SCRIPTURE: John 6:35, 41-51
TEXT: 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” THEME: Imagine what more God is doing. INTRODUCTION When we partake of communion, we are eating what we believe. The food, textures, taste, smells of this common meal, shared in faith, from God’s love and Christ’s life. Eating means internalizing our belief and how our lives are fueled by God. This ancient meal is foundational to our understanding of who God is; as hearer the cries of God’s enslaved people, and loving in initiating a plan of liberation. Jesus builds upon this Passover meal to feed 5,000, reminding us of how our relationship with God, bolstered with daily manna, protection, provision and deliverance. These slaves in the wilderness are formed into God’s people. Jesus uses these foods to reveal God’s welcoming love and embracing community that span the ages. These foods are reminders of covenantal values of faith, formational commitments and the community Jesus builds with greater vision and purpose for our relationship with God. SCRIPTURE A prophet is without honor in his hometown is retold by John in this passage. This shows what happens when we lack theological imagination. The super powers of the world were in a colonization raced of indigenous people. Missionary activity followed conquering colonizing activity, showing that the God of the conqueror was more powerful than the territorial gods causing a breakdown in tribal belief systems. But as with any dynasty, they rise, peak, and cycle down. Theological systems become stuck in time as new believers are left to preserve, as best they can, what they have been converted too. The faithful become guardians of the faith, gate keepers, line monitors, rather than catalyst for an evolving, inspiring life. Religion becomes legalistic, self-righteous, critical, with worship services a setting for a balance of crime and sacrifice, law and justice, sin and forgiveness or theological debates, rather than opportunities to offer praises to the glory of God. Jesus comes in and rattles their theological cages. “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” Instead of imagination, he triggers their knee jerk response of complaint. This is the radical part of Jesus’ ministry as he draws them into a relationship with God instead of maintaining a moral balance that would qualify them for Eternal Life. Innovation or legalism, Creativity or regulation, Imagination or restrictiveness, freedom or slavery, relationship or acquaintances. Remember the formational manna of the wilderness that hand fed a people into dependence upon God and formed a faith, a trust, a love, and a relationship as a people. Manna does not keep this people together with only a spiritual memory, but upon a community built as God’s people. This is the foundation we can built upon to be formed today, and that life is being fed to us by God and served by Jesus. APPLICATION When we don’t have to worry about what to eat or what to drink, we can get on to living what is really important. What are the important things that we can do with our lives, with career, with family, with ourselves for God? How can God help us make sure, we are giving ‘the important’ the attention it needs? How does this begin to define our relationship with God? What do we need to be freed from in order to have our imagination set free to conceive as possible and new? We don’t know what ‘manna’ is. Manna means “what is it” in Hebrew. One theory, in explaining what ‘manna’ is, is that it is a protein rich excrement left by a wilderness insect. Eww, Does God have an imagination or what? When my doctor told me that my body does not process carbohydrates and to go on a ‘no carb’, ‘intermittent fasting’ diet. Avocados became my new rice. Who knew? Then when my source of avocados froze up, I discovered a Keto recipe for a carb free Avocado Smoothie that could turn frozen avocados palatable. How wild is that? The public opinion of our building project is very important and could shut us down. We have been thinking about what to say and how to tell our neighbors. I began to do a simple mapping of how to do this and came up with our just sharing with our neighbors, with people that we know, and letting them know what we are intending to do, and record what their feelings are about our project. We don’t have to talk to strangers, just to our family, friends and acquaintances at first. I imagine, this won’t be as hard or scary as I thought. Then they could talk to people that they know. Can we imagine something new on the Mission Ground? Can we imagine the church being done another way than how we have always done it? Like sponsoring a youth camp ministry but require their leaders to take a few CTEL courses to expand their theological out look? Or in additional scholarships single parents for infant toddler care? What kind of church thinks about a single parent, who needs to go to work, but needs a safe place, affordable infant toddler care? Is that a responsible church thing to do? It’s like God using us to serve manna. We lived adaptive lives this year, that took a lot of imagination to do. God helped us to think outside of the box with communion, with worship, with what if means to visit our neighbors. Let’s not stop imagining. We still have to with the Delta variant being so contagious. Imagine the worship God wants us to invent. Imagine Wailuku Union Church in many incarnations. The Olympics this year, without its audience, showed us a different picture of the world, while competitors, were not spurred on only by national pride, but by each other, as athletes accomplishing amazing feats as competitors, as fellow human beings, not as enemies, but as part of a peaceful world, that can have fun, that can accomplish great things when we have a gracious host. There were smiles from the Japanese Women’ basketball team after their lost to the United States, they were so happy at what they accomplished. We competed hard, we did our best, we enjoyed each other, and were happy with what we have done and with each other. The two high jump winners could have had another round to determine a winner, but they agreed to share the gold medal honors in an exuberant embrace. CONCLUSION 5,000 people on the hill side, just before the Passover, being served bread and fish. A meal at the beginning of something new. Liberation, freedom, nearness with God, formation into the people of God. Manna, daily Bread. Imagine the kind of life we can live because of the sacrifices made. Live giving attention, to what is really important. We complain about things that are not done the same way, but God could be using this foundation, to build something new.
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