Pentecost 10

Pentecost 10 (John 6:24-35) “I am the bread of life.”

Jesus came to bring abundant life. He came to bring a new way of living. That new way of living
is grounded in the teachings of Moses and the Prophets. That new way of living is active, dynamic and transforming.

Jesus models the new way of living in his words and by his actions. He just doesn't say: do this. He just doesn't say: believe that. He says: i am with you. I am on your side. I am here. Come to me and be changed by the presence of infinite and eternal love. That love created you. That love redeemed you. That love will transform you as you choose to receive it. That love is the bread of a new life and a new way of living.

One of the questions Jesus never answered is: “what is the true religion?” The reason Jesus never answered that question was the context in which people asked the question. They wanted to justify themselves. They wanted to know who is in and who is out. They wanted to know who is righteous and who is unrighteous, who has earned God’s favor and who deserves God’s wrath. They wanted the assurance that they could judge, condemn, exclude and deny goods and services to the people they considered sinners.

They were thinking in the terms of power and knowledge. Jesus spoke the vocabulary of personal relationships. When the crowds saw Jesus performing miracles, and even Jesus’ critics and enemies acknowledged he performed miracles, they all universally concluded: he’s got the power. Some decided that this power could bring them wealth and dominance in society. Some saw the power as a threat to their position of authority and rule.

The events described in this passage immediately follow the miracle of the loaves and fish. Just the day before Jesus had taken a little boy’s lunch, five small barley loaves and two even smaller fish, offered it in thanksgiving to God the Father, blessed it by acknowledging the real presence of the Holy Spirit in  Creation, and then fed some five thousand people. When the meal was finished there were twelve baskets full of the left overs.

The people were astonished. Some reacted with fear. Many brought forth a demand. They demanded Jesus become king. John, who was a teen at the time, remembered that the crowd actually attempted to force Jesus to become king, to overthrow the provincial government in Jerusalem and the imperial government in Rome. Jesus responded by withdrawing. He crossed the lake to continue his three fold public ministry of teaching the Torah, preaching the Good News of Divine Love, and healing minds, bodies and souls.

Sadly, the people then, even Jesus’ closest and most loyal students, did not want what Jesus offered. This was no surprise to Jesus. As a child he had studied the writings of Moses and the Prophets. As a teen He had learned the lessons of history. As an adult He recognized that most if not all people create God in our own image according to our individual needs and desires. As a teacher, He also knew from Moses and the Prophets that this is precisely the problem that defines our species.

The problem is not that we believe the wrong things. The problem is not that we sometimes do bad things and fail to do good things. These are consequences of the problem. The problem is that we have made a choice to separate from God. The problem is that we are lost in separation from God. And, in that separation from God we have separated from the very source of light, and life and love.

Moses is very clear: separation produces disintegration. It is an incremental and sometimes lengthy process of disintegration of society, the family and the individual. That is why God commissioned people to write the many books we now call the Bible. These books, written by dozens of people over the course of hundreds of years, show us the pattern of separation from God. The pattern is the slow, steady and inevitable disintegration of our species.

The prophets are very honest. God gave the prophets two words to proclaim to their generation: repent and prepare. The prophets called people back to the teachings of Moses. They asked people to wake up and recognize how their pride kept them separated from God, how their demand for personal power brought scarcity out of abundance, how their fear of losing power defined their abuse of power. The prophets also proclaimed God’s solution to the problem. The solution to separation is reunification. The solution to the process of disintegration is the process of transformation.

Jesus is the solution to separation. Jesus is the Way of transformation.

In Jesus God Himself overcomes separation. In Jesus, God unites His divinity with our humanity. This is not about Law, although law has its place. This is not about religion, although religion also has its place. The plan of salvation in Jesus Christ is reunification of a lost and broken and fearful humanity with infinite, eternal, universal and unconditional love.

The people who had witnessed Jesus miracles- even his own students (the disciples) wanted the power. Jesus offered what God the Father sent him into the world to offer. Jesus offered universal unconditional love. Jesus offered himself.

The teen disciple, John, was the first of the disciples to realize this. He was the first (after Holy Mother Mary) to realize that Jesus is not about power, judgment or condemnation. Jesus is not about who is righteous and who is unrighteous. Jesus is nothing less that the fullness of infinite and eternal love personified. Jesus is God with us and God for us.

That is why Jesus makes some amazing and even scandalous statements. When Jesus says: “I am” he is claiming the very name of God that God revealed to Moses. When Jesus says: I am the bread of life, he is declaring that he is the very source of life. There is no life on this planet apart from the source of life. That source is embodied in Jesus Christ. We chose and continue to choose to separate from the source of life. The source of life comes to earth to seek the lost who do not want to be found. He does this because he loves us and wants to restore to us what we abandoned.

What are the conditions to receive this life? Just ask.

 Jesus is God the Father’s gift to the world. It is a free gift. It is a true gift. God offers this gift to everyone without exception. The gift is there for you in the rising of the sun and in the setting of the sun. The gift is there in your joys and in your sorrows, in your pleasures and in your pain. The gift of God is the life of God. The gift of God is the co-eternal Son of God. The Gift of God is the real presence of divine love in Jesus Christ. This love has no beginning and has no end. It is eternal. To receive this gift simply say: Amen. Yes God. Yes I receive the gift of life from the source of life. I receive your divine love in the co-eternal Beloved, Jesus Christ. Amen.

   

Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (John 6:1-21)  “It is I, do not be afraid.”

Fear kills.

Fear paralyzes action and clouds judgment. That is why those who wish to rule over people master the art of fear. Fear is one of three major spiritual distortions that result from Original Separation from God. The other two major spiritual distortions are pride (hubris) and self-will ( the will to power). This triad of distortion emerges from the pain of original separation from God.

God the Father designed our species according to the pattern of God the Son by the presence in this material universe of God the Holy Spirt. That design follows the three fold pattern of Love.

The Father designed us a unity manifesting in diversity. The original pattern of humanity is that we are one with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In that unity we are a community of distinct personalities who are interdependent with each other. And, we were created to hold the various aspects of our being- reason, will, emotion…,body, mind and spirit in a harmonious whole.

Adam and Eve’s choice to separate from God in order to acquire the divine attributes of knowledge and power shattered the three fold unity of our original design. Original separation produces original pain- a deeply embedded all pervasive fear that we are lost in a meaningless random universe. Pride is a defense against the despair of original pain. Pride and despair are opposite poles of the  same power at work in our souls. Self- will, which is the will to power, is the action of a soul lost in separation attempting to defend  itself from fear.

Now, a modicum of fear is prudent in our fallen world. Fear can alert us to danger and initiate the three fold strategy of self- defense. That three -fold strategy of self- defense is aggression, submission and withdrawal.  The defense and the strategy all proceed from the place of separation. They are not part of the original design for our species. They are spiritual processes that produce feelings that impel actions. The Bible is a record of how those actions subvert God’s Plan and Purpose for our lives.

In the Gospel reading this morning we see how fear produces scarcity in our societies and despair among individuals.  God created a world of rich abundance. People take that abundance and distort it into scarcity. Jesus, the pattern of abundance,  reminded the people of his time and of our time that God is abundance. Where even the disciples of Jesus saw only the minimum resource available to them Jesus perceived the pattern of abundance.

The pattern of abundance is compassion. The Bible is very clear. There is more than enough in this world for everyone to live well if and as we live from the place of divine love. There is never enough if we live from the distortions of original separation.

The little boy in the story shows the way. He shares. He shares from the place of kindness and compassion. As is frequently the case in scripture, God invites the poorest, the most marginalized and the least respected people to bring forth his plan of salvation. God chooses the people most open to the plan of original blessing.

Sadly, the record of Biblical history is that the people least open to the plan of original blessing are those who use fear to manipulate and control people. It is the political, economic and religious elites who are most tenaciously lost in separation, fear, self-will and pride.

The little boy saw the need and in his own limited way simply offered his meager resources to meet the need. His compassion, his kindness and his faith opened the spiritual portals of divine abundance into the material world through Jesus.

Jesus took the boy’s meager lunch. He blessed it. He gave thanks. He lifted it up into the embrace of the Holy undivided Trinity, into the superabundance of eternal love. Then, he distributed the food from the very source and center of abundance. There was now more than enough for all to eat. In fact, there was more food left over than what he had at the  beginning.

Starvation is the great scandal of our species. In a world of abundance human beings work very hard to distort abundance into scarcity, poverty and starvation. This is not the original blessing. This not the Father’s Plan of Creation. This is not the Son’s Plan of Salvation.

Fear always subverts the blessing.

Despite the miracle the disciples witnessed and participate in, they still lived from the place of fear. John, who was there as the youngest of the inner circle of the disciples, remembered what happened later that day. He remembered and he very honesty recorded for us that the disciples encountered a storm. In that storm they reverted to fear. Despite the miracle Jesus had performed the disciples remained lost in a belief that the universe is random, unpredictable and fearful.

For souls lost in separation from God, fear is the default reaction to life. With that fear comes the strategies to cope with fear. Aggression- interpersonal conflict and international wars. Submission: giving one person or one small group of people absolute control in hope they will protect us. Withdrawal- an escape into entertainment, pleasure or the spiritual but not religious self- indulgence of just giving up on the process of life.

Jesus is the very pattern of the original blessing of the original design of the universe, our planet, our species and each of us as individual personalities. His actions in the miracle of the feeding of the Five Thousand reveal and manifest the pattern of divine abundance working through and with ordinary, even inconsequential, individuals.

Jesus is the Father’s answer to fear.

He is the answer to fear in the words: it is I.

Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (John 6:1-21)  “It is I, do not be afraid.”

Fear kills.

Fear paralyzes action and clouds judgment. That is why those who wish to rule over people master the art of fear. Fear is one of three major spiritual distortions that result from Original Separation from God. The other two major spiritual distortions are pride (hubris) and self-will ( the will to power). This triad of distortion emerges from the pain of original separation from God.

God the Father designed our species according to the pattern of God the Son by the presence in this material universe of God the Holy Spirt. That design follows the three fold pattern of Love.

The Father designed us a unity manifesting in diversity. The original pattern of humanity is that we are one with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In that unity we are a community of distinct personalities who are interdependent with each other. And, we were created to hold the various aspects of our being- reason, will, emotion…,body, mind and spirit in a harmonious whole.

Adam and Eve’s choice to separate from God in order to acquire the divine attributes of knowledge and power shattered the three fold unity of our original design. Original separation produces original pain- a deeply embedded all pervasive fear that we are lost in a meaningless random universe. Pride is a defense against the despair of original pain. Pride and despair are opposite poles of the  same power at work in our souls. Self- will, which is the will to power, is the action of a soul lost in separation attempting to defend  itself from fear.

Now, a modicum of fear is prudent in our fallen world. Fear can alert us to danger and initiate the three fold strategy of self- defense. That three -fold strategy of self- defense is aggression, submission and withdrawal.  The defense and the strategy all proceed from the place of separation. They are not part of the original design for our species. They are spiritual processes that produce feelings that impel actions. The Bible is a record of how those actions subvert God’s Plan and Purpose for our lives.

In the Gospel reading this morning we see how fear produces scarcity in our societies and despair among individuals.  God created a world of rich abundance. People take that abundance and distort it into scarcity. Jesus, the pattern of abundance,  reminded the people of his time and of our time that God is abundance. Where even the disciples of Jesus saw only the minimum resource available to them Jesus perceived the pattern of abundance.

The pattern of abundance is compassion. The Bible is very clear. There is more than enough in this world for everyone to live well if and as we live from the place of divine love. There is never enough if we live from the distortions of original separation.

The little boy in the story shows the way. He shares. He shares from the place of kindness and compassion. As is frequently the case in scripture, God invites the poorest, the most marginalized and the least respected people to bring forth his plan of salvation. God chooses the people most open to the plan of original blessing.

Sadly, the record of Biblical history is that the people least open to the plan of original blessing are those who use fear to manipulate and control people. It is the political, economic and religious elites who are most tenaciously lost in separation, fear, self-will and pride.

The little boy saw the need and in his own limited way simply offered his meager resources to meet the need. His compassion, his kindness and his faith opened the spiritual portals of divine abundance into the material world through Jesus.

Jesus took the boy’s meager lunch. He blessed it. He gave thanks. He lifted it up into the embrace of the Holy undivided Trinity, into the superabundance of eternal love. Then, he distributed the food from the very source and center of abundance. There was now more than enough for all to eat. In fact, there was more food left over than what he had at the  beginning.

Starvation is the great scandal of our species. In a world of abundance human beings work very hard to distort abundance into scarcity, poverty and starvation. This is not the original blessing. This not the Father’s Plan of Creation. This is not the Son’s Plan of Salvation.

Fear always subverts the blessing.

Despite the miracle the disciples witnessed and participate in, they still lived from the place of fear. John, who was there as the youngest of the inner circle of the disciples, remembered what happened later that day. He remembered and he very honesty recorded for us that the disciples encountered a storm. In that storm they reverted to fear. Despite the miracle Jesus had performed the disciples remained lost in a belief that the universe is random, unpredictable and fearful.

For souls lost in separation from God, fear is the default reaction to life. With that fear comes the strategies to cope with fear. Aggression- interpersonal conflict and international wars. Submission: giving one person or one small group of people absolute control in hope they will protect us. Withdrawal- an escape into entertainment, pleasure or the spiritual but not religious self- indulgence of just giving up on the process of life.

Jesus is the very pattern of the original blessing of the original design of the universe, our planet, our species and each of us as individual personalities. His actions in the miracle of the feeding of the Five Thousand reveal and manifest the pattern of divine abundance working through and with ordinary, even inconsequential, individuals.

Jesus is the Father’s answer to fear.

He is the answer to fear in the words: it is I.

Pentecost 8

Pentecost 8 (Mark 6:30-34;53-56)

“He had compassion.”

The character of Jesus finds expression in the compassion of Jesus.

Religion without compassion kills.

It kills the mind. It kills the heart. It perpetuates original separation from God.

Moses and the prophets observed how human beings engage in multiple levels of judgment, condemnation and conflict. They observed that whenever God would instruct people to turn right some would  immediately turn left. Some would argue. Some would refuse to move at all. And all would justify their rebellion from the place of pride.

Moses and the prophets were keen observers of the human condition. They also asked a very important question. Why?

Why do people stand apart from God? Why do people take God’s name in vain? Why do people ignore the call to worship on the Sabbath Day? And, why do people treat each other so badly?

Their conclusion is woven into the Biblical record in a very unique powerful and unexpected way. Moses and the prophets use the language of personal relationships. That language employs history, songs, poetry, proverbs and worship to prepare the context for our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.

Moses and the prophets are not the plan of salvation. They set the stage. The Bible, as important as it is and it is fundamental to the Christian life, is also not the plan of salvation. It forms the context and the frame for the one who is the Plan of Salvation.

Jesus is the plan of salvation.

Jesus is the incarnation of the co-eternal Word of God. The Eternal Father names him: The Beloved. The Holy Spirit instructed Mary to name him  Jesus, savior.

Jesus saves us from separation. He saves us from pride. He saves us from our own self-absorbed will to power. He saves us from fear.

Are you living with fear? Do you listen to the false prophets of the modern world who manipulate you through fear? Come to Jesus. Jesus sets us free from fear. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to Help us transform fear into an active, dynamic, courageous and compassionate faith.

The Bible teaches that the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. God alone is righteous. No less a person that the apostle Paul reminds us that no human being is or can be righteous.

Therefore, do not strive for righteousness. You will fail. You will deceive yourself. You will wear a theatrical mask, what the ancient Greeks called the hypo crasis- from which we derive our word “hypocrisy”.

Rather, pursue holiness. Holiness emerges from an ongoing personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ. Holiness is characterized by the transforming power of compassion.

How do we know this? Compassion is the character of Jesus Christ.

How do we transform in compassion? Jesus shows us the way. He shows us the way in a single word imperative.

Come.

You cannot walk the way of Jesus apart from a relationship with Jesus. Where is Jesus? He is here at the altar of sacrifice at the Day of Worship in the blessed sacrament of Real Presence. Worship transforms the will.

Where is Jesus? He emerges from the pages of scripture and takes form as we read the Bible, study the Bible and memorize the Bible. Memorizing scripture transforms the mind.

Where is Jesus? He is the homeless wandering the streets of Philadelphia, New York and all of the major cities of the United States. He is the poor, the weak, the confused, the fearful. He is the stranger in our midst who has come to escape violence, poverty, suffering and death. He is the marginalized, the outcast and the despised. He is the least among us inviting us to live into His Real Presence through acts of compassion. Compassion transforms the heart.

How do we know this? Jesus himself gives us this knowledge even as he set before us a principle. The principle is: how you treat those you define as the least among you is how you treat me.

The people flocked to Jesus because Jesus is the holiness of God, the love of God and the active compassion of God up front and personal.

Why are modern people not flocking to the church?

The Bible teaches us that the church is the Body of Christ. People flocked to Jesus when he was on earth. Why are they not flocking to the Body of Christ in the here and now?

The answer is in the gospel reading today. The answer lies within our own minds, hearts and wills. The answer is Jesus himself. The answer is the way of personal holiness in the active practice of compassion.