Pentecost 12, Year B (full size gallery)
A cloudy dreary Sunday though not too hot and more rain this week.
We had 21 in house and 10 online, almost a 50/50 split..
Today was a special Sunday – sending off of the Jamaican mission team. $3,000 raised earlier, countless School supplies purchased represents the organizing work of Andrea Pogue and 6 other people who want to be a part of this trip back to Andrea’s home town in Jamaica to distribute school supplies to over 300 children. In addition, church donations have covered the shipping of these supplies, the cost for customs and also enough money left over to contribute to the school for ongoing projects. We are looking forward to the team’s complete report upon their return and pictures along the way.
Here was the prayer presented today:
“O God, our heavenly Father, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel to Jamaica to do your work there this week; surround them with your loving care; protect them from every danger; and return them in safety when their work is done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
We had 3 sets of people that haven’t been here for awhile. TC and Jennifer Collins. She was the lector and it was birthday this week. Larry and Jan Saylor who have been entertaining grand children who live in Africa as well as Fred and Crystal with Tammy.
The sermon continued the discourse on the Gospel of John’s Bread of life and the communion experience which connects us all.
“When the fears and the doubts that life inevitably brings threaten to kill us, Jesus is life support for our faith. Jesus is the nutrition, the breath of life, and the blood transfusion that will save us, even when we doubt, even when we get angry with God, even when we are about to decide that we have no need of God after all.”
“To choose the practice of coming to God’s table, week after week, is to accept the fact that we need God’s life giving love, that we need the body and blood of Jesus to stay alive. Being present to receive this transfusion of love keeps us alive. ”
“And this love of God, constantly and consistently received, will bring us new life and new birth again and again, new life that ultimately stretches into eternity and brings us at last to eternal life. ”
Today’s readings continue the theme of God’s sustenance with the emphasis on the eternal consequences. In Proverbs Wisdom gives a feast to which all are invited. Paul encourages Christians to be filled with God’s Spirit. Jesus promises that all who eat his flesh will live forever.
Ephesians is short but it contains wise advice. 1 Make every minute count 2. Do not get drunk with wine 3 Become filled with the spirit through music 4. Understand the will of God and give thanks.
Both Proverbs and the Gospel give a nod to the Eucharist. In Proverbs 9:1-6 Wisdom is personified as a woman, inviting us to the table of wisdom, a banquet, where we are served bread and wine. “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Search for deeper meanings in life.
In the Gospel, "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them."
The Gospel reading from John 6:51-58 is a continuation of Jesus’ teachings on the Bread of Heaven, overlapping from the previous week. Once again, there is a literal interpretation by the hearers of Jesus’ words that cause misunderstandings.
This is one of the more difficult Sundays for preachers. This week is sometimes called "Cannibal Sunday" for the words used in the Gospel when Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you“
Why did Jesus try to shock the disciples ? After all the spilling of human blood was considered an outrage against God since blood was identified with life and was sacred since God is the source of life. Then there was eating the flesh. Eating flesh containing blood was prohibited in the Pentateuch. The penalty for doing so was expulsion from God’s people.
Jesus got their attention and wanted to take them beyond a literal interpretation.
“Flesh and blood” is a Semitic idiom for “the whole human person” (Matthew 16:17), thus the phrase may be taken to refer to the reception of the whole living Christ. Taken separately, however, each term had a strongly negative impact in Jewish thought.
To eat and to drink is to incorporate and assimilate Jesus and thus to abide in him. As Jesus shares in the life of the Father, so he gives to humankind God’s own life.
Communion is connection. We have our own individual experience with the Eucharist as we are doing it together. We bring our background, our hopes and dream, our sorrows – and yes our entire being into it – as we take in Christ’s essence.
By faith, we allow Christ’s life to penetrate our being and nourish our life. God’s own life comes to us through the elements of bread and wine, so that we may become vehicles of God’s supernatural grace.