This sermon was prepared for the people who are Gethsemane Lutheran Church. You may watch it in video form at this link.
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were [beside the sea,] they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the 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.”
Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
So they said 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.’ ”
Then Jesus said 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.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said 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.” - John 6:24-35
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Good morning, again!
Let’s start with a brief recap of the last couple of weeks.
Two weeks ago in worship, we were introduced to my friend Sebastian.
Sebastian, you’ll remember, washes windows near the interstate, and when I asked Sebastian how that was, he gave an honest answer. The worst feeling in the world, he said, is when folks are right next to you and they pretend like they don’t even perceive you. “The worst feeling in the world,” he said, “is when folks act like you don’t even exist.
Jesus loves those we choose to cover up or render invisible, we learned, even as Jesus brings those we exclude and judge and marginalize to the center (including us), calling them beloved and loved in God, just as Jesus demonstrated in his ministering to the crowds and in his feeding of the thousands.
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Last week, with the help of my friend Rene, we learned that partaking not just in the meal but also in the ministry of feeding means changing our perspective.
Just as Jesus went to the mountain’s edge and there perceived the crowds, so, as followers of Christ, we are called to reorient our perceptions. Those we have been taught to ignore--to look past, or to look through, to fear or to judge--Christ calls us to look for instead.
For in greeting our neighbor in love, we greet God. Amen?
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Today, I’d like to solicit the help of another friend as we continue this winding journey through the Gospel’s accounts of Christ’s feeding of the people, and of Christ somehow being bread for the world.
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So:
This week, I’d like to bring into the conversation my friend Jim.
[PAUSE]
“If you are disturbed, there is something wrong with you.”
These are some of the very first words that Jim ever said to me.
“If you are disturbed, there is something wrong with you.”
See, Jim was my sponsor--my very first sponsor--very soon after I had entered into a recovery program, years ago, and after a about a decade of slowly poisoning myself to death.
“If you are disturbed,” he said to me, “there is something wrong with you.”
That’s what Jim said, and -- to be honest -- I found his words to be pretty disturbing.
I think that's because, at first, as these words were said,
I heard the words not just as words, but as judgments.
Whatever his intent, I heard Jim saying to me,
“There's something wrong with you, Tom!”
Whatever his intent, I heard him asking,
“What on earth is your problem, anyway?”
Whatever he was meaning to give me, all I was willing to receive was
Accusation.
And judgement.
A finger pointed.
You’re disturbed. And there’s something wrong with you!
That’s what I heard him saying.
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“More than that, how could you say that the disturbance inside me is only about me?” I went on in my righteous defiance.
“Are you simply ignoring the injustices and evils in the world?”
I asked.
“I mean, if I'm disturbed don't I have the right to be?
Don’t you know, Jim, that there are deadly, awful things happening every day—and just living here,
just getting by day to day in this world
if we pay only a little bit of attention to what’s going on
could lead anyone to go off their rocker?”
“Existence alone is enough to drive anyone out of their mind, isn’t it?”
And this was before the pandemic. Amen?
“When you are disturbed there is something wrong…”
When I first heard these words, all I heard was judgment—
someone judging me.
And all I heard was what I thought was naivete--a shallow understanding of the world from someone who just didn’t “get it.” And maybe never would…
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But what I didn't hear (and what I should’ve heard)
is that Jim wasn't offering me any judgment at all. None of it.
In fact, he had little to no concern about my morality or my moral universe as far as I can tell.
And certainly, he wasn’t trying to offer me a deep analysis of the powers of the world and the systems in place that have perpetuated injustices for centuries.
I don’t know if he could.
But I do know (at least now) that what he was offering me (without judgement, and with a wisdom that only comes with the experience and pain)...
What he was offering
—as a gift—
in those simple words,
was a diagnosis.
That is, he wasn’t judging me and he wasn’t explaining the world.
Rather, he was just trying to tell me that I was sick
(in a way that I could hopefully see the sickness, too).
And he was trying to tell me that he wanted me to get better.
He wasn’t offering me judgement,
but truth about my condition,
concern, solidarity,
and maybe
even
a way out.
And I wanted a way out. That’s why I was sitting with a sponsor in the first place.
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It must have been disturbing today to hear Jesus, the compassionate one, the one who lifts up the lowly and exalts the humbled,
the one who feeds the hungry and cures the crowds…
It must have been hard to hear Jesus
reply to the crowds in a way that I can only hear (at first) as harsh.
“Don’t crowd around me now because lunch was pretty good,” he seems to say, “but stick around for the deeper stuff--the stuff that’s going to endure forever.”
“Don’t follow me just because you’re fed!”
“Don’t only fill up your belly (which will soon be empty)” he says, “but also let’s fill up your heart.”
(pause)
Now, the reality--and Jesus knows this--is that these people are at the bottom of the bottom in society, the left out of the left out (as we’ve been discussing), and to be honest,
because of the way the world and the economy was shaped in Rome in Jesus’ day, that meal on the hill as their bodies baked in the heat--that meal, on the hill, for a moment, for them was salvation.
That meal was the truth and the life in their lives, a shining bright star in a world with no direction--for a moment. And so that meal already was more than a meal. It was manna. It was a gift from God and bread from heaven.
It was a moment, a taste, of salvation. And Jesus knew this.
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With that said, Jesus’ salvific plan, his plan for giving ongoing life and joy and sustenance and resurrection to the many in this crowd
extended far beyond this famous feast.
Not only were they to take and eat, but as they grew in the faith, as they followed Jesus and learned the depths of his heart, they too would be called not simply to eat, but now to be the hosts, now to prepare the meals, and now to share whatever they had with those in need.
They, too, would be called to be his body, and to distribute his bread for the world.
[This, of course, is the story we read in the first Chapters of the Book of Acts.]
But for now, for these crowds with Jesus, it is important for them to know: if they are going to become leaders, if they are to become disciples, they must understand that both spiritual and physical food are necessary for endurance and for survival.
If they are to become Christ’s body when Christ is gone, they have much to ingest, much to learn and much to incorporate into themselves of Jesus’ grace and power and love.
They must feed their bellies--yes! And they must feed their hearts.
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One of the reasons it is so important to come to terms with the ways in which we all are sick or disturbed or traumatized and so on…
is because if we can name the sickness, the trauma, the disturbance, that thing that sticks in us like a vibrating tuning forks and shakes us all up inside,
we can then (perhaps) accept that we are sick, hurt, pained, distrurbed… and that we need help, be it medicine or advice or steps or therapies or surgeries or spiritual food.
Or perhaps some combination of all of those things.
Once I can say with conviction,
“Man. I am disturbed. I’m not well. And it’s painful. And it hurts.
And I don’t want to hurt anymore. And I wanna get better.”
then, with it out in the open, I can search for a lifeline and a balm.
I can ask for help from those in the crowds pressed in all around Jesus with me.
I can even reach out to Jesus for healing and strength and for food that leads to life.
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The crowds who gathered around Jesus, indeed--they were disturbed! The poorest of the poor, they were hungry, they were searching. They were sick and bleeding and looking for a cure. That is, they were looking for salvation--perhaps something long-term, and perhaps simply a meal.
Jesus fed them. He healed them.
And then Jesus asked them to stick around.
To feast on his words.
To get spiritually fit, to get spiritually fed.
Because they’d be next.
To be called disciples.
To gather disciples.
To have love and compassion for the crowds.
To feed them.
And to invite them into Christ’s body and Christ’s work of feeding and healing and resurrective love.
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May God also heal us in these disturbing times.
May Christ sit with our spirits and grant us the peace that passes all understanding.
And may we be fed here in daily acts of love and justice and prayer, that we may be transformed into bread and balm for the world.
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AMEN.
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