St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
August 1, 2021
Year B, Proper 13: The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a
Psalm 51:1-13
Ephesians 4:1-16
John 6:24-35
Faith is Trust
On the church calendar, this Friday is the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Maybe you remember the story.
One day, Jesus and what’s sometimes called his “inner circle” of disciples – Peter, James, and John – went up a mountain to pray.
Suddenly, Jesus’ clothes were transformed into a dazzling white and he was joined by two of the key figures of Israel’s past – Moses and Elijah.
Of course, the disciples were stunned by what they were seeing during this extraordinary “mountaintop experience!”
And reasonably enough, Peter never wants to leave this place. He proposes building booths for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, hoping to hold onto this spiritual high for as long as he can.
But, almost as soon as Peter got the words out of his mouth, the scene became even more amazing – a cloud overshadowed them all, and the voice of God said:
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
And then, just as suddenly, the cloud and Moses and Elijah vanished, leaving just Jesus and his friends, who now had to go back down the mountain and continue their journey.
The Transfiguration is one of my favorite New Testament stories.
I love the wonder of it – and how it seems to be a kind of sneak preview of Easter, when the barriers between death and new life are broken down forever.
And, I also like the story because I can relate to Peter’s desire to hold on to this mountaintop experience, to not come down from this spiritual high.
Now, I don’t want to exaggerate but, you know, last Sunday here at St. Thomas’ felt a bit like the Transfiguration to me.
It was a spiritual high to meet so many parishioners, with all of you walking up to the church with looks of expectation and joy, and all of you offering Sue and me an incredibly warm welcome.
It was a mountaintop experience to look out at a pretty full church – on a Sunday in July!
It was a spiritual high to hear Wanda and our choir make so much gorgeous music, and, later, to gather with many of you under the hot Baltimore sun, where I was given an autographed Jim Palmer jersey AND a one of a kind St. Thomas jersey. AND, amazingly enough, both Palmer and I are #22!
Well, I mean, come on. You can understand that like Peter on the mountain, I just didn’t want the day to end.
But, apparently you all had other things to do, and so Sue and I made our way down the mountain, and I spent much of the afternoon on the phone, filling in my parents and friends on all that I had seen and heard.
Mountaintop experiences.
Spiritual highs.
In church last week, we heard the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand – the “loaves and fishes” – when Jesus and his friends are able to transform five loaves and two fish into enough food for everybody – more than enough, actually, since there were twelve baskets of leftovers.
And now in today’s gospel lesson, we pick up right where we left off last week.
It’s the next day, and the crowd has slept off all that delicious bread and fish, and maybe their stomachs are beginning to growl for more of that good food – and, maybe, like Peter on the mountain and me here last week at St. Thomas’ – they just don’t want this mountaintop experience to end.
Anyway, we’re told they get in their boats and go searching for Jesus.
When they find him, they ask a question that seems like a non sequitur: “Rabbi, when did you come here?”
Jesus, in his usual Jesus way, ignores their irrelevant question and instead accuses the crowd of just wanting more of that good bread.
That sounds a little harsh to me. I mean, yes, I’m sure they wanted more of that bread – and some of that fish, too, Jesus, if you have it – but I have to believe that what they wanted most of all is more Jesus. After all, any teacher or prophet who could manage to feed five thousand people on five loaves and two fish is worth spending more time with, right?
And then, again in his usual Jesus way, Jesus changes the subject.
We suddenly move from loaves… to believing.
Jesus switches the conversation from bread… to faith.
Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
It probably sounds strange to say this in church, but “faith” and “believing” are concepts that we often misunderstand.
Too often, we consider “faith” or “believing” as a “brain activity,” as agreeing to, or being convinced of, set of propositions.
“I believe this, OK I believe that, and, most of the time I believe the other thing.”
That’s part of faith, for sure, and we’ll do some of that “brain activity” when we say the creed in a few minutes – but that’s only part of faith - and not the most important part.
Faith is a matter of the heart.
Most of all, faith is trust.
Faith is trust.
Faith is placing our trust in God, the God who never lets go of us, no matter what we do or don’t do.
For example: King David.
In our Old Testament lesson last week and this week, we heard the famous story of David and Bathsheba.
King David is of course one of the great heroes of Israel’s history, but the Bible doesn’t shy away from showing his many disturbing character flaws.
Last week we heard that while he should have been leading his army into battle like any respectable king, David was back home in Jerusalem where one day he spotted Bathsheba, a married woman whom he found beautiful and took for himself.
That was more than bad enough, but then, in an act of terrible treachery, David arranged to get Bathsheba’s husband – the good and loyal Uriah the Hittite – killed in battle.
As we heard today, God is predictably displeased by David’s despicable behavior – and, as we’ll hear next week, there indeed will be consequences of this awful deed for David and his successors.
But, despite his treachery – despite his terrible sins - God doesn’t give up on – does not let go of - David.
And, if God didn’t give up on sinful David, we can trust that God won’t give up on us, either.
Faith is trust.
And, that’s a lesson we’ve had to learn and relearn during the pandemic, right?
We all had to trust that Jesus and his friends would hold together the church during the long months of in-between time, the many weeks when we couldn’t see the way forward, all those Sundays when we were apart, denied even the Holy Communion that we receive here.
In the midst of a pandemic, we’ve had to learn or relearn that faith is trust – that God is not going to let go of us, no matter how scary the world may look, no matter if disease is on the loose, no matter if the institutions we’ve always counted on suddenly seem fragile and vulnerable.
But, God didn’t let go of David - and God won’t let go of us, either.
No matter what.
And, I believe that God gives us the occasional mountaintop experience – falling in love, looking into the eyes of a child or grandchild for the first time, the satisfaction of a job well done, witnessing the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset, enjoying the simple pleasure of holding the hand of one we love, and, yes, receiving an autographed Jim Palmer jersey from a loving and welcoming church – God gives us occasional mountaintop experiences as a kind of booster, a way to strengthen our trust during the inevitable times when we are nowhere near the mountaintop, when life looks bleak indeed.
So last week, the crowd had a kind of mountaintop experience when somehow the blessing of Jesus transformed five loaves and two fish into an overflowing abundance.
And, last week I had my own spiritual high – and maybe you did, too – as we began our exciting new chapter together.
But, like Peter, James, and John, we can’t stay up on the mountain forever.
No doubt, there will be a lot of ordinary days and some really hard days ahead, but, like the disciples and the crowd, we have our mountaintop memories, and, most of all, we have Jesus the Bread of Life, giving us all the strength we need.
Faith is trust.
Amen.
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