PENTECOST 11, PROPER 14

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

16 AUGUST 2009

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1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14; Psalm 111; Ephesians 5:15-20; john 6:51-58

Bread…3 weeks running, each time slightly different understanding

Today: intimacy with Jesus, who is the bread of life

            Not simply eating WITH him but through eating and drinking HIM!

                                    “eucharist”

            So we don’t merely think ABOUT Jesus

So we don’t merely say words about Jesus

So we don’t merely hear theories about Jesus

Jesus means that we actually participate with him

in his life, all of it, the dying part and new life part,   both….. “This is my Body….take it in your hands,

put it into your mouth and eat it….”

The eucharist is no dainty meal where priests pass

out token samples to remind us of Jesus who is really somewhere else, after all….

Eucharist means ingesting our Savior, making us part of him, we in him, he in us, forever…….

            Intimacy….participation

There’s nothing like a holiday to give you perspective, sometimes!

For me, one week with my family, folded into a house, sharing our lives, our

            meals, our hats, bug spray, chores, stories…………participating in each

            others’ lives…..

Another week with David and our Shanghai kids in the wilderness.

            River canoe trip, pitching tents each night in a new place, paddling for

            hours each day (7 hours the 1^st day to break ourselves in)

   I was an extra person……….I got a kayak, a racing kayak unlike my stodgy lake

            kayak or my Kevlar canoe

…………..And here’s where it all got interesting. I learned in that fancy kayak the difference between hearing words and actually doing the words, the difference between theory and intimate involvement

            No life jackets….spent night at Roll Dam (“roil” Dam….water roiling as it

            thundered past………..lovely for sleeping, but a different matter the next morning……………guide gave directions: There are rapids down ahead. If you capsize, make sure your boat ends up downstream from you or it can injure or kill you. Then just let it go. And get onto your back and get yourself over to the shore.

            Words, theory about capsizing in rapids…..huh. Rapids a bit downstream, this river is violently loud, but no big deal….

My family piled into the canoes, I settled into my slinky kayak.

            We milled around a bit in a sheltered pool area but it seemed my racing kayak had a mind of its own. In a flash, my boat got caught in a rip---I hadn’t known about a rip this close, couldn’t see it---and suddenly I was tossed up and went under, banging on rocks, inhaling water. “Make sure your boat ends up downstream from you…” I grabbed the kayak and pushed it forward. “Then let your boat go.” I let the kayak go. “Flip over onto your back and get yourself to shore.” I flipped. Eventually I ended up near a bolder and grabbing a branch, I managed to keep myself in one place, the river racing past. The guide found the boat, found me, and I got back in and actually made it over the rapids when I got to them.  

The guide’s words had been just words when I’d heard them, just words….nothing more than an idea rattling around in my head, rather interesting, I thought.  A spiel from a river guide. Nothing really to do with me.

But those words became so real for me that I lived them. I became part of them.

            In the same way, I realize, Jesus is not content to stay inside our heads as an intriguing idea. His words are no spiel. Jesus’ words invite us to receive him within our very bodies as nourishment, as a living presence, to receive him even through our very mouths, dwelling within our lives.

            Thinking about Jesus is terrific.  Speculating on theological questions is critical to our faith journeys. But Jesus is telling us that we can’t sit in our pews forever, pondering and thinking, our minds full of wonderful, holy ideas and theories.

We need to get up and step our and forward, moving to the altar….. holding out our hands to receive Jesus himself in them.  “Take, eat, this is my Body, given for you…..”

Jesus provide bread for people to eat. But he did more than than provide bread, he BECAME the bread.  The words at Eucharist speak to us and invite us. If we respond as Jesus wants us to, we will open our hands to be filled by him, so we can be renewed, that we may take him in for strength, not simply for comfort and solace, for renewal and not just for pardon, for a new life, life as God intends for us, a glimpse of eternal life beginning now and every time we eat the presence of Christ.