“What Does It Mean to Be a Child?” a sermon on Luke 2:41-52

Luke 2:41-52
“What Does It Mean to Be a Child?”
Preached Sunday, December 29, 2024

Does anyone remember what it was like to be a middle schooler? Perhaps those parents or grandparents with middle school aged children remember it best. I’ll go ahead and say that the reality of a middle schooler is mystifying to me. This is actually an age that scares a lot of people. My sister has been a fifth grade teacher before and people’s responses to this are often something along the lines of “God bless you” and “Better you than me.”

At the 7:00pm Christmas Eve service, I shared a little bit about what it tells us about God that God, the God of the universe, of all creation, chose to come to us in the most vulnerable form possible - a baby. I’m going to quote that sermon here now because, one, it’s still Christmas in the church! And two, many of you probably didn’t hear it or need reminded to be brought up to speed:

“And here's the kicker - here's the thing that always gets me - God sent us Jesus, born into the world, born into this unsafe, dark world….in the form of a baby. The most vulnerable form God could have ever taken. God didn't come fully formed as a king or general or political leader or even as a capable adult… God came as a vulnerable baby. A newborn baby. Who needed to be held. And loved. And cuddled. And rocked to sleep. And nursed at the breast. Who couldn't hold up his head. Who is precious and so so so small in comparison to the bigness of the world.

This tells us so much about the kind of God our God is - that God is a God of tenderness and love. Of care and mutuality. That God isn't daunted by the darkness of the world, knowing there is still so much light to be found. That God acts in small but impactful ways. That God knows fully what it means to be human in our world. To know our fears and our darkness. To walk alongside us, truly as Emmanuel which means God -With- Us and in the midst of that darkness, show us a better way. Show us the light. The light that will never go out. The light that the darkness will never overcome.”

And just as Jesus was a small, human, vulnerable baby without head control and who needed to be burped and held and rocked and shushed…Jesus also grew to be a very human twelve year old boy. The mystifying and terrifying age of what we call “middle schoolers.” We don’t have many stories of Jesus at this age but the Gospel of Luke gives us this one story - today’s Gospel.

Jesus was “lost” from his parents, for several days, as he remained behind in the temple. I remember getting lost once, when I was a little younger than Jesus was here. I fell asleep at my parents’ feet on the ground at some sort of festival on the Canfield Green. They moved on, not realizing that I was asleep on the ground. Unrelated - I wish I could sleep like that again! Anyway, I woke up and was terrified to find they were gone. Unbeknownst to me, at that time they too were terrified, searching frantically for me. Maybe they could relate to Mary and Joseph here. The story ends well though because there was a Help/Emergency tent staffed by emergency personnel who quickly helped us be reunited, they did not have to look for me for days like Mary and Joseph did. But it does make us wonder - what was this experience like for 12 year old Jesus? What was he thinking? Both as the God-Child but also as the very human twelve year old that he was.

A friend who works with middle schoolers gave me some great insight into what this age group is like - and yes, our world has drastically changed but I still believe that when we look at today’s 12 year olds, we can learn a thing or two about Jesus as a 12 year old, 2000 years ago. And 12 year olds often swing between two worlds. One minute they are very concerned with being grown-up and mature and getting glimpses into the adults they will be. They are worried about crushes and dating, appearances, body-image, what the future holds for them - at times they are like little adults. And then the next moment, they are doing something ridiculously silly, once again like a child - playing with toys and laughing uncontrollably. The confusing part about this age group - both for them as children and us as adults - is you never know which one they are going to be at what moment. Little adults, trying out the personas of who they will become. Or letting the child inside of them be free.

Theologian and deacon, the Rev. Barbara Dunlap says this about this text and what could have been going through Jesus’s head in our text from this week:

“Jesus was trying out a little independence. He was interested in what was happening in the temple, and he didn’t ask permission because he was ‘almost a man.’ But I suspect he might have been a little nervous {and/or} scared when he realized his parents weren’t there. But when they did get there, he had to play it off like that was what he meant to do….this age of kids is super smart. They have so many questions. They want to know more about things. So I’m sure Jesus was soaking all that in. And then he taught them some things. Which older people rarely want to hear from tweens. We think we know everything, but they know so much we don’t know. Especially in certain areas. So he explained it, but [maybe] they brushed him off as ‘just a kid.’ Maybe he spoke with the equivalent of slang? Skibidi sigma rizz, etc. Adults hear those words and ignore everything else as unimportant because we don’t like feeling like we know less. But these kids feel that way All. The. Time. They feel like they are constantly trying to keep up with us, and when they know something we don’t, we often ignore them. So I think that’s a lot of what was going on. But Mary saw what was happening. [Mary saw] who Jesus really was. She had those mother’s eyes and really saw him. Under the shaggy hair and Crocs with socks. Beyond the sus and the lost aura. The real him. And that’s what we need to do with all tweens [and] teens.”

In addition to this text challenging us in how we view and interact and learn from tweens and teens - I also think we need to consider what Jesus as a tween tells us about God and what challenge it has for us. Just as Jesus as a vulnerable, helpless newborn tells us so much about God, and how God is truly Emmauel - “God-With-Us.” God-With-Us in our humanness, God-With-Us in our fear and darkness. God-With-Us in the light that shines. God-With-Us in the midst of everything that it means to be human…Jesus as a tween, not a child and not an adult, that tells us about God too. It means that “God with us” includes God-With-Us when we oscillate between child and adult.

Tweens and teens don’t hide this switch that I mentioned very well - where they oscillate between inner child and inner adult…but I don’t actually think that goes away. I think all of us, whether we be 12, or 32, or 62 or 82…all of us have an inner child and an inner adult. We go back and forth between being uncertain and fearful, like a lost child…and then pretending we have it all together, like an adult. We just do better at hiding it. Because when we were children we believed that adults really had it all together - and, as adults, I think we know now that sometimes we are still figuring it all out…and this is what I think these stories about the 12 year old-son-of-God tell us - it’s okay to admit that we are still figuring it out. And in fact, while we should “grow up” in the maturity of our faith… As our text says about Jesus, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.” And as our Old Testament text says about Samuel, a boy of a similar age, “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.” We are called to mature in our faith, our wisdom, our understanding. To not stay at the basic understanding of a child but to seek nuance and deeper understanding…or even deeper questioning…part of growing up is realizing you don’t have all the questions…and part of growing up is being okay with that inner child who is full of questions and curiosity and wonder about the world and about God.

We should always approach our faith like a child who wants to get lost in the temple for days, to know that while we have much to teach, we also have much to learn. And we never stop learning. My favorite adults - whether they be 32 or 82 or even 92…my favorite adults are those who never stop learning, never call themselves a finished product. We are called to be children in faith - full of wonder and curiosity, full of questions, full of openness to learn.

As United Methodists, as Wesleyans, we have a term for this - it’s called “sanctification.” And that’s the never-ending journey of letting the Spirit shape us, working with the Spirit, journeying…toward becoming more holy. More full of love of God and neighbor. We call this growing up in the faith…but sometimes growing up in the faith means accepting our inner child who just wants to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn. Sometimes growing up in faith means accepting we don’t have all the answers. Sometimes growing up in faith means listening to and learning from those younger than us. Sometimes growing up faith means keeping our inner child and their curiosity and wonder alive inside of us.

My prayer for us today is: may we learn from tween Jesus. May we allow our inner children the freedom to question and to wonder and to learn. May we allow our adult selves to continue to grow and mature in our faith. May we know beyond a doubt that God-With-Us means God-With-Us in every stage and every age. That we are never alone and that God is never done teaching us.

Amen.

"Born Into This World" a Christmas Eve sermon on Isaiah 9:2-7 & Luke 2:1-20

Isaiah 9:2-7
Luke 2:1-20
“Born Into This World”
Preached Christmas Eve, Tuesday, December 24, 2024

As members of my congregation know, I gave birth to my second child in September and just returned to work one week ago. I knew when I was pregnant that I would be returning to work, the church, just before Christmas. And so throughout my leave, from time to time, my mind and my heart would turn to my Christmas Eve sermon - what would I say to all of you about the birth of Jesus? How would my late nights holding a baby shape what God has to say to me - and to you - this Christmas? And so, as a small content warning, I’ll be sharing some reflections on the early stages of motherhood - at least in the introduction of my sermon and then we’ll get to the more theological stuff.

After the birth of both of my children, in those extremely early days, I found I could only pray one word prayers. Christian writer Anne Lammott says that there are really only three types of prayers and they can be summed up in one word each: Help, Thanks, and Wow. And I have found this to be infinitely true - especially in those times of life where we are just surviving, hanging on.

After the birth of my first child, I prayed almost exclusively “help” prayers. I prayed a "help" prayer every night. The prayer was just one word over and over "sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep." And since I was talking to God I would throw in a couple of pleases. "Please Lord, let us all just sleep. Sleep sleep sleep sleep please."

I certainly prayed this “help” prayer for sleep this time around too - but the one word prayer I prayed over and over the last couple months, especially in those early newborn days was “safe.”

I would pray it before sleep, mentally cataloging where each child was. Agnes - safe in her bed. Winifred - safe being rocked in dad’s arms. Safe and so I can shut my eyes and sleep. There was a night in the early weeks of postpartum where I had some medical complications and I had to go to the hospital, spending the night away from my newborn baby. And I just prayed over and over until I fell asleep - Safe, safe, safe, safe. Keep us all safe. Grandma and Grandpa have got Agnes - safe. Dad has Winnie - safe. And God’s got me - safe. Of course, God had us all but it brought me immense comfort to think of who was holding my babies and God holding me, cradling me and all of us in God’s arms, keeping us all safe.

I want to add that there were certainly lots of “Wow” and “Thanks” prayers alongside these “Help” prayers. So much can be said with a wow or a thank you. Deep appreciation for one's body and what it's been through. Gratitude for community that surrounds you with love. Appreciation for the beauty of nature, whether that be in a newborn's face or the changing of the seasons.

It made me wonder - what one word prayers did Mary pray that first Christmas night, cradling baby Jesus in her arms - not in an ideal setting. Did she pray for sleep? Did she simply pray the word “safe” like I did? Her baby had been born safely into the world - it was looking a little uncertain there at first. With all the traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehmen - with the question of WHERE she would give birth in this overcrowded city. With the animals!? Laying the baby in a manger!? But despite the hassle and the odds - her baby was born into this world and he now lay safely wrapped in clothes in the manger, and in her arms. Did she pray “safe” as a help, thanks, and wow prayer? Newborn babes, even under ordinary circumstances, certainly elicit all three types of prayers in abundance. And these were not ordinary circumstances with the angels and the shepherd visitors and their words - not the first time she had heard them, having heard them first from the angel Gabriel - of all that her son could be, would be. Could do, would do.

For here is the thing - Mary’s baby, Jesus, was not born into a safe world. That night he was safely held in his mom’s arms. But the world? Not a safe place. This is a reality that I know in my mind as well for my babies and try to hold the knowledge at arm's length. I can hold my children tightly through the night…but I cannot keep them safe forever. Not in our world, not in this world.

In our world, well…War, mass shootings, violence of all kinds. Hateful rhetoric, biases, and prejudices. A changing climate, pollution. Disease and sickness. Oppression and hunger. I don't need to belabor the point of the things that make this world not safe. If I go into any more about it, I'll ruin the Christmas vibe.

But that's the thing …just as our world is not a safe world. Neither was the world that Jesus was born into. And that's kind of the point. If it was a safe world, there would have been no need for Jesus to be born at all.

The Gospel of Luke reminds us that the Empire, one known for being oppressive, was conducting a census - the very reason Mary had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Soon, in response to the proclamation of Jesus's birth from the magi, Herod will issue an edict to murder newborn sons. Soon the Holy Family will become refugees, strangers in a strange land as they fled for their safety to Egypt.

This does not sound like a safe world. It is not a safe world.

Our Scripture from Isaiah today talks about a people in darkness. In Isaiah, just a couple of verses down from “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” and just a couple verses up from “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”...we find THIS less than poetic line:

“For all the boots of the trampling warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.”

We tend to kind of just...move right past this line. Almost like we’re mumbling it under our breath. Mumble: “For all the boots...rolled in blood...fuel for the fire.” Who wants to hear about garments rolled in blood on Christmas? That really kills the merry, jolly vibe. But this line gives all the more power to the meaning of Christmas: They have walked in darkness for too long! They knew darkness. They knew the boots of war that oppressed them, trampled them, killed them. The world was anything but perfect in the time of Isaiah - the Israelites were in exile, knowing what it meant to be crushed by violence and the trampling of warrior’s boots. And still - they looked for that Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace to come and rescue them.

The world of Isaiah was not a safe world.
Jesus was not born into a safe world.
We do not live into a safe world.

But it is into this world, this unsafe, chaotic, messy world that Jesus came. Not just on that night in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago for through the acts of the Spirit, Jesus is still active in our world today… but God sent Jesus into our world because we KNOW darkness. And we need a light.

As the prelude to the Gospel of John says:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.”

We need a light in the darkness. An anchor in the storm. Hope in the midst of despair. Love in the midst of hate. Peace in the midst of war. Joy in the midst of loss. And so God sent us Jesus.

And here's the kicker - here's the thing that always gets me - God sent us Jesus, born into the world, born into this unsafe, dark world….in the form of a baby. The most vulnerable form God could have ever taken. God didn't come fully formed as a king or general or political leader or even as a capable adult… God came as a vulnerable baby. A newborn baby. Who needed to be held. And loved. And cuddled. And rocked to sleep. And nursed at the breast. Who couldn't hold up his head. Who is precious and so so so small in comparison to the bigness of the world.

This tells us so much about the kind of God our God is - that God is a God of tenderness and love. Of care and mutuality. That God isn't daunted by the darkness of the world, knowing there is still so much light to be found. That God acts in small but impactful ways. That God knows fully what it means to be human in our world. To know our fears and our darkness. To walk alongside us, truly as Emmanuel which means God -With- Us and in the midst of that darkness, show us a better way. Show us the light. The light that will never go out. The light that the darkness will never overcome.

So here is my prayer for you this Christmas: that you may take a deep breath. And when the world seems unsafe, know that Jesus has already walked this path. When the world seems too dark, know that Jesus shines a light. That you can pray the word “Safe” and feel the arms of God holding you close, as God’s self in Jesus was held as a newborn baby, all those years ago, safe and secure in loving arms.

Amen.

“Things Might Get a Little Messy” a sermon on Mark 7:24-37

Mark 7:24-37
“Things Might Get a Little Messy”
Preached Sunday, September 8, 2024

This morning is a joy as we have a critical mass of our children here and blessed them and their backpacks, prayed for them, gave out Bibles… And, if I’m being honest, it was just slightly chaotic, right?

This whole week I have been on edge about this morning - mainly, will I make it to Sunday morning? I am almost 39 weeks pregnant, 4 days away from scheduled surgery to have this child, and having regular contractions. I kept on asking myself - will I really make it to Sunday? My assurance to myself was - it will be okay, even if I don’t. Sure, it might be a little more chaotic…but our DS Edgar or a gifted lay person would be more than capable of managing the chaos…I mean, leading worship and making it through the children’s moment activities. I did leave notes for someone else - just in case.

But let’s be honest - life with children - whether that’s birth, parenthood, grandparenthood, aunt and uncle-hood, or church life and ministry with children - life with children is going to be a little messy. Life is messy - period. Life with children…well, I wish I could go back and see how clean my house was 4 years ago.

And - that’s okay. Jesus calls us, invites us, into the mess.

As United Methodists, we tend to like things nice and clean. Just look around our gorgeous sanctuary and church! Our founder, John Wesley, was very meticulous. He was an extremely neat and orderly person. He kept a detailed journal down even to the minute. Some scholars have speculated on whether Wesley had OCD tendencies - although we should always be careful about diagnosing historical figures. But there was no doubt he liked things orderly…but that didn’t keep him from wading into the mess of ministry.

He said he “submitted himself to be more vile” when he transitioned to outdoor preaching - a venue that at the time was considered scandalous if not sinful but was the most effective way of reaching the masses.
He preached in mines and to miners - and I’m sure in the process got some dust on him.
He visited the prisons and the poor houses.
He preached against the slave trade in areas where there was still strong support for it - getting items thrown at him and narrowly escaped being tared and feathered.

For a man who liked things in a certain way - there is a reason we are called “Methodists” because of John Wesley’s meticulous methods for spiritual growth - but for a man who liked things a certain way, he certainly was still willing to wade into the mess of ministry.

And it is into the mess of ministry that we too are called - and today especially, on our “Kick-Off” Sunday, we are going to talk about the mess of ministry, focusing on the mess of ministry with children.

As we raise our children and grandchildren - and as the whole congregation raises children - after all, in our baptismal vows we are all accountable to raising and loving all the children in our midst and our congregation. Raising children to know God and to know that God loves them - the responsibility does not fall solely on their direct caregivers. Although there is responsibility there. The whole congregation vows before each other and God to take that on for themselves as well.

And this can look like a lot of different things:
It can look like celebrating every time a family shows up in church instead of shaming them for the times they couldn’t get here.
It looks like volunteering for our children’s ministry if that is a spiritual gift you have.
It looks like supporting budgets and staffing positions that help us minister to children and their families.
It looks like celebrating, appreciating, and even giving thanks to God for the noises and motions of children in worship - because that means children are here.
It looks like agreeing to commit to walking with children in their journey of discipleship just as you walk with those who are in your same season of life.
It looks like looking for ways to become the village and support systems that so many young families lack these days.
It looks like flexibility and changes in the way “things have always been done” to make room for the present of the way things are and the future of how things could be.
It may even look like personal sacrifice, putting aside your own desires and preferences, to put the desires, preferences, and needs of children and young families before your own.
And it can look like so many different ways - as many ways as there are people and their unique spiritual gifts

We are called to help raise children of God. We raise them to claim the faith of Jesus. We raise them to show no partiality to others, as our Scripture from James says today. We raise them to love all like Jesus loves. We raise them to follow Scriptures, like Matthew 25 and our reading from James today - to make Scripture come alive through care and love for others. We raise them that their faith may be alive and not dead - for good works to accompany their faith.

And as we do all this…Things might get a little messy.

Things are already getting a little messy over here at Boardman UMC - and that’s EXCITING.

Our volunteers have been working tirelessly to create dedicated spaces for children’s ministry here at BUMC. Spaces that are for use for our children on Sunday mornings. And there was some literal, physical mess accompanying that - although we had to clean up some dirt mess instead to make a good productive mess of new paint and waxing floors and moving furniture. Right now we’re going to be “under renovation” for at least a year. We are making usable dedicated spaces now - with the hope that over the next year, with congregational wide support as part of a capital campaign, we can make the rooms fully what we dream them to be. The same with a dream and a vision for a pray-ground space in our sanctuary for our youngest children and their caregivers who prefer to stay in worship together. We are also working on a dedicated nursery and preschool aged space for Sunday mornings - with the hope that we can start offering childcare on Sunday mornings for those 4 and under and allowing 5 and up to be in Sunday School. And with the hope that we will start offering that childcare every Sunday morning by the end of this month! We have a new curriculum we’re starting today. We have new staff as Miss Allison and Miss LaToya starting a new position. We have new volunteers - did you know over the last year we went from having zero Sunday School volunteers to now we have over a dozen background checked and Safe Sanctuary certified volunteers? Friends, this is HUGE. And worth celebrating.

And up to this point…none of this has been super clean. There have been to-do lists and lots and lots and lots of conversations. And having people willing to jump in and figure it out as we go along. And people willing to jump in and paint ceiling tiles and move furniture down three flights of steps and so much more. We’ve started welcoming and embracing the mess. And there will be more mess to come - not just the room renovations but the mess that comes from raising children who know God loves them unconditionally. And that’s such a GOOD thing.

We’ll get back to this a little… And I want to reassure you that messiness is just part of the reality of following Jesus and our Gospel reading from today is a great example of that. We actually have two very messy stories in our 13 verses today.

At first we have the dialogue with the Syrophencian woman and the healing of her child. Some background on this that wouldn’t be obvious to us as modern readers.

This passage starts “From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre.” Tyre was “gentile territory” - it was considered “outside the realm of Jesus’s ministry.” And it was not a region - both area and people - that was looked on favorably by the disciples of Jesus. It would have been on the other side of the fence, the wrong side of the tracks - and all the prejudices that come with that.

And it is there that a woman starts begging Jesus. In this same story in Matthew, she is called a Canaanite woman. Now, Matthew, right away, by singling out this woman as a Canaanite is communicating that she is not only an outsider but the enemy. In the time of Jesus, Canaanite was already an outdated term to describe someone. Theologians and preachers talking about this text often refer to her as the Syrophoenician woman - a term describing where she was from, her ethnicity. But probably of Canaanite descent. And the Canaanites were the historic and well-known enemy of the Hebrew people - but it wasn’t really used to describe people living in Jesus’s day…unless perhaps someone wanted to clearly mark someone as not only an outsider, but the worst of the outsiders. One of them. And the Syrophoenicians, the Canaanites, let’s just say that there were a lot of religious, ethnic, and racial stereotypes about them. Bigotry against them by the Israelites was well-known and often played a role in every interaction between an Israelite and a Canaanite.

And this interaction gets messy. There is begging, there is…perhaps some testiness from Jesus. There is a lot of tension. This could have gone very badly for this mother, so desperate for her child to be healed. The onlookers likely watched this interaction play out with held breath - things were about to get messy…

But things didn’t get messy in the way many of them expected. Things got messy not because this interaction escalated into violence or shaming or even more of a public spectacle - as it very well could have. Things got messy BECAUSE Jesus healed her daughter.

Things got messy because Jesus just erased the line separating “us” and “them.” It got messy because Jesus just threw out all the perimeters and barriers of who he came to heal and minister to. It gets messy because Jesus just widened the circle of who he was in ministry with. We like our neat and comfortable boxes. We like our lines separating us and them. We like borders. And Jesus, in this act of healing, threw out the boxes, erased distinctions of us versus them, and ignored all human-made boundaries. This is something we continue to see Jesus do as he progresses in his ministry and something we definitely see the Spirit do in many interactions with the early church - willfully and joyfully stepping into the mess of ministry because the mess means more people, more diverse people, are welcomed into the family of God.

This story of Jesus embracing the mess of ministry is then followed by another messy healing - one this is way more obvious to us as being messy. Because it involves bodily fluids. The epitome of messiness. Jesus meets a deaf man with a speech impediment and he puts his fingers in his ears, spits, and touches his tongue. First of all, I am very against people touching my tongue? Just putting it out there. That’s not a socially acceptable thing to do, really - then or now. And I kept on trying to do research…where did Jesus spit? Did Jesus…spit on the ground, spit on his hand, spit…into the man’s mouth??? Uh…either way, things got physically messy in this healing.

Both healings were messy in different ways…because ministry is messy. Life is messy. Sometimes the mess is metaphorical, less definitive, the chaotic mess of interpersonal relationships and welcoming all sorts of people with all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of needs into the church - and sometimes we can see the mess with our eyes. Spit. Or wet paint on walls. Or crumbs from communion bread on the ground. Mess is an inherent part of following Jesus.

We as a church have expressed the desire to expand and reach new people, younger people, and be in ministry to and with young families. We may not realize this…but if we have this desire, then we also need to accept the NEED for, the reality that, things are gonna get a little messy.

Our children and grandchildren, the children we raise in our community, may take the faith in directions we didn’t anticipate or expect, like Jesus did with the Syrophencian woman. They may take their faith and how they live it out into directions that previous generations aren’t ready for - that we aren’t ready for. That’s a kind of mess…but a good, beautiful, and holy mess. If they are expanding the faith out of love of God and love of neighbor - making their faith come alive - we are called to welcome the mess - invite it in - let the children lead the way.

A commitment to young families and kids always sounds good on paper - it’s what every church “wants.” But not every church is willing, ready, or able to accept the mess that comes with it. I think we are ready, or getting there, as Boardman UMC. The reality is messy - (giving birth is MESSY) and that’s what we’re doing, really - giving birth to a new thing - to reach a new generation with God’s love.

It’s messy. And it’s also all beautiful - and filled with love.

So friends, my prayer for us, my exhortation, my blessing for us is this: Let’s live into the mess, the beauty, and the love of teaching children about God’s love for them.

Amen.

Popular Hymns Service

Popular Hymns Service

A note on this service: for several Sundays before this service, I solicited favorite hymns from the congregation. Every hymn in this order of worship was a congregant's favorite hymn. For four of the hymns I shared a reflection. Worship leaders/planners are welcome to use the descriptions/reflections of the hymns I wrote or be inspired to do likewise for a popular hymns service in their settings of worship.

Prelude
Introit
Welcome & Greeting

*Call to Worship, Methodists as a Singing People (See UMH vii for reference)

L: As Methodists, we have been called “A Singing People”
P: We love singing praises to God - it warm our hearts,
L: In his Directions for Singing, found in the United Methodist hymnal, John Wesley encourages us to learn the hymns in the hymnal before all other songs.
P: He says that we should all sing together as frequently as we can! That even for those who find it a cross to bear, singing will be a blessing.
L: He says we should sing lustily and with good courage and to beware of singing as if we were half dead or half asleep.
P: We lift up our voices in strength! We strive to unite our voices together to make one clear melodious sound to God.
L: We sing together: hymns that we love, clearly and melodiously, with strength and modesty, in time and in tune - an act of fellowship and worship.
P: But above all we sing spiritually, with an eye to God for every word we sing.
L: Today as we sing and learn, may we worshipfully and continually offer our hearts to God.
P: We sing today and every day until that time when we sing before the throne of God.
All: Let us worship God in song! Amen!

*Hymn
Amazing Grace, vs. 1, 2, 5, 6, UMH 378

Children’s Song
What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Vs. 1, UMH 526

Children’s Moment

Responsive Psalm with Sung Response
Psalm 95 (Response 2), UMH 814

Congregational Hymn Sing

    Reflections on How Great Thou Art

The origins of How Great Thou Art start with Swedish pastor Carl Boberg around 1886. Boberg was walking along the Swedish coast when he got caught in a thunderstorm. It was a violent storm but as it dissipated, the sun peeked through the clouds and the birds once again started singing. The immense beauty of it startled Boberg and caused him to fall to his knees in awe…and he penned nine stanzas in Swedish that would eventually become the hymn we know today. Although from here, the poem started taking on a life of its own, being translated, tweaked and added to in a variety of languages. English missionary Stuart K. Hine and his wife first heard the song sung in Russian while in Ukraine. When they returned to England in the “Blitz years” they used the hymn in evangeletic measures and added the fourth verse - about Christ coming in final victory - at the end of the war.

The hymn grew immensely in popularity in The United States when it was used as part of the Billy Graham Crusades, starting in 1955. This sky rocketed it, perhaps the most popular hymn of all time in The United States, with it garnering immense radio play and covers by a wide range of artists, including Elvis Presley. And interesting enough, it also made it the most expensive hymn to include in our current United Methodist hymnal with just the copyright to use this hymn costing $2,000.

And still, perhaps the reason this hymn has captured the hearts and voices of Christians across the world and over many years, is because so many of us have experienced what Boberg felt on the coast of Sweden: an overwhelming appreciation of God’s beauty and wonder found in Creation and the urge to sing out praises to our God and Maker.

The first two verses focus on just this: God’s wonder and beauty found in our created world. The third reminds us of how great God is - not just in the natural world, but through the salvific acts of Jesus Christ. And lastly, the fourth verse takes on an eschatological nature - reminding us of the day when Christ will save not just humanity but all of God’s beautiful creation.

And so as we sing out together this morning, let us praise God and proclaim “My God, how great thou art!”

How Great Thou Art, UMH 77

    Reflections on The Old Rugged Cross

Based on the responses we collected over several weeks, this was the most popular favorite hymn of our congregation - the most requested for today. George Bennard was born in Ohio in 1873 and he later became a Methodist evangelist. The finished version of the hymn was first performed at a revival meeting in 1913.

The hymn grew in popularity when Billy Sunday used it as part of his evangelistic efforts and his chief musician bought the copyright. “The Old Rugged Cross” was performed by many artists, especially country artists including: Ernest Tubb, Andy Griffith, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Willie Nelson. Mahalia Jackson covered it in an album of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s most beloved hymns. And like “How Great Thou Art” it was a staple of Billy Graham’s crusades.

The similarities in timeline and popularity of both “The Old Rugged Cross” and “How Great Thou Art” reflect the timeline in which many of us, or our parents or our grandparents who we learned the faith from - the timeline that we and they came to know Christ and the years in which their faith was formed. Both hymns are ubiquitous with the American Christian landscape of the 50’s and 60’s.

But more than that, it’s not just the radio, TV, or revival air time that has made this hymn capture our hearts - it’s that poetically painted picture of The Old Rugged Cross and what it means to us and our faith.

This hymn employs the poetic use of paradox - something cherished, and yet old and rugged. An emblem of suffering and shame, and yet where the dearest and best hung. Despised by the world, yet holding an attraction for me. It reminds us of not only Jesus’s deep love beheld in his incarnation and death for us - but how what we cherish as Christians, including that old rugged cross, might seem strange to the world. This is what Paul calls “the scandal of the cross” - that something that was meant to be seen as an instrument of death and empire, could be transformed into a symbol of love and life and salvation.

And so, let us cherish the cross and all it represents as we sing.

The Old Rugged Cross, vs. 1, 2, 4, UMH 504

    Reflections on Because He Lives

It is fitting that after we sing a hymn meditating on the events of Good Friday that we turn to Easter and singing of Christ’s resurrection. Because He Lives is based on John 14:19—“because I live, you also will live.”

The hymn was written by the married couple, Gloria and William Gather in 1971. The two of them wrote this about the background behind the hymn:

“‘Because he lives’ was written in the midst of social upheaval, threats of war, and betrayals of national and personal trust. It was into this world at such a time that we were bringing our third little baby. Assassinations, drug traffic, and war monopolized the headlines. It was in the midst of this kind of uncertainty that the assurance of the Lordship of the risen Christ blew across our troubled minds like a cooling breeze in the parched desert. Holding our tiny son in our arms we were able to write:

‘How sweet to hold our newborn baby,

And feel the pride, and joy he gives;
But greater still the calm assurance,
this child can face uncertain day because He lives.’”

The world that the Gathers describe that caused them to search for the hope of Jesus in this song - it does not sound too unlike the world we live in today. We live in the midst of social and political upheaval, war and threats of war, and violence of all kinds. How we, too, long for a balm that feels like a cool breeze in a parched desert.

When we sing this hymn, when we sing a hymn of resurrection, we are offered just that. We are reminded of the day when peace shall reign, when all wars and violence will cease, and Christ conquers all of death.

Let us turn to this song and sing it with the gusto of Easter morning, of empty tombs, and hope for our world and souls.

Because He Lives, UMH 364

    Reflections on Let There Be Peace on Earth

Like Because He Lives, Let There Be Peace on Earth was also written by a married couple, Sy Miller and Jill Jackson-Miller. In a radio interview, Jill gave this background for this hymn:

“When I attempted suicide [in 1944] and I didn’t succeed,” she said, “I knew for the first time unconditional love—which God is. You are totally loved, totally accepted, just the way you are. In that moment I was not allowed to die, and something happened to me, which is very difficult to explain. I had an eternal moment of truth, in which I knew I was loved, and I knew I was here for a purpose.”

Jill spent the next decade exploring her relationship with God and God’s purpose for her. 11 years after her suidice attempt, she penned the words to “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Jill had found her purpose for which God had saved her: to help create peace on earth.

The song was introduced at a workshop in 1955 - this workshop was comprised of 180 teenagers of all different religions and races - maybe not so strange for us in 2024 but remember, this was 1955. And in singing the song together, walls and barriers were broken down.

Sy Miller shared about this hymns impact: “One summer evening in 1955, a group of 180 teenagers of all races and religions, meeting at a workshop high in the California mountains locked arms, formed a circle and sang a song of peace. They felt that singing the song, with its simple basic sentiment—‘Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’—helped to create a climate for world peace and understanding.

…When they came down from the mountain, these inspired young people brought the song with them and started sharing it. And, as though on wings, ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth’ began an amazing journey around the globe. It traveled first, of course, with the young campers back to their homes and schools, churches and clubs.”

The hymn then grew, not just to be sung at workshops and churches but at school graduations, PTA meetings, Kiwanis Clubs, 4-H Clubs…and many more. It was sung on Sundays as well as on Veterans Day, Human Rights Day and United Nations Day.

For me, this song was even sung as a bedtime lullaby.

This song was born out of the deep love God has for us - that then calls us and transforms us to be agents of peace in this world. Disciples of the Prince of Peace. As we sing this favorite hymn today, may we feel the love Christ has for us and be compelled to share Christ’s love and peace with the world.

Let There Be Peace on Earth, UMH 431

Pastoral Prayer

Offertory Prayer
Offertory with Anthem
Doxology

Invitation to the Table, UMH 12
Prayer of Confession & Words of Assurance
Passing of the Peace

Hymn of Invitation
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, vs. 1,2, 4, UMH 626

The Great Thanksgiving, UMH 13
Holy Communion

Prayer After Receiving

*Closing Hymn
Lord of the Dance, vs. 1, 3, 4, 5, UMH 261

*Benediction

“The Armor of God - doG fo romrA ehT” a sermon on Ephesians 6:10-20

Ephesians 6:10-20
“The Armor of God - doG fo romrA ehT”
Preached August 25, 2024

I am going to start my sermon today by referencing a song that I will be SHOCKED if you have ever heard this song referenced in a sermon or even in church before. And that’s rap star Missy Elliot’s 2002 hit “Work It.” To be clear, I don’t actually recommend listening to this song - no wholesome message will be found. But it was the inspiration for today’s sermon title.

The chorus to this song - and I’m going to do my best to say this, I had to listen to this several times to prep myself. The chorus goes:

“Is it worth it? Let me work it
I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it
Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i
Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i”

Now, you might be wondering - what in goodness did Pastor Allison just say?? What were those last two lines? “Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i. Ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gnaht ym tup i.”

It’s literally “I put my thing down, flip it, and reverse it” - flipped and reversed. I know back in the day, people were worried about hidden messages in records when played backwards. If you were to put this song on a record, play it backwards, those two lines would make sense!

And that’s what I did with today’s sermon title but instead of with rap lyrics, with “The Armor of God.” I flipped it and reversed it because that’s, in part, what is happening in today’s reading from Ephesians. The writer of Ephesians is taking a well-known, ubiquitous symbol - that of the Roman soldier in their armor, flipping it, and reversing it - to claim meaning against the accepted cultural meaning. To claim associations against the culture associations made with the Roman soldier in their full armor.

While today, for many people, especially in America, the image of the American soldier, in their uniform or in combat gear, fills many with patriotic pride and gratitude for service and sacrifices made. It can be much, much more complicated than that, of course. And that patriotic sense and gratitude would not have been the reaction early Christians would have had to a Roman soldier.

The Roman Empire was seen as an aggressor and oppressor. Soldiers were the tools of that aggression and oppression of which the Jewish people, and the early sect of Christianity that came from Judaism, and even the poor and those not in power - would have seen as the enemy. Remember that it was the Roman soldiers who arrested Jesus, who hung him on the cross, who pierced his side with a spear. And I am sure that the crucifixion of Jesus was not the only violent act that many living in this time would have seen committed by the hands of a soldier in armor. Indeed, many early Christians were pacifists and would not even baptize a soldier unless they renounced their profession.

Given our current view as a wider American culture that tends to celebrate and glorify the military - which I’m not making a judgment on today, that’s a whole other sermon - I’m just stating it as a fact. We often miss the subversive undertones, the flipping and reversing of the image of the soldier and armor that is happening in this passage.

When reading this passage we often focus on the familiar imagery: the armor. The belt, breastplate, shield, helmet, and sword. I remember a little shield and sword I bought as a kid at the Christian bookstore labeled “armor of God.” It’s one of those verses that even children are familiar with. Yet when we focus on the armor, the weaponry, the warfare aspects of this passage, it has the ability to turn into a physically violent message -- which was exactly what the writer of Ephesians was trying to subvert, to flip and reverse, to change a violent image into a spiritual one. Because we do know that too much violence has been done in the name of God, both in Christianity and in other religions. The Crusades, the Holocaust, the KKK and even the current resurgence of White Supremacists and Nazis -- all called upon the Christian soldier, the name of God, in order to try and make their violence sacred.

The writer of Ephesians couldn’t have known the lasting impact and effect using this imagery would have...if he did, I suspect that maybe he would have found a different image to use. But he did use this language for a specific reason. He took the image of the armor of a soldier and flipped it and reversed it- and its implied meaning - around. Due to Roman Imperialization, everyone was familiar with the Roman soldier. The writer used this to his advantage and co-opted the symbol and imagery not to promote, as the Empire did, a gospel of war but to promote a gospel of peace instead. This scripture promotes a contrary message against the power and violence of empire...while using the empire’s language -- this was a subversive act! Taking an image of the state that represents violence, war, and domination and turning it on its head to represent peace and truth - was and is radical. It probably upset just as many people then as it does now.

Just as the writer flipped the imagery of armor for those in Ephesus - it can be flipped for us today. What if instead of focusing on “armor, belt, helmet, shield, sword” - symbols which continue to be symbols of violence, power, and empire - we instead focused on “truth, righteousness, gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Spirit.” After all the writer said this was not a battle of flesh and blood, so let’s put the armor aside and focus on the Gospel message, the Good News, that the writer compels us to clothe ourselves with - righteousness, truth, peace.

Early Christianity and followers of Jesus were no strangers to flipping society’s messages or cultural norms inside out. For example the names used for Jesus - Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, King of Kings - these were all titles for Caesar. They co-opted the language of the empire and instead of using it to dominate and oppress - subscribed it to Jesus, the one who releases the captives.

Even the fact that today Christians claim the symbol of the cross as our symbol is perhaps the biggest subversive flipping and reversing of an image. The cross was nothing less than an instrument of death and torture used by the Empire to control. It was reserved to be the means of death for those who threatened the empire. Indeed the robbers or bandits crucified on either side of Jesus were not there for stealing food or money, they were there for being part of a political sect that planned revolution against Caesar. Jesus’s message, and the names he called himself and was called, King of the Jews, Son of Man…these were seen as political acts against the power and violence of the Empire and so he was sentenced to death on a cross. Early Christians used the symbol of the fish, not the cross, because it was still seen too much as a symbol of death. I have heard it equated to using the electric chair, a noose, or even a lethal injection as a symbol of life - completely antithetical to how we think of it. But because of the Resurrection, Christians were able to flip and reverse the image of the cross, subvert it, take it from a symbol of death and make it a symbol of life. This is powerful and perhaps the biggest subversion of all.

Jesus himself flipped society’s expectations on their heads. He said the first shall be last and the poor shall be rich. Jesus’s own life and death shattered the world’s expectations and preconceived notions of power. The idea that God would lower God’s self to human form, live among us, and die on a cross flips every expectation of divinity. Sometimes we forget to realize exactly how radical this all is.

So what does this radical, subversive message mean for the modern Christian church in America? What would it look like for us today to flip the culture’s language and societally regulated norms on their heads as we proclaim the Gospel of peace with truth and righteousness? Perhaps it would mean supporting and listening to minority and marginalized voices when they are telling us they are oppressed. Instead of saying “not all men” or “not all white people” or denying their claims - what would it look like to really take to heart claims of oppression from the margins? Perhaps it would mean cultivating a culture of radical generosity in a failing economy. And we’re not just talking about money but time, gifts, and services. In a culture that says that the only thing more valuable than money is time productively spent making money, what would it look like to give of ourselves to promoting the gospel of peace wherever we may find ourselves? What does it look like to promote and live a gospel of peace here at Boardman United Methodist Church, as a community and individuals? It looks like feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the last and the least, loving God, and loving one another.

What does clothing ourselves with The Gospel of Peace look like? With the Spirit’s help it will look like truth, righteousness, faith, and salvation.

My friends, this is not an easy message. It is much easier to arm ourselves in the violence of the so-called armor of God and go out into the world looking out for mine and my own, the empire and its interests, ignoring the radical, subversive world-changing message that Ephesians 6:10-20 has to offer us.

So friends, equip yourself with truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the Spirit so that we may go out into the world, flip it and reverse it, subverting the messages of death and violence wherever we may find them - and there are lots of those messages out there - and instead turning them into message of life - and the ultimate eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

"You Are What You Eat" a sermon on John 6:51-58

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.

"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.