SERMON
at
Christ Church, Watertown, Connecticut
Pentecost X
August 9, 2009

The Gospels for last week and this almost make me think I’m watching the Food Channel! All this talk of eating and flesh!

In last week’s Gospel we find Jesus, in effect, telling the crowd that followed him, “You’re not running after me because of wonders I’ve performed that demonstrate who I am---the Son of God…the Savior of the world. You’re running after me because you got fed. To you, it’s not about me and who I am; it’s about your pedestrian desires and your desire to use me!” He tells them to get their minds off transitory, material nutrition and onto eternal, spiritual nutrition.

In this week’s Gospel it’s almost like what happens in a CT scan: the camera angle changes and a slightly different perspective is offered. He’s saying, “Go ahead. Use me. That’s what I’m here for. The issue wasn’t that you shouldn’t have needs. It wasn’t that you shouldn’t seek to get them met. It was the priority you were placing on certain needs over other needs, distracting yourself from the important stuff. You were focussing on wants, not relationships. I’m telling you if you’ll focus on relationships, particularly your relationship with me and the Father who sent me, the wants will take care of themselves!

Of all the gospels, John’s is the most intellectual. It’s less stories and more symbols. “I am the light of the world.” “I am the bread of life.” That kind of thing.

So what this morning’s Gospel is telling us is metaphorical in character. It’s reminding us of a fact: We are what we eat. If you doubt that, turn on your television set. Carbs. Sugars. Junk food. Excess. = Obesity. Fruits and vegetables. Fiber. Exercise. = Buff. Youth. Energy. Health.

My friend Abdullah doesn’t watch the news. He reads the newspaper sparingly. He finds spending too much time on the news interferes with the quality of his prayer life. Abdullah and his wife Osuman are observant Muslims. They stop what they’re doing five times a day and go apart and pray. Their prayers are punctuated with the 99 attributes of God (Allah, to them.), the foremost of which is “Allah, the all merciful.” The other characteristics are all positive. This constant reminder of goodness and grace results in their being gentle, positive, confident people.

Years ago a Presbyterian minister named Norman Vincent Peale tapped into this kind of reality by writing a book titled, The Power of Positive Thinking. Those who read and used it discovered using its precepts changed their lives. In their cases they became what they read (ate) with their eyes---more upbeat, more confident.

Peale was followed by the Simontons, Fort Worth physicians and medical researchers, who published Getting Well Again: A Step-by-Step, Self-Help Guide to Overcoming Cancer for Patients and their Families and by Dr. Kenneth R. Pelletier’s Mind as Healer/Mind as Slayer: A Holistic Approach to Preventing Stress Disorders. Those who read and followed the advice of these books became what they read (ate)---healthy.

Think of the phrase, “I don’t want to go near (fill in the personality, ethnic group, etc.)…It might ‘rub off.’” The reverse is why we hang around Jesus: We want it to “rub off.”

“I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never be hungry;
he who believes in me will never thirst.

Spiritually. Metaphorically. But, later, materially. Because, as we become what we eat, we come to possess the inner peace which makes us physically healthier. We move from attitudes of scarcity to attitudes of abundance. Doing so releases us to be more inclined to take the risks that bring results. We start to have the detachment that enables us to think more clearly and make wiser decisions about the practical matters.

“No one can come to me
unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me

That’s how we come to eat the bread of life. We take the leap of faith that the promises are true. We behave “as if.” In little things. Our first metaphorical “bites.” We experience the result. We risk bigger bites.

Example: Close up and personal. We’re here. In Walker Hall. Together.

Our very presence, as we’ve articulated it in various of our meetings, our relationships with one another, feed us.

And they feed others who come by. Shopping. Trying us out. Who find “bread” here they’ve missed elsewhere. And come back. Become part of us, helping us feed others.

I tell you most solemnly,
everybody who believes has eternal life.
“Has.” Not “will have.” Has already.

Anyone who eats this bread will live forever;
And the bread that I shall give
is my flesh, for the life of the world.”

“For…the…life…of…the…world.”

Ours is an incarnational religion. Materialistic. What can be seen and touched. God (spirit) became man (something that could be seen…touched.).

Just as Jesus and our relationship with Him became the bread for us, we, his people, are charged with the task…the opportunity…the gift of becoming that bread for those we touch. We dare not lose sight of that mission. We…our presence…who we are…what we do…are in a very real way eternal life…now, for others on whom it rubs off. That they may, as the Psalmist writes, Taste and see how gracious the Lord is.