What We Already Know

John 6:35, 41-51

Did you know already, before you got to church today, that Jesus is the Bread of Life?
Or were you surprised, when Deacon Leslie read the gospel, to hear Jesus announce that he is bread?

Yes, it’s old news to most of us. Maybe you’ve sung about it. Maybe you’ve noticed a theme around the communion table, in the Eucharistic prayers.

Some nineteen or twenty centuries ago, very early on in the life of the church, probably from the habits and stories of the disciples who literally walked with Jesus, people who knew Jesus knew that Jesus is closely associated with bread. For two millennia, around our holy tables, we’ve told the story of how Jesus gave bread to his friends, saying “this is my Body; eat in remembrance of me.”  For just about as long, we’ve taught one another that something about this bread has to do with eternal life.

Over the last two millennia there have been differences in interpretation and opinion about just exactly how this relationship between bread, Jesus, and life works out. There’s often quite a bit of difference in interpretation and opinion between any ten Episcopalians eating at the same altar, in fact. But we more or less know that Jesus and Bread and Life have a lot to do with each other.

And sometimes, still, it comes as a surprise to read along in John’s gospel and try to understand what Jesus means when he says, directly, “I am the Bread of Life.” Jesus himself (or at least John, trying to tell us what Jesus said) doesn’t seem to make it any easier, thoroughly mixing claims and commitments about who has access to God and how with strong statements about bread and meat and eternity.

No wonder his first listeners were confused:

Wait, what does he mean he’s bread that came out of heaven? I mean, we know him. We know where he comes from – we know his parents, his hometown, his family and history. This man doesn’t make sense.

The grumbling synagogue leadership who objected to Jesus’ “alternative facts” about who he is and where he came from had some reason to complain. They already knew quite a lot about Jesus, and now he’s spouting contradictions, telling them impossible things about himself as truth. And the truth they already know about Jesus – his family, his history, their relationship to him – is blinding them to the rest of the truth; truth they haven’t yet seen and heard and known.

The same thing happens to us, all the time.

Many of us grew up knowing that a nice tan was the glow of good health…and still have a little trouble with sunscreen.

I simply can’t seem to learn the fancier and more capable features in MicrosoftWord or on my phone because I already know how to do a mail merge or put something on the calendar.

What we know – what we’ve known forever, what was always true – keeps us from being able to learn new things, or to see new truths that don’t match what we know (or think we know).

And while you and I generally already know that Jesus is Bread, so we’re not as surprised as the first century crowds to hear it this morning, the same thing still happens to you and me and Jesus.

One of the spiritual growth groups that’s been meeting this summer told me how surprising it was to read right through the Gospel according to Mark and discover that Jesus really doesn’t seem to talk about love.
Because we’ve been learning since childhood that Jesus is all about love. We’ve heard it in Sunday School, we’ve heard it preached, we’ve sung it with our kids… and then we find it’s hard to know this Jesus in the gospel who talks a lot more about death and seeds and even money than love.

There are truths we want to know - revelation and life - in those unexpected words and deeds of Jesus. But it can be hard to wrap our minds around the contradictions.

If we already know what someone does and says and is, it’s hard to believe it when they tell you and show you a new side, a new truth. Hard even to simply see or hear something that doesn’t match what I already know.

That’s how prejudice works. It works naturally, on all of us, not just in the big “isms” of ethnicity or gender or age, but on the way we know individuals in our lives: strong enough to blind us, even when we want to learn more.

So if we already know who Jesus is, it’s hard – very hard – to hear and learn the truths we haven’t always known.

And yet, that’s what God wants from us, wants for us. God wants us to know Jesus, to know God, more deeply and closely and surprisingly than any of us here this morning already do.

And we don’t get that deeper knowledge from absorbing the conventional wisdom, from what everyone knows, or what I already know, or even by reading the Bible for ourselves, though that certainly helps.

“Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Jesus says. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father.”

We can’t do it for ourselves.

We can only get that close to Jesus – only discover the true Jesus, only learn and absorb and know the truths God wants us to know, only get that deep and rich and whole-self relationship – from God’s own calling and teaching.

Sometimes I get uncomfortable when Jesus says these things about “no one can come to me except through the Father” or “no one can come to the Father except through me.”  It doesn’t sound like the welcoming, all-embracing Jesus I already know.

I grumble about it myself, the same way the religious leadership grumbled about Jesus trying to get people to think he came right down from heaven. Or that he’s edible, for that matter.

But if I get past my own blinders of inclusivity, this apparent exclusivity may actually be a more welcoming, giving, generous God, a more loving Jesus, than I thought I knew.

No one is saved by what we already know, Jesus is telling us. God prevents us from salvation of the mind alone: salvation without revelation or relationship, without an ongoing, growing experience of mutual discovery between us and Christ. A relationship and revelation that demands our whole hearts and lives, and gives us more abundant and eternal love and life.

No one can have Jesus without being invited by God. So no one of us, and no one else, can take, can seize Jesus for themselves. I find that reassuring in a world where a whole lot of people of differing opinion want to tell me that they’ve got the rights to Jesus.

In the midst of all that you and I already do know of Jesus; in the midst of a world where most of the people we know think they know enough about Jesus already; God isn’t satisfied. God keeps working to draw us closer.

God works to draw us into an ongoing, deepening, expansive relationship of discovery, of Jesus surprising us with new truth, and of you and I revealing more and more of our hearts and committing more and more of our lives to God.

God draws us, and Jesus surprises us, into new and deeper, more demanding and rewarding relationship: as intimate as eating, as daily and basic as bread, as lasting and abundant as eternal life.

Perspective

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a; Ephesians 4:1-16

Where do you see yourself in the story that Nathan tells David?

Where do you see yourself in the story of a man rich in flocks and herds, and a poor man who has nothing - nothing but one lamb, so precious that he treats it as a child, feeding it from his own plate?

There’s evidence of love in the poor man’s life. And the rich man evidently has all the comfort and luxury and security one might want. You could want to be either one.

Until the rich man steals from the poor. Welcomes a visitor for dinner, then looks at all the flocks and herds that surround him, thinks “but there’s nothing in the fridge” and takes the one lamb from the poor man to serve as dinner.

Where do you see yourself in this story?

What do you want to do?

David empathizes right away with the poor man. He’s ready to kill the rich man; he demands restitution, he’s ready to leap out of his seat and rush off to right the wrong.

Until Nathan shocks him into recognition, telling him,”You are the man.”

Now David sees himself in the story.  Sees himself as the rich man who has been so brutal, greedy, and callous in his power that he deserves to die.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you suddenly seen yourself from someone else’s perspective, and not liked what you saw?
I have. I’ve felt that slightly nauseous recognition; distress and dismay or defensive shock.

And if you’ve had that moment, you might know might know how David feels to recognize the story of his own actions: the man who has everything taking Bathsheba to please himself, and sending her husband to death to cover it up. Even in marrying her – perhaps thinking to protect her, perhaps just making her his own – David took what did not belong to him, oblivious to his cruelty and theft.

And before Nathan told him this story, he probably thought of himself as a good guy. A man in love, a man entitled to the best because he’d fought and worked hard for it; a man trying to clean up after his own mistakes and protect the woman he loved (or at least lusted for).

It’s a series of perspective shifts that could give you whiplash: Good guy, vulnerable man, justice warrior, cruel death-deserving thief. Yikes. And the perspective shifting doesn’t stop there.

You are this man, Nathan tells him, and goes on to remind him of who else he is: one chosen and anointed by God, given gifts and power and wealth and responsibility – more than he could earn or even desire. And God would have given him as much more again.

Nathan shows David that he’s insulted God by his actions against other people. And now he’ll get what he has earned: trouble and loss in his own house, as he’s brought trouble and loss to others.

And now David experiences his final shift in perspective in this story. “I have sinned,” he says, “against the Lord.”

With this final shift in perspective, David sees what God wants us always to see: ourselves as we are in relationship to God.

Nathan first shows David how he’s been relating to other people, then reminds him of who he is in God’s eyes: chosen, gifted, responsible, blessed – and now, insulting.

By seizing what he wants, instead of receiving what he’s been given, David insults God’s generosity, blessing, and choice.

And when he sees himself clearly as the one to whom God has given so much, he sees how he has hurt God as well as other people.

I have sinned against the Lord.

Has that perspective shift ever happened to you? Have you seen yourself as God sees you: chosen, beloved, blessed with gifts you neither asked nor earned?

I have. I’ve felt that sense of overwhelming blessing, and gratitude.

And then, sometimes, like David, I’ve been overwhelmed by grief at how I didn’t live up to God’s generosity and love, feel an upwelling of confession and repentance flowing from the gratitude and grief.

Has that happened to you?

It’s tempting – not just tempting, but almost mandatory in the everyday world we live in – to see ourselves in terms of power, or our relationship with others. We are taught to see ourselves as employee or boss or client; parent, child, neighbor, stranger, friend. Customer or voter or bystander.

That’s how the world tells us to see ourselves.

Then from that perspective the world tells us we have to get what we can, seize what we want, take what we deserve.

And that’s how the poor man loses his lamb.

That’s how Bathsheba becomes an object instead of a person; desired and abruptly taken by David; how Uriah became an obstacle instead of a human being; an obstacle to be eliminated by David.

That’s how children at our borders become pawns, objects to manipulate their parents, to terrify and distract and deter.

That’s how women become objects in our own day and place; how cities choke on industrial pollution; and children are poisoned by their drinking water; how voters become objects to manipulate and trade and own; instead of citizens responsible for their choices.

That’s what happens when we lose perspective. When we see ourselves defined by power and powerlessness; by what we want and need and earn, instead of by the gifts and choosing and love of God. Instead of seeing ourselves the way God sees us, as gifted and beloved, called to God’s own purpose, called and gifted to build one another up.

And when God’s perspective comes back to us; when we suddenly or gradually recognize ourselves as the lamb in Nathan’s story: beloved, nurtured and cared for as God’s own child, given all that God’s love can give, we can also see God’s grief when we are torn away from God by any human entitlement or ignorance or selfish purpose, and feel God’s desire for our restoration.

Then, like David, we can see ourselves as both sinners and beloved; gifted for God’s purpose even in the midst of our flaws, and be inspired to live up to God’s love all over again.

God sent Nathan to David with a story of a lamb to shift David’s perspective and help him see as God sees.

And God sent Jesus to all of us, a person and a story, to help shift our perspective: to see life in death, to see ourselves in Christ; to see ourselves as God sees us: beloved child; flawed and failed, while still called and gifted – materially, spiritually – for a purpose – God’s purpose – of building one another up.

I beg you, therefore, to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Building

2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Ephesians 2:11-22

Many of you already know the story about how we came to be worshipping in this intricate, beautiful, gothic stone space: how in the late 1920’s, tech millionaire Eldridge Johnson, founder of The Victor Talking Machine Company, now RCA, sent his architect to surprise the rector of Trinity with plans for a brand new church building.

How the Vestry debated a bit, having just completed some repairs and renovations to our old building, but quickly accepted, and over the next year or two, stone and slate and wood and the work of many craftsmen grew into a temple; a space dedicated to the worship of God, which we enjoy today (fortunately now with air conditioning).

But what would have happened if a prophet had come to Mr. Johnson, sent by a dream from God, to say: Don’t build that church building!

I know you want to honor God and give your community a space to be with God. But don’t build that building! I have other plans for this town, that congregation, and for you.

What do you suppose would have happened at Trinity then?

The building we had in the mid 1920s had some problems – all buildings age, just as the one we have now has done. It also had some glorious beauty – you can glimpse it in our chapel. It’s hard to keep buildings up, but probably we would have done it.

Or we wouldn’t have. That 1840s building might, in time have crumbled. We might have moved. A new congregation might have sprung up in Mt Laurel. We might have a midcentury steel and glass beauty, instead of gothic stone. We might not be here.  We might have been inspired to be stronger and more flexible. We don’t know – can’t know – what else could have happened.

But we can know this: God doesn’t wait around for us to build things for God with our success. God is already busy building something with us, for us, in failure, success, and everything in between.

That’s what God told Nathan to tell David, in the story we heard this morning. All along, from your days with the sheep to your days at court, in battle and in victory and in exile and in kingship, I’ve been building something with you. I’ve been building you into a blessing for all my people, building roots and peace for my people, and I’m not done building with you, either. I’ll be building with you far into the future beyond your life.

God doesn’t need a house of cedar, a temple of stone, to ensure God’s presence among God’s people – or even to give us a place to seek God – because God naturally, constantly, is present with God’s people wherever we go, in triumph or exile, distress or stability.

And while God is with us, God is building with us: building us, God’s people, into God’s own dwelling place.

It’s not just David that God says this to. It’s the Gentile congregation in Ephesus, as we heard this morning, reminding them – us – that now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.… So then you are no longer strangers and immigrants, but you are citizens with the saints; members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

God doesn’t build with stone, with bricks, with cedar or slate or beautifully carved wood.

God builds with people. With us. With living, growing material.

And not “the best people” either.

God builds with people who have failed God’s covenant, and people who never knew God existed. God builds with spiritual immigrants – newcomers who have no idea how things are done, who speak other spiritual languages and have strange customs – and with the old-timers who are so familiar in their hopes and habits and flaws that we hardly notice what God is doing with them.

We may resist this, sometimes, because we doubt our own capacity for God’s work. Maybe you don’t see in yourself the strength of stone and slate, the resilience and beauty of cedar or silver. Maybe you see your own flaws, or the flaws of your fellow Christians too clearly to trust us as building material that will endure.

But God reminds the Ephesian community that Christ’s strength and unity are what makes us into suitable building material, not our own merits.  And that Christ heals the greatest flaw in us – as building material or as people – our divisions.

For Christ is our peace… he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.

That might feel almost laughable when we look at the divisions in front of us daily in the news and social media and our daily lives – differences in income and wealth, apparent divisions by race, language, or nation. Differences of political inclination, social opinion, or hopes for our nation and community.

But God doesn’t wait until we get it right, until we fix things, and reconcile and win.  God wants us right now, years ago, flawed and divided and failed as we are, and already healed in Christ even when that healing isn’t apparent and divisions appear fresh and strong in and to the world around us.

And because God doesn’t wait, we get to act in the revolutionary truth that we are one in Christ, in spite of those divisions, united, healed, even when the world thinks we aren’t. We get to live, every day, in the confidence that God is building us together with our apparent enemies, with strangers, with everyone on “the other side”, into something greater than we imagine. We must live that truth, instead of building our own walls, for our own purposes.

We like to build churches because these buildings help us shape and define a relationship with God – we build to create a sense of beauty, or a sense of security, permanence or comfort.

We build with stone and wood, but also calendars and clocks and cash. We build habits to shape our relationship with God: specific times or forms of prayer, particular political or social positions. We like to build these things in the hope that they honor God, and give us beauty or security to enjoy.

But that’s not all that God wants from us, or wants to give us. God doesn’t wait around for us to build something for God; God doesn’t wait for us to be successful, stable, and strong so that we can “give back”. God is already building something with us, for us, in our failure, our success, and everything in between.

God wants us – like David, like the Gentile Christians of Ephesus – to remember that God picked us up from far away, wherever we were. God has gone with us, with you, wherever you went: exile or triumph, battle, struggle, long and winding roads or exciting successes and adventures. God has been building with us, all this time, and will continue to build with you, joining us together in Christ, erasing all our divisions, to grow into God’s own dwelling place, God’s home.