The Joshua Election

Sermon for August 23, 2009 Proper 16 Text:  Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-25 Title:  "The Joshua Election" A.  The names may not be familiar:  Samuel Hill, John Nicholson and William Knights.  But what they did certainly is.  Together they formed The Gideons International in 1908, placing their first Bible in a hotel room in Colorado.  The three men were all traveling businessmen with the shared vision of reaching other traveling businessmen with the Gospel. That first Bible placement has since expanded to include more than 180 countries with more than 1.3 billion Bibles placed in hotels to date.  Research from the hotel industry itself reports that approximately 25 percent of all travelers read the Bibles in their hotel rooms. Lonely people in cities from Vegas to Venice can reach for one book that brings inspiration, guidance, admonition and encouragement.  The stories of how Scripture has interacted with the lives of people are numerous, often starting with horrible life situations and ending with people following Jesus. "Elliot," for example, checked into a hotel to commit suicide, stumbled upon the Gideon Bible, and met Christ that night. Today he's a pastor. "Kevin" was a staunch evangelist for atheism who, to his shock, met Jesus through a Gideon Bible that he keeps with him to this day.   There is no question about it.  Scripture has a way of confronting us.  Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that God through Scripture has a way of confronting us.  Confrontation is  precisely what Joshua does in our text for this morning.  Here we find a Joshua who was able to bring magnificent clarity to the issues that lie before us when he says, "Choose this day whom you will serve". Before going forward with this, we need to take a moment to go backwards.  Earlier, Moses passes the mantle of national leadership on to Joshua. The amazing life of Moses is summed up in Deuteronomy 34:10: "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."  Obviously, these are not easy sandals to step into!  But God had selected the right man in Joshua for the next phase of Israel's life in the Promised Land.  Moses, as great a leader as he was, wasn't a general.  Joshua was.  And military prowess would be what was needed as the people of God entered into the land already populated with a wide variety of people.   When Moses died, God started speaking to Joshua in the same way He spoke to Moses.  In the first chapter of the Book of Joshua, we find God telling him  "Josh, you da man!" (OK, so the translation is a little too modern, but you get the picture!) "Be strong and courageous because I go out with you!"  God had always led Moses.  Now He would do the same for Joshua. For his part, Joshua needed to forsake fear and embrace courage. He would not only extend the blessing that had been given to Moses but achieve it in an even more spectacular fashion. Moses got the Israelites through 40 years of wandering in a desert; Joshua would take them to the Promised Land and possess it.   Now in Joshua 24, this conquest is all over, for the time being.  The land has been possessed.  Chapter 24 is Joshua's deathbed speech.  He points a bony finger at the Israelites and offers them perhaps the most important challenge they would ever hear.  It is a challenge for us as well – in one word:  "Choose!"   B.   So after the conquest, before the Israelites settle by tribes into their newly acquired home-places, Joshua assembles them at Shechem, to renew the covenant first made at Mount Sinai.  Shechem holds great significance.  It was at Shechem that God first addressed Abraham in the new land (Gen. 12).  Perhaps most importantly, as I mentioned earlier this week in my e-mailed sermon teaser, Shechem was where Jacob led his family in an idol-burying ceremony (Gen. 35).  So it was a place loaded with symbolism and memories of dedicating oneself to the one true God.  In verses 2-13 (not a part of the lectionary reading today, but vitally important to the meaning of the whole chapter), Joshua reminds the people about the Lord God's relationship not only with their ancestors, but with them as well.  He stands clearly in the place of Moses, the mediator between God and the people.  He is forthright in saying that their ancestors indeed did serve other gods. Nonetheless God called them and delivered them from oppression, as well as leading them in the successful conquest of the land they were now occupying. The option is not between serving the Lord and serving no god at all.  We can easily read between the lines and see that the various local deities had an attraction for the Israelites.  No doubt they had intermarried, and adapted the spouses religious practices.  They thought they could worship both the one true God and the local deity of convenience.  But they were sorely mistaken.  The entire chapter should be seen as a contract, between God and God's people, outlining how God had stayed with them through their slavery in Egypt, their Exile in the Wilderness, and their conquest of the Promised Land.  Verses 2-13 are overwhelming in the number of statements of what God did for His people:  "I gave", "I sent", "I brought out", "I handed over" "I rescued".  The Lord had delivered on His part of the bargain.  He had been faithful.  Now it was the peoples' turn to swear to their part of the bargain, namely, to serve the Lord with all their hearts, soul, mind, and strength, to borrow the words of Jesus centuries later. Joshua sets the example:  "As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." It may seem strange to our modern ears of individualism, but Joshua spoke for his entire household.  It's not that others in his household had no mind or tongue of their own, but frequently in the cultures of the ancient near east, the head of the household represents and decides for the family.  The people respond by declaring that they would indeed serve the Lord and Him alone, who had delivered not only their ancestors but who had brought them to this place at this time. "Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God." Joshua's response is a shock:   "You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins." This is not simply "reverse psychology," but a reminder of the seriousness of their commitment. To go back on their word would be far more disastrous than never to have made the commitment in the first place.  Although calling God jealous might seem a little strange, it has great meaning in the cultural context of the ancient Near East.  There, it was assumed that one would worship a lot of gods, depending upon the particular favor one needed from the appropriate deity.  God is holy, and we are to be holy — completely set apart for God's worship and use. God is jealous and will not accept any disloyalty.  One cannot serve the Lord God and another god.  God demands an extreme quality and depth of the spiritual relationship we enjoy with Him.  He demands that we reflect His purity, nature, and holiness in every aspect of our lives.  We remember Jesus' statements about not being able to serve both God and mammon.  We as disciples are called to "fear" the Lord, that is, to have respect for our Creator, Redeemer God.  And we are to "serve" the Lord, namely, to be devoted to Him alone with both our words and our deeds.     And obviously, no one can do this perfectly all the time.   That is why Joshua told the people "You cannot serve the Lord."  And of course he was right.  The pages of the Old Testament are full of the stories of Israel's failure to follow God.  On our own, it is impossible.  We can only be acceptable to the Lord when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, and God sees us through the blood of the Lamb.   So perhaps naively, even with the warning, the people affirm their intention to serve the Lord.  And in the full zeal of the moment, they celebrated a ritual of putting away their idols, burying them along with the temptations they brought.  At least for the moment.  I once heard a story from Haiti on total commitment to the Lord.  A certain man wanted to sell his house. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but couldn't afford the full price.  After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail. The conclusion is simple:  If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation. C.  I guess you could say the implications of this passage for us are obvious.  In point of fact, we have to make choices everyday.  Many, many choices have no more than immediate consequences:  what shirt should I wear today, what do I want for breakfast, which route do I want to take to work, and so on.  But then there are choices that can have life-changing consequences:  should I take this job, should I marry this person, should I move to this locale.  The reason Joshua, at the end of his life and career, posed the question to the people the way he did is because the answer to the question would affect any other choice they might make in the future.  When he said, "Choose the Lord your God, or choose to follow some other god", what Joshua is really trying to say is that we all have to choose where to ground our core principles.  What is our life's priority?  If our life's priority is ourselves, then all our decisions will be based on what's best for me.  Our god is me.  I can do it all!  A lot of life's trauma results from the fact that so many of us put self-interest ahead of everything else in life.  And then when we run into something that is not in our control, we learn that the god of self is not a very good god after all, and our whole worldview collapses.  If we choose to follow the Lord, then our decision-making is grounded in the fact that God is in charge of our lives.  We want to live by an ethic that centers around loving God and loving neighbor around loving ourselves.  If our god is anything else other than the Lord our God – if it is money or fame or career or power or whatever -- then although it may be attractive for a time, but eventually it will be proven to be just a wooden idol.  And we are left with nothing. Fortunately, when we choose wrongly, when we fail to follow Jesus, when we place God on the sidelines of existence, there is still hope.  Jesus came to die for us, and He rose again from the dead to demonstrate that not even death is the final word in the argument of life.  The final word is grace.  And the Lord is always ready to forgive us when we mess up, when we choose wrongly, and when we fail to follow Him.  Commitment to Christ begins with decision, but commitment is never a once-in-a-lifetime decision.  Christ will forgive us of our sins, and restore us to newness of life.  No sin or wrong choice is ever too big for God.  The Lord is in charge. Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman told of a distinguished minister, Dr. Howard, from Australia who preached very strongly on the subject of sin. After the service, one of the church officers came to counsel with him in the study. "Dr. Howard," he said, "we don't want you to talk as openly as you do about man's guilt and corruption, because if our boys and girls hear you discussing that subject they will more easily become sinners. Call it a mistake if you will, but do not speak so plainly about sin." "The minister took down a small bottle and showing it to the visitor said, "You see that label? It says strychnine -- and underneath in bold, red letters the word 'Poison!' Do you know, man, what you are asking me to do? You are suggesting that I change the label. Suppose I do, and paste over it the words, 'Essence of Peppermint'; don't you see what might happen? Someone would use it, not knowing the danger involved, and would certainly die. So it is, too, with the matter of sin. The milder you make your label, the more dangerous you make your poison!" So who do we choose?  Christ is waiting for us when we choose Him.  Amen.              Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com

Hummingbirds or Vultures?

Sermon for August 16, 2009 Proper 15 Text:  Ephesians 5:15-20 Title:  Hummingbirds or Vultures? A.  There is a tremendous amount of life in the dry, arid Arizona desert, but two very different species deserve special mention.  One is the hummingbird and the other is the vulture. The vultures find the rotting meat of the desert, because that is what they eat.  The good Lord has created a wonderful means through these birds to clean up dead carcasses and help prevent the spread of disease.  Vultures thrive on this diet.  But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals.  Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. They eat the nectar that is found there, and again, demonstrating the wisdom of our Creator God, in this way help pollinate and thereby perpetuate the precious plants of the arid desert.  But now let's compare these two birds a bit further.  The vultures live on what was.  They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is.  They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. And so do we. That is the essence of Paul's teaching in this passage from Ephesians we just read: In life, there are two very different kinds of people, just like in the desert there are two very different kinds of birds. The one, according to Paul, looks for foolishness, the other looks for wisdom.  The one follows the ways of the world.  The other follows a lifestyle that imitates Christ.  Or to put the matter another way, the Christian life is both a challenge   and a rebuke of modern society.  Paul makes it clear that it is possible to live a fully Christian life in a secular world, but it's not easy.  God's will for us is to live fully in the Light of Christ, and to enjoy fellowship with our Creator, not being distracted by but rather witnessing to the evil in the world.   B.  All that is quite a mouthful, and now I want to unpack it all to make it a little clearer.  The best way to do this is to notice that Paul uses a very cut and dried comparison to make his point.  Simply put, the believer can choose to live either by the way of wisdom, or the way of foolishness.  It's our choice.   Wisdom figures prominently in the later books of the Old Testament, such as Job and Proverbs.  Living wisely means living a way of life that knows God and lives according to His Will for our lives.  We don't wonder through life aimlessly.  We have purpose and direction in living.  Wisdom enables the believer to face life head-on, to make sense of its enigmas, and to surmount its problems.  To not live that way, according to the OT Wisdom literature, is to live foolishly.  For example, in the Book of Proverbs, we find this saying:  "Wisdom is a fountain of life to the one who has it, but folly is the punishment of fools." (Proverbs 16:22)  The contrast is obvious, and it is this contrast that Paul is trying to capture, because to him, the Christian must live wisely, up against the secular culture, where life is lived foolishly.   The portion of Paul's letter we are considering this morning begins with a word of caution: "Be careful then how you live."  In the preceding verses, the Apostle offers a gloomy description of how the pagans live, and now he seeks to give positive instruction for the Christian life.  If the Christian community is to differentiate themselves from the secular, they are to practice living as wise people — those who live understanding "what the will of the Lord is".   The command to live as wise people is made more urgent by verse 16.  Paul encourages the Ephesian Christians to make "the most of the time."  The Greek verb he uses here means to "purchase" or "buy back," or "redeem" something.  Paul borrows it from the language of commerce, and it literally means to snatch up a bargain.  Kairos, the Greek word we translate as "time" is better translated as a moment in time (in contrast to the word "chronos", which means a season of time); we are to do this "because the days are evil."   Perhaps we would say "challenging" but I think we get Paul's drift here. The community is called to make the most of the time available, to snatch up the opportunities that are present, because time is a precious commodity.  We are surrounded by sin and darkness, and the Devil is prowling around, always ready to take advantage of us in a weak moment.  It's so easy to let the ways of the world crowd into the ways of Christ practiced in our lives.  But we are also reminded that the Light of Christ has invaded and overcome these evil days. Therefore, we are summoned to live life wisely in the light of the Lord.   The contrast between wise and foolish living is painted in its most strident colors in verse 17, where Paul says, "So do not be foolish."  To be "foolish" in the Jewish tradition means to throw away the chance for salvation.  The writer is calling the community to avoid the foolishness of pagan unbelief and living and to resolve instead to "understand what the will of the Lord is".  Christian wisdom, therefore, is a way of behaving oriented toward the will of God in the midst of a world that has separated itself from God by its own foolishness.   Verse 18 contains two more commands for the community of believers, one negative and one positive. Paul warns them against one form of intoxication and encourages them to pursue another; they are not to be drunk with wine, but are to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Paul is not telling us to be teetotalers, only not to drink to excess.  Christians, he says, are not to live like pagans who get drunk to induce a religious experience; rather they are to enjoy the ecstasy provided by the Spirit of God. The Christian is to "be filled with the Spirit."   This affects congregational worship.  They are to be Spirit-filled, joyous events, full of song.  The Christian should live in a constant state of thanksgiving, giving praise to God for what God has done in the life of the believer, and this is reflected in grateful, heartfelt, and joyful worship.   C.  Now let me propose this morning that there are three "open" conditions that will enable us to more effectively live the Christian life:   1.  Be open-minded (but not too open!).  What I mean by that is that we should open our mind up to the presence and power of the Spirit of God.   Today's text counsels "Be careful then how you live ... because the days are evil".   Many people around those early Christians believed that if they could "get drunk with wine", and drink themselves into a wild stupor then they were opening up their minds and their spirits to messages from the gods outside themselves.  Obviously, we don't believe this today.  But oftentimes we do open up our minds to the wrong things, and it can pollute our entire being.  I don't need to make a list; we are more than familiar with what these things can be.  But the right kind of open mind invites God's Spirit in.  We open up our minds by studying Scripture, by prayer, by attending Church services, by participating in Bible studies, and the like.  These are all channels of God's grace.  When we do these things, we open up our minds to the leading of the Holy Spirit.   Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist of the 19th century, was to have a revival in England. An elderly pastor protested, "Why do we need this 'Mr. Moody'? He's uneducated and inexperienced.  Who does he think he is anyway? Does he think he has a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?" His colleague responded, "No, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on Mr. Moody."   Wouldn't it be wonderful if people said the same thing about you and me? 2.  Be open-hearted.   Paul urges the Ephesians to let God's Spirit pour into their opened hearts, filling them with the music of God's songs: "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs"-- that is, all kinds of music that praise God and constantly declare our thankfulness to God.  This is the outward expression of the kind of lifestyle being open-hearted calls us to.  Being open-hearted like this means being open to the possibility that nothing is impossible to God.  It means living life knowing that God is fully in charge, and not sitting on the sidelines of existence.  It means living joyfully because we know that God loves us, that God is with us, and that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord (even when they don't seem to be working together for good!).  Singing God's songs is a joyful eruption of God's grace in our lives. To be openhearted to the joy of this singing-Spirit is not sappy sentimentality -- the Psalms confront God with genuine human fears, anger, loss, misery, joy, hope, love and dreams. The psalmists poured out their hearts to God in song, leaving them openhearted to welcome the healing, soothing Spirit into their lives. Paul insists that the Ephesians sing these songs, as well as "making melody" in their hearts -- making clear that there must be an unbroken connection between what the lips confess and what the heart feels. The heart which is genuinely opened to God's Spirit directs the words that escape our lips. No false confessions or flowery sounds of insincere piety may escape from a mouth that is controlled by an authentically open heart. 3.  Be open-handed.  The thankfulness we feel and proclaim for God's never-ending gifts must find an active outlet in our lives.  Knowing that "God's in charge" means we don't have to worry about the bottom line, we don't have to hedge our bets, we don't have to ration our compassion.  Once we quiet down our fears and frustrations, once we successfully squelch the illusion that we must be in control, God's Spirit will show us just how simple it is to open our hands to others in need.  When we learn to "shut up" -- to "let [our] words be few" -- we can rediscover the old truism "deeds speak louder than words."   An open hand speaks louder than an open mouth.   An open hand doesn't have to cost anything, although it can be as simple as a regular donation to a needy cause or a hungry family.  Every day we run into people who don't have a lot of hope going on in their lives, and they are looking for an open hand, a gentle word, a warm smile, or a genuine gesture of compassion.  It may be hard to do – some people are so encrusted with the barnacles of life that it may be very difficult to love them.  But God calls us to be open handed.  God calls us to be the physical embodiment of the Word, because you or I might be the only Bible an individual ever reads.  God calls us to love the way Jesus loved, and in that way to heal the hurts that seem to surround us on every side.  Such open handedness might be quite unexpected. During the American Revolution a man in civilian clothes rode past a group of soldiers repairing a small defensive barrier.   Their commander was shouting instructions, but making no attempt to help them.  Asked by the rider why he wasn't joining in to help the tired soldiers, he retorted with great dignity, "Sir, I am a corporal!" The stranger apologized, dismounted, and proceeded to help the exhausted soldiers. The job done, he turned to the corporal and said, "Mr. Corporal, next time you have a job like this and not enough men to do it, go to your commander-in-chief, and I will come and help you again."   That man was none other than George Washington. Paul concludes by telling both those 1st century disciples and us to "give thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything."  Not easy to do.  But it is a winning strategy for successful Christian living.  Amen.     Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com

The Bread of Life

Sermon for August 9, 2009 Proper 14 Text:  John 6:35-51 Title:  The Bread of Life A.   Not long ago I saw a bumper sticker that said, "If it's true that you are what you eat, then I must be fast, cheap and easy."  We laugh at that, but I've got to tell you, it does hit a little close to home.  I saw the results of a survey a few years back, reporting the answers to the question "What are the two biggest categories of nonfiction best sellers?"  As it turned out, number one was cookbooks.   We love to eat well.  Number two was diet books.  Evidently, we page through cookbooks, searching out the most tempting and succulent recipes. Then we race right over to the diet books to find out why we can't eat that stuff!   I hope I'm not making you hungry, between last week's discussion of grits and now this week beginning my message with fast food and cookbooks.  Obviously eating is an important part of life.  It's certainly an important part of life in the Bible.  Eating together is the height of social acceptance in the Middle East.  Even today, in the more rural parts of this country, if one is invited over to share a meal, it means you will be friends for life.  Jesus got flack from the religious establishment because he ate with those that they considered to be the wrong kind of people, namely, tax collectors and sinners.  But the Master was basically saying to the unacceptable by this action, 'You will be my friends for life.  You are acceptable to Me!'   And the staple of life in First Century Palestine was bread.  Bread was baked in clay ovens, removed from the family dwelling to prevent any danger from fire.  As I said in my mid-week meditation, baking bread was a family affair.  The kids gathered wood to stoke the fire, while mom prepared the dough.  And after the wonderfully smelling, bubbling concoction was cooled, it was eaten throughout the day.  Bread was essential for life!  So both they, and we, can appreciate what He means when He begins this morning's passage of Scripture with, "I am the Bread of Life."   B.   Last week we looked at the passage in Exodus that talked about God's gift of manna to His people, wandering in the Wilderness.  The word 'manna", as we noted, means, "What is it?"   We still don't know what it was, but in the corporate and historic psyche of God's people, it quickly took on the characteristic of bread.  Manna physically sustained the people in the Wilderness, just like bread.  And it was God's good gift.    In the verses immediately preceding this morning's passage, the people hear Jesus talking about God giving bread from Heaven, and they confuse it with the manna their ancestors received.  They asked of Jesus, "Sir, give us this bread always".  They were poor and hungry, impoverished people living in an impoverished land.  They were after ordinary food, food that perishes.  It was all they could think about.  But Jesus taught them to stretch their spirits to something even more important than physical bread.  He was offering imperishable food, food that provides lasting sustenance regardless of who you are, where you've been, or what your circumstances might be. Because the crowds failed to understand immediately, He explicitly declares 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."   It's no coincidence that Jesus uses the image of bread to describe the most basic element of spiritual health.  Believing in Jesus, following Jesus and relying on Jesus form the foundation of a healthy, whole and eternal life, just like bread functioned as the foundation for a healthy physical life for the people to whom He was speaking.  Jesus is life sustaining, like the manna of their ancestors in the wilderness.  But while manna was the basis of their sustenance, it couldn't make them eternally healthy. "Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, and they died," said Jesus.   Why?  In part, it was because they didn't believe God's promise and chose to grumble rather than receive the manna with thanks.  In like manner, whoever does not receive Jesus, the true bread of heaven, while living in the present age, will die. The Gospel of John is very clear, and I want to be just as clear:  there is only one way to eternal life, and that way is through faith in Christ!!   But if they (and we) believe in the one whom God sent, the one who "is the bread that comes down from heaven ... [they] may eat of it and not die.  Whoever eats of this bread will live forever ...", because whoever listens to Jesus — that is, "eat[s] the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink[s] his blood" — that one will not die but will have eternal life, both now and hereafter.   This is not the prettiest of images.  Throughout the history of the Christian Church, those who opposed or who didn't accept the faith thought this language referred to cannibalism.   Frederick Nietsche, an incredibly influential philosopher of the 19th century, used to refer to Christians as being a strange type of people, who ate flesh and drank blood.  Now, we don't have time today to discuss all the theological nuances of Holy Communion (let's save that for another time), but suffice it to say that this language is sacramental, not literal.  Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, which is a channel of God's forgiving grace.  Bread and wine mysteriously become more than what they appear at the Table of the Lord.  And this Table is a time of communion with the Risen Christ.   So it is obvious that Jesus was offering was the kind of nutrition that will fuel us spiritually, and which shall never run out or become ineffective.   "I am the living bread that came down from heaven," He said.  "Whoever eats of this bread will live forever". The foundational spiritual nutrition of Jesus' own life, death and resurrection is what sustains us in our own journey out of sin and death and into the promised land of God's kingdom.   We also see in these verses that crowds were skeptical about Jesus.  Was He really what He claimed to be?  "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, however, is not deterred by their skepticism.  Instead, he confronts it when he commands them, saying, "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". Not only does Jesus tell them to stop complaining, he also states emphatically once more that "the Father" — his Father — is actively at work in his ministry. It is by the Father's power that a person hears Jesus and believes in Him.   Those who hear and believe the Son's divine teaching receive an astonishing, amazing gift, for Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life". In the past, God spoke through Moses and the Scriptures, but now he is speaking and working through his Son.   But Jesus' promise of life for those who believe in him demands an unprecedented, personal sacrifice on his part. Not only is he "the living bread that came down from heaven" — the one who can provide bread for the hungry — His own flesh is, in fact, "the bread that [he] will give for the life of the world". He is "the Word [that] became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth".  Jesus had to die so we might know life.  And His Resurrection proves that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God.   C.  It's not always easy to believe this.  So much in life seems to argue against faith in a good God. You may know the story of the man who fell off a cliff, but managed to grab a tree limb on the way down. The following conversation ensued:   "Is anyone up there?"  "I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?"  "Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can't hang on much longer." "That's all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch."  A moment of pause, then: "Is anyone else up there?" You know, maybe it's me, but I think the hardest spiritual truth to swallow is that God could love me (substitute your own name here) enough to die for me.  Oh, I'm not talking about intellectually believing it; I'm talking about believing it with our hearts, all the way down to the core of our beings, all the way down to where it makes a real difference in the foundations of who we are.  When John talks about believing in Jesus, what He is actually saying is that we must trust Jesus with our lives.  That can't happen if we don't think God loves us enough to do what is best for us.  Circumstances in life oftentimes seem to go against us, and we wonder if God is really up there, and really on our side.  We try to control everything and everyone around us, but that only leads to a realization of how out of control we really are.   At it's core, therefore, this passage is all about believing without seeing.  That's what Jesus meant when He said, "I am the Living Bread that came down from heaven…Whoever eats of this bread will live forever."  Nourishment by Jesus means having a strong and intimate faith in Jesus.  Now I know, it's not always easy to trust the Lord like that.  But not trusting Him doesn't make Him less in control of things.  God can bring good out of evil.   Jesus invites us to "eat" of Him.   To consume him. To devour Him. To feed on Him.  In other words, to take His Words and His actions and really believe in Him, really make Him a part of our lives and who we are.  Truth is, "consuming" Jesus is good for us. It's healthy for us.  And when Jesus says this leads to eternal life, He means not only life to come but life right now.  We are aligning our lives with that of the Creator and Sustainer of the entire world.  To do so is to have joy, peace, and a real purpose in life.   Think about faith in terms of being like a bottle of medicine.  If someone takes a bottle of medicine from the medicine cabinet, and looking at the instructions on it, this person says, 'I'm sure they're correct. I have all confidence in the source of the medicine. I know who wrote these directions. I believe everything about it. I know this will relieve my headache, if I just take it,' but then takes the medicine bottle and puts it back on the shelf, this is not real faith.   The person who needs the medicine doesn't lose the headache. It continues on. Yet even though the person says that he or she believes in that medicine, and still won't take it, then it's not of much use. Real faith takes in the object of faith.  Like bread.  Like medicine.  Are we hungry?  Amen.       Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com

True Manna

Sermon for August 2, 2009 Proper 13 Text:  Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 Title:  True Manna A.   As a southern boy, I love grits.  Not the instant, imitation kinds, though I will eat those in a pinch.  I mean the real kind, made from fresh corn, cooked and buttered to perfection.  For that matter, I like hominy's too; you know, that delicious concoction which is a kind of grits grown up, made from the whole kernel.  But now my children don't like grits, and I can't quite figure that out.  Maybe it's the fact that their mother is from north of the Mason/Dixon line!   Every time I see grits I am reminded of the story of the little girl who ate grits for years without knowing what they were. She ate cheese grits, buttered grits, grits with pieces of crisp bacon stirred in — all sorts of grits. When she was about 12 she asked a friend if he knew what grits were. "The truth?" he said grinning. "You really want to know the truth?"  And naively she responded: "Of course!"   "Grits," he said, "are small bugs that live in colonies on the surface of fresh-water lakes, like algae, and at the end of every summer they are harvested, shelled, and dried in the sun so that you couldn't tell that they had ever had legs. Mm-mmmm," I'm not sure she ever ate grits again!   B.  This morning's passage of Scripture is not about grits, but it is about food, or more specifically, the lack thereof.   The Israelites had experienced their first real freedom after leaving Egypt.  They were journeying in the Wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula, even today a hot, hostile, dangerous, and fearsome place.   Almost immediately some complained to Moses about the food situation.  The rations they had brought with them were running out, and they didn't know what to do.  The text calls the ones who were complaining by a Hebrew noun that we translates as "the whole congregation of the Israelites," indicating that the complaint lodged against Moses and Aaron comes not from malcontents or rabble-rousers, but from the entire spectrum of the people, including its responsible leaders.  This is the third complaint against Moses and Aaron recorded in the Book of Exodus.  The first complaint expresses the fear of the Israelites of being overtaken and slaughtered by the pursuing Egyptians immediately after the miraculous parting of the Red Sea. The second complaint, found in chapter 15, is that of thirst, for which God instructs Moses to throw a piece of wood into bitter water to make it sweet, that is, fresh.  It is obvious that each complaint demonstrates a lack of faith in God's providential care on the part of the people.  But God has 40 years to whip them into shape!   As we have seen, this third complaint is about the lack of food that resulted from their rushed departure from Egypt. The complaint expresses a perhaps all-too-familiar sentiment: "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots," (not houses of ill repute but rather large communal cooking pots in which meat was boiled and from which groups of people — two or more families — were fed.!) "and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."   Give me a break!   Do you think slaves under the absolute totalitarian rule of an Egyptian Pharaoh ate their fill of tender morsels?  This group could perhaps be called the "Back to Egypt" Committee.  This is the committee of people who look back upon the past as being the "Good Ole' Days", even when they weren't all that good.  They have a selective memory for what has gone on before, minimizing the struggles and stressing the blessings. It's a natural reaction to change.  No one really wants a lot of change and if people are scared of what the future may hold they will cling tenaciously to the past.  This happens not only in secular culture, but also in churches, and smart leaders have to keep in mind that the Back to Egypt Committee is always motivated by fear of a future that they may neither understand nor desire.    A number of years ago I was speaking before a church governing body of a church located in the inner city of a large metropolitan area.  I was there to discuss the possibility of bringing in a church revitalization team, to pull alongside them and help plan new ministry directions that might help equip the church to begin growing again.  While waiting for my turn to speak, I overheard two elderly white ladies talking about the future of the church.  "Our Sunday School class is really dwindling down to nothing," she said.  "Everyone has just passed on!"  "Yeh," said the other lady, "But that Philipino class seems to grow every Sunday."  What a gold mine of a conversation!  In fifteen seconds the entire problem with the church had come into clear focus!!  God was calling the congregation to reach out to people who didn't look like them!  Unfortunately, it was too big of a change to contemplate.  They voted against doing anything that made much of a difference.   Obviously Moses and Aaron didn't lead the people into the wilderness only to die, but the complainer's exaggeration points to the desperation and fear the people were feeling.  This depiction of a well-fed workforce is the result of convenient amnesia on the part of those complaining, as a reaction to fear of a future that may not be to their liking.  And this reflected a lack of faith in a God who has already been where He is leading us to go.   In response, God tells Moses that he is going to "rain bread from heaven" upon the people and cause quails to land among them. "At twilight you shall eat meat," says God, "and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God." That statement sums up the deeper meaning behind the provisions the Lord was supplying.   The food was not only to meet their dietary needs, but also to feed them spiritually.   God proved that in spite of anything they might encounter, the Lord would provide.   Now, we should notice that the bread comes with strict instructions.  The Israelites are to gather the "fine flaky substance" for six days only, and to refrain from gathering on the seventh, which is the Sabbath.  It is called "Manna", a word that means "What is it?"  Even today, no one knows what it was – theories range from bug excrement to plant sap.  But what manna was doesn't matter.  What matters is that manna demonstrated that the welfare of the Israelites was not coincidental or accidental, but was due to the deliberate care of God.     As the rest of the story makes clear, some of the Israelites failed their test.  Unable to obey the instruction to refrain from harvesting manna on the seventh day, some Israelites sought to gather food on the Sabbath and found none, and provoked an angry reaction from God.  That pattern — divine protection, divine instruction, human disobedience, divine punishment — will become the pattern of God's relationship with His people throughout the Old Testament.   C.   I'm sorry to say that we all seem to follow this same pattern so many times in our lives.   Maybe the problem is that we can't treat our spirituality like a roller coaster, going up and down, and then up again.  The Israelites' complaints reflect a deeper spiritual need alongside their need for food.  When things were going fine, they were happy with God.  But when things weren't going so well, then they started to grumble at a God whom they saw as being unfaithful or fickle.  They didn't seem to be interested in a steady, ongoing, covenantal relationship with God.  Their faith lives seemed to be much shallower than that.  And again, I'm sorry to say that all of us, at some time or other, fall into much the same way of living before God.   For we Christians, it doesn't start with manna.  It starts with Jesus.  Remember the Gospel passage we just read, paired in the lectionary with this passage from Exodus, "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…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."  Food for spiritual hunger is abundantly supplied through faith in Christ.  We can trust Jesus with our lives, through thick and thin.  He is there in good times or in bad.  Indeed, the times when we are at the end of our own rope means that there are less of our own resources to rely on, leaving more room for Him.   And God has provisioned us with sources of divine nourishment — prayer, meditation, Bible reading, church attendance, communion, fasting, tithing, et cetera.   We should remember that we can't assume a take-it-or-leave-it mindset when it comes to our faith life.  Many of us, despite the sincerity of our Christian commitment and the purposefulness of our intentions, find that our enjoyment of prayer, communion, Bible study and so forth varies according to our energy levels, our life pressures, our schedules, our current excitements and enthusiasms, and the other ups and downs typical of our existence.   This is normal, but we have to make sure we don't "get out of the habit" of seeking the presence of God in our lives.   Perhaps, therefore, it would be helpful to remind ourselves of some good practices that can be helpful for spiritual growth.   1) We can make use of the power of regimen. Just as athletes benefit from a habitual routine of exercise, which surely does not excite them to the same degree every day, so, too, we can rely on the power of an ongoing devotional procedure. Some of us will find that the regularity of it makes room for the Holy Spirit to enhance the flavor of each day.   We should have a time of daily devotion, reading, prayer, and study.  In this way we "get in the habit", strengthening our spiritual muscles.  It is also helpful to find a spiritual counselor or join a devotional group.  By joining with others, we can hold each other accountable in our dealings with our neighbors, the Lord, and ourselves.   2) We can examine our lives to see what else is going on that blocks our enjoyment of the things of God. When we are committed to Christ but struggling nonetheless with the practice of prayer, study, and attendance in church, it may be a sign that something else is out of balance in our lives. That awareness can give us an opportunity to make some changes.  Perhaps seek out your spouse or a trusted friend and ask them what might be blocking fellowship with the Lord.   3) We can reduce the distractions that pull us away from our spiritual life.   For example, many of us find that we have difficulty focusing our prayer time. Whenever we try to pray, all sorts of unbidden thoughts come into our minds —, a thought about a nagging problem, a worry about some task we must do later, and so forth.  We might want to find a quiet spot for quiet time, and use that place exclusively each day.  I like to use my rocking chair by my light, usually early in the morning each day.  Distractions are an inevitable drain on prayer time, but we can minimize them by practicing putting them to the side when they pop into our heads.   The bottom line is that God will deal with us abundantly if we but seek Him out.  God wants relationship with us, and will draw close to us if we make any effort at all to draw close to Him. I knew a fellow who was driving with his family from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa, Florida. As far as the eye could see, orange trees were loaded with fruit. When they stopped for breakfast, my friend ordered orange juice with his eggs. "I'm sorry," the waitress said. "I can't bring you orange juice. Our machine is broken."  My friend confessed that he was dumbfounded.  They were surrounded by millions of oranges, and he knew the restaurant had oranges in the kitchen--orange slices garnished their food plates.  They were surrounded by thousands of gallons of juice.  The problem was that the staff had become dependent on a machine to get the juice.  We could have the same problem in our spiritual lives. Bibles might surround us in our homes, but if we don't use them, we'll never get the sweet spiritual juice from them.   An hour or so on Sunday, as good as that is, isn't enough.  We need to seek the Bread of Life, and invite Him into our lives.  God is willing to pour out manna to sustain us, if we are just willing to ask.  Amen.     Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com