Sabbath Bread for the Journey

Biblical Text: 1 Kings 19:1-18

What is a Sabbath? There is a simple answer about a date on the calendar. But that is not how Luther’s Small Catechism defines it. Neither do I think that is how the Jesus talks about the Sabbath. That’s where this meditation starts, but it is really about the Old Testament reading for the day and Elijah’s journey. It is about the contrast between the Power and the Glory and The things that were made for man. It is about the regular Sabbaths and those that we desperately need. It is about how we receive the Bread of Life for the Journey that is too much for us.

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Ask for This Bread…Always

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Biblical Text: John 6:22-35

The text is sometimes call the Bread of Life Discourse. Actually, it is only the first third. The lectionary has us in John 6 for the three weeks. This sermon address that in noting the difference between the Synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke) and John. John might tell the same story, but his story wants to work on deeper levels. In this case the question is really: “What do you hunger for?” Obviously we hunger for food. We eat some and feel full. But 4-6 hours later we are hungry again. The material and temporal points at our spiritual reality. We are hungry. For what? The sermon tries to preach that.

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Something to Eat

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Biblical Text: Mark 6:30-44

The feeding of the 5000 is one of the few episodes that is in all 4 gospels. And I think each one of them has their own theological understanding of the event. Mark’s to me emphasizes the providence of Jesus in the Spiritual Life. We all tend to think we can do it ourselves. And then we end up hungry in a desolate place. This sermon walks through both how we find ourselves in those places, and how Jesus restores to us life by giving himself.

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Abundance

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Biblical Text: Matthew 14:13-21

Do we go out to the desert anymore? I don’t think so. I think we do everything in our power to avoid time in the desert. Of course we just end up in a desert of distraction then. That’s part of the meditation on the familiar passage of the feeding of the 5000. This sermon is a meditation on the abundance that God provides and the ways in which He provides it. It looks at three images from the scene: the location, the rarely provided inner thoughts of Jesus, and the provision of abundance.

I’ve learned over the years that trying to grade sermons is impossible. Oh, you can grade them as pieces of rhetoric, but then they aren’t just pieces of rhetoric. Your worst sermon I guarantee is the one someone walked out with their lives changed. It isn’t you. Whatever scraps you brought the Spirit worked. I’ve come to two ways of thinking about grading. The first is preaching intent crossed with baseball. The every Sunday preacher has a variety of things they have to do. Not everything is going to be a homerun. Sometimes you climb into the pulpit with the intention of a single, of moving along the runners. (This is usually a teaching sermon.) Some weeks the text is obscure enough that getting a walk is good. And some weeks you better get that extra-base hit. Of course, like in baseball, unless you are Barry Bonds on PED’s, you might not get on base. And the reception in the congregation is probably everything from HR to K. The second thing is always did you find the core of emotion in the text. If you didn’t the best you’ve got is a walk. I say all that merely to say, I liked this one. I think it is workman-like as a piece of rhetoric. There is only one phrase that feels more than average and even then it is probably one of those darlings that you are supposed to kill. But as a sermon, it touches the bases.

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Hollowed by the Letter; Filled with the Spirit

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Biblical Text: John 6:51-69

This week’s sermon is a little different. I imagine it might come off a little testy. But the text calls for something like this, and the week calls for something like this. And I have a hard time summarizing it other than as a “come to Jesus” moment. The past week – carefully stitched together first – should make clear how hollow we are. Hollow due to trying to live by the letter, live by the law. And what Jesus has to offer is himself – his body as true food and his blood and true drink. And it is only this that will fill that hollowness. And like all calls to a true spirituality, many cannot listen to it. But some hear, and believe, and then know.

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Restless Seekers Being Found

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Biblical Text: John 6:22-35

The lectionary has us in John 6 for three weeks. It is one of those long watershed chapters. It all takes place in the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000. In the Gospel according to John the feeding and that crowd are a little more specific about their desires than in the other gospels. They wanted to make Jesus their King. But the type of King they wanted was not the King Jesus is. The crowds were seeking, but they were not willing to be found. God was offering the bread of life, but they wanted their bread. This sermon explores that dichotomy.

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Manger to Table

Biblical Text: Luke 2:1-8
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Doing prep reading for Christmas day this year I was struck by the consistency of the commentary of the Church Fathers on this text. This sermon attempts to proclaim what they would. That the savior, from birth, has always been offered up as the bread of life for our eating. And this eating takes us from animals to reborn humans. Merry Christmas.

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Desire the Good Stuff

Biblical Text: John 6:22-35
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The assigned readings take a three week tour though John 6. This chapter of John often gets called the bread of life discourse. That is fancy language for an extended teaching session between Jesus and the crowd after the feeding of the 5000 which was read from Mark a couple of weeks back. In this first section of teaching we have Jesus at what I would say is his most cryptic. The main thread is his claim that “I am the bread of life.” The background biblical story is the OT text of Israel in the desert after the exodus receiving manna. Manna, is actually a direct transliteration of the Hebrew and it simply means “what is it?” It is Moses that tells the it is the bread from heaven. Jesus picks that phrase up and encourages the crowds not to want temporal things (i.e. bread that spoils or after which you grow hungry again) but to desire the good stuff (i.e. eternal things) – the bread from heaven. The crowds pick up his drift as they ask about Moses, but they are still stuck on temporal things. They are still desirous of physical bread, hoping that this Jesus is a better Moses who can grant the manna for a longer time. Jesus’ response is the staggering “I am the bread of life.” He is not a Moses testifying about the bread, nor is this bread like that manna which did go away, but this bread is eternal. The Word of God himself has appeared. The Father wants to give us this bread. And the only requirement is believe.

So this will continue for the next couple of Sunday’s, but right now Jesus wants to get across a couple of items. If we are aiming for temporal things, however worthy they might be, we are missing the target. The Father wants to give you eternal things. Raise you eyes. Desire the good stuff. The second part of this is that the good stuff is the Word of God incarnate. When we live by the word of Jesus, when we believe him we have life. And that bread brings us through this temporal world to eternal life.

The hymn we closed with which I left in captures this theme and the images of the lessons perfectly – Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer LSB 918. (If you know your hymns, yes, for some reason the worship committee of the LCMS decided to mangle the first line of the more common “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah”. I’m not sure why, but it probably has to do with the term Jehovah for God which is something of a mishmash. It came about through a mistake of reading the vowel pointings of Adonai (Lord) that are usually placed over name of God tetragrammaton in Hebrew. The Jews would not say the name out loud but instead by looking at the vowels would substitute LORD. Something that was carried over in most of our Old Testaments when you see capital letters LORD what you have is the name of God. If you try and pronounce the name consonants with the vowels from Adonai you get Jehovah. So, a mishmash, and then one used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, so probably the cause for the rewording.)

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