Pentecost 13 – 23 August 2015 – Year B

Pentecost 13 – 23 August 2015 – Year B

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 6th Chapter of the Gospel of John: Verses 51–69:   51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,  “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh ofjthe Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood lhas eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus  said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

 

We just heard the ending words of John 6.  John 6 is also known as the “Bread of Life chapter.  In order to properly understand the words at the end of the chapter, we need to take a few moments to review the rest of the chapter.

The events at the beginning of the chapter show us that Jesus is, in fact, the Lord of Creation.  The chapter begins with the account of Jesus using a boy’s lunch to feed 5,000 men and their families.  This happened in an empty area on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  After Jesus fed the 5,000, He put the disciples in a boat and sent them back to Capernaum while He went up on the mountain to pray.  The disciples encountered a headwind and were not able to cross the sea.  When Jesus finished praying, He walked to the boat on the water.  Immediately the headwind stopped and Jesus and the disciples landed on the other side.  These two events demonstrate that Jesus is well able to supply us with all our needs and protect us from every danger.

Jesus and His disciples arrived on the other side of the Sea of Galilee around dawn of the day after He fed the 5,000.  The word immediately went out, and people from the surrounding area began bringing friends and family to Jesus for healing.  Jesus healed and taught as He made His way to the synagogue in Capernaum.

Some of the 5,000 that Jesus fed the previous day also found Jesus as He was on His way to the synagogue.  Although they never came right out and asked Jesus for more food, Jesus could see into their hearts and knew that they were only interested in Him in order to get more free food.  Jesus used this as an opportunity to teach that although He supplies all our earthly needs, that is not the main reason He came down from heaven and took on human flesh.  His main reason for coming was to provide us with all our eternal needs.

The crowd wanted to compare Jesus and Moses.  They claimed that Moses was better because he fed the entire nation of Israel for decades.  Jesus only fed a few thousand for one meal.  Jesus first of all pointed out that it was God who gave the manna in the wilderness.  Moses was the servant of God at the time.  Jesus also pointed out that all the people who ate the manna in the wilderness are dead.  The people who participate in the eternal food that Jesus gives will rise from the dead on the last day and never die again.

Jesus taught that just as a person needs food to live here on this earth, so also a person needs eternal food for eternal life.  He taught that He is that eternal food.  As He taught that He is the eternal food, He explained that eating the eternal food meant believing in Him.  He said, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29) He also said, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) With these words and others, Jesus taught that eating eternal food meant believing in Him.

It is important that we understand all this context from the preceding verses of John 6.  It is especially important that we understand that when Jesus is talking about eternal eating, He is speaking of faith that believes.  Otherwise, these last few verses of John 6 will sound a lot like cannibalism.

Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:51) Now that we know the context of these words, we know that Jesus is talking about believing in Him for eternal life.

The people in the synagogue struggled to understand what Jesus meant.  They had not made the connection between eating and believing.  The Jews … disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:52) They know that Jesus is not talking about the kind of eating that they did the day before when they ate the bread and fish that Jesus gave them.  Never the less, they know no other kind of eating and they are confused.

Jesus kept right on teaching.  If you understand that eternal eating means believing, then Jesus’ words make perfect sense.  On the other hand, if you are like most of the hearers in the synagogue and do not understand … if you are still thinking about eating bread and fish, then Jesus’ words are disgusting.

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53–58)

The signs that Jesus performed in this chapter and others demonstrate that He is from God.  It is as the blind man told the Jewish authorities, “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:32–33) As a man from God, His word is true.  He has told the crowd that He is the bread of life from heaven.  He claimed God the Father as His Father and that He is the Son of God.  He taught that He came to give eternal life to those who believe in Him.  He explained that those who put their trust in His body and blood will have eternal life.

The rest of the chapter shows that there are two ways to react to Jesus’ message: belief and unbelief.  Some who heard Jesus’ words said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (John 6:60) The text then tells us that many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:66) This is the response of the unbeliever.

As Jesus watched His congregation shrink in size, He turned to His disciples and said, “Do you want to go away as well?” (John 6:67) This gave Peter one of those rare opportunities to say exactly the right thing.  In fact, Peter’s reply is so excellent that part of it is in the Alleluia verse for Divine Service Setting One.  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68–69) This is the response of the believer.

The reaction of these people shows the truth of the words written by the writer to the Hebrews: The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12) Whenever anyone proclaims the Gospel, some will believe and some will reject.

The full meaning of Jesus’ words on this day became clear to the disciples when He died on the cross and rose from the dead.  Feeding on Christ’s flesh and drinking Christ’s blood means believing in His body broken and His blood, shed on the cross.  Christ’s shed blood and broken body earned the forgiveness of sins.  That forgiveness is the source of eternal life for us.  This is the central teaching of Christianity.

The “Bread of Life” chapter, John 6 is an excellent summary of the signs and teachings of Jesus as He began to prepare His disciples for His suffering, death, and resurrection.  He taught them and He teaches us that He is the source of eternal life.  It is by faith in His body broken and His blood, shed that we receive the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life.  For those of us who live after His death and resurrection, these words point us to the cross that saves us.

Another thing we learn from this chapter is that some people will reject eternal life.  In spite of the fact that Jesus is the only perfect teacher who ever walked this earth, some who heard Him rejected Him.  We often forget that the Gospel divides people.  The Holy Spirit uses the Gospel to draw people into the family of God.  At the same time, the very same Gospel will drive away those who refuse to believe.

Jesus made it very clear that we are to proclaim the Gospel as we live our lives in this world.  At the same time, we are not called to convert an unbeliever.  That is the work of the Holy Spirit.  When we proclaim the Gospel and say, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved,” (Acts 16:31) we are asking our hearers to do something that they cannot do.  We are relying on the Holy Spirit to bring them into the family of God.  We are asking the Holy Spirit to work in them so that they also believe in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins that leads to eternal life.  Amen

Pentecost 12 – 16 August 2015– Year B

Pentecost 12 – 16 August 2015– Year B

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

The text for our meditation is as written in  today’s Gospel reading the 6th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 51-69:  

Let us pray: Father, guide the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts that you Word of truth will lead us to continually feed upon Jesus Word, body and blood that we may abide in Him eternally. In Jesus name. Amen 

If your sermon meditations have been following the 6th Chapter of the Gospel according to John over the past few weeks then you would have spent considerable time examining what our Lord means when He calls Himself the Bread of Life.  We have also considered at length what He means when He speaks of eating His flesh and drinking His blood.  In short, we have heard what it means to eat of the Bread of Life.  In these words of our Lord, recorded in John chapter six, the Lord is calling upon His hearers to believe in Him.  To eat His flesh and to drink His blood, in the context of John chapter six, is to believe in Him, to be intimately close to Him, to believe in Him as one's personal Saviour and Lord.  In Verse 56, The Lord Jesus says, "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him".  "Abide in Him…."  You know, had all these false disciples, those who fell away at hearing His words, continued following Him, they would have been there on Maundy Thursday evening to hear Him speak these words as recorded in John 15:4-11 "Abide in Me, I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.  I am the Vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.  If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.  By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.  As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.  If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full". 

In these words, Jesus invites His disciples, not just the Twelve, but also those not present, including you and me, to abide in Him.  This is what it means for one to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood.  It means that one hears the Word of the Lord and keeps it, for the words the Lord speaks to us are spirit, and they are life.  The Lord wants us to eat His Word; there’s a old prayer (or Collect) for the Word that sums it up: "Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us the faith and wisdom to hear them, read, mark, learn, AND INWARDLY DIGEST THEM, that in patience and comfort  we may embrace your holy Word, and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen" 

The very idea was a scandal to the unbelieving Jews.  That Jesus, as the Bread which came down from heaven, is greater than the manna that fell for their ancestors. Their blessed ancestors who ate God’s manna eventually died a physical death; but here is this man Jesus declaring that anyone who eats the Bread of Life will live forever.  The result is in Verse 60 of our text; "Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, 'This is a hard saying; who can understand it?'" The Lord asked them, "Does this offend you?" The Greek word for offend is the root of our word scandalise.  Originally, the scandal served as the stick that, when tripped, activated the trap and ensnared the prey.  The animal would be caught up in the trap, and would meet an early death.  The Jews were scandalised by the words of the Lord.  They could not accept His teachings.  In the hardness of their hearts they were unable to think past the physical language He was using, and they refused to understand that they needed to believe in Him.  To them He was nothing more than the Son of Mary and Joseph.  Thus they were scandalised by His words and followed Him no more.  Little did they know that in their outrage and sin they were putting themselves at risk of eternal death.

The Jews in our text are not the only ones who were scandalised by the Lord's words.  We are also offended.  We also are scandalised.  The Word of God scandalises us.  We are condemned by the words of God's Law, for the Law exposes us as poor, miserable sinners who are by nature sinful and unclean.  We are not like the Israelites in our Old Testament book of Joshua who, following Joshua, served the Lord.  Rather, we are, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:11-12. “Partakers with the sons of disobedience.”  And he goes on to instruct us to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.  For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret".  Yet we associate with them and even become them, for we despise God's Word, we do not hold it sacred, and we do not gladly hear and learn it.  We hold Scripture with such contempt that we reject those parts of it that we don't like, those parts that make us uncomfortable, those parts that don't make us feel good about ourselves.  We despise the Law because we don't like to think of ourselves as sinners, and it hurts our feelings.  We also hate the Gospel, for the Gospel tells us that there is nothing—absolutely NOTHING—we can do to get into heaven, for Christ has paid the price for us with His very life.  The Biblical martyrs paid for their faith with their very lives, for they by the Holy Spirit confessed Christ, even at the very losses of their own lives. Such martyrs as the mid-third century deacon St. Laurence, the blessed Apostle St. Bartholomew, those who lifted high the cross and lost their lives as we celebrate Holy Cross Day on 14th September, and the blessed Apostle and Evangelist St. Matthew, whom we commemorate on the 21st September. They and countless others have lost their lives for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of the Church. 

The martyrs serve as examples for us to follow on this the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, 200.  They ate of the flesh of the Son of Man and drank His blood.  They read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the Word of the Lord.  They had the promise of eternal life because, by the Holy Spirit, they believed in Christ; they craved the Bread of life, the promise they now realise in its totality as they were faithful unto death.  The Lord calls us to this same faithfulness, even if we do not die due to martyrdom.  He continues to call us to be faithful to Him all the days of our lives, just as He has been faithful to His heavenly Father for all eternity.  As we confess in the Nicene Creed, it was Christ's faithfulness "who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human".  In the same way John 1: 14 tells us; “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

The Word Incarnate revealed His glory when He would have His flesh nailed to the cross and His blood poured out for the life of the world…for the life of you and me.  Let us remember, though, that Christ was no martyr, for He is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"(John1: 29); He has mercy upon us, and He grants us peace, His peace, that peace which surpasses all understanding, that peace which the world cannot give.  This flesh which was nailed to the cross would die, be buried, and on the third day rise again.  The Word who became flesh died and rose again for the life of the world…for the life of you and me.  And since Christ has risen, the Word He speaks for our hearing is spirit, and it is life. 

By the Holy Spirit, we who believe the Incarnate Word, the Word in true flesh who gives us the spoken Word have the promise of eternal life, which we shall see with the martyrs and all who have gone before us in the faith, as they now partake of the unending Feast in heaven, the Feast of which we shall one day partake, the Feast of which we are given a foretaste this day in the body and blood of Christ.  

At this table we shall eat of Christ's body and drink His blood sacramentally, for we have been prepared to do so in eating of His flesh and drinking His blood spiritually, as we have been fed Christ through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and the ongoing catechism process that comes through the teaching and preaching of Holy Scripture.  By the Holy Spirit are compelled to say with the blessed Apostle Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (vv. 68-69).  This is the spiritual eating to which the Psalmist refers to in Psalm 34; when he says: "Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!  Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints!  There is no want to those who fear Him.  The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.  …Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all" 

Friends in Christ, having now been fed Christ spiritually, we look forward to that time each week when our Lord will feed us sacramentally as He gives us His body to eat and His blood to drink, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation.  The promise He gives to all who believe in Him.  By the Spirit of God we thank Him for these gifts He gives through Word and Sacraments, and we thank Him for the gift of faith He gave. Today still Jesus asks us as He did the Apostles: “Do you want to go away as well?’, - ‘Is my grace enough for you?’ the abundant love and Grace our Lord and Saviour has lavished on us undeserving sinners, compels us to join with Simon Peter in answering; ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”. Amen.

The love and peace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Merv James

Pentecost 11 - 9 August 2015 - Year B

Pent 11 – B – 9 August 2015

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for our meditation is written in the 6^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John; Verses 41 – 51:

⁴¹At this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." ⁴²They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
    ⁴³"Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. ⁴⁴"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. ⁴⁵It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. ⁴⁶No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. ⁵⁰But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

Let us pray: Father, guide the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, that through your means of grace, your spirit may grow in us and we may be fed by your living word. In Jesus name we pray. Amen

The extremely talented and famous author T E Lawrence was a very good friend of the equally talented and famous poet Thomas Hardy. Lawrence did a stint in the Royal Air Force and not being a very pretentious person, was quite content to serve his time at the bottom of the ladder, as an Aircraftsman. Quite often Lawrence used to visit Hardy and his wife at their home whilst in uniform. On one occasion his visit coincided with a visit of the ‘Mayoress’ of Dorchester. Now the Mayoress was bitterly affronted that she had to submit to meeting a common Aircraftsman, she had no idea who he was. When they all sat down to tea, the Mayoress told Mrs Hardy in French that never in all her born days had she had to sit down to tea with a private soldier. After some extended silence in the room, Lawrence said in perfect French “I beg your pardon, Madame, but can I be of any use as an interpreter? Mrs Hardy knows no French.” – A snobbish and discourteous woman had made a devastating mistake because she judged by externals.

This was exactly the plight of the Jews in our text; they were so busy judging Jesus and arguing with each other they could not see God in their presence; they were so full of criticism and resentment in their listening, they learnt nothing from Jesus words. So cynical were they in their own opinions they resisted the ‘drawing of God’. The word John uses for ‘draw’ was ‘helkuein’ – this is the Greek translation of the Hebrew when Jeremiah hears God say in Jeremiah 31:3 “With loving kindness have I drawn thee”. This is an interesting word as whenever it is used it almost always implies resistance of some kind. It is the word used in John 21:6, 11 for drawing heavily laden nets to shore; and again in Acts 16:19 when Paul and Silas were dragged before the magistrates in Philippi. Our Triune God is continually drawing mankind to himself, but so often our judgement, our preconceived ideas, our ego-centred plans can place a lot of resistance on God’s pull.

 

The flesh and blood of Jesus so frequently mentioned in John 6 are not just metaphors or images. They are references to the literal flesh of Jesus crucified and the literal blood of Jesus shed on Calvary. What is metaphor, though, in John 6, is that this literal flesh and blood constitutes bread or food and that we eat this bread. So graphically does Jesus push this metaphor in describing our reception of him that some people have been repelled by its cannibalistic overtones. We read of the angry, disgusted reaction of the people in Jn 6:52: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

But to describe our reception of Jesus in this fashion should not surprise us too much. How often we hear a parent say of a child, “I love him so much that I could eat him up.” We don’t react to these words by protectively snatching the child away from the parent. We understand the everyday ‘slang’ language, if you like, for what it means. We see in the words strong evidence of affection and intimacy. So, too, we might describe our faith relationship with Jesus: “We love him so much that we could eat him up.”

Throughout our text, Jesus calls the salvation he has provided us “bread.” In fact, he uses the word bread six times. Why does Jesus use this metaphor? What does it signify? What does it tell us? How does it help us?

Jesus enlightens and enlivens us with the metaphor of bread to describe the salvation He has provided to us, and He does this in three distinctive ways.

          I.   The bread metaphor clarifies God’s intention for us to enjoy two kinds of life.

We’re fully aware of one kind of life God has given us, namely, bodily life. - God gave us the gift of bodily life through our parents. We were born. This bodily life is characterised by such activities as breathing, thinking, and muscular movement. It manifests itself in our individual gifts and talents through which the love of Christ lives in us and in those around us whom we serve.

This bodily life is nourished by daily bread which is emphasised in V49 of our text “Your forefathers ate manna in the desert” – and in the same way we are provided with ‘our daily bread’, everything we need to sustain our physical existence, and like the forefathers, even though we are sustained daily, we are destined for the same physical fate as them, again written in V49 “yet they died” – it is only thing in life about which we have certainty. 

This is not such a depressing thought though, because the Scriptures inform us of another kind of life God means to give us, namely, spiritual life; as written in Mt 4:4; “Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

God gives us spiritual life through the mystery and miracle of Holy Baptism - We are, as described by Jesus in John 3:3 “born again” not through any effort of our own, but by the Holy Spirit - God the sanctifier; God the revealer of all truth – as written in John 16: V 13-14 “¹³But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”

 This spiritual life is characterised by godlike holiness and love. This spiritual life is nourished by what is described in V41 as “the bread that came down from heaven.” – This is the living bread in the Word and Sacraments that our text tells us ‘will raise us up at the last day’ – ‘gives us everlasting life’ – and ‘is the bread that comes down from heaven, which we may eat and not die’

           

            II.         The bread metaphor clarifies the nature of the means of grace.

Friends, the means of grace do more than inform us—they feed us. – Without doubt, the means of grace provide information, understanding, belief, principles, advice, instruction, as Jesus tells us in V 45 “They will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to me” - But there is more, the means of grace impart life; John 1:1 aptly describes Jesus as the “Word” –and Jesus is the word and from our text it is clear that the Word is more than just a library of words in the Bible –The Word is more like bread than a book V 41: “I am the bread that came down from heaven” – V48 “I am the bread of life” – V51 “I am the living bread that came down from heaven”      Being nourished in the Word is more like going to the table than going to the library.

You see, each means of grace specifically illustrates its nourishing qualities. - In Baptism John 3 tells us we are “born again” and 1 Cor 12:13 tells us we are “given the one Spirit to drink”. - In the Lord’s Supper we have the ingredients of food and drink (bread/body and wine/blood) and the actual activities of eating and drinking, which we associate with the procurement and sustenance of life. - Even in the spoken Word, the most verbal, intellectual of the means of grace, that Word is often described in images of food and/or life - Jer 15:16;  “When your words came, I ate them;  they were my joy and my heart's delight,  for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty.”   Amos 8:11; "The days are coming," declares the Sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD” - 1 Pet 2:2; ^“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”

Rev 10:10: “ I took the little scroll from the angel's hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.”

            III.        The bread metaphor clarifies the nature of faith.

To be sure, Christian faith involves teaching and learning information and knowledge, understanding and agreement, as written in V45 - But Christian faith is more: it is a living force. Listen again to the power of Verses 47–51; “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. ⁵⁰But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." – Friends our Christian faith implanted in us by our Triune God at our baptism is a throbbing, pulsating faith. It is alive, dynamic, intimate, involving us emotionally as well as intellectually, permeating not just our head but also our whole being.

It can be clearly noted in our text that “believing” and “eating” are treated synonymously. V 47 says, “He who believes has everlasting life,” and v 51 says, “If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”

Jesus shows us the way to the life giving means of grace, the foundation of our faith in John 6:53 -only two verses beyond our text- “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”

In other words, come – come to the baptismal font of life, and I will grace you with the means of faith – the Holy Spirit – Come devour my life giving inerrant word of life with your eyes and ears, that my living Word may grow within you and lead you through the challenges and temptations of life – come to the table of my ultimate grace and eat of my true body and drink of my true blood, given and shed for you, that your guilt is forgiven and you will be one with the Father and the whole fellowship of heaven forever.

Friends, enlightened by the Holy Spirit through Jesus’ use of the bread metaphor in today’s text, we are enlivened by that same Spirit to say in the words of Is 55:2–3, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.” Amen.

The grace and peace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Merv James

Pentecost 10 - 2 August 2015 Year B

Sermon – Pent 10 – Year B – 2 August 2015

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 4^th Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: Verses 1 - 6

1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

 In my experience, the best job you ever had, didn’t come with the best pay packet.  Also the best church experience you ever had didn’t have the best music.  Most likely your best relationship experience wasn’t necessarily with the most visually attractive person.  Think about it; what makes a job great and a particular church great and a relationship great? It’s not just the pay or the presentation; it’s the people.  To be more precise, it is the harmony between you and the people involved, that makes the acquaintance develop into something special, something enjoyable and bonding.  Such a relationship is priceless. 

On the other hand, division is devastating.  Did you ever enjoy school, but feared attending because of the kids in your class?  Has the joy of celebrating Christmas with your family been diminished because of senseless tensions between members of the family?  Did you ever choose to work overtime because you get along better with a laptop than with your spouse?  Friends, have you ever left a gathering of Christians, a gathering of worship and prayer, with a knot in your belly because of how those Christians made you feel?  I can attest you can be in a Bible study with other Christians, regardless of denomination, and be miserable if there is a lack of unity.  Division poisons our best experiences and robs us of so many blessings.

God wants more than that for us.  Our Heavenly Father knows us well, He knows our failings, and He is passionate that this gift of unity that originates from Him is embraced by us that our life may be full.  God compels us with words like Romans 12, “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everybody,” and Matthew 5, “If your brother has something against you, go and reconcile,” and Psalm 133, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.”  God knows how good and pleasant church and school and marriage and family and work and life are when we deal with our divisions and pursue unity.  In our text for this meditation, our Triune God offers us a guide to unity.

In St. Paul’s words in Ephesians 4, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”  He is calling for a shift in our thinking.  Through Paul, God is about to lay out the pattern for the Christian life.  However, before God calls us to live, He reminds us exactly of what we’ve received.  A calling; and what a big and beautiful calling that is.  In Christ, every Christian is more blessed and chosen by God, blameless in His sight, forgiven of sin, and heirs of heaven’s riches.  In Christ, every Christian has the Father advocating for their eternal good with our problems under the feet of King Jesus.  In Christ, we are spiritually alive and saved by grace through faith.  In Christ, we are God’s masterpieces, created to do good works.  In Christ, we are united with God because Jesus’ death and resurrection tore down the barrier between the Father and us.  In Christ, we know God’s love is wide and high and long and deep.  He loves us this much!  This is not who we will be if we keep these commands.  This is what we are now because of Jesus.  So, in this text, we are called to be what we are.  We are loved, so we love.  We are forgiven, so we forgive.  God pursued unity with us, so we pursue unity with each other.  That’s a life worthy of our calling.

How does the Holy Scriptures lead us in pursuing unity?  Verse 2, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”  Make every effort; every last thing we could possibly do to be united with him, her, and them; do it.  Every conversation we could start, every phone call we could make, every apology we could offer, every opinion we could try to understand, every sin we could forgive, every everything humanly possible, do it.  God through Paul compels us to make every effort to “keep the unity of the Spirit” because unity needs to be kept, guarded, protected, like a priceless jewel that the Evil One’s thieves are trying to snatch, destroy, replace with division.  Satan’s thieves are named indifference, insensitivity, contempt, opinionated, selfishness, stubbornness, prejudice, disrespect.  Every day, they plan to undermine our unity and rob us of God’s priceless gift. 

Our Creator and Commander orders us to  “guard the unity,” When I was a Combat Soldier on Guard Duty, I had to know what I was guarding, just where to look! As Christians, our area of responsibility is deep within us.  We must watch for tension, patrol for cold shoulders, fake smiles, mock hugs and mumbled words.  We shine the flashlight into our hearts and check for bitterness or resentment.  Unity is too valuable to take for granted.  We must guard and keep it.

If someone shouted, “Hey! That man is taking your child!” what would we do? Say “Hang on I’m on Facebook right now!”  Or “I cant run, I have heels on.”?  No!  We would drop everything at any time and sprint to save our child, so precious and valuable.  God holds something ‘precious and valuable’ as well - it is unity and it is precious.  It is worth sprinting and sweating and tearing hamstrings to save. God says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.”  Drop everything right now and do it.  Jesus even taught that if you are in church and remember your brother is not united with you, walk out and make every effort.  Unity is too valuable to do anything less.

 So, why is unity is so scarce?  If God is so passionate and clear about this, why are our families and classrooms and churches sometimes filled with division?  Why don’t we just deal with the disunity in accordance with the Holy Scriptures?  The answer is simple:  Humility hurts.

I am a veteran of obstacle courses – Most of the courses I have endured are designed by merciless people who enjoy making people suffer. They usually start with walls and ropes and mud, but end up leading you down to ground level where you crawl on your belly and on to sub terrain tunnels that are almost too small to crawl through. You lose skin, become bruised and bent, and although you are hurting beyond all imagination you keep going because you can see the other side and the chance to rest and recuperate.

Unity is an obstacle course.  To get from the tension here to the unity there, hurts.  Starting conversations with people who’ve hurt you will knot your stomach.  Just looking them in the eye will rip open old wounds.  Apologising for the 2% that was your fault won’t feel right, since 98% was theirs.  Suppressing the feeling that they need to say sorry first will kill you inside.  There is no way around it.  Humility hurts.  Perhaps the only thing that hurts worse is spending years without peace.

Humility is painful, but it is our calling:  “Be completely humble.”  Not just mildly humble.  Completely!  When there’s tension, this means assuming maybe we don’t understand the whole story, assuming maybe we are part of the problem and aren’t aware of it, assuming maybe our opinion might not be right.  To be completely humble means starting the conversation and then spending more time listening to their points than pounding home ours.  To be “gentle and patient, bearing with one another in love.”  Be patient, (which the proud never are), not expecting others to grovel and beg for your forgiveness.  Don’t expect others to react perfectly.  Bear with their human nature (possibly their selfishness and faulty memory of their sins).  We humble ourselves, own up to what we did wrong, ask for forgiveness, and make every effort to reconcile. 

  Sin always pushes us apart and the obstacles of pride keep us there.  The only way to be united is to bow down in humility, to get on your hands and knees, to crawl through the dirt, and come to the only place where unity is possible.  Like an obstacle course, this will not be easy, but it is necessary.  Without this approach there can be no reconciliation.  You see, your antagonist will have to humble themselves as well, either in forgiving you or in confessing their own sin. If there is mutual humility, unity is reborn.  Mutual humility always precedes unity.  There is no unity without mutual humility. 

 The cross towering above Christian Churches and Christian Alters are no coincidence.  You see, the calling we have received comes from a Saviour who defined humility.  Jesus humbled himself.  To unite God with sinners, Jesus had to endure his own obstacle course…and He did.  The Son of God took on human flesh and crawled down into a backwoods village called Bethlehem.  Jesus became a man, a breakable, scratchable, bruisable, man.  He got hurt.  Up the skull-shaped hill to his cross, Jesus crawled.  But Jesus crawled.  The Son of God stooped down and scraped his way up to unite himself with us.  Our pride separated us from God, so God himself got down.  God crawled in the dirt not once but twice, at his birth and at his death, not just to meet us in the middle but also to embrace us in our pride.  God humbled himself to be united with us!  God made every effort that we may always be reconciled with Him.

                This is the calling we have received.  And now we live worthy of that calling this is a true story (name changed) – I wish it were mine:

“…I felt sick as I stared at her number.  It had been years since our final conversation, which was filled with bitterness, hurt, and misunderstanding.  To be honest, I thought it was her fault.  She thought it was mine.  But Thursday, God shouted into my conscience, “Who cares about right?  Be righteous.  Be reconciled.”  So I called.  Of course, she wasn’t home, so I had to call twice.  “Hey, this is Michael.  I know we haven’t talked in a long time.  But I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.  I wasn’t gentle with you or patient or humble.  Although we have different opinions about things, that’s no excuse for what I did.  I’m sorry.”  She forgave me.  I hung up the phone, feeling so…different.  And then I stared at the next number…and felt sick…and prayed as the phone rang.  Humility is hard…but it leads to something beautiful.”

Friends in Christ, we don’t have to make the same mistake, spending years living with that anxiety and tension and pride.  By God’s grace and calling, we can embrace humility today, we can achieve our Calling of unity and reconciliation!  Can we?  Can we talk to our wife?  Can we call our brother?  Can we apologise for broken relationships?  Can we address the awkwardness with our classmate?  We may not be best friends again.  We may not get back together, but maybe we’ll live at peace.  Our Father in Heaven compels us to make every effort.  The joy of unity is too beautiful not to.  “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”  Amen.

The grace and love of God that is beyond all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Merv James