Breaking Bread Together

Jeremiah 23: 1-6
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56

Today is our Communion Sunday. This is the day we take the bread and wine and we remember the sacrifices of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the day we stop for just a moment in our worship to appreciate the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, filling us with warmth and love and acceptance, as we come to Christ’s table.

The scriptures in Mark show us how important it is for the disciples to take a moment to break bread with one another and how, even back before technology, there wasn’t always time to do so. When we read the words, “For many were coming and going, and they had no time even to eat” it sounds so much like what we go through daily.

We are too busy to pause for a real lunch, and so we munch on vending machine food while working at our desks. Our teens and children grab a pop-tart for breakfast as they walk out the door instead of sitting down at the table for a meal. Parents and children drive through the fast food restaurant on their way to soccer and dance practice. Those of us that commute sip on double lattes to get us through the day and we snack on unhealthy things while in the office before coming home with takeout for the night. Even our babies and toddlers graze on cereal pieces and other portable foods while we hurriedly shop at night after work.

We are a people that are besieged by activities and responsibilities that reshape even the most basic functions of life like our eating habits. Our busyness prevents us from gathering for family meals, and we may even forget that we like stopping for a moment to sit around the table with our loved ones. We forget the pleasure of sharing parts of our day with each other and as we forget these things, we do not realize what we lose with our busy schedules.

What would happen if we Christians became too busy to break bread together? Why does it matter so much to Jesus and consequently to us, that we take time to have communion? And if it is important for Christians to break bread, doesn’t that mean it is important for our families to do the same?

 When I think about my memories as a child, some of my favorite ones revolve around the dinner table. Those few precious times when my mother was able to be with us as we ate dinner. I can remember a lot of laughter as one of us did something silly that made the whole table laugh. I can remember having serious discussions with our mother about things that happened at school that day. And at church, some of my favorite memories were during the meals the church shared. It was fun eating spaghetti and garlic bread with people I didn’t see every day. I learned a lot in those times and it was wonderful to share something more than worship on Sunday with them.

Taking time out of our schedules to break bread is about more than remembering Jesus’ sacrifice for us. It reminds us that we are a family, one created through common beliefs and goals through Christ. When we commune together we share bits and pieces of our lives and we are better for it. The same thing is true for when we take time to break bread with our family. We need that time, we need that space. It is a holy time, even though most of us would never have imagined it that way.

But now we need to look at the fact that Jesus and his disciples could not get away to break bread together which is often the case for us as well. Jesus saw all of the crowds and he had compassion upon them. This is not the same thing as pity. Compassion literally means to suffer with a person. Jesus saw the people and their needs and he hurt for them and could not in good conscience, let them continue to suffer despite his own needs and desires in that moment. He put aside his own tiredness, hunger and pain to help them.

We, as a church, need to follow Jesus’ example. I know that we get tired of committees and meetings after a long day at work. Most of us have been consistory members and on every other committee at one time or another. We attend church every Sunday, a lot of you send your children and grandchildren to Sunday school too. These are all wonderful, good things to do. But they wear on us and eventually we become tired of doing these things.

Jesus and the disciples got tired too. They didn’t always want to go out and teach and preach to the people. Then, Jesus would see them. He’d see the pain on their wan faces, he’d see the hunger and tiredness they could not hide, and he suffered with them. He could not let them continue to be in pain. The church needs to be a place of healing and comfort. This needs to be a place where people come when they are hurting.

The fact that people do not think to come to church when they suffer is very telling. Shouldn’t the church be considered a place of rest and comfort to those that are lost? If people are finding more help from a book than they are their local church, we have our work cut out for us. Yes, sometimes we get tired and discouraged. Yes, there are going to be days of frustration and anger that more aren’t doing their share.

However, if as a church, we do nothing to help the people that are hurting, then we hurt ourselves too. That is the secret to this passage today. Jesus helped those people despite his own aches and needs because to leave them like they were not only hurt them, it hurt him too. Christians are supposed to love their brothers and sisters. If we truly love the people around us, we cannot blindly walk past them when they are in pain.

Sometimes that will mean putting aside going to the movies for the night or sitting down with a glass of wine after a long day. Yes, we deserve the break. Yes, we are tired and hurting ourselves. But the love we have for our fellow human beings requires sacrifice. If we only help when it is easy or when we have time and energy, then we are not proving anything. It is when we make time for others despite our own hurts that we show our love and compassion just as Jesus has done so many times.

It is then that people will see the church as a source of comfort and healing because there are people within the walls that will help no matter what. Loving others is about sacrifice. Jesus showed us that, and it is what we remember today as we break bread. Jesus died so that we may live, and he asks that we love people enough to help even when we are tired after a long day.

Amen.

Marked and Sealed

Amos7: 7-15
Eph1: 3-14

It is passages like this one in Ephesians that make many regular Christians throw up their hands in frustration about reading the bible on their own. It’s a very wordy text, full of words that seem to have many possible meanings and it can leave even those of us that have studied the bible extensively, scratching our heads. This is a passage that has caused a lot of controversy and discussion over the years because of words like predestination, adoption, inheritance, and redemption.

There are some people, like John Calvin, who consider this passage to confirm that there are certain people who are predestined to be saved. The idea of predestination is that a person does not get saved through their own merits, but through God’s will. This opens up the idea that there are those who will be saved even if they never accept Jesus into their hearts, or someone that has done awful things could already be predestined for heaven. Then there is the question of how are we to know who is predestined and who is not?

There is another theory where people believe when the author writes that we are predestined to adoption to sonship in Christ, that every human being has been predestined to be saved. The idea of universal salvation (everyone in the world is saved no matter religion, creeds or deeds) is appealing to those of us that think about loved ones that have passed, but were not exactly faithful Christians. This idea that everyone in the world is saved no matter what they do or believe, seems to make our faith and our response to God, immaterial. Since Jesus makes a point of saying we should have faith and that we are to respond to God with love for others, it doesn’t seem like this could be the correct definition of predestination.

The other theory on predestination is slightly different. Through Jesus Christ, every person is given the ability to be saved. However, salvation is given to those who respond to their adoption with faith and love for Jesus, and they are the ones that are given eternal life. This definition includes free will. We choose to accept the gift God wants to give us or we may decline it. The way we conduct our lives, shows God who we are and who we want to be.

The word adoption and sonship are very important as well. Through Jesus Christ, we are no longer just human beings who believe in God. We are welcomed into the family of God. We become brothers and sisters not just IN Christ but TO Christ. Think about this.. if we are Christ’s brother and sister, then our parent is God. When we accepted Jesus into our hearts, we were dropped smack dab in the middle of the family relationship and dynamics.

There are those of you out there that have either been adopted or adopted a child into your family. So you know and understand this better than most. Adoption is not about superficially adding a person to the family. When we adopt a child, we accept them into our hearts, into our lives and they become such a vital part of us that we cannot imagine life without them. I had someone tell me not too long ago that when they adopted their son, she loved him so much that sometimes she forgot he was adopted because it just wasn’t what was important. The important part was this child was a part of her life and she was a part of his. The love between the two is what mattered most, DNA mattered very little.

God feels the same way about all of us. We are God’s children, and as such, we are privileged to the same wonders and benefits that are given to Jesus. That is amazing, and also brings us to the word inheritance.

What do we receive as children of God? What is our inheritance? It’s not just salvation, as if that wasn’t enough on its own! When we chose to believe in Jesus, we were marked as God’s own and we were given a wonderful gift – the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a beautiful gift because it means we do not go through life alone. There are many of us sitting in these pews today who have known loneliness. That deep, abiding ache that empties and drains us of life. The sorrow and pain we feel that no one will understand what we have gone through. No one truly understands the person we are and the mistakes we have made, the things we want to accomplish and those we have not been able to.

But the Holy Spirit is a gift unlike any other. God’s Spirit, given to us the moment we profess belief in Jesus Christ. Through that Spirit, we are promised that never again will we walk alone. Never again will we be misunderstood and left to fight our demons by ourselves. We have a champion, we have a Savior, we have one that will mediate our prayers and concerns to God for us. The Holy Spirit, if we allow her too, will fill those empty, aching voids with the love of Christ, with the acceptance of God the Father, and will guide us right into God’s waiting arms.

Think of the Holy Spirit as your personal guide to heaven, your personal guide to eternity spent with God who loves you more than you could ever comprehend. Now that, my friends, is an inheritance!

The final word in this passage we will look at is redemption. Sometimes we call Jesus our Redeemer. We are redeemed through Christ. What does that mean? Who is it that we need to be redeemed for?

Not many of us will argue that humanity is full of flaws. We are prideful, arrogant, disdainful of others, and we lack compassion. These are just some of the many sins we commit daily. With such flaws, it would seem impossible to get to heaven on our own. It is why we needed Jesus Christ. God tried to help us become better people, offering covenant after covenant with us and always, we broke them. When he sent Jesus, he made a new covenant that is unbreakable. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, when he died he accepted all of humanity’s flaws as his own, he took the punishment we were meant to have.

Thus, we were redeemed in God’s eyes. When God looks at each of us, he does not see a sinful human being, but he sees His Son. He sees the blood Jesus spilled for us, the compassion Jesus has, and the love for the Son, becomes love for all. This is what adoption and redemption are all about. We truly are now one of God’s own children because God sees in each of us His very own Son.

This passage may be filled with a lot of big words and confusing sentences, but it is one of the most important we will discuss. Here, we learn about how we are saved and we learn about our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. God loved his creation enough to send his Son, who loved us enough to take away our sins so that we would be given the chance to accept eternal life with the help and direction of the Holy Spirit. If you are ever again in doubt that God loves you, remember this passage, and remember what Jesus has done for you. You are not alone and you are not unloved. God is right by your side, now and always.

Amen.

Delight in Weakness

Ezekiel 2: 1-15
2 Corinthians 12:2-10

The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament and many of the things he wrote were both as encouraging as they are puzzling. This passage in 2 Corinthians is no different. Paul is writing to the Corinthians to remind them to pay attention to what a prophet says and does. He is reminding them that there is more to God’s servants than just what they say, but he also reminds us that weakness is not always something we must be ashamed about.

In most societies, weaknesses are not something we see many people boasting of to others. We don’t often walk into a dinner party to hear the host say, “Thank you all for coming even though you know I cannot cook and we will all have heartburn later.” When we interview for a job, most employers will ask us what our strengths are and we gladly tell them, but when they ask about our weaknesses, we usually downplay them. Not many are going to say, “I don’t take direction well and my children often call me at work and distract me, causing me to make a few mistakes.”

In ancient times, it was no different. Weaknesses can be exploited and no one wants someone to take advantage of them. What could Paul possibly be trying to tell us when he says, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses… for when I am weak, then I am strong.”?

When a person finds themselves lacking in an area, they have two choices. They can either figure out a way to be better or they can accept help. There are some weaknesses that can never be fully overcome. Paul suffered from one such weakness and he prayed and begged God for years to take this burden from him, and each time was refused. Each of us has what we would call a thorn in our flesh the same as Paul. Something that has burdened our lives and kept us from accomplishing all the things we wish we could.

Perhaps it is a long illness such as cancer or MS. Perhaps you suffer from depression or have a problem controlling your temper. Perhaps you have a tendency to pick the wrong friends or the wrong partner. Perhaps you have become addicted to alcohol or drugs or pornography. Perhaps you are the type of person that does not feel complete unless you are needed and so you surround yourself with needy people. Perhaps you have a weakness for causing trouble or drama in your own life and others. Perhaps you are excessively proud and refuse to ask for help no matter how badly you need it.

Every one of us has a weakness; Paul says there is no shame in being weak. The reason he says this is because in our weakness we are forced to look to God for our strength. If this weakness refuses to leave us, the only person who is strong enough to help us is Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that he will boast of his weakness so that Christ’s power may rest over him. We too should not be ashamed of our weaknesses, but instead we should ask that God be with us as we fight against them.

Every year my grandmother, mom and I go on a vacation to Pittsburgh. This year we are going at the end of July. Every year we go out on the Gateway Clipper for their hour ride down the three rivers. During this ride, the captain gives little bits of information about the various buildings and landmarks. One year, I remember him telling us about the US Steel Building. When it was first built, the company used a new steel product where the steel starts off as a rusty orange color and then darkens as the years go by. Apparently, the reason for it darkening is that as the building is exposed to the elements the steel resists the effects of the wind, rain, snow, ice and fog by forming a coating of dark brown oxidation over the metal. The result being that every year that building is exposed to the things that weaken most other buildings, the US Steel building becomes more resistant; it becomes stronger.

If we are to become stronger despite the various weaknesses that we battle against, we need something to help us through. Without thorns in our flesh, human beings have a tendency to become conceited and mean. It is through our weaknesses that we learn to sympathize with others, it is through our shared pains that we are able to have compassion upon the rest of the world.

It does not make our painful moments any less hurtful. It does not make our weaknesses any less than another’s. But what we learn is to be human and that life is short and bittersweet. Jesus is God and yet he never threw his weight around while he walked among us. Jesus is always compassionate, always careful of other’s feelings, and always willing to help heal and soothe our pains away. How can God be so empathetic?

It is because God has experienced pain and hurt as well. Throughout the bible we see many times where humanity has turned away from God; many times where God cries out about our wickedness and how ungrateful we are to all God has done. God feels sorrow. God feels anger and sadness and pain. Just as we do. A God that loves so deeply cannot help but also feel sorrow and pain just as deeply.

There is a song I heard the other day by a group called Thompson Square. The words are quite beautiful and remind me of this passage in Corinthians and what Paul is trying to tell all of us.  It begins, Trying to live and love, With a heart that can't be broken, Is like trying to see the light with eyes that can't be opened. We may shine, we may shatter, We may be picking up the pieces here on after, We are fragile, we are human, We are shaped by the light we let through us, We break fast, because we are glass.

Paul does not dispute that there are many things in this world that cause us pain. Paul just reminds us that we need those weaknesses to help us from becoming fools, and to stop us from becoming hardened to the life of others. When Paul writes that in his weaknesses, he becomes strong; the words of the song really hit home. We are shaped by the light we let through us. We are shaped by the light of Jesus Christ, but only if we are willing to open our hearts to him. We are shaped by the people we meet, and the compassion we have upon each other.

The church is a place where we should recognize not only our strengths, but our weaknesses. It is a place where even though we all have hurts, even though all of us have done wrong, we are reminded that we are not here to judge. We each walk the road we’ve been given and here in this place, we have been brought together to do good works in Jesus’ name. In this church, our weaknesses are not failures, but become a way for us to grow stronger and closer to Jesus.

Amen.

The Goal is Equality

Lamentations 3
2 Corinthians 8

At this time of year we are often concerned with how hot the weather is and what picnics we will be attending. Our minds are on our vacations and our holidays. This is supposed to be the best time of our year when we can relax a little and let the weekends roll by in warm sunshine and laughter.

No one wants to hear about wildfires that have been brought on by this massive heat wave. No one wants to hear about the storms that have hit the East Coast and caused many to lose power for several days and even killed some people. No one wants to hear about an arsonist who might be a young teenager and has burned four homes, killing one person and ruining precious memories.

But these things still exist whether it is our time for summer vacation or not. These realities do not go away just because it is time for us to kick back and relax after a hard year of working. More than ever, the church needs to be vigilant in its work to make sure people like this are taken care of throughout the year, and not just when we have time for them.

That is what Paul is trying to tell the people in Corinth. Corinth could be considered Paul’s problem child. He founded the church and for the last year he has been trying to raise money to send to the church in Jerusalem that desperately needed it. There was a lot of persecution and suffering going on in that church, not unlike today.

At first, the Corinthian church was the first to give money, but then something happened. They lost interest with a church that was so far away from them and instead became more concerned with what was going on around them. Paul is writing this letter in the hopes of inspiring the people to remember that their commitment to God is not just about the things they can see, but the things they cannot.

Faith is about that. Jesus promises us that because we have not seen and yet we believe, our reward and help will be much more than what the disciples received because our faith will be richer. It takes a lot of faith and a lot of strength to continue to support a cause when we cannot see anything good coming from it.

It’s probably why we are so willing to give generously to help out things like Vacation Bible School, but sometimes find ourselves unwilling to give as generously to a mission that does not directly affect our lives and our children’s lives. But both Paul and Jesus are quite clear that God is asking something of us that requires more than a superficial faith.

God has asked us to feed his sheep. Jesus does not say which ones when he speaks to Peter. Jesus does not tell us anything about who the sheep are except to say that we are to love everyone and to treat everyone equally. Paul says the same thing when he tells the church in Corinth that the goal is equality. Some will reap a little and others will reap a lot. But those that reap a little will have just enough as will those that reap more.

Equality is a word that has special importance to Americans, especially on holidays like the one that is coming up this week. Independence Day, where we declare our freedom from tyranny and abuse. The day where we declare all men and women equal in the eyes of the government and in the eyes of the people. This is the day where we celebrate, remember, and recognize the gifted people that set up our democratic government and those that gave their lives not just to create it, but to keep it safe for the last 250 years.

However, there is a problem that has developed in last hundred years as we seek for more and more equality for everyone. People have become so enamored with equality for all, that they have forgot about the collective. Nowhere in the Bible does God talk about the people as individuals. God is always speaking of “My People” or “My sheep”. In the United States, we say we are one people, but the divisions are many and growing.

We are divided in our ideas on politics to such a degree that the two major parties have refused to work together to benefit the good of everyone. We are divided in our finances to such a degree that there is resentment between those who have a lot and those who have a little even when the money has been earned honestly and with hard work. We are divided in our religious ideals to such a degree that new denominations and churches pop up all over the place because no one can agree on things that should not matter as much as we have made them matter.

With such divides, it seems impossible that we can create equality among the masses. How do we breach such chasms? How do we go from being separated to being united after all that has passed to cause these divisions?

Paul tells us that we must take stock of what we have done and what we are still able to do. The church in Corinth began to do great things and then they got caught up in their individuality. Paul reminds them that churches that have a whole lot less than they have given much more to the cause in Jerusalem. He says this to them, not to cause resentment or envy, but to remind them that those who give, will surely receive God’s blessing and thanks.

It’s okay to be different from the rest of the world. It’s okay to have your own agenda and ideas. Differences help to bring out the best. That is why America has always been so proud to be called a Melting Pot – we proposed that our differences did not stop us from creating a great country and it did not stop us from working together.

Until recently. In the last quarter century we have seen the divides widen and we have seen differences that used to be celebrated become scorned. We see the same things happening in our churches and in our families. Why have our hearts become so hardened to others and their thoughts, ideas, and needs? What has created this painful break that is starting to feel inevitable and unstoppable?

Jesus reminds us that we are to love one another without restrictions. Jesus wanted equality for all of us. Paul reminds us that even in our financial dealings we should give without restriction because it will create equality. Throughout the Bible we are reminded that we are to open our hearts and our homes and our churches to everyone without restriction because it will create equality.

I think the day we stopped doing these things is the day the chasm began to grow deeper. When we stopped thinking as an US and started thinking as I. It is not just the government that does this, but the church does it as well. It happened two thousand years ago and it happens today. The only way to stop it is to go back to what Jesus and Paul tell us to do. We are to love others, to give generously and to accept others so that there might be equality among us. So that there might be unity and faith and joy for all people.

I pray it is not too late for this country or for God’s church to reconcile. Instead of celebrating our differences this Independence day, let us celebrate how so many different people could create one beautiful and successful country. Instead of being concerned with what happens only in this church or our denomination, let us celebrate how the many churches lift up their voices on Sunday to sing praises to God, to love the one that loved us first by giving His life for our own. Jesus is the one that made us all equal before God, it is up to us to create equality among all people.

Amen.