Joshua D. Walters
Proper 14-Year B
John 6:37-51
Last Wednesday evening I was walking my dogs, Murphy and Wendell. If you may or may not recall it was a little warm last week; that evening while driving home my car’s thermometer read 103° Fahrenheit on the exterior! I had just gotten home, changed clothes, put the boys on their leashes, and we were out the door. And as we were walking along, as the hot winds were blowing, dark clouds began rolling into our area promising a break from the inferno that had afflicted us for the past few days. It was then that I ran into my neighbor, who also has two dogs and appears to share our walking schedule. I am known to him as a new neighbor, recently arrived from NYC, and a new clergyperson.
Over the preceding days the weather was the only subject of conversation whomever you ran into. The same was true for my neighbor, who is a self described ‘good Jewish boy from Detroit’ and the ‘parent’ of Baby and Gloria the pit bulls. The first thing out of his mouth from this known, yet unknown neighbor, was “What do you think, is this the end?” And turning around for a quick glance at the eastwardly rolling clouds, I replied, “Well, I hope so.” When I said this he got a very surprised look on his face and he said, “I don’t get it. Where do you Christians get the idea of the End of the World? This conflict in Israel and Lebanon is crazy!! I don’t understand why you guys are content to let things fall apart! What does this mean about everyone else left behind? I don’t understand you Christians at all! What is your infatuation with this escapism that neglects the rest of the living world?” I blinked about a mile a minute and swallowed very hard, and quickly realized we were not talking about the end of our heat wave.
So here we are, ten days later, and the world around us doesn’t seem much different from that Wednesday evening. Baseball games go on, Lake Michigan is still cold, the “El” continues to run relatively on time, and students begin their paths back to school. Yet war between Lebanon and Israel continues to rage, New Orleans remains in ruins, poverty rates continue to rise, and the people of Darfur still live in horror. Certainly news about a thwarted terrorist plot from Thursday morning reminds us that even though we feast at the Table of God’s Love and are saved, there remains much more to do. So church, what say you? I think my neighbor might have a point. Our Work has only just begun.
Moses’ words from the Book of Deuteronomy speak of a transitional moment for the people of Israel. After such a mixed relationship with God, a constant cycling or erring and straying from God’s paths, the wandering Children of Yahweh are about to enter into the land of promise, where all covenants and commandments will be fulfilled with full benefits. Deuteronomy represents the last testimony given by Moses to the people of Israel while they were camped on the edge of the River Jordan and as their forty years of exile were coming to an end. Moses death is as close as the incipient capitalization of God’s covenantal promise of the Land of Canaan. His biggest fear was that once the river was crossed, the meals of manna from the sky and water from rocks would be forgotten. This fertile land was only feet away; a land where they can drink in the rich bounty in intoxicating luxury, where their dependence on Yahweh could be forgotten with each luxurious bite of pomegranate and sweet desserts of honey, where the forty years of providential manna and water from the rocks are melted away by forty minutes in the Promised Land. Moses tells the people of Israel that once they have entered their land of wealth and luxury they must not forget where that wealth came from. “Remember the long way that the LORD your God, has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart”.
Jesus, like Moses, also calls us to remember our own Meal of humility. Our humble meal of bread and wine, flesh and blood, reminds us of our own wanderings in the wilderness even as we have already entered into the Christ’s land of promise. It is our meal that sustains us until all can receive the promise of perpetual bounty. It is our manna that feeds us until all will be fed and all will be provided for. In the opening chapter of the John’s Gospel Jesus is described as the Word made Flesh. Whoever eats and digests these words of the Word made flesh will be able to bring to the world around us the love of God. We can make the Word, these words, into Flesh. We possess the power to bring the words into Flesh, Christs’ flesh: our flesh.
All of this is to say is that even though we have feasted at the Table of Christ’s love; we must go out these doors as Christ’s body in the world. When we take the body and blood of Christ, in our Communion, we accept the responsibility to bring the living word to the world around us. Jesus is saying our future is taken care of we are set, now the work begins. Now we must make the “kingdom come” among us.
So dear Church, let’s not let what my neighbor said be true. Let’s not ignore the needs of the world and focus on the personal salvation. We have been given the Promised Land, and now we must fulfill this promise to all people. And this is where the real work begins.
One of my unofficial assignments as a new member to Christ Church has been to read the memoir of the former rector of this parish, E. Ashley Gerhard, A Memoir of Happy Years. Now, 53 years after his 38 year tenure as rector, I am still impressed by his words and his indelible marks left on this parish. My favorite recollection of his comes where he recognizes the true meaning of pastoral ministry. His first assignment was as a missionary in what was then called Missionary District of Wyoming to the tiny missions in the surrounding coal mining camps. Riding by horse-back to his far distant cure, he writes of one particular Sunday:
It was a seven-mile ride each way. I would ride up Sunday afternoon, conduct the evening service in the small frame chapel, spend the night with Grandma Dudley, and ride back home the following morning. In the spring and autumn, the ride through the canyon was gloriously beautiful. In the summertime, it was insufferably hot. This happened to be mid-winter, and the thermometer registered 35° below zero. As I rode, my mind went to musing: Only fifteen people out last evening. Not much of a congregation. Pretty hard to work up much enthusiasm for this kind of thing. Talk about the drama and the thrills of the life of a missionary! …Suddenly there sprang into my thinking a phrase. It was something I remembered saying last Sunday morning, as I stood at the altar celebrating Holy Communion. I was haunted by it. There it was; and, as I rode, I found myself repeating it to myself over and over again: “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven”. Why, that means those fifteen people up there in Cambria, each and every one of them! For them and for their salvation He came down from heaven. So greatly did He care. That is why I was there last evening. They don’t know it, and I was there to tell them. So greatly did he care. That is what I all riding up and down the canyon is about. So greatly must I care.”
So greatly must WE care, because we have been given so very much. So greatly must we be willing to ride through the insufferable heats and colds for the aid of one of God’s children. So greatly must we always remember that not all of God’s children have experienced the cooling mercies of the Springs and Autumns. So greatly must we care in this life, for so greatly has Christ cared for us. So greatly must we continue to care for the world around us, so that we may by all rights inherit the good gifts given to by the grace of God. Always remember, so that we may always be humble.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
