Shattered dreams and reviving hopes
Commentary
Object:
A Jewish boy in Europe grew up with a profound sense of admiration for his father. His father was very religious. The family went to services at the synagogue each week. They practiced Jewish acts of devotion in their home, and his father took a leadership role in the Jewish religious community.
Then they moved to a new town. There most of the leading businessmen belonged to the local Lutheran church. So one day the father announced to the family that they were all going to abandon their Jewish traditions and be baptized as members of the Lutheran church.
The boy was stunned. “Why?” he asked his dad. “Why would we do something like that?”
His father shattered him with the answer. It had nothing to do with spiritual convictions. It wasn’t a sudden inspiration from God or even a sense of disappointment with the Jewish faith. His father told him that it would be good for business. That’s why they would become Christians.
The boy never recovered from the tremendous doubts that shook him that day, or the intense bitterness he felt over his father’s sudden declarations. When he left home he went to England to study. There, at the British Museum, he read and thought and wrote. Eventually he published a book that described religion as the “opiate of the masses.” Everything in life, he wrote, ultimately came down to economics. The bottom line is money. The title on his manuscript said it all: Das Kapital.
The boy’s name, of course, was Karl Marx. Today we know him as the man who developed modern atheistic communism. And it all started with his father.
Shattered dreams lie at the heart of the father-son Old Testament reading for today as well. Only in this instance it is the son who shattered the heart of the father. But our New Testament and gospel readings bring reviving dreams that energize, like the best of relations between parents and children.
In a particularly insightful Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown is talking to his pal Linus, leaning on a brick fence and describing his relationship with his dad. “My dad likes me to come down to the barbershop and wait for him,” he says. “No matter how busy he is, even if the shop is full of customers, he always stops and says ‘Hi!’ to me. I sit here on the bench until six o’clock, when he’s through, and then we ride home together.”
The next frame shows Charlie Brown deep in thought, and then in the final scene he shows a bright face and says, “It really doesn’t take much to make my dad happy!”
The same might be said for our heavenly Father, as both Jesus and Paul note in today’s passages. God’s love for us energizes our behavior like sumptuous food and model behavior.
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
David’s brilliant career as Israel’s great king took an abrupt turn when he had an affair with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), turning infidelity into deception, military complicity in fraud, and murder. Immediately the strength was sapped out of David’s heroic leadership run, as his sons and army and even the nation itself rebelled. First Amnon desecrated the family, throwing David’s iniquities back at him with a vengeance. Then Absalom, David’s personal pick as his throne heir, murdered Amnon in an innerving move that propelled him to lead a national insurrection against his father. Only through the steadfast loyalty of remnants of David’s youthful wilderness gang was the rebellion toppled and Absalom assassinated.
Yet even though Absalom’s treachery merited his demise, David was devastated when the news of his son’s death came. Why? Certainly in part due to the ripping grief of parents who lose children. But there was another reason as well: David had pinned his hopes for the future of his royal family on Absalom. At the beginning of his reign, David brought the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh, where the tabernacle languished, to his new capital city of Jerusalem. David intended to remind Israel that Yahweh was the true monarch of the nation and that the Ark was Yahweh’s throne on earth. The next logical step was to ensure public visibility of Yahweh’s elevated position by building a suitable palace/temple from which the Suzerain could govern.
After making plans to raise the temple (2 Samuel 6), Yahweh spoke through the prophet Nathan, thanking David for his appropriate desire (2 Samuel 7) but announcing that David’s bloody hands could only prepare the way, and that his son, a man of peace, would construct the edifice.
It is likely that Absalom was reared in this hope. After all, David named him “Father (Ab) of Peace (Salom).” Thus, even through Absalom’s devious usurpation of the kingdom, father David remained confident that this bright youngster was destined to bring the nation to its greatest glory and build the bright temple for its God.
This is the reason why the aging monarch instructed his generals to deal gently with Absalom, even after his massive treachery. It also explains the deep anguish David felt when he received news of Absalom’s demise. Not only was his father heartbroken, but his visionary-leader spirit was shattered. Were the divine promises to end so tragically?
Of course, the last chapter in the drama was not yet written. Bathsheba, David’s wife of shame, would bear another child. Less pretentious about the future, the parents would simply name him “Peace” (“Solomon”) -- and the rest is biblical history.
Ephesians 4:25--5:2
Onesimus, a runaway slave from Paul’s friend Philemon, came to Rome during Paul’s first imprisonment. Perhaps Onesimus was overwhelmed by the alien environment of the big city, and heard that Paul, someone he had met a few years earlier, was in town. Or maybe Onesimus came to Rome specifically because he knew Paul was there, remembering how kindly Paul had treated him while the itinerant evangelist was staying at Philemon’s home. In any case, Onesimus and Paul had a joyful reunion, and for a time Onesimus lived with Paul, acting out the true meaning of his name: “useful.”
After a while, however, Paul began to have qualms about ignoring the property rights that bound Onesimus to Philemon. Paul was sure that sometime soon he would run into his old friend again, and this secret of Onesimus spending time with him would not come to light without great damage to their relationship. In fact, Paul was beginning to make plans for his next travels, since he expected to be released from prison very shortly. Evidently Paul had received word that his case was soon to be on Caesar’s docket and knew from Herod Agrippa’s testimony (Acts 26:32) that royal judgment would clearly be in his favor. When freedom did come, Paul wanted to spend time with Philemon as one stop on the next journey.
So, probably in early 59 AD, Paul made plans to send Onesimus back to Philemon, accompanied by a trusted friend named Tychicus. Paul penned a short note to Philemon, explaining Onesimus’ circumstances of both frustration and faith and pleading with his friend to treat the young man well.
About the same time, news came to Paul regarding a doctrinal controversy that was threatening the church in Colossae. This congregation had been established under the ministry of Epaphras (Colossians 1:7-8), a local believer who had originally come to faith through Paul’s ministry in nearby Ephesus (Colossians 4:12-13), just down the Lycus and Maeander river valleys.
Since Colossae was very close to Philemon’s home, Paul decided to send a letter to that congregation, addressing these threats to the church’s faithfulness and stability. Tychicus was asked to deliver this letter at the same time as he brought Paul’s personal note to Philemon (Colossians 4:7-9).
While he was in the writing mood, Paul also dictated a third letter, to be sent in the same direction at the same time. It was less personal and more general in the themes that it expressed than either of the others, and may well have been intended as a more generic epistle of encouragement to be circulated around the area churches. This letter seems to have arrived first in Laodicea (Colossians 4:16), and began a circuit around the regional congregations. Because Ephesus had been the launching pad for mission efforts throughout the region, the Christian congregation in Ephesus soon became recognized as the “mother church” of the rest, and probably came to be the official caretaker and repository of important documents. For that reason this circular letter from Paul eventually ended up in Ephesus, becoming known as Paul’s letter to the “Ephesians.”
Jesus is Lord of all, Paul fairly shouts at the beginning of Ephesians, producing wonderful new life in all who are part of the church (Ephesians 1). In place of Paul’s instructions about the false teaching at Colossae (Colossians 2) comes a brief reminder that Jews and Gentiles are together on the same footing before God because of the powerful redemptive work of Jesus (Ephesians 2). As he begins to celebrate this amazing grace of God through prayer (Ephesians 3:1), Paul interrupts himself, reminding his readers of the specific calling he has received to know and communicate this divine revelation (Ephesians 3:2-13). Then Paul resumes his powerful and profound prayer of praise (Ephesians 3:14-21), and launches into an extended metaphor on what it means for the living body of Christ to function in a dark world (Ephesians 4:1--5:20). Very similar to his instructions in Colossians 3, Paul outlines specific behaviors that are expected in Christian households (Ephesians 5:21--6:9).
In a brief but scintillatingly clear analogy, Paul dresses up the Christian warrior in full battle gear (Ephesians 6:10-20). Only one final note, telling of Tychicus’ mission on Paul’s behalf (Ephesians 6:21-22), and a short word of blessing (Ephesians 6:23-24) bring this letter to a close.
Paul’s letters from prison addressed a couple of specific issues -- the nature of a relationship between master and slave, for instance, when both were Christians, and a proper response to the false teaching that was being promulgated at Colossae. But mostly these writings paint, in vibrant colors, the character of moral choices in a world that is compromised and broken. Darkness and light are the key metaphors. Evil has wrapped a blanket of pain and harm around all that takes place in the human arena. Jesus is the brilliant light of God, penetrating earth’s atmosphere with grace and reconciliation. Because of Jesus’ physical departure at the ascension, his followers now must step in and become a thousand million points of light, restoring relationships and renewing meaning. Jesus is great, and because of our connection with him we can be great too. Not for our own sakes, of course, but as witnesses of the eschatological hope that tomorrow’s amazing future of God is something we already participate in today. That is why Christianity is the religion of the dawn, and why the expressions of Christian behavior, central to our reading for today, are the key exhibit of God at work in this world.
John 6:35, 41-51
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs, and sex.
But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: “You are what you eat.”
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then a word comes to us from heaven. In part it is a word of judgment against us: since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage, you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, as Ted Bundy said in his dying confessions to James Dobson, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul, you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche, you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day, you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry, and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
Today’s gospel reading remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness, something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom, we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. “Man is one of your creatures, Lord,” he said, “and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet.
Application
In a powerful scene from Morris West’s novel The Clowns of God, a father and daughter are having an argument. She tells him that she’s going to Paris to live with her boyfriend. He won’t let her. Why would she want to do something like that, he asks. She tells him that she is afraid.
“Afraid of what?”
“I’m afraid of getting married and having children and trying to make a home,” she says, “while the whole world could tumble round our ears in a day. You older ones don’t understand. You’ve survived a war. You’ve built things. You’ve raised families. But look at the world you’ve left us to. You’ve given us everything except tomorrow.”
Everything except tomorrow. Yet tomorrow is the one thing that we need most. One newspaper carried this ad in its classified section: “Hope chest -- brand-new. Half-price. Long story.” We’ve had so many long stories in our lives, and so many broken promises and shattered dreams. Sometimes we’re ready to give up. No more promises. No more commitments.
But the message of Jesus offers us something better. Eat my flesh and live into eternity. Choose the doorway to your tomorrow, says Paul, and act on it as if you belong to God’s future.
Alternative Application
John 6:35, 41-51.Today’s gospel reading reminds me of two powerful experiences I have had as a pastor. Fred was a big man with a big heart. His life had been ringed with tragedy, but he had grown through it and chose to spend his last career years as a missionary in Africa. A few years later he was returned to our town near death. A brain tumor had suddenly appeared and quickly robbed him of speech and motor control. He was hospitalized for several weeks and then released to die at home.
We prayed much for Fred. We shared the personal and family needs through a wide web of Christian contacts. We held specific healing services and added Fred’s condition to our weekly prayer bulletin.
In spite of our best desires, we gradually became aware that only death would bring divine healing. Fred’s life this side of eternity was too far destroyed for recovery.
I made regular visits to the small house that Fred’s wife purchased. Mostly Fred lay in bed moaning and restless. While his muscles contorted horribly, his skin began to turn unhuman shades of gray. Several times the family members, scattered at some distance, were called together for what appeared to be “the end.”
On one of these occasions I stood with them in a circle around Fred’s bed. Fred was greatly agitated and moaned incomprehensibly. I read a Psalm and a promise from Paul, and then we prayed together, holding hands, asking God to take Fred home soon. It only seemed, however, that Fred’s inner restlessness got worse. I stepped closer to the bed and placed my hand on his forehead. I spoke directly to him the blessing he himself had pronounced over God’s people so many times: “The Lord bless you and keep you, Fred. The Lord make his face shine upon you. The Lord smile upon you and give you his peace” (Numbers 6:24-26).
Immediately Fred settled peacefully, his muscles relaxing and his labored breath easing. “You can go home now, Fred,” I said. Each family member held Fred’s hands briefly, speaking words of care release. I walked out of the house. Before I could drive away Fred slipped into eternity.
Meanwhile, LaVern struggled with open sores on her legs, among several different ailments. She was in great pain most of the time, and alternated between weeks of sitting in a lounge chair with her legs elevated and periods of aggressive treatment in the hospital. We prayed together regularly over the telephone, and now and then I sat with her for an hour sharing the whimseys of life. Few people I know have endured as much pain and heartbreak as had LaVern. Yet fewer still had developed as joyful an outlook on the many small graces of existence.
One day LaVern called me with a new request. She had been reading James’ letter (James 5) and wanted me to come over with an elder of the church to anoint her with oil. I called one of the elders and a trusted prayer partner, and we gathered around LaVern’s chair. First we spent time confessing to one another, then we spent time in prayer. We shared the bread and cup of the sacrament, seeking intimacy with Jesus and one another in the body. We touched the sores on LaVern’s legs and begged for healing. Then I took the oil and rubbed it gently over LaVern’s wounds, commanding them, in the name of Jesus, to be healed. We gave God thanks for the healing he was bringing and would accomplish, and I spoke the same blessing I had pronounced over Fred.
There was no “electric shock” moving through my fingers or LaVern’s legs, nor any immediate end to the weeping from the skin openings. Yet in the next week a remarkable change took place, both in the peace that infused LaVern’s heart and the clear closures of the wounds. Her doctors put off scheduled surgery, and several months later LaVern came to Sunday worship for the first time in a year, standing on her own legs.
LaVern’s struggles with those sores continued over the years, and she continued to call for prayer many times. Now and again we would look back to the day we met together with the elders of the church and anointed her wounds as a watershed moment. LaVern believed she experienced a special healing in that moment. I think so too.
I also think Fred was healed in the moment of our touch at his bedside, though in a different way. There is power for life in the gospel of Jesus that sometimes works through the medical industries of our culture and sometimes works in spite of them. There is nothing in the Bible to call into question a Christian’s use of doctors and prescription medications. But neither does the Bible tell us that doctors are the true great physician. Whenever healing happens, God has smiled and the Bread of Life has been a shared meal.
Then they moved to a new town. There most of the leading businessmen belonged to the local Lutheran church. So one day the father announced to the family that they were all going to abandon their Jewish traditions and be baptized as members of the Lutheran church.
The boy was stunned. “Why?” he asked his dad. “Why would we do something like that?”
His father shattered him with the answer. It had nothing to do with spiritual convictions. It wasn’t a sudden inspiration from God or even a sense of disappointment with the Jewish faith. His father told him that it would be good for business. That’s why they would become Christians.
The boy never recovered from the tremendous doubts that shook him that day, or the intense bitterness he felt over his father’s sudden declarations. When he left home he went to England to study. There, at the British Museum, he read and thought and wrote. Eventually he published a book that described religion as the “opiate of the masses.” Everything in life, he wrote, ultimately came down to economics. The bottom line is money. The title on his manuscript said it all: Das Kapital.
The boy’s name, of course, was Karl Marx. Today we know him as the man who developed modern atheistic communism. And it all started with his father.
Shattered dreams lie at the heart of the father-son Old Testament reading for today as well. Only in this instance it is the son who shattered the heart of the father. But our New Testament and gospel readings bring reviving dreams that energize, like the best of relations between parents and children.
In a particularly insightful Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown is talking to his pal Linus, leaning on a brick fence and describing his relationship with his dad. “My dad likes me to come down to the barbershop and wait for him,” he says. “No matter how busy he is, even if the shop is full of customers, he always stops and says ‘Hi!’ to me. I sit here on the bench until six o’clock, when he’s through, and then we ride home together.”
The next frame shows Charlie Brown deep in thought, and then in the final scene he shows a bright face and says, “It really doesn’t take much to make my dad happy!”
The same might be said for our heavenly Father, as both Jesus and Paul note in today’s passages. God’s love for us energizes our behavior like sumptuous food and model behavior.
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
David’s brilliant career as Israel’s great king took an abrupt turn when he had an affair with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), turning infidelity into deception, military complicity in fraud, and murder. Immediately the strength was sapped out of David’s heroic leadership run, as his sons and army and even the nation itself rebelled. First Amnon desecrated the family, throwing David’s iniquities back at him with a vengeance. Then Absalom, David’s personal pick as his throne heir, murdered Amnon in an innerving move that propelled him to lead a national insurrection against his father. Only through the steadfast loyalty of remnants of David’s youthful wilderness gang was the rebellion toppled and Absalom assassinated.
Yet even though Absalom’s treachery merited his demise, David was devastated when the news of his son’s death came. Why? Certainly in part due to the ripping grief of parents who lose children. But there was another reason as well: David had pinned his hopes for the future of his royal family on Absalom. At the beginning of his reign, David brought the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh, where the tabernacle languished, to his new capital city of Jerusalem. David intended to remind Israel that Yahweh was the true monarch of the nation and that the Ark was Yahweh’s throne on earth. The next logical step was to ensure public visibility of Yahweh’s elevated position by building a suitable palace/temple from which the Suzerain could govern.
After making plans to raise the temple (2 Samuel 6), Yahweh spoke through the prophet Nathan, thanking David for his appropriate desire (2 Samuel 7) but announcing that David’s bloody hands could only prepare the way, and that his son, a man of peace, would construct the edifice.
It is likely that Absalom was reared in this hope. After all, David named him “Father (Ab) of Peace (Salom).” Thus, even through Absalom’s devious usurpation of the kingdom, father David remained confident that this bright youngster was destined to bring the nation to its greatest glory and build the bright temple for its God.
This is the reason why the aging monarch instructed his generals to deal gently with Absalom, even after his massive treachery. It also explains the deep anguish David felt when he received news of Absalom’s demise. Not only was his father heartbroken, but his visionary-leader spirit was shattered. Were the divine promises to end so tragically?
Of course, the last chapter in the drama was not yet written. Bathsheba, David’s wife of shame, would bear another child. Less pretentious about the future, the parents would simply name him “Peace” (“Solomon”) -- and the rest is biblical history.
Ephesians 4:25--5:2
Onesimus, a runaway slave from Paul’s friend Philemon, came to Rome during Paul’s first imprisonment. Perhaps Onesimus was overwhelmed by the alien environment of the big city, and heard that Paul, someone he had met a few years earlier, was in town. Or maybe Onesimus came to Rome specifically because he knew Paul was there, remembering how kindly Paul had treated him while the itinerant evangelist was staying at Philemon’s home. In any case, Onesimus and Paul had a joyful reunion, and for a time Onesimus lived with Paul, acting out the true meaning of his name: “useful.”
After a while, however, Paul began to have qualms about ignoring the property rights that bound Onesimus to Philemon. Paul was sure that sometime soon he would run into his old friend again, and this secret of Onesimus spending time with him would not come to light without great damage to their relationship. In fact, Paul was beginning to make plans for his next travels, since he expected to be released from prison very shortly. Evidently Paul had received word that his case was soon to be on Caesar’s docket and knew from Herod Agrippa’s testimony (Acts 26:32) that royal judgment would clearly be in his favor. When freedom did come, Paul wanted to spend time with Philemon as one stop on the next journey.
So, probably in early 59 AD, Paul made plans to send Onesimus back to Philemon, accompanied by a trusted friend named Tychicus. Paul penned a short note to Philemon, explaining Onesimus’ circumstances of both frustration and faith and pleading with his friend to treat the young man well.
About the same time, news came to Paul regarding a doctrinal controversy that was threatening the church in Colossae. This congregation had been established under the ministry of Epaphras (Colossians 1:7-8), a local believer who had originally come to faith through Paul’s ministry in nearby Ephesus (Colossians 4:12-13), just down the Lycus and Maeander river valleys.
Since Colossae was very close to Philemon’s home, Paul decided to send a letter to that congregation, addressing these threats to the church’s faithfulness and stability. Tychicus was asked to deliver this letter at the same time as he brought Paul’s personal note to Philemon (Colossians 4:7-9).
While he was in the writing mood, Paul also dictated a third letter, to be sent in the same direction at the same time. It was less personal and more general in the themes that it expressed than either of the others, and may well have been intended as a more generic epistle of encouragement to be circulated around the area churches. This letter seems to have arrived first in Laodicea (Colossians 4:16), and began a circuit around the regional congregations. Because Ephesus had been the launching pad for mission efforts throughout the region, the Christian congregation in Ephesus soon became recognized as the “mother church” of the rest, and probably came to be the official caretaker and repository of important documents. For that reason this circular letter from Paul eventually ended up in Ephesus, becoming known as Paul’s letter to the “Ephesians.”
Jesus is Lord of all, Paul fairly shouts at the beginning of Ephesians, producing wonderful new life in all who are part of the church (Ephesians 1). In place of Paul’s instructions about the false teaching at Colossae (Colossians 2) comes a brief reminder that Jews and Gentiles are together on the same footing before God because of the powerful redemptive work of Jesus (Ephesians 2). As he begins to celebrate this amazing grace of God through prayer (Ephesians 3:1), Paul interrupts himself, reminding his readers of the specific calling he has received to know and communicate this divine revelation (Ephesians 3:2-13). Then Paul resumes his powerful and profound prayer of praise (Ephesians 3:14-21), and launches into an extended metaphor on what it means for the living body of Christ to function in a dark world (Ephesians 4:1--5:20). Very similar to his instructions in Colossians 3, Paul outlines specific behaviors that are expected in Christian households (Ephesians 5:21--6:9).
In a brief but scintillatingly clear analogy, Paul dresses up the Christian warrior in full battle gear (Ephesians 6:10-20). Only one final note, telling of Tychicus’ mission on Paul’s behalf (Ephesians 6:21-22), and a short word of blessing (Ephesians 6:23-24) bring this letter to a close.
Paul’s letters from prison addressed a couple of specific issues -- the nature of a relationship between master and slave, for instance, when both were Christians, and a proper response to the false teaching that was being promulgated at Colossae. But mostly these writings paint, in vibrant colors, the character of moral choices in a world that is compromised and broken. Darkness and light are the key metaphors. Evil has wrapped a blanket of pain and harm around all that takes place in the human arena. Jesus is the brilliant light of God, penetrating earth’s atmosphere with grace and reconciliation. Because of Jesus’ physical departure at the ascension, his followers now must step in and become a thousand million points of light, restoring relationships and renewing meaning. Jesus is great, and because of our connection with him we can be great too. Not for our own sakes, of course, but as witnesses of the eschatological hope that tomorrow’s amazing future of God is something we already participate in today. That is why Christianity is the religion of the dawn, and why the expressions of Christian behavior, central to our reading for today, are the key exhibit of God at work in this world.
John 6:35, 41-51
Food is a very big part of our lives. Hunger can be a time clock ticking inside, regulating the hours of our days with calculated passion. Or it can be a biologic need, demanding fuel stops on our restless race. Even more, hunger functions as a psychological drive, forcing us to crave chocolate when we lack love, or driving us to drink, drugs, and sex.
But deeper than all of these things is our search for meaning beyond the drudgery and repetition of our daily activities. It is the spiritual need each person has to know that she is not alone in this gigantic and sometimes unkind maze of life.
Hunger is what the writer of Ecclesiastes means when he said that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11). Hunger is the pilgrimage of the soul. In other words, the old adage is true: “You are what you eat.”
So life beckons us to follow the latest fad, to search for the newest fulfillment, to seek the richest treasure. We consume and devour until we are fed up with life, so to speak. And still we want more.
Then a word comes to us from heaven. In part it is a word of judgment against us: since you are what you eat, take a look at what it is that you are consuming. If you eat garbage, you become garbage. If you feast on pornography, as Ted Bundy said in his dying confessions to James Dobson, you become filthy. If you think that wealth can satisfy the cravings of your soul, you will become a calculator and a penny-pincher. If the adoration of the community feeds the hunger of your psyche, you refashion yourself into a code of law and ethics, toeing the line without compassion. If another high is what it takes to get you through the stomach cramps of another day, you will shoot up or smoke up or pop some more or tease yourself with illicit sex and end up becoming a bag of used chemicals and a bottle of cheap thrills.
You are hungry, and you are what you eat. The cravings of your soul will not be stilled. A meal will reset the alarm of your biological clock. Food will keep your hungry body going. Potato chips and a soda will stop the munchies for a while. But what are you eating for your soul?
Today’s gospel reading remembers the beauty and simplicity of what Jesus told people one day: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Through the symbolic nourishment of spiritual depth and richness, something satisfying begins to grow inside. Tasting the things that make heaven shine and earth blossom, we begin to find the values and goals and visions and dreams of God giving shape to our lives.
Augustine knew this as he reflected on the spiritual character of our race. “Man is one of your creatures, Lord,” he said, “and his instinct is to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.”
What are you eating today? Tomorrow and next week those who are close to you will know whether there was any eternal nourishment in your diet.
Application
In a powerful scene from Morris West’s novel The Clowns of God, a father and daughter are having an argument. She tells him that she’s going to Paris to live with her boyfriend. He won’t let her. Why would she want to do something like that, he asks. She tells him that she is afraid.
“Afraid of what?”
“I’m afraid of getting married and having children and trying to make a home,” she says, “while the whole world could tumble round our ears in a day. You older ones don’t understand. You’ve survived a war. You’ve built things. You’ve raised families. But look at the world you’ve left us to. You’ve given us everything except tomorrow.”
Everything except tomorrow. Yet tomorrow is the one thing that we need most. One newspaper carried this ad in its classified section: “Hope chest -- brand-new. Half-price. Long story.” We’ve had so many long stories in our lives, and so many broken promises and shattered dreams. Sometimes we’re ready to give up. No more promises. No more commitments.
But the message of Jesus offers us something better. Eat my flesh and live into eternity. Choose the doorway to your tomorrow, says Paul, and act on it as if you belong to God’s future.
Alternative Application
John 6:35, 41-51.Today’s gospel reading reminds me of two powerful experiences I have had as a pastor. Fred was a big man with a big heart. His life had been ringed with tragedy, but he had grown through it and chose to spend his last career years as a missionary in Africa. A few years later he was returned to our town near death. A brain tumor had suddenly appeared and quickly robbed him of speech and motor control. He was hospitalized for several weeks and then released to die at home.
We prayed much for Fred. We shared the personal and family needs through a wide web of Christian contacts. We held specific healing services and added Fred’s condition to our weekly prayer bulletin.
In spite of our best desires, we gradually became aware that only death would bring divine healing. Fred’s life this side of eternity was too far destroyed for recovery.
I made regular visits to the small house that Fred’s wife purchased. Mostly Fred lay in bed moaning and restless. While his muscles contorted horribly, his skin began to turn unhuman shades of gray. Several times the family members, scattered at some distance, were called together for what appeared to be “the end.”
On one of these occasions I stood with them in a circle around Fred’s bed. Fred was greatly agitated and moaned incomprehensibly. I read a Psalm and a promise from Paul, and then we prayed together, holding hands, asking God to take Fred home soon. It only seemed, however, that Fred’s inner restlessness got worse. I stepped closer to the bed and placed my hand on his forehead. I spoke directly to him the blessing he himself had pronounced over God’s people so many times: “The Lord bless you and keep you, Fred. The Lord make his face shine upon you. The Lord smile upon you and give you his peace” (Numbers 6:24-26).
Immediately Fred settled peacefully, his muscles relaxing and his labored breath easing. “You can go home now, Fred,” I said. Each family member held Fred’s hands briefly, speaking words of care release. I walked out of the house. Before I could drive away Fred slipped into eternity.
Meanwhile, LaVern struggled with open sores on her legs, among several different ailments. She was in great pain most of the time, and alternated between weeks of sitting in a lounge chair with her legs elevated and periods of aggressive treatment in the hospital. We prayed together regularly over the telephone, and now and then I sat with her for an hour sharing the whimseys of life. Few people I know have endured as much pain and heartbreak as had LaVern. Yet fewer still had developed as joyful an outlook on the many small graces of existence.
One day LaVern called me with a new request. She had been reading James’ letter (James 5) and wanted me to come over with an elder of the church to anoint her with oil. I called one of the elders and a trusted prayer partner, and we gathered around LaVern’s chair. First we spent time confessing to one another, then we spent time in prayer. We shared the bread and cup of the sacrament, seeking intimacy with Jesus and one another in the body. We touched the sores on LaVern’s legs and begged for healing. Then I took the oil and rubbed it gently over LaVern’s wounds, commanding them, in the name of Jesus, to be healed. We gave God thanks for the healing he was bringing and would accomplish, and I spoke the same blessing I had pronounced over Fred.
There was no “electric shock” moving through my fingers or LaVern’s legs, nor any immediate end to the weeping from the skin openings. Yet in the next week a remarkable change took place, both in the peace that infused LaVern’s heart and the clear closures of the wounds. Her doctors put off scheduled surgery, and several months later LaVern came to Sunday worship for the first time in a year, standing on her own legs.
LaVern’s struggles with those sores continued over the years, and she continued to call for prayer many times. Now and again we would look back to the day we met together with the elders of the church and anointed her wounds as a watershed moment. LaVern believed she experienced a special healing in that moment. I think so too.
I also think Fred was healed in the moment of our touch at his bedside, though in a different way. There is power for life in the gospel of Jesus that sometimes works through the medical industries of our culture and sometimes works in spite of them. There is nothing in the Bible to call into question a Christian’s use of doctors and prescription medications. But neither does the Bible tell us that doctors are the true great physician. Whenever healing happens, God has smiled and the Bread of Life has been a shared meal.
