Gospel text for 4th Sunday of Easter 22 April 2018

John 10:11-18        Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”  

Reflection       When we listen carefully to Jesus’ words, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the father knows me and I know the father. I lay down my life for the sheep,” we hear him making a three part declaration. The first part of his declaration is; I am the good shepherd. Jesus knows who he is. Second part; Jesus acknowledges the mutual connection of his relationship with those whom he knows and who know him as well as the mutuality of his relationship with God. So the second part of Jesus’ declaration is about connection and belonging. The third part of Jesus’ declaration is about personal responsibility, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” Jesus’ life is not only for him self, it is also for others. He holds his individual life lightly, he does not cling to it.

When we know who we are and claim the mutuality of our relationships in community and in God, we naturally take responsibility for the care of one another,  even though this is risky business, even though it may cost us our life as we know it.

If life is all about me then every one else and everything else is a potential obstacle or problem and it is no wonder we live in a chronic state of anxiety and defensiveness. Viewing the world from this perspective, connection, belonging and community fail. Rather than stand in the way of an active shooter we stand in fear and fail to enter a school to protect endangered children. We spend $16.8 trillion dollars to bail out big banks insuring their CEOs receive their bonuses and fail to feed the 49 million Americans who lack the means to get enough nutritious food each day.* When we view the world exclusively from the ‘its all about me” perspective we fail to show up, connect and take responsibility for our community.The result of doing this, God’s kingdom is not come because God’s kingdom requires all of us in our conjoined humanity.

What then is the solution? We must join Jesus in making our own three part declaration; claiming who we are, acknowledging our connection and belonging, and taking personal responsibility for the good of one another. Here is my declaration. 

I am here. I am wholly present. The actions you can count on me for are creating opportunities for you to be here too. I will notice and affirm God’s presence in and of, with and for you. The difference I now see I can make is making God’s Presence known, making God’s kingdom come. Will you join me in my possibility? Will you join me in taking the risk to stand up for connection, belonging and community? Will you join me in making God’s kingdom come? 

If you found this post to be meaningful please share by clicking on icons below. Thank you.

*https://mashable.com/2016/07/14/child-hunger-united-states/#pp4gMW3PIaqM

Gospel text for Sunday 19 March 2017

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.  A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Reflection

When Jesus looked at the woman at Jacob’s well he did not see a foreigner, he did not see an unaccompanied woman, he did not see a sinner.  Jesus saw a woman who had spent her life searching for something to quench her desire, her deep longing for the kind of love that is untouched by the vagaries of time and circumstance. Jesus must have looked into this woman’s eyes and recognized her longing for the eternal love of God. So Jesus offered her just that, a blessing that would become in her “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Here is the thing, every day Jesus had to decide to risk his security, safety, esteem, power and control - all of his programs for personal happiness - in order to live in accord with the will of God; to love God with all his “heart, soul, mind and strength…and to love (his) neighbor as himself.”  Every day, every hour, Jesus had to decide to what he would say yes, yes. Would it be yes to his personal privilege, pleasure or protection or would it be yes for the good of others, the benefit of many, for long term gain rather than instant gratification? 

We can only imagine what Jesus must have been feeling in his heart while offering blessing to the woman at Jacob’s well. Perhaps there is a clue in his response to the disciples concern about him having skipped a meal to linger at the well. “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”… “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” The deepest desire of Jesus’ heart is to do the will of God. In doing the will of God Jesus is nourished and sustained.

This is the way of worshipping God in spirit and in truth; acknowledging the deepest desire of our hearts,  encountering God therein and passing on the blessing for the benefit of others. In this we are nourished and sustained. 

Every day, every hour, Jesus had to decide to what he would say yes, yes. Every hour of every day we also must decide to what we will say yes. “What is your heart’s desire? What do you wish for yourself, for your loved ones and for the world? Is it all about me or is it all about we?” Our answers to these questions determine whether we will forever be hungry and thirsty or eternally sustained.  Amen.

If you found this post to be meaningful please share by clicking on icons below. Thank you. 

Gospel text for 26 July 2015

2015 07 26 John 6:1-21        Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

Reflection       

Who among us has not experienced the howls of a hungry infant or the grumpy ill-temper of a hungry adult? I believe hunger is an expression of our fundamental need and dependence on others. Think of it this way. By the time we swallow a bit of bread thousands of hands have made it possible; clearing the land, planting the seed, tending grain, harvesting, storing, shipping, processing, combining with other ingredients, honey raised by beekeepers, shipped to manufacturers, processed, packaged, shipped again and distributed all before we drive to the market thanks to the thousands of people who made, delivered and service our car, never mind the fuel we need, and finally we buy the loaf of bread.

We do not eat by ourselves. We are always fed by others, even, and perhaps especially the most privileged among us because hunger is at the core of our humanity and depends on the generosity of others to be fed. In her book, The Eucharist and the Hunger of the World, Monika Hellwig, a professor of theology at Georgetown University puts is this way, hunger is “the experience of being created in interdependence with others.” (p9)

The hunger of the starving needs to be fed so they can move beyond the pain of malnutrition and struggling to survive. The rest of us are hungry too; we hunger for meaning and value in our lives. We hunger to be freed from enslavement to power, privilege and stuff, and we hunger to be relieved of our anxiety about losing it.  And so in an interesting twist, the best way to fed our hunger is to gather together, share what we have and feed the hunger of the starving. You see we need to feed the hunger of the starving as much as they need to be fed because in so doing our deepest, truest selves come alive, full of kindness, beauty and truth. 

In today’s gospel text we see Jesus’ grace filled response to the people’s hunger - to our hunger.  The taking, thanking, blessing, breaking and sharing the one small loaf of bread is an outward and visible sign of a much greater spiritual truth. This is the saving action of Jesus, revealing the way of giving ourselves away for the good of one another, sharing what we have to feed the physical and spiritual hunger of our world.

If you found this post to be meaningful please share with friends by clicking on the icons below. Thank you. 

Gospel text for Sunday 11 August 2013

**

Luke 12:32-40     Jesus said to his disciples, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

"But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

Reflection    Clearly Jesus is speaking to me and to you. After all, we are the ones with possessions. At the very least we have a computer (or access to one) and electricity and a place to sit and time to read and write and wonder about such things as Jesus is speaking. If you are reading this you are probably not worried about finding your next meal, or trying to remember the last time you had a meal. Clearly, Jesus is speaking to those of us who have possessions, who have more than our daily bread. Jesus is speaking to those of us who have a surplus, who have things to sell, who have enough to share with our sisters and brothers who are wondering where they will find their daily bread.

So Jesus tells the people with possessions, and us, “Do not be afraid.” This is not a zero sum game. There is nothing for you to lose when you are generous and give from your surplus. In fact, there is everything for you to gain. When you find pleasure in giving from your surplus you align your will with God’s will and with God’s “good pleasure.” This is the kingdom come.

Jesus’ parable does not accuse or recriminate people with possessions. Quite the contrary.  Jesus reminds us that the kingdom has everything to do with the nature of our relationship with God and our lifestyle. As servants or slaves we are to be alert, to receive and act on God’s counsel. Rather than store up possessions for ourselves we are to imitate the way of Jesus, we are to align our will with the will of God to be sure every person receives their daily bread. This is what gives us real pleasure.

“The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one in eight people in the world, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm  

To bring it a little closer to home, some 13 million children in the United States live in homes with limited access to a sufficient food supply. http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/family_home/family/childcare/Children_Childcare/Malnutrition+Impairs+US+Childrens+Health+Behavior+Says+LSU+AgCenter+Food+and+Nutrition+Expert.htm 

Even closer to home, in 2011 32% of the children in Phoenix, Arizona lived in poverty. http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/43-children-in-poverty?loc=1&loct=2#ranking/3/any/true/867/any/322 

Jesus teaches the disciples and us to pray to God, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Give us this day our daily bread.” He also teaches us to sell our possessions (our surplus) and give alms to be sure all of God’s children receive their daily bread. When we align our will with God’s will, the kindgom is come and we participate in God’s “good pleasure.” 

                           ** Image  "Daily Bread" by Reggie Duffie

Gospel text for Sunday 12 August 2012

John 6:35, 41-51

Jesus said to the people, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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."

Reflection

The people with whom Jesus is speaking were among those Jews who received the loaves of bread that fed five thousand. Apparently the next day they were hungry for more so went looking for Jesus. When they found and began to question him, Jesus said to them, ”Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life… (6.27) …my Father gives you the bread from heaven.” (6.32) With just a few words Jesus switched hands from the literal to the metaphorical, “I am the bread of life.” The writer of John’s text wants us to move from seeking the physical (manna, loaves of bread and signs of Jesus’ identity) to seeking the divine (life in the Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Which raises the question for me, “Am I willing to find my life sustaining “bread” in relationship with Jesus and God the Father?"

If I chose to respond to this invitation literally (physically) I would react as did the Jews who “disputed among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”” (6.52) As the disciples noted, “This teaching is difficult.” (6.60) And that is precisely what faith is about, things that we cannot wrap our minds around. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11.1) Holding a loaf of bread in my hands I have no need for faith. I can touch and see the weight and substance of the loaf, and it will temporarily relieve my physical hunger. But to experience the life giving qualities of abundance, satisfaction, fulfillment, even joy I must look beyond the physical and find my life in Jesus, that I might live in him and he in me.   

We are all moved by hunger for something more and have oh so creatively contrived means to sate our desires; acquisition of food, wealth, property, power, status, partners, perpetual youth.  This is nothing new to the human condition. You can read about it in the Old Testament in stories of King David, in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or People Magazine.  The thing is, the deepest desire of our hearts cannot be satisfied by anything physical. The deepest desire of our hearts invites us to discover that which is beyond the physical in the physical, to find divinity in the flesh.

I believe we all have glimpses of divinity in the flesh, moments when the veil between the physical and spiritual realms is pulled aside. For a chef it might happen while holding a sheaf of parsley in his hand, reverently inspecting the curl of the leaves and twists of the stems while rubbing a bit between his tongue and palate. A new parent might get a glimpse sniffing the scent of their fresh bathed infant or a music lover following the decrescendo of a plaintiff melody. It could be the smell of rain on the desert or the look in your dying friend’s eyes. I believe we all have had glimpses of the divine in the flesh.

It is this to which Jesus invites us to find our life, our true and eternal life.  It is the very flesh of this life that draws us  to reach (and taste) something more.