Pentecost 11

Pentecost 11 (John 6:35, 41-51) I am the living bread that came down from Heaven.
Life is not the same as existence.

All living things also exist. Not all things that exist have life. Sadly, the human species made an original choice to separate from life when we chose and continue to choose to separate from God.

Life is a series of interdependent relationships.

The primary life giving relationship is with God. Relationship is not the same thing as religion. People in Jesus day were very religious. They also were filled with fear. They feared the government. They feared foreigners. They feared each other. They feared that somehow God was so pure, so holy, so transcendent that they were unworthy to receive God’s blessings. They feared that God would punish them if they did the wrong thing or believed the wrong set of statements. They missed the clear and unambiguous teaching of Moses and the Prophets that God is love.

In that Divine Love, God revealed to Moses and the Prophets that God is personal. He is like a father to his children in his concern for their well-being. He is like a husband to his wife in his passionate delight.

Fear based religion produces a God of inflexible law. If you obey this law then God is obligated by the law to reward you with what you want when you want it. If you disobey the law then God is obligated by the law to punish you with sickness, poverty and failure. The God of inflexible uncompromising rigid law is the God of indulgence for the rich and powerful. He is also the God of wrath for the majority of the people who lack wealth and power.

Moses and the prophets observed this aspect of religion. They recorded their observations and formulated a theory about why people choose to invent a religion of fear to support a God of self-indulgence for the wealthy and a God of wrath for the working poor. The theory is separation, also known as “original sin.”

Original sin is the choice our species made to separate from God. In that separation, human beings lost the awareness of God as real, personal, and loving. In that separation, human beings lost compassion, concern and kindness for each other. In that separation human beings lost our true identity in love and holiness. We created and continue to create a false identity in fear, self-will and pride.
Jesus came into the world to demonstrate the fundamental truth that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

In a series of “I am” statements that invoke the very Name of God (I am), Jesus reveals that He has come to find the lost, reunite the separated, and restore life to a species lost in the stark isolation of existence.

It is important to hear the words of Jesus in the context of the observations of Moses and the Prophets. It is Moses and the prophets who help us to understand the pain of existence. That pain creates enormous distortion in our personalities, in the institutions we form and in the religion we create.

That pain of original separation produces the illusion that we can create God in our own image. And, that pain so corrupts and erodes the gift of life God has given to us that we no longer delight in life but endure existence.

Jesus came to restore life to a people lost in mere existence. His life is the delight of the infinite and eternal God in the people He created to be his forever friends. Fear based religion holds the soul in a spiritual stagnation that exists apart from life.

Jesus just doesn’t teach about life. He is life. He is the source of life that is active, dynamic, rational, passionate, spontaneous and creative. He is the life of kindness and compassion to others. He is the life of prayer and worship before our Heavenly Father. He is the life of renewal in the truth of steadfast holy love.
People liked the miracles Jesus performed. They appreciated the healings. They valued the banquets. Sadly, they still attempted to place those miracles into a religious context of self-indulgence and wrath. Tragically, they chose to remain lost in existence, lost in fear. That fear morphed into pride and despair.

Those who through fear chose the path of pride killed Jesus. Those who through fear chose the path of despair abandoned Jesus. It is important to recognize that at the end of his life only four people remained loyal to Jesus. His mother, with her two companions, remained loyal from the place of maternal love. A teen named John remained loyal from the place of fraternal love.

Love overcomes fear. It is the love of God incarnate in Jesus Christ that restores life to mere existence. No law can do this. No religion can do this. Only Jesus can do this. He does this by offering himself to us as our forever friend.

Where are you lost in mere existence? How do you perceive God in the terms of self-indulgence or wrath? Where is your religion rigid, inflexible and uncompromising? Where do you react to God, other people, your own imperfections from the place of fear?

That is exactly where Jesus wants to meet you. That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Beloved Son into the world. In Jesus, God is offering new life to all people everywhere without condition. There is nothing you need to do before you receive the gift of Divine Love in Jesus Christ.

How do you receive that gift? Faith. Faith is the pledge of loyalty we see in the examples of Holy Mother Mary and the beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross. The outward and visible sign of faith is baptism.

What is the result of faith? It is a new life. Jesus gives us life to rescue us from the pain of mere existence. In that new life Jesus enters into a forever friendship with us. He helps us grow into a new way of living.

The essentials of that new way of living derive from the three principles of love Jesus taught and lived. Those three principles of love are worship, service to others, personal transformation. That is the life Jesus brings us.

People sometimes use the phrase “get a life”. Jesus agrees with this statement. He not only agrees that we should get a life he says: here, take mine. My life is the infinite and eternal love of God manifesting moment by moment, choice by choice in the here and now of this world. The new life is the forever friendship God offers us in Jesus Christ.