Archive for July, 2018

The Gospel Truth

July 29, 2018

As most of you know, we use a three-year lectionary for our Sunday readings in church. In Year A we read through the Gospel of Matthew; in Year B we focus on the Gospel of Mark; and in Year C we read Luke. The Gospel of John is read on special occasions, during Holy Week and Easter and at other times.

This is Year B so we are reading Mark, but because it’s the shortest of the four Gospels (only sixteen chapters!) we often supplement it to get through the year with readings from the Gospel of John such as we have today and will for the next several weeks. Today, we focus on the Feeding of the Multitude or the miracle of the loaves and the fish.

The four Gospels are not just simple biographies of Jesus. They are theological statements about just who this Jesus is! And each of them has its own perspective. Matthew is the “Jewish Christian” gospel. He sees Jesus as the New Moses and as the one who brings the New Law down from the Sermon on the Mount.  Mark is best known for “the Messianic secret” where Jesus seems to want to keep his messiahship a secret and seldom admits to that title. Luke is the Gentile gospel where Jesus reaches out to all people, not just to just to those who share his Jewish roots. There is also special concern in Luke for the poor, for healing, and for women and children.

John is the most “spiritual” and “theological” of the four gospels. Jesus is seen, from the very first chapter, as the Word made Flesh, the Incarnate Son of God who seems almost to be above the action as it plays out and is always in charge – even from the Cross! John is also a master of symbolism and multiple meanings to many of his stories. Nowhere is that more clearly seen than in today’s reading about the Feeding of the Multitude (John 6:1-15)

On the first level, this is simply a story about Jesus feeding hungry people. He was being followed by a large crowd and, by the time they reached the top of a mountain, it was time for dinner! The disciples notice this and are panicking about how to provide food for them all. Andrew points out that there was a little bit of bread and fish to be had, but that certainly wouldn’t be enough to feed them all. And yet, it was somehow!

The second level of meaning might be called “the Jewish understanding” of this story. It was getting close to Passover time, and the author of John’s gospel is quick to point that out. This miracle was going to have something to do with their Jewish heritage! Of course, the Passover hearkens back to Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into the desert. And the desert was where, among other things, the people were fed with manna from heaven, a similarly “miraculous feeding” miracle which saved their lives from starvation.

But there is more to it than even that. We’re told near the end of the story that, after the feeding had taken place, the people “were about to come and take (Jesus) away by force to make him king.” (John 6:15) Why in the world would they do that? Moses wasn’t a king. And other prophets were purported to be miracle workers and they weren’t kings. Yet there was a popular understanding that, when the Messiah finally came, he would usher in the new age with a great banquet – a Messianic banquet. We hear about it in Isaiah:

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:6-7) Well, the loaves and the fish may not seem like such a lavish banquet, but with Jesus standing on top of that mountain, perhaps with the sun shining behind him, and a multitude of people being fed…it was close enough. This was a banquet, so perhaps Jesus was the Messiah.

Then, of course, there is a third level of the miracle itself. Whether one believes that the lad’s five barley loaves and two fish were miraculously multiplied, or whether the boy’s generosity in sharing softened the hearts of the crowd to break open their own backpacks and share with their neighbor, some kind of miracle happened that day — as they had so many times throughout Jesus’ ministry.

Finally, the fourth level to this story developed over time in the early church. Because the Last Supper became such a central part of Christian history and worship and because that highlighted other times Jesus was made known to his disciples “in the breaking of the Bread” (such as on the Road to Emmaus and sharing breakfast with his disciples on the beach after the Resurrection) this feeding miracle began to have Eucharistic significance. It’s often pointed out that Jesus follows the same four steps here as he did at the Last Supper – he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the people. Take, bless, break and share. The same thing he did at the Last Supper. The same thing we do each week at this Eucharistic banquet!

We’re going to be hearing a lot about the Eucharist — what John calls “The Bread of Life” — over the next several weeks in our Sunday readings. Our story today introduces the 6th chapter of John and most of the rest of the chapter follows the Bread of Life theme.

So, in summary, the Feeding of the Multitude, the Feeding of the 5,000, has at least four levels of meaning for us. First, Jesus fed hungry people and so should we. Second, Jesus stands in a long line of Moses and the prophets which will eventually lead to him being understood as the long-awaited Messiah, God’s Anointed One.

Third, however we want to understand it, the overwhelming testimony of the Gospels and the early church is that Jesus was a “miracle worker.” He did things no one had ever done before!  And finally, when Jesus fed people (like he does every Sunday for us here in the Eucharist) he didn’t just slake their physical hunger…he fed them spiritually as well!

Four levels meaning. Which one should be choose? Well, actually, in John you don’t have to choose. He always means two or three things at the same time! Such is his genius as an author.

Truth can have many levels of meanings…and still remain absolutely true!

 

 

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Balance of Power

July 24, 2018

The Constitution of the United States of America envisions three “co-equal” branches of government – executive, judicial, and legislative. Wary of kings and monarchs, dictators and tyrants the framers wanted a robust system of checks-and-balances to rein in abuses of power by any one branch. This wise system is badly broken today both on the state level and in Washington DC.

We have one party rule run rampant and our very way life is being threatened.  In addition to the need for balance of power between the branches of government, I believe we need to even out partisan representation in the legislature and even in the judicial system which is supposed to be non-partisan, but is not. This to reassert the classic checks-and-balances function the Constitution envisages. Iowa used to have such divided government and it served us well. What some may have called “gridlock” may actually have been a safe-guard against tyranny.

When you vote in 2018 and 2020 I would encourage you to keep at least one eye on a balance- of- power approach. Let’s alternate the political party of the President and Governor, re-balance the legislature, and thereby influence judicial appointments so that the Courts, both statewide and nationally, once again make decisions based on the law, not on political pressure or ideology. This will require a united effort by Democrats. We would benefit too from Republicans and Independents being willing to cast votes for Democrats this time around. Let’s bring some parity back into government and see how things go. We can always recalibrate in future election cycles if we don’t like the way things turn out.

(Letter to the Editor, Cedar Rapids Gazette, July 24, 2018)

 

 

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Prayer and Action

July 15, 2018

You know, sometimes when I am preparing a Sunday sermon, I never get past the Collect of the Day! Some of these Sunday prayers in our Prayer Book so rich, and many are very ancient. Our one for today goes back to at least the 10th century. And they often contain as much spiritual wisdom and insight as the Scripture Readings which follow!

The Collect’s theme for today is prayer and action, and the relationship between the two. We prayed: “O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them…” The first part tells us the primary purpose of prayer — that we may know and understand what things we ought to do!

I’m afraid we too often understand prayer as telling God something we want done for us. We ask for forgiveness, we pray for others, we pray for ourselves. Sometimes it’s as though we think of God as some kind of heavenly Butler, just waiting around to fulfill our every need. But the truth is, prayer is not meant to change God’s mind. It’s meant to change ours!  We pray so that we might know and understand what things we ought to do!

That means that a good portion of our prayer time each day needs to be spent in reading and meditating on the Bible and other spiritual books, and in quiet and silence, learning about God and listening for God’s gentle direction and guidance for our lives. That’s prayer too! So that we can know and understand what things we ought to do.

Secondly, our time spent in prayer and worship is meant to recharge our spiritual batteries so that we can rise up from our knees and get about the task of doing what God wants us to do out there. As the Collect says, as we know and understand what things we ought to do, that we may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them!

Our First Lesson today (Amos 7:7-15)) describes the prophet Amos following what he understands as direction from God in confronting the king who was oppressing his people. Amos has such confidence in his vision of the plumb-line that he even takes on the court-appointed priest, Amaziah, who tries to stop him from carrying out his mission.  He says, “O seer, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary…”

But Amos says, “I am no (professional) prophet; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, (but) the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.” Amos prayed first, and that gave him confidence to follow through even in the face of opposition.

Today’s Gospel (Mark 6:14-29) tells a similar story of John the Baptist’s martyrdom at the hands of another king, Herod Antipas. We know that John was a man of prayer because Jesus’ followers once wanted him to teach them how to fast and pray like John the Baptist had done for his disciples. John fasted and prayed in the desert so that he would have the grace and power to speak truth to power and challenge Herod, not only to clean up his tangled marital relationships, but to stop oppressing his people and keeping them in poverty.

And finally, St. Paul begins his Epistle to the Ephesians (1:3-14) today with words of prayer, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places…” He goes on to say that “…he has made known to us the mystery of his will.” Why? So that “we might live for the praise of his glory!” Again, Paul counsels prayer so that we might know and understand what things we ought to do, and then have grace and power to accomplish those things!

It’s become quite fashionable these days for politicians when confronted with the now-commonplace incidents of gun violence, or some other devastating human tragedy, to say that they are sending their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims and their families. This, whether or not it seems likely that said politician has uttered a serious prayer in decades! In recent months, some of those victims and families have suggested that the politicians keep their thoughts and prayers to themselves and get about the business of doing what we elected them to do:

And that is, to find solutions to these problems – whether it’s the scourge of violence, the immigration mess, or the increasing gap between rich and poor here and around the world, or environmental concerns which threaten the planet. I must say I have some sympathy with those sentiments! Keep your thoughts and prayers to yourself! And get about the business of solving the problems!

Of course that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pray for victims and survivors! But if we think that is all we need to do, that pious utterances and assurances on cable news networks absolves us of our responsibility to be about the hard work of making this world a better place, then perhaps we had better pray again. And to pray this morning’s Collect:

“O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them…”

So, spend your prayer time this week more in listening for God than talking.

And then, rise up from wherever it is that you pray, knowing that you have the grace and power to accomplish whatever it is that God wants you to do.

For that is God’s promise!

 

 

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