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Sermon for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Clay Center, Kansas
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 23, 2015
“How will you choose?”
May I speak in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
OK, let’s be honest. Are you tired of hearing about bread and wine? I admit I’m a little tired
of writing and preaching about it. For more than a month – this is the fifth week – we’ve been
hearing, thinking, and talking about one single chapter of the Gospel of John. Just one chapter. And
that chapter is about bread and wine – and Jesus’s description of himself as the true bread that comes
down from heaven, the true bread of life, bread for the whole world. It’s about something else too:
life. Bread for the world – and life for the world.
And if we are tired, I’d like to suggest we might be like those in the crowd with Jesus – the
ones who find they just cannot accept this life with Jesus any longer. They are tired. These are his
followers, described by John as “disciples” – not “the Twelve,” but disciples all the same. They have
been trekking around with Jesus, watching him at work, listening to his teaching. And now, they find
it’s too much, for too long. Jesus is asking too much. And… it’s too doggoned difficult!
They are out of patience. Maybe they want more miracles. Maybe they need more
reassurance. Maybe they need to see some action, some progress, some change for the better. Maybe
they just want to rest. I wonder if Jesus is tired too. “What do you want?” he asks them. “What if you
saw the Son of Man ascending to heaven? Would that satisfy you?”
So… bread and wine, flesh and blood. Today, the focus is on the flesh and blood… of real
life. The questions, doubts, betrayals, pains, frustrations… of real life. In fact, if it weren’t for the
first four verses we heard from the Gospel, we’d have no mention of bread at all. Just life… with its
challenges. Life with Jesus. Life because of Jesus. Life through Jesus. Life for the world.
The reading suggests the possible rejection of the life he offers. Later on, Jesus will ask his
disciples, “Will you lay down your life for me?” (Jn 13:38). And this: “Do you love me? Tend my
sheep” (Jn 21:16). And “You will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy” (Jn 16:20). Believers
can always say “no.”
The folks following Jesus had expected a savior who would be like the ancient leaders of
Israel: Abraham, Moses, Isaiah. They anticipated a messiah who would come as a mighty warrior
king and defeat the Roman oppressors. In that, they are disappointed. Because the Messiah they get
is one who reaches out to care for, listen to, and live among those who are sick, rejected, cast out of
the company of the “better folk.” Jesus extends his hands, opens his arms, and finally gives up his
life, to restore life to all who believe in him, who have faith in him – then and now.
And the message he preaches to his followers is to go and do the same.
What does that mean – to do the same? Was it that challenge that scared off so many who
were initially drawn to him? What does it mean to give your life for the life of the world?
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I know a young priest who is doing just that. Her name is Sarah Monroe. She was a
classmate of mine at the Episcopal Divinity School. Sarah grew up in a working-class family in rural
Washington state, and is a self-described redneck. She knows hardship. She has seen it first-hand;
she has lived it. While a college undergraduate, she spent summers in Southern Mexico – working
alongside small Oaxacan farmers who took responsibility for caring for their communities and
healing their land. Sarah supported those hardworking folks whose goal was to create new
possibilities for themselves and new life for their land.
During her three years at seminary, Sarah devoted hundreds of hours to the members of an
outdoor congregation in downtown Boston, called common cathedral. It describes itself as “an outdoor
church for people experiencing homelessness, and their friends.” Their website says Common cathedral
is “an outdoor congregation, housed and un-housed, sharing God’s love through community,
pastoral care, creative expression, and worship on Boston Common. We are non-proselytizing and
ecumenical. We welcome and support all people.”1 Common cathedral invites everyone to participate
fully in their worship and hospitality. Everyone.
A dozen or so of Sarah’s friends from common cathedral attended her seminary graduation
– all of them wearing buffalo-plaid flannel shirts, which Sarah often wore to class. Sarah stood with
the people. She heard their stories and shared her own. She laughed and ate with them, wept with
(and for) them, and worshipped with them.
After graduation, Sarah returned to the Northwest and was ordained priest in the Diocese of
Olympia, Washington. She began a new ministry with people living on the streets of Aberdeen, a
community of 16,000 on the Pacific Coast, which has been hard-hit economically by changes in the
logging and fishing industries. People there are hurting. Sarah works with, prays with, and generally
supports a population of unhoused people. A few weeks ago, she lobbied with the city of Aberdeen,
which had demanded the eviction of people living in a homeless camp. Along with helping people
organize themselves for self-responsibility and action, Sarah offers regular worship and Bible study
for her people. She helps folks come together, form community, and discover their own leadership.
Sarah’s passion is creating a path to new life, in places where people know mostly hopelessness. She
has experienced resurrection in her work… and commits herself daily to new life for the whole
world, one community at a time. [I am inspired and humbled by her commitment and ministry as I
follow her on Facebook and her blog, A Wandering Minister.2]
Of course, God doesn’t ask or expect all of us to take up the cross the way Sarah is doing.
We are invited, challenged really, to carry the cross of Jesus in our own way, our own time and place.
It is never too soon, or too late. Each of us has gifts to use, and we answer his call as we are enabled
by the Holy Spirit.
[PAUSE]
“Do you also wish to go away?” Jesus asks the twelve disciples. Their answer, delivered by
Peter, is “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Jesus might ask the same question of us: “Do you wish to go away?” Or, will you choose
instead to follow, to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread,
and in the prayers – to live out the vows you made in your baptism? Will you tend his sheep?
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You’ll find the website for common cathedral (Ecclesia Ministries, Inc.) here: http://commoncathedral.org/
You can read Sarah’s blog here: http://awanderingminister.blogspot.com/
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Taking up Christ’s mission in this world requires commitment – commitment to worship
and prayer, because that is what grounds our work of ministry. Commitment to be part of a
community of disciples, because that is where we listen to one another’s stories and build upon our
strengths together. Commitment to the people “out there” who are hurting and who don’t know
Jesus or don’t know how to connect with him.
We are Jesus’s disciples now… and here. Do we feel that Jesus asks too much of us, like
those disciples of old who complained, “This teaching is difficult” and turned back?
Jesus knows refusal is always a possibility…. At the end of this chapter of John’s Gospel, he
announces there will be a betrayer among the Twelve, although he is not named at this point. Later
on, we know, Peter and most of the other disciples desert Jesus during his most vulnerable
moments.
Each believer is free to answer “yes” or “no” to Jesus. No one says it will be easy. God does
not promise us exemption from pain, or loss, or disappointment. God does promise us love. God
offers us forgiveness and always another chance to begin again. God assures us that we’ll never be
alone… not so long as we have faith, not so long as we turn to the words of Jesus for spirit and life.
But God does ask us this: Be faithful… abide… as living members of the Body of Christ. Every day,
multiple times a day, we can choose to welcome the invitation to follow the Holy One of God.
What are your gifts? How are you called to serve – in a big, perhaps risky way… or in a very
small way?
Remember the words of our closing prayer: “Now Father, send us out to do the work you
have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.” My prayer is
that each of us will join Jesus in his mission of bringing new life to the world.
“Let us go forth in the name of Christ.” Alleluia! And… amen.