Welcome to Christian Community

This Sunday we welcomed a new member, Cate, and so that shapes the basic context for the sermon.

Readings: 

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

Well, this is a great lot of Scriptures for the day we welcome Cate officially as a member of this parish. Especially the Romans text, that how-to list for living in Christian community. Sounds pretty easy at first: hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another. Rejoice, have patience, pray, share, and show hospitality.

So far, so good. Right? These are the bright spots, the basics, the easy marks of a community of faith. But then we get: bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. And weep with the ones who weep. (In other words, don’t avoid the people who suffer, join them in it!) Live in harmony and with those deemed lowly, don’t try to get back at anyone who has done you wrong - in fact, if you kill ‘em with kindness you’re doing it right.

Welcome to Christian community. Where everyone is a doormat and we really like to suffer.

Okay, no. Not really. Not the point. Not the invitation we’re given. Not the shape of our lives together once we’ve been welcomed, even though to many it may sound like that.

Paul isn’t inviting people to be pushovers, he’s offering them strength for the inevitable. Remember, Paul himself has endured prison, beatings, the whip, all for the sake of the message he proclaimed about the death and resurrection of Jesus. When he had opportunity to escape prison after an earthquake set loose his shackles and opened the doors, he stayed where he was to bring good news to his jail keeper. He has seen the power of the Gospel change lives and is willing time and again to put his own life on the line for the sake of those who have not yet heard they are welcome at God’s table.

It’s from this context that Paul writes to the Romans. Christians are being killed around him, left and right. He himself used to gather them up and bring them in to the authorities. Then Jesus shone in his heart so brightly he was struck blind on the road and had to depend on the kindness of the very strangers he came to threaten. He has lived and known the power of the Gospel.

The disciples, on the other hand, are still in the middle of that story and haven’t the foggiest idea what to make of it. Peter has just spoken truth about who Jesus is: The Christ, the Son of the Living God. He has said things he does not understand, because he cannot comprehend that anyone would be able to kill someone like that, let alone that Jesus would have foreknowledge of it and let it happen anyway.

But this is just what happens when God and the world we have made collide. When sin and the sacred meet face to face, it gets pretty ugly. God knows it will. God also knows that what comes after is worth the price. That remaining aloof and uninvolved won’t fix us. That walking with us as God did in the garden will result in blood and death for both of us. We were promised death if we ate that fruit of that one tree. We were promised death, and we got what we chased after. We wanted power, were tempted by the idea that we would be better gods of ourselves, and in trying to make ourselves more important we wound up killing ourselves.

So what was God to do? When we left the garden, we made our own way, we wrestled with God and with gods of our own making and with each other, and made such a mess of things we don’t even remember a world without this mess, can’t even imagine the sort of Kingdom God promised, not without the social structures we have built to keep the ‘right’ people in and the ‘wrong’ people out.

Jesus had to remake the world. From its very foundations. Which would not be easy. It would require a sacrifice unlike any other. In ancient times, sacrifices were made in blood, because blood was life. It still is, in many ways, but before we had scientific studies and transfusions and microscopes, blood was a sort of magic thing, because life and death were so mysterious and holy. Even with scientific research and medicine, life and death are still mysterious and holy. But in that mystery and holiness, a virus crept in, a plague, a scourge called sin, which infects all of us. Be it pride or lust or racism or embezzlement or what have you, sin is a big problem. And it needs an answer, it can’t just be wiped away and forgotten by anything we do.

Blood sacrifices used to serve as the way the effects of sin were repaired. They also served as thanksgivings. This sacred thing, this life blood, was spilled from rams and goats and cows and sheep and birds, on our behalf. Some gods even asked for the blood of children to make the crops grow or bring the rain. It was not the sort of image we use when we talk about sacrifice. It was smelly and smokey and there was fire and you couldn’t get the ritual wrong, and you had to do it on a regular basis, over and over again, to make yourself acceptable before God.

Jesus took up his cross willingly, lived his life knowing it was going to end at the hands of the very people he loved so much. He also knew it was going to be the end of the sacrifices, that his death would once and for all make the world acceptable before God again. Not that we could and would never sin, but that sin would no longer be the last word. Sin would not define or direct us. Peter was so distraught by Jesus’ talk of his impending death that he missed entirely the hope which followed: and on the third day rise.

Jesus broke the power of death to control our lives. That’s what Paul experienced in his living, through all of those trials. That’s what we have experienced and known in our lives together, through all of the actual deaths of loved ones and all of the other sorts of deaths when our lives have changed and set us off balance while we get used to new things before God springs something else new on us. That’s what we welcome you into sharing with us here, Cate. In this particular time and this particular community, we are learning together how the cross of Jesus has set us free to live for others. How to follow a savior who never gave us any promises of success as the world sees it, but promised to be with us to the end of everything. How to lose our lives in the life of the Spirit moving in and through and among us toward ministries which may make us unpopular but will bring us more fully alive. How to trust that we are always, no matter what the day may bring, welcomed, loved, forgiven. Thanks be to God.

How does faith say who?

Isaiah 51:1-6

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

Alright, Peter, you’ve figured it out. Now keep it a secret.

Wait, what?

Jesus has gotten himself quite a reputation. It’s no wonder, really, considering all that he has been doing and teaching. But everyone has experienced him from a different point of view, and with different expectations, so in trying to explain who he is, either to convert people to his cause or to get properly angry at him, there are only so many metaphors available. Folks seem pretty familiar with the fire and brimstone preaching and the water baptisms of John, so there are those who see Jesus in that light, or as someone who will continue John’s ministry. Then there’s Elijah, a historical figure who was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot and was said to be coming again to prepare the way for the long-awaited Messiah. Jeremiah and the prophets were very vocal about the oppressive powers which threatened the right Jewish way of life, the equitable and compassionate and just world God has in mind for all people. And then there are those who walked with him, ate with him, fed the hungry with him. Who might they say he is?

I love telling people I’m a pastor. Especially on days when my tattoos are visible. There were some kids on a stoop down the street awhile ago who I got to sit and chat with one day, and when they found out I am a pastor, they had all sorts of questions: “Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you cuss? Are you gay?” Because, for many, and for a very long time, Pastors were held to such a high standard we were hardly allowed to be ourselves. The barriers that were up and the pressure that was on made the clergy, and thus the God those clergy claimed to represent, very nearly unreachable. Thank goodness we have learned that people are way more diverse than the labels of our professions and confessions, and that God is often pretty creative. But when y’all met me some seven months ago, and when I met you, we had paperwork to go on, and some expectations and curiosities and concerns. I wasn’t a pastor you’d had before, y’all weren’t a congregation I’d had before. But together we are figuring out what we mean to and for and with each other. Like, the Bible is the paperwork we’ve got on God, written over centuries in lots of different styles and a couple of languages, but God also wrote the paperwork on us, so to speak. It’s an incomplete metaphor, but when we talk about God all of our metaphors are too small.

When Peter claimed Jesus was the Messiah, that was a very loaded, a very provocative word. There is so much expectation packed into that word, not to mention political threat to the Roman authority trying to maintain control over the Jews of Jesus’  day, that it was no small thing to attach that label to Jesus. “Messiah” technically meant “anointed,” prophet, priest, or king. It wasn’t an eternal sort of thing, but an earthly authority granted by God. It was a title the ruling Roman authority had claimed at the edge of a sword and backed up with many soldiers and public executions. If you wanted to live in safety, you served the Roman ruler as your messiah, and any who breathed a word of someone else with that authority was crucified as an insurrectionist.

But when Jesus carried that title, it meant something altogether else entirely. It wasn’t a military power to rule by force. We hear this usually in Advent, that the king we wait for is coming as an infant, vulnerable and dependent. We hear this on Christ the King Sunday, that the throne of our Savior is the cross. Not the typical image one puts to the title of ‘messiah.’ 

Maybe that’s why Jesus compelled Peter to stay quiet about it. People would be both killed and confused if word got around about his being Messiah.

But that doesn’t change who he was, just means our language is a bit too small. What was it Shakespeare said? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”? What about “a Christ by any other label would still save”? Because the person exists before the label we put on them. Or rather, before they are given the label. Labels and positions and expectations exist long before we exist and long after we’re gone. Is the bread and the wine really the body and blood of Jesus, or is it bread and wine, or is it both? Do we have to know what we mean by those words for the things to be what they are?

Just a little confusing. Or rather, mysterious. Inviting, hopefully. In the way that evading a clearly known label means investigation and curiosity are necessary. I’ve just read C.S.Lewis’ “The Horse and His Boy,” and when Shasta the boy asks the voice of Aslan who he is, Lewis describes the answer this way: “Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time: “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.” (p.157-159) Like the voice from the burning bush said simply “I AM.” Because when we rely only on our labels to carry us, the labels become the thing we think we’re in relationship with and we forget the one who carries our labels is far more than we can put any two or three words to.

Take parents, for example. For so long we call them “Mom and Dad.” But then at some point they become people. With their own names, and histories, and dreams, and childhoods, and struggles. They can make mistakes. They can need help from time to time. 

Or teachers. Or actors. Or members of groups we don’t know or understand. Police are people.  Black men are people. Children are people. Politicians are people. Israelis and Palestinians are people. Actual individuals with dreams and hopes and fears and their own histories and ways of understanding the world around them.

And for all of the people, there is the one person of Jesus, who is the one bringing us all together under a rule of love and security and freedom. Who is building a kingdom among us which cannot be beaten even by the gates of hell, no matter how those gates of death and despondency run their battering ram into our very guts. On the rock of Christ Jesus, out of the Rock that is Christ, we are built and carved into relationship with the creator of the cosmos. We don’t really have language big enough to explain who this creator is, just the stories we’ve been given over the generations, just the language we’ve borrowed from halfway around the world, and we do the best we can with the words we have, with the songs we have been given, with the meal we have been commanded to keep together.

So Peter was given the words “you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Some other words we have been given include: Faithful. Merciful. Mighty. Eternal. God who sees. God of the mountains. God of hosts. Righteous judge. Emmanuel, God with us. Each of these names comes from someone’s experience and expectation of a God worthy of our worship and devotion. When we get confused and wonder at who this God is, we look to the cross, we come to the table, we wash in the font. We do not have to know all of the names to be welcomed by the One who, by naming each of us, has claimed us for his own. We do not have to have God ‘figured out’ for God to set us free and walk with us. We do not have to carry on ourselves the ‘right’ or ‘appropriate’ or ‘preferred’ labels, or any labels at all, in fact, to approach the throne of grace and ask for mercy and forgiveness and justice and healing. 

Is Jesus the Messiah? Yes. Is the the Faithful one? Yes. Immanuel? Yes. God of grace and mercy and justice and truth? Yes. Crucified and risen? Yes. All of this and so much more. Given and shed for you, the Body of Christ. And the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 

Demanding crumbs

Isaiah 56:1-8
Romans 11:1-32
Matthew 15:10-28

Do you ever feel as though, when you pray, God just ignores you? As though your prayers just aren’t good enough, or your problems aren’t important enough, for God to spend time listening, much less doing anything about it?

I don’t know where this idea comes from, but it’s a terrible feeling. It’s also blasphemy.

We often talk ourselves out of our pain and need by playing a comparison game. “At least I still have...” “At least I’m not...” Or we look at those who suffer more visibly and find ourselves saying “there but for the grace of God go I.” Which is also pretty unhelpful a thing to say, because God hasn’t given those who suffer any less grace than those who seem to have it all together. 

We’ve got to stop this game. We have to quit measuring ourselves against each other as though there is a great competition for who can suffer better or who can avoid suffering best. If your dog dies in the middle of a week where celebrities die and thousands of children are killed, God still cares about your loss. God still knows the hurt of our neighbors and children here who struggle with poverty and hunger and addiction, just as much as God knows the hurt of those children being killed by war around the world. 

Don’t imagine for a minute that God only cares about the catastrophes that make the nightly news and not about your life. Don’t imagine for a minute that God rewards your righteous work with only good health and must be punishing those doctors who contracted Ebola, either.

We try so hard to make sense out of pain. It’s only natural to try and organize the chaos inside and around us. But we can not expect that life and death and suffering and joy always make sense. 

For the suicide of a comedian to make more news than the police killing a black man holding a toy gun in the toy aisle of a store, that’s the way we think, the way we operate. 

For either of those things to happen in the first place, neither of them makes sense. Except for the terrible realities of depression and racism, of fear and despair. Because even though we know they are wrong, when we know they ultimately have no power, they still get to us in so many ways.

Okay, so this is a lot of tragedy. Some we can get away from and some is not so easy to escape, depending on who you are and where you’re from. The one common thread through it all is that when tragedy strikes, we can pray. Or someone can pray for us. When pain threatens to overtake us and those we love, we turn to Jesus and cry out “Lord, have mercy!”  When our friends and loved ones, or even complete strangers, are suffering, we cry out this long ancient prayer on their behalf, demanding God hear us, and even when it doesn’t feel like it, God does hear us.

The Canaanite woman who showed us how to do this had the tenacity to remind Jesus of who he is, regardless of her own position. She had the courage, and maybe the desperation, to demand God pay attention to the suffering of her daughter. She did not tell Jesus to leave behind his mission to his own people, but to remember that his mercy and power was bigger than just one community. He had, after all, fed over five thousand people and collected up twelve baskets of leftovers. Any of those leftovers go to the outsiders who hadn’t made it to that particular dinner? We don’t know where they went, but twelve baskets left over, how could he deny a few crumbs to this woman?

A few crumbs, after all, was all she asked for. It was all she needed. It was enough for her daughter to be made well, because it was a few crumbs of Jesus. The son of God. God with us to the end of the age. Only a few crumbs were all that she needed, and she knew there was more than enough to go around, because she had heard of this Jesus, of the things he said and did, of the kind of man he was.

It didn’t matter that she was a foreigner. That wasn’t what she was arguing. It wasn’t a question of whether she deserved healing for her daughter, if she was good enough or worthy enough. Jesus called her a dog, and she didn’t disagree with him. She wasn’t about to make her own position a stumbling block for the healing her daughter needed. “Yes, fine, a dog,” she said. “But even the dogs get scraps sometimes.” 

And that’s all she was asking. She wasn’t answered the first time she called out to Jesus, but she didn’t let that stop her from crying out. She didn’t let that stop her because she knew this Jesus was greater than the differences between them. 

She knew this Jesus was powerful and merciful and honest and holy. She knew this kind of healing was in character for his mission and ministry, and she demanded it.

Do you look at the news or hear from your neighbors and coworkers and think there are better things God ought to be doing than listening to your little personal problems? Because the God we have is a relational God. Not a God who sets the world in motion and then just sits back to watch us make a mess of things. Not a God who is going to make sure we’re registered Republicans or Democrats or even tax-paying citizens before deciding to hear or ignore our prayers. The God we have is one who knows what a splinter and a stubbed toe feel like. One who knows what it’s like to see his mother suffer because of his life choices. One who knows what it’s like because he’s decided to live the life we live.

We have a God who loves us enough to become us, no matter what it will cost him. Just to walk with us again. So why would we think he doesn’t want to hear from us when we were created to be in relationship with him? As with any relationship, it takes work and struggle and frustration, just as much as joy and laughter, but that’s the sign of being in relationship. And it’s a relationship that depends most of all on who our God is. 

We bring ourselves to it as fully as we are able, and God comes to us as fully as we can bear. And God is the one who starts it all, in our baptism, but even beyond that - somebody had to bring us to baptism, especially those of us baptized as infants. 

God reaches out to us in every time and place regardless of who and where we are. 

The Canaanite woman, the soldier who trusted Jesus could heal his servant from a distance with just a word, the kings who traveled such a long distance following a star... our God has a reach far beyond our imagination, far beyond our borders and our expectations. 

And it includes us just as much as anybody. And it includes everybody just as much as it includes us.

Whatever your life, your position, your status according to yourself or according to other people, God has ordained that all people are welcome. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that God’s house is a house of prayer for all people. And Isaiah was talking to a people who had been beaten down, abducted in war, who were trying so hard to make a new home for themselves. Isaiah reminded them they were welcome before God no matter what the war had done to them, and that their neighbors, however different, were also welcome. Not because of their own worthiness, but because God is the sort of God who works that way.

Se we bring the world before God in prayer. We pray for ourselves. We pray for the big and the small and the mundane and the miraculous, trusting that God hears and answers in some way, just because of who God is. 

And we pray and wrestle with God until we are left limping from the struggle of it, changed by our ongoing encounter with a living, mighty, mysterious, merciful Lord, who has mercy on us even when we haven’t the strength to demand it for ourselves.

Calmer of the Storms

1 Kings 19:9-18

Romans 10:5-15

Matthew 14:22-33

I love looking at the Greek in these texts that are so familiar. It slows me down when I read through them, and makes me look at the words more closely. The Bible wasn’t always written down. It was told, like campfire stories, over and over again, and everybody had their favorites. Not only their favorite stories, but their favorite images, favorite words, favorite characters.

So when I slowed down through this story, I found, all tumbled together, so much richness I hardly knew where to start. There’s Jesus, up on the mountain apart, just as it is for the prophet Elijah in the First Testament story, but Jesus is also up on that mountain as it begins to become dark, as the Greek might indicate that early twilight time, maybe even that time known by the early storytellers as the time of day when Jesus died up on a mountain apart. Somewhere between 3 and 6 pm, before full dark but still time to let go of the day and let God be God while we go and sleep in safety.

Then there’s the image of the boat, buffeted by the wind and the waves. There I found this gem, where the word can also be translated as ‘tormented.’ The disciples all together at the end of the world, tormented by the storm in the darkness. That’s the choppy water, the end of the world image. In John’s Revelation, that last letter in Scripture, way overpacked with symbolism and imagery, the peaceful end of the world, the way it is known that the Kingdom of God has come in all its fullness, is that the sea is no more. That great wide expanse of depth and wildness, which was the only thing present with God in the beginning where the creation was called forth out of chaos, that sea, in the end, will be no more. So to have the disciples, between Genesis and Revelation, tormented by this storm while they are at sea and Jesus is up on a hill apart, it is an image that sings of Good Friday.

Because what else happens? In our creeds we confess that Jesus descended into hell. And early Christian art shows an image of Christ in that place of torment, coming to all those held captive there, grabbing them by the hands and carrying them up with him into his resurrection. This is the imagery we used around those ancient campfires, and this is the image we are given when Peter begins to drown and Jesus stretches out his hand to save him.

Now, what are we to do today with these images? With these words and this language and all of the ancient faith which has carried us to where we are today?

First, it might be good to name where we are today as we see it in non-religious stories we tell. Two in particular have jumped out at me. The first, which may be surprising, is Disney’s movie “Frozen.” Because our stories tend so often to leave our faith in ancient times, or to relegate salvation to this future reality that doesn’t connect today, it is vital to name the ways we have known resurrection in our own lives. To name the storms we experience, where Jesus walks with us and carries us to save us. So the language of storms connected with me at the point of that latest animated musical, an adapted telling of the tale of the snow queen. Elsa has been brought up her whole life afraid of hurting her sister, afraid of her own gifts getting out of her control, afraid of being close to anyone. When she finally runs away to protect them all, her fear is calmed for awhile even as she is freed to “let the storm rage on.” And that storm within her is her fear. Her life of being told to hide who she is. Her constant worry that she will do something so wrong. What freedom she finds when she is alone and able to look at her power as a gift. Then she has to face the consequences of her running away, and learn how to live in community again, living by love instead of fear. But I don’t think that language of storms inside us is so far off from our own lived experience. Whether the storm is worry or anxiety or depression or insecurity or anger, we have known storms.

This past week there was a brilliant thunderstorm in the area that hit Albany much harder than it hit me in Old Chatham. Tree branches down, streets flooded. It was a mess. I was more worried for the dogs I’m watching, that they would bark themselves sick out of fear. Probably they just hid under a table. It’s a good idea to hold onto something solid when the winds blow like that.

What’s the solid thing you hold on to in a storm? I’m reminded of an old Calvin and Hobbes series, when the family is robbed and the parents are worried but Calvin thinks it’s the coolest thing. There is a series of panels where Calvin’s mom and dad are up late in bed talking about how scary it is their own home, their own place of sanctuary, has been violated. Nobody said being a grown-up would be easy, but they hadn’t counted on it being this frightening. With that said, Calvin’s mom holds tight to Calvin’s dad as her rock. And Calvin’s dad responds very honestly: “who am I supposed to hold on to? Why do I have to be the grown-up?”

I think Peter was trying too hard to be the grown-up. Trying so hard to be brave, to have the most impressive faith, to prove himself even as he was testing Jesus. But the storm was too much for him. He began to drown. He was very literally in over his head.

In today’s Gospel reading we have an image of a God who walks among us, who alone has the power to create new life out of chaos, to be the one who is steady in the storm, to defeat the powers of fear and death, to bring about salvation for all who call on him. In today’s Gospel story we have generations of campfires surrounded by people who have known storms and experienced salvation, who have called out to a storyteller, “let’s hear that one again!” because they have known it to be true. Who have added their voices to the telling because they have lived it. How have you known Jesus with you in the midst of your storms? Because, known or not, he has been there, is there, and will be there until the sea, and the storms, are no more.

Blessed and Broken and Given Freely

Isaiah 55:1-5

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 

Romans 9:1-5

I am speaking the truth in Christ - I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Matthew 14

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew in a boat, alone, to a lonely place. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. And going, he saw the great multitude, he felt compassion on them and cured their sick. Now, when night came, the disciples came to him and said, “this is a lonely place, and the hour has gone; dismiss the crowds, so that going into the villages they can buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “It is not necessary for them to leave; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We only have here five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he commanded the crowds to sit down in the pasture, and taking up the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke and gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate their fill. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And the men who ate were five thousand, besides women and children.

Sermon:

When a story seems too familiar, I try to find in it the thing that bothers me. So this morning, the thing that bothers me is the disciples. Jesus has gone away by himself, the crowds and the disciples follow him, he cures them of their diseases, the sun starts going down, and the disciples sort of get... what, annoyed? I don’t know what tone of voice they use with Jesus when they say what they say, but I would be annoyed at this point. Jesus has cured the sick who were brought to him while he was grieving the death of John the Baptist, and the disciples, maybe with good intention, to protect the time of their Rabbi, remind Jesus that it’s getting late and it is now time to send the crowds away so they can get food for themselves. It’s a bit of an “am I my brothers’ keeper?” moment. These crowds came to get something from Jesus, they got it, now let’s send them away and finally get that peace and quiet.

But Jesus isn’t finished with them. It’s not just about the curing of disease.

There’s this thing, in lots of cultures, ancient and modern, near and far away, this thing about breaking bread with other people. It builds community. It gives people time to be with one another, to be aware of one another, to consider that they all have the same basic need for survival. It was part of what got Jesus in so much trouble, this eating with the quote-unquote “wrong” people. Pharisees, tax collectors, women, Gentiles... Jesus broke bread with a lot of folks, righteous and unrighteous, self-righteous and hopeless. He shared the same source of sustenance with us, no matter our background. Which was about as close as people could get to one another.

It was this exact closeness that Paul laments in his letter to the Romans, in today’s portion of that letter especially. Jesus shared a common history, common ancestry, common tradition and scripture and worship, with the people of Israel who were killing each other over their reading of just who he was. They were disowning each other on account of him, which is not something terribly surprising to us, given human history, but painful, nonetheless. And Paul grieved for this break in the family, this splintering of his own people whom he loved so dearly, from whom came the Messiah himself in the first place!

But in today’s Gospel we see not just a filling of bellies, not just an abundance of food for the hungry thousands, but a foretaste of the feast to come.

Jesus could have cured the sick who came to him as though they were on assembly line. Could have gone bing, bang, boom, and then sent them all away. But there was more to their brokenness, more to their illness, and to ours, than just physical or mental ailment. Jesus cured their sickness, in the Greek it’s a word pronounced ‘therepeu-o,’ where we get the word therapy. But the real salvation, the more complete restoration, came in their eating together.

There is an ancient prayerbook, the earliest record of Christian liturgy, that comes from the late first century, maybe the early second, that’s somewhere around one or two generations after Jesus first walked on earth. It includes a general shape of how worship takes place, what happens in what order, including a prayer at the Eucharist which is still used in many, many churches today: “As grains of wheat once scattered on a hill were gathered into one to become our bread, so may all your people from all the ends of earth be gathered into one in you.” 

See, when those crowds came to Jesus with their sick, like lost sheep without a shepherd, Jesus had compassion on them. They were not problems to be solved. They were not issues to be dealt with. They themselves were not illnesses to be taken care of. They were his own people. His own flock. His own gathered body, there in that wilderness with him. They had followed him for healing and he gave them both that and community, both wholeness as individuals and wholeness as a community. Not only wholeness, but overflowing abundance of good, for sharing with those who had not been there gathered with them. Twelve baskets full of leftover bread. Twelve baskets for the twelve broken and scattered tribes of Israel who were to be restored in him.

Paul, writing to the Romans, had not seen that restoration in its fullness, and he grieved deeply over it. No one has yet seen it come to fruition. Certainly it seems these days that if there are even fragments of Israel left over after the violence in the Holy Land they won’t be easily bandaged and healed.

And it’s not a world easily bandaged and healed. Not easily put back together again. Not simply restored and done. The twelve disciples were part of Jesus’ work of feeding those thousands of hungry people, just as we are part of that work today in our own ways. But the real restoration, where Jesus thanks God and breaks himself open for the life of the world, is painful and difficult and deadly, and carried on the back of him who had such compassion on the crowds. The real feast is yet to come, when Jesus will gather together all of the people from all of the ends of the earth, into his own body, which has carried all of our pain. The Gospel lesson this morning is a hint of who this Jesus is, a taste of what sort of God has called and gathered us here. 

Blessed and broken, the Body of Christ is given to us, is living among us, is abounding in steadfast for us. And all who thirst are welcome.