Christ Episcopal Church
August 16, 2015
15 Proper B
Every year on Maundy Thursday, we gather for worship in the Parish Hall. The tables have been set by the children with great care. The lights are dimmed and the candles glow as we enter the room in relative silence for a service of prayer, song, scripture, and a simple meal. Through the scripture readings, we see the angel of death pass over the Israelites in Egypt. We watch as Jesus washes the feet of the disciples. And we remember that, on the night before he died, Jesus took bread and wine, blessed them and gave them to his disciples and said "Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In response to Jesus command, we pass the bread and wine of communion to each other around our tables. Then, as we sing a hymn, we process upstairs into this space for the stripping of the altar. The sacrament of bread and wine is clearly and deeply connected to the death of Jesus.
In three of the four gospels, at the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread and wine and says "This is my body...this is my blood...do this in remembrance of me." Jesus knows he is going to die and gives this meal to his disciples as a physical way to remember him. But John's gospel tells the story differently. In John's gospel, from which we hear today, there is no meal involved on the night Jesus is arrested. Instead, as Jesus gathers with his disciples, he washes their feet. The passages we have heard over the last four weeks about the bread of life all come in early in John's gospel, right after the feeding of the 5000. In the middle of Jesus' life, after he has fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fish, Jesus says "I am the living bread that came down from heaven."
What if the living bread is more about living in the midst of the messiness of human life than the bliss of eternal life after we die? For an example of the messiness of human life, we need look no further than our reading from I Kings. In that story, God seems to be suffering from an acute case of amnesia. We hear that Solomon loved the Lord, and God clearly thinks highly of Solomon since God appears to Solomon in a dream, which puts Solomon in the good company of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and his wives, and Joseph. The only problem with this is that in the two verses prior to our reading, which the lectionary conveniently leaves out, Solomon makes a marriage alliance with Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and he marries Pharaoh's daughter. Solomon finishes building his own house before he finishes building God's house, the temple, so the people had to make their sacrifices at the high places, the places of pagan worship. We are told in our reading this morning that Solomon himself sacrificed at the high places. These actions are despicable to God, but God not only asks Solomon what God should give him, but then gives Solomon such riches and honor that no king can compare with Solomon. Solomon is a mess, and God loves Solomon anyway. Likewise, God seems to have forgotten everything we have heard about David over the past few weeks. God says "If you walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and commandments as your father David walked, I will lengthen your life." Has God forgotten David's affair with Bathsheba, and the way David tried to trick Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, so Uriah would appear to be the father of Bathsheba's unborn child? Has God forgotten how David had Uriah killed in battle, and how angry God was with David? After all that, now we hear God declare that David kept God's commandments and statutes?
Actually, I don't think God has forgotten the actions of David and Solomon as much as God has chosen to remember their love for God. David and Solomon both loved God, even in the midst of their mistakes, and even in the messiness of their lives, God loved them. God worked through them, despite their many flaws, to bring about good things for the people of Israel. Their actions still had consequences, and God was certainly not always happy with them. But God never failed to love them or to appreciate their love for God.
In the 7 verses of our gospel reading this morning, the word "life" or "living" occurs 8 times. "I am the living bread." "Whoever eats of this bread will live forever." "Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me." Jesus is not using the future tense when he says "those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them." Jesus is using the present tense. Eternal life is a gift that extends beyond the grave, but Jesus wants to be clear eternal life does not begin at the grave. Eternal life means abiding in Jesus in the middle of the messiness of this life, and loving God even when we make a huge mess of our own lives.
Loving God won't make us perfect people any more than loving God made David or Solomon perfect. In the middle of his life, Jesus offers himself as living bread for the life of the world so that in the midst of our own lives, we are defined not by our failures or our successes, but, like David and Solomon, are defined by our love for God and God's love for us.
Amen.
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