The11th Sunday after Pentecost

11th Sunday after Pentecost

August 16, 2009

The Ven. Richard I Cluett

Those of you who have been in church the last two Sundays will easily recognize today’s Gospel reading. It is almost exactly the same one from each of the past two Sundays. Each week expands it a little, but they all have to do with Jesus as the Bread of Life.

I haven’t been able to be here the last two Sundays, but I have read the sermons from the last two Sundays and both the dean and the canon have wonderfully unpacked this passage as they, to quote our dean, “Mixed, kneaded, shaped, baked, broken and shared…” the Bread of Life which is to be known and found in Jesus the Christ.

And we have it again today. I am wondering if you have had your fill of bread readings from the Gospel of John. You’d think the church would spread them out a bit over the year rather than have them Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, bread and more bread and more bread. We get it, right? Enough with the bread!

Well, gospel truth to tell, there may be a good reason why we have this passage three Sundays in a row. I want to see if we can find it. It’s probably important.

There is an old proverb about preaching a sermon that is learned on day one in seminary. It goes like this: “Tell them what you are going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them.” The point being, it takes a lot to get through the busyness that occupies the human attention and mind before you can get to the human heart.

Reflect for a minute on all the things that occupied your mind, heart, and attention as you came through the doors of the cathedral this morning. If you are like me it is a cacophony of competing wants, needs, demands, priorities, voices, details of life. And that’s not just this morning. That’s life, as Frank Sinatra would sing. That’s how most of us go through life. That’s how most of us live life.

There is so much that calls us, grabs at us, yells at us demanding our attention… So much, that it is possible to lose one’s sense of self, to lose one’s orientation, to get lost in all of it.

Robert Kysar suggests that what Jesus was getting at, and the reason why we have this passage – again, is that Jesus is saying that we need literally to take Jesus into ourselves, to make him part of our essence, part of our very being, to have him at the very core of our lives, the center point from which all our life flows.

Back in the 1950’s there was a TV quiz show with Groucho Marx. It was called “You Bet Your Life”. Contestants were asked questions such as, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” The point of the show was to have fun. It never approached a serious question about betting one’s life.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. “On what do you bet your life?”

In my work around the church, I often start with asking questions that help me and those I am working with get in touch with those principles upon which they base their communal life. We call them Core Values. Core Values aren’t chosen, they aren’t decided upon intellectually, they just are. And they are non-negotiable. They are what define us. They guide everything else. All else flows from them – concerns, priorities, plans, strategies, tactics, and actions. And when a plan does not work out, we still know who we are at our very core. Everything comes from that center.

Let’s look at the scripture from 1Kings. Solomon has just ascended to the throne of his father David, that beloved king of Israel. It is a succession marked by court intrigue and competition between rival factions.

After all the intrigue and struggle, now Solomon is king, and he goes to Gibeon to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The Lord appears to him in a dream there and says, "Ask what I should give you." It is a remarkable offer for this young king; "Ask what you will," says God. One can imagine what he might request: long life, riches, power, and victory in battle.

Solomon asks for none of that. Instead, he praises God for God's faithfulness to his father David, and he describes his own situation. He is a young man. He has to govern a very numerous people; and not just any people, but a nation of God's own choosing.

He has a lot on his plate, his mind and his heart. He has bet his life on the Lord. And everything else flows from that. Therefore, he asks of God a "listening heart" or in our translation this morning, an “understanding mind" in order to judge God's people, and "to discern between good and evil."

A listening heart, an understanding mind, the ability to discern what is right and good — qualities essential to good governance, qualities we should pray to find in all our leaders. Actually these are qualities we would hope and pray for our children and ourselves – qualities that would give them – and us – a way to walk through this life with purpose, with integrity, with confidence and security that we are on the right path.

The bread that is being offered by Jesus Christ these weeks is himself. He offers to be so intimately part of who we are, that we can bet our life on him – at the very center of our life, at the very core of our being, the guiding light that shines on our path in good season and bad. The center from which all else flows… plans, strategies, tactics, actions, responses to all those voices that call us, those seductive songs that would lead us in their way, rather than ours.

The Poet Mary Oliver has a poem, “The Journey”, that speaks of these things.

One day you finally knew

What you had to do, and began,

Though the voices around you

Kept shouting

Their bad advice—

Though the whole house

Began to tremble

And you felt the old tug

At your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

Though the wind pried

With its stiff fingers

At the very foundations,

Though their melancholy

Was terrible.

It was already late

Enough, and a wild night,

And the road full of fallen

Branches and stones.

But little by little,

As you left their voices behind,

The stars began to burn

Through the sheets of clouds,

And there was a new voice

Which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

The Bread of Life Jesus offers is himself and it is life giving indeed. It can give us, not just life, but our life – our life to live with purpose, with integrity, with security, and with confidence that we are on the right path, today and forever.