Ephesians 4:25-5:2, Psalm 34:1-8, & John 6:35,41-51 on August 11th, 2024
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
Dear Jesus, the Christ, amen.
When I started college, my roommate and I really didn't have a lot of money to spend on decor. We were freshmen and we saw somewhere an ad that we could send away and get four free posters and we had green icky walls made of cinder blocks. So we thought four posters, that's pretty good decor, especially if they're free. We sent for them they came and each poster set on it. You are what you eat. One had a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, don't know what that was about. Another one had fruits and grains. I don't even remember the other two. All I know is we put them on the wall and that's what I saw my entire freshman year.
But the word stuck with me, you are what you eat. And certainly now looking back over a long life, few decades since those days in the dormitory, I realize I am what I eat and some of what I am is not by the good choices I made eating. And some of what I ate was pretty good stuff. It worked. It's not surprising to me that this business of daily bread is much more than what we need to eat or survive from day to day. It's a feeding that makes us who we are.
Jesus chooses to come to us, make a home with us, make a home in us. That's the entire message of the gospel of John. That's the good news. John wants us to hold on to. The God is the actor. God is the initiator. God is the winner. The initiator. God is the one who chooses us even before we can say we choose God. And God works so that we know God wants a relationship with us.
When Jesus says, I am the bread of life, well all of those people that are looking on think, what is he talking about? We know who he is. He's not bread come down from heaven. We had our man of that kept us fed that Moses was able to get from God, but what is this bread of life? What Jesus wants them to know is, I am the one on whom you can rely. I am the one in whom you can put your trust. I am the one who teaches you to be my body on earth when I no longer presently am here, but spiritually love the world through you.
And this chapter six of John goes on to teach us that God is the one who acts. You may have made the decision to come to worship today, but it was really God who acted upon you that you'd even want to respond that way. God gave you some love or something in your life that was so real and so necessary and so satisfying that you have to love back. We have in our gospel text the same word for a fisherman casting out nets and catching the fish. God casts out a net that pulls us close to Jesus so that we may listen to him. And Jesus being the one who has seen and known indeed has been God is the one who can reveal to us the heart and mind of God to act out and follow.
Following, that's pretty hard. What read out loud. What we continued and Paul's message to the Ephesians that church and Ephesus that last week had us building bodies 12 ways, this week we're told that we are to speak the truth. We can get angry, that's an emotion God has given us, but we can't act on that anger in ways that hurt others and ultimately hurt the heart of God and our own hearts because of that. We are to be kind and tenderhearted. We are to be imitators of Christ.
Now, I mentioned before, did anybody spend a week on vacation this past week in Myrtle Beach for those who are tuned in maybe from afar? We had Hurricane Debbie stall over us. We had about, Monday was gray, shower here and there, but Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, into Friday, heavy downpours, not the week you want to go to the beach on vacation. I had a very good friend go to the beach on vacation this past week. He was a colleague when I was doing ministry in Rockville, Maryland. He was the pastor of the disciples of Christ Church. He's actually older than me and he's still working at that ministry. He has not retired. He was also a general in the DC National Guard, the head chaplain, and the one responsible for recruiting me into the National Guard.
So Bob and I go way back and I look on Facebook and there he is in Myrtle Beach with his wife, his two teenage granddaughters, and a trailer this past week. I let him know, Bob, I'm in the area if you need a break, I've got room. He never took me up on that offer, but what I remember Bob talking about was when he was a younger dad, he played softball and sliding into a base, he messed up his knee. And for about six months, he had a pretty bad limp. And his son, small at the time, adopted that same limp. Nothing was wrong with him, but parents, nobody convinced him, he didn't have to limp. Because he was imitating dad. He wanted to be like dad. That's a loving relationship. That's how it happens when we love somebody and we admire something and somebody, it's contagious, we want to do it too. It's part of our DNA. It's part of the way God has created us.
How do I know this? My mother, who had polio as a child and also had a limp, would visit us for weeks at a time. We had a schnauzer. Do you know that schnauzer started limping? And she'd go outside and she'd get on the deck and she'd look back when she got to the steps like, I can't jump down, you have to carry me. And we would. And she'd limp out and do her business and come back in. The minute my mother went back to New Jersey, the dog was fine. LAUGHTER
When we are told to be imitators of Christ, it's not an impossibility. It's what we want to do because we love our Lord Jesus and we love the heart and mind of Jesus that He has revealed to us to share with others. It's a pretty tall order and as I was telling our kids, we can't do it alone. And that's why Jesus feeds us this bread of life, which is His flesh, the body of Christ, given for you. Do you get where this is going?
When my two oldest sons were young, we had taken a new call, which was about an hour and 15 minutes from our old home and our new home was not yet ready. So we commuted for about six months. And on a Sunday morning, by the time we got there early, we went through all the worship services, stopped at Burger King so they could get their crowns, and on our way home, the hope was always the two of them would fall asleep in the back seat. They were about five and three. It didn't always work that way. On one Sunday, we're driving home. And the older one, he's just restless. He starts picking on the younger one. And the younger one, three years old, looks at his brother and goes, how can you treat me like that? You have Jesus in you.
I looked at my husband, they get it. These little people who came forward to take Holy Communion, and we would teach them when you eat this, it's not just a snack, but Jesus comes to live in your heart. And in his three-year-old mind, he got it.
Folks, God has loved us enough that we have wanted to gather this morning in this place. We have wanted to sing our praises. We have wanted to gather around the Word and the stories that tell us something about God's love and forgiveness, not just for us, but for the world. And now we come and we share that bread of life, which does become part of us, our thinking, our actions, our choices. We have Jesus in us. And we leave to serve. Certainly with the gifts and the resources that can bless others, but also with our very lives. We are grateful to receive today the bread of life, may it give life wherever we go this week.
Amen.