26 August 2012
Joshua 24:1,2,15-17 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5: 21-32 + John 6: 60-69

Now comes the end of the great Sermon at Capernaum. While the “Sermon on the Mount” may capture the imagination of many, and while it may have inaugurated the public ministry of Jesus; this sermon in John’s Gospel brings the whole mission of Jesus Christ to the point of decision, the point of no return, the point of entry into the very life of God. No one finds “Blessed are the meek or the pure of heart” troubling or challenging. No one walks away at the words, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Justice.” These are not hard sayings. But “My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” is a whole different matter. This is not symbolic language. He is not proposing some metaphor. The REAL means REAL, not “sort-of-like” or “a symbol of”, or a “sign for”. He means, real! In some translations it says: “True.” In either case, the meaning is the same.

When in today’s Gospel Jesus hears their murmuring, he knows that they are beginning to wonder, and perhaps even understand what he is saying. To make sure that they do, he says: “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.” What Jesus has to say here is a complete breakdown of the hard and fast distinction of heaven and earth, the spiritual and the material. It is the final and complete revelation of what has happened by the Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh. God is no longer off there unavailable, distant, and separate from us. We are no longer confined to this time and space, to this life. The connection between what had been so distinctly separated is Jesus himself, and our passage, our Passover into the spirit and the divine is his flesh and blood. As he took on our flesh to be with us, we take on the divine life, by eating and drinking his flesh and pass into the life of God.

Jesus was no symbol. Jesus was not “sort of” human. Jesus was not a “sign for” the divine and the human separated. He was true. He was real from birth to death. If any of us has a chance to or wishes to become true and real, to make real what we are from the beginning, then we must eat and drink in order to become what Christ Jesus is, the life of God offered for us. This is a hard saying. What’s hard about it is that all the neat little categories fall apart. Heaven is no longer out there, a place we wait for until we die.
Eternal life is no longer something you get when you die. We are no longer living here in exile unable and bound by humanity and sin to a life that is less than perfectly holy touched by and inspired by the Divine Holy Spirit. How is this so? Because we are becoming what we eat – we are eating the very real, true flesh and blood of the Son of Man who has been with the Father from the beginning, come here to unite with us, and take us back to the very life of the Father

This isn’t symbolic. It is as real as the bread and wine of this altar. What we do here is no
“memorial service” that brings us together to act out the Last Supper like a group of actors gather in Gettysburg every year to act out a day in the life of this nation. What we do here is real. It is for now, not the past. It is to transport us in the very life of God so that we leave here not all warmed up and feeling good becasue we “remembered” the Lord’s Supper. We leave here transformed, transfigured, consecrated, into the very life of the Word Made Flesh. You can’t leave her the same as you came in.

Now this is not talk for children. It is serious revelation of the Divine plan and the Will of God for us. Children cannot understand this. Perhaps that is why some murmured and left. They preferred the life of an ignorant child, preferred to avoid the demands of and the changes in their lives that this revelation would demand. Parents, if you believe what is said to us in this Gospel, you cannot now explain this to your children, but you can lead them into the mystery of this creating in them a desire, a thirst for, and a wonder for what they may someday want to know. You must do that by your reverence and example, your absolute and unwavering commitment to this sacramental gift making it the first priority of every week without fail. A couple of years ago, a child was sent to me by their parent because the child in preparation for First Communion had expressed some revulsion at the thought of drinking blood. I sat with that child for a long time talking about grapes and juice, wine, blood, the Passover meal, and the blood of the Passover Lamb on the door posts of the Israelite’s. When I was finished, the child just wrinkled up their nose and looked at me as though I was some alien from another planet. But, the child went away curious and knowing that there was something deeper here, something more special and profound because their parents brought them to me, and I sat on the floor and talked with them for a long time. Someday the hunger for truth and a desire for the real will awaken in that child a readiness to know more and to become more than a little child.

Those of you leaving childhood and becoming adults must hear this gospel with profound wonder as you look at yourselves and ask: To whom shall we go?” That is what was happening to Peter and the Apostles, they were growing up in faith. No longer were they going to stay with Jesus because he worked signs and wonders that entertained them or made them seem important because they were “close to the man.” At that moment they began to understand that something about this Son of Man was going to change them, awaken in them the Spirit of Life, provide for them a food that would never leave them hungry, a food that would give them more than physical life.

Don’t leave because you don’t understand. Stay until you do. There is nothing out there that will give you everlasting life. There is nothing out there that will bring you closer to God and draw you deeper into God’s Spirit. When you do, people may come to look at you and discover that you are a Holy One of God.

15 August 2012 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Revelation 11: 19, 12: 1-6, 10 + Psalm 45 + 1 Corinthians 15: 20-26 + Luke 1: 39-56

The earliest artistic representations of Mary show her as a figure far from human with a face that is frozen in an icon-like gaze. Gradually over time, under the influence of Greek and Roman art, and then the Renaissance with its veneration of the human form she takes on a more motherly and sometimes more regal appearance. In more modern times this woman favored by God is sometimes seen in art more realistically as a Palestinian girl, and even more boldly as a teen ager in jeans and a sweater. Artists often have a way of entering into the realm of theology, and certainly theologians have influenced the vision of artists.

Of all the figures and women in human history, Mary, the Mother of God has certainly intrigued them both. In the first reading today, we hear of a mighty woman/warrior ready to do battle with a dragon. This image inspired by the author of the Book of Revelation provides a fresh new image of the Virgin Mary, and I wish some artists might take up the challenge. Mary as Warrior would be quite an image. Like so many other forward looking works of art, it might well be shunned by the pious and even condemned by puritanical self-appointed critics. But I wonder, if the Sacred Scriptures can write about it, why can’t we think about it and even paint it. Imagine, Mary as a warrior! She might look like Joan of Arc. It does cause some conflict with the meek and mild, the sweet gentle mother look so favored in some ages, but I don’t think that is what we need these days in the face of so much evil.

The author of the Book of Revelation provides us with a woman who is armed and ready to do battle with evil. This dragon in the vision of John is a symbol of evil power in this world. It stands for all the oppression and abused power that holds people in poverty and in ignorance. It stands for all injustice that empowers greed and the evil that greed perpetuates. In John’s Revelation, it is this woman who comes from the New Jerusalem to defeat it. This woman in John’s vision is the Arc of the Covenant with which Israel was able to do battle with every enemy and emerge victorious.

I like thinking of Mary as a Warrior. I propose that all of you consider what your image of this Virgin might be – so that again she might excite our imaginations and provide us with an example of what a woman can do. She has done so in the past. Her weapons are always prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. Time and time again these weapons have overcome the mighty and pulled them down from their thrones. I wonder how it is that the evil of an oppressive Communist empire finally collapsed on itself almost without one shot being fired by men. Could it not possibly be that countless prayers in her name were stronger than bombs and sabers, warheads and tanks? Behind all that fluffy lace and golden pillows, their hides the strength of mother, the strength of prayer, and the promise of victory from a loud voice in heaven that says: “Now have salvation and power come, the reign of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.”

 This is what we celebrate today: God’s affirmation of a woman, God’s affirmation that there is power in a mother’s love to defeat every evil and right every wrong, to pull down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. The Assumption is not just God’s exaltation of faithfulness and discipleship, but our own as well.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, — how does the rest of it go? Say it.

12 August 2012 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

1 Kings 19: 4-8 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 4: 30-5:2 + John 6: 41-51

When you step forward before one of us distributing the Body of Christ, bow and extend you open hand for the gift of this Bread of Life that comes down from heaven, this living bread, flesh for the life of the world, you say: “Amen.”

At that moment, something happens, and I’m not sure it is always the right thing.

Our Eucharistic piety usually directs us to a momenet of solotude in private prayer before we are called to common prayer in a song of praise and thanksgiving. This shift in the movement of the liturgy is one that should reflect an internal movement as well, and I’m not sure it always works.

While no one has yet responded to the words: “Body of Christ” with the words: “It’s all mine.” we may not be far from it. There is always a temptation, and it is a temptation, to think that this is some kind of personal, private experience or a priviledged experience of intimacy with Christ. This is why I often recoil a bit when someone mistakenly reaches out to grab the Body of Christ. This is not “mine” to grab and run. There is something being said in these verses from John’s Gospel that is essential to our common understanding not only of what has been given to us, but why.

This gift, “my flesh for the life of the world” is given for the world. It is not my personal and private possession. “The Bread that I will give” is given for the life of the world, not just for me: for the world. So, how is it going to get to the world? The answer to that question is the essential message of this Gospel. Think deeply for moment: BREAD, FLESH, LIFE FOR THE WORLD. The Eucharist is not flesh, it is bread. That is the essential element. If it were not bread it could not become the Holy Eucharist. We are the Flesh. We enter into the mystery of the Incarnation when we receive and consume this Eucharistic Bread of Life, and in that awesome experience, it is our flesh that must give life to this world: our flesh nourished and strengthened, consecrated and commissioned to bring life to this world.

The issue is: “Why do we get this gift?”  “What are we to do with it?” What are we to become becasue of it?” The answer is all revealed here in John 6. This Eucharist gift is not all mine – it is not mine to keep or simply to adore. Once I receive this gift, the Bread of Life, I am responsible for the life of the world; that bread becomes my flesh in union now with the Body of Christ which is given for the life of the world.

But look at what happens when we fail to perceive and respond to what is revealed here. We turn the Eucharist into a private devotion that may or may not move us out of ourselves, our little world of wants and needs, pains and sorrows. This is not the intent of the one who has given us this gift. He left us this gift so that we might continue his work. It is not given to me and you to hold onto like some prize treasure we find and then hide in order to keep it all for ourselves. The life of the world depends upon our flesh doing something and becoming something because of the Bread of Life we share.

This Mass is not just for us, it is for the world. The Word of God feeds us, the Bread of Life feeds us so that we can satisfy the deepest hunger of this world for forgiveness, for vision, leadership, hope, and joy. I am convinced that if we lived our faith this way, we would need Mass, and wait and long for next Sunday to be fed again, renewed, and encouraged with the Christ’s vision of the Kingdom of Heaven that has already come into the world. Likewise, I am beginning to suspect that the reason some are not here is that they spent the week preoccupied with themselves, their jobs, their worries and concerns. Instead of feeding the world, they are exhausted from their own little world and are too tired to find their way back into the life of the world.

You try living the Gospel this week for the life of the world, and you will be hungry again in no time at all, and we will gather again around this table to encourage each other, lift up the discouraged, and heal the broken hearted; and Christ will come again to fill us with his life.

5 August 2012 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Exodus 16: 2-15 + Psalm 78 + Ephesians 4: 17-24 + John 6: 24-35

They ask for signs and wonders.

He asks for faith.

They want to be entertained.

He wants them to work.

They want to be fed.

He wants to give them life.

They want more bread.

He says: “Here it is. It’s me.”

In the end, the problem with those folks was that they lived to eat

rather than eating to live.

Fast forward from a scene at the Lake side town of Capernaum to Saint Mark Church in Norman, Oklahoma. When we pick up and proclaim these verses from John 6, the question is still being asked: “What do you want?” “What are you doing here?” If it’s entertainment, then you need to be down the street, up at the Warren Theater, or the ball park. If it’s signs and wonders, there will be one, but to get it, you have to do the work of believing. These are the themes woven into these verses. They are the themes which John uses to lead us into the awesome mystery of Jesus Christ, The Bread of Life. John does not want to tell us about Jesus, he wants to lead us into Jesus: that is believe, belief IN.

This “believing” is not simply trusting or hoping that something will happen. It is work, hard work, a life-long work. The only way bread becomes sacrament on this altar, which is the only sign and wonder you will get today, is for us to do the work of faith: the work of conversion, of turning from sin and turning INto Christ.

Surely I am not the only one in here who wonders why less than half of this parish will have been here at Mass weekend. Every once inawhile I wonder what it would be like if we announced that next week the Pope will be here to lead, or what would happen if word leaked out that the winning Powerball ticket was to be found taped under one of the pews! Imagine the crowd! What is it they want? What do you and I want?

He asks us to work, and for that work he will give us food that endures for eternal life. And with those people at Caperneaum, we can ask: “What do you want us to do?”  He says: “This is the work I want from you: believe in me.”

Paul insists that believing in Jesus results in the transformation of our lives so that we are no longer content to live with full bellies while our minds and hearts are empty. It means we step out of a life that is steeped in ignorance and self-interest, and into Christ. Having been fed on the bread from heaven, we are wonderfully transformed into it. The spirit of our minds is renewed that lanchs us into a way of living that is full of joy and gratitude, not greed and hunger for more.

This is going to require some work. It is work to get here on time. It is work to remember a Holy Day coming up, it is work to get the children ready and feed them  on the Bread of Holy Communion rather than McDonalds’ French Fries. It is work to teach them and hand on to them the wisdom of faith and the truth of Jesus Christ; much more work than teaching them the rules of T-ball and Soccor. It is work to contribute something meaningful and sacrificial to the life of this church; but all this work is transforming, and it is ultimately the sign the rest of this world is looking for: a sign of hope, a sign of self-less service, a sign of joy in the face of every trouble and disaster.

Full bellies do not make full lives, but somehow full lives seem able to satisfy every human hunger. Which do you want? That’s is what Jesus asked in Capernaum and asks again in Norman, Oklahoma. Do you want a full belly or a full life? When we make up our mind, we’ll be approaching this table full of faith, full of hope, and full of love because we will have come to believe in him.