Our Sustaining Saviour - Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (August 18, 2024)8/17/2024 Scripture Readings: Proverbs 9:1–6 | Psalm 34:9–14 | Ephesians 5:15–20 | John 6:51–58
Jesus said: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:54-55). Does anyone here remember the TV show Survivor Man? I used to watch it years ago, and recently stumbled onto it again. It’s a show where an expert survivalist heads out into all sorts of wilderness areas, places like the arctic, or tropical jungles, or deserts, and then they record their attempts to last a week all alone in these life-threatening situations. One of the things that I think the show highlights pretty well is the importance of wisdom when it comes to surviving in the wild: of recognizing the potential of simple, everyday objects to help overcome big challenges… of understanding your surroundings, and the dangers that need to be avoided… of making good use of precious and limited resources… and of finding enough food to sustain life… which can sometimes be found in surprising places. Apparently, over the years several people have actually credited this show with helping them to know how to survive unexpected emergencies that they had faced while in the wilderness. They may not have been experts, but they picked up enough practical wisdom from it to help them in their time of need. One piece of this survival wisdom that stuck out to me was when the host warned of the dangers of something called 'rabbit starvation', or 'protein poisoning'. Have you heard of this? It’s what happens when you only eat extremely lean meats (like wild rabbit), that don’t give you enough fat content, and you end up really sick, or worse. It’s kind of tragic. You can think you are eating plenty of food that will sustain you, but end up not getting the true nourishment you need to make it through. And this danger struck me as a problem not simply for those in wilderness survival situations, but in lots of areas of life. I mean, in so many ways we can think we are getting everything that we need, but instead, we can end up starving ourselves… missing out on something that’s essential to our actual survival. Now hunger is something that affects us all… urging us to seek to satisfy our very real needs… but sadly, we don’t always have the wisdom to know the best ways to meet those needs. And that goes for our spiritual hungers too… for the deep longings in us, whether we’re conscious of them or not… longings for meaning, and purpose, and truth… for community, for a sense of belonging… and for love. How we go about trying to satisfy these deep hungers really matters… and tragically, it’s all too easy for us to settle for things we think will fill us up, and give us what we need, but that cannot truly sustain us. Which is where the need for wisdom comes in. Wisdom involves knowing where to look for what will truly sustain us. And wisdom can help us to avoid the pitfalls, distractions, and dangers found in the wildernesses of our hearts, so that we can be prepared to take in and receive that which will bring us life. And the biblical vision of wisdom, as it turns out, can be quite surprising. It’s not the same as common sense… insights that should be obvious at all. And it’s not the kinds of hidden knowledge possessed only by experts who spend years mastering it. No, biblical wisdom is presented as a precious gift, one that actively seeks out any who will be open to receiving it… regardless of how learned or simple they may be. Biblical Wisdom… the kind needed for knowing where to look to find what we truly need… is not held up as a prize or reward we can earn or achieve on our own, but as a gracious gift of God, to lead us into life. In our first reading today from the book of Proverbs, true wisdom is personified as a woman calling out in the streets, having prepared a wonderful meal to provide for anyone who will come and share in it… eagerly and earnestly entreating us to be open to it, and find life through it. Wisdom says to us in Proverbs 9:4-6, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” In this sense, wisdom’s not a body of knowledge, or a special skill set… but a summons… an ongoing invitation to turn to the LORD, the Living God, and find in Him all that we need in order to find life. In a word, wisdom tells us to place our trust in God to lead and sustain us. And in our Gospel reading today from John Chapter 6, we hear our Lord Jesus Christ make the bold claim that He is Himself the One we are to turn to, in order to receive the gift of God’s life… referring to Himself as the wonderful, life-giving meal, the bread sent from Heaven to save and sustain us. Christ came not to offer us tips and tricks to get through the tough times of life on our own, but He came to offer His very life as the gift that alone can keep us going… not just day by day, but forever. Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life: the wonderful provision from God’s right hand, sent to meet the needs that we all have… the need for meaning, for a purpose, for truth… finding ourselves in Him, and that we are not simply intelligent animals, bent on mere survival, but the beloved children of God the Father, the Creator of all, and we are made to mirror and reflect His divine goodness and holiness into our world through our lives in all sorts of ways. Jesus is the Bread of Life… meeting our needs for community, belonging, and love… assuring us that we are not simply adrift in a chaotic and cruel wilderness, destined simply to endure trial after trial on our own. No, in Jesus we find that each of us are deeply known and deeply loved, regardless of how many dangers we face, trusting that our Saviour remains God-with-us even in the darkest wilderness… and He calls us to place our trust in Him, again and again and again. Of course, one tangible way that we do this… seeking to renew our trust in Jesus Christ, and all He has done for us… is when we draw near to His table in faith, and receive the gracious gift of His life, His body and His blood, shared together in Holy Communion. At the cross, Jesus offered up His life once and for all to provide what we all need. Christ’s sacrifice of self-giving love became God’s way to set about healing our sin-sickness, to offer us forgiveness in His name, and to sustain us... sharing God’s own life with us, which is now at work in us through the Holy Spirit. When we come forward to share at Christ’s Table, saying yes to all that the Lord Jesus has done for us at the cross… and to all that He still longs to share with us who trust in Him… we do not need to be some sort of expert… or have our faith all figured out in order to experience the gift of His life. Far from it! It’s enough just to come to Him in faith… reaching out our hands to ask Him to give us what He knows we need… trusting in His saving love, even when we don’t yet understand. The scholar Wesley Hill puts it well: “In the Eucharist, Jesus puts Himself in our hands so we know exactly where to find Him. In that moment, we don’t have to wonder whether God is for us. We know He is because we’ve just tasted His provision. He gives us His Son—His life-giving flesh.”[1] Wisdom tells us to believe that Jesus Himself is God’s life-giving gift: the Bread of Heaven, offered to all who are hungry, so that all might be satisfied. Just one more point to ponder: when our physical bodies are able to consistently feed on truly nourishing food, they are more likely to grow as they should. And when they don’t get to regularly receive what they need, things start to go wrong, just like with ‘rabbit starvation’. When we consistently feed on the spiritual nourishment that Jesus offers to us… His own life… it is so that our whole lives can grow into what they were always intended to be: growing more and more like Christ, through God’s Spirit at work in us, reflecting God’s goodness and holy love out into our world. This is what St. Paul is touching on in our reading from Ephesians this morning, reminding us that when we draw near to Christ in faith to receive the gift of His life, it is so that His life might begin to transform our own. Ephesians 5:15-17 “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” Saying yes to the gift of Jesus’ life invites us into a relationship that changes us… that calls us to intentionally make some changes as well. Jesus gives us His life… He invites us to take and eat, not only so that we can make it through another day, but so that His life… God’s true and unending life… can transform us… and our world. Wisdom tells us to trust Jesus, and to let His life make changes in us… and through us. We all have all sorts of hungers… as do our neighbours… which require wisdom to satisfy. The Good News is that in Jesus, God has shown us, and all who will believe, where to find the sustenance we need. Jesus Christ is the Bread of Heaven… the true food that not only meets our needs, but shares with us the life of the Living God, so that we can actually live His ways today. And this is Good News, not just for those of us who already believe, and who receive together the Lord’s life given for all… it’s also Good News for the world around us that we get to invite to draw near as well… and even though we may not all be experts, we can all still get the word out any way we can about where we all can find the answer to our world’s deepest hungers… the Bread of Heaven: Jesus Christ the crucified and Risen Lord. So this morning, may we draw near to Jesus our Saviour in faith, and receive from Him again what we all need: the gift of His life… the source of our salvation that alone can sustain us, and transform us… not just to help us all survive, but to share in God’s blessed life forever. Amen. [1] Wesley Hill, The Lord’s Prayer: A Guide to Praying to Our Father, Christian Essentials (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 55.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Rev. RObRev. Rob serves as the Priest-in-Charge at St. Luke's Gondola Point, and as the School Chaplain at Rothesay Netherwood School Archives
December 2024
Categories
All
|