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Sermon for August 9, 2009
Pastor Sara Kay Olson-Smith
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: 1 Kings 19:4-8; Psalm 34:1-8; Ephesians 4: 25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51
Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and from Christ Jesus who gives us bread for the journey.
This past week Kaitlin, Chad and I spent a week at Confirmation Camp with over 70 other youth and congregational leaders from around the New Jersey synod. We had an amazing week. I want to tell you some of the ways we encountered Jesus. The primary way was that we actually got to hang out with him, well not exactly with Jesus, but with the pastor who played him at confirmation camp.
We lived the story of Jesus, beginning with the baptism of John at the the Cross Roads pool. We stood on the lake shore as disciples were called from their canoes and dropped their nets, and began to follow Jesus, too. We listened to the sermon on the mount from the baseball field, heard stories of Jesus’ healing from counselors who became the paralytic who could walk, a woman fed during the feeding of the 5000, and one of the poor vendors who had his table turned over in the temple by Jesus (he made a very unkosher bologna and cheese sandwiches). We learned about different prayer practices as we stepped out from the Garden as Jesus prayed, and ran around camp as followers being chased down by Roman soldiers. We watched and slowly followed as Jesus carried the cross, and were met at the tomb by an “angel” in white, and heard about the resurrection, The primary way we encountered Jesus was through his story - his life made known to us in the scriptures.
Then, on Thursday, having been called as Jesus’ disciples, to follow him and sent forth from the tomb to be his witnesses, we piled into cars and went throughout the area to do servant projects. The youth did all sorts of things - helping clean out a storage unit for Lutheran Social Ministries’ Refugee resettlement project, met adults with disabilities at the ARC of Somerset County, played cards and sang songs with the residents of Crane’s Mill Nursing Home, heard about and prayed for prisoners at the Detention Center in Newark, stocked shelves at a food bank, heard stories of rehabilitation and liberation from addiction at the Good News Home, and served and ate lunch at the soup kitchen at Trinity Lutheran Church in Dover. It was through these servant projects we had our other encounters with Jesus.
At our campfire that night, the youth told stories about their experiences, about the ways that they had encountered Christ in the people they met and through the work of the organizations where they served. At camp, there is this thing they do called, “appreciation,” where you would appreciate something you experienced or saw. It went like this: say you were so excited about lunch, you’d say, “appreciation kitchen staff!” and then you’d tap your legs twice, clap twice, snap twice and point and say, “kitchen staff!”
So anyway, that night at the campfire, these incredible young people told the stories about their days, and then told about that for which they were thankful, the thing they wanted to appreciate. One youth talked about the women whose families had been torn apart by addiction and how they, in their recovery, were being brought back together and she said, “appreciation: families.” Still another, from the same place told about the ways the women, in their recovery had been given a new chance at life, and said, “appreciation: redemption.” Another talked about the ways that the food pantry somehow never ran out of food because of the donations they received and she said, “appreciation: generosity.” One youth talked about how an elderly man at the nursing home wouldn’t let them push him to the game room, because he still could do it, and he said, “appreciation: independence.” Another youth talked about the woman he met there, who was, as he put it, “a Vietnam nurse during World War II,” and how they became friends, and so he said, “appreciation: Elizabeth.” One young man talked about cleaning out these storage facilities and all the broken furniture that was donated and he said, “I learned that I shouldn’t give things away that I wouldn’t want to use myself. People don’t deserve our crap. Appreciation: sharing the good stuff. “ A youth who went to the soup kitchen in Dover talked about serving the meal and eating with people and the new friends they found and then how, while they walked around Dover, kept seeing the people who they had just shared a meal with, along with a clown hanging out in town, and they found themselves waving to these people, and they said, “appreciation: new friends.” One organization that people visited talked about how they were only able to keep doing what they did because of the grace of God, so the youth said, “appreciation: the grace of God.”
I seriously could go on and on. Over and over again, with miraculous insight and a clear witness, these youth told stories upon stories about how they encountered Jesus through the strength and courage of the people they served and through the relationships that were forged and through the gift of serving itself. Appreciation: Jesus. They went out to serve and to do good, and while we did this and made an enormous impact in these communities, an enormous impact was made on each of us, too. We went out to fill the needs of others, and we found ourselves to be filled up. Through these encounters with other people and the opportunities to serve, we were given much to chew on and so much to energize and empower our service in the world.
Each of us, through our encounters this week with Jesus – both through his story and through the people we met – were filled and nourished and sent out. These were simple, ordinary and yet miraculous encounters with Jesus. We left and went out in the strength of the food of those encounters with Jesus.
In the Old Testament reading today, we hear this little story about Elijah. Just before our reading for today, Elijah has just heard that the Queen Jezebel wants him killed and so he flees, in fear for his life, out to Beersheba. While he is there, in true fear and struggle, he sits under a a tree and says, “It is too much for me. Take my life.” Exhausted and weary and overwhelmed, Elijah goes under the tree and sleeps. However, his sleep is interrupted by the angel who touches him, shows him food and tells him to eat. After he eats, still exhausted, he sleeps again. The angel comes to him a second time, touches him, and says, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” Elijah gets up and he eats and drinks. And then, the word tells us, Elijah went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights.
“Eat and drink, otherwise the journey will be too much for you... and he ate and he went in the strength of that food forty days and nights.” This story tells us of the ways that God responds to us in our exhaustion and weariness and gives us what we need to be able to make it through, to nourish us along our journey. We are promised that God will come to encounter us along the way and give us strength to keep going.
In our Gospel, we continue to hear about Jesus - our bread of life, this bread which is our daily sustenance, our nourishment for the journey. Bread which will give us life eternal, bread which will sustain us for our journey. Bread which will give us we need to face all we face. Jesus, the one whom God sent to us, is that which we need to continue in lives of service and compassion and love. Jesus, the one whom God sent to us, is that which we need to make it through this journey of our life which is often difficult and not always easy. Jesus knows that we are often exhausted and weary, that we sometimes just want to stop under a tree and stay there. And because we are called for so much more, to keep stepping forward, keep serving, keep praising, keep loving, keep witnessing, Jesus comes to us and gives us himself. Jesus says, “Eat and drink for otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” You can’t do this by yourself, so here am I, the bread of life, to nourish you. And so, we go in the strength of Jesus, our food.
But where do we see it? How do we experience this bread? Where can we encounter this Jesus who is our bread of life? As the youth both learned and taught us, Jesus comes to us in scripture. In this gift of the Word, we come to know God and his work in the world through Jesus. Scripture nourishes us and shapes us and teaches us and fills us with what we need to make it through the journey. Likewise, Jesus comes to us in bread and wine - the meal which feeds us and gives us what we need for the journey.
As we came to know this week, Jesus also comes to us through the people we meet and serve, through the relationships we form and the people whom we encounter. With eyes to see and hearts open to receive it, as those faithful youth did, we see the ways that Jesus comes to us and fills us. We are filled by the times we encounter family and redemption, independence and sharing the good stuff, relationships and new friends and the grace of God. Along our journey, God breaks in to nourish us along the journey, to sustain us even in our exhaustion and weariness, even in our fear and doubt. God breaks in, through word and water, bread and wine, to nourish us. God breaks in through those surprising moments where we are touched by an angel, disguised as a refugee or an addict or a prisoner or a person with Alzheimer’s, a stranger or a friend or a junior high youth. From that encounter, we are filled and we go in the strength of that encounter, ready to journey on.
Jesus is the bread of life, whoever eats this bread will never be hungry. Eat, for otherwise the journey will be too much for us. And filled, we can go in the strength of Jesus. As we said at camp, “Appreciation: Jesus, the bread of life.” Jesus.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
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