Snacking on Jesus

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Snacking on Jesus

John 6:56-69 (English Standard Version)

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

I: introduction

A father came home from a long day at work. He said to his wife “I’ve had a terrible day. If you have any bad news, keep it to yourself.” So his wife replied “the good news is that today three of our four children didn’t break an arm.”

A: objectives

Today we’re going to talk about the real Good News.

That Good News is what Jesus gives us and what that Gift means.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today and this week,

To show we know, we’re going to tell the Good News to someone who is lead to listen.

We need to talk about and understand the Good News

so that we can tell other people.

So that we may be made the lips of God, the nudge of God

the hands of God, feeding the news of the Gift of Jesus to those who are ready to eat.

B: about Jesus

question: who gives us life? who creates us?

might be a trick

is in the passage in John

is also in Isaiah (40:28 The Lord is the creator of the ends of the earth)

not Jesus

what does Jesus gives us?

notice I didn’t say that the Gift of Jesus went to the hungry

or the needy

because we’re all hungry and needy

I said that the Gif t of Jesus goes to those who are ready to eat.

Not those who are hungry

but those who are ready.

Have you ever been to a restaurant with someone

who said they were hungry

but then couldn’t pick anything?

We know folks who live life like it’s a restaurant.

This job doesn’t taste good,

this church doesn’t smell right,

this city doesn’t sit well on the stomach,

this religion is too hot,

this spouse has gone stale

The Gift of Jesus just cannot be for them – because they are not ready. Jesus says, just before our verse for the day that “no one can come to me unless that person is called by the Father who sent me.” These hungry folks are just making too much noise to hear that call. One day they will be ready – and it’s our job to love them like they are.

No, the gift of Jesus is for those who are ready to take it.

I’m going to confess now that I really like ancient languages and translating and the craft of writing. You can expect when I’m up here that I’m going to make some reference to the Greek version of what our verse is for the day. Today is no different.

In a lot of the translations of this part of John you’ll see the word “eat” several times. Unfortunately, those “eats” are really two words. One of the reasons I picked the ESV is because they translated the two words differently, kind of – eat and feed.

The first eat is phagein. That means “to eat.” Jesus uses “phagein” to talk about the Israelites who were wandering in the desert – kind of like our hungry customers, right? Lost in the desert, with nothing to sustain them except the manna from God.

Well they didn’t eat the manna because they wanted to or they liked it

but because they were hungry.

God wasn’t giving them a feast.

He wasn’t making them happy.

He was sustaining them.

He was teaching them – sometimes pain is the best teacher and God acknowledges this in Isaiah 48:10 -- See, I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

But Jesus is something more.

II: Jesus as meme

33 years ago, a famous fundamentalist evangelical atheist (did you know those folks existed? you may not be interested in them but they sure are interested in you) you may have heard of named Richard Dawkins came up with the idea of a cultural gene – just like we inherit traits through our genes, Dawkins figured that we inherit ideas through cultural genes – that he called “memes”

Memes, he said, are ideas that take a hold of us – of humanity – get inside us and change us. Memes are, in fact, what shape our world.

Ideas, of course, are spread through language. Tongues and words.

I guess it’s a good thing for Dawkins’s career that he’s a fundamentalist evangelical atheist – otherwise he might have read that part of the Bible that explains, defines, and proves the existence of memes.

You know the part, where Jesus is the Word and through Him all things are created? And then the part where He lives inside all of us, shaping this world and the next to come?

Well we can thank Mr. Dawkins for his funny quasi-Greek word. We can certainly pray for him – but it’s important that we understand that Dawkins’ meme precisely describes how Jesus works.

Jesus is the first idea

He gets passed from person to person

changing the world.

III: the gift of Jesus

Which brings us back to the gift of Jesus.

Notice I say we’re the ones passing Him around. Sure God & Jesus could just appear to everyone and save us all – but then what’s the point of creation? No, our real opportunity to shine for God – to make ourselves worth being created – is when we can share the gift of Jesus with each other

the gift that you can’t get when you’re hungry

only when you’re ready.

I talked about that first word “phagein.”

Now I want to talk about the second word “trogo.”

Trogo doesn’t mean “to eat” – especially not when you’re hungry.

Trogo means “to munch,” “to masticate,” “to snack.”

That is, it’s not eating for sustenance but for enjoyment.

It’s not eating manna,

it’s eating at the banquet table.

Just like He gave manna to the wandering, hungry Israelites,

God gives us life through the Spirit.

But like the wedding banquet

where his first miracle was to create the finest wine,

Jesus gives us the enjoyment of life

the fulfillment of life.

Jesus says over and over he is the bridegroom and we are at his party.

Like Sherlock Holmes says, so many things are right in front of us that we choose not to see.

Jesus isn’t being metaphoric,

the Gospels aren’t some obscure poem we’ve got to pick apart.

No, it’s right there, plain as the mimetics that point to the life of Jesus that Richard Dawkins won’t acknowledge,

Jesus makes our lives worth living

by giving us the feast of a lifetime

and life eternal through his body and blood

– that is, through his life.

We don’t need Jesus to be alive,

to breathe, to walk, to have a heart that beats,

but Jesus gives us the only reason to love our lives.

Jesus is not what makes our life

but what makes our life worth living.

Now a lot of the disciples had a problem with this.

In fact some of them got up and left Jesus, never to come back.

Jesus knew this was going to happen – in fact, he knew that the idea of snacking on him was a hard piece of knowledge to swallow.

He knew most folks would have to ruminate on it for a while. That’s why the other use of the word “trogo” means what a cow does to its cud – chew and chew and chew.

But if we keep Jesus always in our mouths,

we can be like Peter,

who says “yes Lord, we will stay with you –

because where else would we go?”

When you share the Good News this week

with someone who is ready to listen

tell them the Bread of Life does not sustain them

it improves them.

tell them that the reason to follow Jesus isn’t to live

but to love living.

tell them most of all that God loves them

and so do you.

Pray with me:

Creator God,

we thank you for the Gift of Jesus

which is not life

but the fulfillment of life

we pray that each day

we may live the life you gave us

knowing that Jesus

turns all sorrow

to joy.

Amen

Easter Message

The sermon for 4/12/2009 is available here.

Click to play / download.

Amen - and see you all this Sunday at 10:00.
--
Jeff

Sermon Notes: Getting It Wrong

Mark 16:8 “And the women went running from the monument, ecstatic and taken with trembling; but they said nothing to no one, for they were in awe.”

I Intro – fear and awe
A other translations use fear, Greek word closer to “in awe” or “amazed.”
1 Most bible scholars now view this as the end of Mark
B women weren’t afraid – were amazed at what they had seen
C in their amazement & enthusiasm, they forgot to do what they had been
told

II Getting It Wrong

A we live in awe of God
1: (Col 1:16) “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”
2: Not just us – (Ps 19:1) – “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands!”

B but we can’t understand God
1: (Cor 2:11) “No one knows the thoughts of God”
2: This is why Jesus teaches us the Lord’s prayer:
“Father . . . thy will be done.”
a which is the same prayer he prayed at Gethsemane
b Jesus, who had the best notion of what the Father was doing still had incomplete knowledge – and he wanted to get it right – so he prayed “Father, thy will – not mine – be done.”
3: but we aren’t Jesus and so we get it wrong.
a confounded by the voice of God
i Can’t understand it even when we hear it. (John 12:28-29) “ Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified [my name], and will glorify it again." 29The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.”
b go the wrong way
i Paul wandered through Asia to end up in Philippi, Abraham wandered around Canaan, and the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years

C difficult to accept, easy to understand in three different ways

1 God is in charge
a a teacher, a pencil-pusher, a carpenter may not understand or see what his or her individual contributions mean to the finished project – but must take it on faith that the work will
get done. If a carpenter were always acting like a foreman, checking up on everyone, the house would never get built, if the bookkeeper was spending all of her time in the sales rooms, the balance sheets would fall apart.
b but because our roles in God’s will are rarely as clear-cut as our roles for paying bills we get confused. We plan as if we knew God’s will, clinging to our plans even when it’s obvious God has something different in mind.
i but unlike an office worker, who can strike out on his own if he doesn’t like his boss, we don’t have any other options
c which is why Jesus taught us to pray “Father . . . thy will be done”

2 God is everywhere
a our hand doesn’t ask why must it hold this cup, our stomach doesn’t debate the merits of digestion, our cellular membranes don’t take a vote on using insulin instead of ATP to transfer glucose, our mitochondria don’t wish they were ribosomes, our carbon atoms don’t try take over oxygen’s job, the electrons whizzing around our protons and neutrons don’t stop to ask “what’s the brain up there doing?”, our quarks aren’t wracked with angst over getting older
i (neither should we concern ourselves with such things – Jesus specifically tells us not to worry, because God loves us more than the lilies and the birds)
b so we should be assured, that as the hands and cells and quarks of God, our existence is full of purpose and meaning: We are necessary, even if we can’t see or understand what’s going on.

3 God knows everything
a the best part of watching high-level chess is seeing someone think ten or twenty moves ahead – God thinks every move ahead.
i for those who don’t believe in free will, they see this as God having everything planned out for us. I prefer to think that God has just forseen the possibility of all of our choices and made plans accordingly – just like any master chess player.
ii so even when we misstep, God is there to take advantage of it.

III Making It Right

A What about those Marys that forgot to tell the disciples about God? Well, we find out in the other Gospels that they eventually remembered.
1 So why should Mark end his Gospel with such a forgetting?
a not a lost page, but an emphasis on how we get things wrong.
b why?
2 because Mark wanted to emphasize our greatest instance of “getting it wrong”: the crucifixion

B How did we go from celebrating Jesus to crucifying him?
1 because we didn’t understand
a we had God with us, but were mislead by our own desire i glory
ii problem-solving
iii power
b these are God’s desires, too – and what He wanted to give us but because we couldn’t understand what he was saying, we thought we were getting the short end of the stick – so we gave Jesus over to sticks and stones

C But God is the ultimate gamer – and can turn our wrongs into rights
1 instead of taking Jesus away from us, he gave Him right back in the resurrection
a and through Jesus gives us
i the light of His glory
ii an answer to all our problems
iii power through faith
2 so even if we forget to tall anyone about God because we’re struck dumb, He’s there to right our wrongs and loosen our tongues so we can try to talk to each other in a language we can understand.

IV Closing Prayer
Lord, help us to understand
that we will never get it right.
Help us to see
that we are a part of your plan.
Help us to let go
of everything that isn’t You.
Help us to embrace
the life of the risen Jesus
understanding that even in our worst wrong
you can create the greatest good.

Sermon Recording Available

The sermon for 3/22/2009 is available here.

Click to play / download.

Amen - and see you all next week at 10.
--
Jeff

Tithing Time

The sermon for 3/8/2009 is available here.

Click to play / download.

Amen - and see you all next week at 10.
--
Jeff

Sermon notes, 3/8/9 "Tithing Time!"

Tithing Time!

I: Introduction
A: Every first sermon should be about tithing
B: Or from the lectionary – but today is 1 great hour of sharing – still about tithing!
C: But we're not here to take your money; we're here so God can take your life.

II: Examples of Givers
A: local
1: Church mice
a: cleaners, inside and out
b: Sunday snacks
2: Musicians
3: Wednesday night study, Sunday school, Children’s Church

B: biblical
1: Zaccheus, Luke 19: 1-10
a: not just a short guy in a tree
b: gives his money and pays restitution to cleanse himself
c: giving as cleansing
2: Tabitha, called Dorcas, Acts 9:36-42
a: gave to the poor
b: so important she was recalled to life by Peter
c: giving as indispensable act – more important than life or death
3: Cornelius, Acts 10: 1-31
a: famous philanthropist
b: giving fame results in Peter coming to the Gentiles
c: giving as a binding and healing act
4: mirrors the giving of Jesus, cleansing, caring, binding – more important
than mere life and death

III: Giving is not just about money
A: Old Testament
1: Abram (soon to be Abraham) gives Lot his pick of the surrounding land in order to create peace – was rewarded by God with ALL the land Lot didn’t pick (Genesis 12)
a: I can think of some people today who might want to follow this
example, can you?

B: New Testament
1: Epaphras: shows up all over Paul’s letters as a companion wishing
everyone growth in Christ – even when imprisoned. He gives
up his freedom for Jesus and the chance to encourage and
shepherd believers. (Philemon, 23)
a: giving is the real freedom – the one that cannot be taken away

C: Jesus
1: Jesus says: How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and
honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others.
a: give but give more!
b: just like the offering doesn’t make the altar holy, nor the gold the temple – the gift does not make the giver holy. It’s the other way around – if you give in the right spirit – in the spirit and likeness of Christ, your gift will be good and holy. If you give like a Pharisee, for show or out of obligation, you might as well be giving dust.
2: Jesus’ ultimate gift was his life for ours, not financial stability – as we all
know now, that’s impossible – eternal life is what’s possible.

IV: Tithing as Time
A: Tithe is simply the Old English word for “tenth.”
1: current usage implies 1/10th of an annual salary given to the church
2: but let’s get Medieval. It originally meant 1/10th of someone’s production -- sheep, bread, songs – given for the use of God. That
giving of a part of ALL you have is where I want us to focus.

B: There are 24 hours in a day (DST)
1: we should give one tenth of that day to God (Sundays are already covered)
2: 2.4 hours or 144 minutes.
3: happily, 144 is divisibly by 3 – the number of the Trinity – so we can have an easy map of how we should give our time to God.
4: 48 minutes each for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – that’s the
same as 3 TV shows without commercials. And God is way more
important than American IDOL – get it, IDOL?

C: 48 minutes for the Father
1: The Father brought order to the chaos (Gen 1 – Awesome God) – to
what can you bring order?
a: do you know someone whose life is a mess?
b: do you see a part of the church that needs fixing?
2: The Father also is the original giver – he gave us life and eternal life
through Jesus – what can you give?
a: do you have something someone else needs more?
b: do you have something that gets between you and God?
c: do you have something you can give us for the Garage Sale?

D: 48 minutes for the Spirit
1: The Spirit teaches us, even things we’ve never tried to learn – tongues of
flame = new languages – what can you learn for the Lord?
a: a new language?
b: how other people live?
c: how to preach?
2: The Spirit also moves us – like popping Paul all over the Mediterranean or telling Peter to not see as unclean what God has declared clean – what can you move, how can you be inspired for the Lord?
a: a needed ministry?
b: helping someone get to a better place?

E: 48 minutes for Jesus
1: Jesus, as the Word, was the vessel for creation – what can you create for the Lord?
a: art, poetry, skits, songs?
b: new items needed by the church?
c: strong families?
d: strong communities?
2: Jesus not only was the vessel for creation, but the perfection of that creation through the ultimate gift – sacrifice. What can you give,
give up, and sacrifice for the Lord?
a: sin?
b: your stumbling blocks?
c: your fear and hate?
d: your money?
e: your time?

V: Closing prayer:
Lord, you have given us so much
and you ask for so little.
Move in us,
move through us,
that we may give what you and your world needs.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

October 19, 2008

Verse:

Matthew 14:13-21

When Jesus heard what had happened, He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.