The Ear Bone Is Connected to the Hand Bone

James 1:17-27; Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

For all our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Trinitarian apologia, we Christians are mostly Christocentric. That is, in our theology it is Jesus this and Jesus that, with perfunctory nods to the Father and the Spirit when the occasion necessitates it. We use the term “God” a lot, but somehow it is either a footnote to Christ, or if we could use a printing image, it is in “Christ font.” 

When we think about the scripture readings that are used every Sunday, it is usually the Gospel lesson which takes that lead. And while we often say that the New Testament does not supplant the Old Testament but fulfills it, we don’t pay a lot of attention to the two-thirds of the Bible that precedes the newer testament.

The Bible is in some ways a strange book. It is a library. There are books of history and prophecy, poetry and wisdom literature, that peculiar literary genre called gospel, correspondence, and fantasy. There are love stories and war stories, ceremonies and legal codes, travel narratives and stream of consciousness pondering. I am sure that you remember the bit of Bible trivia that God is never mentioned in the book of Esther. Another bit of trivia is that the letter of James, which will provide readings for the next several weeks, uses the name of God very sparingly.

So it a great joy to begin our reading in James with a doxology, an outpouring of praise to God. It reminds us, that even when we are mired in our “Jesus this and Jesus that” faith, everything comes from God.

"Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created."

It is a reminder of the truth that shows up in numerous scripture locations:

• When God began to create.... (Genesis 1:1).
• I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deuteronomy 5:6).
• Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! (Deuteronomy 6:4).

We come back to the succinct and memorable first statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “The chief end of human beings is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.”

So, if we are so richly blessed, blessed through birth “like the first crop from the harvest of everything God created,” then we have a special responsibility. We like to think of blessings as things we receive hand over fist.. We grab them up as fast as we can, almost as if we are looters in an urban riot. Somehow what we grab with our hands hardly ever registers with our heads, our hearts, our souls, however we define the spark of God’s image within us. 

James is quick to chide that kind of attitude: 

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.”

When we are busy getting and grabbing, we are in competition with everyone else and not producing righteousness. We only think of ourselves. More, more, more. It doesn’t matter if we don’t need more. Our egos are involved. My worth is measured by what I have, not what someone else has. Our higher mental faculties shut down. We work out of our carnivore mode. Eat or be eaten. There is a disconnect between our hands and our brains, between the visceral and the spiritual.

Harry Emerson Fosdick, one time pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, observed that in his experience those who reflect on their lives and conclude that they have received far less than they deserved tend to be those from whom no great living comes. However, those who readily reckon they have received far more than they deserved are among those who do indulge in great living.(1) 

What a wonderful phrase – “Indulge in great living.” Indulge means, “to allow (oneself) to follow one’s will (it’s usually followed by ‘in’). When we recognize how undeservedly blessed we are we allow ourselves to engage in great living. This is very likely a non-monetary kind of indulgence. We are not talking about three-star Michelin cuisine or first-class airfare jet-setting. We are talking about a magnanimity and a graciousness that doesn’t abuse, belittle, patronize, or marginalize anyone. As James counsels, “welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.”

“Indulging in great living” doesn’t just happen of its own accord. “You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves,” James writes. Once we have recognized how greatly and undeservedly we have received from the bounty of God, including our very salvation, that same recognition needs to turn around through our senses and our psyche to come back out our hands. The three smallest bones of the human body, the bones of the ear must connect with all the bones of hand in reaching out to the world, engaging with the world, laboring with the world, cooperating with the world in not only the sharing of the Good News but living that Good News out for others to catch the sense of the undeserved but real blessing of life that God offers. 

I saw an image on the internet which very pointedly said: “Stop acting like a Christian. Be One.” So often we think that following Jesus means we have stop doing the wrong things and start doing the right things. Maybe we have got that backwards. We spend such an inordinate time worrying about doing the wrong things that we sap ourselves of the spiritual energy needed to do the right things.  Perhaps we need engage in doing the right things in such a way that the wrong things slowly but surely get edged out by our activity. 

It often seems that those who make the most noise about doing things the Christian way, are those who have the most to hide. The recent release of names of the Ashley Madison website clients have outed a number of people who should never have been there in the first place and who also were vocal about that kind of activity in others.

None of us gets away without sinning. All of us are in need of grace. This is the table of grace. Here is where the love and the grace of Christ is empowered by the Spirit. Here is where sinners are invited to partake of forgiveness. The invitation is open-ended. We can come as often as we need to. Jesus will not turn us away. He speaks the words of hope and peace and invites us to hear those words and to extend our hands first to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and second to pass the life-giving bread and saving cup to the one beside us. “You received without having to pay. Therefore give without demanding payment” (Matthew 10:8). 

Christ gave freely that we may freely give to those around us and to those who will come after us. The integrity of faith embraces self and neighbor. The ear bone is connected to the hand bone. And that’s the word of the Lord. Amen.

(1) Harry Emerson Fosdick, Riverside Sermons (New York: Harper, 1958), 174.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

You Are Well-Suited

Ephesians 6:10-20; Psalm 34:15-22; John 6:56-69

Much of what we experience in our world is driven by advertising which creates brand recognition. Some of it is intended for the ears, such as theme songs and advertising jingles. Other kinds of branding appeal to the eyes, such as catchy logos, color combinations, catchwords, and acronyms. We learned a lot of these when we were young children when everything we didn’t need to know stuck to our memories like velcro. Would that the times table had worked that way. 

Branding is all around us. We pay an extra $5 to have the little LaCoste lizard on our polo shirts. Politicians of particular persuasions often indicate their party affiliation by the color of the tie they wear. Recognition is everything. Whenever we see a person in a brown dress shirt and shorts we automatically know that the person works for UPS. Every fast food restaurant has its particular apron or shirt or cap to help cement the brand firmly in our memory.

We live in a world filled with people wearing uniforms. Doctors have their white coats for making rounds and their scrubs if they are in surgical specialties. Nurses used to have starched caps. Now, depending if they are state tested nurse assistants, licensed practical nurses, or registered nurses, they may have a variety of different uniform offerings such as colorful smocks which help to designate their position.

The military has always had a variety of uniforms and insignia to denote branch of service and rank, as well as skill set and responsibility. Sports teams have uniforms to distinguish one team from another and to rally supporters. I wonder how much money the NFL makes on team branded clothing. 

If clothes make the man or woman, then a uniform makes the position. Judges wear robes. British judges add the wig. Tutus define a ballerina. Firefighters wear water and heat resistant clothing. Traditional corporate executives wear suits. In fact a slang term for bosses is “suits.” They are often well-suited: Brooks Brothers, Armani, Savile Row, Gucci. They don’t come off the rack at J. C. Penney or Kohl’s.

As we hear today’s reading from the Ephesian Letter, we can imagine the apostle Paul himself in prison guarded by a well-suited Roman soldier. We know that Paul did time in a number of prisons. Since Paul was a high-profile prisoner, he may have been shackled to the guard night and day. After having spent such quality time with Caesar’s finest, Paul was intimately acquainted with the uniform of the Roman military man. Without much else to do each day, Paul allowed his curiosity to engage the soldier in conversation about the different pieces of the uniform. And Paul the wordsmith quickly translated each piece of the guard’s equipment into a spiritual armor which every Christian needed for his or her daily conflict with the evil forces seeking to dominate life. We can wonder if Paul then used these metaphors in his attempt to convert his guard. Given Paul’s persuasiveness, I wouldn’t be surprised that the guard had to be changed regularly to keep Paul’s evangelism to a minimum. On the other hand that may only have increased it.

On a larger scale, the passage epitomizes the tension in which every life must be lived. Beyond the immediate image we can see the ongoing tension between what is and what we wait for. In faith we have accepted Jesus as Lord and subjected ourselves to his sovereignty. But this is an incomplete goal and a future hope. For all of us, there is a moral and existential tension between “being” Christian and “becoming Christian.” This is as true for the individual believer and it is also true for the whole church, the aggregated community of believers, whether we talk about a congregation, a denomination, or the church universal. We have not yet achieved the fullness of Christ who is all in all. So there remains a constant tension between being incorporated into Christ and our earthly existence in a world that is not yet subject to his dominion. While believing and fervently desiring to belong wholly to Christ, we still live in the “old age” which has not yet fully burst the gravitational bonds that keep us from becoming what faith tells us we shall become.

Not all uniforms are solely for identification purposes. Some uniforms enable the wearer to better function in his or her appointed work. Gymnasts wear form fitting clothing to enable them to physically do the routines. Loose-fitting clothes would get in the way and perhaps endanger some of their moves. Or some parts of uniforms are for protection. An apron may be handsome, but its primary function is to keep kitchen spills from getting on our everyday clothes. Steel-toed work shoes with metatarsal guards may look clunky, but they help protect feet from a variety of dangers. 

Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is directed to a much wider audience than simply the initial readers/hearers. And the “you” in today’s gospel reading, which concludes and sums up the “Bread of Life” discourse, includes more than the disciples who were within earshot. 

The Spirit directs these words to a company of readers, ancient and modern, who, at the end of the narrative, are actual participants in the story.  Every reader, every listener – you, I – are witnesses, and none of us is allowed to put the book down like a good novel or turn off the audio book and return to business as usual. This is a story, which grabs us by the heart, by the throat. This is a story, which hits us in the stomach. We are convicted by its truths and conscripted by its hope into the service of the Master Jesus Christ.

We are commanded to proclaim this story.  We are compelled to call for repentance, we are required to declare divine forgiveness.  We are called to proclaim just how far God goes to save a people who constantly choose sin and death. We, like the original hearers, are recipients of the power, love, and protection that God promises.  God does not leave us defenseless. God continues the work of salvation according to the plans laid out for the completion of creation long before it was begun. 

At the same time God does not promise that life in this world will be easy. In his asking as in his teaching, Jesus does not compromise. He does not water down his message so that it will be easier for us. He does not go chasing after the people who walk away from him as did the crowd at Capernaum. He does not change the truth so that his disciples will not leave him.

All that means that we have been equipped with a suit of armor. Or perhaps the better image in today’s world would be a uniform. 

God in Jesus Christ has clothed us in a uniform of righteousness that is stain resistant and as strong as kevlar, the stuff bullet-proof vests are made of, so that the verbal slurs and snide remarks will slide off us like water off a duck’s back. And we will be safe from the barbs, lies, and other calumny that are hurled at us like so much rotten fruit at a poor vaudeville act.

Our footwear is cleated and waterproof to provide protection from the muck that non-believers and disparaging critics strew around us. The Spirit fits us with night-vision goggles to see through the dimness of the collective ignorance of all who reject the possibility of God’s gracious sovereignty. 

We are in covenant relationship with the living God, who has tailored it perfectly for us. It’s the finest suit that grace can buy. Wearing it well, gracefully, humbly, is challenging. Nonetheless, we are committed to stick with the God who sticks with us. Just as it was in Jesus’ and Paul’s day, the world today doesn’t always welcome that covenant-keeping, steadfast love. For many the offense is too great – so great it must be crucified. That means we need the strength of our Lord’s power. Paul’s words to the Ephesians make it clear that we will need to commit to following Jesus Christ over and over again. And that’s why we have been well-suited. It fits like a glove and makes us witnesses to be taken seriously, no matter how the world treats us. 

We are well-suited because we have his words of eternal life. We believe and know that he is God’s holy one.

Amen.


Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Time

Ephesians 5:15-20; Proverbs 9:1-6; John 6:51-58

A leap second was added to the clock the end of June. I hope you didn’t waste it. I suspect that every one of us, excepting night owls, got an extra wink of sleep out of our leap second. Oh well.

We human beings are obsessed with time. We can’t live with it and we can’t live without it. Who of us doesn’t have at least one watch and if we aren’t wearing it, feel lost. Although with the near omnipresence of cell phones a lot of people check their phones when they want to know what time it is. When I was growing up a stop watch was a wondrous thing. My first digital watch had it built in and every smartphone has one. On our phones, our tablets, our computers we have a number of apps to keep track of time, signal deadlines, keep appointments, and remember birthdays and anniversaries. 

We have clocks everywhere: In our cars, on our coffee makers and televisions, on the thermostats, on the microwaves and ranges. We have so many that it is a chore to reset them. When our power glitches or the time changes, I try very hard to set the range clock and the microwave clock so that the digital readout is the same and changes at the same time.

In some places, telling time is literally a big deal. If you’re in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for example, you can’t help but see the Abraj Al Bait Towers clock just about anywhere you go. Its clock face is 43 meters in diameter. That’s roughly three times the distance from where I’m standing to the sanctuary doors. Plus, the clock is on a tower that’s 601 meters tall. (That’s almost 200 feet taller than the new One World Trade Center building.) By comparison, Big Ben, the most famous clock in the world, is about 20 feet in diameter on a 300-foot-high tower on the bank of the Thames.

We are so dependent on external means of measuring time that we have lost our internal clocks. A character in a novel I’m reading noted that if he worried about how much time had elapsed, thinking about it every five minutes or so, he invariably was wrong. But if he refused to worry, he nearly always got the time right. 

We may grow up as children learning how to tell time but we spend the rest of our lives with time telling us.

All our clocks don’t make us better at managing our time. That’s one of the biggest stressors in our culture. We work too many hours, we have too many distractions, we fritter away too much time, and we trying to squeeze more things in less time. 

The relentless passage of time is what the ancient Greeks referred to as chronos time, from which we get “chronological” time. To paraphrase an ancient Timex commercial, we take a licking, but the clock keeps ticking. 

The apostle Paul didn’t wear a watch or carry a cell phone, but he was nonetheless always aware of time. It was a different sort of time, however, than you get by glancing at your watch. Paul actually kept a running clock in his head. Instead of tracking the chronos, Paul was far more interested in redeeming the kairos. 

Kairos is the time most often mentioned in the New Testament. You won’t find it on a dial or digital readout. Kairos is decisive time – the right time, the appropriate time. The New Testament writers associate kairos time with the activity of God intervening in human history. It can also be the ultimate time, the coming of the final age. That’s why Paul admonishes the Ephesians to “Take advantage of every opportunity,” [make] the most of the time [kairos], redeem the time, “because the days are evil.” 

The kairos expectation is the fuel for the management of our chronos. A little earlier in the letter Paul issued a wake-up call. The darkness of evil was about to be exposed by the bright dawn of God’s coming kingdom, thus Paul tells the Ephesian church not to “participate in the unfruitful actions of darkness. Instead, ... reveal the truth about them” because “everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light” (5:11, 13).

That’s why Paul urges the Ephesians – and us – “be careful to live your life wisely, not foolishly.” Use your time wisely, order your lives according to the new reality that is breaking in. That’s how you can make the most of the God’s kairos time. That’s how to prepare for the coming day of the Lord. It is a choice that we have to make. Either we align ourselves with what God is doing or we follow the mob mentality of the present evil that governs the daily calendar of much of the world. To “understand the Lord’s will,” and to do it, is the best time management strategy in light of the coming of the Lord.

Paul gives us one simple direction: “be filled with the Spirit.” That will be far more effective than all the time-wasting activities that fill the lives of so many people. He calls that depravity or debauchery. Alcohol may cause drunkenness in the body, but there are many things that cause drunkenness in the mind. People can get drunk on exaggerated self-importance, on pride, on unthought-out religious, philosophical, or political ideas, on flattery, on fear, on the idea that they can run their own lives and be masters of all that they do, the center of the universe. 

Be filled with the Spirit instead, says Paul, and you will be able to face the present world not with songs of drunken parties, ideologies, or emotions, but the “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” of worship. That’s what happened on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit rushed upon the gathered church. As the tongues of fire and mighty wind of the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, some of the bystanders looked at their ecstatic behavior and their speaking in new languages and said, “They are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13). Peter told the crowd to check their watches, since it was only 9:00 a.m. Then he said that their behavior was a sign that the last days, the kairos of God, was at hand. Quoting the prophet Joel, Peter preached, “In the last days, God said, I will pour out my Spirit on all people” (Acts 2:17).

Life in the Spirit is life in kairos time, and the people of God set their watches and calendars by that standard. The atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado, may accurately measure out the chronos time of our lives, including that leap second most of us slept through, but kairos time is measured by the Spirit, which calibrates us toward being right with God’s time and accurate in our faith and practice.

So how does the sweep hand or blinking digital readout measure out God’s kairos time in our lives? How do we take advantage of every opportunity to use God’s kairos time wisely? One way would be to consult scripture as frequently as we look at our wrist or phone. Another way would be to count our time by the prayers we offer to God and the silent times for receiving God’s communication to us.

Rather than just letting time tick away, put it to the Spirit’s use. If you regularly carry a timepiece of some sort, be it analog or digital, consider the practice of saying a short prayer every time you check the time. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, pray for whatever is happening or whomever you’re with at that moment. Coupled with a disciplined and regular spiritual life, it’s a practice that makes the most of the time in a way that allows the Spirit to work in us and through us.

Time is a gift from God. We may revere or rue the past, we may dream of the future. But the here and now is God’s present, in terms of a gift and in terms of where and when God is actively at work in the life of the world and in your life. Take advantage of every opportunity and always give thanks to God for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

General Resource: “Big Time,” Homiletics, August 16, 2015 (http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=93040909). 

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.

Religious But Not Spiritual

John 6:35, 41-51; Psalm 34:1-8; 1 Kings 19:4-8

Bread, bread, and more bread. The entire sixth chapter of John is fueled by carbs. This is the third week in John 6 and we still have three more weeks to go. There is a short interlude of Jesus walking on water. That reminds us of the water discussion with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in chapter 4, so I guess we are on a bread and water diet, which for John has far more to do with theology than nutrition.

For those of us who have brains that thrive on trivia, we will quickly call up recollections of Exodus. Moses struck the rock in the weary wilderness and water gushed forth and manna miraculously appeared day after day, excepting Sabbaths, for forty years. The Israelites couldn’t figure the manna out and called it “What’s this?” The disciples and the crowd can’t figure Jesus out.

Both the collective memory reference to the Exodus tradition as well the present time conversation with Jesus are based on the same theme: God’s desire and power to sustain us. That may sound simplistic but our human tendency – dare I call it an aspect of that nagging reality named original sin – is to deconstruct the image in such ways that it becomes meaningless. Is the bread white or whole grain? Is it gluten-free? Is it sourdough or yeast bread? Is the flour from genetically modified grain?

Then we take this to the next level. Rather than partake of the bread we become purveyors of bread. We set up shops for selling bread. We have all manner of bread: pita, boules, pumpernickels, naan, challah, baguettes, peasant, sandwich, soda, rye, herbed – you name it we offer it at the “Church Bakery.”

“We’re running a bakery?” you ask. “That isn’t what we do as the church.” Yes, it is. We package  and give out the bread of life. We package it in all manner of programs for young and old, for newbies and veterans, for cradle Christians and converts. We put the bread of life into classes for this or that. We slice it, we cube it, we toast it, we dry it to make bread crumbs. We coat it with butter and honey and jelly. We get so wrapped up in the presentation that we lose sight of the bread – THE bread, Jesus our Savior.

Recent polls have shown that the fastest growing portion of the American religious scene is the category “None.” A lot of analysis and follow up research has been done. A significant number of the “Nones” would define themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” They believe in a higher power. They believe in God. The trappings of traditional religion, be it Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, or Evangelical, drive them away from the church. They see the church as “religious but not spiritual.” They see the church missing the whole point about the bread.

When Jesus points his hearers back to the Exodus, he turns the discussion into another of his “how much more” analogies.

“This could be read as a ‘You have heard it said’ text. You have heard about the manna in the wilderness, but I tell you about the bread from heaven. You have heard about the rescue from Pharaoh, but I tell you about rescue from death. In other words: ‘You think the miracle of the manna was something? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.’ ”(1)

The disciples, the crowd, you and I, are called to go the distance to the “how-much-more” that Jesus places in front of us. The history of the relationship of God has been one of God’s drawing men and women to God and enabling them to trust God enough so that they would reach farther, step farther, believe more deeply, love more intently, worship more sincerely.

At the beginning of the Gospel of John the first disciples had to stop following John the Baptist in order to follow Jesus. In this portion of the “Bread of Life” discourse, Jesus’ contemporaries – practicing Jews – are being asked to leave their religion centered on the Torah and synagogue in order to become part of the Jesus community, to give up being religious an become spiritual. To follow Jesus means giving up one’s old religion – even Judaism! In the accounts of the other three gospels the first disciples gave up their vocation of fishing. It’s likely that the fishermen were not the most pious or religious individuals to start with. Jesus spoke and they were drawn to him. They gave up net and boat, family and business. Such courage and determination presents us with a question: What are we giving up in order to follow Jesus? What do we need to give up to better follow Jesus?

“No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me.” So what draws us to Jesus? The crowd wanted bread. They wanted Jesus to give them bread. They looked to him as a bakery. After all, “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son, whose mother and father we know?”

Being drawn by God is like a fish being hauled in a net to shore. That’s uncomfortable, because we don’t want to be dragged to where we don’t want to go. We would rather pick and choose, to bite the hook or not. There is no choice about the net. Fishermen in Jesus’ day used nets, not hooks.

So there is no choice in being drawn. Without it we go nowhere. A semi-trailer needs the Kenworth truck dragging it, a farm implement needs the John Deere tractor pulling it. God hooks up to us and pulls us to Jesus, where Jesus promises to raise us up on the last day. Without the power of the semi, the trailer goes nowhere. Without the power of God, we are helpless to come to Jesus.

Brian Stoffregen tells of hearing a former Muslim speak about his conversion to Christianity. One of the major things that attracted him to Christianity was that it is so absurd. A God who is born and then dies. Salvation that begins by declaring that you can do nothing to save yourself. It either had to be true or the people proclaiming and believing it were crazy. Why does anyone believe this stuff? It’s a miracle from God that any of us believe it.(2)

There are many reasons why people don’t believe in Jesus Christ, why people are not involved in a Christian church, why members don’t regularly attend their church. Instead of wringing our hands, why not be amazed that there are so many people who continue to believe and are regular in their church attendance and involvement in spite of all the forces that work against an active faith and church participation. That’s the real miracle! Why are people in church in the middle of August? Can we bold enough to say that God has drawn them to that place of worship, to that place where they can be taught, and hear and learn from God’s Word? They are religious and spiritual. They have been drawn beyond where they would go on their own. God has drawn them to that place so that they might die, so that they might provide life for others. Could that be a parable of our Christian faith and life?

On one hand, the image being a trailer attached to God’s Kenworth can rub us independent, free-willed people the wrong way. On the other hand, there can be great confidence in that picture. It means that God is in charge of taking us down the road of life. It means that God is in charge of our eternal existence. It means that we can be confident that where God is going, we will certainly follow.

“Having eternal life” is mentioned four times in chapter 6, including once in today’s reading. In every case, the verb is in the present tense.

Simply defined, “eternal life” is living in relationship with God. If we define “eternal” as “never ending,” it is a relationship which begins now through seeing and believing, through eating and drinking (all present tense verbs), and it is a relationship that never ends. Death does not end our relationship with God. The relationship begins now and continues forever. It is our eternal life.

Jesus calls – draws – us out of mere religion and places us in a relationship with himself, with the Father, and with the Spirit. That relationship is true spirituality. Jesus offers himself as something much better and more powerful than the manna the ancestors received in the wilderness. We don’t rely on what God did for our faith ancestors (or even what our ancestors might have done for God) in the past. We need to be aware of what God is doing in the present:

“This is the bread that comes down from heaven.” (v. 50)
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” (v. 51)

These verses proclaim that for us who believe we have to give God all the credit. God brought us to Jesus. God gave us our faith in Jesus. God gives us eternal life now. Jesus will raise us up on the last day. In Jesus we can be more than religious, we can be spiritual.

May it be so. Amen.

(1) Jill Duffield, “Looking into the Lectionary: 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (August 9),” The Presbyterian Outlook  info@pres-outlook.org, downloaded August 4, 2015.
(2) Brian Stoffregen, “Gospel Notes for Next Sunday,” Proper 14 B / Lectionary 19 B: John 6:35, 41-51. http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51bd49db6caae596e13e44534&id=f2f89e7110&e=e9babc8d38

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2015 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.