The Practice of Hospitality—Part 1 (Inner) 2-23-14

God, wake us up from our places of inattentiveness to life.  Call our names until we hear what creation longs to tell us.  Lead us to the deep places where your spirit resides.  Amen

            I have a theory.  It’s not an original theory.  It’s not even particularly profound except in its simplicity.  You have heard it before.  Why, you have even heard it from me before.  But, I believe that as we grow and change and, make room for more, it makes sense to revisit some, if not most, of what we thought we already learned.  This is the theory:  it is not possible to welcome others until we have welcomed ourselves.  See—I told you—not really profound.  Usually, we hear this theory worded like this:  it is not possible to love others until we love ourselves.  But love can be such an esoteric, quasi-romantic word.  We lose track of the effort that lurks under the word itself.  That is why I chose to use the word “welcome”.  Welcome is active.  It brings up the picture of someone opening the door and saying, “Welcome, please come in”.  “You are welcome in this place” is a phrase we have used often to refer to our hospitality, here in Open Circle.  And, I think that, as we begin to make significantly more serious plans for the future ministries of this church that it is time for us to revisit this welcome, this hospitality, this throwing wide the door. 

            Today, we are going to start with inner welcome.  So, just for today, you can put aside thoughts of welcoming the stranger into our midst.  That’s for next week.  It’s not possible, you see, to even think about welcoming the external stranger into our midst until you have welcomed the internal stranger into your midst.  Depending on where you are in life, your internal stranger takes all forms and shapes.  Perhaps, you feel as though you know all there is to know about who you are, who you were formed to be, and that you have loosed any bonds on your inner divine spirit.  In other language, perhaps, you think you already know who God intends for you to be.  Or, put another way, perhaps you believe that you have transcended the constraints of this earthly life and are one with Truth and Beauty.  There are as many ways to say it as there are traditions that speak of this internal place we all have.  Words grow quite useless as we try to explain to another our inner experiences.  Ultimately, this inner welcoming is a process to which we are all called, though many choose to ignore the call completely.

            Knowing, even understanding, my friends, and welcoming, are entirely different.  Think of a time when someone for whom you have missed and yearned for came to visit you.  If you have to pretend, why, that’s okay, too.  You were, more than likely, willing to set aside most, if not all, of your pre-arranged plans.  You enjoyed sitting by the hour, perhaps, talking and catching up.  It was enough to just be in the company of that person—no words were needed.  Breathing the same air in the same space was gift enough.  Your expectations for specific outcomes were shelved for the time being and you drank in all you could experience of this embraced guest.  Time stood still, or mattered, not at all. 

            It seems to me that the easiest way to understand the difference between love and welcome is to understand the role of time and presence.  I can love you from afar.  I cannot welcome you from afar if you are to experience that welcome in your own life.  I can love you and I can love myself in the abstract.  But to invite you into my space requires that I make room for you.  This is the truth that I want us to hear today.  To welcome ourselves means to make room for ourselves.  This is not as confusing as it sounds.

            Jesus knew that his students, that is, all of us, have a very difficult time with inner understanding.  Our gospel passage today, of course, is talking about gaining insight into what God was doing in the world.  His disciples asked him why he told stories and he explained that it was the only way some folks would ever understand the goodness of God.  It gave them the nudge the needed to explore the insight they actually already had.  Those who had hearts ready to receive insight did not need stories; but, in actuality, there were few who were ready. 

            I would suggest that using Jesus’ technique is a good place to start with our journey in inner welcome.  Jesus said that the purpose of stories is “to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight”.   So, when was the last time you told yourself your story?  Now, that’s a question you didn’t expect to hear today.  But, I’m quite serious.  Some of you journal, so you have a head start on those of us who begin a journal and make it to about page 3 before we give it up completely until the next time—well, they say confession is good for the soul.  Then, for the rest of us, this notion of telling our story might be a strange notion indeed.  But, hear me out.  I want to ask you some specific questions about your story.

·         When was the last time you made a list of all the times you have been brave?

·         Or, a list of lessons learned and lived through that changed the way you act or think?

·         How about a list of the people that you have befriended or helped in some kindness, small or large?

·         When was the last time you wrote down your dreams for your life?

·         Or, kept a gratitude list of all the people and things you are grateful for in your life.

·         How long has it been since you thought about your childhood memories or laughed at some childhood joke or game?

There are so many ways for us to tell ourselves our stories and I think that we shortchange ourselves and our spiritual and emotional development when we get so busy in today that we forget some of who we are.  Now, and this is important, telling your story does not mean getting lost in the past.  It’s just about appreciating what there is to appreciate and learning if there is something to learn and returning to the journey at hand.  Notice that Jesus did not say that the story itself was what needed to be learned, but that the stories gently encourage us to be receptive to the greater truth.  And, that greater truth is that we are children of love, of God, of the Universe.  The next time you choose to spend some time in quiet, if you have never done so before—or even if you have—try to receive deep into your spirit and soul that very truth.  I am a child of God.  I was formed by love to live out my flesh-and-blood life as an off-spring of all that is. 

      You see, we who have been raised as traditional Christians, tend to confuse the whole “first shall be last”, “be ye not puffed up” thing with welcoming our true selves.  We worry about pride and self-importance.  When we do, we miss the point.  It may also be that, for many of us, rejection is more comfortable than acceptance.  It is true that we may have been rejected many times for many reasons; and, so we let it creep into who we are.  This is not in harmony with loving or welcoming the stranger as we love and welcome ourselves.  I love Psalm 139.  These are the 13 and 14 verses in the RCV (that’s Rev. Carol version) :

                  You, O Source of Life,

created the very innermost part of me—

the part that no one sees. 

You were there in my mother’s womb

rejoicing in my birth. 

I praise you because

I am designed and formed in ways that

instill awe. 

You made me to be brilliant and

            delightful. 

All the works of nature are wonderful and

magnificent.

I, child of all there is,

know this completely and wholly.

I want to ask you to close your eyes as I read these words again.  In whatever way you are comfortable; and, if you are comfortable, I invite you to affirm these words about yourself as you welcome yourself into your heart and spirit.

You, O Source of Life,

created the very innermost part of me—

the part that no one sees. 

You were there in my mother’s womb

rejoicing in my birth. 

I praise you because

I am designed and formed in ways that

instill awe. 

You made me to be brilliant and

            delightful. 

All the works of nature are wonderful and

magnificent.

I, child of all there is,

know this completely and wholly.

I grew up at a time when, throughout Protestantism, there was a phrase that I heard often.  “God loves you and has a plan for your life.”  While the rest of the words fade into a memory that did not serve me well, I can still affirm those first few words.  Little did I know or understand of God’s love or that the plan was for me to be a reflection of God’s own divine spirit; but, now, without hesitation I can say, ‘may it be so’.  Amen and amen.

“A Drop in the Bucket—Ready for Anything” 2-9-14

God, make us ready for anything!  Amen.

            My name is Zebidiah.  It’s a good Jewish name and I was a good Jewish boy.  I was a small kid, tiny almost so my mother called me Zebbie until I was almost grown.  I’m a father, yea, even grandfather, now, but I want to tell you about the time that changed my life. 

            There was this man, you see, his name was Jesus; and, everyone wanted to hear him speak.  It was a chore to get to him; he always seemed to be out in the hills or by one of the lakes, but that didn’t deter anyone.  One morning, my mother, brother, sister and I went out to the hills across the Sea of Galilee.  He hadn’t even started speaking and the crowd was growing restless.  Now my mother knew that children get hungry so she had packed a 2 fish and 5 barley loaves her children.  Although we couldn’t see Jesus at first, we were close enough to be able to tell what was going on around him.  Apparently, he and his disciples were discussing lunch and what to do with all the hungry people.  Suddenly, Andrew, one of the disciples was standing next to me.  He asked me what was in the basket I was carrying.  I told him.  He turned to my mother and asked if we would be willing to share what we had.  She gave him that look that I knew was her “are you crazy?” look (I should know, she looked at me like that all the time); but, my mother was a kind and wonderful woman so she said, “Of course”.  I followed Andrew back to where Jesus was standing.  I guess I had expected a giant; and, I had a hard time realizing that this rather common-looking man was Jesus.  He had a kind face, though he wore the concern of a shepherd who was concerned but not worried about feeding his sheep.

            Andrew told Jesus, “I found a boy who has a basket with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish, but that’s hardly a drop in the bucket when compared to what we need”.   I saw some of the disciples snicker; but, Jesus silenced them with a look not unlike another of my mother’s looks.  Jesus said, “Have the people sit down”.  Everyone sat down.  We were on a beautiful hillside and the grass was lush.  I heard Jesus say a prayer of thanks for the bread.  He thanked God for giving us the seed, for the farmer who sowed the seed and then ground it into grain and for my mother who had baked the bread.  They began passing that bread and suddenly people were passing bread from all over—it came from the back and all sides.  The bread just kept coming as people uncovered their lunches and began to share.  Then Jesus took the little fish from my basket; he thanked God again for putting the fish in the sea and for the fisherpeople who spent their days catching the fish and again for my mother who had dried the fish and prepared it for our lunch.  As the fish began to be passed around the same thing happened.  Fish came from all over—all different kinds of fish, but all prepared with loving hands for lunch.  We ate and ate.  Why, I’d never had this much to eat at one time.  There were even leftovers.  I kept watching Jesus; he just sat down and ate like this was no big deal.  But, even as young as I was, I knew something special had happened; and, I had that feeling deep down inside that I had been changed, too.

 You know that feeling when you are present for a miracle or you hear or see something so amazing that you feel your heart melt?  Well, that is what was happening to me.  I eventually wandered back to where my mother was and sat down with my family.  I couldn’t talk at the time; but, my mother was ok with that—apparently I talked a lot as a kid.  I don’t remember a lot of what Jesus said.  I and lots of the kids were so full; we kinda dozed on the ground while our parents listened to Jesus.  After I was grown I learned a lot more about what Jesus said that day and all the time while he was on the earth; but, at that point, I was still processing what I had seen and experienced.  And, somehow, that was enough. 

In the years that passed, I grew up, and had a typically rebellious stage.  My own spirituality continued to simmer somewhere deep within.  But always, it was centered on those fishes and loaves of bread.  Having seen this as a child, I was filled with the unshakeable knowledge that God’s abundance would never run out.  No matter what decisions I made as a young man, I made them in this circle of abundance—knowing, without even knowing why I knew, that, if my decisions were made in line with God’s will, there would always be plenty.  I started a little business just after I married my wife Dara.  It was tough, at first; but, we kept at it and God never let us go hungry.  Of course, soon the children started to come; and, there were more mouths to feed.  But always, I thought of those fish and loaves.  I know that Jesus did a lot more than bless my fish and loaf that day.  I know that he was arrested for challenging the Roman rule and questioning the head priests of our own religion.  Later, when I knew the whole story about how those two forces worked together to rid the world of Jesus, I was always confused about what went so terribly wrong.  I know that there are stories, and lots of them, about Jesus being on earth for a short while after he was killed and buried and that communities were founded all over our part of the world to spread his teachings and let people know how much God loved them.

But for this Jewish man, that had already happened when I was just a child.  I didn’t really get involved with the so called new-movement; I was too busy raising a family and trying to help them understand what had changed my life so many decades ago.  This is what I told them and their cousins when I had a chance:

Yahweh was God of everything.  We know that God created everything for us.  But, that didn’t mean that it was all for us alone.  It was for everyone else, as well.  Now, even in my time, that’s a concept that didn’t always catch on.  My wife, Dara, bless her heart, didn’t always understand why I gave away some of the benches I made to families who had nothing but dirt to sit on.  I just always knew that Yahweh would make up for it.  We were never counted among the wealthy, we didn’t have to be.  We had what we needed and some of what we wanted and that was enough.  Because I saw what Jesus could do with the one family sharing their bounty, I knew that was the basis of all that I believed about everything.  I knew there would always be enough when people who had things shared with those who needed but did not have those very things.  Now, you may say that I was naïve and you would be right.  I had no way of knowing what you know now, that some people in the world believe that they deserve more while others go hungry, or homeless, or sad beyond words.  Although, now that I think about it, there were definitely people in my village who refused to share—thinking about it, they never looked very happy to me.  But, I was all smiles and I can almost tell by looking which ones of you share with your whole hearts whatever you have—it gives you a certain look, a certain peace inside that simply glows on the outside.

Generous is a word you modern day folks throw around a lot.  I learned what that means on that hillside that day.  I learned that many have not; and, sometimes, only a few really have.  Sometimes, a lot have some; and, only a few have not.  Mostly what I’ve learned is that is does not matter.  It does not matter at all.  If all give of whatever they have and that may not be money at all, then God’s wonderful abundance is set in motion and the miracle happens.  The other thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t always happen on our time-table.  God knows what is best for us—it seems to me that the world (you now call it the universe, but what did I know then?) cares for us in her own special way; and, that when we trust that all will be well, we guarantee God’s presence in our lives.  And, gratitude is really all there is.  Today, I am grateful that you are a group of people who are sharing what I learned so long ago on that hillside and what I dedicated my life to—passing on the word of God’s great generosity and love for all of us; and, of God’s unending abundance of all there is.  As is my tradition and yours, I bid you goodbye and God bless.  Shalom and amen.

When We Sit at Table 2-2-14

Most gracious and life-giving God, call us to your table, let us sit as friends of each other and friends of you.  Let us ponder anew what we learn and cherish when we gather to experience the taste and feel of your everlasting goodness.  Amen

            We’re not too far past the holiday season of 2013 and lots of people hosted big dinners and parties.  I ran into a grandmother who wanted to tell me how bright her grand-daughter was.  The grand-daughter’s mother, grandma’s daughter, was putting on a dinner for about 30 people.  When all sat down to the over-loaded table, mom thought it would be great if six-year-old Amanda said grace.  Now, Amanda was not so sure about this, and asked her mother what she should say.  Mom says, “you’ll be fine, just pray what you’ve heard me say”.  Amanda makes a great show of getting ready, putting her feet in the chair, putting them down, making sure her hair was in place, and checking all the buttons on her blouse.  Finally, just as mom was getting ready to say, “hurry up!” Amanda clears her throat and says, “Good God, what was I thinking, inviting all these people to dinner?  Aaa-men”.  Suffice it to say that the pious were left to finish their own prayers while most everyone else quietly giggled hoping that Amanda was not going to get in trouble.  Mom hurried off to check the status of the gravy.  Grandma is still laughing! 

            We’ve been talking about ‘bread’ for the last two weeks and today we’re taking up the epitome of sacred bread—the bread used at God’s table, the communion table.  I tried, I really did, to find a nicely laid out chart of what every denomination or branch of Christianity believes about Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist.  The estimates of the number of denominations with varying beliefs about communion and other tenets is staggering.  So, while I contemplated it, don’t worry, I won’t review all those differences.  It does cause me to wonder how aware we are of what this act means to many of us and why it still seems to be a point of contention between the denominations, and especially between Catholicism and Protestantism.  Just as interesting to me are some of the ‘conflicts’ we’ve had in this church already around one of only two sacraments when we already have no real clue each Sunday what people are thinking as they partake or not.

            Let’s go back and take a better look at the meaning of bread in the Gospel story.  I included the first reference to bread because it shows what Jesus thought about bread and the importance of it.  Right after Jesus is baptized by John the Baptizer, he goes to the desert to be tested for his ministry.  This wasn’t one of those multiple choice tests, or fill in the blank—this was a life and death test with questions put to Jesus by none other than Satan himself.  I prefer to think of these tests as struggles, issues that he had to resolve before he could begin his public ministry, but since the Old Testament spoke of the forces of evil as an actual person, aka Satan, the Devil, Beelzebub, etc. we won’t spend too much time on exactly how the test was administered; and, instead look at the first test as it concerns bread.  Now, Jesus was hungry.  He had been fasting for 40 days and his desert time was drawing to a close.  He was really hungry.  Let me be clear—he was really, really hungry.  So, up walks the Evil One, who takes advantage of his hunger and taunts Jesus.  “Since you’re God’s Son, command this stone to turn into a loaf of bread.”  Now, we’ve established that Jesus was hungry.  The logical thing—and we would have all forgiven him if he had done it—was to turn the stone into bread.  But, Jesus wants to show us something important, so he quotes the Old Testament Law to Satan:  “It takes more than bread to really live.”  Jesus sets the stage for the rest of his teachings that day when he allows us to see that there are more important things than satisfying our wants and desires—no matter how valid they might be. 

            Secondly, we hear the actual story of the last time Jesus ate bread before he was killed.  You hear me tell the story every Sunday, I know most of you know it by heart.  This story, more than anything, gives us a concrete, physical way to remember what it was like to sit at table with Jesus—to listen to him teach and ponder the hard questions that sometimes come our way.  Finally, we have the story of the travelers on the road to Emmaus.  Even though neither one of the travelers recognized Jesus walking along the road with them, he did the one thing that would refresh their memories.  He blessed and broke bread.  Suddenly, the memory is clear and they know exactly who he is.  But, quickly, he is gone. 

            Blessing and breaking bread is a holy act.  I sometimes wish that we could spend more of the service in the act of coming to the table.  But, time rushes on; and, too many times, we are hurrying to get through the actions of communion so that we can get to a very different kind of table—you know what I mean?  But, just for a moment, let’s pretend we have all the time in the world.  I really like what the author of our middle ready says about communion.  John Hicks speaks of the Lord’s Supper as a covenantal act.  God gives gifts to us, we return them and we celebrate this covenant of mutuality by observing the one act—the only ritual—that Jesus asked us to do in his memory.  Jesus is the New Covenant with God’s chosen people.  The people of Israel had forgotten AGAIN what it looked like to follow God’s will.  Jesus sealed the covenant between God’s creation and God by saying, “Here, this is what it looks like—this loving your neighbor, this turning the world upside down, this loving your enemy, this taking care of those who need your care”.  I think Jesus chose this ritual of re-enacting a meal because it is the ultimate description of the new world of the new covenant.  At the table, we are all the same; all hungry, all looking for something more.  The ‘food and drink’ is all the same.  God’s Table is the great equalizer.  There’s no wine list for those who can afford the better stuff and the filet mignon and hamburger folks all eat the same crust of bread.  This, my friends, is what Jesus was about.   We eat and drink together and we commit ourselves to what the supper embodies—the Gospel and God’s enduring love.  We are grateful.  We are committed again to each other and to God.  We are sitting in the presence of God being served by God and learning what it means to be servants.  When this happens, we encounter the sacred; we see God.  And we see each other as God sees us, united in love, each standing for the other.

            Paul says a similar thing in his letter.  “Because there is one loaf, our many-ness becomes one-ness—Christ doesn’t become fragmented in us. Rather, we become unified in him.”   God invites us to make this sacred meal, our meal; this divine table, our table.  And in that invitation, comes the covenant that we are all equal around the table.  Now I want to tell you how I think this applies to where our church is headed.  We are all in this together; that’s why you have been invited to the small gatherings.  I’m glad that so many of you have taken advantage of them.  I hope all of you will.  When we sit and discuss the campaign and all that God is calling us to do, all are welcome to speak, whether or not you believe that this is the next step God wills us to take.  Discernment belongs to the group and we are all involved.  There are many ways to ascertain God’s will.  The invitation to participate in whatever way you are able is identical to inviting us all as we are to the table.

            We are a church; and, as such, we are in covenant with God and with one another.  There may have been misunderstandings along the way.  All of us, your pastor and Board included are ordinary people.  We get distracted or overwhelmed with the work that God calls us to do.  We, all of us, have feelings, perceptions, and, sometimes, we just don’t listen to each other.  In other words, we take our eyes off the source of all our energy and power.  And, sadly, sometimes when we do the covenant gets shaky.  That is one of the purposes of a Capital Campaign—to enable all of us to refocus on the question that God is asking.  We will not all answer it the same; it would be weird if we did.  However, as a covenantal community, we owe it to each other to listen and listen well.  All of us to all of us; until the voice of God is heard among us, between us and within us. 

            We are more than half-way through this focused time of discernment; although, we will always be in discernment with God for the next steps in the journey.  Today, when you hear the invitation to the table, know that the invitation is especially for you.  No matter where you are in your spiritual life or your involvement in the community.  This is your opportunity to commit to the covenant we share.  Does that commitment mean money?  For some, it does; and, for some, it does not.  But we discern together, we celebrate together, and we love together.  This is the will of God.  This is the call to our hearts.  Amen and amen.

God's Bread 1-26-14

Holy and most gracious God, we hear about your provision of bread for the Israelites and want to experience this for ourselves.  Let us open our minds, set free our presuppositions, and ready ourselves to see if we can hear what you are trying to say to us today.  Amen

            Let’s look at the story.  The Israelites are in the desert—having been freed from slavery under the Egyptians.  You’d think they would be happy little folks making the best of a life that had to be better than a life of slavery, torture, punishment and poverty.  But, no…we find them complaining about their lot, primarily the anticipated lack of food.  Our story says that the supplies were ‘beginning to run out’; it does not appear that they were hungry yet.  Nevertheless, we hear them cry out to Aaron and Moses, having lost the attitude of gratitude several weeks ago, “Why did you bring us out here to die of starvation?  At least, in Egypt we had food to eat.”  Ah, how quickly we forget the reality of what used to be when we become dissatisfied with the present.  I suspect we’ve all done it at some point.  Imagine how Moses must have felt.  From the burning bush to here, he had followed God’s voice.  And for what—a bunch of whiny, ungrateful  Israelites threatening him in the desert? 

            Let’s look at what Yahweh does next.  Instead of reprimanding the Israelites or Moses and Aaron for failing as leaders, God says, “I’ve heard your complaints.  So, here’s what’s going to happen:  tonight quail will fly in and you will eat your fill of meat.  After that, every morning, just as the dew is lifting, you will find the ground covered with a white substance.  Gather it and eat.  You will have plenty to eat.”  Then, God puts them to a test as God often did in the Old Testament.  “Only gather enough for the next day except on the sixth day when you gather for two days.”  The quail came and they ate.  Then the next morning, they got up with expectation and as soon as the dew evaporated, there was the white substance.  They asked ‘what is this’ which in Hebrew sounds very much like ‘manna’.  And, that’s how manna got its name.   They gathered it and it turns out that it tasted like crackers with honey.  Of course, some couldn’t resist, so, they took more than what they needed for the day and tried to hide it ‘just in case’.  In the morning, that horded supply was full of worms and was spoiled.  And, they ate fresh manna every day for 40 years.  While it is not in the Bible, there is an old Jewish legend that says that the manna could change tastes, so that if someone were craving salmon, it would taste like salmon.  If someone were craving chicken, it would taste like chicken.  Kinda like tofu, I guess.  No one knows if this is true, but it adds a nice touch.  Eating the same thing over and over (and that includes tofu for me) would have to get booo-ring!

            Let’s see what we can learn from this Old Testament story before we move to what Jesus said about God’s bread.  I think there are four lessons we can gather from this story.

1.      God does not only listen to us when we are praising or praying for others.  The Israelites were whiny, ungrateful, argumentative people about now.  Didn’t matter.  God listened anyway.  For me, this says that I don’t have to be any one way or in any one mood to be listened to by God—whatever God means to you.  I can be cranky, scared, tired, you get my drift, and God still listens.  This is good news for folks like us because we are often cranky, scared, and tired.

2.      We waste a lot of time worrying about what might happen instead of trusting God—the energy that flows through the universe to allow things to fall into place.  The Israelites still had supplies; indeed, they were beginning to run low, but they were not hungry.  Nevertheless, they spent valuable time complaining about what might come to be.  They had at least two options that would have been better.  One is obviously to trust God; two might have been to look around and see what they could do to help with the situation.  God must sigh when we do that ourselves.

3.      God will provide—maybe not what we are expecting, but God does provide.  Would the Israelites have preferred tables made heavy with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, meats and desserts?  Probably, but they came to understand that their needs could be met more simply.

4.      When God provides, not only should we be grateful, we should be willing to take only what we need.  Hoarding amounts of what God gives us rarely leads to a good outcome.  Gratitude includes trust, but this is hard for some of us to hear and believe.

Now, moving to our New Testament Lesson, I think we will find some real thought-provoking similarities in the story.  Jesus was talking with some of the people who had seen the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  They were awed by the miracle and they wanted to see some more.  Jesus says to them and to us, “you’ve missed the point again.  It’s not about physical food; it’s about spiritual food—food that will nourish you inside.  And that food comes from God”.  So, not unexpectedly, they wanted to know how to get in on God’s works.  Jesus said, “Throw your lot in with the One that God has sent. That kind of a commitment gets you in on God’s works.”  Hmmm—let’s just say they were looking for something a little easier to get excited about than that.  We’ve got to remember at whom they were looking when they had that response.  Here was Jesus, barefoot, more than likely, dirty, homeless, with not a lot of what our young people call “street cred”.  They didn’t see God in Jesus; they wanted more proof.  So, they said something like, “Oh, come on, Jesus, give us a hint about what is really going on.  When we truly understand where you are trying to take us, we’ll make a commitment.  But, you need to show us what you can do, first!  Even Moses fed our ancestors with bread in the desert.  Our scriptures say it is so.”  Obviously, the people had misunderstood the purpose of manna—it was not just a physical manifestation of God’s providing hand, it was a spiritual bond between the Israelites and the Creator of the manna.

Jesus responded, “What is really important about that scripture has nothing to do with Moses giving your great-great-great-great-grandfather bread.  What is important is what is happening now.  God, your creator, is giving you the real Bread from heaven—right now, before your eyes.  I am that bread that gives life to the world”.  That seemed to change their minds,
“Give us that bread”, they said, “now and forever”.  Jesus said “I am the Bread of Life.  If you stand with me, you will never hunger or thirst again.  I am telling you this because you can’t seem to believe me even though you have seen what I am doing here.  But, that’s ok, because every person whom God intends to have stand with me will eventually come running to me.  And, once that happens, I will hold them tightly to me.  I came to earth specifically to follow the will of the One who sent me”.   

Where are we in the story?  We could be the Israelites or the ones asking Jesus for proof.  It’s the same character, really.  We are apprehensive—we’re in a Capital Campaign—will we raise enough money?  We’re trying to provide ministries—will enough people continue to come forward to that we can do what we say we do?  We’re not growing anymore—what’s up with that and what does God want us to do?  Our leaders aren’t perfect—really, where is God in that?  We’re doing it, most of us, at least.  If we admit to being human, we can admit that we are not trusting what God has planned.  The first paragraph of our middle reading really hit me between the eyes:  Freeman says, “Your place is the wilderness. The bread you eat falls from heaven. The basket you collect it in is your attitude.  Clutch your basket tight and your manna will have no place to rest. Open it up and look to the heavens and your basket will always be full”.   He chides us, pointing out that while we have today’s meal on the table, we spend our time and energy worrying about what is coming next.  Every day, God nourishes us, upholds us, calls to us.  Everything else in our lives is “but a cloud of interface” between us and God’s desire to give us all that we need.  Freeman admonishes us, “take your focus off the measured channels by which you receive and place your eyes on the Infinite Source of Giving”. 

This is where we are called to be in our Capital Campaign.  Focusing on the Infinite Source of Giving.  When we truly open our baskets and accept that which God through the universe want us to have, we will have enough for each day’s need.  Will we have enough to build a building immediately?  I don’t know; but, what I do know is that the only way we will ever find out is to trust the Source of all creation to show us where we are to be.  God will provide; I’m sure of it.  We must be ready to follow God’s timetable—be it fast or slow, obvious or not so much.  God calls us and we respond, “Feed us, God, and in that feeding, change us into who you designed us to be.  Amen and amen.