Pentecost 13, Ordinary 20B, Holy Wisdom Monastery
August 18, 2024, Terry Larson
John 6:51-58
Pam Shelburg was originally scheduled to be here today. But she’s concluding a fine vacation with her partner this weekend so she asked for someone to take her place….that’s me…I’m the substitute preacher. So I’ll use my opening line to students in my classes when I was a substitute teacher: ‘Please behave.’ I spoke to Pam last week. She said if she were here she’s open her homily with a quote from Yogi Berra: ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’ Why would she use that Yogi quote?
Three weeks ago the Gospel was John 6:1-21…bread of abundance; two weeks ago John 6: 24-35…Jesus identified as the Bread of Life; one week ago John 6:41-51….Jesus the life giving bread in the wilderness; today John 6:51-58…all who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them; and next week John 6:56-69 where we hear a disciple say to Jesus; This teaching is difficult! Déjà vu all over again…
The really great thing about being here at Sunday Assembly and hearing this bread theme week after week is there are five different homilists reflecting on these texts. Jim three weeks ago, Leora two weeks ago, Manato last week, me today, and Wayne wrapping all this up in a neat package next week. The sister’s are geniuses to have a number of homilists bringing their own gifts and insights to our scripture texts! It’s enough to make your head spin!
With other fine homilists giving insights into these John texts, that takes the pressure off me to try be brilliant. So I can simply tell a story and attempt to relate that to an insight to the gospel.
On a mid-June warm Thursday afternoon the children’s summer reading program kicked-off at the Sun Prairie Library. I volunteered to make the snowcones. So with the snowcone maker rented from the local hardware store, 20# bags of ice in coolers, I poured the cubes in the ice grinder, filled the receptacle with fine ice, began filling the cones that a helper would drench with sugary syrup. The children and parents lined up around the parking lot, the parents would help when they saw more ice needed to be ground, the syrup flowed freely…refreshing snowcones were enjoyed plus there was a dump truck the city brought it where children could crawl up in the cab and blow the horn…loud horn, laughter, scavenger hunt…art projects….It was an exciting afternoon. But the afternoon celebration wasn’t about snowcones, dump trucks, art projects, or scavenger hunts. And it wasn’t even about books, nor even about reading but it was about what happens in a child’s mind as they are taken to unimaginable places experiencing new ideas, dreaming new dreams. One mom who was with her probably 7 or 8 year old daughter had a small hand-cart (the kind you can use to move small refrigerators) It has a large box strapped to it full of books. I looked at the little girl and said, ‘Wow, you must really like to read.’ She nodded then her mom said…’She reads 80 to 100 books a week!’ Think about it. Think of all the remarkable ways that little girl is being influenced by devouring those words, being shaped in new and remarkable ways. On that sunny, June afternoon we were celebrating the hopes, dreams and possibilities instilled in children through reading. It’s enough to make your head spin!
In that same vein, what we celebrate this morning, and every Sunday morning, is not only about the bread, not only about the cup. It goes deeper. To illustrate, in the September issue of Christian Century magazine, Rev Mary Barnett, an Episcopal Priest, wrote a remarkable article entitled ‘The Poetic Space of Liturgy.’ She writes, ‘Material edges of the piece of bread make a frame for what is mysterious beyond measure and allow me to encounter the possibilities of the irrational without scaring the bejesus out of me.’ In the Eucharist, we are pressed to encounter the possibilities of the irrational! We are moved to try to understand what Teilhard wrote … God is active in the within of things … the within of us, the within of all people, the within of all creation. The Christ Spirit in, with, and under the bread, the cup. The Christ Spirit in, with, and under us, all people, all creation. We celebrate more than Christ’s presence with us here in a particular way. We celebrate the Christ presence in all of creation in a mysterious way that can’t be defined by dogma, anybody’s dogma.
Which leads me to a remarkable, full-of-mystery quote from Charles Taylor, a Catholic philosopher who teaches at McGill University in Montreal. He’s just written a book: ‘Cosmic Connections, Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment. In that book he writes: ‘We are not atoms in a mindless universe but agents in a metaphysically alert one, embodied and embedded in meanings we jointly create.’ I absolutely love that statement. What I take from that is it’s the Christ Spirit moving in, with, under, and through the world that moves us all as we are embodied and embedded to be Christ in the world….with intentionality, together, sharing the love of God in Christ with all trying to create a culture where, for instance, there are no border detention centers which separate children from parents, where people who are different are welcomed to the center rather than being isolated on the edges of our society, where mental illness is treated in prisons rather than exacerbated.
Like that little girl who reads the crate-load of books every week who is taken to places she never, ever would imagine, and filled with a deep hope for her future, we, through the Eucharist, are pressed to see Christ in all, and to be Christ to all which has, and does, and will give a deep hope for the future of all creation. It’s enough to make your head spin.
Let us take a moment to pause to imagine what that deep hope for the future looks like for us.
Let us pray:
Creator God, we give thanks for the beauty that surrounds us. Bless those who suffer the effects of heat, drought, and super storms caused by climate change. May we be courageous in our efforts to care for your creation. Loving God, hear our prayer.
Compassionate God, we lift up all who are suffering. Bless those in treatment for cancer and other dreaded diseases. Guide those suffering from addiction of any kind to seek help. Loving God, hear our prayer.
Sustaining God. give us strength and courage to work for your justice and peace. Sustain our political leaders in caring for the needs of all people. Loving God, hear our prayer.
Eternal God, bless the nations of the world in ways of peace. Give hope to people of the middle-east, east Africa, Ukraine, & Russia. Guide our President and other world leaders as they commit resources to help refugees of war & violence. Loving God, hear our prayer.
FOR THE PRAYERS LISTED IN OUR BOOK OF INTENTIONS, AND THE PRAYERS WE HOLD SILENTLY IN OUR HEARTS. (Pause)
Into your hands O God, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Sharing of the peace.