Sermon for 12th Pentecost
Ordinary Times
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
The many Sundays at this time in the church year are often called “ordinary time,” another term for the Sundays of the long Pentecost season of the church year. And, as I have indicated these last few Sundays, many of the lessons at this time in these “ordinary times,” of this time in the Pentecost season, many of the lessons involve bread, the Feeding of the 5,000, of course, and, and both last weekend and this weekend, Jesus’ famous words, “I am the bread of life.”
As we have seen in past weeks, the people who have followed Jesus, regarded him as a teacher, and witnessed his miracles, these people still are not sure what to do with Jesus, are not sure who Jesus is. As we see in today’s Gospel, the people also know Jesus as one of their own. That is, they knew his parents and his brothers and sisters, they watched him play and learn his trade, grow up and eventually leave home. In other words, they know him, just like they know all the kids from their old neighborhood. And for this reason – because Jesus in many ways is just like them, because Jesus is common in many ways – it is hard for them to see Jesus as all that special, and Jesus certainly cannot be the one God sent for redemption.
In this way, I find that the crowd speaks for us, or at least it speaks for me. I do not know about you but, when I am in need or distress, when I am hurt or afraid, I want to see a God who shows in strength, I want to call upon a God who answers clearly and quickly, and I want to rely on a God who is there, really there, when I need him.
Little wonder, then, as we see in today’s lesson, that the people in the crowd following Jesus are put off, offended, angered even, by Jesus’ suggestion that he, a man just as they are, that he, Jesus, is the answer to their deepest longings and greatest needs.
Just think of the audacious claim that Jesus is making. “I am the bread of life.” Who ever heard of a God having anything to do with the everyday, the ordinary, the mundane, the dirty? Gods are made for greatness, not grime; they supposed to reside up in the clouds, not down here with the commoners. I mean, who ever heard of a God who is willing to suffer the pains and problems, the indecencies and embarrassments of human life? It’s downright laughable. No wonder the crowd grumbles against Jesus’ words, for such words seem to make fun of their understanding of God’s majesty and, even worse, to mock their own deep need for a God who transcends the very life which is causing them so much difficulty.
No wonder they are upset. They know their own flaws and shortcomings, their own faithlessness and failures. They know of their doubts and fears, too, of their betrayals and broken promises, their petty grudges and foolish prejudices. They know all the shame and disappointment and regret which each person carries around on his or her back like a snail carries its shell. And so, if Jesus is really like they are, then they feel they might be doomed. For how can someone who is like them save? How, even, can one like them be saved? And so, they grumble because they are angry, and even more because they are afraid, afraid that, in the end, they are really not worth saving.
Are we all that different? I know that I, at least, am not. I often find myself thinking of just how fragile the foundation of my faith, of our faith, really is. I mean, really, can the words I speak in my sermons really make much of a difference? Shouldn’t someone more eloquent preach, or a heavenly chorus sing God’s praise? And the water we use in Baptism: it’s not holy, or special, or different. It is from the same tap from which we drink and bathe and brush our teeth. Same with the bread and wine of communion – these aren’t special either. They are ordinary, common, mundane; hardly worthy of God’s attention, let alone God’s use.
And yet, and yet we are bold enough, audacious enough, perhaps even foolish enough, to confess that God does use such ordinary things, such common elements, to achieve God’s will and to bring to the world God’s salvation.
How? Why? Because of this very one, Jesus, who was common, ordinary, mortal like you and me, was also uncommon, divine, the very Son of God.
This is the claim Jesus makes in today’s gospel reading, the claim which offended the crowd who followed him then, the claim which still offends any who take it seriously today. For where we expect God to come in might, God comes in weakness; where we look for God to come in power, God comes in vulnerability; and when we seek God in justice and righteousness – which is, after all, what we all expect from a God – we find God, or rather are found by God, in forgiveness and mercy.
This is the claim and promise Jesus makes today: that God became incarnate; that is, became carnal, that God took on human flesh, became just like us, so that God might save us and all people who come to faith by God’s word!
The human, carnal God; the God who does not despise the ordinary and common but rather who seeks such out by which to achieve God’s will. And, as we also heard last weekend, this is the promise that rests behind our sacraments of Holy Communion and Baptism, behind the bread and wine and water we use in these sacraments. For since God does not despise water, bread, or wine, such ordinary, common things, so we also know that God does not despise or abandon us, who are similarly such ordinary and common people. And so in the sacraments we find God’s promise to take hold of us and make us God’s own, to remain with us and to never let us go.
But we also find in the sacraments another promise which God makes to us. It is the promise not only to redeem us, but also to use us – to make use of our skills and talents, inadequate or insufficient though they may seem, to continue God’s work of creating, redeeming, and sustaining all that is. And that, also, is an incredible promise.
When I visit people in the hospital I try to think of and give God thanks for the machines and instruments to which they or their loved one is attached, for the pharmaceutical companies which make the drugs and for the trucks which deliver them, for the people who keep the hospital clean as well as for the nurses and doctors who attend to them.
I do find it wonderful that God would work through technology and instruments, through bottom-line corporations and imperfect labor unions, through ordinary, human, doctors and nurses who sometimes have short tempers or poor bed-side manners. Just as I find it amazing and miraculous that God works through oft times flawed pastors, tired teachers, worn-out secretaries, over-worked government officials, exhausted parents, and the like – that God would choose these and so many other unlikely candidates through whom to work, even when they do not suspect it.
And this is the promise we also find in the sacraments. For just as surely as God uses ordinary bread and wine to bring to us God’s saving word, so does God also use each of us to accomplish God’s will and work in God’s world.
Sometimes it can be so very hard to see God at work through our instruments, our labors, and our lives. But for this reason, also, you see, God gives us the sacraments. For at the font in baptism and at the table in holy communion, God speaks to us clearly, as God’s promise of forgiveness and acceptance, of wholeness and of life, is given to each of us in a form we not only can hear, but also see, taste, touch, and feel.
These sacraments bid us to raise our eyes from the confusion and ambiguity of life for a moment, so that we may receive God’s audacious and faith-provoking promises and thereby return to our lives in this confusing world with courage and hope.
That is the invitation we have from God each weekend: To come each and every week to hear God’s word proclaimed in the liturgy and hymns, the lessons and preaching. Come to receive God’s sacraments and to be touched by God’s presence. To come with our hearts and minds, with hands and mouths and bodies, to receive the incarnate God, the God who took – and still takes – physical form for us. To come and bring all of our ordinary skills and extraordinary hopes and fears. To come to receive God’s promise to use all that we have and are and for God’s glory.
These are indeed times that are “ordinary,” times occupied by ordinary people like you and me. Ordinary people who God loves and saves and through whom God’s purpose is acted out in this world.
Thanks be to God!
Amen
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, August 11 & 12, 2018
