14 Pentecost

August 25, 2024

 

Ephesians 43.15-22; John 6.56-69

 

+ Unless you’re living under a rock, you may have noticed that we are living in the last weeks of a very contentious presidential election.

 

And during this election season, we find that certain words take on new meanings.

 

Words like weird.

 

Remember when not that long ago weird meant something different than it does right now in the political scene.

 

Sometimes words we once thought was a nice, quaint word gets hijacked and all of a sudden the word becomes—and means—something else.

 

Certainly, we Christians have experienced this often in our life time.

 

To some people Christians are seen as close-minded, bigoted and judgmental.

 

We all are seen as terrible people because of a few very loud and vocal ones.

 

Which is a shame.

 

But one word that has been hijacked is one that what we often hear about.

 

It is the term “Evangelical Christians.”

 

Evangelical Christians, even among other Christians, have been demonized.

 

I have done it myself.

 

Being Evangelical in this day and age is equivalent to being a “Pharisee” in Jesus’ day.

 

It is synonymous with hypocrisy and close-mindedness.

 

And in most cases, you know wat: that’s kinda correct.

 

Have you listened to some of those so-called self-professed Evangelical Christians?

 

Many are just that, hypocritical and close-minded.

 

Many of them have a sense of righteous entitlement.

 

Many of them carry around a sense of rightness in being able to judge others.

 

A sense of we’re right and you’re wrong.

 

A sense of God is on OUR side.

 

A sense of: I know what the real interpretation of scripture is.

 

These pharisaical evangelicals have actually done just that.

 

They have hijacked Christianity.

 

They have hijacked the Bible.

 

And they have hijacked the very term “evangelical.”

 

And those things make me very angry.

 

They feel they are the standard bearers, the guardians of biblical purity.

 

And very rarely do they see that what they are really doing is in fact being embodying the very people Jesus preaches against again and again.

 

And we’ve all been on the receiving end of evangelical ire.

 

Sadly.

 

But…my anger about evangelicals isn’t even about their puritanical stance, their sense of rightness.

 

As I said, my anger has to do with their hijacking of both the Bible and the name “evangelical.”

 

Now, in the Anglican tradition, evangelical means something else.

 

And for those of us who were Lutheran, it means pretty much the same thing as it does for Anglicans.

 

For us, evangelicals are simply people who strive to make sure scripture continues to be the basis for our Christian faith.

 

There is a long and fruitful Evangelical history in Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church.

 

In fact, one of my personal heroes in the Episcopal Church was the great Evangelical writer, William Stringfellow, who along with his long-time partner, poet Anthony Towne, wrote several amazing books on scripture.

 

I talk about Stringfellow a lot! Because he deserves to be quoted and remembered.

 

Now, personally, I have always been a bit wary of identifying myself as an Evangelical.

 

Probably my reason for doing so has to do with the fact that we all know: being an Evangelical in our recent history means something I don’t want to be associated with.

 

But I am Evangelical in the sense that scripture is vital to my faith and my understanding of God, Christ and the Church.

 

I am Evangelical because I do believe in the authority of scripture.

 

And I am Evangelical in the sense that scripture is the basis for my faith life, every sermon that I preach, how I see the world around me and how I view my own place in this world.

 

I love the Bible! And I say that without fear. I say it proudly. Because I do love the Bible!

 

I have spent my entire faith life so-far, studying, pondering and wrestling with scripture.

 

In fact, when I was ordained a priest, the bishop asked me,

 

Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, and in seeking the knowledge of such things as may make you a stronger and more  able minister of Christ?

 

And my answer was: I will.

 

I took that “I will” very seriously!

 

For me, that means reading scripture on a daily basis.

 

Which I have done almost every day since I was ordained.

 

(there were a few days when I was sick or in the depths of grief or pain when I simply couldn’t).

 

But even on those days when I didn’t read it or study it, I can say in all honesty that scripture was still there, still guiding my life and sustaining me in illness or grief.

And I hope that, just as that vow promised, such daily study of scripture has made me a stronger and more able minister of Christ.

 

I am an Evangelical because I believe in Scripture.

 

Now, I know that is loaded statement.

 

Do I believe literally in everything in the Bible?

 

That is not what I said.

 

But I do believe that God speaks to me through scripture.

 

And because God does, I believe scripture to be the Word of God.

 

To go back to my ordination day, both as a deacon and priest, I knelt before the bishop, and said before God, the Bishop and the Church, this promise:

 

“…I solemnly declare that I do believe the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation…”

 

Now, that vow is good for all of us who are ministers, not just ordained ministers.

 

And, if you really listen, it’s a statement packed with meaning.

 

I believe the scriptures to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary for salvation.

 

All of it? You may wonder.

 

We may interpret that statement, what we are really professing here is that through the scriptures God does speak to us.

 

God’s very Word comes to us through these scriptures.

 

Which makes these scriptures incredibly powerful.

 

We get an echo of this importance of the Word of God in our Gospel reading for today.

 

In it, we find Simon Peter answering that question of Jesus, “Do you wish to go away?” with strangely poetic and vibrant words.

 

Peter asks, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

 

For all of us as followers of Jesus, who is the incarnate Word of God (which we find contained in scripture)—the Word of God made flesh, this is essential.

 

And powerful.

 

This Word not only directs our lives, it sustains us, and feeds us and keeps us buoyant in the floods and tempests that rage about us.

 

The Word is the place to which we go when we need direction, when we need comfort, when we need to be reminded that we are deeply loved children of our God, when we need hope as followers of Jesus.

 

The Word is essential to us because, through it, God speaks to us.

 

The Word is essential to us because it is there that we hear God’s Spirit directing us and leading us forward.

 

The irony for me, however, is most poignant when I listen to those Evangelicals (and others) who use the Word in cutting ways.

 

We of course hear them all the time.

 

People who use scripture to support their homophobia or their racism or their blatantly anti-Christian political beliefs or their condemnation of others.

 

Because scripture is so powerful, people who do so are playing with fire.

 

Or maybe dynamite might be the better image.

 

Now, any of you who have heard me preach for any period of time have heard me say this same things over and over again.

 

And I will continue to say it over and over again.

 

I said it again and again:  be careful of using Scripture as a sword, because, I say: remember.

 

It is a two-edged sword.

 

If you use the Word to cut others, trust me: it will come back and it cut you as well.

 

It is just that powerful.

 

And frightening.

 

It can destroy, not in just the way those the one who wields it wants to destroy, but it can also destroy the one who wields it.

 

However—and this is a big however—if we use the Word to affirm, to build up the Reign of God, if we allow the Word to be, in our lives, the voice of God, the mind of God, hen we in turn are affirmed.

 

As Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that we heard this morning: “take…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

 

That sword of the Spirit is an amazing weapon.

 

That sword of the Spirit is essential for all of us who are ministers.

 

It is a powerful device that carries more strength and influence than any of us probably fully realize.

 

And because it is so powerful, we need to use it very, very carefully.

 

It  needs to be handled like a loaded, very sensitive machine gun.

 

We need to use it not in anger, not in hatred, not in oppression, but always in love.

 

When we wield this sword of the Spirit in love, we find love being sown.

 

When we wield this sword of the Spirit of God in compassion, we spread compassion.

 

When we wield this sword to shatter injustice and oppression, we find justice and freedom.

 

When we wield this sword as a way to clear the way for the Reign of God, we find that we too become a part of that building up of the Reign.

 

We too are able to clearly hear Jesus’ voice in our lives.

 

Those words of eternal life that Jesus speaks to us again and again in scripture truly do break down barriers, build up those marginalized and shunned and, in doing so, we find the Reign of God in our midst.

 

When a Benedictine monk or nun makes a profession of vows they pray a wonderful prayer.

 

Their prayer is: “Accept me, Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. Do not disappoint me in my expectation.”

 

I love that.

 

“Do not disappoint me in my expectation.”

 

This is our prayer as well as loved children of God and followers of Jesus.

 

This is the prayer of all of who are called to be ministers—whether as lay people or as clergy.

 

“Accept me, Lord, according to your word, and I shall live. Do not disappoint me in my expectation.” 

 

We too have prayed to be accepted according to God’s Word.

 

The sword of the Spirit has swiped the veil of separation from us and has made us one.

 

And none of us, in this oneness, in this Reign of God in our midst, is disappointed in our expectation.

 

When all are seen as one, when all are accepted, when we see each other as loved and fully accepted children of a loving and merciful God, then our expectation will be fulfilled.

 

But we need to keep listening, to keep straining our ears for God’s Word to us.

 

We need to keep listening so God can speak to us—so the Word can speak to us.

 

And that Word needs to be spoked  just as importantly, through us.

 

When God speaks to us, we respond.

 

When the Word comes to us, we then need to engage it.

 

This is what prayer is—holy conversation.

 

And as the Word is spoken to us, as we hear it and feel it, our response is the same as those who heard the Word spoken to them by Jesus.

 

“Yes, Lord, you have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

 

So let us hear those words of eternal life.

 

Let us embody that Word in our lives.

 

Let us share that Word through the good we do in this world.

 

Let us take back that word “Evangelical” and make it our own again!

 

Let us be good and accepting and inclusive and radical Evangelicals!

 

And when we do, people will know.

 

People will know we are children of God.

 

People will know who we follow.

 

People will know that the Word we embody in our very lives is the Word of that Holy One of God.

 

 

 

13 Pentecost

 

August 18, 2024

 John 6.51-58

 + Forty years ago, I saw a film that has stuck with me through the decades.

 It was a well-known film, Places in the Heart.

 The story takes place in west Texas in the 1930s, during the truly terrible, darkest days of the Depression.

 Sally Field plays a housewife, whose husband is the sheriff of their local town.

 At the beginning of the film, her husband is just sitting down to eat with his family when he is called away to deal with a young drunk black man wielding a gun.

 As he gets up from the table, he puts the dinner rolls in his pockets.

 While he is confronting the young man on the railroad tracks (who is, incidentally drinking wine), the young man’s gun accidentally goes off and kills the sheriff.

 The young man is eventually horribly lynched for the murder.

 Sally Field’s character then takes over her husband’s cotton farm.  Hardships endure. But she overcomes, with the help of her hired hand and a blind man who comes to live with her.

 At the end of the film, we find Sally Field, Danny Glover, John Malcovitch and Sally Field’s children gathered at the Baptist Church with the rest of the congregation.

 As the old hymn “In the Garden” plays, there is panning shot as the bread and the communion juice is passed along the pews from one person to the other.

 As we follow the bread and the drink being passed from person to person, we suddenly start realizing that some of the people are people we saw earlier in the film who have died.

 For instance, we see a family who as died in their car during a tornado.

 Finally, the camera stops on Sally Field’s husband and the young man who shot

him.

 As the scene fades, they are seated side by side, sharing Communion.

 That film is haunting in many ways.

 But it is also one of the most “eucharistic films” I have ever seen.

 For any of you who know me and know me well, you know that the Eucharist is the center of my entire life.

 It is everything to me.

 Spiritually, of course.

 But also it is the lens through which I see this created world in which we live.

 We are—all of us—fallible human beings dependent on the sustenance we receive from God, which we find most clearly and visually experienced in the Eucharist.

 And, in this Eucharist, those of us who are alive and well are joined, for one moment, with those who now participate without end in the celestial worship.

 I believe this with every ounce of my being.

 I have experienced this again and again.

 And for me, the Eucharist is not symbol, not some quaint dinner party we participate in here.

 For me, the Eucharist is a truly mystical experience.

 It is an instance in which we and God are joined together, and fed, and sustained, and strengthened to go out and do the work we have been called to do as Christians.

 Today, in our scripture readings, for the third week in a row, we have heard Jesus expand on his image of seeing himself as the Bread of Life.

 Now, for some preachers, this might be downright daunting.

 After all, how many times can one preach about the Bread of Life?

 Well, I’ll be honest, I actually don’t have a problem with this.

 If I could preach about the connections between Jesus’ message that he is the Bread of Life and the holy Eucharist every Sunday I probably could do it.

 You probably wouldn’t enjoy it that much.

 I realize sometimes that I don’t think I have even scarped the surface on understanding the mystery of the Eucharist or the mystery of Jesus’ message to us concerning this Bread of Life.

 But, I think it’s important that, on occasion, we look a bit at what it is the we Episcopalians actually believe about the Eucharist.

  And it’s important for us to be reminded sometimes of this event we come together to share every week.

 And because the Eucharist is so important to us, its’ vital to remind ourselves of its importance because, since we do it every week, we might easily become somewhat complacent about what we are doing.

 Habits are easy for us to fall into.

 And sometimes we simply go through the motions of the Eucharist, without considering the importance of our actions.

 It is also good for us, as we hear this somewhat blunt language about flesh and blood to actually consider for a moment what we believe happens in this Eucharist we celebrate each Sunday and each Wednesday at this altar.

 Over the years, Anglicans have debated about what actually happens in our Eucharist.

 Some have been uncomfortable with the idea of the so-called “real Presence” of Jesus in the Bread and Wine of Holy Communion.

 And to some extent, we still do debate these issues.

 The Anglican view has taken a decided (and characteristically) middle road between the definitions maintained by the Roman church—which believed in Transubstantiation—and the various Protestant denominations—which ranged from the Lutheran “in, with and under” view to the Calvinist belief that Christ is not present at all in the Eucharist—it’s purely symbolic.

 I think one of the best Anglican summaries of how Christ might be present in the Bread and the Wine was written by Charles Price and Louis Weil in their book Liturgy for Living:

 “…in the question of how Christ is present, Anglican churches have maintained their characteristic agnosticism.”

 

 I’m going to pause there for a second.

 I love that that Price and Weil reference our “characteristic Anglican agnosticism.”

 How many times over the years have I said that ultimately, we are all agnostics to a large extend?

 And there is nothing wrong with that.

 Some day I want to write a book about holy agnosticism.

 But to return to Price and Weil:

  “When the Christian community meets to do the whole eucharistic action in obedience to the risen Lord, he comes. He gives himself to us, again and again. It is part of the mystery of time.”^[1]

       

Price and Weil then add a statement that summarizes perfectly the Anglican stance on Anglican Eucharistic theology:

“To say anything more than this in the name of the church would, we believe, transgress Anglican restraint.”^[2]

Or to quote Queen Elizabeth I, as   was famously quoted by Dom Gregory Dix, O.S.B., 

 

"He was the Word that spake it;

He took the bread and brake it;

And what that Word did make it,

I do believe and take it."

 

Whatever the case might be, the fact is that in the majority of Anglican churches, we believe in the Eucharistic Presence in the Bread and Wine.

We reserve the Eucharist here in this tabernacle, with a light always shining before it to remind us of the Divine Presence in the Bread and the Wine that we reserve there.

In those cases in which it is not reserved, it is a universal understanding in the Anglicanism, that left-over bread and/or wine is reverently consumed or properly disposed of, rather than simply being discarded or reused.

This reverence only goes to show that we do believe Christ, in some way or form, is present in a distinctive way and that the elements we have—the bread and the wine—are more than just ordinary bread and wine.

Christ is somehow, in some very real way, presence in this sacrament.

We don’t know why.

And we don’t know how.

And that is just fine.

But it can set us on slippery road we might not want to travel.

If we think about it too much, we start getting nit-picky.

We start worrying about little things, such as dropped hosts or the crumbs from broken bread.

The important thing about the Eucharist is not those nit-picky little things.

The importance of the Eucharist is that, at this altar, we celebrate Christ’s presence.

We take Christ’s presence.

And we then share Christ’s presence with others.

The is the real meaning of Eucharist and that is what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel.

The Christ we encounter in the Eucharist breaks down our barriers.

The Christ we encounter in the Eucharist binds us all together.

In a sense, this is where our beliefs about the Eucharist come together.

Sharing the Christ whose Presence sustains us and feeds us also binds us together.

In the Eucharist, divisions are broken down.

Old wrongs are made right.  

Whatever problems we might have with each other out there have vanished because here, at this altar, we are sharing this meal and partaking, in a real way, of Christ.

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” Jesus, in today’s Gospel says.

“Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

 What we eat here at this altar is the living Bread of heaven that has come down to us.

And in this bread and in this wine we have found life.

We have the eternal life he talks about in today’s Gospel.

What we do here at this altar is not a private devotion.

It is not just some warm, sweet “Jesus and me” moment.

Yes, it sustains and feeds us in our spirits on an individual basis.

Yes, we experience Jesus on an individual basis in the Eucharist

But what we do here is more than just for us as individuals.

It is about us as a whole.

I, as a priest, cannot celebrate the Eucharist alone.

What we do here, we do together.

We come together, we celebrate, we affirm, we consent.

We come forward of to feed and then we go out, fed, to feed.

Just as the Eucharist is not something we do as individuals, it is also not something that just stops happening once we leave this church building.

The Eucharist sustains us to do the work Christ calls us to do as Christians.

The Eucharist gives us life so we can help life to others.

What we share here isn’t just dead bread and crushed, fermented grapes.

What we share here is living flesh, the living Body of Christ.

And this living, holy Presence drives us and provokes us and causes us to go out and share what we experience here with others.

So, let us accept our characteristic Anglican agnosticism in which we can accept that somehow, in some way more powerful and mysterious than we can even possibly imagine, Christ does give himself to us here at this altar again and again in a very real and living way.

Let us eat and drink.

And, fed, let us go out to feed others.

Let us embody Christ within us and be Christ to those who need Christ in this world.

And, by doing so, let us be what we are called to be now and always.

Amen.  

---

[1] Price and Weil, Liturgy for Living. p.219

[2] Ibid.