Open Hands

Reading is good for the soul. It is an activity that forces us to step back, slow down, and learn. Reading is also an important part of people’s devotional practices. The same is true for me. Recently I discovered a powerful story while reading my daily devotional prayer book, Give Us This Day. The reflection, written by Michael Peterson, OSB, highlighted the insight of a Roman Catholic missionary who spent forty years serving with and among the people of Guatemala. During that time, the priest experienced many challenges, including death threats and financial struggles. Yet, through it all he remained happy, fulfilled, and generous in spirit.

When asked by a fellow priest, “Bernie, how did you do it all?” The missionary opened his hands and replied, “with these.” Open hands.

“When your hands are open, you can give and receive freely, with God and with those you care about. When your hands are open, you are then open to what really matters and is meaningful in life,” noted Fr. Bernadine. “But when your hands are fists, then you’re just fighting against God and life. When your arms and hands are crossed, you’re just being stubborn, never giving or receiving. God’s happiness for you is not found in either one of those.”

Fr. Bernie’s wisdom distilled from many years of faithful ministry captures an important truth. One way to measure “success” in our lives and in our shared ministries is simply to pay attention to how open we are to the needs of our neighbors and the world around us. Are our hands clenched tight in selfish grasping? Or are our hands and hearts open to God’s gracious activity in our lives?

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Lord, To Whom Shall We Go?

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The assigned lectionary texts from Joshua 41 and John 6 highlight an important truth regarding CHOICES. The choices we make. And … the choices we don’t make.

Think about it. Some choices are made with little or no forethought. What to wear when it’s cold outside. Others, the more difficult life-changing choices, are harder. Like getting married. Or, leaving a secure job to pursue one’s passion. And because these life-changing choices are often complex, we may delay, evade, or refrain from making a choice for as long as possible. Perhaps hoping that the problem might work itself out on its own. Or maybe we just throw our hands up in the air and pray that someone or something will make the choice for us.

Notice, then, the challenge posed in Joshua 41. The people whom God delivered from slavery in Egypt NOW MUST CHOOSE. Though the Israelites initially rejoiced when God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and fed them with manna from heaven, gratitude quickly gave way to disillusionment and complaining. Nothing, it seemed, was good enough. The food was bad, there wasn’t enough water to drink, and the living conditions were hard. Forgetting that all that God had done for them, many longed to return to Egypt as slaves, where at least their bellies were full, instead of trusting in God’s promises of liberation, freedom, and new life.

It comes as no surprise then, that as the Israelites prepare to enter the Promised Land after Moses’ death, Joshua gathers the leaders of Israel and demands: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). If you cannot revere the Lord and serve God in sincerity and faithfulness, then choose the gods you will serve, declares Joshua. “But as for me and my household we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:14-15). No more denials — no more excuses — no more evasions. CHOOSE!

When forced to choose, the rebellious people who had doubted God’s promises, finally remember all that God had done for them. Only when Joshua calls the people to account do they affirm their faith in God.

Today’s text from John’s Gospel also involves a wilderness journey and choices. The people in the crowd following Jesus around Galilee are given a choice. Stay or Go.

Truly I tell you, proclaims Jesus: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them … This is the living bread come down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate and … died. The one who eats this bread will live forever” (JN 6:56, 58).

It’s a proclamation that prompt many who hear it to say, “This teaching is difficult: who can accept it?” (JN 6:60) And recognizing his disciples’ discomfort, Jesus asks: “Does this offend you?” (JN 6:61)

Apparently, it did because many in the crowd vote with their feet, turn their backs on Jesus, and leave (JN 6:66). It’s a rejection that prompts Jesus to ask the “Twelve” (his closest followers): Do you also wish to go away?” (JN 6:67)

To which Simon Peter replies, “Lord, to whom can we go? The implication being NOWHERE … because … “You have the words of eternal life” (JN 6:68).

Though we may feel insulated by the distance of time and space, it’s important to remember that the Living Christ comes to you now asking: “Do you also wish to go away?” (JN 6:67)

“Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

And while many of us gathered here today would love to believe that we would never turn our backs on Jesus, the truth of the matter is that we turn our backs on God all the time. Our hearts seek out the idols of this world. False gods of money, material possessions, and worldly status. Idols of self-interest and me-first thinking. Desires all too often lived out at the expense of others, especially the poor ones, the hurting ones, the ones society cast aside as worthless.

Jesus makes clear to us time and time again that disciples are called to mirror God’s abundant love … and share it! But do we? The truth of the matter is that sin distorts our view of the world and our relationship to people and things. To paraphrase Martin Luther, “We’re so turned in upon ourselves that we often fail to see and respond to the needs of others. In the process we may also discount or turn away from the grace that God in Christ freely offers to us. Perhaps by believing that we are unlovable. Thereby buying into the Deceiver’s lie that that Jesus could never love us – especially the shadow-selves we work so hard to hide from public view. So maybe we sabotage our relationship with God (and sometimes with the people who love us) out of fear of what might happen if we open ourselves up to the transformative power of God’s grace and overabundant love.

Siblings in Christ I have news for you. GOD CHOOSES YOU! Amid your sin, your tribulations, your alienation, and your doubts, GOD CHOOSES YOU! God chooses you and claims you as God’s beloved child! And God walks with you during life’s peaks and valleys. This is the promise of Baptism.

In fact, God desires to be in relationship with you so much, that God in Christ does something truly scandalous by dying on a cross of shame to reconcile all things to God’s own self. Defeating sin, evil, and death, so that that you and I might have life. Life abundant. Life eternal.

Though we may turn away from God time and time again, God never turns away from us.

Perhaps that’s why today we need to hear the promise from John 6 one more time. To counter the noise and clamor of worldly voices that lead us astray. The promise that the Crucified and Risen One meets us at the Lord’s Table, amid our mess ups, struggles and doubts, and holds nothing back. A True Holy Communion.

Accept the gift. Let the promise dwell within you deeply. And then experience the transformative power of grace.

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them … the one who eats this bread will live forever” (JN 6:56, 58).

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

There is a lot of truth in the adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Think about it. We size people up all the time. Like the first time we meet somebody new.  Someone unfamiliar to us. Somebody outside the circle of people we know and trust. Perhaps an individual we may only have heard about through hearsay, rumor, or reputation.

Whether we care to admit or not, we are always making assumptions about people. Aren’t we? Judging others by how they look, the manner of their speech, or the clothes that they are wearing. As we gradually become more familiar with newcomers, we may try to learn more about them by asking questions. Where are you from? Where do you go to school? What do you do for a living? After all, we can’t size people up if we don’t know anything about them. Can we?

We may even try to gauge another’s religious and political views, albeit by carefully avoiding any sense that we are prying into areas that are best left to the privacy of one’s closest friends and family members.

Why, I wonder, do we size people up? Is it some inherited form of passing judgment, of deeming others worthy? And thereby earning our respect and trust. Or could it be that we like to size people up to better predict how they might act in the future? Pigeonholing others into stereotypes that will influence how we’ll treat them later.

This is, after all, precisely what the crowds did to Jesus after he proclaims: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (6:35). It’s an assertion that many, especially the religious leaders who think they know what God is up to, find difficult to believe. The text tells us that many who hear Jesus’ announcement refuse to believe it. Dismissing the revelation that he is “the true bread come down from heaven” (6:35, 41).

The problem, at least as I see it, is that many people in the crowd have already sized up Jesus. Boxing him into a set of expectations about who they believe Jesus is. “Is not this Jesus…THE SON OF JOSEPH, whose father and mother we know?” ask the doubters (6:42). And because people THINK they know who Jesus is, the people ask, “How can he now say, ‘I have come from heaven’?” (6:43)

While many in the crowd struggle to accept Jesus’ claims of divine identity, the early Christian communities encountering this text would have wondered what all the fuss was about. For in the opening verses of John’s gospel we read: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God … He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (JN 1:1,10-11).

Given the advantage of 20/20 hindsight it’s easy for us to point fingers at the doubters and naysayers in the crowd. Isn’t it? Although we weren’t there, we like to BELIEVE that we would recognize the signs of Jesus’s divine identity AND TRUST in the promises that Jesus makes.

Lest we forget, Jesus, the bread of life come down from heaven, also comes to us time and time again. And like the people in the crowd who dismiss Jesus’ claims, there are times when we too turn away from God’s gracious activity in our lives.

It’s easy to do. It doesn’t take much. Like the crowds long ago we may even try to box God in. Expecting God to conform to our own needs, wants, and limited understanding of God. And, a result of experience and a little education, we (pastors included) may even think that we know how God should act in any given circumstance. We come, even to church, with our minds made up not only about our neighbors, but also about God. As a result, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Or, even worse, we lose sight of God’s activity in the sacred pauses of everyday life.

To counter this, some congregations begin their worship services each week with an activity called “God Spotting.” Instead of announcements, the presiding minister asks: “What has God been up to this week?” Asking the question matters. For it reorients us to the reality that God with us IS. And not in some distant place far removed from our lived reality. God Spotting expects, and then looks for, the many and varied ways that God breaks into our lives. Our joys and celebratory life passages. Our suffering and disappointments. Our hunger for healing, renewal, and reconciliation.  

“I AM the living bread that came down from heaven,” proclaims Jesus. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (6:51).

It’s a promise of life and selfless love that gives a whole new meaning to our prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Doesn’t it?

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Stuck in a Rut?

Have you ever felt stuck in a rut? Like you were running in place, but you weren’t getting anywhere?

I’ll confess that there are times during the lectionary cycle when it feels like that to me. Running in place with nowhere to go… Stuck in a rut. I mean, here we are again for the fourth week in a row, listening once again to to the extended Bread of Life Discourse that follows the feeding of the 5,000 in John’s gospel. With the people questioning and complaining as Jesus proclaims: “I am the living bread come down from heaven…The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (JN 6:51).

Haven’t we all heard this before?

It might help if we take a breath, back up a bit, and view the events in John 6 within the wider context of the gospel. For example, in John, there is no Last Supper celebrating the Feast of Passover. So, maybe the text wants us to pay attention when Jesus declares: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (6:51).

Yes, we should pay attention, and then connect the dots to Jesus’ impending betrayal, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.  

Notice, too, when people ask: “How can this man give his body to eat?” (6:52), Jesus responds in a way that tries to help the crowd make sense of the astounding revelation that he is the living bread come down from heaven. “I am telling you the truth,” declares Jesus, both to the crowds pursuing him in Capernaum and to you and me gathered here today. “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…for my flesh is the real food; my blood is the real drink” (6:54-55).

Many in the crowd take offense at these words. For good reason. Jesus’ claims violate Jewish purity laws. His words are downright offensive. Yet, Jesus doesn’t pull any punches, does he? His bold claim jolts us out of our ruts and demands that we pay attention: “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood ABIDE IN ME, and I IN THEM” (6:56).

After hearing Jesus’ words repeated for the fourth week in a row, perhaps some of us are finally discovering that Jesus means what he says. No more beating around the bush. No more abstract language. No more challenging metaphors. Jesus just tells it like it is. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (6:56). He tells us just how much you and I are worth to him.

For Jesus, the Incarnate Word who became human and lived among us, spares nothing. He holds nothing back; not even his own flesh and blood, not even life itself. To reconcile sinners to God. To heal the broken. To abide with us.

Yes, Jesus means what Jesus says: “This IS my body, broken FOR YOU. This IS my blood SHED FOR YOU.” So that you may have life … life abundant, life eternal.

At the Lord’s Table the Living Christ meets us amid our doubt, our fears, our pain, our frustrations, and our inadequacies — AND HOLDS NOTHING BACK. There is no arms-length relationship at the Lord’s Table. No safe distance between you and the Crucified and Risen Christ who meets you in the assembly of the called-out ones and the word proclaimed.

Martin Luther referred to this sacramental encounter as the “Happy Exchange.” A sacred, mysterious union whereby Jesus takes our sin, pain, and suffering onto himself. And in return, gives to us all the blessings that God alone gives. We Lutherans call this grace and it’s a gift received in faith; a faith that trusts God’s promise to be one with you. And to abide with you and you in God… ALWAYS… FOREVER! And nothing you, or I, can do will ever change that.

As Christians who long for abundant life, the text from John 6 points the way. We have no other way to such abundant life except by taking Jesus in. By having Jesus become so intermingled with our own being that we cannot separate one from the other. And I have news for you. Every time we gather for worship God comes to us and abides with us in a way that we can touch, feel, and taste. In the everyday elements of bread and wine, we have God’s promise that God not only cares about our births and deaths, our marriages and our jobs, our successes, and our failures, but that God has also joined God’s own self to them and to you through Christ, the living bread come down from heaven – broken and given for you.

So come. Come all who hunger and thirst. Come all who are weary and worn down by life’s burdens. Taste and see that the Lord is good!

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