Reverend Philip Stringer
Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
Ephesians 4:17-25
John 6:24-35
LET US PRAY: We ask, O Lord, that the words which we hear this morning and the worship which we offer, may bear fruit in our hearts, and be acceptable in your sight, our strength and our redeemer. AMEN
The other day we were watching the movie, Waking Ned Divine. There is a scene where a young boy is visiting with the priest in the local church. The conversation goes something like this: The boy asks, “have you ever met God?”
“Well,” said the priest. “I meet God in many ways.”
“But have you ever actually met God in person?”
“Well, no. Not actually.” God meets us in spirit. When I minister to people, I know that God is there.”
“Do you get paid well for it?”
“Well, the payment is more of the spiritual type. Why do you ask? Are you thinking of becoming a priest?
“No. Not really.”
“You might consider it,” says the priest.
“I don’t think so. I could never work for someone I have never met, and not get paid for it.”
The work of God is rather ridiculous if one considers it that way. But in truth, the “work of God” is not a career; it is a way of life and a way of being. And it is not merely something for the clergy to do — it is the way of life and the way of being to which we have all been called.
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in 1864, and became on of the nation’s great educators and agricultural scientists. He died in 1943. Although he was a great scientist and an even greater humanitarian, he is mostly remembered for inventing peanut butter. That never struck me much as a brilliant invention. Don’t get me wrong — I love peanut butter — but read the label: Roasted peanuts, salt. I mean come on! It’s not that hard!
Turns out that he actually did NOT invent peanut butter (the Incas were making it centuries earlier), but George Washington Carver did actually invent thousands of uses for agricultural products -- including more than 300 inventions for using the peanut. They include soap, shampoo, cheese, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, ice cream, medicine, ink, bleach, axle grease, cosmetics, adhesives, buttermilk, chili sauce, fuel briquettes, instant coffee, linoleum, meat tenderizer, metal polish, paper, plastic, pavement, shaving cream, shoe polish, synthetic rubber, talcum powder and wood stain.
He was once approached by a friend who noticed that he was reading the Bible. “What are you doing?” the friend asked.
“I am studying about peanuts,” replied Dr. Carver.
“To me you seem to be reading the Bible.”
“I am reading how God reveals Himself to me,” he explained, “and for me God is revealing Himself through peanuts.”
Dr. Carver saw God in peanuts? That's a strange thing to say -- Perhaps better said: Dr. Carver saw in his passion for peanuts, an opportunity to follow in the way of Jesus, -- to give to others in Love. Of the thousands of products that he produced, he applied for only three patents for paint. All the rest he freely gave to the world to help fill “the food pails” of the lowly, as he put it.
"God gave them to me." he would say about his ideas, "How can I sell them to someone else?”
He once wrote, “It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success”
For him, religion wasn't simply an acknowledgement of who God is. It was an event of expressing what God is doing.
Someone has suggested that, for many people, religion is like an artificial limb. It has neither warmth nor life, and though it helps one stumble along, it never becomes a part of the person. They strap it on once a week and take it off after Sunday lunch to limp through the ordinary demands of daily living. God wants more than this for us.
In our gospel text, when Jesus was confronted by the questioning crowd, he told them, “don't treat me like a crutch." God comes into our midst to be at the center of our lives -- not an accessory. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life" -- He’s the main dish, not a garnish.
Jesus comes to be in relationship with us, and to feed us with the fullness of life. A fullness that is rooted in the forgiveness we receive through our baptism into Christ.
There is a tension in our reading today between love and control. Interestingly, with both love and control there is taking and there is submission. But only with love is there genuine giving.
The crowd approaches Jesus intending to take control of him. They have chosen him as their leader, but he isn't cooperating -- he does not submit to their control. There is an element of scolding in their greeting to him: "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
EXPAND -- Jesus is expected to be accountable to them -- clear his schedule and agenda with them -- Give them what they want on demand -- jump when they say "jump." -- "rabbi" demotion -- if he wants their loyalty, he'd better respond.
Jesus didn't enter into a struggle for control with them. Instead, he pointed them to a more excellent way. He proclaimed good news to them. He told the crowds that there is more to life than getting your belly filled. And there is more to God than just filling your belly. Jesus is the very embodiment of the fullness of God: He is love in action. He is the pouring out of God's heart for all humanity.
We often hear the assurance not to worry because God is in control-- and that statement bears merit in the right context. But as I speak of control today -- as a means of manipulating others for selfish gain -- Jesus shows us without doubt that God has no interest in "controlling." Today, we hear the message, "do not be afraid, because God is in love with you." He has come to set you free, and to give you meaningful and rewarding work in his kingdom.
"I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
Our first reading today is a portion of the Great Exodus story of the Israelites, which unfolds in the desert. Israel's experience, there was a 40-year lesson on how to live as God intends us to live. God speaks in our first lesson, saying that by giving them enough food for one day, "I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not."
Those who continued to act selfishly in the desert heaped suffering upon themselves and those around them. When they went out to gather the manna in the morning, they were instructed to gather enough for that day only, with the promise that God would provide again tomorrow.
Those who gathered more and tried to hoard extra for themselves had an ugly surprise -- it became foul and infested with worms. The lesson from this: Hoarding stinks. It is not the way of God.
Instead, God teaches to share the abundance of life equally with all people. Be – yourselves -- a blessing to the world. In short, God taught the people two things over their 40 years in the wilderness:
(1)— rely upon the strength and promises of God to sustain you, not your own strength and wits.
(2)— God intends for people to live in love for one another.
What God taught the Israelites is what God wants us to learn, too. God’s grace is all around us. Everything we have is given to us so we may use it to proclaim that Jesus is the bread of life.
Our purpose -- as those created in the image of God -- is to love; to see ourselves as connected with each other so deeply and sincerely, that it directs our every action and decision.
That is what God wants us to see. But as I said in the beginning, sometimes it’s hard to see God in our midst.
When Jesus stood in the middle of the people, they were so busy trying to fill their bellies that they couldn't see what filled Jesus' heart.
In the wilderness, the people didn't recognize when God was blessing them with life -- they looked at the manna and said, "what is it?" They did not understand that God was in their midst and that God was at work in their midst.
You and I live under the same realities that drove their lives -- We live in a world driven by fear and control, where those with the biggest weapons wield them against the rest. And in the middle of this world stands the promise of Jesus: "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." Jesus has come, not to help us get control -- but to create in us a clean heart -- a new life, driven by love. That is the "work of God," as Jesus puts it. That is the work that God is doing in us; The conversion of our hearts from control to love.
George Washington Carver saw peanuts in the Bible? Not really. What he "saw" was God setting him free so he could use his gifts to make the world a better place. The epitaph on his grave reads, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”
When the Israelites looked at God's work in the desert, they asked, "what is it?"
When the crowd looked at Jesus they asked, "who is it?"
And today, when people look at you and me they should be compelled to ask, "WHY is it . . . that you live the way you do?"
God is doing a work within us, and we have good news for a desperately hungry world -- it should burst out of us in words and deeds: Jesus is the bread of life. Whoever comes to him will never be hungry, and whoever believes in him will never be thirsty.
AMEN
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