Jump off the ladder!

John 6:56-69

            On the 25th of May in 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood in front of a joint session of Congress and announced that within that decade, the United States would go to the moon.

            He made this bold announcement, this bold proclamation, this challenge, to the people of America, and to the people of the world, at the height of the Cold War, in the age of Sputnik, when the United States and the Soviet Union were in direct competition with each other to rule the world.

            On the 20th of July in 1969, we achieved his promise.

            Neil Armstrong climbed out of the Lunar Landing Module, which was called the Eagle, and he paused on the steps of that ladder, and then he jumped off, and he landed on the moon.

And he said, “This is one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.”

When Neil Armstrong jumped off that ladder, he had no idea what was going to happen. It was this amazing leap of faith for him to do this, because nobody knew what the moon was really made of. Nobody knew how thick the dust was going to be. Nobody knew if he was going to sink up to his hips in dust. Even though the Landing Module was sitting firmly, it had special webbed feet – it had duck feet, believe it or not – so that it could spread its weight out. But he didn’t. He was in this giant, giant, white suit, with these magnificently huge boots, and he jumped off that ladder not knowing what was going to happen.

Millions of us around the world were glued to our televisions and our radios, waiting to hear. I remember sprawling on the floor in my parents’ bedroom, in front of our color TV, watching this scratchy, grainy, black-and-white image, and listening to this scratchy, fuzzy audio, and not knowing what was going to happen.

But he made that jump. He made that leap of faith, because he believed in what he was doing.

Yesterday, we received the sad news that he had died, three weeks after undergoing heart surgery. He died from complications from that surgery. And since the moment we got that news yesterday afternoon, we have been hearing stories about Neil Armstrong. We’ve been hearing about what he went through to get to the moon, and what happened to him afterwards. The United States never sent him back into space. The government wasn’t stupid. They weren’t going to take this hero and let him risk his life ever again. So two years after he walked on the moon, he resigned from NASA, and he went back to Ohio, where he was from, and he became an engineering professor at the University of Cincinnati. As they said in one story on NPR, “Can you imagine taking Engineering 101 from Neil Armstrong?” Can you imagine what that must have been like?

All of the remembrances of him talk about his courage, but they also talk about his humility. In a speech he gave years later, he said, “I am, and ever will be, a white socks, pocket protector, nerdy engineer.”[1]

Those who are remembering him yesterday and today are speaking, really, of his great humility. They are speaking as well of his strong faith. His faith that what he was doing was possible. That it was possible for the United States to achieve the impossible.

When he went up into space, it was his second time. When he went up again, he said that there was a 90 percent chance, he felt, that he would come back alive. But when it came to jumping off of that ladder, to land on the moon?[2] He figured there was only a 50-50 chance of surviving. So he didn’t actually give very much thought to what he would say.[3]

         And yet he comes out with that magnificent quote, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

My friends, this morning’s Gospel – that’s what this is about. One small step for each of us in order to achieve a giant leap for mankind.

Jesus is preaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. It’s is still the same story we’ve been hearing for the last five weeks. We’re still talking about Jesus being the bread of life. Over and over again, he keeps saying this.

When he started out, he was dealing with large crowds. Remember, he had just fed them – 5,000 of them. But when he started talking about bread of life, a bunch of those people said, “Um … no. This is too much.” And they left.

Then, when Jesus repeats again that “I am the bread of life,” now it’s the Pharisees who are objecting. So they leave.

Then Jesus goes into the synagogue at Capernaum, which was a fairly large synagogue, and it was filled with his disciples – not just the ones he called, but the ones who decided that, really, this is the man they’re going to follow. Once again he says, “You’re going to have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.” And they said, “No, we’re not.” And they left.

Now Jesus is down, in this morning’s Gospel, by the end of it, he’s down to the twelve. To the ones he had personally called. The ones to whom he had said, “Follow me.”

Even they are objecting to this idea of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Even they are saying, “This is really difficult.”

Jesus knew this was difficult. He knew how hard it was. To follow him and to eat his flesh and to drink his blood means to overturn all of the laws that had been laid down, that had set those people aside. If you go through Leviticus, you will find all the laws that control what the people who follow God, the chosen ones of God, can eat. They can only eat certain kinds of flesh. It has to be those with a cloven hoof, and those that chew their cud. We don’t have cloven hooves, we don’t chew our cud. And Leviticus is very, very, very clear, “You don’t ingest blood.” Steak tartare was not on the menu for the Jews. That rare steak that you order, where you say, “Make it good and bloody”? No! The Law is clear.[4]

So when Jesus says, “You follow me, you do this my way? You eat my flesh? You drink my blood?” he’s basically telling those who follow him, “You’re going to leave behind everything you know, and you are no longer going to belong to your community, to your family, to your faith.”

It’s an incredible challenge, a bold proclamation – to change the world.

Take this small step with me and for me, Jesus says, and you will be making a leap for all of God’s beloved children.

This is the question that we have to face – for ourselves. Right here. Right now. Before you come forward to have the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, you have to make a decision.

But before you make that decision, I’m going to warn you: This is a difficult thing to do. Because if you decide that you really want to eat the Body of Christ, that you really want to drink the Blood of Christ, that this really is real for you … if you are going to accept this challenge, let me tell you something: It means that you will no longer belong in society. It means that you will be outside of society. It means that some of you are going to have to turn your backs on your families.

Because it means that you’re going to have to live in a whole new way. You can’t just take the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and walk out that door and not be changed! It’s what I told you a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about this. It changes you. It sets you apart. And if you accept this challenge, if you come forward and you eat the Body and you drink the Blood of Jesus Christ, then you already are changed, and you are going to go out into the world and you are going to change the world.

Because it means that you are going to have what’s called an agenda. You’re going to have the agenda that is always, always, seeking to feed the hungry, and to give water to the thirsty. Always, always, seeking to correct the injustices, never shrinking back, never clinging to that ladder of the Lunar Landing Module and saying, “Oh, I’ve changed my mind, I don’t think I’m going to do this anymore.” No! If you’re going to stand up to the injustices of the world, you had better leap off that ladder. Because that is what Jesus is asking you to do.

Being a follower of Jesus is not just saying, “I’m a Christian.” It means you have to live a Christian life. You have to have an agenda that says, “You know what? I believe we can give sight to the blind. I know we can give hearing to the deaf, and voice to the mute. I know that we can proclaim freedom to the prisoners. I know that we can stand up against a society that says we have to be divided; a society that says, ‘I’ve got mine and I don’t care if you ever get yours.’” You have to seek a society that is together for the common weal its people.[5]

If you’re going to be a Christian, if you are going to take that leap off of that ladder, let me tell you, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to come gunning for you. There are a lot of people who are going to say to you, “You know you’re crazy? You can’t do that. That’s impossible. Why would you want to live your life this way? Who told you to make the decisions for me? I’ll do what I want!”

You jump off that ladder, you’re jumping into the unknown. Just like Neil Armstrong did. Just like Buzz Aldrin did a couple of minutes later.

But that’s what Jesus is challenging us to do.

And remember, he’s giving us an out. He makes it very, very simple: “Do you also wish to leave?” Even to his chosen 12, he gave them the option to go home.

Now can you imagine what that must have been like? You give up everything in your life. You walk away from your family, you walk away from your job, you walk away from your inheritance – do you think that Zebedee was really going to turn over his fishing fleet over to those two boys of his, James and John, after they walked off the job and left him high and dry? Uh, uh! – You walk away from all that they way they did … imagine what that must have been like.

And then Jesus comes along, and he keeps preaching this really hard stuff: No! You can’t go along to get along! No! You can’t accept injustice and say, “It’s not my problem.” No! You can’t walk by the person who’s starving! No! You cannot let the naked person stay naked; you have to take your clothes off and given them to him! No! You cannot let people beat each other up! No! You can’t stand by and watch people bully each other in school! No! You cannot, cannot allow the poor to stay poor while the rest of us have more than enough.

Imagine what it was like for Jesus and his disciples at that important, challenging moment, when he said to them, “Do you also wish to leave?”

Amazingly, none of them did.

They didn’t leave because Peter – God bless Peter, who never quite got it even when he got it! – Peter looked at him and said, “Lord, where else are we supposed to go? To whom else can we go? We have come to believe and we know that you are the Holy One of God.” There’s nothing else out there for us!

You don’t really think Neil Armstrong was going to crawl back up that ladder without jumping off, do you? With all of the time and money that we had put into this, do you think he was really going to cling to that ladder and call Houston and say, “Houston, I don’t feel like doing this”?! He had accepted the challenge. He clearly knew – because he told people about this – there was a 50-50 chance he was not coming back! And he still went ahead and did it … because he believed.

He believed that it was possible for us to explore the heavens.

Do we believe, with that much faith?

Do we have the faith of the disciples, who said, “Lord, to whom else would we go?”

Do we have enough faith to live the life that we proclaim that we are living when we’re here in church … outside the church?

This is what Jesus probably would understand is called a fish-or-cut-bait moment. That’s probably a term that would make sense to him, because he lived with a bunch of fishermen. You either keep on fishing, in the sure and certain knowledge that it’s going to work, or you cut bait and you move on.

So this is your fish-or-cut-bait moment. This is your chance to not only take a small step for yourselves, but to take a giant leap for mankind.

Let me tell you, if each and every one of us decide to get off that ladder and land on the unknown surface of the moon? We can change the world. We will change the world.

If each and every one of us makes the commitment that Jesus is indeed the Holy One of God and that he came here for us, and that he died for us, and that he rose for us … if we accept that and live that, I’m telling you, the world will be a different place!

           We will not have hungry people in the world. We will not have people without clean water. We will not have people who have no access to medicine. We will not have rampant injustice. If we take the time to live the Gospel, to live the promise that Jesus gives us, through his own body and blood – we’re not just eating wafers and sipping port wine here, folks – it’s a lot more than that.

When we come forward, we’re making a commitment to a way of life.

Not just for yourselves.

But for all of God’s beloved creation.

Are you willing to jump off that ladder?

Amen.

 

Sermon preached on the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year B, at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va., on 26 August 2012. 

 


[1] The Associated Press, To Hero-Astronaut Armstrong, Moonwalk ‘Just’ a Job,

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=160044021

 

[2]Allison Keyes, In just ‘one small step,’ Armstrong became an icon, NPR’s Weekend Edition, http://www.wbur.org/npr/160059467/in-just-one-small-step-armstrong-became-an-icon

 

[3] Ibid.

[4] Extrapolated and condensed from Rick Morley, “The bloody truth – a reflection on John 6:56-69,” http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1880, 13 August 2012.

 

[5] Paraphrase of Dave Comstock, member of The Christian Left: ‎”A ‘Christian’ agenda is one that seeks healing, feeds those who are hungry, confronts injustice, eschews wealth, welcomes the stranger, fixes what is broken, is present where people are experiencing ‘crucifixion’ in order to embody ‘resurrection.'” 24 August 2012 via Facebook.

 

 

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Rape Education 101

           Normally, this web site is devoted to discussion of God and what God dreams for us in our lives. But the national conversation of late around rape and what some people think it is, and how those same people are trying to redefine it and change laws so that women – the victims – have no say in their own care, and are blamed for what happened, well, when that happens, it is time to speak up.

           And here’s why: Theologically, any time one of God’s beloved children hurts another of God’s beloved children, God is hurt as well. 

           Because God created us to be better than that. God created us in God’s very image to live in love and community. 

           Rape does not fit in the equation.

           So this is what I wrote early Wednesday morning, 22 August:

Apparently, the time has come when it is necessary to explain to certain members of the human race that rape is rape.

Apparently, there really are certain members of the human race who do not understand what rape is, and thus are prone to making comments that do nothing except expose their ignorance.

So let’s start with lesson number one:

Rape is “the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

So says the FBI. Any penetration, without the consent of the victim, is rape.

To those who are confused, and especially to those who make inane comments publicly, please, please pay attention here.

There is no such thing as “forcible” rape. Unless, of course, you wish to demonstrate your ignorance vis-à-vis the proper use of the English language.

Rape is rape.

The FBI says so.

Got it?

Please note, as well, that there is no such thing as “legitimate” rape. Because really, if you think about it, that would mean that there is such a thing as “illegitimate” rape, and I do not believe any of us want to go there.

Rape, in other words, is rape.

Got it?

Next lesson:

A woman’s body does not have some secret ability to distinguish between sperm that has entered her body via rape and sperm that has entered her body via a loving, mutual act of sex.

Really, gentlemen.

I know that many men find women to be confusing, and our bodies and their functions to be even more of a mystery.

But … really? Does anyone seriously believe that women have super-secret super abilities that will determine when and whether they will get pregnant?

Because if we did, don’t you gentlemen think that perhaps, just perhaps, women would use this super-secret super ability and thus never need an abortion?!?!?

If this explanation is too difficult to understand, let me explain it another way:

Let’s say I were to take a knife and plunge it into your abdomen. Not once, but repeatedly.

Would you feel assaulted if I were to do such a thing to you, without your permission?

That’s what rape is: a penetrating assault on another person, without her permission.

Got it?

Please, for the sake of your mothers and daughters, your sisters, your cousins, your aunts and your nieces, your neighbors … for the sake of every single female in the world … please, understand this:

Rape is rape.

Period.

Stop trying to qualify it.

Stop trying to blame the victims.

Stop trying to use what at best can be described as pseudo-science and at worst can be described as lunacy to change the definition of one of the worst assaults that men perpetrate on women.

One more time, just in case you missed this lesson:

Rape is rape!

I hope you have been paying attention, because there will be a test on this subject. It will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Nationwide.

Here endeth the lesson.

 

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You are what *and* where you eat

           Of late, I have been doing a lot of driving as I travel around, and in my driving I listen to the radio and on the radio lately, I have heard an ad that, quite frankly, it just irks me.

            It’s ad for something called CityEats, which is apparently is some new thing you can do online. You go online and go on to CityEats.org and you can not only make a reservation at the reservation at the restaurant, not only can you look at the menu at the restaurant, you can set up your entire dining experience in advance.

This is being done in conjunction with the Food Network, so one of the reasons that I find this radio ad so irksome is that it is elitist. This is about people who are truly foodies … and how they can make a meal into … oh, something that’s more than a meal, and spend a lot of money doing it.

So that’s what irks me. A little bit.

But what really irks me about this is their motto:

You are where you eat.

You are where you eat.

You know, besides the elitism of this – because you can only do this at the highest ranking of all of the restaurants, where the chi-chi chefs are – they’re just plain wrong!

You aren’t where you eat!

You are what you eat!

We know this!

The USDA tells us this – they used to have a food pyramid, now they have something called MyPlate.gov – it’s the same thing – and they tell you what you should eat, because we are what we eat.

Every nutritionist you know will tell you you are what you eat.

Your doctor, every time you go in for your physical, will tell you you are what you eat.

If you spend any time on social media, you’ll know this, because there are all these ads: “If you eat this one fruit, it will change your life.” Or “this one vegetable. It will change your life.”

If you go into a bookstore, one of the largest sections in a bookstore now is all the books on how to improve your life by what you eat.

It’s not where you eat.

It’s what you eat – and we know that, right?

We’ve been taught this since we were children.

If you put a bunch of crap into your body, you are going to become sick. That’s all there is to it. We all know it.

It’s not where you eat, it’s what you eat.

That’s what Jesus is talking about in this morning’s Gospel. It’s what you eat.

He says, “I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life.”

Here the Jews are, they’re all complaining. One of the things they’re complaining about is, “Wait a minute. Isn’t this Jesus, he’s the son of Joseph and we know Mary, and how dare he say he came down from heaven and he’s the bread of life?!?!”

The next thing they’re going to complain about is, “Eat his flesh?! Excuse me, we’re Jewish, we don’t do cannibalism …”

And the third thing they’re complaining about is, what does it mean to have eternal life? Because in their mind, bread from heaven is manna. It’s what God gave the Israelites in the wilderness. It’s manna. Well, you all know what manna is, right? Right? Do you all know what manna is? Manna is plant lice excretion.[1]

That’s all it is, and if you out in the Sinai Desert and you get there right after dawn, all the “dew” that’s on the ground? As soon as the sun comes up, that “dew” hardens, and it becomes kind of this flaky thing that you can eat and live on. I don’t recommend that you spend all your life living on this, but it worked for the Jews for forty years in the wilderness.

And so, the Jews are sitting there going, “We want the bread that God gave us in the wilderness.” And remember, why did God give it to them in the wilderness? Because the Israelites … well, they were complaining. “We want to go back to Egypt, because in Egypt, they’ve got better food. The fact that we were slaves … that’s a detail. We’re going to eat better.” And God comes down and he says, “You’re going to eat what I give you!” (Doesn’t that sound just like your parents? “You’re going to eat what I put on your plate!”)

Well, the thing about manna, about bug excretion, is that it only lasts for a day. You cannot keep it longer than that. It literally molds and crumbles and goes away. So God said to them, “Every morning, you’re going to go out and you’re going to collect up enough of this bug excretion so that you have enough to eat. Every single day. This is the bread from heaven. (Of course, on the eve of the Sabbath, you can go out and get two days’ worth, because you can’t do any of the collecting of food on the Sabbath.)”

That’s what the people are thinking of. They’re thinking, the “bread from heaven is bug excretion, and we have to go back to Sinai for this, and this isn’t going to happen.”

So they are confused, and they’re upset, and Jesus is standing there saying, “You don’t get it. I am the bread of life. You eat me, and you will have life eternal. I’m not good for just a day. I’m good for life eternal. You will not die, if you eat my bread.”

So they are even more confused. So he has to spend all this time explaining it to them again. “The bread that God gave to our ancestors was only good for a day. I’m good for eternity. I’m telling you this is necessary.”

As we gather here this morning, for the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, as we head forward to that table, so that we can have the bread of life, I want us to spend a moment thinking: What does it mean to us?

It doesn’t really matter what kind of bread you have at this table. And it really doesn’t matter where you have this bread. It doesn’t matter where this table is.

I have had communion on three continents, in five countries.

I’ve had all kinds of bread. I’ve had white bread and wheat bread. I’ve had challah. I’ve had raisin bread. I’ve had cinnamon raisin toast bread. I’ve had sourdough bread. I’ve had big loaves and little loaves. I’ve had pita bread that tasted like cardboard. I’ve had the best biscuits. And I’ve had hard biscuits, that really kind of reminded me of hardtack. And I’ve had Butt Buns from ShrineMont for my Eucharist. I’ve had hard crackers, soft crackers – I had Oreos® once for communion. I’ve even had animal crackers for communion.

It doesn’t matter really what kind of bread it is, as long as it is the bread that is taken … blessed … broken … and given in Jesus’ name.

And it doesn’t matter where.

I have had bread in the greatest cathedrals of the world, and out in mud huts, under baobob trees. I’ve had bread out on the water. I’ve had it on a dock. I’ve had it in the middle of a field. I’ve had it in the middle of a field of corn (now that’s an anomaly, because we had wheat bread that day). I’ve had it in great chalices and silver patens, and I’ve had it coming off of a little piece of wood. I had bread one time served to me on a leaf. That was the only thing we had.

It comes down to, what is it that you’re really eating?

You’re eating Jesus. What does that mean to you?

• • •

In every parish where I have served, I have always, always encountered a child, a small child, who wanted to have communion, where the parents are going, “Oh, no. I don’t think the child is ready yet.” I always say, “Well, why not? What does the child need to do to be ready?” “Well, the child needs to understand what the Eucharist is,” the parents would say. And I would look at the parents and say, “Oh, goody. You explain to me what the Eucharist is.” And they look at me, saying, “Well … uh … “ And I reply, “uh, uh, uh, uh.” Invariably, the child who is told that he or she cannot have bread will end up at the altar rail, and I will be communing the person over here and the person over there, and this little hand – I’ve had this happen numerous times – this little hand will shoot up and grab a bunch of that bread and start shoveling it in as fast as possible, because that kid knew that that kid wanted Jesus.

When I was at Trinity in Arlington, our middle service was actually a children’s service. We allowed grown children to come. But it was designed for the children. We had a big, high altar and all, but no, we took a little table out, a table short enough so that the average 2-year-old could put his chin on the table to watch.

All the children would come up and be around us, and after a while, there got to be this little dispute over who was going to stand between me and the table, and I would put children there and clamp them between my knees, because they were the fidgety ones.

Then we had the children who wanted to so much to be involved in this that they would climb into my arms! So I would have a child in this arm and I’m trying to consecrate the bread, and I’m trying to say to the child, “Stick your arm out. Stick it out there. Yeah, stick it out for me so that we can do this.”

Then we would commune them. We always used the wafer that breaks up into 24 pieces. We would give the kids the bread, and they could have the wine, if they wanted, and then those children would go back, with their parents, and as the parents would walk forward, the children would get in line, so that they could have breakfast again. Because they understood that they were having breakfast with Jesus, and that it was important for them to do it as their community. But they also understood that they needed to have it with Mom and Dad as well. So we quickly came up with the rule, “I don’t care how many times the kid wants to eat, the kid gets as much Eucharist as possible.”

          Well, one day, we did the Eucharist. We’re all done with the entire service, and all the children go and they gather in the aisle of this church. Now this is a huge church. It’s called Georgian architecture and it’s beautiful, and it’s got this long aisle, it’s like 35 pews long, and the kids are smack-dab in the middle, and they’re having a serious meeting. We’re talking 4-, 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds, and they are having a very serious meeting. They’re talking to each other like this.

I’m standing off to the side, and I finally say to one of the parents, “Do you have any idea what’s going on out there? Do you have any idea at all?” And she said, “Yeah, the kids are upset.” And I said, “Well, what are they upset about?” She said, “You didn’t give them any triangles this morning.” Because when you break the large wafer? Some of them come out as triangles. (Some of them come as what was a triangle, but the top is lopped off – I don’t know if that’s a rhomboid or whatever it’s called.) But some of them were triangles. We had been asking the kids, “Circle or triangle? Circle or triangle?” And they got to choose what they got. Well, I didn’t have any triangles that morning, because nobody gave me the big wafers. I only had the little wafers – you know, like we use.

These children were so upset that they thought they had done something wrong. Because they didn’t have breakfast with Jesus. Thankfully, one of the wardens came up to me and he leans over and he says, “You know, Lauren, you can make a triangle out of a circle.” And I was like, “Oh! Why, by God, you’re right!” I said, “Go get the kids!” So I gathered up all the kids and I took all of my little wafers, and I stood there and very patiently broke off pieces, and then I was asking, “Triangle or circle? Triangle or circle? Triangle. Triangle. Triangle.” Because they knew what this was about. They knew that this was Jesus, and Jesus was so important to them that they were going to have a meeting – in protest – until they got what they wanted!

How many of you come to the table that knowing of what you’re getting, and that certain of what it means? How many of us come to the table knowing that Jesus is what is going to sustain us? That the first time we had Jesus, we got the promise of eternal life, and that having Jesus now – at that table – that’s what is going to sustain us! Because when you bring Jesus into you, when you accept Jesus fully, when you eat Jesus fully for breakfast … it changes your life.

I dare you to come to the table and have Jesus – to come forward as the Body of Christ to eat the Body of Christ – and to go out of here an unchanged person. I double-dog dare you to do that.

You have Jesus, and you walk out of here, and your life is changed. Because you have made a commitment to God, and God has made a commitment to you.

And if you walk out of here and nothing is different in your life, then we need to have a talk about what you’re doing here.

This is the most important thing you do. I don’t care if you do it every day, if you do it every week, if you do it once a month, if you do it once a year – that moment, when you take Jesus in your hands, and when you put Jesus in your mouth, and when you swallow Jesus, you are swallowing everything in the New Testament. You are swallowing God’s promise to you. It’s not some promise out there – it’s a promise in here (touching chest). That’s what communion is.

 It doesn’t matter if it’s white bread or wheat bread or if it’s pita bread or if it’s a wafer or if it’s a graham cracker or if it’s an animal cracker. What is important is that you come together and have Jesus as the promise of life, so that you can go out into the world and share that promise with the world.

What matters is that you come to the table.

Which leads me to suddenly think that perhaps CityEats is right. Perhaps where you eat is important. Not which restaurant. Not in a formal setting like here. You know, it could be outside, it could be in Africa, in Haiti, or Honduras, or Kenya, or England, or France, or anywhere in this country, or anywhere in the world. As long as you’re coming to the table to have something that has been taken … blessed … broken … and given … you’re having Jesus. Inside of you. Taking over your life. So that when you go out, you have life to share with one another.

You are what you eat.

And I guess you are where you eat.

As long as that where is at a table. In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

Sermon preached on the 11th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, Year B, at Church of the Good Shepherd, Blue Grass, Va., 12 August 2012.




[1] From Barbara Brown Taylor’s Bread of Angels, Cowley Publications, 1997. In the sermon, I incorrectly quoted Taylor as saying manna was “bee spit.” I was wrong. It is, she says, the excretion of plant lice.

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Find your greatness!

Ephesians 4:1-16

For the past nine days, I have joined millions of people around the world to watch the Olympics, one of my absolutely favorite sporting events.

I love the Olympics. As a newspaper editor, I covered them from 1976 to 1996. As a fan, I’ve seen the games since 1968, although I have missed them since I went overseas on 2005. Every four years, I get caught up in them, summer and winter, and revel in them for hours on end. Ask my housemate and she will tell you: I live in front of the TV.

I love watching the big names like Michael Phelps and Gabby Douglas and Dannel Leyva, because then I see near perfection in a sport.

And I love seeing a 15-year-old child, swimmer Katie Ladecky, do the unexpected in the 800-meter freestyle the other night. She lead from start to finish, and the whole time, the commentators, one of whom is a medal-winning swimmer himself, kept saying, “She has to slow down! She has to pace herself!” But Ladecky didn’t, and she won her race decisively, almost beating the world record, because she doesn’t “know” that she needs to take it easy and swim strategically.

And then there are the special athletes for whom I cheer, the ones who compete despite the incredible odds against them. Men like Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee from South Africa, the man called the Blade Runner. He was born without fibulae and drew up wearing prostheses. He’s a champion in the Paralympics and had to fight for the right to compete against able-bodied athletes. Watching him run the other day was inspiring!

If you read yesterday morning’s Washington Post, you know that these Games arethe first in which every country sent women athletes as well as men. Jacques Rogge, the head of the IOC, cracked down this year and told every country: “If you want to compete, you had better send some women as well.” For the first time in the history of the modern Olympics, there are women on every team.

Women like Afghan sprinter Tahmina Kohistani, whose Olympics lasted all of 14.5 seconds, when she ran – and came in last – in her 100-meters preliminary heat. Kohistani bettered her personal record in that race. And then there is Saudi judoka Wojdan Shaherkani, who competes in judo, the first woman ever to do so from her country. Her Olympics lasted all of 75 seconds before she was knocked down. What is amazing about both of these women is that they competed despite receiving death threats from Muslim fundamentalists.

And then … and then there are the underdogs, whom I love so much. Men like “Eddie the Eagle,” the British ski jumper who could barely ski jump in 1988. And “Eric the Eel” from Equatorial Guinea who barely knew how to swim and who had never even seen an Olympic-sized pool! Heck, he’d never seen a 25-meter pool. He did all of his training in a hotel swimming pool. Remember him? In 2000, he was in a preliminary heat with two other men who were disqualified for false starts, so Eric the Eel ended up swimming all the 100 meters all alone … and barely made it. I’m not kidding: He was dog paddling the last 10 meters and people thought he might drown!

Eddie the Eagle and Eric the Eel have been joined by “Hamadou the Hippo,” the rower from Niger who has only been rowing for three months – three months! – and yet still rowed his heart out in London.[1] He was last in his heat and was doing so poorly – heck, it looked like he was going to stroke out – that even the announcer was encouraging him: “You can do it!”

These athletes inspire me, truly they do, because they represent the Olympic ideal of faster, higher, stronger – even when they come to the competition on special exemptions.

But you want to know who really has inspired me in the last nine days?

Nathan Sorrell.

Do you know him?

Does that name ring a bell?

No?

Oh, you should pay attention to him. I’ve seen Nathan running in London perhaps four times now, and every time I watch him on TV, I think to myself: “Yes. This is truly inspiring.

I’m actually not surprised you don’t know Nathan, because, well, because he isn’t exactly running in London, England. He’s actually running in London, Ohio.

And he’s not running in the Olympics, either.

You see, Nathan is the 12-year-old overweight boy running – OK, he’s rather trudging – in the Nike commercial that is airing during the Olympics. The commercial is fascinating. It opens up on a country road, and you hear, in the background smack, smack, smack (stamp feet on ground for each step), and if you listen closely, you can hear pant … pant as well. When he comes into view, you can see that his shirt is soaked in sweat and his face is bright red from the exertion … smack, smack, smack, pant, pant … and you can tellthat this “run” of his is just plain hard.

As you watch him trudge along, you hear a voice talking about greatness. Nike’s ‘Find Your Greatness’

“Somehow, we’ve come to believe that greatness is a gift reserved for a chosen few … for prodigies … or superstars. … smack, smack, smack, pant, pant … And the rest of us can only stand by watching,” it says. [And isn’t that the truth. We do believe that greatness is only for the special few. The rest of us? Well, we’re just plain old us, aren’t we?] … smack, smack, smack, pant, pant

But, the voiceover says as Nathan keeps running, “You can forget that. Greatness is not some rare DNA strand. Not some precious thing. … Greatness is no more unique to us than breathing. … We’re all capable of it. … All of us.”[2]smack, smack, smack, pant, pant

The final shot? Nathan’s labored efforts, with the words “Find your greatness” superimposed over him.

Find your greatness.”

If ever you wanted to find a modern translation of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians this morning, that’s it.

Paul is begging the Ephesians to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”

Or, as Nike puts it, “Find your greatness.”

Paul says that each of us – each and every one of us – has been given a gift by God, some, he says, to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors, some to be teachers.

All of us have gifts, and all of us, he says, are to use our gifts. That’s how we live lives worthy of our calling. We find our greatness.

Now, Paul is clear, in this letter to the Ephesians, that the only way to lead lives worthy of our calling is to love one another, not merely as we love ourselves – because, face it, far too often we don’t love ourselves very much, do we? – but to love one another as Christ loved us.

It’s a pretty tall order, this living our lives in love.

And frankly, far too often we think we can’t do it.

Oh, we know it can be done. All we have to do is look back across history to know that living a life of love is possible. All we have to do is name those who have been great examples of that love.

People like, oh, say, Mother Teresa.

Or Gandhi.

Or Martin Luther King Jr.

They all lived lives worthy of their calling, didn’t they?

But us?

How often do we say to ourselves, “I can’t do that.”

How often do we say, “I’m not good enough.”

Or, “I can’t love like that.”

Or, “I could never do that … it’s too hard … too stressful … I’d have to give up too much … go too far … suffer too much.”

But the fact is, my friends, we aren’t called to be Mother Teresa. Or Gandhi. Or Martin Luther King Jr. either.

We are called to be ourselves … to find our own greatness as beloved children of God, created in God’s very own image – living as God created us to live, in love and community.

Paul is begging us to figure out how we are going to live in love and community.

He is begging us to find our own greatness.

He’s not saying, “You have to be great like … (fill in the blank).” He’s saying, “Be the great person God created you to be.”

Sometimes that greatness will be feeding the hungry – even if it’s just one person at a time.

Sometimes that greatness will be caring for a sick friend.

Sometimes, it will be listening to someone who doesn’t need us to solve her problem, but to simply be present for her.

I don’t know what your greatness will be – heck, there are days when I have no idea what my greatness will be. All I know is that each of us has greatness in us.

Because God gives it to us.

Never, not in a hundred years, could we swim like Michael Phelps, or twist and turn through the air like Gabby Douglas.  Most of us will never face death threats, like those brave women, Tahmina Kohistani and Wojdan Shaherkani.

Heck, most of us aren’t even good enough to be Eddie the Eagle or Eric the Eel or Hamadou the Hippo.

Most of us, when we are honest, are far more like Nathan Sorrell, trudging along a country road in the middle of nowhere … smack, smack, smack, pant, pant … . We’re not great athletes. We’re not going to compete in the Olympics.

We’re just trudging through our lives … smack, smack, smack, pant, pant … trying to do the best we can, trying to be the best we can.

But we don’t have to be the best ever.

We simply have to be the best we can be.

What is your greatness?

Because the Nike ad is right: We are all capable of greatness.

Now go find it!

Amen.

Sermon preached on the 10th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 13, Year B, at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 5 August 2012.

 

[1] Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards was the British ski jumping champion who couldn’t jump worth spit in the 1988 Olympics. Eric “the Eel” Moussambani was the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who achieved fame with his flailing doggy paddle at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. And Hamadou “the Hippo” Djibo Issaka is the rower from Niger who got into this year’s Olympics not because he knows how to row, but because of a special exemption in order to promote rowing.

[2] Nike™ Commercial via Kim Painter, USA Today, “Nathan Sorrell, 12, inspires in Nike’s ‘Find your greatness’ ad,” http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/healthyperspective/post/2012-08-02/nathan-sorrell-12-inspires-in-nikes-find-your-greatness-ad/817082/1

 

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