John 6:51-58
“You Are What You Eat”
Preached August 18, 2024
How many of you are familiar with the sugary fruit snack Gushers? As a kid I wasn’t allowed to eat these and because I was six years old and had the reasoning ability to match, I thought it was because of the commercials. The Gusher commercials always showed cool looking kids eating Gushers...and then their heads changing into the fruit of whatever flavor Gusher they were eating. As a young kid I thought...does that really happen? Would my head turn colors when I eat Gushers? Is THAT why my parents won’t let me eat them? It only took a few more years, and a disappointing first Gushers experience at a friend’s house, to realize that no, Gushers wouldn’t turn my head fun colors or fruit shapes. My parents probably didn’t want me eating them because of the 10 grams of sugar and food coloring in every package - and they were a little pricey.
But as a young child, these commercials made my brain take the idea of, “You are what you eat” quite seriously. Did any of you ever hear this phrase going up? Show of hands? Yeah? As a kid I thought it was a stupid reason not to eat Gushers and an even lamer reason to have to eat those three green beans on my plate before I was allowed to leave the table. “You are what you eat” my parents would tell me as I pushed my vegetables around my plate with a fork... But as I have gotten older, and have been working on re-learning the skill of listening to my body, I have been thinking more about the term, “You are what you eat” - in terms of what foods give me the most energy, are good for my body, or even bring me joy, sugar count taken into consideration or not.
So today I’d like us to take into serious consideration the phrase, “You are what you eat” in relation to the Eucharist, the meal of bread and juice that we share together on Sundays at our altar table. What does it mean to eat this bread, to eat the body of Christ? What does it mean to share this cup, to drink the blood of Christ? And what effect does it have on us, those who consume it, those who become what we eat?
As we begin to examine this question, let’s start by looking at the Scripture. Remember, this is now at the third Sunday we’ve heard Jesus talk about bread - I preached on bread twice, we had a guest preacher, and now we’re back to bread again. This is part of a multi-week Bread of Life discourse in the Revised Common Lectionary. It all started with Jesus feeding the crowds, multiplying loaves of bread and fish to feed the 5,000. And from there the crowds followed him, wanting more bread. Jesus told them to look not for food that perishes but food that endures for eternal life. They talked about manna, the bread that God sent from heaven to feed the Israelites in the desert, and Jesus claimed that he is the bread of life and those who come to him will never be hungry or thirsty. But this wasn’t necessarily an easy concept to grasp so the conversation continued. There were those who asked how Jesus, a normal man, could claim these things about himself? Once again, Jesus answers, “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.” And the response to this statement from the detractors, from those questioning Jesus was, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Now, I want us to pause a moment and realize that this question makes PERFECT sense to ask. Some of us may be going, “Um..like, duh! The body and blood of Christ, the Lord’s Supper? How could these guys not get it?” But remember, to Jesus’s listeners, that event hadn’t happened yet. Now John, the writer of this Gospel, wrote this after Jesus’s death and resurrection and this story is, in many ways, John’s reflections on the last supper...but his listeners would have had no clue what he was talking about. They did not have the reference of Holy Communion to interpret Jesus’s words through. When we hear scriptures like this one, when we hear Jesus talking about bread and flesh, about drinking blood, we have 2,000 years of understanding of the Eucharist to help us understand it. His listeners would not have had that. And so while we hear these words through the lens of this table, of breaking bread and sharing the cup, as a kind of metaphor, as imagery, as a symbol that is more than a mere symbol...Jesus’s listeners would have heard his words much more literally.
The question, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” would have been filled with disgust, dismay - perhaps even outrage. Giving us his FLESH to eat? This man is talking about cannibalism! And Jesus here, he doesn’t respond, “No, no, guys - it’s okay, it’s really just bread!” Nah, Jesus is committed to the imagery and, I think, he kind of liked that people were freaking out. Jesus knew how to stir the pot and wanted to see people’s reactions to his words. So he says, “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.” I imagine that the looks on the crowd’s faces were just pure disgust. Because by saying this, Jesus upped the ante in two ways.
First, he is now also talking about drinking blood, an idea that, being repulsive by itself, is against Jewish Law. Leviticus 17:10-11 reads, “If anyone of the house of Israel or of the aliens who reside among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood, and will cut that person off from the people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.” So first, ew. Second, big no-no according to God.
But Jesus also adds another level that may have freaked out his listeners, but to us who read this passage in English, we miss it. So the first time Jesus says to eat his flesh, the word used for eat is a basic, common word - basically just “eat.” But the second time Jesus says “eat the flesh of the Son of Man,” the word he is using for “eat” is different. It’s basically an onomatopoeia, a word that conveys a sound. A better equivalent might be ‘munch’ or ‘gnaw.’ It’s a noisy kind of eating, it conveys desperation, attacking one’s food like an animal might. Can you imagine how this would have sounded? “Unless you gnaw the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
Now, why would Jesus phrase it this way? I mean, other than to elicit looks of surprise or dismay from his listeners? Now, we know from the Leviticus quote that blood is related to atonement, it’s related to life - it’s necessary for life. And to gnaw food, to eat ravishingly, like a hungry animal - there’s a basic need being met here. A hungry animal eats because, well, it’s hungry! It gnaws on flesh because its life depends on it. And isn’t that what Jesus said? That if you don’t eat his flesh and drink his blood, you won’t have life in you? But for those “who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life!” We are to eat Jesus’s flesh as if our life depends on it - because it does!
And I want to pause here to draw attention to the disconnect. There is definitely something missing from this frenzied, life-dependent eating...and the practice we share together, where we come forward, receive a piece of bread, and dip it in the cup. The first is the image Jesus is painting for us, the second is our polite and reserved Communion practice. But I want to ask if there is a disconnect not between our table manners and animals eating...but in our hearts and what Jesus says as we approach the table? Do we approach this table, do we hunger for the bread and the cup, Jesus’s flesh and blood, as if our lives depended on it? Or is it simply a “nice” practice, that which we wouldn’t miss if we were unable to get to church the once a month or so that we actually practice it? Is it something that we long for? Or is it something that we do and hope it doesn’t make the service go fifteen minutes longer...Is there a disconnect in your heart between the life-dependent hunger that Jesus describes and what you feel as you approach the Lord’s Table?
And there might be a disconnect. I think, in some ways, the Church has failed to keep this meal central to our Christian practice, that which Jesus commanded us to do in remembrance of him, that which Jesus said is necessary for life! We’ve failed to keep it central, to teach of its importance, even to talk about the need and hunger we have for it. Instead we’ve relegated it to once a month or special occasions, or a mere symbol when it is so much more. So I want to talk about the need now, the need for this life-giving meal.
The need is simple. The need is Jesus, the divine Savior who we all need. Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” What does it mean for us to abide in Jesus and for him to abide in us? I think abide is pretty churchy language, we hear this word in Scripture but don’t really use it in our lives. So I want to share not a definition of abide, but what it means for me to abide in Christ and for Christ to abide in me.
For me to abide in Jesus...that’s the comfort and strength that I rely on every day for my journey. For me to abide in Christ, I imagine it like Christ is holding me. When I cry, Christ wipes away my tears. When I’m angry, Christ brings me peace or channels my anger for justice. When I’m tired or weak or feel I can’t continue, Jesus carries me forward, pushes me, strengthens me, offers me rest, never leaves me. Whenever I am at a point in my life where I feel I can’t do it alone, I just have to remember Jesus and he’s RIGHT there. I just have to turn to him. To abide in Christ is to know that you are never alone, you are never forgotten, you are never not loved.
And for Christ to abide in me...well, that’s necessary for me to do this job without losing my sanity! But really, all jokes aside. For Christ to abide in me is necessary for all of us as human beings and Christians. For Christ to abide in me...that means that all those traits Jesus has: Love, mercy, forgiveness, justice, humility, goodness - are given to me. For Christ to abide in me, it means that I can reflect those traits to others. Because Christ is at work within me, I can forgive instead of seeking retribution. I can seek justice in an unjust world. I can love when it would be all too easy to hate. Because I abide in Christ and Christ abides in me, I can foster and develop traits to make me more like Jesus. Now, not saying I’m there - I am a long way off, but I can seek what God seeks, I can set my heart to what God loves, I can continually work on becoming more Christ-like.
Because isn’t that the goal? Not just for me but for all who call themselves followers of Jesus? To BE the body, the flesh, and blood of Jesus Christ to our world? We are the only body Christ has in this world! WE are to be Christ to others, to love, to seek justice, mercy, humility. We are the hands and feet, the body, the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.
And it’s not easy work to be followers of Christ, to seek to be Christ to a hurting world. It’s hard. We often forget. We lapse. We mess up. And that is why we NEED this meal. We need the flesh and blood of Jesus. We need the constant reminder of who and whose we are! We are Followers of Christ! We belong to God. We NEED God, we have a deep seated hunger in our souls for all that our Savior, our God is. And as we take Communion, time after time, Sunday after Sunday, we are reminded of the sacrifice Christ made for us. We are reminded of the call that God has for our lives, that we are to live according to Christ’s self-sacrificial love for the whole world. Now, it’s not like everytime we take this bread and dip it in the cup we are automatically and magically renewed, made more holy, more right with God...but it certainly helps. It’s a physical, tangible reminder that God is still with us, present in the bread, present in the cup, present, abiding, in our bodies and hearts. And the more often we do it, the more we are used to recognizing the hunger inside of us and coming to the table, turning to God instead of other worldly things, to fill that hunger, the more we come to realize our dependency on abiding in and with our God.
Do you feel that hunger inside of you this morning? Do you long to be with Christ, to feast at his heavenly table? To eat his flesh and drink his blood? For him to abide in you and you in him? Do you accept the promises that Christ offers us in this meal? That we who eat and we who drink will have eternal life? This is what it means to eat and drink at the altar table. To satisfy a hunger that only Christ can subside, to live in this life with the abiding power and presence of Christ Jesus, and to claim the promise of salvation and life eternal with our Triune God.
If you are what you eat, then I want, I need, I hunger, for the body and blood of Christ. Will you join us in the feast?
Amen.
Monday, August 19, 2024
Monday, August 5, 2024
"Living Bread" a sermon on John 6:24-35
John 6:24-35
“Living Bread”
Preached August 4, 2024
“This is the JOY for me! I. love. bread. I love bread!” So started a Weight Watchers commercial featuring Oprah, sharing her passion for bread. And while I’m not a Weight Watchers person myself, this commercial resonated with me. Oprah loves bread? So do I! But probably most of the world loves bread - I think that bread is the ultimate comfort food. Now, I know a lot of you are gluten-free. Some of you are due to medical reasons and many due to choice. And friends, I have respect for you, I pray for you, and I marvel at your discipline! AND I wish you nothing less than the JOY that Oprah gets from bread in whatever fuels your diet. Because bread brings me so much joy. And bread is so versatile and comes in so many forms. From a good wheat sandwich bread, a sourdough, focaccia, pita, tortillas, naan, brioche...to the Eucharist, that is, the bread on our altar table, the bread we bless, break, and eat together.
When I think about my love for bread, I think about bread on two levels. There is the level of eating bread for sustenance, nourishment, strength, and comfort. And then there is the level of sharing in the Lord’s Supper in which I eat the body of Christ and share in the cup for sustenance, nourishment, strength, and comfort. I cannot separate the bread on my dining room table and the bread on our altar table. They both are integral parts of my life. One satisfies my body, the other satisfies my soul, and today’s Gospel reading talks about both kinds of bread.
See, John often operates on at least two levels, talking about two things at once and that’s what’s happening in this conversation between Jesus and the crowd who had followed him. And in order to understand the conversation, we have to look at three different stories about bread.
The first reference to bread in this passage is the reason the crowd followed Jesus, the miracle he had performed in the first part of this chapter in John. We looked at it last week but allow me to refresh your memory: Jesus had crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and a large crowd followed him because they knew of his miracles, how he cured the sick. And so when Jesus saw the crowds he asked his disciples, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” And in disbelief his disciples answered him that it would take six months wages to feed the crowd and even then, barely! Many would probably leave hungry. But a young boy had five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus had the crowds sit and he gave thanks for the bread and distributed it. 5,000 plus people ate their fill, as much as they wanted, and were satisfied. After the meal was over, the disciples gathered up the leftovers and had twelve baskets full of bread. And the people were amazed and what he had done - so much so that they wanted to make him king! And so Jesus withdrew from the crowd...and then, of course, the crowd followed him again.
Because wouldn’t you follow a person who cured the sick? That’s the reason this crowd of 5,000 came to him in the first place! And then that same person, that same man, fed them until they were full! Of course they wanted to make him king! A politician today who supported good healthcare, worked with a little and gave a lot, and made sure all were fed? All were satisfied? They’d have my vote! But Jesus didn’t want to be king and he wasn’t running for political office. He just wanted to feed the hungry, to break bread together with them. I think this is an amazing thing about Jesus, about our God, that he asks, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus sees the hunger in the crowd, the physical hunger in the bodies of 5,000 people and he doesn’t just say, “Where are they going to get food...on their own?” or “What am I going to eat?” He said, “How am I, how are we - going to feed them?” Jesus is the ultimate dinner party host, attentive, caring, gracious. And from this story, we can learn that Jesus cares about physical hunger. Jesus cares about the bread, or lack thereof, on our dining room tables, on the tables of our neighbors. Jesus cares about the tables of 44 million Americans and 2.4 billion people worldwide who are food insecure. And to those of us who have bread, even if it’s just a handful of barley loaves, Jesus is asking, “How are we to feed them?”
This is the first story of bread in our reading today, the foundation of what we are talking about: Bodies, hunger, bread, physical bread. And this is the reason the crowds followed Jesus and he said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” And here the crowd and Jesus have a little back and forth discussion. The crowd is looking for signs to believe in Jesus, to follow him, to take him for his word on who he is and what he has to offer. Apparently, healing the sick and feeding 5,000 weren’t enough. So they say to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
This is the second story about bread, and it brings us back to the book of Exodus: The Israelites had been led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses. They left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and were now wandering the desert, in the area that we know as the Sinai peninsula. They were journeying toward the promised land and gave God the credit for freeing them from slavery. This release from Egypt was an impactful, defining moment for the Israelites, an event that continues to shape and define the Jewish people even in our modern day. But, after two months wandering in the desert, well, it’s easy to get a little forgetful, a little disgruntled, a little hungry. Perhaps even a little hangry. And so they called out, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” They were hungry and God took notice.
So God told Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you.” And God delivered. Every morning in the desert after that, for forty years, when the Israelites woke up, there was bread from heaven, manna, on the ground like morning dew on the grass. They ate their fill of a bread that tasted like wafers with honey, and their hunger was satisfied.
Once again, God notices hunger and does something about it, God provides bread, manna from heaven. And, there was something more than quenching physical hunger, something more than bread that God gave to the Israelites in the gift of manna. In manna, in bread, the Israelites were reminded to whom they belonged. They remembered their salvation from the land of Egypt, from slavery and oppression. In the gift of bread, they remembered that they had a God who would not abandon them, that they had a God who liberates and gives them freedom, that they had a God who cared about their physical AND spiritual hunger - a God who gives manna, bread, in the wilderness, sustenance for body and soul, when it’s most needed.
And the crowd that followed Jesus on this day, they were looking to Jesus for something like manna, a sign of who he was. And Jesus replies, saying to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Jesus was reminding them that manna was more than food, more than bread, it was sustenance in the wilderness for their bodies and souls.
And as those in the crowd are reminded of this, they realize they are hungry. But as they say to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always,” they are not asking for physical bread. The hunger they have is not necessarily in their bodies, but in the souls. They are seeking the bread that will give them sustenance in the wilderness. That will remind them of the promises of God, grace and love, liberation and salvation. They are asking for bread because they’re spiritually hungry and they are looking for something that will satisfy their every need, satisfy their hungry hearts.
And Jesus says to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And this is the third story about bread in this morning’s Gospel reading. The God who cares about our physical hunger, the God who gives us bread, the God who gives manna in the wilderness, who sustains and liberates God’s people - Jesus is claiming to be that God. Jesus is claiming that through him, the gift of manna, of satisfying spiritual hunger in the wilderness, was not just available to the Israelites in the desert, but is available to the crowd before him, and by extension, to all, including us here today.
This is why on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you eat it.” Jesus is bread for the world, Jesus is the bread of life, that sustenance which will satisfy every spiritual hunger we have, that will satisfy our hungry hearts, that will give us a taste of freedom, of liberation, of grace, of love, of joy! This is the joy! Not just that we love bread, physical bread. The joy is that the Bread of Life loves us! That Jesus is the bread of life! And that bread is available to all, and those who partake of it shall never grow hungry or thirsty again.
So as you come to the altar table today and partake in Communion. And as you go home and you eat bread at your dining room tables. As you feed others bread. As you support Richard Brown Food Pantry as our monthly mission this month ...remember, all these breads are connected. From our dining room tables, to the bread we feed others, to the bread we bless and break together - Christ is here, present with us, present in our hearts, present in the bread. Christ is the Bread of Life, offering us that which will satisfy our hungry hearts, that which will guide us through the wilderness, that which is Love - for God, for self, for neighbor. So come, come to the table, eat the bread, and remember all that the Living Bread has done, is doing, and will do for us.
Amen.
“Living Bread”
Preached August 4, 2024
“This is the JOY for me! I. love. bread. I love bread!” So started a Weight Watchers commercial featuring Oprah, sharing her passion for bread. And while I’m not a Weight Watchers person myself, this commercial resonated with me. Oprah loves bread? So do I! But probably most of the world loves bread - I think that bread is the ultimate comfort food. Now, I know a lot of you are gluten-free. Some of you are due to medical reasons and many due to choice. And friends, I have respect for you, I pray for you, and I marvel at your discipline! AND I wish you nothing less than the JOY that Oprah gets from bread in whatever fuels your diet. Because bread brings me so much joy. And bread is so versatile and comes in so many forms. From a good wheat sandwich bread, a sourdough, focaccia, pita, tortillas, naan, brioche...to the Eucharist, that is, the bread on our altar table, the bread we bless, break, and eat together.
When I think about my love for bread, I think about bread on two levels. There is the level of eating bread for sustenance, nourishment, strength, and comfort. And then there is the level of sharing in the Lord’s Supper in which I eat the body of Christ and share in the cup for sustenance, nourishment, strength, and comfort. I cannot separate the bread on my dining room table and the bread on our altar table. They both are integral parts of my life. One satisfies my body, the other satisfies my soul, and today’s Gospel reading talks about both kinds of bread.
See, John often operates on at least two levels, talking about two things at once and that’s what’s happening in this conversation between Jesus and the crowd who had followed him. And in order to understand the conversation, we have to look at three different stories about bread.
The first reference to bread in this passage is the reason the crowd followed Jesus, the miracle he had performed in the first part of this chapter in John. We looked at it last week but allow me to refresh your memory: Jesus had crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and a large crowd followed him because they knew of his miracles, how he cured the sick. And so when Jesus saw the crowds he asked his disciples, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” And in disbelief his disciples answered him that it would take six months wages to feed the crowd and even then, barely! Many would probably leave hungry. But a young boy had five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus had the crowds sit and he gave thanks for the bread and distributed it. 5,000 plus people ate their fill, as much as they wanted, and were satisfied. After the meal was over, the disciples gathered up the leftovers and had twelve baskets full of bread. And the people were amazed and what he had done - so much so that they wanted to make him king! And so Jesus withdrew from the crowd...and then, of course, the crowd followed him again.
Because wouldn’t you follow a person who cured the sick? That’s the reason this crowd of 5,000 came to him in the first place! And then that same person, that same man, fed them until they were full! Of course they wanted to make him king! A politician today who supported good healthcare, worked with a little and gave a lot, and made sure all were fed? All were satisfied? They’d have my vote! But Jesus didn’t want to be king and he wasn’t running for political office. He just wanted to feed the hungry, to break bread together with them. I think this is an amazing thing about Jesus, about our God, that he asks, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus sees the hunger in the crowd, the physical hunger in the bodies of 5,000 people and he doesn’t just say, “Where are they going to get food...on their own?” or “What am I going to eat?” He said, “How am I, how are we - going to feed them?” Jesus is the ultimate dinner party host, attentive, caring, gracious. And from this story, we can learn that Jesus cares about physical hunger. Jesus cares about the bread, or lack thereof, on our dining room tables, on the tables of our neighbors. Jesus cares about the tables of 44 million Americans and 2.4 billion people worldwide who are food insecure. And to those of us who have bread, even if it’s just a handful of barley loaves, Jesus is asking, “How are we to feed them?”
This is the first story of bread in our reading today, the foundation of what we are talking about: Bodies, hunger, bread, physical bread. And this is the reason the crowds followed Jesus and he said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” And here the crowd and Jesus have a little back and forth discussion. The crowd is looking for signs to believe in Jesus, to follow him, to take him for his word on who he is and what he has to offer. Apparently, healing the sick and feeding 5,000 weren’t enough. So they say to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
This is the second story about bread, and it brings us back to the book of Exodus: The Israelites had been led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses. They left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and were now wandering the desert, in the area that we know as the Sinai peninsula. They were journeying toward the promised land and gave God the credit for freeing them from slavery. This release from Egypt was an impactful, defining moment for the Israelites, an event that continues to shape and define the Jewish people even in our modern day. But, after two months wandering in the desert, well, it’s easy to get a little forgetful, a little disgruntled, a little hungry. Perhaps even a little hangry. And so they called out, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” They were hungry and God took notice.
So God told Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you.” And God delivered. Every morning in the desert after that, for forty years, when the Israelites woke up, there was bread from heaven, manna, on the ground like morning dew on the grass. They ate their fill of a bread that tasted like wafers with honey, and their hunger was satisfied.
Once again, God notices hunger and does something about it, God provides bread, manna from heaven. And, there was something more than quenching physical hunger, something more than bread that God gave to the Israelites in the gift of manna. In manna, in bread, the Israelites were reminded to whom they belonged. They remembered their salvation from the land of Egypt, from slavery and oppression. In the gift of bread, they remembered that they had a God who would not abandon them, that they had a God who liberates and gives them freedom, that they had a God who cared about their physical AND spiritual hunger - a God who gives manna, bread, in the wilderness, sustenance for body and soul, when it’s most needed.
And the crowd that followed Jesus on this day, they were looking to Jesus for something like manna, a sign of who he was. And Jesus replies, saying to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Jesus was reminding them that manna was more than food, more than bread, it was sustenance in the wilderness for their bodies and souls.
And as those in the crowd are reminded of this, they realize they are hungry. But as they say to Jesus, “Sir, give us this bread always,” they are not asking for physical bread. The hunger they have is not necessarily in their bodies, but in the souls. They are seeking the bread that will give them sustenance in the wilderness. That will remind them of the promises of God, grace and love, liberation and salvation. They are asking for bread because they’re spiritually hungry and they are looking for something that will satisfy their every need, satisfy their hungry hearts.
And Jesus says to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” And this is the third story about bread in this morning’s Gospel reading. The God who cares about our physical hunger, the God who gives us bread, the God who gives manna in the wilderness, who sustains and liberates God’s people - Jesus is claiming to be that God. Jesus is claiming that through him, the gift of manna, of satisfying spiritual hunger in the wilderness, was not just available to the Israelites in the desert, but is available to the crowd before him, and by extension, to all, including us here today.
This is why on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, blessed it, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you eat it.” Jesus is bread for the world, Jesus is the bread of life, that sustenance which will satisfy every spiritual hunger we have, that will satisfy our hungry hearts, that will give us a taste of freedom, of liberation, of grace, of love, of joy! This is the joy! Not just that we love bread, physical bread. The joy is that the Bread of Life loves us! That Jesus is the bread of life! And that bread is available to all, and those who partake of it shall never grow hungry or thirsty again.
So as you come to the altar table today and partake in Communion. And as you go home and you eat bread at your dining room tables. As you feed others bread. As you support Richard Brown Food Pantry as our monthly mission this month ...remember, all these breads are connected. From our dining room tables, to the bread we feed others, to the bread we bless and break together - Christ is here, present with us, present in our hearts, present in the bread. Christ is the Bread of Life, offering us that which will satisfy our hungry hearts, that which will guide us through the wilderness, that which is Love - for God, for self, for neighbor. So come, come to the table, eat the bread, and remember all that the Living Bread has done, is doing, and will do for us.
Amen.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Call to Worship based on Matthew 2:1-12
Leader: The Christmas season is coming to a close.
People: Now what?
L: The magi have finally reached their destination.
P: Now what?
L: We’ve come to the end of a journey.
P: Now what?
L: God who gave the magi a star - give us light to follow.
P: May we continue to follow Jesus, our light.
All: Let us worship the Light that has come. Amen!
People: Now what?
L: The magi have finally reached their destination.
P: Now what?
L: We’ve come to the end of a journey.
P: Now what?
L: God who gave the magi a star - give us light to follow.
P: May we continue to follow Jesus, our light.
All: Let us worship the Light that has come. Amen!
Call to Worship based on Luke 2:41-52
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: In wonder & amazement, still reeling from the joy of Christmas.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Full of questions and curiosity, a desire to learn and to know.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Safe and secure in Your love.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Knowing that we will grow in holiness and love.
Leader: As children of God,
All: Let us worship our God, our Divine Parent. Amen.
People: In wonder & amazement, still reeling from the joy of Christmas.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Full of questions and curiosity, a desire to learn and to know.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Safe and secure in Your love.
Leader: Lord, we come to you today as children:
People: Knowing that we will grow in holiness and love.
Leader: As children of God,
All: Let us worship our God, our Divine Parent. Amen.
Call to Worship based on Hymn "Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying"
L: Lord, listen to your children praying.
P: Send us love!
L: Lord, listen to your children praying.
P: Send us power!
L: Lord, listen to your children praying.
P: Send us grace!
All: Lord, send your Spirit into this place. Amen!
P: Send us love!
L: Lord, listen to your children praying.
P: Send us power!
L: Lord, listen to your children praying.
P: Send us grace!
All: Lord, send your Spirit into this place. Amen!
Monday, July 29, 2024
“Bread, Breadth, and Breathtaking” a sermon on John 6:1-21 & Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21
Ephesians 3:14-21
“Bread, Breadth, and Breathtaking”
Preached Sunday, July 28, 2024
Have you ever had an experience that took you days, weeks, months, or even years to process? To fully understand what had happened, what you experienced, to make sense of it and find the words to describe it?
Unfortunately, traumatic events can often fall under this category: the dissolution of a relationship, abuse, an accident, major or emergency surgery, the death of a loved one…
There are also positive or life-changing or altering events that can fit into this category: falling in love, birthing a child, moving, making a career or life stage change, a significant trip to a new or meaningful destination...
And then, there are those events that may not be life-altering or major events in our lives but they were so experiential, so bodily, that it takes times for our minds and our words to catch up with what we experience in our bodies: that first bite of the most delicious pastry of your life, sky-diving, seeing your favorite music artist live, running your first marathon, looking out at the most gorgeous sunset you’ve ever seen, the view from the mountaintop…
For the people in our Gospel lesson today, for the crowd of 5000 plus - this is one of those experiences for them. This large crowd followed Jesus because they saw the signs he was doing for the sick… Were they curious? Full of hope? In it for the entertainment, the novelty of it all? Perhaps. I would also venture to say that they were hungry.
Now, to be clear, I don’t mean that they were hungry for food - although I am sure they were physically hungry as well. I don’t think they followed Jesus with any expectation that Jesus would feed them dinner - surely with no expectations that he would feed them with the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish…and yet, that’s what happened.
And as they were seated on the ground and bread and fish were passed around and they all ate and had their fill - they experienced something - something life-altering. Something that they couldn’t wrap their minds and thoughts around, even as the taste of the bread and fish was on their tongues and they felt the comfortable fullness in their bellies. They had an experience that changed everything for them. And although they left physically sated - they were now more hungry than ever.
This week’s Gospel Lesson kicks off what we call the 5-week Bread of Life Discourse in the lectionary. The next 50 verses in the 6th Chapter of John all show the people trying to make sense of this experience they just had where they were miraculously fed. The Revised Common Lectionary, that’s the ecumenical assigned readings for each Sunday, spends the next four weeks - five including this one - working through this chapter, walking us through trying to make sense of the experience that the crowd of 5,000 is trying to make sense of, talking about bread. As a disclaimer, while I will be spending a couple weeks talking about the Bread of Life, I won’t be spending all 5 weeks on it in my sermons - cause even for someone who loves carbs, that can get stale real fast… (See what I did there?)
But in essence - the crowd that day experienced something - something beyond the taste of bread and fish, something beyond satisfying their physical hunger, something that they experienced in their bodies and their lives but they needed their minds and souls to catch up. It was life altering but they couldn’t quite find the words right away.
Now let’s put a pin in this story of the feeding of the 5,000 because it’s not the only well-known Jesus story we are offered in this week’s reading from John. We also have Jesus walking on the water toward his disciples in the boat.
For the crowd he just fed, they didn’t know what they had experienced but they knew they experienced SOMETHING. And so their immediate reaction was to overwhelm him and make him king. A king who could feed us all until our bellies are full? Sounds like a good king to me - and it must have to the crowd too - but that's not why Jesus fed them. So Jesus and the disciples retreat and go up to the mountain to pray. The disciples then go down to sea but Jesus hasn’t joined them yet and a strong wind picked up. It was then that the disciples saw a ghost. Or they thought they did - they were terrified to see a figure walking to them on the water. The Sea of Galilee was traditionally thought of in the time of Jesus as reaching all the way down to the underworld - it is no wonder that their imaginations were running wild and they were afraid. This was not something they experienced every day after all.
Jesus met them in their physical fear - as he met the crowd of 5,000 in their physical hunger - and he said to the disciples, “It is I; do not be afraid.” And their boat automatically reached the shore to which they were going.
Again, for the disciples in that boat…this would have been another EXPERIENCE for them to process and make sense of. These kinds of events keep on piling up and happening around Jesus.
Both of these experiences - the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus comforting the disciples' fears after walking to them on the water - both of these experiences are physical. But they also point to something beyond the physical.
Jesus met the crowd that day in their physical hunger.
Jesus met the disciples that night in their physical fear.
Jesus offered the crowd physical bread.
Jesus offered the disciples physical reassurance, “Do not be afraid.”
Jesus meets us in our physical hunger.
Jesus meets us in our physical fear.
He offers us physical bread.
He offers us physical reassurance “Do not be afraid.”
But he also offers something else, something more, something alongside the physical - to the crowds, to the disciples, and to us.
Christ, through meeting the crowds and disciples' physical needs, has also filled their innermost beings - or they’re starting to realize their innermost beings need to be filled with love. God’s love. For those familiar with the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this makes sense. We have physical needs for food and safety and often our spiritual needs, our emotional needs, our innermost needs struggle to get the attention and realization they deserve until those other needs are met.
But for the crowd and the disciples - those deeper spiritual needs, the need for God’s love - it was there all along. It’s why they followed Jesus in the first place - they were hungry, hungry for something more. Hungry for a reason why. Hungry for hope. Hungry for love.
Which brings us to our reading from Ephesians, one of my favorite excerpts in all of Scripture:
“I pray that…Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Jesus wasn’t just offering bread and reassurance that day - he was offering the breathtaking breadth of God’s love.
And love is a lot harder to understand - to digest - than bread. It’s why Jesus spends the next 50 versus and the lectionary the next 4 weeks talking about Jesus as the Bread of Life. Yes, carb lovers. You are finally justified by the way - If Jesus is God and God is Love and Jesus is the Bread of life, ergo bread is love. Not really, but kind of. I’m off topic.
That day that the crowds were fed, a spiritual hunger was ignited. One that could only be satisfied by Jesus, by God’s love. And it’s not something we can always describe with words.
What has your spiritual journey looked like? What has it meant for you, to become rooted in God’s love? To know the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love? It’s probably an amalgamation of different life experiences and events - some we have words for, some we don’t have words for yet, and some we may never have words for.
For me, I can think about being taken to church as a kid and loving it for the doughnuts - a physical experience. And then staying for the community and love I felt there. I think about summers at Camp Asbury - especially the summer we talked about trees. Did you know that sometimes, the roots of trees go down double the depth and double the length into the ground as the branches do? When it comes to our faith I think about the branches as those spiritual experiences we have words for - and the roots, so much below the surface, as the love God has given us that we’re still trying to wrap our minds and hearts around. I think of the daily humbling experiences of pastoring and mothering and everything in between. All the ways, big and small, that God reaches out to me - to us - in love. My words fail, and yet God’s love remains. And every day, God offers to take my breath away with the ways God wants to root me in God’s love.
So today let’s recognize that we are hungry. And if we’re hungry because our stomachs are empty or we live in fear - know that God meets you in those physical needs. And let us, the church, your community know, so that we can be Jesus to you and meet you in those needs.
And let’s also recognize that we are hungry for something more - to be satiated with love. The love of God which is breathtaking and always offered to us in abundance - as Jesus offers bread and fish to the crowds in abundance that day. God wants to blow us away with the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love for us. So just admit to God that you are hungry, and you will see how the God who is the Bread of Life, satisfies our souls.
Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21
“Bread, Breadth, and Breathtaking”
Preached Sunday, July 28, 2024
Have you ever had an experience that took you days, weeks, months, or even years to process? To fully understand what had happened, what you experienced, to make sense of it and find the words to describe it?
Unfortunately, traumatic events can often fall under this category: the dissolution of a relationship, abuse, an accident, major or emergency surgery, the death of a loved one…
There are also positive or life-changing or altering events that can fit into this category: falling in love, birthing a child, moving, making a career or life stage change, a significant trip to a new or meaningful destination...
And then, there are those events that may not be life-altering or major events in our lives but they were so experiential, so bodily, that it takes times for our minds and our words to catch up with what we experience in our bodies: that first bite of the most delicious pastry of your life, sky-diving, seeing your favorite music artist live, running your first marathon, looking out at the most gorgeous sunset you’ve ever seen, the view from the mountaintop…
For the people in our Gospel lesson today, for the crowd of 5000 plus - this is one of those experiences for them. This large crowd followed Jesus because they saw the signs he was doing for the sick… Were they curious? Full of hope? In it for the entertainment, the novelty of it all? Perhaps. I would also venture to say that they were hungry.
Now, to be clear, I don’t mean that they were hungry for food - although I am sure they were physically hungry as well. I don’t think they followed Jesus with any expectation that Jesus would feed them dinner - surely with no expectations that he would feed them with the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish…and yet, that’s what happened.
And as they were seated on the ground and bread and fish were passed around and they all ate and had their fill - they experienced something - something life-altering. Something that they couldn’t wrap their minds and thoughts around, even as the taste of the bread and fish was on their tongues and they felt the comfortable fullness in their bellies. They had an experience that changed everything for them. And although they left physically sated - they were now more hungry than ever.
This week’s Gospel Lesson kicks off what we call the 5-week Bread of Life Discourse in the lectionary. The next 50 verses in the 6th Chapter of John all show the people trying to make sense of this experience they just had where they were miraculously fed. The Revised Common Lectionary, that’s the ecumenical assigned readings for each Sunday, spends the next four weeks - five including this one - working through this chapter, walking us through trying to make sense of the experience that the crowd of 5,000 is trying to make sense of, talking about bread. As a disclaimer, while I will be spending a couple weeks talking about the Bread of Life, I won’t be spending all 5 weeks on it in my sermons - cause even for someone who loves carbs, that can get stale real fast… (See what I did there?)
But in essence - the crowd that day experienced something - something beyond the taste of bread and fish, something beyond satisfying their physical hunger, something that they experienced in their bodies and their lives but they needed their minds and souls to catch up. It was life altering but they couldn’t quite find the words right away.
Now let’s put a pin in this story of the feeding of the 5,000 because it’s not the only well-known Jesus story we are offered in this week’s reading from John. We also have Jesus walking on the water toward his disciples in the boat.
For the crowd he just fed, they didn’t know what they had experienced but they knew they experienced SOMETHING. And so their immediate reaction was to overwhelm him and make him king. A king who could feed us all until our bellies are full? Sounds like a good king to me - and it must have to the crowd too - but that's not why Jesus fed them. So Jesus and the disciples retreat and go up to the mountain to pray. The disciples then go down to sea but Jesus hasn’t joined them yet and a strong wind picked up. It was then that the disciples saw a ghost. Or they thought they did - they were terrified to see a figure walking to them on the water. The Sea of Galilee was traditionally thought of in the time of Jesus as reaching all the way down to the underworld - it is no wonder that their imaginations were running wild and they were afraid. This was not something they experienced every day after all.
Jesus met them in their physical fear - as he met the crowd of 5,000 in their physical hunger - and he said to the disciples, “It is I; do not be afraid.” And their boat automatically reached the shore to which they were going.
Again, for the disciples in that boat…this would have been another EXPERIENCE for them to process and make sense of. These kinds of events keep on piling up and happening around Jesus.
Both of these experiences - the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus comforting the disciples' fears after walking to them on the water - both of these experiences are physical. But they also point to something beyond the physical.
Jesus met the crowd that day in their physical hunger.
Jesus met the disciples that night in their physical fear.
Jesus offered the crowd physical bread.
Jesus offered the disciples physical reassurance, “Do not be afraid.”
Jesus meets us in our physical hunger.
Jesus meets us in our physical fear.
He offers us physical bread.
He offers us physical reassurance “Do not be afraid.”
But he also offers something else, something more, something alongside the physical - to the crowds, to the disciples, and to us.
Christ, through meeting the crowds and disciples' physical needs, has also filled their innermost beings - or they’re starting to realize their innermost beings need to be filled with love. God’s love. For those familiar with the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this makes sense. We have physical needs for food and safety and often our spiritual needs, our emotional needs, our innermost needs struggle to get the attention and realization they deserve until those other needs are met.
But for the crowd and the disciples - those deeper spiritual needs, the need for God’s love - it was there all along. It’s why they followed Jesus in the first place - they were hungry, hungry for something more. Hungry for a reason why. Hungry for hope. Hungry for love.
Which brings us to our reading from Ephesians, one of my favorite excerpts in all of Scripture:
“I pray that…Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Jesus wasn’t just offering bread and reassurance that day - he was offering the breathtaking breadth of God’s love.
And love is a lot harder to understand - to digest - than bread. It’s why Jesus spends the next 50 versus and the lectionary the next 4 weeks talking about Jesus as the Bread of Life. Yes, carb lovers. You are finally justified by the way - If Jesus is God and God is Love and Jesus is the Bread of life, ergo bread is love. Not really, but kind of. I’m off topic.
That day that the crowds were fed, a spiritual hunger was ignited. One that could only be satisfied by Jesus, by God’s love. And it’s not something we can always describe with words.
What has your spiritual journey looked like? What has it meant for you, to become rooted in God’s love? To know the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love? It’s probably an amalgamation of different life experiences and events - some we have words for, some we don’t have words for yet, and some we may never have words for.
For me, I can think about being taken to church as a kid and loving it for the doughnuts - a physical experience. And then staying for the community and love I felt there. I think about summers at Camp Asbury - especially the summer we talked about trees. Did you know that sometimes, the roots of trees go down double the depth and double the length into the ground as the branches do? When it comes to our faith I think about the branches as those spiritual experiences we have words for - and the roots, so much below the surface, as the love God has given us that we’re still trying to wrap our minds and hearts around. I think of the daily humbling experiences of pastoring and mothering and everything in between. All the ways, big and small, that God reaches out to me - to us - in love. My words fail, and yet God’s love remains. And every day, God offers to take my breath away with the ways God wants to root me in God’s love.
So today let’s recognize that we are hungry. And if we’re hungry because our stomachs are empty or we live in fear - know that God meets you in those physical needs. And let us, the church, your community know, so that we can be Jesus to you and meet you in those needs.
And let’s also recognize that we are hungry for something more - to be satiated with love. The love of God which is breathtaking and always offered to us in abundance - as Jesus offers bread and fish to the crowds in abundance that day. God wants to blow us away with the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love for us. So just admit to God that you are hungry, and you will see how the God who is the Bread of Life, satisfies our souls.
Amen.
Thursday, July 25, 2024
"What Are You Taking Home With You?" A camp sermon
2 Corinthians 4:18
“What Are You Taking Home With You?”
Preached Thursday, July 25, 2024 at Camp Asbury
“because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
What are you taking home with camp from you this week?
“What Are You Taking Home With You?”
Preached Thursday, July 25, 2024 at Camp Asbury
“because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
What are you taking home with camp from you this week?
(Get answers)
Hopefully you are leaving with everything you came with. I think your parents or caregivers would appreciate that. Maybe you’re leaving with some crafts, some artwork, a four leaf clover…
I have some things here with me that I’ve taken home from camp when I was a camper and counselor here…Let me show you:
(Go through props - art, four leaf clovers, letters, tshirts, etc)
But…are any of you taking something home that you can’t hold? These things, our luggage, our camp tshirts, crafts we made…these are all what we call tangible. We can see them and we can touch them and hold them and physically carry them home.
What are you carrying out mentally? What has this week at camp taught you? Has anyone learned a new skill?
(Let campers list skills they’ve learned)
While I was at camp I learned how to make a fire and cook over it. I learned how to be a complete boss at the ropes course. I learned the words to a bunch of camp songs. I even learned interesting facts about nature/God’s creation.
What about friendships? Have any of you formed new friendships this week? Or this summer? Why don’t we just raise our hands for this one?
Yeah - I made new friends while I was a camper. One year I met a girl named Hilary and we wrote letters and emails to each other the whole school year. And for the next couple summers we planned on coming back to camp the same week and getting to share camp together again. I also have lifelong friends who were my co-counselors at camp. I’ve met people at camp who I’ve carried into my life beyond camp.
What about in Bible study - what have you learned this week?
(Let campers share about Bible study)
This week you’ve heard about the Ethiopian Eunuch getting baptized and how God’s love is for ALL people - ages, nations, races, genders. You heard about The Last Supper and how God calls all Christians, even those with different worship practices, to be one together. You heard about The Lord’s Prayer and how God wants to hear us pray and how God wants us to care and pray for each other too. Today you heard or maybe you will hear around your campfire’s about Jesus teaching on hospitality, and again about how God wants to include ALL people and asks us to do the same. Tomorrow you’ll hear about The Good Samaritan and again about how God wants us to love and care for all people and show them God’s love.
Now my question is - are these things you’ve learned about - are they tangible - something you can see and touch and smell and taste or are they intangible? Something you can’t touch but you can feel it in your heart? What do you think?
(Let them answer)
Right - they are intangible. We can’t carry these things home in our luggage. But we do carry them with us - we carry them in our hearts.
We carry them in the experiences we’ve had here at camp. We might not have touched them with our hands but we have experienced something and we know what we’ve experienced just as much as we know the crafts we made this week. And we can take those things with us. We can take the friendships we’ve made - and if we can carry those friendships throughout the school year or longer - that’s awesome. And even if we can’t stay in touch after camp - we know those friendships are still things that, even if for just a week or for a summer, have changed us - hopefully for the better. And we can take those things we talked about in Bible study - and they can remain head knowledge or we can carry them with us in our hearts. And let the words our counselors shared with us this week, let them change how we see God and others. Let them change how we practice living out our faith. Let them change how our faith becomes alive because of the way we treat and welcome and care and pray for other people.
And in this way - although these things are intangible - they can be tangible. You can’t touch the idea of loving others like God loves them - but when you live it out, you can. You can touch your neighbor’s hands or hug them as you offer them care and friendship. You can give them food or a meal. You can live out love. God’s love for them. Through you - God’s intangible love - can become tangible. You can see and experience the ways you show care and support for one another and how you were acting as God, as Jesus, for that person.
So tonight we will take Holy Communion - have bread and juice together - and this is something that is both tangible and intangible.
It’s tangible because you can touch the bread. You can taste it. You can taste the sweetness of the juice on your tongue. You can see bread crumbs on the ground. This is something we experience with our bodies. And Jesus wanted to give us that tangible experience of a way to remember something intangible. That is - Jesus wanted to give us something that we can see and smell and taste - to remember something that we can’t see and smell and taste but we can feel it in our hearts - and that’s how much God loves us.
And we can remember how much God loves us every time we come to the Communion table. And maybe we come from different traditions and maybe in our non-camp life, we don’t normally take communion - and the beautiful thing about that is, we can connect this table to every table we eat at. Every time we eat bread. Everytime we have juice. Every time we eat with people and it's an experience of love and joy. Every time we do that - we can also remember this meal - this meal that means God’s love for us. And in that way, the intangible - God’s love for us - becomes the tangible - the taste and smell of food and the love shared between people who eat together.
So tomorrow as you pack up your bags and stop by lower Asbury on your way out to gather anything you made this week - and you think about what you’re bringing home with you this week…
Think about the things that you’re bringing home with you that you can't touch:
The friendships you made.
The skills you learned.
How you’ve experienced God while here.
How you’ve learned about how God loves us and wants us to love others.
How this meal reminds us of God’s love.
You can’t touch these things - but you’ve experienced them this week and they have been just as real to you as the luggage that you are bringing home. And in some ways, they are even more real - eventually you may outgrow the camp tshirts. The four leaf clovers pressed between the pages of your Bible may disintegrate into nothing. Crafts may fall apart, be lost, or thrown away. But God’s love isn’t going anywhere. God’s love for you isn’t going anywhere. God will always be reaching out to you - through Scripture, through bread and juice, through friendships, and through the beauty of nature - always reaching out to share love with you and encourage you to share God’s love with each other.
And that’s a beautiful thing - whether you can touch it or not. So I pray and hope and know that you will be leaving camp this week with God’s love because it is always with you.
Amen.
Hopefully you are leaving with everything you came with. I think your parents or caregivers would appreciate that. Maybe you’re leaving with some crafts, some artwork, a four leaf clover…
I have some things here with me that I’ve taken home from camp when I was a camper and counselor here…Let me show you:
(Go through props - art, four leaf clovers, letters, tshirts, etc)
But…are any of you taking something home that you can’t hold? These things, our luggage, our camp tshirts, crafts we made…these are all what we call tangible. We can see them and we can touch them and hold them and physically carry them home.
What are you carrying out mentally? What has this week at camp taught you? Has anyone learned a new skill?
(Let campers list skills they’ve learned)
While I was at camp I learned how to make a fire and cook over it. I learned how to be a complete boss at the ropes course. I learned the words to a bunch of camp songs. I even learned interesting facts about nature/God’s creation.
What about friendships? Have any of you formed new friendships this week? Or this summer? Why don’t we just raise our hands for this one?
Yeah - I made new friends while I was a camper. One year I met a girl named Hilary and we wrote letters and emails to each other the whole school year. And for the next couple summers we planned on coming back to camp the same week and getting to share camp together again. I also have lifelong friends who were my co-counselors at camp. I’ve met people at camp who I’ve carried into my life beyond camp.
What about in Bible study - what have you learned this week?
(Let campers share about Bible study)
This week you’ve heard about the Ethiopian Eunuch getting baptized and how God’s love is for ALL people - ages, nations, races, genders. You heard about The Last Supper and how God calls all Christians, even those with different worship practices, to be one together. You heard about The Lord’s Prayer and how God wants to hear us pray and how God wants us to care and pray for each other too. Today you heard or maybe you will hear around your campfire’s about Jesus teaching on hospitality, and again about how God wants to include ALL people and asks us to do the same. Tomorrow you’ll hear about The Good Samaritan and again about how God wants us to love and care for all people and show them God’s love.
Now my question is - are these things you’ve learned about - are they tangible - something you can see and touch and smell and taste or are they intangible? Something you can’t touch but you can feel it in your heart? What do you think?
(Let them answer)
Right - they are intangible. We can’t carry these things home in our luggage. But we do carry them with us - we carry them in our hearts.
We carry them in the experiences we’ve had here at camp. We might not have touched them with our hands but we have experienced something and we know what we’ve experienced just as much as we know the crafts we made this week. And we can take those things with us. We can take the friendships we’ve made - and if we can carry those friendships throughout the school year or longer - that’s awesome. And even if we can’t stay in touch after camp - we know those friendships are still things that, even if for just a week or for a summer, have changed us - hopefully for the better. And we can take those things we talked about in Bible study - and they can remain head knowledge or we can carry them with us in our hearts. And let the words our counselors shared with us this week, let them change how we see God and others. Let them change how we practice living out our faith. Let them change how our faith becomes alive because of the way we treat and welcome and care and pray for other people.
And in this way - although these things are intangible - they can be tangible. You can’t touch the idea of loving others like God loves them - but when you live it out, you can. You can touch your neighbor’s hands or hug them as you offer them care and friendship. You can give them food or a meal. You can live out love. God’s love for them. Through you - God’s intangible love - can become tangible. You can see and experience the ways you show care and support for one another and how you were acting as God, as Jesus, for that person.
So tonight we will take Holy Communion - have bread and juice together - and this is something that is both tangible and intangible.
It’s tangible because you can touch the bread. You can taste it. You can taste the sweetness of the juice on your tongue. You can see bread crumbs on the ground. This is something we experience with our bodies. And Jesus wanted to give us that tangible experience of a way to remember something intangible. That is - Jesus wanted to give us something that we can see and smell and taste - to remember something that we can’t see and smell and taste but we can feel it in our hearts - and that’s how much God loves us.
And we can remember how much God loves us every time we come to the Communion table. And maybe we come from different traditions and maybe in our non-camp life, we don’t normally take communion - and the beautiful thing about that is, we can connect this table to every table we eat at. Every time we eat bread. Everytime we have juice. Every time we eat with people and it's an experience of love and joy. Every time we do that - we can also remember this meal - this meal that means God’s love for us. And in that way, the intangible - God’s love for us - becomes the tangible - the taste and smell of food and the love shared between people who eat together.
So tomorrow as you pack up your bags and stop by lower Asbury on your way out to gather anything you made this week - and you think about what you’re bringing home with you this week…
Think about the things that you’re bringing home with you that you can't touch:
The friendships you made.
The skills you learned.
How you’ve experienced God while here.
How you’ve learned about how God loves us and wants us to love others.
How this meal reminds us of God’s love.
You can’t touch these things - but you’ve experienced them this week and they have been just as real to you as the luggage that you are bringing home. And in some ways, they are even more real - eventually you may outgrow the camp tshirts. The four leaf clovers pressed between the pages of your Bible may disintegrate into nothing. Crafts may fall apart, be lost, or thrown away. But God’s love isn’t going anywhere. God’s love for you isn’t going anywhere. God will always be reaching out to you - through Scripture, through bread and juice, through friendships, and through the beauty of nature - always reaching out to share love with you and encourage you to share God’s love with each other.
And that’s a beautiful thing - whether you can touch it or not. So I pray and hope and know that you will be leaving camp this week with God’s love because it is always with you.
Amen.
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