August 9, 2015
John 6:35;41-51
I’m really bad at math, Specifically Algebra.
I took it three times in college before I could pass it.
Now whenever I took it, I went to every class.
I paid attention, I was determined, I studied and did the
homework
and at the beginning of each class I thought I understood
what was going on, but inevitably, somewhere in the middle
of it,
the professor added something that I just didn’t understand,
and after that point, the whole rest of the class
was kind of a mysterious blur for me.
I think that’s what’s
happening with the people
that are following Jesus.
This conversation is a mysterious
blur.
They just don’t understand
what Jesus is saying
Jesus lost them somewhere along the way.
To give them some slack,
Jesus has just been giving them glimpse
of information, a little at a time.
He hasn’t been spelling it out for them until this week.
In the part of the conversation
we read last week,
The people following Jesus asked him
how they could do what he just did.
Feed 5000 people
from five loaves and two fish.
They see Jesus as an equal who has learned
to do something that they could learn too.
They don’t yet know that Jesus is who he is.
Jesus tells them that
having faith
is the work that they should be doing.
They ask what they should have faith in.
Jesus says believe in
God,
and believe that God is the one who sent Jesus.
He says if you have faith in that then
you’ll already have the bread that never goes stale.
Not understanding
that Jesus is the
answer to all their questions, they ask,
“How do we get this bread that never goes stale?
Where can we buy it or find the recipe?”
Then, finally, in
this week’s portion, Jesus gets a little clearer.
He says “I am the bread. I am the bread of life.”
He says “I am the bread. I am the bread of life.”
He spells it out for them.
Now the religious leaders and the church people
have apparently come to listen in on this conversation
by now, and they get offended at this direct statement.
they’re like: “He’s the bread of life?
How dare he say that.
He’s just Joseph’s son.”
We have to remember
that Jesus
wasn’t a big deal then.
He looked like everyone else.
He came from the same place.
They didn’t know who he was
or what he would do.
“He’s the bread of life?”
But he’s one of us.
We watched him grow
up.
We knew his father,
he did the same things
my kids did
and he knows the same
people I know.
He’s so normal.”
And yet he knows God?
God is working through
him?
He is God?
He’s the bread of
life?
We can understand their confusion
and maybe even their offense.
God is great and
amazing and powerful
God is the creator of the universe, the galaxies,
the oceans and mountains
We worship God, we fear God, we are humbled before God.
What is God doing with Joseph’s son.
What’s God doing with normal?
Now we have the
benefit of hind sight and scripture.
We know that Jesus was human and God.
We know that God
chooses over and over again
to use and work through things that we consider ordinary.
We know how God has a habit of
using the normal things of this earth
to carry out God’s great and awe inspiring plans.
To be honest, at times we might rather have
the great and powerful creator of the
universe come down and make everything right.
Like these people
gathered around Jesus,
we might rather have God come to us
an other-worldly Messiah, who doesn’t get his
hands dirty, who is removed from
the riff raff of this world.
Because we know how
humans are.
We have prejudices and fears,
greed, selfish pride, shame and disappointments.
To sum it up, humanity can often stink.
Why would God use something like us?
Sometimes it seems
like
the best course of action might be to
bring in something different, an improved model.
Humanity 2.0 the updated version of ourselves
a newer and better model
without all the issues and problems.
But then, What would
we do?
What about us?
That’s not how our
God works.
Our God won’t replace us.
Our God uses us as we are.
God redeems the world by working
through the world, not around it.
God redeems a flawed humanity
by working through a flawed humanity.
That’s what the sacraments are.
God takes these ordinary things of this world:
food and water and uses them to bring his infinite love to
us.
Sacraments are the promise that God can use everything.
This is just normal
tap water.
This water came out of our faucet here.
Water that we all see and use every day.
But with it, God
makes us God’s children,
God unites us, God forgives us, and God calls us.
Normal people, normal young men
like Wally and Chris, God calls them and us
to do great things in this world.
God calls us to care, to work for justice and peace,
to change the world.
And the bread we eat
every week is
just normal bread, just flour and water
and oil and a few other ingredients.
And the wine we drink
is just the kind
you get from the liquor store
down the block, the same wine
These are the same things that
have been sitting on dinner tables
for thousands of years.
and forgiveness of God.
Jesus is the bread of life.
Jesus, a normal human -- biologically speaking.
But he was infested with God’s Spirit,
was one with God’s love and will.
So then, by being born and dying
like we all do, he was able to save the world.
In using the normal,
God blesses the normal.
God makes the average wonderful.
In the life of Jesus and In the water, bread, wine.
When we come to this normal table,
we see and feel and taste God’s
acceptance of us, love of us, and forgiveness of us.
God doesn’t want to
replace this world
with something better or more functional.
God doesn’t want the newer model of humanity
without flaws and scrapes and bumps and bruises.
God wants us.
Jesus is the bread of
life.
In Jesus, God comes to us to
be at one with this fallen humanity,
this flawed world.
Jesus is God showing
us that
We are God’s whole plan.
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