"I Am"

Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17

John 8:58

Psalm 46

World Communion Sunday

 

What are some of the ways that you come to know God?  Scripture, nature, worship, prayer, meditation, fasting, spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina and clearness committee and ....  Do you have one or two ways that speak to you more than others?  That you tend to gravitate towards?  Are there other ways of knowing God that are less comfortable for you?  Or ways that you avoid?

               You know the familiar story about the blind men and the elephant.  I read it to you in January.  But I think it’s a story we should all be remembering on a regular basis, especially as we seek to cross our differences, to be in relationship despite our disagreements, to work to love those who don’t see things the same ways that we do.  So here it is again:

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

Who went to see the elephant (though all of them were blind),

That each by observation might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall

Against his broad and burly side, at once began to call:

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a wall!"

The second, feeling of the tusk, cried, "Ho! What have we here?

So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 'tis mighty clear

This wonder of an elephant is very like a spear!"

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take

The squirming trunk within his hands, thus boldly up and spake,

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a snake!"

The fourth reached out his eager hand and felt about the knee:

"What most this wondrous beast is like is mighty plain," said he,

"'Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree!"

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, said, "E'en the blindest man

Can tell what this resembles most. Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant is very like a fan!"

The sixth no sooner had begun about the beast to grope,

Than, seizing on the swinging tail that fell within his scope,

"I see," said he, "the elephant is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan disputed loud and long,

Each in his own opinion exceeding stiff and strong,

though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So oft in group endeavors, the members of the team

Rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean,

As if it were an elephant not one of them has seen.

               So, too, I think we are all limited in our knowledge of God by many things.  For example, our circumstances in life limit what we see of God.  The limits of our experiences, the limits of the time that we can give over to our spiritual lives, these limit our understanding of God.  We are limited by our beliefs in seeing the whole picture of God.  The really wise person is the one who recognizes they lack knowledge because that is the person who is open to learning and experiencing more.  Our "knowledge" of God can often limit what we see of God, what we hear of God.  Let me give you a specific example - those who "know" that God is only male miss seeing the feminine or even binary or fluid aspects of God.  Those who "know" that people are made in the image of God may miss seeing aspects of God reflected and alive in nature or in other ways that are beyond human. 

               We see this with scripture too: if we only take scripture as literal and historic, we frankly miss the deeper messages within it.  When we miss those layers and layers of wisdom and meaning, we also miss out on deeper and different ways to see and understand God. 

               We also limit God by what we leave God out of in our lives, or what parts of our lives we keep separate from our faith.  Can you think of areas people hide away from God?  Can you think of areas that YOU keep separate from God?  Or areas of our lives in which it might be a challenge to include God in?   

               Besides all of these things that limit our relationships with God, I would also say that spending time with God only in the ways that are familiar and make us comfortable also limits our understanding of God.  We only see the part of God that we are touching, that we are exploring in those moments.  For example, when we only know God through prayer, we may come to see a God who listens, a God who loves, but we may miss that God also instructs, also guides, also has words to speak to us.  We have heard some people say they don't come to church because they find God better on their own.  Well, I suggest that only finding God in church, and conversely, only finding God outside of church - both of these limit our vision and understanding of God.

               The scriptures we heard today present two ways that people might meet God.  Moses met God in a burning bush.  The Psalmist tells us to meet God in silence.  Both are important.  Both give us information about God.  God appearing in the burning bush tells us that God is amazing, can do anything, can appear in any form, and that God does speak to us, does come to us, does have instruction for us.  It shows us the drama and wonder of God, the ways in which God can be so obvious, so hard to ignore, so beyond our expectations.  God telling us to be still to know God tells us that God is also gentle, and at times is not dramatic, but calls us into a stillness and into a place of listening and being present in the quiet and stillness.  That God is as close to us as our own breathing and heartbeats, if we but quiet down for a moment to experience God.

               In the book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert takes a year "sabbatical" or pilgrimage to explore her spirituality.  This was not always a comfortable experience for her.  She found herself confronting difficult parts of herself within her spiritual journey.  And some of the things she tried - extended periods of meditation for example, were downright frustrating and uncomfortable at first.  But she continued to try them, to work with them, to give them a chance.  It took time, it took commitment, it took a real desire to see God, to know God in a different way, in a fuller way, in a more complete way.  When we strive to know God in a different way, she discovered, we cannot just try something new for a minute or an hour, a day, or even a week.  It took months, but she was blessed with a deeper, broader, new look at God.  And she found that not only did she encounter God in new ways, but through her encounter with the Divine, she came to understand herself better, to heal some deep brokenness within and to find the courage to heal some brokenness outside of herself, in relationships, as well. 

               This is not surprising.  When we come to know God in a new way, we also come to understand ourselves more deeply, because we are made in God's image.  Similarly, we can come to understand those around us more deeply as well.  We can grow in our capacity to love and to care as we encounter Love itself, as we strive to know God better and in different ways.

               On this, World Communion Sunday, we remember that other Christians around the world, Christians who experience and celebrate God in different ways than we do, are also part of our faith family, part of the family of God.  In their different ways of worshiping and celebrating their faith, they have things to teach us about who God is and where God can be found.  In hearing and learning and experiencing the ways others do worship differently, and understand God differently, we come to see more aspects of God, more nuances to the face of God, more parts of who God is.  I would say this also expands beyond Christianity.  When we encounter and talk and interact with people from different faith traditions, even atheism and agnosticism, we can also learn from them.  Even those who say there is no God or that they don’t know if there is or they don’t care if there is, there are still things we can learn about God even from them!  As I worked on my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed a number of atheists and learned that those I interviewed had a very specific vision of God as a white bearded man sitting in the clouds, literally making the world in 7 of our human days, that they couldn’t accept.  Well, I can understand that.   I tend to agree with them on that.   

These beautiful passages in which God says God’s name is “I am” or “I will be who I will be” or “I am becoming who I am becoming” tell us that God is so very much bigger than we can imagine.  God IS, and in that BEING we find God.  It is not just God’s name.  It is who and what God is.  God IS being.  God IS.  We find that God in the burning bush and in the stillness and in so many ways.  Jesus, too identifies as “I am” repeatedly, “I AM the bread of life,” “I AM the way, the truth and the life,” etc.  Jesus also says this BEING existed from the beginning.  But we humans, we have a hard time with just “being”.  We want to define things more tightly.  We want to assign qualities and attributes.  And those qualities and attributes limit who God really is for us.  If you are happy, you are not sad.  If you are a democrat, you are not a republican.  If you are an athlete, you are not a coach potato.  Whatever it is: our attributes, even of God, limit in our minds not just who we are, and who other people are, but who God really is.  But God IS.  God IS.  And so, we expand our understanding by taking the time to intentionally see other sides of God that may not be as comfortable or easy. We expand beyond the boxes and the attributes and into the BEING of God.

               And so, my challenge for all of us is that we take the risk, and take the time, to try to know God in a way we haven't encountered God before.  I encourage us to try something that we may not have tried before.  We can try a classic spiritual discipline such as daily meditation for a month, or we can try a 24 hour fast.  You can invite someone to be your prayer partner, especially someone you don’t know very well, or someone you’ve had issues with.  This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone you pray with, but someone you can check in with about your prayer life and that can help hold you accountable to daily personal prayer.  You might try a Taize service, or attending one Sunday a service that is completely different.  You could help serve a meal with Winter Nights, or volunteer to help with our laundry program.  You can commit to reading a part of the Bible with which you are unfamiliar, to study it, to discuss it with a small group.  I would be happy to help you form that group.  You might take a journey or pilgrimage to Israel/Palestine.  You might talk to someone that you don't think you like.  Or simply make a commitment to take the time to be still, even amidst the crazy business of our lives.  But the challenge is not to just try this new thing one time, but to really give time to whatever you are trying that is new.  Give it time, give it space, give God time to talk to you through your new experience and to reveal God-self to you in a new way.  Whatever it is, I invite you to seek to feel more of the elephant...or rather, to seek to see more of God and who God is in your life, and in the world.   God is waiting to be known more fully by you, and God promises that in return you will know more of yourself as well.  Amen. 

World Communion

2 Tim. 1:1-14

Luke 22:4-23

               Once again there is so much in this passage that we can glean.  What do you learn about communion from this passage? 

               Jesus starts off by saying that he is eager to have this Passover meal with his apostles.  He wants to share his ending with those he loves.  He wants to eat and commune and be with those people who have been with him, with his family, his community.

               He gives of the meal even to his betrayer.  He does not withhold his meal, his food, his love, his communion, even from those who would destroy him.  Jesus is announcing that this is his body and blood.  This has layers and layers of meaning, but one of the things it says to me is that it is God’s sacrifice, God’s giving of God-self, provides for us everything that we need.  When we eat, when we drink, it is because God has provided that to us out of the sweat and tears of God’s own being.

In light of that, why does Jesus then give this meal, this food, this sustenance, this sacrifice even to the one who would betray him?  This is such a strong statement about God’s love and forgiveness of us.  Even those of us who have made mistakes, or done bad things, ALL of us are offered the life that God gives because ALL of us are loved, all of us are forgiven.  It doesn’t mean there are not consequences for our actions, but it was not Jesus who rejected Judas, but Judas who eventually was so devastated himself by his own actions that he hung himself, according to the gospel of Luke.  God was still offering love, still offering bread, still offering life even to the one who would hurt him.  He still offered forgiveness, and what’s more - a new chance, in every moment, with every bite of bread and drink from the cup he offered Judas, and he offers us a new choice, a new option for choosing life.  Judas, in the end, did not choose life, but still it was offered.

               I think about this in light of World Communion Sunday in which we take communion with Christians of all denominations all over the world today.  It doesn’t matter today if you are Presbyterian or Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Baptist or Pentecostal or whatever.  This, too, is incredibly significant because we all come to communion with different understandings of exactly what communion is.  Catholics believe in transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ.  Lutherans believe in consubstantiation which means that while the bread and wine stay bread and wine, the literal body and blood of Christ become “attached” to that bread and wine and are taken in with the bread and wine.  For Presbyterians we believe in something sometimes called “receptionism” which basically means that we do not believe that there is a literal blood or body in communion: it is symbolic and God is spiritually present with us in the meal that we take. 

               But what is amazing about this day is that on World Communion Sunday, we put aside these differences, we put aside a belief in the importance in our dogma or understanding and we choose instead to focus on what we have in common.  We share a faith, we share a deep belief that our relationships with God matter, are important, are significant.  We share a belief that we are all God’s children, united through this meal, for one thing, and united by the fact that God loves each of us deeply, fully, completely.

               Jesus’ ministry included so many meals, so much feeding.  There was the story of the feeding of the 5000.  And in Matthew as well as Mark there is also the feeding of the 4000 which is a very similar story but simply with different numbers of fish, loaves, people and left-overs.  But other stories in the Bible also talk about food and eating.  The disciples, we are told, picked grain and ate on the Sabbath.  Jesus was eating with the Pharisees when the woman came and washed his feet with her tears (Luke 7:36- 50).  Jesus was attacked for eating with sinners and tax collectors. (Mark 2:0-6)  Jesus tells us we are the salt of the earth.  He compares the kingdom of God to yeast.  He chooses to eat and drink, changing the water into wine.  He tells the parable of the great banquet.  He describes himself as the bread of life, and says those who take of him will never hunger.  He deals with his own hunger as a temptation which he defeats.  After the resurrection, we are told, the disciples recognized the risen Christ when he broke the bread, THROUGH the breaking of the bread.  Jesus was recognized through his sharing food with his disciples.  Food is an important theme throughout Jesus’ ministry and in this, too, he never discriminates, never differentiates.  He feeds everyone who comes to him, he eats with any who will eat with him.  And it is through that feeding, that sharing of food, that sharing of a meal in which Christ is known.

               It is another thing as well.  There is a wonderful song called Big Joe by David Bailey.  The words are:

It was just another Sunday at the big church down on main.

He was just another homeless man, Big Joe was his name.

She was just a kitchen helper, Miss Betty mild and meek,

who prepared the sacred elements, every single week. 

Well the prayers had all been said, the hymns had all been sung. 

The pastor set the table, invited everyone.

Big Joe heard the music, he took a step inside. 

He saw a bunch of well-dressed folks who looked like they were trying to hide. 

He saw a man in fancy robes hold up a loaf of bread,

tear it into pieces.  And Big Joe thought he said,

“All ye who are hungry…”  Joe thought, “That’s me!” 

So, he walked on down the aisle, hoping it was free.

Well the pastor looked uneasy, not sure what to do.

But the usher held the plate out and said “broken just for you.”

Big Joe felt pretty lucky, then they handed him some wine.

The cups were pretty small but it tasted pretty fine

Then he said to the usher, “That bread was good.

Could I have a little more? Do you think I could?”  

Now the usher looked uneasy, looked a bit confused. 

Then he said “I'm sorry sir.  That's not how this bread is used.”

Joe said “I'd like to talk to the master of this meal. 

I'd really like to know just exactly how he feels.

'Cause up there on the table I can see it plain as day:

You got a half a loaf left over  - you’re gonna throw it away.

Cause I got a bunch of friends – they’re sleeping in the street –

right outside your door and they could use a bite to eat.” 

Well the ushers got to talking, then they began to shout.

Then before you know it, a fight had broken out. 

Meanwhile miss Betty slipped away, to the kitchen she did go,

filled a basket up with bread.  She brought it back to Joe.  

She said “Take this to your friends and you come on back next week”. 

Joe said “As you've done to them - you've done to me!”

That's how it all got started at the big church down on Main,

where people come from miles away to break bread in His name! Hallelujah!

As this song points out, communion was a meal, was a feast, was a celebration, was a feeding.  But it is also an opportunity for us to expand our vision of who is to be included, who is to be invited, who it is we are called to feed and with whom we are called to eat.

               It is in all of these things – Jesus’ ministry of feeding, Jesus feeding of even Judas at the last meal, the opportunities we have to feed each other, and this day in which, every year, we celebrate our collective faith through World Communion Sunday – in all of these ways and in all of these things the overabundant theme is once again a grace that overcomes every barrier, a grace that breaks down walls, a grace that forgives and offers new life to any who would like to partake.  World Communion Sunday is a day in which we are all invited to eat together a meal and to remember that God is in this meal with us.  God is in community with us.  God is in the basic stuff of life with us.  It is through this meal that we remember what God has done through history and what God continues and will continue to do through our lives. 

               Communion is remembering.  We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.  But it is also a time to remember what God has done throughout history.  When Jesus ate the Passover meal, he was remembering the Israelites freed from slavery.  We also remember the return from exile.  We also remember that Jesus was recognized by his disciples after the resurrection through the breaking of the bread – through eating with them in communion and community.  Communion is the New covenant of forgiveness and grace and life.  Through it, we thank God, we bless God, we anticipate God’s fulfilling of the kingdom on earth.  We trust in and receive Christ’s love, we manifest the reality of the covenant of grace in reconciling and being reconciled.  We proclaim the power of Christ’s reign for renewal, justice and peace in the world.  The church is also bound with Christ and with one another, united with all Christians, nourished by Christ’s presence, and we ask to be kept faithful.  We renew our baptism vows by taking communion.  We celebrate the joyful feast of the people of God and anticipate the great banquet where all people will be united and made whole.  We are given a gift in this meal.  And that gift is a grace, a grace that we accept by eating together.  It is a grace we are also invited to pass forward by inviting all, as Jesus invited all, to join us in this meal. 

Come to the table and let us truly celebrate together.        

Discerning the Body

1 Corinthians 11: 17-33

Ephesians 2:14-18

               In today’s first passage Paul is confronting bad communion practices.  He starts with this: “So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.  Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing?”  So his first point is that all are included, regardless of economic level, regardless of what they can bring to the meal.  Also note, as I’ve mentioned before, that communion was meant to be a meal.  It was meant to fill those who came, feed them in a very real and concrete way.  It was a supper, it was a gathering of community, it was a celebration of God-in-our-midst, God who provides our daily needs of food and drink, God who comes to us in the ordinary and every day experiences of eating and drinking, of joining together with friends.  Today’s passage from 1 Corinthians ends with this, “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together.”  We do this after church on Sundays: just snacks, most of the time, but that eating together, that time for community and sharing of food, that is communion at the deepest level.

               By the way, this idea that communion is a meal is mirrored in the very words we use when we say, “this is the joyful feast of the people of God.”  It is meant to be a feast, a meal.  A feeding.

               Obviously we don’t do it that way anymore.  The communion “feast” became limited to a small piece of bread and a small sip of drink in a time when people were afraid that folk were coming solely because they were hungry and wanted to be fed, rather than for the “proper” reasons of remembering Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  But I will tell you honestly, it always feels more like real communion to me when we are feeding and sitting with those who are there simply out of need than it does to me to take a single bite of bread and call that communion.  Jesus fed people, including the hungry.  And when we do the same, we are more accurately following Jesus’ footsteps, we are more accurately acting out the “sacrament” than any other way we do communion.  Sacraments in the Presbyterian church involve three components: 1.  Jesus participated in it.  2.  Jesus did it for us.  3.  Jesus called us to do it.  When it comes to communion, Jesus ate, Jesus fed, and Jesus called us to do the same.  We are sacramentally called to feed one another, and when we do so in community, it truly gets at the heart of the sacramental practice of communion.

               Paul ends this passage in Corinthians with the following statement: “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.”  So what does it mean to “discern the body?”  He’s already said that excluding anyone who comes to the table is a failure to discern the body.  He has also said that eating within your own small groups is a way of failing to discern the body. 

               The passage we read from Ephesians gives a bit more insight.  “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.  He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”  So “discerning the body” has to do with an ability to get past our differences, to remember that we are connected, united in Christ.  “Discerning the body” is about seeing one another with eyes of love and peace and recognition that we are all children of God despite our differences, despite our disputes.

               Roger Wolsey sent me a story this week in which he described an encounter he had with someone on the opposite side of the theological spectrum from himself outside the General Conference of the United Methodist Church.  They were arguing with each other loudly, with passion, with intensity, about LGBTQ inclusion.  Wolsey wrote, “In the midst of this nasty melee, I felt a breeze against the back of my legs. I turned and saw a tall man in a suit reaching in between us with a large cookie in his hand, saying, “Have a cookie!” The guy with the sign and I looked at each other, then at him, and then we took the cookie being offered. We broke it in half and started to enjoy the cookie. The guy in the suit walked off hardly breaking stride at all. We found ourselves still arguing, but our volume level went way down and we somehow shifted into a more civil mode of, slightly, more rational debate. He learned my name is Roger. I learned his name is Fred. And at the end, we honored each other as being fellow Christians, we shook hands and pledged to pray for each other (both of us certain that the other needed prayer).”  He continued, “the line between enemy and friend is not a rigid one and … the concept of “enemy” is only there to the extent that we want and allow it to exist.  Historic writings about the early Church tell us that non-Christians often remarked of Christians “See how they love each other!” There was a time of such a lack of love in ancient Roman society that any show of love or joy, let alone unconditional love like the kind that had them going out of their way to ensure that the poor people of Rome received proper burials, set Christians apart from the rest of the crowd. People could sense something was different about those Christians. That difference was inclusive, radical love and compassion – and that difference made Christianity worthy of consideration. Those early Christians provided proper funeral services for the indigent strangers when no one else would. They rescued infants with birth defects from the garbage heaps who’d been rejected and discarded as refuse by families unwilling to raise them. And they notably tended to each other when they took ill, experienced hardship, became widowed, etc.”

               On this World Communion/Peacemaking Sunday it is especially important that we remember this.  We are celebrating communion with Christians around the world today.  We are also remembering the needs, and especially the hungers of people around the world as we collect the peacemaking offering which goes in large part towards the ending of hunger around the world.  These three things: our connections to each other around the world, our feeding of each other through communion, and peacemaking are all intimately connected. 

               So today as we celebrate both peacemaking and world communion Sunday I invite you to take part at a deeper level in both being fed and in feeding.  In terms of being fed, we have baskets full to the brim with different kinds of breads from around the world.  Do not just take a bite, but take a real piece of bread.  Savor it, taste it, let it fill you in body as well as in spirit and in soul, let it be part of you even as you see that same bread becoming part of those around you.  In terms of feeding one another, I encourage you to give generously to the peacemaking offering that we will be taking in a few minutes.  In our praying, I encourage you to remember people around the world, our brothers and sisters, our family whom we have yet to meet, and to lift up deep prayers for their wholeness, their well-being, their safety and health.

               Communion is so many things.  It is remembering.  We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We also remember what God has done throughout history.  When Jesus ate the Passover meal, he was remembering the Israelites freed from slavery.  We also remember the return from exile.  We also remember that Jesus was recognized by his disciples after the resurrection through the breaking of the bread – through eating with them in communion and community. 

               It is New covenant of forgiveness and grace and life. 

               It sustains the church by Christ’s pledge of undying love and continuing presence.   

               And on this World Communion Sunday it also connects us to people around the world in a commitment to love, to peace, to justice.

               We thank you, God; we bless you, God; we anticipate, God, your fulfilling of the kingdom on earth.  We trust in and receive Christ’s love, we manifest the reality of the covenant of grace in reconciling and being reconciled.  We proclaim the power of Christ’s reign for renewal, justice and peace in the world.  We bind the Church with Christ and with one another, united with all Christians, nourished by Christ’s presence, and we ask to be kept faithful.  We renew our baptism vows through this taking of communion.  We celebrate the joyful feast of the people of God and anticipate the great banquet where all people will be united and made whole.  Amen.