Bread

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La., 12 August 2012

A couple of years ago, I spent 10 days traveling about Europe. Since returning home, I have more than once stood in the bread section of the supermarket thinking, “We U.S. Americans have a great deal to learn from the Europeans about the production of bread!”

Bread in my Spanish Mother's cupboard.*

In Europe, bread is fresh each and every morning, and often still warm when it gets to your table. It comes in a variety of rolls and buns and small loaves, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, brimming with aroma and flavor. I hardly noticed that, in Europe, bread is often served without butter. It’s so good it doesn’t need butter.

It is no coincidence that bread figures prominently throughout the Bible whenever God has a lesson for humankind. Thus when Jesus taught us to pray for “our daily bread,” he was also teaching us to ask for messages and lessons from God.

The prophet Elijah has had to flee from the death threats of Jezebel ( I Kings 19:4-8, 9-15, NRSV), wife of Ahab, King of Israel. He is discouraged; he believes himself to be a failure. And so he sits under a tree and asks to die.

But God has other plans. He provides food for Elijah, food so nutritious that it sustains Elijah on his long trek back into the wilderness to Horeb, the mountain of God. There was something special about that food, which is called “cake” in this passage, but must have been rather bread-like to have been baked on hot stones.

From the continuation of Elijah’s story, we know that he encounters God on Mount Horeb, just as Moses had before him. It is no coincidence that Elijah’s story reminds us of “manna,” the bread from heaven God provided to the Israelites on their original trek through the wilderness.

Bread from God seems always to have more than one purpose. It is first, of course, to ensure the physical survival of God’s people—the Israelites on their exodus journey, Elijah on his pilgrimage back to the mountain of God.

But bread from God also has spiritual purposes. It reminds us of our dependence on the bounty of the earth for our human existence. Although we indeed must cultivate and plant and reap, we had nothing to do with creating this fertile planet and we cannot control the weather that makes harvest possible and fruitful. Surely I’m not the only one awestruck by the differences between our planet home and the barren surface of Mars, as revealed to us this past week by Curiosity.

Elijah had apparently lost faith in God’s purpose for his life, so he sulked under the tree and—rather melodramatically—wished to die because his prophetic word had indeed raised the ire of those at whom it was directed.

You have heard, “No good deed will go unpunished!” but apparently Elijah had not heard it!

Today’s psalmist seems to have understood that the connection between God and daily bread has meaning beyond physical survival. Taste and see that the Lord is good, he writes, happy are they who trust in him (Psalm 34:8, NRSV). We and Elijah are reminded that bread from God has larger meaning.

What, then, should we make of today’s Gospel reading? In the context of a long history of bread given, received and celebrated as a sign of God’s grace and faithful care, what are we to make of the complaining that breaks out when Jesus claims to be living bread from heaven (John 6:35, 41-51, NRSV)?

And not only do the good church people of that day complain, but they also attempt to discredit Jesus! Notice that they do not complain that he claims to be bread. That metaphor apparently does not give them a moment’s pause.

Rather, they complain because he claims to have come down from heaven. Here’s where the story begins to sound like a family reunion to me, with all the aunts and uncles sitting around gossiping and weighing the merits of people not present by identifying what family they come from.

You have heard these kinds of conversations! “Oh, well, you know, she’s from the Such & Such family,” or “His father is so and so,” “his brother did thus and such,” as if that’s all you need to know about a person to judge him or her.

So here’s my question: Had we been among those listening to Jesus proclaim he was the Bread of Life come down from heaven, how might we have responded?

Complaining is certainly alive and well. When someone else’s version of reality does not line up with our own, we assume it cannot be true. When we do not like something we hear, we belittle it and attempt to discredit the speaker.

We hear this from talk show hosts, as well as from people who call in to voice their opinions, often on things about which they know little and often in ways that label all other points of view as unworthy before they have even been expressed. We hear it at parties and family reunions, in offices and at church.

Jesus said lots of things that did not sit well with the good church people of his day.., and still don’t. Complaining and discrediting are alive and well, in our churches as well as in our politics and throughout everyday life.

Try to tell those who operate on a “teach them a lesson” mentality about turning the other cheek and see how far you get. Bring up what Jesus said about violence in a discussion of, say, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you might be accused of being un-American.

Dare to mention what Jesus said about taking care of the poor when the discussion turns to welfare, or point out that he healed everyone who asked without question in a discussion of health care, and you will be tagged a socialist.

What Jesus taught 2000 years ago is as unpopular today as it was then, even among those who claim to follow him.

Anyone who participates in social media knows that posting pithy quotes is a really popular way to fill up all of that online space and appear to have a lot to say to all of your friends and followers. I scroll over most of them pretty quickly, but recently I saw one that seemed sadly right on. It went something like this: “People will be mean, but nobody’s meaner than the person being mean for Jesus.”

We are about to share in the Eucharistic bread, and we are quite clear that we do it not to satisfy physical hunger but because of its larger meaning. But what do we think it means?

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, In Holy Communion we have Christ under the appearance of bread. In our work we find him under the appearance of flesh and blood. It is the same Christ.

Jesus said he was living bread, given for the life of the world. And if we look at his ministry along with his teachings, we know that the bread of life lives, not only within us, but within the least desired and least loved of humanity. This is Christ’s true presence.

AMEN

*I took this photo in the summer of 1979 when I was an exchange student in Spain and lived with a Spanish woman. My more recent travel in Central Europe was in the summer of 2009.

Plumb Line of Love

 Christ Church, St. Joseph, La., 15 July 2012

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive from Iowa to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for educational opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It's a weight on a string that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down—regardless of what you hang it from. The one in Chicago, as I recall, is a huge brass plumb bob shaped like a child’s top, suspended from the center of the dome on a cable. And it moves because the earth moves!

Foucault's pendulum at the Panthéon, Paris.

In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—the ceiling of that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust it’s position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so the pendulum gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see.

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very rotation of the earth itself. 

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at a Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s story from the Hebrew Scripture, I remember it as a reassuring experience rather than a threatening one, a peak at the music of the universe, if you will.

Of course, a plumb line is a builder’s tool for keeping walls vertical, such that the outcome of building is beautiful and functional. But a plumb line is also a kind of discipline that reveals quickly anything with a tendency to be crooked. And discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos (7:7-17, NRSV).

Building a wall with a plumb line.

 ‘Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,’ God says. ‘In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.’

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures moral and mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

And if that sounds a bit like Jesus.., well, you’re with me all the way!

But, of course, Jesus was the ultimate plumb line God set amongst the people, but not the first. This conversation from the book of the prophet Amos is God calling Amos to be a plumb line among the Israelites.

We don’t know much about Amos’ life as a prophet. We know in general that the Israelites were not exactly fond of.. and did not necessarily respond to.. the prophets God sent to point out the many ways they failed to love God and their neighbors as themselves.

Today’s Gospel story (Mark 6:14-29, NRSV) is a graphic account of precisely what can happen to prophets. John the Baptizer was the last of the solely human plumb lines God placed among the people. His job was to prepare the way for Jesus the Christ by calling the people to their inheritance as God’s people.

King Herod was a conniver. He connived his way into a marriage with his brother’s wife, and ultimately into a dilemma that required him to murder John the Baptist in order to save face.

Answering God’s call to be a plumb line among the people can mean speaking unpopular points of view. It can mean standing up for the marginalized and calling for justice for the poor and oppressed. It can require speaking truth to power. And very little is more dangerous than people and nations who have gotten themselves into situations that seem to require “saving face.”

But Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (1:3-14, NRSV) reminds us today that regardless of the risks, at the heart of God’s call to be a plumb line among the people is love—God’s love for us as personified and perfected in Jesus the Christ.

God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing,” says Paul. God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. [God] destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ… [and] …in [Jesus Christ] we have redemption… forgiveness… the riches of God’s grace... lavished on us.”

And who is us? And what is the proper response to this outpouring of love?

Can you include in us the people you fear the most or like the least? An illegal immigrant, perhaps? A smelly street person? Someone who deviates from sex or gender norms? A Muslim?

Can you welcome into that passage the last person in the world you love and think capable of loving you? Are we willing to see such people as our neighbors and our equals in the eyes of God?

Because that’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is: God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Dine with me. And you will know and be God’s love in the world.

AMEN.