaus discovered that their dinner guest was the risen Lord Jesus himself in the 'breaking of the bread.'  Three of our younger members who come for bread lift their hands reverently, and even if only for 15 seconds they are centered, focused, ready to take and eat the bread that is broken for them.  Our older members who cannot come to worship with the fellowship will say, 'Be sure to bring communion when you visit."

There is power in the breaking of the bread because Christ is present. On the night in which he was betrayed (how often have we entered into those words and that story?) Jesus broke bread with his disciples - all 12.  Judas, the one we love to hate.  Peter, the one we love to redeem by overlooking his denial of Christ.  Some of the disciples fade away from the historic record, they become the anonymous ones sort of like you and me.  Together they broke bread.  Together....with Christ and with one another.

Thus they modeled the Christian life.  We do it together.  We do it with betrayers and deniers and behind-the-scenes workers.  We do it with strangers and disreputable folk.  We do it with enemies.  We live the Christian life in the midst of the life we know, yet breaking bread with all who come to the table.

When I traveled to Africa, I learned about a code of hospitality which welcomed, fed, and protected the guest.  Those with little shared their little with me.....and here's the real insight.....they rejoiced that they were able to give and to share.  We ate at the same table; we shared the same food.  We became family for that moment.

Just like the communion bread we share, we don't receive it because we are good or special.  We receive because Christ poured out himself into this meal of solidarity where all the hungry are fed.  The bread on the table of the Lord is meant to be shared with everyone.  It is not a private meal.  Jesus didn't choose only the holy, the deserving, the morally upright to invite to the table; he invited and ate with all.  He invited me.  He invited you.

Luther said, "We are beggars, all."  We are all hungry in a thousand different ways.  Jesus feeds all.  Jesus feeds all.

Thanks be to God.

How many tomatoes = daily bread

How many tomatoes does it take to support a family?

Many of the marginal folks in Zambia have developed a way to purchase a commodity here for 10 cents each and sell it there for 11 cents each (obviously this is just an example using US currency).  For the smallest of profit margins these folks will re-locate a needed item from far away (important if you do not have any kind of transport) to nearby which allows them to charge just a little more and make a living.

Many women do this with tomatoes.

You will see them on the side of the road.  Perhaps they have a little table with a large display of tomatoes on it; sometimes these women only have a large basket of tomatoes.  Their neighbors, who don't have enough money to pay a lot more for the convenience of having these tomatoes close by, will pay just a little bit more to purchase what they need.

These entrepreneurs have no overhead since they simply set up on the side of the road.  They pay no taxes since they are not officially a business.  And they pay no workers because it is a one woman operation.

From these tomatoes a family is supported; often more than one family since the woman often has to pay someone to watch her children at home.

Perhaps at the end of a day this woman will have the equivalent of $1.  At a penny a tomato she must sell 100 tomatoes a day to earn her dollar.  At the end of the week she may pay her help $1. 

This is what 'marginalized' looks like in tomatoes.

Give us this day our daily bread, we pray.  Lord, please help me sell 100 tomatoes today.  AMEN