Proper 12
Year B
Exodus 16:2-4;
9-15
John 6:24-35
How easy it
is for us to sit here 2000+ years later and judge both the Israelites and the
people following Jesus? We are tempted
to laugh at their “cluelessness”; to condemn their lack of faith; to chastise
them for their whiny, self-centered, consumer mentality. I believe if we do that, however, we are
being too hasty and I also believe that what is really at stake here is that
they don’t understand, because of their humanity, or trust in the magnitude and
all encompassing power of God’s love.
The
Israelites didn’t lack faith. They don’t
doubt God exists, they just feel alone and scared; they feel powerless. They are hungry and tired, and they feel
their world is falling apart. Isn’t it
true that even today when we feel our world is falling apart we cling to the
familiar? Even if what was wasn’t
ideal, at least we knew what it was—I believe that’s how the Israelites felt;
they understood the world in which they lived in Egypt; they knew their place
in it. And their belief in God even fit
nicely there. God existed but that was
it—but things changed when Moses came and they stepped out in faith. Things changed when their journey both
physical and spiritual began. Things
changed when their understanding of God began to change; when they let God out
of the box.
The
Israelites knew God was all powerful and that life and death were decided by
him—they say, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land
of Egypt,” What they don’t understand is
the love of God? What they are learning
is that God’s love is more than we as people can ever give—they are just
beginning to experience the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. They ask for bread and instead they are given
bread and meat; there is an abundance.
God’s love and God’s action goes beyond what they imagine. Do they finally get it and get it completely? Sadly, no, as one commentator wrote, “Their
faith in the love of God wavers as they encounter various trials and
temptations.”
The people
following Jesus in our Gospel also are learning who Jesus is; they too are
growing in their faith, growing in their understanding of God’s immense
love. Right now it just appears that
they see Jesus as their own personal baker; their own personal vending machine
to meet their physical needs—feed them, heal them, that’s what they expect—they don’t know to
look past their current right here and right now needs; they don’t understand
that God is so much bigger than that. They
don’t understand that what Jesus is offering them is the bread of life;
everlasting life—a transformed life. The
people following Jesus into the wilderness want a black and white rule book; a
guide book on exactly how to live; what to do and not to do, and they want proof
they’re doing it right. They want
signs—because that’s all they know.
In our very
sophisticated, post modern world of the 21st century, we like to
believe that we “see” things in a bigger sense, that we have the ability to
analyze—that we no longer view the world in black and white; totally right and
totally wrong. Well, friends, I believe
we are way too big for our britches.
We too want, crave, desire a world
we understand. We want to know if we are
“right or wrong.” We often operate in a
very black and white way—did you eat a chicken sandwich this week? Thousands of people lined up on one side or
the other of the Chick-fil-A issue; either you were for or against, there was
no room for anything else. If we really
are honest with ourselves, don’t we want it to be that simple? Don’t we want it to be as simple as seeing
Jesus produce more food or as simple as knowing whether it’s either right or
wrong to eat a chicken sandwich? Do we
understand, fully understand and believe that God’s love for ALL is so much
bigger than any of that? That God’s love
is not dependent on whether you stood in those lines, deliberately chose not to
stand in those lines, or didn’t even know anything about it. Do we understand or even want to understand
that God’s love is for all?
We sit here this Sunday morning in
this beautiful church like Christians everywhere are sitting in churches and we
proclaim we have faith. Perhaps we
should be more honest and say that yes we have faith but we still don’t
understand it all? Perhaps we should
admit that although we desperately want to walk in complete trust and faith,
that we don’t, and perhaps we even have to admit that we can’t because we don’t
have the full knowledge of God. We are
striving to, yes, we are trying daily if not hourly to deepen our faith to
continue our spiritual journey—but it is that—a journey; a life long
journey. And the journey is not black
and white in the way we want it to be because God is so much bigger than that.
When we say we want to live by
faith, we want to make choices dependent on our faith, we must understand that
faith is not a set of rules. Faith is an
encounter with the living breathing God, and walking with faith is often living
in the ambiguity, something we really don’t like—something that makes us
uncomfortable; something that challenges us.
Faith here means saying, “I want to get it. I desperately want to know and understand the
love of God, and I desperately want to pass it on, but I’m not sure I’m always
right. But I’m going to keep
trying.” It is not at all easy, and
often our faith is the most challenged and the most productive during times of
trials and hardships. Just like the Israelites, our faith is often
deepened as we walk through some of the most painful times of our lives. Anne Lamont says, “it really is easier to
experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming
apart. When things break up and fences
fall over, desperation and powerlessness slink in—which turns out to be good.”
Our desire to get it right—to be
right in our faith also can take on the consumer mentality in our
churches. We are tempted to measure how
right we are by our average Sunday attendance or the amount of money in our collection plates. We seek to bring in new people by having the
best music, the most beautiful worship, the best youth group, the best programming,
the greatest outreach. We hear about how
the church must change to keep up with them times. There are different ways to “do church,” and
different people experience worship in different ways. Acknowledging all this is important, but we
must not lose sight of what is the most important. Being church, coming to church, means being
open to transformation; it means being open to be nourished and transformed by
the incomprehensible love of God.
Change is inevitable and the world
is changing, but what we cannot allow to change is the truth of the Gospel and
that is that God is love—steadfast and faithful and that Jesus came to bring
that to us. Jesus came to do the work of
his Father and to give his life for the sake of the world—the whole world not
just the world that we want—not just the people we accept and like, not just
the people who do church the way we want, but the whole world.
Even in our sophisticated 21st
century lives, we don’t get it. We don’t
understand how it all works, and I believe that sometimes we just have to learn
to live with that—as much as we don’t want to.
We have to be willing to live in the ambiguity, we have to be able to
experience God’s love instead of explain it and to try and try and try to trust
in God’s love. And we have to be willing
to admit that although we want to get it there is a good chance we won’t. Can you live in that ambiguity? When we release our desire to “know” and to
be “right” we become humble and broken. It is in that humility and brokenness
that we begin to feed on and understand Jesus as the bread of life. It is in and through our uncertainty and it
is out of that humility and brokenness that we become whole. Thanks be to God.
