You Are What You Eat

It is not only the act of ingesting certain molecules of bread and wine, it also includes all of the thanksgiving which surrounds it, the Bible readings and sermon which precedes it, and also the Holy Baptism which stands at the beginning of our life as Christians, which is today for young Mr. Gair.

This whole event of being together in worship today is working in us the change desired by the Lord Jesus.

We are what we eat.

We are the body of Christ, the Church.

It is not as though Baptism is weak and has to be propped up somehow.

The promise is secure and firm from God's side; once Jesus has made his promise, it will happen. “And God says... and it is so!”

The problem is on our side.

We need the constant reminders and encouragement.

We need to hear it again and again so that God's Word may work on us a bit more each time.

We are the ones of slim faith, not God.

We are the ones who pull away in wide-spreading directions, every chance that we get.

We are the ones who need to get straightened out again and again, not God.

This story of the wonderful feeding of the crowd by Jesus is the one story that is in all four Gospels, indeed it is told six times in the four Gospels!

From the very beginning, it was seen as a very important story.

It is a forerunner of the Holy Communion; the actions that Jesus use are the same actions at the Last Supper, and the same actions we do here at the Lord's Meal: take, bless, break, and share.

And there is more.

Yes, Jesus does the hard work, the creative work, but also he expects and demands that the disciples be involved as well.

When the disciples just want to dump the whole problem of food back on the hungry people, or on Jesus,

Jesus pushes it right back to the disciples:

“You feed them,” he says.

After he blesses the food, Jesus gives it to the disciples to distribute.

And when everyone has eaten, they are the ones to gather up the leftovers.

There is much for the disciples to do;

.....there is much for us to do.

Jesus cuts off their anguishing over the paucity of resources, makes it enough, and tells them to get a move on it.

Oh, yes, that is what he is still saying to us.

If we think that we should have further justification for being engaged in projects such as Family Promise,

we don't need to go searching for another text. This one will do quite nicely.

“You give them something to eat”, Jesus tells us,

“you take care of the feeding, and I'll take care of the multiplying, and you gather up the surplus so that nothing is wasted.”

He doesn't stand for whining or objections.

“Get going,” he enjoins us.

We are slowly gathering the 13 congregations that we need to get Family Promise underway.

It is slow work to convince congregations that Jesus means what he says, that his promise of “enough” is for real, and that our part is really assigned to us.

“Let...somebody else do it,” is all too often the spoken or unspoken reaction.

There were only 12 disciples and a huge crowd, ...and Jesus' command.

In my reading this week I came across a profound statement that ought to give us all pause.

“The church knows now that the disciples of Jesus cannot feed the hungry without sharing in the Eucharist,

nor can they share in the Eucharist without feeding the hungry.”

There are non-Christian people who do good things, but often they get tired and lose interest, and move on to something else, the cause of the month.

We have been commissioned by Holy Baptism for the long haul, an entire lifetime, just as Levi Gair is commissioned this day,

and we are strengthened at the Holy Communion and encouraged whenever we tire or falter.

And also, when we look around at the Communion rail, we see that not everyone in this community is here, and we cannot just let it go.

We must see that the invitation is extended to all who are willing to hear it.

And that invitation to come and to be fed by the Lord Jesus through his disciples is shared one person or one family at a time.

It is never done, never complete, until Jesus finally announces the end.

You are what you eat.

You are sharing, therefore , in the meal of restlessness, of incompleteness, until the full number is at the table.

We may think that we're receiving the food of Holy Communion only for our personal comfort, but no, there are the 12 baskets of surplus that still need to be shared.

Sometimes we need a bit of prodding from some other part of the church.

While we moan about high gasoline prices, it is the African churches that have little in the way of financial resources that are beginning to send out the missionaries.

While we have people in the West who are trying to twist the Bible into saying things that it manifestly does not say in order to excuse bad behavior, it is African churches that are holding to the plain meaning of the text and figuring out a way to celebrate God's gifts and to share them.

It is in the doing of the assigned tasks as well as in the sharing of the food that the faith of the disciples is stirred up.

It will be in the doing of the assigned tasks as well as sharing in the Holy Communion meal that our faith is shaped and strengthened as well.

“Ho, you who thirst, come to the waters,” Isaiah announces boldly.

“God opens wide his hand and satisfies the need of every living creature,” sings the Psalmist.

“The Father and the Son will make their home with those who believe in them,” Jesus reminds us in the Verse today.

“You are what you eat,” a wise person said.

Likely that person didn't realize what a powerful theological statement was being made.

Come, eat of Word and Sacrament today, and pray for,

look for,

give thanks,

anticipate,

and work for the changes

that will come about in our thoughts and words and actions this week. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.