I think what Jesus is trying to convey to his followers and to us to this day is that we need to be more sarcastic. Whoa, what!?! I’m not talking about the sarcasm like that Willy Wonka meme where Gene Wilder is resting his head on his fist and feigning interest in what one of the parents is telling him. The picture is used with added text to convey condescension and sarcasm. For instance, “You constantly change lanes in bumper-to bumper traffic. You must get where you’re going so much faster than everyone else!” As I scrolled through examples of that meme to make sure I was properly identifying it, and saw one that totally stopped the scroll. It’s sarcasm cuts to the quick and made me really reflect on the alignment of our words and deeds as christians. The meme said, So, you condemn “handouts” for the poor and needy, but go to church to worship a man who fed the poor and healed the sick for free. Please tell me more about your faith.” It puts us on the spot and shines the light on a glaring discontinuity that calls into question our integrity. From a rhetorical device perspective, the sarcasm employed in it functions very well, as its irony really drives home the point of, “why take seriously a messenger that doesn’t buy into their own message?” But, once again, this isn’t the sarcasm that I think we need more of. For the kind I’m suggesting we have to go to word origins. Oh, great pastor, we love hearing about word origins! I sort of said that to myself, but this one is pretty brief and pretty interesting as it goes to the choice of greek wording in the gospel for today. From its etymology, the word sarcasm or sarcastic comes from the greek and means to “bite the flesh”. And the words actually chosen by John for the gospel for today go down that road a little more today than the words “eat my flesh” do. The words John chose were a little more earthy, physical and interactive. Not just consume, but more impolite like chew on or gnaw on. So, wow, what are we supposed to do with that? Literal sarcasm. I think we have dressed-up holy communion. We’ve described it. We’ve theologized it. We walk up, receive the elements,and go back to our seats. We talk about meaning. We’ve had classes about it. Many have waited to “an appropriate age of understanding” to receive it. We find ourselves doing so much with our brains concerning Holy Communion, but Jesus is using really physical words. I hear opinions and beliefs and theologies, rules and regulations about communion all the time. That’s where the lion’s share by far is spent. Jesus, on the other hand, is encouraging us to an experience of the heart and body, of becoming one, or hearing the promise and experiencing the joy of it. In our chewing and consuming we are receiving life. That life holds the promise of God’s love. In Christ we are OK. That promise is powerful as it can displace the anxiety that keeps us focused on ourselves. The descriptions and endless discussion and perseverating on age and understanding makes me wonder, Have we eaten the stuff? Have we chewed on it? Have we stopped to simply experience the promises of God in that moment of eating and chewing and swallowing and becoming one in a very physical and tangible way with the life of Jesus Christ, God made flesh coursing through your veins and strengthening us and abiding with us. It’s all very physical and brain work seems to just take over and leave no room for experience. Pastor Rolf Jacobson made a really neat observation. We spend a lot of time explaining and describing, but when it comes down to it, It’s like describing a kiss, rather than experiencing a kiss. Christ’s desire is that we experience his promises, grace and love, experience them with joy, relief, strength, excitement, energy, compassion and the kind of thanksgiving that propels us to share, not just intellectualize or talk about or sit through a Sunday service, but share with others the grace and love that we received from Jesus. Proclaiming the Gospel is a word-deed thing. My friend Kurt and I were discussing this gospel reading and Kurt sent me a short vignette that he saw some time back and it has really stuck with him. He said, “This is from ”An African Prayer Book” by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:The answer of a starving child in Ghana to the question “Who is Jesus Christ?” “Oh! Jesus. I have heard of that name. You say he is the Life of the world. Life! But I am hungry. I am lifeless. There is no milk in my mother’s breasts. She is sick and weak. They tell me that some people called Red Cross are sending or have sent some powdered milk. But I am hungry. I am dying. You say Jesus is the Life of the world? But I am dying. Can Jesus help to keep me alive?” This situation and the many situations like it, that is tangible needs, grief, anguish, suffering, they call for the chewing, the physical, the water that gets us wet, the bread and wine that we can can chew, taste, smell and experience that pushes us to respond just as physically. Bishop Jim Gonia summed up Luther’s ideas on what we receive like this: “Now that we don’t need to worry that we’re good enough for God, how do we direct our attention to our neighbor?” We’ve got a line on the ELCA logo that both sums things up and also puts us on the spot. It gives acknowledgement that we have heard God’ call to action in the cries of our neighbors. It acknowledges to the meme writer and to all who have seen the meme and felt that it pretty accurately sums up Christians, that that shoe does not fit and that we refuse to wear it. That line reads, “God’s work. Our hands.” That line should inform us all day every day. Our previous Bishop, Mark Hansen, wrote concerning the motto that it is representative of all Christians. “Our hands. In a culture that has reduced matters of faith to a private consumer choice that leaves people isolated in self-serving lives, we have a liberating message that is incarnational and vocational. God joins you in Jesus to a community, the body of Christ. In the life of that body God is working both in us and through us and our hands. In us God’s Holy Spirit is accomplishing what nothing else, not even God’s law, could accomplish—a life freed from serving sin and death, a life where our hands are generous and loving. Living in us, God entrusts to us the ministry of reconciliation, to be done through us. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation””. God’s work. Our hands. And Luther said, “We do God’s work, not because God needs us to do so, but because our neighbor does. We do God’s work in Christ’s name for the life of the world.” This is the way Jesus worked and did ministry. As Bishop Craig Satterlee says, “I am struck that Jesus does not give the crowd in the wilderness (what for us is) a four-Sunday discourse on the Bread of Life until after they have eaten their fill of the loaves and fishes. Jesus did not make the five thousand sit down on the grass and give them a lecture so that they understood before he ‘took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted’. It almost seems that, if Jesus hadn’t fed the large crowd, he wouldn’t have much to say.” You will be fed and will experience Jesus today and your heart and hands will be strengthened. How will our hearts and hands share that grace in word and deed with a world that so desperately needs it? Let us pray, Almighty God, May our words and actions walk hand and hand, may our hands be ever at your work, and may we live in and experience the joy of your promises and make them a present reality for a world in need.
Charlton Smith says
Good Morning Pastor Grant and LFLC Family,
On behalf of Pastor Clifford Lewis and the congregation of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas it has been a joy to worship with you today. May God continue to bless your outreach and service.