Difficult and Life-Giving

Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ

August 26, 2012

Year B: Proper 16 – The 13th Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43

Psalm 84

(Ephesians 6:10-20)

John 6:56-69

Difficult and Life-Giving

            By now many of you have heard at least a little about our recent mission trip to West Virginia.

            As usual with this kind of trip, I went into it a little nervous. Maybe the other participants were nervous, too. I wondered if we’d all get along. I worried that our accommodations would be too uncomfortable. And I hoped that our work would match our skills and energy – not too easy but also not overwhelmingly technical or difficult.

            Well, everything turned out OK, though I admit that my stomach sank a little when I learned we’d spend our week working on a roof. None of us had any skills in this area. And, obviously working on a roof presents some particular safety issues.

            I joked that I was only allowed to lose one person – but that was only masking my real concern that someone would take a tumble down to the ground.

            It turned out that we all got pretty comfortable on the roof – and, though we had a close call or two, nobody fell off.

            The first days of removing the two layers of old roof was some of the most difficult physical work I’ve ever done. Waking up those first couple of mornings I was so sore I worried I wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone climb the ladder to the roof.

            It was difficult work – but I think for all of us it was also life-giving work.

            And that’s the way life works, isn’t it? Very often the most difficult work is also the most life-giving work.

            Many of us have been faced with difficult work in school and in our professional lives.

            Many of us have taken on the difficult work of being a husband or wife, of being a parent, of being a grandparent.

            Many of us have had the difficult work of caring for a sick family member of friend.

            And over and over most, if not all, of us have learned that often what’s most difficult is also the most life-giving.

            Difficult and yet life-giving.

            In today’s gospel lesson we heard a story about many of Jesus’ first disciples not understanding that often what’s most difficult is also the most life-giving.

            In today’s gospel lesson we come to the end of Jesus’ long teaching about bread and many of Jesus’ disciples  – not outsiders but disciples - respond that his teaching is difficult. They ask Jesus, “Who can accept it?”

            It’s a surprising response. What’s going on here?

            As Kit mentioned his sermon last Sunday, when the Evangelist John tells the story of the Last Supper he does not include anything about Jesus taking the bread and saying, “This is my body” and there’s nothing about Jesus taking the cup and saying, “This is my blood.”

            Instead, John tells us the powerful story of Jesus at the Last Supper washing the feet of his friends.

            But, John more than makes up for that omission by including Jesus’ long teaching on bread that we’ve been hearing over the past few weeks in church.

            According to John, after the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, Jesus boldly proclaims, “I am the bread of life.” Then later, just as boldly, according to John, Jesus says, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

            Now, remember that the Gospel of John was the last to be written – probably completed in its final form around the end of the First Century.

            So, on one level, John tells the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

            But, on another level, John also offers us a window into what was going on in a particular Christian community, seventy or so years after the Resurrection.

            Although John doesn’t include the bread and the wine in his story of the Last Supper, it’s clear that the Eucharist has already become important to John’s community of Christians.

            We hear that importance when Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

            Just like us, Christians at the end of the First Century knew perfectly well that when they gathered for the Eucharist they were not eating human flesh and drinking human blood.           

            But, people outside the community weren’t so sure about that. These outsiders would have heard just enough about Christians eating Jesus’ body and drinking Jesus’ blood to think something really weird was going on with these people. And Jews would have been especially horrified since the dietary laws strictly forbid eating the blood of animals. Imagine how much worse it would be to consume human blood!

            So, no surprise, one of the earliest slanders against Christians was that they were cannibals.

            But, here’s the thing: notice that in today’s gospel lesson we’re told that it’s not outsiders – it’s many of Jesus’ own disciples who say to Jesus, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”

            And here “difficult” doesn’t mean hard exactly but more like “offensive.”

            So we’re told that many of the disciples – the men and women who had seen Jesus perform many signs – the men and women who had seen Jesus heal – the men and women who had heard Jesus teach like they had never heard anyone teach before – the men and women who were there when Jesus somehow transformed five loaves and two fish into enough abundance to feed 5000 people with leftovers – many of these disciples give into what must have been pretty powerful peer pressure, declaring Jesus’ teaching too difficult – too offensive to the world – too offensive maybe for themselves - and so they choose to leave the Christian community and live like everybody else.

            It’s a discouraging story that must have been true during Jesus’ earthly lifetime. It’s a story that must have been true for John’s community seventy years later. And, for us today the deal-breaker probably isn’t communion, but let’s be honest, we have our own potential deal-breakers – parts of Jesus’ teaching that tempt us to throw up our hands and say this is too difficult – and go off to live like everyone else.

            The truth is there’s nothing more difficult - and nothing more life-giving - than following Jesus.

            But, following Jesus is still offensive to the world – and sometimes maybe even offensive to us.

            It’s difficult teaching that every human life in infinitely valuable – even, especially, the people the world sees as insignificant and even disposable – the poor, the uneducated, the undocumented, the disabled, the criminal.

            It’s difficult teaching, yet, it’s also life-giving to recognize the infinite value of every human being.

            It’s difficult teaching that we must offer unlimited forgiveness – that we must not seek revenge – that greed is bad – that we should give not just some fixed percentage of our wealth or just some of our talents - but we should give and give until it hurts.

            It’s difficult teaching, yet it’s also life-giving, to give ourselves away in loving generosity and service.

            It’s difficult teaching that we must care for and love one other – the people closest to us, the people we’ve never met and never will, the people we can’t stand and even the people who hate us and hurt us.

            This is all difficult teaching. Following Jesus is much, much more difficult work than even a week of roofing in West Virginia.

            We’re not so different from those disciples back in the First Century. Even though we’ve also seen Christ at work in our lives, we can be tempted to throw up our hands, and say, “This teaching is difficult. This teaching is offensive. This teaching is too hard. Who can accept it?”

            We can give up, walk away from Jesus and live like everybody else.

            But, fortunately, we’re not on our own.

            Working together, supporting each other, was a big part of what made the difficult work of the mission trip life-giving.

            We come here each week in part to support each other – because the Christian life is difficult and we need each other.

            Finally, most important of all, we have Jesus. Each week we gather at the Lord’s Table, where in some mysterious way, we take the Body and Blood of Christ into our bodies, into our hearts, and into our souls.

            We abide in Jesus and Jesus abides in us, giving us the strength to hear the difficult teaching of Jesus – and giving us the strength to do the most difficult, yet most life-giving, work of following Jesus.

            Amen.

           

           

            

The Way is to Love

Grace Episcopal Church, Madison NJ

August 9, 2012

Funeral Sermon for Gail Shehadi Cross

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Psalm 23

Revelation 7:9-17

John 14:1-6a

The Way is to Love

            As his death approached, Jesus gathered with his friends for one last meal.  Throughout his ministry Jesus had warned his disciples what was going to happen to him, yet they couldn’t or wouldn’t understand, refused to accept, refused to believe, that the one they had recognized and followed as the messiah was going to die.

            But, gathered for what was clearly their last meal together, the truth must have begun to sink in.

            The four gospels give somewhat different accounts of the last meal shared by Jesus and his disciples.

            The passage we just heard comes from the Gospel of John.           

            In this gospel, Jesus reassures the disciples that although he is leaving them, they know the way – they know the way to God – they know the way to the place where they – where we - will all be reunited.

            The Apostle Thomas speaks for all the disciples, speaks for all of us, when in confusion and fear, and, yes, doubt, he asks Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

            And Jesus says: “I am the way…” Jesus tells the disciples – and tells us here today – that in his life, death and resurrection Jesus shows us the way to God.           

            In my imagination I see Thomas and the other disciples later spending a lot of time trying to figure out how exactly Jesus is the way to God. And maybe, especially in times of grief and loss, we wonder about that ourselves.

            How is Jesus the way?

            A big part of the answer, I believe, is found just a little bit earlier in John’s account of the Last Supper.

            John tells us that during supper, Jesus “poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.”

            After he was done, Jesus tells the disciples, “I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.”

            There it is: The way.

            Jesus is the way not only when we believe in him, but, more importantly, when we follow his example.

            We are on the way of Jesus – we’re on the way to God – when we follow Jesus’ example of loving service.

            We are on the way when we wash each other’s feet.

            Over the course of her life, Gail Cross washed a lot of feet, didn’t she?

            When Joanne first told me that her mom was sick, I remembered greeting her in our church lobby one Sunday morning late last year. When she told me that she was Joanne Cross’ mother, I said, “Oh, I’m a big Joanne Cross fan!”

            Immediately her eyes widened and she broke into a big smile and said, “I am too!”

            In talking with her family it’s clear that little moment was just a glimpse of Gail’s overflowing love for her family – the love that she shared as best she could in good times and not so good – the love that she shared by being there for them right to the end.

            Both literally and figuratively, Gail was always willing to grab a towel, get on her knees and wash the feet of those she loved.

            But, Gail didn’t just offer this loving service to those closest to her.

            To just about the end of her life, even when she was in great pain, Gail offered loving service to those in need. She gave of herself at her beloved St. John’s in Boonton, she gave of herself to the Visiting Nurses Association, and she gave of herself each time she and her therapy dog “Evie” visited hospitals, prisons and schools.           

            Over and over, Gail was always willing to grab a towel, get on her knees and wash the feet of those in need.

            There it is: the Way.

            As Jesus’ death approached he reassured his friends that, although he was leaving them, they knew the way – they knew the way to God – they knew the way to the place where we will all be reunited.

            Jesus told them, tells us here today, “I am the way…”

            Gail’s journey on the way has come to an end. She has returned to the God who imagined her into being, the God who guided her and supported her in good times and not so good, the God whose love she shared with so many in her life.

            But, for us here today, our journey continues.

            Fortunately, we know the way.

            The way is to love.

            The way is for each of us in our own way to grab a towel, to get on our hands and knees and wash the feet of our family and friends and especially to wash the feet of those who are in need.

            Gail knew that the way is to love.

            And, having seen her example, we know it, too.

            Amen.