Pentecost 11, Proper 14B
In the name of God: our
Creator, Word, and Wisdom. Amen.
Today the Olympics are
ending. But not to worry! Another time-honored tradition of American TV
viewing is falling close on its heels: even as the Olympics draw to a close,
tonight is the beginning of “Shark Week”.
In case you’re not familiar with “Shark Week”, it’s a periodic series on
the Discovery Channel. This year is the
25th anniversary of “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel, but it gained wider
popularity a few years ago when shark attacks were getting so much press and
the beach-going public was buying into the media-fueled fear.
During “Shark Week” all
of the regularly scheduled programming shifts its focus to something
shark-related. And just about everything
can be shark-related if you try hard
enough! During “Shark Week” you’ll still
see “Mythbusters”, but the myths that they test will all be about sharks. You’ll also still see “Dirty Jobs” but the
jobs will have to do with all the disgusting and dangerous things people have
to do when their job is to work with sharks.
It’s become an example of
marketing genius. Perhaps it’s the
timing – “Shark Week” is usually in the summer, when people’s minds invariably
turn to the shore. Perhaps it’s just
because nothing better is on during the summer reruns. But whatever the reason, “Shark Week” is a
huge hit.
The Discovery Channel,
however, didn’t invent the concept of the series. The church was on to that plan long before
anyone had heard of “Shark Week”. As I’m
sure you’ve noticed, we’re in the midst of a “Shark Week” of sorts here in the
church.
For a few weeks now we’ve
been talking about bread. Now I know
what you’re thinking. Bread?! No wonder church the church is in decline! The world is talking about sharks, and we’re
talking about BREAD!
I know. Bread isn’t exactly exciting. No 1970s horror movie was ever made about
bread. No one will ever tell their story
of death-defying experiences with bread.
Bread is just the simple stuff of human hands. It’s the product of our labor and the source
of our sustenance. It’s just wheat and
water.
But it can be through
this most simple and ancient of concoctions that we learn about Christ.
Two weeks ago we heard
the story of the feeding of the five thousand.
Starting with only five loaves of bread, the multitudes had their fill.
And then last week the
miracle became a metaphor: after giving them their daily bread Jesus said, “I
am the bread of life. Whoever comes to
me will never be hungry…” Starting from
the simple stuff of bread, he begins to change how we see the world.
It’s not exciting the way
“Shark Week” is exciting, but it is revolutionary. And like all revolution-making, change the
way we see the world-talk, his words – both simple and infinitely complex – “I
am the bread of life” – were enough to shake the community who heard them.
John says, “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’?”
It’s a story not entirely
unlike our own. Like the crowds who were
fed in the field that day followed Christ to see what might happen next, we,
too, are drawn to Christ – at least enough to bring us here on Sunday
mornings. And like those crowds, basking
in the presence is not always enough for us, either. In our lust for certainty, we, too, find
ourselves murmuring. Questioning. Drawn, but never quite sure.
This is the point in the
sermon at which the leaders of some other churches might tell you to cast aside
that doubt and simply trust in the Lord.
(As if it were that simple!) One
potential action plan in the face of uncertainty is to deny it. To look the other way until all we can see is
the certainty. To treat faith as a tool
meant to obfuscate the doubt that intrudes our every day. But I would argue that that kind of faith
isn’t so much faith as it is filler. The
faith to which we are called is something more.
Like bread, it is simple and yet infinitely complex.
Jesus tells us that he is
the Bread of Life - the sustenance that fuels us to be the people of God. But in our hunger and in our doubt, too often
we fill up, instead, less satisfying sustenance: the Bread of Anxiety, the
Bread of Weariness, the Bread of Control.
They’re only fillers. But in
facing our own emptinesses we cling to them.
We cling to them because they give us a sense of fullness, even if only
for a while. But sooner or later their
truth is always revealed; and with it our emptiness reemerges, and all the
heavier.
Like the Jews in the
Gospel lesson today, we, too, are called to engage our doubt. The questions are all around us, and to know
Christ – to really, honestly respond to having been drawn to Christ – we must
wade through those questions. We must
face our emptiness to find the fullness of the love of God.
This is one of the main
job descriptions of the life of the Christian: to face the questions, even in
the midst of the fear they inevitably inspire.
That is the truest faith. Not
turning some blind eye to questions, but immersing ourselves into the
unknown. This is the work of
discernment: to risk entering the unknown in the faith that God will reveal
what is needed.
As a community, this
parish, is about to begin a season of intentional discernment. As Christians we are always called to be
discerning the will of God in our lives, but as human beings we sometimes
answer that calling more intentionally than at other times. And now is one of those times of intention in
the life of St. Paul’s.
Just two weeks from today
we will come to the end of our time together.
Our relationships will necessarily change. I’ll be moving on to a new life in a new
city, but so, too, will you be moving on to a new kind of life here. You’ll have new leadership, and new
goals. You’ll build new relationships
and have new ideas for how to be the people that God is calling you to be.
There are many questions
ahead. That’s normal whenever we’re in
periods of transition and discernment. As
I look out across the next several months in my own life, I have almost no
sense of who or where I will be at this time next year. Though that’s somewhat frightening, one thing
I do know is that I will need real strength for the journey. Though I may be hungry for answers, I can’t
fill that by eating the Bread of Anxiety.
I am filled with questions. And
though there is so much that I don’t know, I can’t try not to fill that unknown
with the Bread of Control.
We have been promised the
Bread of Life. That’s the real
sustenance for all of the changes and chances of this life. It may be harder to grasp than anxiety, or
weariness, or control - and in times of uncertainty we may be tempted to cling,
instead, to those more tangible fillers.
They’re easy, but they’re not enough.
Real faith, real community, and real discernment are harder. It will take a lot of work. But in moving forward together you will find a
deeper understanding of the Bread of Life.
It will be embarrassingly simple and infinitely complex. Just like bread. Amen.
(this sermon is reworked from a previous version, posted here)
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