The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

Speaking with Authority

Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28

During the season of Epiphany, we have been exploring the many ways and times that God calls us, not only on a personal level, but also as a Church, and as a nation. The readings this week continue the theme of call as they explore how God speaks to us through other people. They explore the whole concept of authority. How do we determine God’s truth? How do we determine who is speaking with integrity?

The question of authority was critical for the Hebrew people. Prophets and priests claimed to speak and act in accordance with God’s will, and yet conflicts and disputes arose. They grappled with how God speaks to us. Moses wanted the people to know that God did not speak through magic, but through discernment. They settled on three criteria. First of all, the prophet needed to be an Israelite. Secondly, he was called to speak as God commanded, and finally what was spoken had to be realized in the events that ensued. It needed to be confirmed. That is an important distinction when it comes to discerning authority. Prophecy is not about foretelling the future; it is about having insights, discernment into how God leads us.

I came to a new realization about what authority meant a number of years ago when I participated in a healing circle. I was the only non-aboriginal person in the group. We sat in the circle and when we wished to speak we picked up a stone from the centre of the circle and as long as we held the stone we could speak. Many people spoke of their past hurts and anger. I picked up the stone and found myself talking about my experience teaching in a residential school, about my sincerity and sense of mission in going to the north, and at my hurt and confusion and anger at the injustice of it all. I said that I expected that they would feel nothing but contempt and anger for me. I put the stone back. The Elder, an old woman, a survivor of the Residential School system, picked it up. She went back and sat in silence for some time. Then she let out a whoop and returned the stone to its place. Another woman picked up the stone and began to speak. She told me that the Elder spoke for all of them. They could hear the authenticity of what I spoke, that it came from the heart, and that I was their sister. It was an ‘aha’ moment for me as I realized that in that one rather primal yell they had recognized her authority.

I do not wish to oversimplify it, but we Anglicans rest our authority on a tripod of Scripture, tradition and reason. Our religious experience is described in Scripture. It is defined in our creeds and in theological study, but most importantly it is lived out in our lives. I have always held dear the idea that to hold Christian faith does not mean parking my brains at the door, but rather using all the tools of my faith to make a reasonable decision.

That becomes helpful when we look at ethical dilemmas such as the one faced by the Christians at Corinth. The people of Corinth, including the Christian community bought groceries in the little shops in the marketplace. Much of the meat was the produce of the local temples. The sacrificial animals and birds were sold. That presented an ethical dilemma for the Christians. Should they eat meat that had been dedicated to a pagan God? They tried to reason. Idols are not real. Nothing has happened to the meat. Just eat it! What difference could it possibly make? Paul gives them a reason to reconsider. If it is a stumbling block to someone, then your decision is a bad one. Ethical decisions should result in doing the loving thing. If your action causes someone to feel a sense of guilt, then you need to reconsider so that the person is not hurt by your decision. A good example might be in the use of alcohol. If I am with someone who is an alcoholic and I drink, then I may be contributing to that person’s problem. I would be better to refrain from drinking. Even though what I am doing is perfectly reasonable, I should limit my freedom for the better good. I should do the loving thing.

That reasoned faith becomes helpful as well with some of the ethical dilemmas that face us today, such things as gay marriage that have the potential of causing rifts in our communion. Our authority when it comes to ethical decisions must come from within. We cannot use Scripture as a proof text. That can be ambiguous because it means that our standards are determined in each situation by what we understand to be the most loving thing to do. It means we must be open to the promptings of the Spirit and the guidance of God. Our Church is learning to do that while being cognizant that other parts of the Communion may not be in the same place that we are.

Jesus was known as one who could speak with authority. Hearing him speak in the temple gave people an understanding of their potential, of the possibilities. He did not talk down to them. He treated them as friends and equals. He taught them to be realistic about themselves. He helped them to know that God had called them to greater things than they could imagine. His authority made them do what all authority should do. It helped them grow.

Sometimes the person who bears authority is misunderstood. It was so with Jesus. A demented heckler shrieked at Jesus at the top of his voice. Jesus confronted the situation. He healed the person.

This scene is not as foreign to us as it seems. It is played out in our modern world. Jesus was saying something new. New things are often exciting, but at the same time they can seem threatening. Those who bear the prophetic word, those who advocate change, are often rejected or even attacked for their beliefs. The person who embodies the new can be regarded as the enemy to be defeated at all costs. The attack on such people can become quite personal. It happened to Moses. It happened to Jesus. It happens in parishes when the congregation becomes convinced that the bringer of new things is out to destroy the life of the parish. Such attitudes need to be challenged, gently, kindly, but challenged just the same. A spirit of open communication is essential in living out our life as a church community.

Perhaps the most challenging and transforming call of Christ when it comes to authority is that we must learn to give up our own freedom and power for the sake of others. We church folk tend to hold on to power. We do not want things to change. After all, we are the ones who have supported the church with our wealth. Don’t we deserve to have the same liturgies that have sustained us through our own lives? We want the same hymns. We want to hear the same comfortable words. If they come to our church we want children to be seen but not heard. We want newcomers, but we want them to be just like us, upholding the traditions that we hold dear.

If we are truly following Christ and are committed to the Mission of the Church, if we wish to bear the prophetic word, if we wish to answer God’s call to bring healing, then we must be follow the authority of our Saviour who was the servant of all.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, Year B

Real Bread

Readings:
2 Samuel 18:1,5,9-15; Ephesians 4:25-5:2; John 6:35, 41-51

When I was growing up, my mother baked all the bread for our large family. Saturday morning was bread-making day, and I can remember the delicious odours that came from that kitchen. As children, we were not always very appreciative of mother's efforts. When Sunbeam came out with a big advertising campaign, we longed for that over processed white bread. I remember asking mother if we could please have some "real" bread for a change.

Later on, my sister and I became the bakers of the family bread. We baked enough, not only for the family to eat for the week, but enough to sell around the neighbourhood for spending money for ourselves. It did not matter how much bread we baked. We could always sell it. People valued it. They valued its nourishment. Bread became a significant factor in our lives. We got creative in trying new kinds of bread, buns and rolls, and then sweet breads that people were willing to pay much more for. It became a vocation for us.

There is an old Chinese saying that goes something like this. When you want to help feed people, don’t give them a fish; teach them how to fish. Anyone who has ever worked in a food bank knows the truth of that saying. If you offer only food, the line forms every day because people get hungry again.

Jesus took a few small loaves and some fish and fed a huge crowd of people. But they got hungry again. They kept coming back for more. Their expectation was that Jesus would keep giving them free bread. In reality he offered them far more. He offered them spiritual food. He explained to them that giving them bread and fish would not solve their problems. He asked them to make him and his way of living the “bread and butter” of their daily lives. Yet they could not accept it from him. They could not see beyond the Jesus they had grown up with. They saw the carpenter's son. They saw Mary's kid. They did not see what he had to offer them.

We too are offered that same spiritual bread. Jesus offers himself to us as bread from God, as grace for our lives, the bread of life. We are offered that choice. But there are many kinds of bread offered to us by the world that, while far from nourishing, are very tempting. They hold great promise. They promise wealth. They promise success. They promise an easy existence.

We live in a technological age, a secular age. Many of the choices that we are offered every day are far from life giving. Many choices are destructive to the world in which we live. They are destructive of people and of things, of relationships, of resources. I think of just a few of the life and death issues of our age, genetic manipulation, cloning, euthanasia, abortion. The list is endless. And the problem is that when it comes to ethical decisions there are no easy answers. Life is not black and white.

That came to me very clearly as I read a novel by Judi Foucault this summer. “My Sister’s Keeper” is the story of a girl who gets herself a lawyer so that she can stop being an organ donor for her sister who is suffering from leukemia. The story is told from many points of view and offers many choices of how to live. There is Anna, the girl who was conceived to be her sister’s donor. She wonders whether she is loved for herself or simply because she can keep her sister alive. There is the sister who is dying of leukemia who struggles with pain and suffering and sometimes wishes it would simply end. There are the parents who try to make decisions for all of their children. There is the brother who feels left out and neglected and who acts out his frustration. There is the lawyer that Anna hires to represent her who has his own problems. And at the end of the story you are still left with the dilemma of wondering who is right.

How does that connect to Jesus, the Bread of Life? He offers himself as the life of the world. Not our life only, but the life of all creation. He is our creator. He is our sustainer. God has chosen, through Christ, to be involved in our world. That is a choice that we too must make. For that choice is what makes atonement a possibility. That is what is offered to us in the Bread of Life passages of John's Gospel. Our responsibilities, our choices, are very real. We are offered a conscious choice to see the evidence of the risen Christ in the world around us. We need to see, not simply Jesus, Joe’s son; we need to see Christ. To be, as Paul says, "imitators of God", to emulate Jesus, to follow him, to demonstrate God's love to others through the way we speak and act, through the company we keep, through our ethical choices, through everything we do.

Is it possible to be united with Christ through baptism, to confess our sins and receive absolution, to go through the motions of worship, but still fail to comprehend what it really means to believe in Jesus Christ? God has given us grace. But it is a two way street. I remember something that Corrie Ten Boom said in a talk that has stayed with me throughout the years. “God has no grandchildren,” she said. “God only has children.” And that is a choice we must make for ourselves. We must choose to be children. We must choose to be beloved of God. We must hear the word. We must accept it for ourselves. We must feed on the bread of life. We must appropriate it for ourselves and consciously accept God into our lives. Take God into the centre of our being. Become one with him through Christ. In that way, his life becomes our life. His love becomes our love. His purpose becomes our purpose. His goal becomes our goal. We are redeemed. We communicate his love and become broken bread to those around us.

We should “eat” him. Think what kind of a world we would live in if we accepted Jesus’ lifestyle and adopted it as our own. No child would ever die of hunger. No senior citizen would be lonely. AIDS would be wiped out, because we would not be hoarding needed drugs out of greed. We would be using good stewardship of the resources of the world. We would be attentive to one another, using the gifts that God has given to us. We would be serving at the table of the world.

Every time we say the Lord's Prayer, we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." Are we like the crowds that followed Jesus? Are we asking for a free meal? Are we asking merely to have our material needs met? Or are we asking to be fed, to be nurtured spiritually by the true bread, Jesus Christ? Perhaps we simply rattle it off, not even conscious of what we are praying.

What if, for this week, we tried to take those words and let them speak to us of our human condition? Every day this week pray the Lord’s Prayer. Really pray, thinking about what it would mean to a hungry world to be fed those words of life. Think about it. We would die but not remain dead, because we would have eaten the bread of life. We would be like Jesus was, is and will be forever.

That is the Christian message. It speaks about sin and salvation, about death and life, about dying to sin and coming alive to God, about creation and redemption. What God has done in Christ affects not only us, but also the whole of creation. It is a call to renewal, to work with God discerning God's presence. It is about doing God's will, so that we can be transformers in society.

What happens in the Eucharist happens on behalf of the whole world. The bread set before us brings the starving into our presence. It brings the joyless, the sick the suffering. For it is a reminder that what we hold, we do so in trust for all. So let us break bread together. Let us eat. Let us be bread for a broken world. Amen.