30 Jul 06
New Testament Lesson for the day: Ephesians 3.14-21
Gospel Lesson for the day: John 6.1-21
To look up any of these passages in several translations, go to biblegateway.com. For the Lectionary Readings of the Day, Year B, 2006, the Season of Pentecost, google "The Revised Common Lectionary." One of the best sites is that of Vanderbilt University's Divinity School.
Sermon: A Sermon may be defined as the Interpretation and Performance of Sacred Texts by the Christian faith community. In today's "Interpretation," the written presentation for the web page is significantly expanded, since there was need to explain some rather heavy theological concepts.
- RAS
Once upon a time, there were three baseball umpires: "I call them the way they are" --- these words from a certain type of self-styled, realist or "Conservative." "I call them the way I see them." That's how an old-line "Liberal" umpire described his work. Then comes this umpire who is best defined as hip and current, but self-involved..."Until I call them, they don't even exist."
Which is to say, how we go about knowing anything, or looking at whatever it is we see, even the presuppositions we bring to the interpretation of sacred texts, and performing them in the world on behalf of the Christian community -- how we go about this makes all the difference.
Today's Gospel lesson is a crowd scene, the feeding of the 5,000 [1]. It is more than a "gee-whiz" miracle, though, and to see it only this conventional way, is not to see it at all. Much more than is this going on here. In fact the word, miracle in the original Greek of the New Testament, means a sign, always pointing, philosophically and theologically, to something beyond itself.
The Ephesians text is a prayer, that we may "be strengthened in our inner being with power through the Holy Spirit," that we might become rooted and grounded, having the power to comprehend, with all the saints, in order to be filled with all the fullness of God. To become a "dwelling place" for God's Spirit, and presence, to experience this fully, we must read scripture together along with all the saints (which in the New Testament merely meant the ordinary, every-day people in the church). To read scripture, not only together, and within the tradition of the "saints who have gone on before" is quite an order. What does it mean to interpret and perform scripture in this way?
The Gospel of John lesson is not at all what it seems at first glance. Here we find echoes of Passover (verse 4) and the manna feeding in the desert (vs. 12); the twelve tribes are gathered here (vs. 13); the poor show up because of the mentioned barley loaves instead of wheat, this being always what the poor would eat (vs. 9). And especially, since this is later developed worship material -- about the years 95-120 when the gospel of John was written -- we find the liturgical formula (and that is what it is): Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them... Yes, there is a lot going on in this text, and if we might have any chance of getting to the essence of what is being pressed upon us here, we must not be lazy and go deeper. That Jesus did not trust himself to the crowd, and even fled them (vs. 15) speaks to moving beyond the pedestrian.
To get to all the richness of this text, we must learn to think eschatologically --which is to say in terms of 'last" or "ultimate" things [2].
In the times of Jesus there was a popular expectation that when the Messiah would come, there would be a Great Messianic Banquet, with everyone having enough to eat, when even the poor would be filled and the 12 tribes of scattered Israel would be re-gathered. This expectation was included elsewhere in the Eucharistic words of Jesus: "I will not eat this bread and drink this cup until I do so anew with you in the coming kingdom of my Father" (Matthew 26.29 and parallel passages).
The Feeding of the 5,000 is also an "announcement story," that there is a new world breaking in on this one. Just as with Lazarus and the raising of Jarais's daughter, we find a declaration and pre-figuring of the resurrection of Jesus, so, here, the day of the long-anticipated "Messianic Banquet" is presented as already here. So we find the meaning in the phrase which Jesus often used: "The Kingdom of God is near you;" it is getting close. Another world is breaking in on ours. Something is coming. Don't you see it? The early followers of Jesus were described in the New Testament as a "new creation," "foretaste," "sign" and the "first fruits" of what is to come. The church, then, must be that alternative community, called out from the world by God's Holy Spirit, to witness in word and deed, to what this new kingdom of God might be all about.
The connected text, of Jesus walking on the water, is a post-resurrection appearance (John 6.16-21, and parallel gospel passages, Matthew 14.22-27; Mark 6.45-51). We know this is the nature of this text because of its ghostly, other-worldly character ..."Jesus would have walked on past them"; "it is a ghost"; "they were terrified." This passage, along with the feeding of the 5,000, is also an "announcement story," or a Theophany [3].
"Do not be afraid" in scripture always prepared the audience for the actual appearance of God. The phrase Jesus utters, "IT IS I" is the dead give-away...for in Biblical texts this wording is the actual name for God, which is so utterly unknowable, that it defies translation. To this day Jews do not speak this name and when it appears in scripture, or worship material, the name is written in English as "G-d" and in Hebrew the word ADONAI is substituted, meaning The Lord. We see this same reverence indicated in the scriptures..."Son of the blessed one" instead of saying Son of G-d."
It is the I AM of the burning bush, Exodus 3.14 ("And God said to Moses, my name is I AM WHO I AM...So you shall say to the Israelites, I AM has been sent to you..."). This I AM is what the King James translation of the bible (1611) refers to as Jehovah, bringing into English the actual, original Hebrew word for the divine name. These four letters for "G-d" are called the sacred tetragrammaton ... the Hebrew transliteration into English as JHVH [4]. The English equivalent for this word is The Lord. The word Lord is used of Jesus in the post-resurrection narratives of the New Testament period, for it is the theology of the early church, that after the resurrection of Jesus, he became, fully divine as well as being fully human in "obedience."
In the Christian community, sacred texts shape and form us; they even interrogate [5]. To quote a biblical text does not end a conversation, it only begins one. For any scripture must be placed into dialogue with others, and alongside the significant parallel biblical traditions themselves. Scripture does not become "Scripture" until the faith community interprets and performs it."
So how are these two texts, the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on the water, asking questions of us, and what is the question being asked?
Both texts announce the actual presence of God, breaking in upon us. We say Jesus is more than a "symbol," but actually the presence of God, in the Eucharist, the bread and wine, and then there are those moments in our life when the actual presence of God is experienced, reversing death and the perceived order of things.
At the very least, what is demanded of us is imagination.
Perhaps the question of the text could be put this way: At that point in our life when we experience God actually present, when there are those moments we sense we are being fed with bread that is the kind from which we will never be hungry again, how do we talk about that, and with each other? What "sermons" or "testimonies" get set loose in the room?
M. Night Shyamalan's movies ( Lady in the Water, The Sixth Sense, The Village, Signs) are captivating. In his film, Signs, the main character, played by Mel Gibson, is an Episcopal Priest who has given up on his faith after his wife was killed in a senseless automobile accident. There are "signs" all around him that the forces of the universe mean to redeem. But he refuses to believe...until there are so many accumulated "coincidences" that he, once more, puts on his clerical collar, a symbol of his destiny and calling, and walks back into ministry, as must we...and for the sake of the world.
Jesus did not trust himself to the crowd, because if only the conventional (or pedestrian) questions are asked...only the clichˇs will surface; and the wrong God will show up. So if you don't work on this stuff, and together, you will get the wrong visit.
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