First Reading: Amos 5:6-7, 10-15

 ⁶Seek the Lord and live,
  or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire,
  and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
 ⁷Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood,
  and bring righteousness to the ground!

 ¹⁰They hate the one who reproves in the gate,
  and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
 ¹¹Therefore because you trample on the poor
  and take from them levies of grain,
 you have built houses of hewn stone,
  but you shall not live in them;
 you have planted pleasant vineyards,
  but you shall not drink their wine.
 ¹²For I know how many are your transgressions,
  and how great are your sins—
 you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
  and push aside the needy in the gate.
 ¹³Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
  for it is an evil time.
¹⁴Seek good and not evil,
  that you may live;
 and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
  just as you have said.
 ¹⁵Hate evil and love good,
  and establish justice in the gate;
 it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
  will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

Psalm: Psalm 90:12-17

 ¹²So teach us to number our days
  that we may apply our ^| hearts to wisdom.
 ¹³Return, O Lord; how long will you tarry?
  Be gracious to your servants. 
 ¹⁴Satisfy us by your steadfast love in the morning;
  so shall we rejoice and be glad all our days.
 ¹⁵Make us glad as many days as you afflicted us
  and as many years as we suffered adversity.
 ¹⁶Show your servants your works,
  and your splendor ^| to their children.
 ¹⁷May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;
  prosper the work of our hands; prosper our handiwork. 

Second Reading: Hebrews 4:12-16

¹²Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

  ¹⁴Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. ¹⁶Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Gospel: Mark 10:17-31

¹⁷As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ ” ²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
  ²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
  ²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:

The Town Mouse & the Country Mouse

A Town Mouse once visited a relative who lived in the country. The Town Mouse ate very sparingly, nibbling a little of this and a little of that, and by her manner making it very plain that she ate the simple food only to be polite.

After the meal the Town Mouse talked about her life in the city while the Country Mouse listened. They then went to bed. In her sleep the Country Mouse dreamed she was a Town Mouse with all the luxuries and delights of city life that her friend had described for her. So the next day when the Town Mouse asked the Country Mouse to go home with her to the city, she gladly said yes.

When they reached the mansion in which the Town Mouse lived, they found on the table in the dining room the leavings of a very fine banquet. There the most tempting foods that a Mouse can imagine. But just as the Country Mouse was about to nibble, she heard a Cat mew loudly and scratch at the door. In great fear the Mice scurried to a hiding place, where they lay quite still for a long time, hardly daring to breathe. When at last they ventured back to the feast, the door opened suddenly and in came the servants to clear the table, followed by the House Dog.

The Country Mouse left:  “You may have luxuries and dainties that I have not,” she said as she hurried away, “but I prefer my plain food and simple life in the country with the peace and security that go with it.”

PRAYER:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer.

SERMON

         We are nearing the end of Pentecost and Jesus is continuing his journey to Jerusalem and the cross.  We seniors understand “coming to the end of the journey.”  The questions are no longer what car to buy or whom to marry or which job will be the most fulfilling.  We want the world to be better for those who come behind.  “Legacy” is a word that is tossed around and perhaps the question, “What more can I contribute?”  Mark tells us that “a man” runs up to Jesus and kneels like others who approach Jesus desperate for healing.  We learn from other gospels that the man is wealthy and young.  He has youth, wealth, and a good character.  Odds are he was handsome too, princes usually are.  And yet he runs up to Jesus and asks a question that often is in our hearts, that overshadows our text today, and that subtly lies under our social, political, environmental and economic dilemmas in the USA.  We don’t call it eternal life but we quest for the good life, for salvation from the problems that plague us.

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

We are going to look at the request, the reservation, and the rewards for “eternal life”, for the good life.

1. Request

         Good Teacher:

         Our man approaches Jesus as a “good teacher.”  Jesus, as he often does, throws the request back to the man – and us.  Why does the man call Jesus, “good teacher” for only God is good?  Is eternal life or the good life for the good people only?  Must we become good to deserve the good life?  So often it seems that the goodies of life go to the “good” whether that be vaccinations or an easy life style. That is certainly human philosophy.  The law punishes those who are “not good” and perhaps rewards the good with rebates or tax breaks.  One of the questions through out Scripture is this tension of God blessing the good versus the suffering of the innocent and often undeserving.  The book of Job tackles that question as well as the Psalms of Lament.  Somehow we believe that if we were only good enough, God would reward us.  And so the man approaches Jesus as the “good teacher” or perhaps the teacher of good.

         Jesus says point blank:  only God is good.  Ouch.  That’s a bit blunt.  We are all sinners!  I’m not sure I heard a loud “Amen” to that.  I know you are a sinner but I’m trying hard to do life right! Right?  All have sinned.  We have all gone astray.  None of us see God face to face.  With God, it is not the hierarchy of who is better and who is best to determine the degree of blessing. We say, the ground at the foot of the cross is level.

         So did the man come to Jesus as a good teacher or as God?  We must look in our hearts and ask ourselves that question as we start today.  Are we here looking for a good sermon, a good teaching, or are we coming to Jesus as Son of God, involved in all aspects of our life, walking with us, working for our best?  We forget.  We come to worship today to remind ourselves that we are the creation and God is the creator.  We come to center ourselves on this truth.  Only God is good.

         What must I do…

         The man continues to ask what he must do.  What is my end of the deal?  Can we do nothing to procure our salvation?  We understand that “good” is a gift available to all because of Jesus on the cross.  I do nothing to receive the sunrise and sunset but open my hands in appreciation.  My husband would say, I receive it with two hands!  Our works are an outgrowth of our appreciation and love for the gifts of God.  I do not need to buy indulgences.  I do not need to tithe.  I do not need to sing in the choir.  I do not need to do great deeds of faith.  It is not what I do but what God has done.  A bit humbling!

         The apostle James in his epistle reminds us, though, “faith without works is dead.”  Faith that does not impact our lives is cognitive assent.  I may agree that Biden is our President but in reality, it makes little difference in my life.  I believe Jesus is God and my life is changed.  The principles that govern my life shift from self-centered, passion driven to God centered and blessing others.  What must I do?  Receive with both hands open and respond.  I open my hands to receive the good and I open my heart to trust that the hard days, the trials of life, come to me with a God who helps me cope, gives me wisdom and strength and walks with me to eternity.  The hard part is staying focused on God!

         …to inherit eternal life.

         The man wants to secure his inheritance.  The word “inherit” is a bit tricky.  We talk about what we receive from parents when they die, physical blessings.  Many of us can share our stories about the family squabbles over who got what and if the money was split fairly.  It seems our man sees eternal life as a reward in proportion to his actions in life.

          It makes me think of the man who gets to the pearly gates and is questioned by St. Peter.  I don’t see that you attended church, St Peter remarks.  The man replies that his wife did that.  St Peter asks about this and that and the man always replies that his wife took care of this and that.  You can guess who got through the pearly gates, the wife, not the man. We chuckle but for many this reasoning is real.  I often hear people say they feel they have lived the commandment to love neighbors and they believe that will be good enough.  Relationship with God is not the issue and they do not want to choose a church that might offend someone or worst yet, be boring or ask for money.  Eternal life is not a benefit of baptism or confirmation, for passing a test, or for coming from a long line of Lutherans. Having more things does not guarantee happiness. 1 Peter 1:3-5 shares:

            ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his      great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the      resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for    you, ⁵ who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a          salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Only God is good.  We are sinners.  Salvation, the “good life,” is not about works but about faith.  Inheritance comes from relationship, relationship with God, and will be received in heaven.

2. Reservations, the “but”:

         Jesus then turns to the disciples and tells them that it will be hard for the wealthy to inherit the kingdom of heaven.  The disciples are perplexed and discuss further with Jesus.  If our blessings are a sign of God’s blessing then how can blessings be a big stumbling block to heaven?  The problem is not the blessings but that they become like a huge burden that a camel is trying to carry into Jerusalem. We begin to focus on our burdens and our progress.  It is not because of assets but because of the impact of those assets.  I know we are having a big – to be spelled capital BIG – debate about the Reconciliation Bill that is going to spend trillions without raising taxes because we are going to tax the wealthy to give a better life to the poor.  It sounds somehow reasonable and may work on paper but obviously half the country, or half the Senate anyway, is a bit dubious about this plan.  This sermon is not to be political but to point out that the confusion of the disciples resonates with us.  The good life and eternal life does not come from wealth or physical blessings.  The country mouse will not be happier by moving to the city.  It would seem that Jesus is saying that wealth is not a reward for our good behavior but a blessing to be used to bless others.  Let’s go back to the analogy.

         Jesus shares that it is easier for a camel to crawl through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter heaven.  Now, I don’t know if that is a picture or a gate into Jerusalem but it makes me wonder what needle we are trying thread today.  Perhaps we are pulling our hair out with health issues and the medical system.  Perhaps we are struggling with the limitations of aging.  The young are trying to figure out jobs and spouses.  There is no end to the dilemmas we face.  Often we feel like that camel with a load on our back, trying to crawl through the present mess for surely tomorrow will be better if we can get through today!

“Then who can be saved?” 

         The disciples respond, “Who then can be saved?”  How can we find the right answer that will bring us good?  Jesus is again very blunt, we on our own can’t do it.  We’ll botch it up every time.  What is impossible for us, only becomes possible with God.  Bethany is looking for a new pastor and we hear the feedback, no pastors coming out of seminary, finances are low, what and what, and it is possible to throw our hands up in the air and pull out our hair.  Are we factoring in God?  God can help us thread that needle.  God reminds the Israelites in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”  We like that verse and it reminds us that when the clouds are the darkest, the impossible is possible with God, if we put our hand in his.

         Only God is good.  We are sinners and our world is corrupted with sin and death.  The good life that we strive for looks impossible to achieve by our own efforts but we must never forget that God is working, and often outside our boxes we put around him.

3.  Rewards

         Peter speaks out the question of our hearts, “What’s in it for me?”  Often following Jesus feels like loss and frustration as we face the trials of life and make choices we believe honor God.  Peter has left home and family.  We have refused bars and fudging on income taxes.  We have tried.  So many times we see in a glass dimly and we are not sure as we step into an unknown future. Can you hear that little evil voice in your ear, whispering, “Have you really done enough?”

         Jesus looked at the man kneeling before him and saw the sincerity of his heart and our text says, “Jesus loved him.”  WOW.  Jesus does not tell Peter, “Get behind me Satan.”  Jesus looks at how hard the man and Peter are working to do life right and has compassion.  Our rewards are not in the goodies of this world but are being held in the future and in a place where they will not become corrupted by sin and decay and old age.  Nor will they be taxed or lost in a stock market crash.

         “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or      sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for    the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and      fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. The country mouse hears about the wonderful life in the city with all sorts of goodies.  The mouse forgets the blessings of its life as it focuses on its cousin’s life.  So often we are like that little mouse or like the man kneeling before Jesus.  We know Jesus is the source of good and so we run to him.  What more must we do to get the good life?  Somehow we think that blessings come because of who we are and we forget that it is because of who God is.  God is good.  God is on the journey with us.  God is helping us thread the eye of the needle with our loads on our backs.  One day we will be rewarded with eternal rewards.  Jesus looks on us with love and says, “Don’t worry, I am with you, leading, guiding and rewarding. “  And the people of God said, AMEN!

First Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

 ⁴The Lord God has given me
  the tongue of a teacher,
 that I may know how to sustain
  the weary with a word.
 Morning by morning he wakens—
  wakens my ear
  to listen as those who are taught.
 ⁵The Lord God has opened my ear,
  and I was not rebellious,
  I did not turn backward.
 ⁶I gave my back to those who struck me,
  and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
 I did not hide my face
  from insult and spitting.

 ⁷The Lord God helps me;
  therefore I have not been disgraced;
 therefore I have set my face like flint,
  and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
  ⁸he who vindicates me is near.
 Who will contend with me?
  Let us stand up together.
 Who are my adversaries?
  Let them confront me.
 ^9aIt is the Lord God who helps me;
  who will declare me guilty?

Psalm: Psalm 116:1-9

 ¹I love the Lord, who has heard my voice,
  and listened to my supplication,
 ²for the Lord has given ear to me
  whenever I called.
 ³The cords of death entangled me; the anguish of the grave came upon me;
  I came to grief and sorrow.
 ⁴Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
  “O Lord, I pray you, save my life.” 
 ⁵Gracious is the Lord and righteous;
  our God is full of compassion.
 ⁶The Lord watches over the innocent;
  I was brought low, and God saved me.
 ⁷Turn again to your rest, O my soul.
  for the Lord has dealt well with you.
 ⁸For you have rescued my life from death,
  my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling;
 ⁹I will walk in the presence of the Lord
  in the land of the living.

Second Reading: James 3:1-12

¹Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. ²For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is perfect, able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle. ³If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴Or look at ships: though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.
  How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹²Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Gospel: Mark 8:27-38

²⁷Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” ²⁸And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

  ³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
  ³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  If you were asked who you are, what would you say?  Turn to your neighbor and give five titles or words that might describe you:  father, friend…..

Prayer:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

         SERMON

If I were to ask you this morning who are the characters associated with these names, what would you say?

         Clark Kent  (wait for people to answer)  (Superman),  

         Peter Parker    (Spiderman)

         Bruce Wayne  (Batman), 

         Prisoner 24601  (Jean Valjean from Les          Miserables) 

         And perhaps a bit harder:  Sir Percy  (Scarlet Pimpernel)

All these are fictional characters that we have loved.  We could also talk about legendary spies, not to mention stories of people who have led double lives.  Figuring out their character and their mission is always fun.  Today as we look at our text about Jesus, I suspect we are challenged with similar dynamics.  Mark continues in chapter 8 with Jesus working in northern Israel but heading south to Jerusalem.  We know what’s coming but the disciples do not.  Jesus has been doing miracles…as usual…but he suddenly changes the conversation.  “Who do people say that I am?”   Perhaps that is like asking, what is my public persona?  When I have my act together, when I’m on stage, when my fans are applauding, how do they see me?  The disciples share some of the rumors: John the Baptist, Elijah, or perhaps one of the prophets.  Today we might say he is “channeling” one of the greats if not a reincarnation of them.

         When we are introduced often our name is given but often attached is a role, “He’s my dad, my teacher, my boss…”  We adopted two African children in Kenya so when we picked them up from school here in the States their friends would often say, “Is SHE your mother?”  The cat was out of the bag and they were immediately labeled “adopted” with a past.  We went through a phase when walking with us was not top priority.  Jesus has been in the public eye, teaching, healing, doing miracles and in high demand wherever he goes.  But who is he really, outside the limelight?  Jesus turns to the disciples who know him best and have traveled with him,

“But who do you say that I am?”

         Now there is a good question.  How do we answer it?  Peter, who always wanting to be top in the class, blurts out, “You are the Messiah.” Right answer, wrong definition!  Peter for all his bluster has said the right word but probably sees “messiah” as the crowd does.  The messiah was thought to be the person who would lead them out of domination by the Romans and reinstate their old glory from the days of King David and King Solomon. 

         -Today a girl might talk about a man as “baby daddy.”  The man is the biological father of a child but does not embrace the sociological definition of caring, nurturing, or providing for the child.  It does not even imply an impending marriage necessarily. 

         -When home schooling first came onto the American scene, I struggled with any mother being given the title “teacher” while professional teachers went through a rigorous training program.  Now children go to school via zoom. The title “teacher” is hard to pinpoint.

         -Many people will admit they believe in Jesus but think of him as one of the great profits like Mohammed, or a guru like Gandhi, perhaps a teacher like Confucius.  “You drink your kool-aid and I’ll drink mine,” is a saying I hear from young people.  The one I heard this week was, “Everybody needs something to believe in.”

         Who do you say Jesus is?  Turn to your neighbor and share how you might describe Jesus to someone.

         Jesus turns to the disciples and begins to lead them into a deeper understanding of “messiah.”  Interestingly he identifies himself as “Son of Man.”  “…the Son of Man must undergo suffering…”  Jesus brings to the forefront of his discussion his humanness.  Human leaders, even if they are a messiah, must die. Humans are mortal. He is quite clear that he must suffer, be killed, but then will rise in three days.  It does not make sense for they have not lived it.  Probably it would seem that he has gone from “now” to death and skipped the middle of the story, the part where he becomes “messiah” and restores the kingdom.  Likewise, I suspect for many of us, we want God to take us to the healing, to spiritual maturity and just skip that messy in-between stuff like trials.  We want our stockings filled with the things we want and the trials are not on our wish list.  Nor do we consider trials as coming from God for like Peter and the Jews at that time, the Messiah was thought to be the “person” who would restore happy-ever-after.  We believe Jesus is “true God” and could snap his fingers and fix our lives.  It’s true but then we would be robots and he a controller.  Perhaps we could say that the Messiah does not save us from trial but walks with us through trials, the horrible, painful, ugly trials of life.   Jesus will illustrate that with his life.   The Son of Man will walk through death with his creation.  Who is Jesus?  Son of Man and as such must die.

         “I object!”  Is that not what the attorneys yell in court.  Peter takes Jesus aside and tries to present a course correction. Peter rebukes Jesus.  Could it be that Jesus has misunderstood or skipped a couple chapters?  Jesus turns to Peter in-front of the disciples and says, “Get behind me Satan!”  Ouch.  Satan does not want Jesus entering his kingdom, the kingdom of death.  I talk about that little voice sitting on our shoulder and whispering to us, “Eat that cookie, God wouldn’t want you to be hungry.”  It is the voice that encourages us to chew on the perceived slight and offense of the other.  It is the voice that points out how strangely the foreigner dresses.  Yes, we know that voice that comes from Peter and that tempts us too to avoid the cross.

         That little voice whispering will try to shift our focus from honoring God and doing life his way to focus on self and our wants and needs.  In the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus responds to Satan with scripture.  Now the temptation in this moment is not to manipulate God’s promises but it is a temptation to disobedience.  This is not tempting Jesus to change a rock to bread but it is to avoid the cross.  Jesus responds with a total dismissal, “Get behind me Satan.”  Sometimes we just need to tell Satan – get lost.  We call it spiritual warfare.  When I get the woe-is-me-s, my-life-is-horrible, bargaining no longer works.  I must dismiss Satan and turn on music, read Scripture, pray, or call a friend.  I must take decisive action to focus on God.

         Jesus continues, titles are also explanations of relationships.  I am not a teacher if I do not have students.  I am not a baby father unless there was a woman willing to engage with me.  Jesus cannot be Messiah unless there are people that come into relationship with him.  So the title “Messiah” has social implications for the lives of those he has come to save – not from Rome, but people who will grow a relationship with Jesus, as “his body.”  These followers are entering a life of service even as their leader, their messiah has.  Jesus says that his followers will also take their cross as they follow him.  It is not Christmas presents for believing but a lifestyle of discipleship.

         The title “Messiah” is not a call to health, wealth, and prosperity.  Hmmm. Many are healed, but not all.  Many are rescued, but not all.  Some will be persecuted.  And many die as martyrs.  Jesus is calling people to follow him, to discipleship and to a lifestyle reflecting relationship with him, not to the good life.  What do we gain, you ask.  Eternity!

“For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?”

         So where does that leave us today?  What do we take home to feed our souls during this week?  Jesus closes this text with a serious question.  What do we gain if we get all the goodies of life but loose our eternal soul?           We all have titles or names that locate us in time, history, family, and society.  Those names, like Messiah, give people a window into who we are and what they may expect of us.  But those names and titles have layers of meanings that become clearer and clearer as we live into relationship with others and better understand ourselves and them.  Peter probably thought Jesus was going to be the “Messiah,” a savior of Jewish society then but Jesus points us to a deeper understanding. The messiah came to save humanity and walk with them even through death.  We have the blessing of walking with the Messiah through the trials of this life but also he will welcome us into eternity.  The cross is real and trials will come but Jesus will be walking with us and he understands.  That relationship that is implied by the title is reciprocal.  Messiah is not just something that happens to us but it describes a relationship he has with us, we with him and with others. We too walk in his footsteps. 

         What title do we give ourselves and Jesus today as we dig deeper? What do those titles mean to you today?  Let us not gain the world and loose our souls.  Amen.

First Reading: Isaiah 35:4-7a

 ⁴Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
  “Be strong, do not fear!
 Here is your God.
  He will come with vengeance,
 with terrible recompense.
  He will come and save you.”
 ⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
 ⁶then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
 For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
  and streams in the desert;
 ^7athe burning sand shall become a pool,
  and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Psalm: Psalm 146

 ¹Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord, O my soul!
 ²I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
  I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
 ³Put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there  is no help.
 ⁴When they breathe their last, they return to earth,
  and in that day their thoughts perish. 
 ⁵Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help,
  whose hope is in the Lord their God;
 ⁶who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;
  who keeps promises forever;
 ⁷who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who    hunger.  The Lord sets the captive free.
 ⁸The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are    bowed down; the Lord^| loves the righteous. 
 ⁹The Lord cares for the stranger; the Lord sustains the orphan and        widow, but frustrates the way ^|of the wicked.
 ¹⁰The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, throughout all     generations. Hallelujah! 

Second Reading: James 2:1-10 [11-13] 14-17

¹My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ²For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” ⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? ⁷Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
  ⁸You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ⁹But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. [¹¹For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹²So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.]
  ¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? ¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Gospel: Mark 7:24-37

²⁴[Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,²⁵but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. ²⁶Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” ²⁸But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” ²⁹Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
  ³¹Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. ³²They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. ³³He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. ³⁴Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. ³⁶Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. ³⁷They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Share with your neighbor where your favorite vacation spot is?  What do you like to do there?

Prayer:  Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

         We take vacations to get away and unwind from our normal routines.  For those of us who have jobs in the public eye, it’s nice to be incognito for a week or two and enjoy family.  My family loved to go to Mombasa on the Kenya coast where we could go out on the reef and snorkel when the tide was out.  It was like swimming in a tropical fish aquarium.  My son and I went reefing one day and jumped into one of the tide pools of water to see the fish only an eel was looking out of the reef at me.  That was the fastest exit I ever made.  Many times we read that Jesus withdrew and tried to take his disciples for a rest but the crowds followed.  Today our text finds Jesus as he has gone to the coast cities that are now in Lebanon, totally Gentile area. Even here, though, he is recognized. 

         In the last couple weeks our texts tell of Jesus traveling around the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, followed by the crowds and so feeding 5000 with two fish and five loaves of bread.  He debates with the Jews about him being the bread of life that we must eat, and then last week he confronts the Pharisees. Jesus says, it is what comes out of our heart and not what goes into our stomach that defiles us.  I wonder if he was as tired as I am of talking about bread and yet here we are again today talking about bread, or crumbs of bread anyway.

         Perhaps Jesus has gone to Lebanon, the Phoenician coast, for a break. Our text finds him in Tyre and Sidon.  It says he did not want the  people to know he was there.  But we know, just as the girl in Borne Trilogy knows about Jason Bourne, “Jesus does not do random.”  I do not think Jesus was taking a vacation because he was tired, but he did head to the area of the Gentiles.  Something is about to happen.  We best pay attention.  While the Samaritans were descendants of the Jews, the Canaanites on the Phoenician coast were Gentiles, total heathens. They probably spoke Greek and worshipped pagan gods. Why did Jesus go there?

Jesus’ ministry included Gentiles!

         We do not know why he went there but we do know Jesus “could not escape notice.”  Romans 1 talks about the reality of God being obvious to all people – regardless of the presence of Christian witness.  God’s fingerprints are on creation. People may not know about Jesus but they are aware of God.  It would appear in this case that Jesus’ reputation has preceded him so that as he enters both Tyre and Sidon he is recognized and sought after. 

         Our ears should go up as we hear this.  Are we listening?  Just as the Magi arrive at the birth of Jesus thus including us Gentiles, you and me, in the Christmas story and in God’s plan, our text today brings you and me into legitimate recipients in the ministry of Jesus.  This is not a parable but a real story of God in Jesus caring for Gentiles, for you and me.  We are not after-thoughts but we are part of “the Plan.”

         Have you ever found yourself whining about the hierarchies of power and prestige in our world?  Feminists grumble because of male power.  People of color talk about white entitlement.  The discussion of masks now is becoming a “rights” issue as people with health issues have the right to be protected and safe in schools.  Texas courts are revisiting the abortion question.  It is exhausting.  The woman and the man in our reading today face all the social protocols of their day.  The woman is at the bottom of the power chain with a child with an unclean spirit.  I bet people avoided her house.  The man in Sidon is deaf and tongue-tied. Carrying on a conversation with him would have been very limited and frustrating. I would wager to say that his friendship circle was limited also.  A woman’s child and a deaf man are in dire need of help and have nowhere to turn in their culture.  Jesus comes to town.  Is Jesus going to work outside the box of everyone’s expectations and engage with Gentiles, with you and me?  Let’s see.

         I note that neither of the sick Gentiles directly approach Jesus, neither the sick child nor the deaf man. Their representatives, their sponsors approach Jesus.  The little girl’s mother bows before Jesus with her request.  The anonymous “they” bring the deaf man to Jesus.  Neither the girl nor the deaf man is able to represent themselves.  We know this scene. We bring our children to baptism even before they understand, even before they are able to express faith.  We come like the Syrophoenician woman and like the friends of the deaf man and we bow before Jesus.  We are helpless to save ourselves or the people around us.  We can only intercede for them.

         I do not know about you but I recognize that feeling these days as I watch the evening news.  I am powerless to impact the scenes coming out of Kabul, out of Louisiana, out of the hospitals strained with Covid, and helpless families seeing their homes burned.  I suspect many of us are on our knees for wayward children caught in difficult marriages or addictions, for friends fighting cancer or the diminishing of age…all those things that drive us to intercessory prayer.  Bringing others to Jesus is an important ministry.  This woman and this man’s friends give us hope that Jesus listens, cares and can handle our fears and anxieties.

Jesus responds, ²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

Let’s name the elephant in the room.  To our American ears this sounds like an insult.  Jews considered Gentiles dogs.  The Jews were the chosen people and this woman, not even a man, was pleading for help for her daughter.  Did Jesus see the woman as a dog and insult her?  Our culture struggles here and often reads it that way.

         Perhaps we might consider Jesus was tired and impatient but that interpretation offends our belief in him as true God and true man.  Can God be impatient with us? Uuuuummmmm??  Maybe.  I fear we often treat God like a credit card.  Request in and response comes out.  But as we look at the heroes in the Old Testament, we often see this tug of conversation over “The Plan.”  Moses goes back and forth with God at the burning bush about sending him back to Egypt to face his past and be the agent for bringing deliverance to the Israelites.  Later in the wilderness when God tells Moses to lead the people but God will not accompany them, Moses responds – just kill me cause I’m not going forward without you!  Then there is Abraham bartering with the angels over the out come of Sodom and Gomorra.  50 people, well how about 40, maybe 30, on down to 10 good people to change God’s wrath.  I believe we have the whole book of Job arguing with God that he is innocent and undeserving of a rough life. God is a real being and does not shy away from real interactions with rough edges.  He is not afraid of our angry feelings or our grief.  The lamenting Psalms comfort us greatly.  This exchange between the Syrophoenician woman and Jesus falls well within the boundaries of honest, transparent conversation.  He does not pull rank and confront her with her powerlessness in life but gives her an idiom. 

         Jesus gives this Gentile woman an idiom, the same way he has been giving parables to people throughout his ministry.  In Matthew 7:6 in the Sermon on the Mount at the beginning of his ministry he admonishes the Jews not to cast their pearls before swine.  Is he calling the Jews pigs or is he making a point about faith?

         From my experience as a missionary in Africa, I soon found that there were strong eating habits – even as we have.  The men ate in the living room and got the best.  Next the children were fed.  Last, often eating the leftovers in the pot were the women.  We women were serving a banquet for visiting church leaders for the graduation the next day.  One of our staff stood and tried to hush the children.  He said, “Let’s be quiet because we know what is coming next!”  My five year old daughter yelled out, “CAKE!”  The room cheered and I realized she would have been very out of place yelling like that at our church banquet.  Let us not be hasty to jump to conclusions from our culture about Jesus’ intent.

         Jesus has made a major new move by going into the Gentile area and performing miracles.  He has included us in his plan.  Jesus has used similar techniques for engaging with people, speaking in parables or idioms that challenge faith.  But amazing in this first encounter is the woman’s response.

         The amazing thing is not the idiom but that the woman took the idiom and ran with it.  “Even dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table.”  She did not act insulted at the comparison because prejudice was known but she was able to speak into the saying with faith. She was not asking for anything more than a crumb of grace for that, she knew, was enough.  She understood the vastness of God, her own insignificance, and her desperate need for a crumb of grace.  How guilty are we of wanting the whole solution to our problems as we think they ought to be handled – right now.  We are so impatient with God’s timing and God’s ways.  Do you hear the little voice on your shoulder saying, surely God doesn’t want you to suffer.  Surely God doesn’t love your sick child.  Surely those other people deserve their struggles for secret sins.  The woman acknowledges the broken, prejudiced world she lived in and asked for a crumb…for her daughter.  Jesus responded to her faith.  Jesus responds to our faith also!

         The “friends” bring the deaf and tongue-tied man to Jesus for help.  Jesus takes him aside, puts his fingers in his ears, and spits and touches his tongue.  This encounter does not seem to deal with Jesus confronting evil as much as Jesus correcting the impact of sin on birth.  Not all problems are punishments from God or evil seeking to destroy us.  We are broken people living in a broken world.  When we play with fire, we get burned.  When wars break out, innocent people are killed.  Martyrs die for standing up for the truth.  Jesus dealt with this man differently but more importantly, Jesus had compassion and healed him.

         We do not know what happened to the healed people nor to their sponsors but we do know that people could not keep quiet about the healings.  When was the last time we were so touched and so excited about God acting in our lives that we were just bursting at the seams and had to tell someone?  Perhaps we are back to Jesus’ idiom, “the food of the children is not meant for dogs.”  We are the children of God and his grace is meant for us.  We do not need a whole loaf, we only need a crumb.  God’s grace is so abounding that we not be afraid of the person who worships slightly differently than us, speaks differently than us, or comes from a different background than us.  God will deal with each of us personally and with love.

           The crumbs are meant to feed people so perhaps we can also ask who we are feeding.  Who are we bringing to Christ today?  I do not believe Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon to vacation but to show you and me that we too are recipients of the crumbs of bread that fall from the master’s table.  But like the Syrophoenician woman and the friends of the deaf man may we never forget the power of standing up for someone else who needs God’s grace.  Jesus healed Gentiles and he is here working in Bethany today.  Thank you Lord.  I feel refreshed by taking time with you – just as good as a vacation!  AMEN!

First Reading: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

¹Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. ^2aAnd Joshua said to all the people, ¹⁴“Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
  ¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; ¹⁸and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

Psalm: Psalm 34:15-22

 ¹⁵The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous,
  and God’s ears are open to their cry.
 ¹⁶The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
  to erase the remembrance of them from the earth.
 ¹⁷The righteous cry, and the Lord hears them
  and delivers them from all their troubles.
 ¹⁸The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
  and saves those whose spirits are crushed. 
 ¹⁹Many are the troubles of the righteous,
  but the Lord delivers them from every one.
 ²⁰God will keep safe all their bones;
  not one of them shall be broken.
 ²¹Evil will bring death to the wicked
  and those who hate the righteous will be punished.
 ²²O Lord, you redeem the life of your servants,
  and those who put their trust in you will not be punished.

Second Reading: Ephesians 6:10-20

¹⁰Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. ¹¹Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹²For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. ¹⁴Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. ¹⁵As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. ¹⁶With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
  ¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. ¹⁹Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.

Gospel: John 6:56-69

 [Jesus said,] ⁵⁶“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” ⁵⁹He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
  ⁶⁰When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” ⁶¹But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶²Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? ⁶³It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. ⁶⁴But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. ⁶⁵And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
  ⁶⁶Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. ⁶⁷So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” ⁶⁸Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Children’s Sermon

         Turn to your neighbor and share where one of your favorite “retreat” spots.  Now share who might be a person you would go see if you needed advice.  Let us pray.

Prayer:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my rock and my redeemer.

SERMON

“Lord, to whom can we go?

You have the words of eternal life. 

⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

We sing these words from our Gospel today and they sound familiar.  They are sung as our Gospel Acclamation in Worship Setting 6, during Lent.  So let us ponder them today in light of the accompanying readings.  What do they mean to us as we sing them?

         The disciples have been following Jesus back and forth across the sea of Galilee.   Jesus fed the 5,000 with bread, similar to God sending manna to the Israelites in the wilderness when they grumbled to Moses.  There is a strong parallel between the wilderness experience and our assigned texts. These past weeks we keep returning to this theme of “manna in the wilderness” and Jesus as the bread of life. Jesus tries to explain what he is saying to the crowds who grumble.  Perhaps to make this real, let us pause and remember a time we grumbled this week.  Was it over having to wait for something?  Was it the price of something?  Was it because a beloved forgot to remember us?  Yup, we are not that different from the Israelites in the wilderness or the Jews traipsing around after Jesus.

“Lord, to whom can we go?

In our first reading Joshua is getting ready to retire.  He is 110 years old.  He stood at the side of Moses and was taught.  He was there on Mt. Sinai at the giving of the Ten Commandments.  He took over after Moses and led the people across the Jordon into the adventure of the Promised Land.  He fought the battle of Jericho.  A lot happened in his lifetime!  The whole journey was lived not as a happy-ever-after story but as a struggle with the tendency to grumble and the temptation to idolatry.  Remember the Golden Calf?

         If we were to draw a timeline of the major social events in many of our life times, we might see a similar picture.  Most of us were born after the traumas of World War II but remember words like Korean War, Vietnam War, and Desert Storm.  We grieve at the news reports today about Afghanistan.  I remember life before day long TV, before streaming, before credit cards AND when phone numbers started with letters – no area codes.  We have lived through the invention of microwaves, hybrid cars, and airplane travel as a common blessing.  Yes, we have seen a lot and in all truth, grumbled a lot as we have learned to master all the change.  I suspect more than once we have wondered where God is in all this and more than once cried over the events in our lives.

         Joshua stands in-front of his people and challenges them,

         “¹⁴“Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in   faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond     the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. ¹⁵Now if you are unwilling         to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the      gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the         gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and          my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Jesus turns to his disciples today as they struggle to understand what he is talking about when he says they must eat his body and drink his blood.  He  asks them, “Do you also wish to go away?”  I listen to the news reports each evening and fear atrocities will unfold in Afghanistan, wonder who I know will be next to get Covid, wonder if I will be able to age gracefully or what burden I will be asked to carry and I hear that little voice on my shoulder whispering, “Where is God in all this?” and of course, the question, “Do you also wish to go away?”

         With Peter, whom we know will fail, we say, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

         Joshua offers the people choices. Consider the gods of the people surrounding them.  We too could look at the “gods” people worship today.  Is wealth a god worth chasing?  Perhaps the rich will not mind being taxed more to help the poor and perhaps economic equality will be reached but will it bring happiness and wisdom.  I doubt it.  Is talent of Hollywood a god we wish to chase?  As far as I can tell our stars age, fame passes, and the critiques are … critical.  Perhaps we would like to chase the god of health.  Well, folks, as far as I can tell, none of us will outrun the biological clock of aging forever.  We look around at the gods this world offers, even the gods of other religions, and it is easy to despair at the options.

         Joshua challenges the people to remember their history.  It is possible to remember all the valleys we have passed through and see the bad. Or it is possible to look and see the hand of the Lord guiding and protecting us along the way.  The Psalmist reminds us that “⁵The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and God’s ears are open to their cry.”

         To whom shall we go today?  To the gods of this world or to the God who sees and hears, whose arm is not short and who never slumbers or sleeps?  Each day we choose who our gods are.

“Lord, to whom can we go?

You have the words of eternal life.” 

“Words of eternal life.”  Our second reading is from Ephesians and clearly acknowledges that we live in a broken world facing challenges that are far beyond us.

         ¹²For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but        against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers    of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the       heavenly places. 

The enemy is not our spouse, our neighbor, our parent, our boss, our old car or even the government.  We are indeed experiencing reality as it was not meant to be. But that does not mean that another future is not forming.  The kingdom of the world will be replaced by the kingdom of heaven one day.  We need the words of eternal life to stay focused on the God we follow.  Ephesians admonishes us to strap on the belt of truth and use the sword of the Spirit that is the word of God.  What are some of those words?

• The Lord is my Shepherd…he walks with me through the valley of the shadow of death
• Nothing can separate us from the love of God, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation.
• “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” say the Lord God, “who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I do not know what “word of eternal life” has encouraged you.  Let’s turn to your neighbor and share a verse that has been helpful to you. Mine is my confirmation verse, Isaiah 41:10, “ So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”   Please share.

“Lord, to whom can we go?

You have the words of eternal life. 

⁶⁹We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

         My theory has always been that the Old Testament, or first, reading presents the problem that will be tackled on that Sunday.  Joshua is challenging the people to choose which god they are going to follow.  Will it be the gods of Egypt, their past, or the gods of the people surrounding them, their future, or will it be the God who has led them through the wilderness?  Next comes the reading from the Psalms.  We often read that responsively because we as the congregation are joining together to speak our thoughts about the challenge.  The New Testament, or second, reading is the explanation of how the early church understood the teachings of Jesus on the topic.  We stand for the Gospel as that is always the words of Jesus speaking into our lives that Sunday.

         Today we start with the challenge, we must choose which God we will follow.  Jesus says that following means “eating his body and drinking his blood,” a difficult teaching.  The early church heard it as putting on the armor of God.  That’s the overview.  I want to go back to the Psalm for today as it shares what “we have come to believe and know” is true about “the Holy One of God.”  You might reopen your bulletins and review with me.

• Verse 15:  God sees us and hears us because we stand in Christ’s righteousness not our own good deeds.
• Verse 16:  God opposes evil and it will be erased.  God will restore justice.  
• Verse 17:  God not only hears our cries but he acts, perhaps not as we wish but always for our best.  His desire is to deliver us.
• Verse 18:  During those times when we are too broken to pray, when we are overwhelmed with doubts, when we forget who we are, he remembers us and draws near.   
• Verse 19, 20:  We will have troubles but God walks through them with us.
• Verse 21, 22:  Death is the end of the wicked but we can look forward to eternal life.  We are redeemed.

Like the disciples we probably don’t really understand what this eating and drinking Jesus is talking means.  Jesus is God, not us, and so that always puts our faith, not in the driver’s seat but in a position of needing to trust that God will do what is best because he sees the big picture and has our best at heart.  God speaks and we trust.  Where else can we go?  Jesus has the words of eternal life and he is the Holy One of God.  He goes with us into this week.  He is there in Afghanistan.  He is with people struggling with Covid.  He is with those in chaos from environmental extremes and he is even with our government.  I don’t understand but I do believe.  ¹⁴“Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness.”  Amen!

First Reading: 1 Kings 19:4-8

⁴[Elijah] went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”⁵Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” ⁶He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. ⁷The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-8

 ¹I will bless the Lord at all times;
  the praise of God shall ever be in my mouth.
 ²I will glory in the Lord;
  let the lowly hear and rejoice.
 ³Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord;
  let us exalt God’s name together.
 ⁴I sought the Lord, who answered me
  and delivered me from all my terrors. 
 ⁵Look upon the Lord and be radiant,
  and let not your faces be ashamed.
 ⁶I called in my affliction, and the Lord heard me
  and saved me from all my troubles.
 ⁷The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear the Lord
  and delivers them.
 ⁸Taste and see that the Lord is good;
  happy are they who take refuge in God! 

Second Reading: Ephesians 4:25–5:2

²⁵So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. ²⁶Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷and do not make room for the devil. ²⁸Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. ²⁹Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. ³¹Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, ³²and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. ^5:1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, ²and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51

³⁵Jesus said to [the crowd,] “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ⁴¹Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴²They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” ⁴³Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.⁴⁵It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. ⁴⁶Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. ⁵⁰This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Turn to your neighbor and tell them briefly about your favorite type of bread or a favorite memory involving bread.

Let us pray:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.“

We start today where we left off last week.  We are still tracking with the conversations between the hungry crowds who followed Jesus from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other, being fed with teaching but also with bread and fish.  Could Jesus be the Messiah and the King that will feed them forever?

         Before we jump to the crowd’s discussion with Jesus, let us review the scene of Moses and the people of Israel in the wilderness, as there is a strong parallel that both Jesus and the crowd are drawing on.  In Exodus 16, God delivered the people of Israel from Egypt, protected them through the Red Sea, three days later gave them water at Marah and led them to springs at Elim. But, … but 15 days into the next leg of the journey, the people “grumble.”  The food supply for so many seems so little.  So God supplied quails for meat and manna for bread.  Moses told the people, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning because he has heard your grumbling against him.”

         Drawing a parallel to Moses and the people in the wilderness grumbling, Jesus claims to be bread from heaven, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  The people grumble, looking at Jesus but blinded by physical reality.  Is he not the son of Joseph?  Sometimes what we know, or think we know, blinds us to the spiritual truth that is facing us.  Jesus claims to be bread from heaven but obviously he is a person they think they know. 

         You shared with your neighbor your favorite bread.  My whole family would vote for Paul’s Bakery in Kenya.  It was on the outskirts of our town and we would stop by and get a long, rectangle loaf that was fresh from the ovens, dense in texture, aromatic, with the plastic bag clinging to its warmth.  We would each take a handful and savor it in our mouth.  Did I mention how good it smelled?  Sometimes our faith is like those memories of our favorite bread.  The bread Moses provided appeared every morning on the ground and satisfied.  How can Jesus be like that bread?  The people are confused and they grumble, just like the people of old.

         So what do we “know” that stops us from hearing or understanding Jesus saying that he is the bread of life?  For many Americans, I thinking spiritual learning is thought to be done in Sunday school as a child with Bible stories and pictures.  “Adult Sunday school” seems like a contradiction of terms.  We know the basics and the adventure of daily devotions does not entice us.  OR, perhaps we remember those spiritual highs of camp as youth.  The campfire, rousing songs, good fellowship, challenging speaker all lie dormant in our hearts as we come to church and our soul wants that emotional experience that warmed us so.  Many, many young adults finish confirmation and feel they now know the basics of faith and do not need to build on that cognitive foundation. Perhaps we too feel our baptism and confirmation is enough and growth does not seem necessary.  God loves us, right?  For other adults the reality of life with all the potholes of divorce, death of children, illness creates a cynicism about faith and Jesus. Our hearts are numb with disappointment as we have a sour taste in our mouth about Jesus.  And of course, how do we choose which church, which faith, where to start devotions – so many choices, we throw our hands in the air — tomorrow!  Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” and we do not think of that bread of our dreams that smelled so good and that we could eat at any time and was so satisfying.  Like the Jews, familiarity breeds, perhaps not contempt but laziness in our relationship with Christ.

         I want to read The Message version of the next part of the conversation.  It is far easier to follow Jesus’ reasoning of the text.

            ^43-46 Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End. This is what the prophets meant when they wrote, ‘And then they will all be personally taught by God.’ Anyone who has spent any time at all listening to the Father, really listening and therefore learning, comes to me to be taught personally—to see it with his own eyes, hear it with his own ears, from me, since I have it firsthand from the Father. No one has seen the Father except the One who has his Being alongside the Father—and you can see me.

Jesus responds, “Do not complain among yourselves. ⁴⁴No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.”  The people are mistaken.  The bread is a gift from God and God draws them to him even as the smell of bread draws us to the kitchen. It is only after we are drawn to the bread, drawn to Jesus, that we are able to eat, to be fed.   Jesus points out that the joy of the experience is actually rooted in the relationship with the giver and the relationship we experience around the gift.  We need to realize the gift, the bread, is God reaching out for relationship.

         We are continually challenged by the Word of God to see beyond what we know, the obvious, through our human experience to see the eternal truth that God is calling us to.  The parables Jesus tells always have that ironic twist that makes us think and reinterpret reality.  It is the Samaritan, the foreigner, who is the Good Samaritan.  Jesus tells Nicodemus, an old man, he must be born again.  Jesus heals on the Sabbath.  The water at the wedding becomes wine. Jesus is using the image of bread to speak of feeding that deep hunger in our hearts that draws us to God who wants relationship.

         Perhaps another way of saying this is that faith is not a work we do but a relationship we are drawn into.  We do not read the Bible because we want good marks from God for starting or ending the day right.  We don’t do it because we have to.  We do it because even as we check in with our friends or spouse, we want to check in with God and chat.  Drawing close to God and hearing his voice feeds our souls even as bread feeds our bodies.  God calls us to wholeness.

         I think the word we use now to talk about a “substitute” or look alike product is “knock off.”  Can you believe there is a coffee shop called “Sunbucks” with a logo in a green circle?  Lots of things imitate and present a false identity.  Jesus claims he is from the real God who teaches us personally, face to face, an incarnation of God the Father for his creation.  He is the real thing, not the substitute and he is the one who will raise us up on the last day.  He is the real thing.  Don’t be confused by what you think you know about him!  Don’t chase knock-offs because they are cheaper.

         So how do we reconcile grumbling and faith that results from God drawing us in?  We live in that irony.  We live in the mysterious.  We have free will as we come and yet we are drawn.  Perhaps that realization gives us patience with youth who are still developing, with friends who are so resistant to our stories of faith, or with those so burdened with grief.  It may even give us patience with ourselves when we sin and help us immediately humble ourselves and seek restored relationship.  Our task is to share the truth and God works with the heart.  Our task is to see beyond the obvious and be sensitive to the real message and how God is working.  Faith is a journey and we are all traveling and needing each other.  The real map is Jesus who is one with the Father and presents truth to us.  Are we blinded by what we know and settling for knock-offs today?

         Jesus now summarizes in light of the Moses’ wilderness experience.  The manna, the bread, given from God in the wilderness did indeed feed the people as they traveled but they eventually died.  Jesus is not bread just to keep the body alive but he is the bread from heaven that will keep our souls alive for eternity.  He is the living Bread!  The Message translates this way:

         ^47-51 “I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever    believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your         ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here         is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this         Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came          down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and          forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and      live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.”

         So how do we pull this together?  What does it mean to you and me living in a Pandemic, in political polarization, is social distress around our world?  Our world proclaims the value of honoring diversity of ethnicity or of faith.  We are afraid of being judgmental and critical.  We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or offend.  This text challenges us:

• Don’t allow what you think you know about Jesus to blind you to the eternal truth he is offering you.  Faith is a journey and not a decision made at some moment in time.  There will be deserts and mountains but Jesus is one with God and incarnated so we might know truth.
• We are drawn to God through Christ and it is in that eternal relationship that we will find the real bread that feeds our souls.  Don’t settle for knock-offs that are cheaper and may be fun for a moment but are not the real thing.  Look for the food that sustains and strengthens through all situations.
• Jesus is the living bread!  He will carry us into eternity.  He died on Calvary and we remember that every time we take communion.  No matter how distressing today may seem, God is walking with us to eternity.  We can trust in him!

As we think of the words of praise we would use for that memory of tasty bread and fellowship, let us look beyond what we experienced to the God who leads us into even more satisfying bread experiences!  Praise his name.  Amen.

First Reading: Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

²The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
  ⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.”
  ⁹Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’ ” ¹⁰And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. ¹¹The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ¹²“I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”
  ¹³In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. ¹⁴When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”

Psalm: Psalm 78:23-29

 ²³So God commanded the clouds above
  and opened the doors of heaven,
 ²⁴raining down manna upon them to eat
  and giving them grain from heaven. 
 ²⁵So mortals ate the bread of angels;
  God provided for them food enough.
 ²⁶The Lord caused the east wind to blow in the heavens
  and powerfully led out the south wind,
 ²⁷raining down flesh upon them like dust
  and flying birds like the sand of the seas,
 ²⁸letting them fall in the midst of the camp
  and round about the dwellings.
 ²⁹So the people ate and were well filled,
  for God gave them what they craved.

Second Reading: Ephesians 4:1-16

¹I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
  ⁷But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸Therefore it is said,
 “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;
  he gave gifts to his people.”
⁹(When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. ¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Gospel: John 6:24-35

²⁴When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were [beside the sea,] they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
  ²⁵When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” ²⁶Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. ²⁷Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” ²⁸Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” ²⁹Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” ³⁰So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” ³²Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”
  ³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Let us pray:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

         I feel like we need a geography lesson as we tackle our text today.  We have been following Jesus through a journey near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel for three or four weeks.  The hungry crowds have followed Jesus from one side to the other of the sea except they have gone by foot along the edge and the disciples have gone by boat amidst storms. Jesus walked on water! Jesus has fed the crowds, healed the sick, and taught.  The crowds wanted to make him king and this Sunday, walk back to Capernaum to find him.  They are still baffled about who he is and how relationship works.  Today they ask three questions in our text.

1. Rabbi, when did you come here?
2. What must we do to perform the works of God?
3. What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?  What work are you performing?

It seems to me these three questions are continually asked of Jesus and are still being asked today?  Most of us come today with some version of these three basic questions.

“Rabbi, when did you come here?”   

         Actually there are two parts to this question that challenges us today.  The crowd addresses Jesus as “rabbi”, teacher.  For many today Jesus is a great teacher, one of the prophets like Mohammed, as good as Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, on the level of Confucius or Buddha but not God or perhaps one of many ways to reach God.  We come to church today hoping for a great sermon that will engage our minds but not necessarily expecting an encounter with the almighty God.  The better the preacher, the better the choir, the better the programs for the youth, we think means the better the church.  Why are we here today?  Turn to your neighbor and share one thing you were hoping for as you came to church today.

         Jesus reflects back to the crowds that they have come looking for him because their stomachs were filled with bread.  We come to Jesus with our list of needs and wants.  That is not necessarily wrong except that when we approach Jesus like a bank, then prayer becomes the check that draws from the deposits of tithes, good deeds, or faithful life we have lived or deposited in our account.  We come with an agenda for God, not to meet and ponder together. We are somehow off center.  Jesus accuses the crowd of selfishness or self-centeredness.

         Jesus was a rabbi but he was more.  The products of relationships are not the relationship.  To put it a bit crudely, having children is not the same as building a marriage.  When I address my husband or my friend with my list of wants and needs, my focus or understanding of our relationship is off balance.  We come to church to meet with God, not just for a spiritual experience.  Jesus was able to feed them with bread because he was God.  So perhaps the question we need to ask ourselves today is if we came to worship just with our shopping list, or out of habit, or with hungry souls to meet with God?

         “When did you come here?”  God’s presence is in our situations before we realize.  We sometimes seem to be as surprised as the crowds that Jesus has entered a situation before us.  How did Jesus get there?  Perhaps we think our prayers wake God up and help him focus! Hmmm?  This is not to say that God is organizing everything to go according to his plans.  Sometimes people look back on events and rationalize that “God knew” such-and-such needed to happen so that such-and-such would happen and so we would learn the lesson God wanted us to learn.  I didn’t get that job because God knew this better job was coming.  Even though I did not want to move, it worked out for the best because…fill in the blank.  That makes God very manipulative and diminishes our free will.  King David prayed in Psalm 139: 7-12:

Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light around me become night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Jesus is a teacher but he is also God.  Jesus goes before us, walks with us, and Jesus has our back.  We need not be surprised to find him already working in the events of our lives, not just for our good but for all concerned.  Jesus admonishes the crowd to not work for food that passes through the body but to work on the relationship with God that feeds the soul.

         Next the people ask, “What must we do to perform the works of God?”  I think this comes from the thinking that if we labor for the food we eat, then how do we labor for the food that feeds our souls.  What must we do?  Jesus responds,   “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

         Food for the soul does not come from work of the hands but from work of the heart.  Each Sunday we recite the Apostle’s Creed.  Faith is based on the doctrines or confessions that unite us.  Our creeds and our prayers like reciting the Lord’s Prayer are beacons pointing us to the ground zero of our faith.  We build on these foundation stones with the works of our heart.

         Let us review the second article of the creed.  Let’s say it together:

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,   suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; 

he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will          come to judge the living and the dead.

Let me review the explanation of the second article as found in Luther’s Small Catechism.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, (pause and reflect)

who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, and precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death, (pause and reflect)

that I may be his own and  live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. 

THIS IS MOST CERTAINLY TRUE!  Jesus is my Lord, my redeemer, and I am his.

I should hear a loud AMEN now!  What is doing the work of God?  What does he want from us?  He wants us to believe these truths.  Full stop.  Period.  To believe he is here now and goes before us, goes with us, and has our back.

         Third question:  “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?  Prove yourself and then we’ll believe.

         Just as we get all tangled up about the identity of Jesus as member of the Trinity and don’t recognize his presence, we also get all tangled up about our role in our relationship with God, and so we seek proof that this relationship with the unseen is really working.  We look for those flowers on anniversaries and all the little “works” that affirm that the other cares.  As we age, as we enter trials, we need the reassurance of “signs.”  When I was a chaplain, I walked through the lobby and chanced to overhear a conversation between a little ole lady sitting on a couch gently crying.  “I’m old, crumpled, no longer beautiful.  How can you still love me?”  The aged gentleman, her husband, standing with his walker beside her, was gently reassuring her of his commitment forever.

         What is the sign of commitment, of relationship?  Our wedding rings represent that and yet we know in this world today that words are cheap and people go their separate ways.  Our children grow up and find new loves that take them far from us and somehow a phone call is never often enough.  Accidents happen and our beauty, health, talents that give us value disappear in a moment.  Diseases now rob us of mental ability and leave the body unable to express itself.  Life speaks to transition so what ties down and solidifies in cement our relationship with God?

         The cross has become that symbol of what we call The Covenant between God and humans. I love the picture of a handshake.  In that mysterious handshake between God and humans, God holds on to us when we have little strength, faith the side of a mustard seed, and eyes clouded with tears.  God holds on to us.  The empty cross shows how far God will go for us.  Jesus points the crowd to God and not to bread.  We cry like our children, “If you love me, you’ll let me do what I want to do,” and yet we know relationship is not built on giving us what we want, not giving us just bread but faith that is built on the cross.

1. Crowd:  Rabbi, when did you come here?  Jesus:  God fills our past, present, and future, leading and loving us to his kingdom
2. Crowd:  What must we do to perform the works of God?  Jesus:  Believe in Christ.
3. Crowd:  What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?  What work are you performing?  Jesus:  The cross is the reminder that God sees, cares, and has your back.

³⁵Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

What a wonderful promise.  May we cling to that promise.  Amen.

First Reading: 2 Kings 4:42-44

⁴²A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to [Elisha,] the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” ⁴³But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” ⁴⁴He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Psalm: Psalm 145:10-18

 ¹⁰All your works shall praise you, O Lord,
  and your faithful ones shall bless you.
 ¹¹They shall tell of the glory of your kingdom
  and speak of your power,
 ¹²that all people may know of your power
  and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
 ¹³Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; your dominion endures       throughout all ages.  You, Lord, are faithful in all your words,    and loving in all your works. 
 ¹⁴The Lord upholds all those who fall
  and lifts up those who are bowed down.
 ¹⁵The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord,
  and you give them their food in due season.
 ¹⁶You open wide your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
 ¹⁷You are righteous in all your ways and loving in all your works.
 ¹⁸You are near to all who call upon you,
  to all who call upon you faithfully.

Second Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. ¹⁶I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, ¹⁷and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. ¹⁸I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
  ²⁰Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Gospel: John 6:1-21

¹Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
  ¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
  ¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. ²⁰But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” ²¹Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

SERMON

“It is I; do not be afraid.”

Our lectionary takes us over to the Gospel of John for today’s text.  The stories feel familiar as we have looked at Jesus being followed by hungry crowds and we have seen Jesus in a storm on the Sea of Galilee.  This text appears to fill in the details on last Sunday’s text.  There must be “something more” for us today so let’s put on our glasses and take a second look.  I want to filter our thinking through Jesus’ greeting to the disciples when he approaches their boat walking on water.  “It is I; do not be afraid.”  Commentaries say that this is one of the times when Jesus used his godly name, “I AM”.  I AM is here, do not be afraid!

         I don’t know about you but fear is my middle name and my most common enemy.  That little voice that sits on my shoulder and whispers in both ears will most likely be whispering a message of fear.  If I don’t eat now, I’ll be hungry later.  If I don’t do whatever, I will not be liked or safe or financially secure or healthy or whatever.  So these passages that say “do not be afraid” always catch my attention. Let’s take a minute and turn to a neighbor and share something you are afraid of.  It might be something silly like “spiders.”

          What kind of fear is Jesus helping the disciples deal with today?  I want to propose that he is addressing the fear of hunger, the fears surrounding political leadership, and the fear of the unknown.

The Fear of Hunger

         John has set the scene for us readers.  The Passover is approaching, the holiday and annual ritual that recalls the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai by Moses.  Jesus, unlike Moses, has gone up on a mountain to teach.  He is not receiving the law but giving the law.  Jesus has been doing miracles like prophets of old and the crowds are following him.  Jesus raises the question of hunger to test disciple Phillip.  “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” I do not think Jesus was asking where the nearest Walmart might be found!

         Hunger takes many forms.  There is the starving of refugees, like the sheer physical need for food that plagued the Israelites in the wilderness.  We hear about it daily in the news.  We hear about the hungry who cannot feed their families during this pandemic due to loss of jobs.  This is probably not the hunger for most of us.  Bethany Gardens helps address physical hunger.  For most of us, our hunger is subtler.  We hunger for affection, for the touch of a loved one who has passed, for a hug from a child who has grown up, or just a friend to help us deal with old age.  We can hunger for money, for meaning, for beauty, for peace and so many other things.

         “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus asks Phillip and us.  It makes me think of Isaiah 55:1,2,

          “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no         money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money   and without price.  Why do you spend your money for that which is    not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?  Listen    carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich          food.  Incline your ear, and come to me; listen so that you may live.”

In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  The hungers of the earthly kingdom will not be resolved by money or more of anything that can be bought or earned.

         Hunger can only be dealt with spiritually.  Even if Phillip had six months salary in his pocket, the shops would not of had enough bread nor could Phillip carry it all.  The question is a direct confrontation to Phillip and us about where we look for satisfaction and contentment – for our own lives but I think also it is a question about how do we feed others that we know come to us hungry.  I have always loved the saying, “Give a fish and you eat for a day, teach to fish and you eat for a lifetime.”  We do reach out to each other with support, encouragement, and vegetables but ultimately that which satisfies comes from God. Hunger is resolved by God and not by bread. “it is I, do not be afraid.”  I AM is present always.

Fear of Political Leadership

         Jesus feeds the people.  Are they satisfied?  I should hear a resounding “NO” from you.  Are we happy with our government?  Be honest!  We all have our concerns today no matter who we voted for.  The people in Jesus’ crowd are fed physically and they realize a king that could feed them would be good.  “¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”  Wait, I thought Jesus was on the mountain feeding the people.  But Jesus “withdraws.”  Jesus can no longer be seen.

         We have an ongoing “discussion” in the United States right now about our “king,” ok, presidential and governmental leadership system.  If we can pass bills with huge amounts of money, perhaps, we could resolve the issues confronting our society.  If we could guarantee the system for electing our leaders and make sure more people can vote…  If our leaders could rectify the sins of our past against whatever subgroup is in focus, then we would not have social hunger and discontent.  The discussion is not spiritual but political and has shifted our discussions to our social  “hungers.”  We hunger for justice.  We hunger for equality.  We hunger for freedom.  We hunger for the good life.

         We are standing on the mountain with Jesus right.  When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments, how many of the commandments dealt with economic security, financial security or freedoms to be “me.”  The commandments dealt with spiritual and social relationships that will characterize the kingdom of heaven, starting with spiritual reality.  We are to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength.  Second, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Social and political leadership today is about creating a society that meets the needs of its citizens.  It is not about proper relationship to God.  The people have their priorities all wrong and Jesus “withdraws.”  When we have our priorities and wants wrong, Jesus “withdraws” and disappears because our focus is not on Jesus but on ourselves.  We can’t see him.

         “It is I, do not be afraid” are the words of Jesus speaking into our political and social polarization today. We do not need to fear who is king because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world as he testifies to Pilot at his trial.  We do not need to be afraid because our names are written in the book of life, because Jesus is the Good Shepherd.  He will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death and someday Jesus will return as the eternal King.  Leadership is not political but spiritual.  As Christians, we look to the kingdom of God, not creating a kingdom on earth with Jesus as King.  “It is I, do not be afraid.”

Fear of the unknown, the future, of death

         The third scene in our text today is in the evening.  It is dark.  We know those “dark” times when Jesus has failed to appear.  Great writers call it “the Dark Night of the Soul.”  We might call it a pandemic and we have lost our job or our savings in a stock market crash.  We might call it cancer.  Often it comes with the death of a loved one.  We flat-line in life and God seems oh so distant.  Tears fill our pillow and smiles are so hard.  The disciples are trying to cross the Sea of Galilee in the dark and the waters are rough.  Strong winds are tossing their little boat in the chaos.  “They saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified.”

         I would suspect they did not realize it was Jesus and in the presence of darkness and tumultuous waves they were terrified.  I only have to see the blinking red light in my rear view mirror and my heart starts pounding.  A letter from IRS would probably produce a similar reaction.  A policeman comes to our door with a chaplain or for parents of military people the entrance of a government car signals horrible news.  The disciples and we become terrified, or at least afraid, in the presence of that which we do not understand and cannot control.  It is then that Jesus speaks, “It is I, do not be afraid.”  The disciples take Jesus into their boat and immediately they are at their destination.”  We get where we want to go when Jesus is in the boat and we do not need to be afraid.

         Let me close with the children’s sermon:

Aesop’s Fable, “Belling the Cat.”

“The Mice once called a meeting to decide on a plan to free themselves of their enemy, the Cat. At least they wished to find some way of knowing when she was coming, so they might have time to run away. Indeed, something had to be done, for they lived in such constant fear of her claws that they hardly dared stir from their dens by night or day.        At last a very young Mouse got up and said:  “I have a plan that seems very simple, but I know it will be successful.

All we have to do is to hang a bell about the Cat’s neck. When we hear the bell ringing we will know immediately that our enemy is coming.”

All the Mice were much surprised that they had not thought of such a plan before. But in the midst of the rejoicing over their good fortune, an old Mouse arose and said: “I will say that the plan of the young Mouse is very good. But let me ask one question: Who will bell the Cat?”

We are those mice, afraid of the cats in our life: hunger, political and social dynamics plaguing our world, and afraid of the unknown future that may well mean death.  That cat is big and dark and we feel like grasshoppers in our own eyes.  Many mice, people, suggest government solutions but in-fact they cannot agree.  And ultimately the question comes down to “Who can bell the cat?”  We do not need to be warned that the cat is near, we need security as we live with the reality of the cat, the evil in our world.  It is only as Jesus comes to us in the midst of our fears and we hear him say, “It is I.”  I am here with you.  “Do not be afraid,” I will bell the cat in your life!  Then we can live through all situations. Thank you Lord!  Amen.

First Reading: Amos 7:7-15

⁷This is what [the Lord God] showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,
 “See, I am setting a plumb line
  in the midst of my people Israel;
  I will never again pass them by;
 ⁹the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
  and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
  and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
  ¹⁰Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For thus Amos has said,
 ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
  and Israel must go into exile
  away from his land.’ ”
¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; ¹³but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
  ¹⁴Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, ¹⁵and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ”

Psalm: Psalm 85:8-13

 ⁸I will listen to what the Lord^| God is saying;
  for you speak peace to your faithful people and to those who turn       their hearts to you.
 ⁹Truly, your salvation is very near to ^|those who fear you,
  that your glory may dwell in our land. 
 ¹⁰Steadfast love and faithfulness have met together;
  righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
 ¹¹Faithfulness shall spring up from the earth,
  and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
 ¹²The Lord will indeed grant prosperity,
  and our land will yield its increase.
 ¹³Righteousness shall go before the Lord
  and shall prepare for God a pathway. 

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹²so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Gospel: Mark 6:14-29

¹⁴King Herod heard of [the disciples’ preaching,] for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” ¹⁵But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” ¹⁶But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
  ¹⁷For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. ¹⁸For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ¹⁹And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, ²⁰for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. ²¹But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. ²²When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” ²³And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” ²⁴She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” ²⁵Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” ²⁶The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. ²⁷Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, ²⁸brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. ²⁹When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  Our text today is going to share in detail, about a birthday party.  Does a birthday party stand out in your mind?  Some of the most fun ones I’ve been too have been when someone turns 50.  There is usually a lot of joking about aging, funny presents, guests, and good food.  The party we read about today had dancing, presents, and drama but I doubt the guests went home feeling they had a good time.  Why does Mark tell us about this particular party? 

Let us pray:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

We are in the season of Pentecost and looking at gospel stories, asking ourselves what difference Jesus makes in lives.  Last week our text told of Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth and being rejected.  He could do few miracles.  Jesus then started to send out his disciples in pairs to preach.   Today’s text continues.  It would seem that through the work of the disciples, Jesus is becoming known and talked about.  People in the area are debating just who Jesus is.  We face the same question today.  Who is this Jesus we gather about and what difference does he make in our lives today?

         Some thought he was a prophet following in the footsteps of Elijah who went to heaven in a whirlwind and who was believed to be going to return before the coming of the Messiah.  People today look for a charismatic figure that will signal end times.  Others suspected Jesus was walking in the tradition of prophets who would appear and call Israel back to faith in Jehovah.  He was a charismatic figure, good guy but not God.  Still others thought Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected.  Let us remind ourselves that two major groups within Judaism were divided on the reality of resurrection.  The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and that is was why they were sad, you see.  The Pharisees believed in the resurrection because prophets in the Old Testament prayed over people and they returned to life.  Jesus was a kind of miracle worker.  Today people look to Jesus for health, wealth, and prosperity – an answerer to their prayers.  King Herod, though, believed Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life.   

What do we mean when we think of Jesus as our Savior?

         As I have pondered why Mark would have told us about Herod’s birthday party, I wonder if he is sharing about the types of people the disciples were encountering and the types of people we encounter as we share our experiences of Jesus.  Then again, we might reflect on which person in today’s text we most identify with.  Are we like Herod, a guilty conscience and afraid God was punishing him?  Or perhaps we are blinded by our grudges like Herodias.  Some of us are innocent pawns in another’s scheme like Herodias’ daughter and we are unaware if what we believe is right or wrong.  Then there are the bystanders that watch the party unfold and find it all very entertaining but are not impacted in their lives.  King Herod, Herodias, her daughter and the bystanders lead our reflection today. 

         King Herod had a guilty conscience.  He knew that John the Baptist had not deserved to die.  King Herod was conflicted.  He had compromised his integrity at his birthday party to keep peace in his marriage and to save face in-front of his guests.  Herod believed John to be a “righteous and holy man” but Herod’s wife, Herodias, hated John for saying the truth that she had married her late husband’s brother.  Herod was caught between what he knew was true and an unhappy wife.  He jailed John to pacify Herodias but protected John while Herodias bided her time, nursing her grudge. 

         Many of us know this dance Herod is doing, trying to keep two voices in our life appeased.  I think we call it burning the candle on both ends.  It may be the party on Saturday with our friends and then the guilt of being too tired to make it to church on Sunday – next week we promise ourselves.  It may be fudging on income tax returns.  It may be trying to keep peace between the Republicans and Democrats in our family and so sliding with our truth as we talk.  Trying not to take sides and not to hurt anyone’s feelings is hard and often leads us to feeling conflicted.

         But Herod was also superstitious.  Superstitions trigger guilty consciences. When we are having a bad day we wonder if we are being punished for some secret sin, known or unknown. Herod is convinced Jesus is John the Baptist resurrected and returned to accuse him.  We rack our memory to remember some sin that deserves a bad day or that has come back to haunt us.  Compromises have a way of resurfacing and often cloud our ability to make decisions. 

         In our world today tolerance is a value most hold.  We do not want to appear judgmental and we want to keep our options open.  Many people listen to stories about Jesus but then become confused by denominations and are unwilling to commit.  Deciding where to read in the Bible is a challenge for many so they don’t but know they should.  Our awareness of the many religions that mix in our society today plus our value on tolerance dilute our convictions of what we believe or at least our willingness to talk about it.  We don’t want conflict.  Herod represents those people who know that people like John were righteous and holy people but who get caught in the crossfire of relationships. His fear of people undermined his faith and ability to follow his convictions.  He was “perplexed,” fearful and conflicted.  His compromises blinded him. 

         Herodias, on the other hand, also knew that John the Baptist was telling the truth about her marriage.  She had married her husband’s brother.  Her problem was not conflict but anger and hate.  She was carrying a grudge.

         As I listened to people tell their faith stories as a chaplain, many had stories of the failures of God to rescue them.  There are so many stories of deep bitterness because of the actions of some Christian who caused a perceived injustice, a grief over the ending of a relationship that they thought God had led them into, or a defeat that God might have saved them from.  Forgiveness is a very difficult spiritual discipline.  Most of us know the divisions within our own family about some action done or thoughtless word spoken or inheritance unfairly divided or promotion given that triggers comparisonitis. We do not have to go far to find grudges.  Compromise, Herod, works on guilt about decisions and feeds superstitions of punishment we deserve but grudges, Herodias, work on our resentments and stereotypes we have about other people.  We are protecting our own self-image and become a judge of others.

         Seeking and accepting forgiveness places judgment in the hands of God and allows him to rectify wrongs and defend us.  Forgiveness requires admitting we have done wrong and for a King, that might be hard.  For a Queen, rising above gossip is hard.  We open our service with the confessional because we have all been guilty of doing wrong, known and unknown, and we have all been guilty of not loving our neighbor as we ought.

         Herodias’ daughter danced for King Herod.  We do not even know her name.  Many think it was an exotic dance that drove Herod to offer her up to half his kingdom.  Queen Esther was offered half of the King’s kingdom when she dressed beautifully and approached him after fasting for three days.  Esther invites the King and Hamaan to a banquet as she seeks the right timing to accomplish her agenda.  Herodias’ daughter, on the other hand runs to her mother to seek advise.  It would appear that she has no idea of what she wants nor does she have a sense of values to resist the gruesome request for the head of John the Baptist.  Perhaps she too carried the grudge against her father-uncle’s accuser and was offended by John’s preaching.  The text does not indicate a grudge.  The text indicates that she was someone who went along with the plans by an authority.

         This character in our story raises the ugly head of personal culpability in our ongoing cultural discussion of justice.  We are polarized and we find Christians on all sides of all issues.  We can look to our pastors and bishops for guidance but where does our personal responsibility lie?  Do you remember the joke that went something like this.  Olaf gets to heaven and St. Peter asks him where his name was on the church roster.  Olaf responds that his wife went to church for them.  St. Peter asks about his sharing of his resources.  Oh, he says that his wife handled that.  And so the questioning went on.  Finally St Peter says, “Your wife may come into heaven.” 

         The point is that I am not responsible for other’s sins, only mine. It is called a sin of omission.  I omit doing the good I should.  The daughter could have objected but did not.  I justify my grudges because of what the other did.  I justify my compromises because I had no choice.  In fact, I am allowing myself to be used as a pawn in someone else’s agenda.  We call it “victim” thinking today.  I am the victim of someone else.  While the Bible talks about community, it also speaks strongly to my uniqueness and my reality in the eyes of God.  Christ died for you and we need to take that seriously and take responsibility for our spirituality.

         Herod, the compromised, Herodias, the person with the grudge, her daughter who does not seem to know her own mind, but then there are the guests at the party.  We watch this little drama unfold.  How does this story touch us?  The fame of Jesus is spreading and his disciples are meeting people with all sorts of smoke screen’s when they hear the gospel preached.  Maybe they have a guilty past they need to confess and find forgiveness for.  Maybe they are holding grudges and disappointments for how God did not meet their expectations.  Maybe they have not yet internalized their own moral code and walk around as victims of others decisions.  All these people were at Herod’s party and live in our lives today.  Today’s text tells us that the fame of Jesus was spreading and people were confronted with deciding who Jesus was.  We come to church today and are confronted with the reality of Jesus.  We can go home thinking the “gift”, the head on a platter was a bit crude and scary.  But we can also look at our hearts and ask if we have grudges we are harboring that are blinding our ability to interact with others.  We can also justify ourselves as the victims of other’s sins and dismiss our responsibility. And we can feel the deep grief of being compromised and needing to seek forgiveness – but tomorrow. 

         The disciples heard what happened and went to King Herod’s palace and claimed John’s body and laid it in a tomb.  Our time on earth is limited.  We do not know how many birthday parties we will go to. But may we hold our lives as a gift from the God who has prepared a heaven for us where there will not be making compromising decisions, holding lingering grudges, and where we will serve a God who makes kind decisions.  Thank you Lord.

First Reading: Acts 10:44-48

⁴⁴While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. ⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, ⁴⁶for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ⁴⁷“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” ⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Psalm: Psalm 98

 ¹Sing a new song to the Lord, who has done marvelous things,
  whose right hand and holy arm have won the victory.
 ²O Lord, you have made known your victory,
  you have revealed your righteousness in the sight of the nations.
 ³You remember your steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of       Israel;
  all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.
 ⁴Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands;
  lift up your voice, rejoice, and sing. 
 ⁵Sing to the Lord with the harp,
  with the harp and the voice of song.
 ⁶With trumpets and the sound of the horn
  shout with joy before the king, the Lord.
 ⁷Let the sea roar, and all that fills it,
  the world and those who dwell therein.
 ⁸Let the rivers clap their hands,
  and let the hills ring out with joy before the Lord, who comes    to judge the earth.
 ⁹The Lord will judge the world with righteousness
  and the peoples with equity.

Second Reading: 1 John 5:1-6

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ²By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
  ⁶This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.

Gospel: John 15:9-17

 [Jesus said:] ⁹“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
  ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON:  The Lion and the Mouse by Aesop

“A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion’s nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion laid his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her.

“Spare me!” begged the poor Mouse. “Please let me go and some day I will surely repay you.”

The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go.

Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter’s net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free.

“You laughed when I said I would repay you,” said the Mouse. “Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion.”

A kindness is never wasted.

Who represents God in this fable?  The lion.  Who is the mouse?  We are.  It is silly to think that the lion needs the mouse and yet in this story we see relationship.  In today’s text we are challenged to not see ourselves as useless mice to be spared death but to realize that we are in relationship with the great lion, Aslan, and to see that we are more than “servants.”  We are “friends.”

Let us pray.  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON:  We are Friends, Not Servants

As we come down to the end of the Easter season we again return to that last night and Jesus’ talk with the disciples as they finish supper and head to the Garden of Gethsemane as reported in John 15. Our text continues on from last week’s vine and branches talk.  The lion let the mouse go but the story continues, and we continue to think about Jesus’ last thoughts.  As Jesus continues, he further explains about the branch abiding in the vine.  It picks up another image.  We are not servants but friends.  How is that so and why?

First:  “Abide in my love.”  Last week we talked about the branch abiding in the vine so that it has life and strength and can bear fruit.  John continues writing and is a little more specific.  We must abide, focus our thoughts in God’s love. Those early disciples – how many? 12 main ones – changed their world.  I think they did not do it just by peaching and telling people they needed to get saved.  They lived a life style that had the power to love the unloveable, the ability to die in the face of injustice, the strength to go the extra mile, and generally to live a life that was not based on natural human tendencies.  The followers were different from others because they abided in the love of God.  This abiding made a difference and marked their lives.

         John ties this abiding, this different way of loving, together with obeying God’s commandments.  This is a bit harsh on our modern ears as we tend to think of laws as constricting our freedoms and we are all about freedom.  In fact six of the Ten Commandments start with, “do not.”  Don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t slander, don’t steal, and don’t covet.  It is as we read Luther’s explanation of the commandments that we hear a more positive focus:  “We should fear and love God so that” we give life and don’t take it, value our marriages and friendships, say good things about people by putting the best construction on our speech, share our resources, and bath the other in love and not jealousy.  Living within the boundaries of God’s love, following his guidelines maximizes our lives and does not constrict us.  But it is also different from the values lived out in society today or there is a tension.  My example from today is just how grating it is on my freedom to wear a mask that I may or may not believe in.  The lion chooses to let the mouse go free which was against his nature and shows mercy.

         Abiding in God’s love and obeying his commandments brings joy.  Jesus says the outcome is that our joy may be complete.  The world would like us to think that joy comes from wealth, from beauty, from winning elections, from so many things in this world.  As I reflect, it seems that those moments are for the few but we can all know the joy of hugging a friend, the laughter of receiving an unexpected gifts, or the contentment of being complemented by a friend.  As we abide in God’s love and share it with others, joy explodes in our lives.  As we refrain from living outside the boundaries and relinquish the right to revenge or lust or gossip, we experience more joy.  The price we pay is laying down our life for another but the reward we experience is the joy of relationship and the satisfaction of knowing God’s love.  The mouse never forgot the kindness of the lion.

Second, Jesus says that we are no longer “servants” but become “friends.”  This has big implications.  There are no secrets in our relationship with God.  He knows us and he has incarnated and become known by us.  There are no hidden clauses.  One of the cute Christmas movies is Santa Clause 2.  Santa Clause discovers that there is fine print in his contract and that the “clause” is that he must find a Mrs. Clause before Christmas.  And so the adventure begins. We grow as Christians but God does not change the laws every four years. As Christians we learn to use our spiritual muscles and for sure there are times when we stumble and fall, and even fail, but God’s love is not conditional on our performance, on our report card.  Like a parent, we are always his children.  He honors his covenants and works with us as we grow.  The mouse heard the lion roar in distress and was drawn to the problem.

         The term “friend” acknowledges our agency in our partnership with God.  Servants are hired and are expected to perform the “to do” list of the master but friends have personage and agency in a relationship that allows for give and take as we each get to know the other better.  There may be tough times but friendship will stand the test of time.  Perhaps some of you know the fun of meeting friends you haven’t seen for a while and the joy of sharing a cup of coffee and catching up.  We go through those silent times when we may not feel that cozy mountaintop spiritual high and when we wonder if God is listening but then invariably spring comes and winter is over.  The mouse races to help the lion.

         Friends know each other and there are not secrets.  Friends have agency and can initiate into each other’s lives.  Friends generally share similar values and goals.  They are walking along the path of life together.  They may have different gifts, be of different ethnicities, even be of different ages but they are headed in the same direction.  We know that God is building a kingdom and we are his representatives.  We know his expectations and he knows our strengths and weaknesses.   Jesus shares that he has told us about God and so we do not need to worry.  We are secure in that relationship.  The mouse uses his talent to gnaw the ropes of the lion.

Third, we are chosen and we are commissioned as friends.  We have value and we have purpose.  We are to bare fruit, fruit that will last.  As friends we are journeying with God for eternity.  Three masons were asked what they were doing.  The first said: mixing cement.  The second said: building a structure.  The third said: creating a cathedral.  As friends of God, we have eternal perspective and we have purpose that inspires and brings joy to our lives.  We are building a cathedral  We do not love our enemies just because it is commanded but hopefully because we see their value and want to express to them God’s love and invite them into the kingdom.  We do not eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, but have a perspective that looks into eternity.

         Again we hear the promise that we can ask God anything in Jesus’ name.  This promise we love to pull out of context and make God seem like Santa Clause.  We are reminded today that it is embedded in abiding in God’s love, obeying his commandments, knowing his will, having and a willingness to lay down our life for another.  It is not a blank check but a promise of a relationship that is transparent, respectful and two sided.

         ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another,” is our final sentence today.  The lion does not hurt the mouse and the mouse helps the lion.  The fable is not quite loving one another.  We, on the other hand, as we abide in God’s love, obey his commandments realizing they are the guides to a joyful life.  Zs we value one another we gradually realize more and more that we, each one of us, is chosen and we are not just servants doing tasks for God but are friends that fellowship with him and his body.  What an awesome privilege. 

         In the fable, the mouse helps the lion.  Is this impossible?  Maybe it is so under the realities of this world.  As friends, we are  promised that faith can move mountains and we are in relationship with the God of the universe who has the power to make it happen.  In addition to the privilege of being the friend of Jesus, we become part of a fellowship that is worldwide.  “¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”  Even a mouse like me can help a lion like God and can love one another.  Blessings on the journey!

First Reading: Acts 8:26-40

²⁶An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) ²⁷So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship ²⁸and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” ³⁰So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” ³¹He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. ³²Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
 “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
  and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
   so he does not open his mouth.
 ³³In his humiliation justice was denied him.
  Who can describe his generation?
   For his life is taken away from the earth.”
³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. ³⁶As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” ³⁸He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. ³⁹When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Psalm: Psalm 22:25-31

 ²⁵From you comes my praise in the great assembly;
  I will perform my vows in the sight of those who fear the Lord.
 ²⁶The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
  Let those who seek the Lord give praise! May your hearts live forever!
 ²⁷All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
  all the families of nations shall bow before God.
 ²⁸For dominion belongs to the Lord,
  who rules over the nations. 
 ²⁹Indeed, all who sleep in the earth shall bow down in worship;
  all who go down to the dust, though they be dead, shall kneel before   the Lord.
 ³⁰Their descendants shall serve the Lord,
  whom they shall proclaim to generations to come.
 ³¹They shall proclaim God’s deliverance to a people yet unborn,
  saying to them, “The Lord has acted!”

Second Reading: 1 John 4:7-21

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
  ¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. ¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. ¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.
  God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Gospel: John 15:1-8

 [Jesus said:] ¹“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

CHILDREN’S SERMON

Now listen carefully.  Jesus told a parable in Matthew 21:35 about a landowner who “planted a vineyard.  He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey.”

         Let’s see who listened carefully.  How did the landowner prepare his vineyard? (allow congregation to share: wall, winepress, watchtower)

         Now, how is the parable like Bethany’s garden?  Do we have a wall?  Perhaps we don’t have a winepress but what do we do with our harvest?  What might be our watchtower? (scarecrow or workers)  Who is the landowner? (God)  Who are the renters? (Bethany) Last question to ponder – What must the plants do to benefit from being in the garden? (abide)

Let us pray:  Lord may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.

SERMON

We are in the fifth of seven Sundays in the Easter season, building up to the Ascension and Pentecost.  Easter Sunday we celebrated with those early disciples who found the grave empty and the body missing and who started to hear reports that Jesus was alive.  We who have 2,000 years of witness to the resurrection probably have become numb to the shocking events of Easter.  Easter season, the 40 days after Easter, in the liturgical calendar, traces proof of the resurrection and its implications.  We look at personal testimonies from that time but we look for how the resurrection was predicted and its implication for life following the resurrection.  Jesus did not rise just to let us know that he is alive.  Lives of the disciples began to change and new phenomena began to appear – the church – the kingdom of heaven on earth.  Yes sin is paid for but also we will have eternal life like Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates and we also live with a purpose today.

         Last week we looked at how Jesus is our Good Shepherd and actively cares for us.  We may not see him but feel his love, protection, and guidance.  We recognize his voice in prayer, in music, in friends, in his word.  He did not leave us to our own ways.  Today’s text adds another dimension.  Resurrection life is like garden life.

         A second major imagery that is used in the Bible to describe the relationship between the Creator and his creation is the garden.  God is a landowner who plants a garden.  We understand that to be the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked about, that has been planted, is growing, and to which Jesus will someday return to govern.  Resurrection is not just about believing that Jesus rose but it is also about transformed lives. We are part of a vine with a purpose to bear fruit.

         In our text we have three characters: God the vine grower, Jesus the vine, and we the branches.

         “This is my father’s world,” is a song we love to sing.  We teach our children, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”  Unlike several of the garden parables that Jesus tells where the owner goes off on a trip to a distant country only to return, Jesus here has the vine grower personally involved with his plants. 

         God is involved.  God is not sitting off in the heavenlies waiting for messages from angels or waiting for the final judgment.  He is personally involved.  I sometimes think we confuse God and Santa Clause.  We think that if we are good and produce lots of grapes that God for sure will reward us and if we are lazy then he will punish us.  The Jews felt the same way.  The man born blind must have sinned.  The Pharisees who fasted must be holier.  The woman caught in adultery was the guilty person.  We believe if we are good then we should have the good life.  This passage says, though, that God throws away the dead branches but prunes the good branches so they will be more productive.

                  As we read the Gospels, we see Jesus praising the widow who gave only two mites, all she had in her poverty, and not the rich who may have helped to build the Temple.  We see him praise the faith of the Canaanite woman who begs for crumbs from the master’s table so that her daughter may be healed.  He praises the Centurion who does not feel worthy for Jesus to even enter his home.  God is not in the business of picking on the poor and rewarding the rich.  He is watching over all his plants.

         God prunes the good plants so that they bear more fruit.  It is when we are going through what is called “the dark night of the soul”, those times of suffering, that we are tempted to think that God has abandoned us or is punishing us for some sin we did not confess.  Prunings are trials that deepen our faith and drive us to seek God more.  Bad things happen to good people and not all the troubles we have come from God for we live in a fallen world where we also deal with the powers of evil.  But ultimately we are promised that all things work together for him who believes and trusts God.  Jesus assures us that we have been cleansed by the words he has spoken to us as we cling to them in faith, trusting him during dark times.

         Our text concludes by reminding us that the purpose of the vineyard is to glorify the Father, not to glorify ourselves.  The evil one loves to sit on our shoulders and whisper that when trials come it means that God does not love us and has abandon us.  That is a lie and a temptation to turn our eyes from God to ourselves or others and play the comparison game.  The owner of the garden positions the plants as he sees fit, prunes the plants as he sees fit, gives manure to the plants as he sees fit, and ultimately the vine grower receives the awards even as Bethany did.

         The second hymn that comes to mind as I read this text is “Abide with Me”.  Henry Lyte wrote the hymn in the early 1800s as he struggled with illness all his life.  It was first sung at his funeral.  Abiding in the vine is the quality the vine grower is looking for in this passage.  It is from this abiding that the branch is able to produce fruit. 

         As we all know, the garden does not produce fruit or vegetables all year round.  I know you people at Bethany know more about this than I but generally, I think, there are seasons for planting, for growing, for harvesting.  The grapes are not always there on the branch to be picked.  One of the marvels to me of the Midwest was the change of seasons.  Winter when trees are just sticks and barren does not mean they are dead or not valued.  I would suspect that it is easy as elders, which most of us are, and in retirement to feel like we are the unproductive branches, getting ready to die.  Our culture puts so much value on productivity that when we are sick, unemployed or old, we feel useless.  We see much of that view reinforced in the news these days.  So I would prefer to think of productivity as not just the size of our church but the size of our hearts and souls, the extent to which the fruits of the spirit are displayed in our lives individually and corporately. Galatians 5:22 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Against such things there is no law.”  These spiritual qualities are not dependent on our age, our wealth or our ethnicity.  They are dependent though on being connected to the vine, to Christ.  When I am tired, when I am in a difficult situation, I need his energy, his guidance, his power to flow through me.

         It is probably obvious to us that the plants not in the vineyard do not receive the same care as those in the garden.  It is also obvious that a garden has various kinds of plants even as a vine has lots of branches.  The church around the world is part of the vine and we are challenged to work together by this passage.  I am not prepared to say all roads lead to Rome, that all plants are connected to the vine, but the branches connected to the vine of Jesus and that abide in him will be supervised by God and pruned for growth. 

         The reflective question might be to ponder what interrupts that relationship with the vine, with the source of life?  Am I too busy, too tired, too stressed, too what ever to be tuned in to my relationship with God?  I do not find it coincidental that we use the phrase, “burned out,” to talk about just being too hassled to feed our own souls.

         The benefit of a abiding relationship is that Jesus says we can ask whatever we want and it will be given us.  Now that is a promise worthy of a whole sermon and it does imply an open relationship of sharing and trust where the vine carriers the needs of the branch and the branch is the outgrowth of the character of the vine. Abiding is open, two way communication.

         God is the vine grower, supervising his vineyard, and we are the branches abiding in that vineyard.  The vine is Jesus.  He is our source of life and energy.  Without him we can do little of eternal, not worldly, value.  So let us go back to our children’s sermon about the vineyard God plants.

• It has walls.  There are boundaries in God’s vineyard.  God is not just love and acceptance.  There are standards.  We will be pruned for our own good.  It may not be a question of whether we are in or out but are we moving to be in the garden and wanting his care.
• There is a winepress.  God wants us to be productive, not necessarily popular, famous and rich.  Bethany takes its produce to food shelters to help the needy.  For others of us our productivity can be seen in lives and hearts that bear fruit – fruit of the Spirit.
• There are watch towers.  Being in the garden does not mean there are not enemies without seeking to destroy, bugs eating at us from within, and environmental seasons that affect us.  Even as the workers at Bethany guard your garden, God’s word, God’s Spirit, and God’s love guards us.

What is the secret to a productive plant and garden?  Abiding in Christ.

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens Lord, with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
Where is death’s sting?
Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me…