Chicken Sandwiches

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 21^st 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 21^st 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.