"God's Hands and Feet in the World." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"God's Hands and Feet in the World"

Mark 10:35-45

The twelve disciples had been going around with Jesus for some time.  He’d been teaching them about the way of self-giving love.  But they don’t seem to get it.  Mark tells us that James and John “come forward” to Jesus, pushing ahead of the other disciples. 

            “Teacher,” they say, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

            Jesus says to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”  And they say, “When you come into your glory, grant one of us the privilege of sitting at your right hand…and one at your left.”

            Now, some people dismiss the Zebedee brothers.  They see them in this conversation, at least, as pushy, ambitious seekers of a place of honor and power. 

            But I think it’s obvious that James and John had great faith in Jesus.  They believed in him, and their personal hopes were completely woven into his destiny.  They loved Jesus.   But what Jesus is trying to teach his disciples about being a suffering servant is hard!  It’s hard to understand-- and harder to live.

           

            One of the reasons that the Christian message has been twisted and distorted and misunderstood—is that it’s so paradoxical.  The Christian paradox is that our Lord and Savior came as a suffering servant to save us… and to show us the WAY.

            Jesus defines greatness very differently from the ways we’re used to thinking about it.  When we follow Jesus, as his disciples, we need to struggle with the paradox that—in God’s kingdom—we gain by losing.  We become great by serving.  And we get to be first by being last.  In the kingdom of God, things look very different than they do in the world.

            “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be a servant.”  This teaching is so critical to understanding Jesus’ ministry…and such a key to being a disciple—that the gospels record it no less than eight times.

            What does it mean for us to follow a servant savior?  

            Among other things, it means setting aside self  in order to take up the cause of others.  It means serving our neighbors.  It means living out our faith in terms of kindness, openness, empathy, and compassion.    Never perfectly, never fully—for we’re not capable of perfect servanthood.           

            As part of Christ’s body, when we’re at our best, we are a servant church.   When we’re not at our best, we’re an organization filled with people each trying to get their own needs met…  trying to get something out of church… and trying to get the church to be the church we want it to be.

            When we’re being the servant church, we’re feeding the hungry, calling on the sick…visiting the home bound.   We’re serving those in the community who are needy and hurting, through friendship and practical kinds of help.  When we’re being the servant church, we share in Christ’s ministry in the world by generously supporting the mission of the church with our tithes and offerings.

           

            Today has been designated as Bread for the World Sunday.   This Tuesday is World Food Day. 

            This is a time when we who have plenty to eat are reminded that many people don’t… and many of those who are hungry or food insecure are children.  On Bread for the World Sunday, we are challenged to consider some facts about hunger.  More than 41 million Americans, including 13 million children, lived in households that struggled to put food on the table in 2016. More than 40 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2016; 1 in 3 were children. [1]
 Many of these children have parents who have jobs and work hard, but their wages aren’t high enough to cover the high costs of rent, transportation, and utilities and daily meals.[2]
About two-thirds of SNAP recipients are children, elderly, or disabled.[3]

            Our federal government’s feeding programs serve as a lifeline for vulnerable children and families. Because children are hit especially hard by the effects of hunger and malnutrition, nutrition programs aimed at children are particularly important. 
            A healthy start in life — even before a child is born — pays off for years-- not only for individual children and families, but for communities and our nation as a whole.

Locally, and in the short term, we are helping to alleviate hunger as we contribute to Blessings in a Backpack…when we give to the Presbyterian Hunger Program through our Cents-Ability Offerings… when we support Church World Service…when we support the mission of the Open Door…or Zaman…or  Gleaners.

            But we also need to work on the systemic causes of hunger.   Only one out of every 20 grocery bags that feed people who are hungry come from church food pantries and other private charities.  Federal nutrition programs, from school meals to SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), provide the rest.   Our government’s child nutrition programs serve millions of children each year.  It’s one of the ways we work together as a society to care for those in need.
            In the toolkit for Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, I read about Stephanie Rice, the mother of four boys ages 3 to 10 in Ohio.   Stephanie and her husband have always had to plan carefully as they raised their family on modest wages.
            Early in their marriage, James worked at Babies R U and made $7.25 an hour. Stephanie earned $9 an hour as a cashier at Wal-Mart. The Rice’s were raising James’ daughter from a previous marriage and had a baby on the way. There just wasn’t enough money to put food on the table. They applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to fill in the gaps.
            “If that had not been there, I wouldn’t have been able to pay the bills,” Stephanie said. It was a situation where every penny had to be accounted for. Even the slightest interruption in food stamps would have completely upset the balance.”
            SNAP is just one of many anti-poverty programs funded by the federal government. Other programs include the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, Children (WIC), and school meals.
            These food assistance and child nutrition programs are a lifeline to millions of Americans every year.   How the federal government decides to spend taxpayer money has real-life consequences.
            It’s common for families receiving food assistance to have one or more adults earning a paycheck. Most benefits go to the working poor.
            Stephanie and James are doing better than during their hardest times, like the winters when they couldn’t pay the gas bill and their gas was shut off. Or the time their car was stolen and it took them a year to recover from the loss.
            These days, James and Stephanie’s family doesn’t need as much food assistance, but Stephanie is worried about potential cuts to food assistance to others in need. She’s majoring in social and political science, and has a goal of one day running a nonprofit for homeless people, giving back to those in need--just as she received help when she needed it the most.
            In the meantime, on her to-do list is calling her members of Congress. She says she has her senators and representative “on speed dial,” so she can tell them what it’s like to have a hungry family and receive temporary help to put food on the table.[4]

            Bread for the World is a faith-based education and advocacy organization that I’ve belonged to for some years.  The reason I support Bread for the World is because, over the years, they have had a remarkable record of helping win passage of bipartisan legislation that addresses hunger.   As a result of this advocacy, children in the United States receive vital nutrition.   Emergency food reaches refugees from famine and conflict in Africa and elsewhere.  Agricultural development is enabling hungry people in various parts of the world to grow enough food to feed their families.

            In the Hebrew scripture passage we heard today, we heard God speaking through the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making  widows their prey and robbing the fatherless… [5]

            The scriptures teach us that God loves justice and requires us to do justice and love kindness.[6]  Our individual actions and societal structures should enable all to share in God’s provision. Deuteronomy commands, “do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.”[7]

            In Exodus 16:13-19, God instructs the Israelites not to take more many each day than they need. In Leviticus 23:22, the Israelites reserved a corner of their fields for those who needed food. Jesus spoke of the importance of justice as an element of faithfulness: “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God. It is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.”[8]  

            The community in Acts 2 “had all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” In Matthew 25, Jesus taught that the nations would be judged according to how they treated “the least of these”-- those who are marginalized and in need.

            When we support Bread for the World through our donations, when we call or write our elected representatives to advocate for those who struggle to feed their families, we are living out our calling to do justice.

            As Teresa of Avila famously put it, "Christ has no body now on earth but yours… no hands but yours…  no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which God’s compassion will look upon the world.  Yours are the feet with which God will go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which God will bless others now."

            We are called to serve—to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

When we respond to Christ’s call and work together, we can help to change the conditions and the policies that allow hunger to persist. 

            We are called to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into our house… to care for basic needs of those who are marginalized.

            Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God promises us that we will not have to do this alone.  When we call, the LORD will answer.  When we cry for help, God will say, “Here I am.”[9]

            And that, my friends, is good news!

 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 14, 2018

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   [1] Income and Poverty in the United State: 2016, U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/demo/P60-259.pdf 
 

   [2] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. http://www.cbpp.org/research/ policy-basicsintroduction-to-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap



[3] USDA, Women, Infant, and Children Program Participation and Costs. http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/ les/pd/wisummary.pdf
 

[4] bread.org/ol

[5] Isaiah 10:1-2.

[6] Isaiah 61:8; Psalm 99:4; Psalm 33:5; Micah 6:8; Amos 5:22-24.

[7] Deuteronomy 15:7-11.

[8] Luke 11:42.

[9] Isaiah 58

"Don't You Understand?" A Sermon on Mark 8:1-21 on World Communion Sunday

"Don't You Understand?"

Mark 8:1-21

         Does this story sound familiar?   Haven’t we heard this story before?

            Actually, we have.  In Mark chapter 6, we heard a story of a miraculous feeding of a multitude.  But this time some of the details are different.   A thousand fewer people.   Two more loaves of bread.  And five fewer baskets of left-overs.  

            Jesus looks around at the huge crowd that came to hear him and says to his disciples, “I’m really concerned for the people.  They’ve been with me for three days now, and they don’t have anything to eat.   If I send them home hungry, they’ll collapse on the way.  Some of them have come from miles away.”

            The disciples don’t sound like they’ve seen a crowd get fed miraculously as they answer:”” But Jesus, where could you get food for all these people, out here in the wilderness?” 

            The disciples have seen something like this before.  But everything that’s happening is so much bigger and so different from what they’d been expecting or hoping for that they apparently can’t take it all in. 

            Jesus tells the crowd to sit down.  He takes the seven loaves… gives thanks…breaks them…and gives them to the disciples to distribute.   The people in the crowd eat, and they’re satisfied.  Then they gather up seven baskets of left-overs before they send the people away. 

            Over the years, biblical scholars have tried to figure out why Mark tells this second feeding story, when the first one was more impressive, with 1,000 more people in the crowd?  Is he just telling us, “Jesus did it again”? 

            There are some interesting details in the two stories.  In the feeding story in chapter 6, Jesus told the 5,000 people to sit down, and they sat down on the green grass.  In the Galilee, grass grows quickly in the spring, but once the rains stop in May, it gets scorched by the fierce sun.  So, according to N.T. Wright, the earlier feeding took place around the time of the Jewish Passover.[1]   

            Some scholars have suggested that the twelve baskets of left-overs from the 5,000 people symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel, while the seven baskets of left-overs may represent his ministry to the wider Gentile world, with—in Jewish folklore—seventy nations.   The first feeding story took place on the predominately Jewish side of the lake, and today’s story, they’re on the predominately Gentile side.  

           According to William Placher, first-century readers, who were fascinated by number symbolism, would have read this passage and said, “This time Jesus is feeding Gentiles.[4]

            In the early church Mark was addressing, there was a major controversy about who was included and the relation of Jewish and Gentile Christians, so I think Mark is telling us in this story that Jesus came to feed Gentiles as well as Jews. 

            But there’s something else—a theme that becomes more pronounced in the next episode.  Even though the disciples had witnessed the feeding of 5,000 people, when Jesus told them they needed to feed the 4,000 people, it apparently didn’t occur to them to say, “You know, that thing you did to feed the crowd on the other side of the Sea of Galilee—could you do it again?”

            After they feed the 4,000 people and send them away, immediately Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples and they cross the lake, back to Jewish territory.  The Pharisees come and begin to argue with Jesus, asking him for a sign from heaven, because they want to test him. 

            So, Jesus and the disciples get back in the boat and cross to the other side.  Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread.  They had only one loaf with them in the boat, and they’re worried about the scarcity.

            Jesus cautions them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”  The disciples say to one another, “It’s because we don’t have any bread.”

            Jesus hears them and says, “Why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?”  They said to him, “Twelve.” 

            “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 

            Then Jesus said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

            For a lot of us, it is hard to understand.  We’re afraid we don’t have enough bread to share with those in need.    We worry we don’t have enough money.  We get confused by “the leaven of the Pharisees”—the message of those who want God to set up a kingdom that’s about observing the law with great strictness, rather than the kingdom of love and justice that includes all the people Jesus wants to include. 

            The kingdom of God is much wider and more gracious and inclusive than we might have imagined.

            Do we understand? 

            Listen to how Jan Richardson describes it in “And the Table Will Be Wide”:   

And the table will be wide.

And the welcome will be wide

And the arms will open wide to gather us in.

And our hearts will open wide to receive.

And we will come as children who trust there is enough.

And we will come unhindered and free.

And our aching will be met with bread.

And our sorrow will be met with wine.

And we will open our hands to the feast without shame.

And we will turn toward each other without fear.

And we will give up our appetite for despair.

And we will taste and know of delight.

And we will become bread for a hungering world.

And we will become drink for those who thirst.

And the blessed will become the blessing.

And everywhere will be the feast. [5]

May it be so!  Amen!

 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 7, 2018

"Faith and Fear." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church. Mark 9:30-37.

"Fear and Faith"

Mark 9:30-37

In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus traveled to the region of Tyre and then to the Decapolis.[1]  In today’s text, he’s back in his home territory of Galilee, but “he did not want anyone to know it.”  The reason he didn’t want anyone to know he was there? He had some important teaching to do with his disciples.

            Some very important things have happened in the meantime.  In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had asked his disciples, “Who are people saying that I am? Who do you say I am?” Then he began teaching the disciples about what awaits him in Jerusalem and about the cost of following him. Peter, James, and John had seen Jesus transfigured on a mountain.[2]  Later, Jesus cast a demon out of a boy.

            Now, as they’re passing through Galilee, Jesus is trying again to avoid being noticed while he continues to teach his disciples, saying, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  But the disciples didn’t understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Maybe they don’t want to understand. This is a hard teaching about a Messiah who suffers and dies.

            I wonder what the disciples might have asked if they had not been afraid.  Are we really very different?

            I agree with David Lose that it’s important to ask good questions. But our fears can get in the way. What fears pursue you during the day and haunt you at night? What worries weigh you down so that it’s difficult to move forward in faith?”[3] Our fears have a way of sneaking into our very being, and robbing us of the abundant life Jesus came both to announce and to share.

            Did you notice? The disciples don’t ask Jesus any questions in response to his prediction of his crucifixion because they’re afraid. And the next thing you know they’re talking about who was the greatest, who was going to have a place of privilege and power in the coming kingdom.

            Fear can do that. It can paralyze you. It can motivate you to look out only for yourself.

            This isn’t the only time Mark contrasts and faith and fear. In the fourth chapter of Mark, after Jesus stills the storm that had terrified the disciples, Jesus asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” As he was restoring Jairus’ daughter, he tells the distraught father, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”[4]

            The opposite of faith is not doubt--but fear.  The kind of fear that can paralyze you… distort how you perceive reality… and drive you to despair.

            The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid to ask him.

            In the house in Capernaum, Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way? But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

            He called the twelve and said to them, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

             

            Now, in ancient times, a child was regarded as a non-person, or a not-yet-person, the possession of the father in the household.   When Jesus held up a child as an emblem of living in God’s household, and perhaps even as a stand-in for Jesus himself, he was challenging the social norms of the day.

            This child was as important to Jesus as the vision on the mountain. Jesus wanted his disciples to see the child…and welcome the child.  Not because the child is innocent or pure or perfect or cute.  No. Jesus wanted them to welcome the child because the child was at the bottom of the social heap.  In Mark’s gospel, children aren’t symbols of innocence or holiness. More often, they are the victims of poverty and disease. Jesus brings the child from the margins into the very center.

            But, surely, we want to think, we are different.  We value children in our churches and in society. And yet…

            In the United States of America--one of the richest countries in the world-- children remain the poorest age group. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in five children--12.8 million in total-- were poor in 2017. Over 45 percent of these children lived in extreme poverty at less than half the poverty level.  Nearly 70 percent of poor children were children of color.  The youngest children are most likely to be poor, with 1 in 5 children under 5 living in poverty during the years of rapid brain development.

            Child poverty hurts children. Child poverty hurts our nation’s future. It creates gaps in cognitive skills for very young children, puts children at greater risk of hunger and homelessness, jeopardizes their health and ability to learn, and fuels the inter-generational cycle of poverty.

            Ponder this: 3 million children in the U.S. live in families surviving on $2 a day per person.[5]  I hope you’ll take that statistic home with you and consider what $2 a day per person would buy and what it wouldn’t.

            Something else to ponder:  More than 400 children who were separated from their families at the southern border are still separated from their families.

            These are moral issues that reflect how we are living our values in our society. When we look at the federal and state budgets and see actions to limit access to medical services for lower income Americans including children, or cut-backs in nutrition programs for children, we need to see how these actions affect children’s lives.

            Do we see the children? Do we welcome them?

           

            Joyce Ann Mercer suggests that Jesus’ treatment of children shows his “struggle and resistance to the purposes of empire.” The politics of empire favors relationships of power and privilege, while the politics embodied of the kingdom of God lifts up the lowly, and those with no power or privilege. [6]

            Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth.[7]  He proclaimed the reign of God, preaching good news to the poor and release to the poor and release to the captives…teaching by word and deed and blessing the children.[8]

            Do we see them? Do we welcome them?  If we don’t, what are the fears that hold us back from fully welcoming them?

           

            Jesus called his followers to live out gospel values. He calls us to extending hospitality to those who were considered little more than property.  He healed when he wasn’t supposed to, touched people he shouldn’t have touched.  He taught that all our ideas about greatness mean nothing if we don’t stoop down low enough to see the little ones in our midst.

            That day in Capernaum, Jesus held a little child in his arms and brought the words of heaven down to earth. I imagine Jesus whispering in the child’s ear, “You are God’s beloved child.”[9]

           

            The good news is that God has named us all as beloved children and calls us to welcome children in Christ’s name. This isn’t as simple or limited as it might seem. It means caring for children-- not only our own children and grandchildren, but children of migrant workers and asylum-seekers, children of poverty in our cities and impoverished rural areas.

            The good news is that Jesus has promised to be with us always and has given us the Holy Spirit to lead and empower us.  In this broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.[10]

           

            Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 16, 2018
 

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[1] Mark 7:24-37

[2] Mark 9:2-8

[3] David Lose, “Faith and Fear,” at his blog In the Meantime. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1619

[4] Mark 4:40; Mark 5:36

:

[5] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund website:  https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/

[6] Martha L. Moore-Keish, Theological Perspective, in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2. Location 3408.

[7] John 1:14.

[8] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1991.

[9] I’m grateful to the Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad for this image in “A Hopeful Fanatic.” http://day1.org/4049-a_hopeful_fanatic

    

[10] “Brief Statement of Faith.”

"Sharing in the Life of Christ." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Sharing in the Life of Christ"

John 6:35, 41-51

We’ve been spending some time in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel.  A few weeks ago, we heard the story of how thousands were gathered to hear Jesus teach.  The people in the multitude were hungry, and the disciples told Jesus they needed to care for them. All they could come up with was a little boy with five loaves and two fish. It must have been an amazing sight as Jesus took that little bit of food, gave thanks, and everybody gathered there had enough to eat, with baskets of food left over. It was such an amazing thing that people wanted to make Jesus their king.

            Jesus had provided for the people beyond belief. So, they went looking for him.  When they found them, Jesus told them that the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

         The people said, “Give us this bread always.”

         That’s when Jesus declared to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

            The people in the crowds who had made such efforts to find Jesus after he’d crossed the lake began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

         They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

            Jesus answered them: “Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.

         The people in the crowd don’t get it.  They were trying to fit Jesus into their frame of reference. The crowd’s misunderstanding is understandable enough if they thought of Jesus as the prophet like Moses.  There was a popular belief that God would provide manna again in the final days.  This was connected with the hopes of a second Exodus.  Many people thought that the messiah would come on Passover, and that manna would begin to fall again.

         The people in the crowd are stuck in their faith development.  They have hopes, based on their traditions, and they want Jesus to give them what they want:  manna from heaven, and a political leader to overthrow the Roman oppressors in a new Exodus.

         In the first six chapters of John’s gospel, Jesus has encounters with several people and groups. Needy, troubled people come to Jesus, and they fail to comprehend.   Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking about being born again from his mother’s womb, when Jesus was talking about spiritual rebirth, being born from above.”

         The woman at the well thought Jesus was talking about a drink of water from the deep well, when Jesus was talking about his presence that fills a thirst no earthly water can quench. 

         The man by the pool thought Jesus was talking about healing that would come from bubbling water stirred up by an angel, when Jesus was telling about healing that would come from him.

         Jesus’ detractors think because they know who Jesus’ father, Joseph, was and where he came from, that he couldn’t be bread from heaven or give life to the world.  

         The crowd that followed Jesus regarded him as a teacher. They witnessed his miracles. They also knew him as one of their own, a man from the old neighborhood.  Some of them had watched him play as a child and learn his trade. In other words, they know him.  He’s a lot like them, so they can’t see how he can be all that special. They can’t believe he could be the one God sent to redeem them.

            Now, when we read about people in Scripture behaving badly or failing to act faithfully, our first impulse may be to judge them. We tend not to identify with them.  We’d like to think that we would have known better than they did…that we would have done better.

         And yet, consider the audacious claim that Jesus is making. Who ever heard of a God having anything to do with the ordinary, the mundane. If we believe in an all-powerful God who lives up in the clouds, it’s hard to believe in a God who is willing to suffer the pains and problems, the humiliations of human life. No wonder the crowd grumbles against Jesus’ words.

         No wonder the leaders of the Jewish religious establishment was offended. To them, Jesus was making an audacious claim.  Claiming that he was the source of eternal life? They thought that was blasphemous. Claiming to be living bread that came down from heaven? Ridiculous! They can’t understand how he can make these kings of audacious claims about himself any more than they can understand why anybody would believe him.

         Can we relate to any of this?   

        

          I hope we’ll ponder this prayerfully:  can we be bold enough, audacious enough, perhaps even foolish enough, to confess that God uses ordinary people and ordinary things to accomplish God’s will and to bring the world to God’s amazing love and God’s justice?

          

         The bread Jesus is talking about is God’s gift. But we can only be nourished if we accept the bread that is offered.  

         Like the people in today's gospel story, we have a decision to make.  We can decide to follow Jesus and let God's presence and power direct our lives...    or we can ignore Jesus and spend our lives on other things.

         We make this decision in big ways at confirmation...  or when we decide to join the church.  But we also make it every day in lots of little ways. 

         We make a choice every time we decide to listen to God's voice   or ignore it when it tells us that we're special...  God's beloved children… called as partners in Christ’s service.    We make a choice every time we hear God's voice calling us to love everyone---those who are close to us…and even strangers...  even our enemies.

        

         Throughout the sixth chapter of John, in all the talk about bread, something has been said over and over which is the real offense behind all the other offenses.  In fact, it's the offense of the Gospel:     we have life by grace.  The bread God gives from heaven gives life to the world. 

         The conflict of the gospel is in how we choose to respond to God's gift.   The question we have to answer is this:  Do we determine our own lives...  or does God? 

         In every paragraph of this chapter of John, it's clear that the people around Jesus want to be in charge.  They demand that Jesus do what Moses did.  They demand signs.  They want proofs so that they'll have adequate reasons to decide that Jesus is really from God.  They want Jesus to be king-- the kind of king they wanted. 

         But, over and over again, Jesus keeps saying one thing:  life from heaven is a gift.    Trust this, and life is yours.

        

         The message of the gospel really isn't so hard to understand.  It's hard to accept, because it cuts across all the calculations and achievements that we want to do to earn our salvation. 

         Every day, we need to choose.   Standing before God's amazing grace, how do we respond?

        

         The good news in the gospel story is about grace...  about God's gift to us.   The bread in the wilderness was a gift.  The bread as word from heaven is a gift. 

         From the very beginning, God has been giving us of God’s self and inviting us to take this sustenance and use it as a source of being the light of the world on behalf of God’s kingdom.  God calls us to go out from our gatherings of prayer and praise to work in partnership with Christ to feed a hungry, hurting world. There are so many who are hungry…many who are hurting… many who are searching.

         May we become a people that begin to extend life eternal… a people who live out the meaning of sharing in the life of Jesus to a hungry world.

         May it be so!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 12, 2018