The
scriptures referred to are Exodus 16:2-15, Ephesians 4:1-16, and John
6:24-35.
To
make students understand atoms, textbooks usually include a picture
that looks kinda like a planet with multiple moons. To illustrate
gravity, we are often asked to imagine a stretched rubber sheet on which
have been placed a bowling ball, a baseball, a golfball, etc and then
to imagine the effect of a marble rolling across the sheet and how
its track would be affected by the indentations of the balls. These
mental images help us grasp things that are hard to comprehend. And they capture some of the realities of the things they are
trying to explain, but according to scientists they aren't, strictly
speaking, accurate. They are useful in underlining certain truths but are not to be taken literally.
And
when we talk about God, we do the same thing: we use picture language
to illustrate certain aspects of the divine but there is a danger in
taking them literally. God is not literally a shepherd, nor
biologically our father, nor is he located in the clouds. They are
metaphors and like all metaphors, they will break down if extended
beyond their purpose. God guides and provides for us like a shepherd
but he doesn't shear us. God loves and cares for us and corrects us
like a father, but he is not going to braid our hair or give us video
games for our birthday. And the reason that a cosmonaut reportedly
said he did not see God when shot into space is because heaven is not
like a space station, floating above earth.
In
today's lectionary readings Jesus' body is compared to the manna God
provided the Israelites during the exodus as well as to a human
body with various parts. Both comparisons are
useful and spiritually insightful so let's take a look at them.
In
our passage from Exodus we read about the manna God provides the
Israelites in the wilderness. Used to the abundance available in
Egypt, they are not adapting to the conditions they are facing now. In a
way they are like spoiled kids going on a camping trip. "Why can't
they have hamburgers and fries?" Except the Israelites seem to have
forgotten that they were slaves in Egypt. And they seem to have
forgotten how God has protected and provided for them thus far. So
God provides them with meat in the form of a quail migration and
bread in the form of a fine flaky substance, that is round and white
and tastes like honey. The people ask, “What is it?” Later it is
called manna after the Hebrew word for “what.” Essentially manna means “whatever that is.” For that matter, we don't
know what it is, though people have suggested it is a secretion of
the tamarisk plant or of an insect or some form of moss but none of
them really fit. It is better to think of it as the bread of heaven,
as it is referred to in Psalm 105:40.
That
term is what Jesus uses to make his point in our passage from John.
John, as is usual, is supplementing the older gospels with details
that give us a fuller understanding of events. All of the gospels
tell of how Jesus fed the 5000 and 3 tell of his walking on water.
Only John connects the two and gives us this story of the aftermath.
The Galileans, after being miraculously fed, realize Jesus is the
Messiah and they want to make him their king, by force if necessary.
So Jesus goes up a mountain to pray and sends the Twelve off by boat.
At night, when the crowds are sleeping, Jesus comes down the mountain
and crosses the water on foot, catching up with the disciples in
their boat. But when the crowd awakens they find Jesus gone and go by
boat to Capernaum, Jesus' base.
Jesus
knows why they are there. A leader who can feed thousands is like the
goose that lays golden eggs. He can lead a popular revolt against the
Romans. They are thinking strictly in earthly terms. Jesus wants them
to think even more radically. So he uses the idea of manna and bread
from heaven to illustrate a more important truth: that they are
spiritually malnourished and they need Jesus to fill them and make
them healthy. He is the bread that gives life. They must eat his
flesh and drink his blood to obtain eternal life. Unfortunately,
taking what he says literally, a lot of his followers walk away from
Jesus.
This
is still a problem in the church. People try to take Genesis 1
through 3 literally. They argue against what science has discovered, and
make the main issue how God created the world rather
than why. But aside from “God said let there be...,” the Bible doesn't
deal with how creation was accomplished. And the Hebrew word for day (yom)
is as elastic as the English word. It could mean “era” as when we
say “back in the day.” Yet we have people so hung up on a literal
interpretation that there is a $27 million Creation Museum in
Arkansas, as well as smaller ones in 11 other states. There are 3 in
Florida, if you count the little one in Key West. I'm sure that's what
Jesus meant when he said go into all the world and make
disciples but first spend $27 million on audioanimatronic dinosaurs
because THAT is the important part of the gospel! (BTW, on the big
museum's website, under Exhibits, there is precisely one about
Jesus.)
If
you want to talk about diabolical influences in the church, I contend
that it is all the issues, like abortion, homosexuality, arguing the
inerrancy of the original manuscripts of the Bible (as opposed to the ones we have), etc., that
distract us from the good news of who Jesus is, what he has done for
us and how we are to respond to him. I don't see those other issues
popping up in the preaching of Jesus, Peter or Paul. In fact in
today's passage from Ephesians Paul says, “We must no longer be
children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of
doctrine...” In his first letter to his protege Timothy, Paul
writes, “Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictory arguments of
what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and
thereby swerved away from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21) Even
then, there were people who were diverting Christians through their
own pet theories and novel teachings and lost focus on what is
essential. Back then it was Gnosticism, which taught that all matter,
including the body, is evil and only spirit is good. All kinds of
bizarre doctrines came out of this: that Jesus' human body was an
illusion; that we should either severely deny all bodily appetites, or
alternately, we can indulge them since the body is irredeemable
anyway; and that salvation depends on special secret knowledge
imparted only to the elite. You can see in these things the origin of
almost all Christian heresies and cults, as well as the
asceticism and persistent suspicion of all sexual activity found even
in mainstream Christianity.
God
created all things, including our bodies, and pronounced them “good.”
The ultimate validation of this is God becoming man in Jesus Christ,
with a body that, like ours, got thirsty, hungry, and tired, could
touch others and be touched. Creation is good; the problem arises
with some of the stuff we do with and to the people and other things
God created.
Although
Jesus had a literal body, we are more interested for the purposes of
this discussion with its uses in the spiritual sense. One we see in
our passage from John. Though John's is the only gospel that does not
record Jesus saying what we call the words of institution—“This
is my body; this is my blood”—in this chapter he gives his
Eucharistic theology. Just as God fed the Israelites in the
wilderness with the mysterious manna, so God nourishes us with Jesus'
body and blood. Obviously Jesus is not talking about cannibalism, so
we must seek another meaning. And in the last supper, Jesus takes
elements of the Passover meal, the unleavened bread and the wine, and
reinterprets them. The focal feast of the Old Covenant for God's
people becomes the signature sacred meal of the New Covenant
inaugurated by Jesus for the new community of God's people called
from all nations. Jesus becomes the sacrificial Lamb of God, the
bread becomes his flesh and the wine his blood which is shed for us
so that the second death, spiritual death, passes over us. Just as
God liberated the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, Jesus frees us from
our slavery to sin--the thoughts, words and deeds that destroy us and
all others created in God's image, as well as destroying the rest of God's creation and our
relationship with our Creator.
But
not only do we draw spiritual sustenance from Christ's body, we come
together as Christ's body to do so. One possible origin of the word
“religion” is the Latin word for “to bind.” Religion often
serves to bind people together through shared beliefs, behaviors and
a sense of belonging. That's easy when you are all related or part of
one ethnic group as the Jews were. But Jesus drew all kinds of people and his message
was for all the world. How do you say you are one community when you
speak different languages and come from different countries and have
different customs? That was the problem the early church and
especially Paul encountered when non-Jews started coming to Christ.
It was clear that God's Spirit was doing this. But how do you make
one people out of such a motley group?
Paul
seizes upon the brilliant metaphor of the body. Each of us has one
body and yet it is made up of numerous parts, both internal and
external, with different appearances and different functions. So too
we are members of the one body of Christ, though we have different
appearances and talents and functions. You don't have to be a copy of
someone else to be part of the church. You don't have to be a
preacher or Sunday school teacher or assist at the altar. We all
have gifts that we can share. Aspects of God are reflected in each of
us. Every one of us contributes in some way. Each of us supports and is
supported by the other members of the body of Christ.
Paul
makes the uniting principle the head, who is Christ. Even today, we
have machines that will replace your heart or your kidneys or will
breathe for you, but nothing can replace your brain. Without a head
you're dead. The head orchestrates everything and directs everything,
even the functions that are unconscious. Our head is Jesus. We follow
his lead.
I
find it interesting that Paul says “we must grow up in every way into him who
is the head.” Since he was just talking of us being children, it
could be that he is thinking of how large children's heads are in
relation to their bodies. A baby's head makes up ¼ to 1/3 of his or
her body length. An adult's head is about 1/8 of her or his length.
On the other hand a baby's head is about 4 to 5 inches long from crown to chin and about
13 ½ inches in circumference while an adult's head is twice as long
and its circumference on average is 21 ¾ inches for women and 22 ½ inches for
men. While the proportions change our heads grow. And our brains grow
as well, not only in size but in complexity.
And
that's because our take on the world grows in complexity. Or it
should. There are a lot of people who hold onto very childlike world
views even when they reach adulthood. They grossly oversimplify life
or people, reducing them to caricatures of what actually exist. Just
as cartoons make people simpler, like giving characters 4 fingers
rather than 5, enlarging the eyes and giving them super-symmetric
features, some world views reduce all people to heroes or villains,
human or sub-human, geniuses or idiots, without nuance or shading.
Small wonder some people act as if the world were a fantasy movie,
where an evil conspiracy controls everything and the only way to stop
evil is with physical force, where guns in the hands of the good guys
never shoot innocent people and where the solution to every problem
is a magic ring or piece of technology or exposure of the truth or
the arrest or death of the main bad guy. Those are childish notions.
I enjoy them in films and TV shows but I also know they no more
resemble reality than shows about detectives or lawyers or doctors
give you a realistic idea of what those professions are like.
Wisdom
is a cardinal virtue in the Bible. Jesus said, “...be as wise as
serpents and as harmless as doves,” no doubt thinking of the
proverbial wisdom of snakes. (Matthew 10:16; Genesis 3:1) He does not
want us to be naive. Seeking the truth is part of our duty as
Christians. (Psalm 25:5; John 16:13; Acts 17:11) But notice that Paul
writes of “...speaking the truth in love...” There are times to
be bluntly honest but generally if you want people to listen and not
to get defensive, you speak the truth in love. You find a way to say
it that respects them as a person and shows that you are on their side, that you only seek their good. Like “That's sounds
good but wouldn't it be better if you...” Or “I see what you're
saying but it could also be looked as this way...” Or “I thought so
too but then I found out...” Sometimes the truth is hard to take.
We needn't make it more difficult by being insensitive to the person
to whom we are presenting it.
We cannot do this without help. So it is vital that we stay connected with Jesus, our head. As is true physically, so it is true spiritually that losing connection with the head leads to paralysis at best and death at worst. One way to keep alive spiritually is to come together as the body of Christ to share the body and blood of Christ. And to “take them in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.”
So Christ is our head and Christ is our food; Christ is our way and Christ is our goal; Christ is within us and we are in Christ. Because, as Paul said, “Christ is all and is in all.” (Colossians 3:11)
Jesus is the lens through which we need to see the world. All things were made through him and he died to save all. Everyone we meet is either our sibling in Christ or our potential sibling in Christ. We are to see Christ in others and serve Christ by serving them. Try to do that this week. Look for Jesus in everyone. He may be obscured by sin, fear, rage, or the person's own ego but he is there. Reach out to him. Appeal to the Jesus in each person—his love, his kindness, his generosity, his mercy. It's there somewhere. It may take some work to find.
And as a reminder I leave you this chorus adapted from David Haas:
“Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ under my feet;
Christ within me,
Christ over me,
Let all around me be Christ.”
(Repeat using “peace,” “light,” “love”and then return to “Christ”)
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