Proper 13 The Bread of Life

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Blessing of Animals

Saturday August 3rd at 11:00 AM

in the Sanctuary

We'll celebrate our parish Feast of St. Mary on Sunday August 18th this year

Fr Plant's Gospel Commentary

The Collect

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament

1 Kings 19:4-8

Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

The Psalm

Psalm 34:1-8

Benedicam Dominum

1 I will bless the Lord at all times; *

his praise shall ever be in my mouth.

2 I will glory in the Lord; *

let the humble hear and rejoice.

3 Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; *

let us exalt his Name together.

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me *

and delivered me out of all my terror.

5 Look upon him and be radiant, *

and let not your faces be ashamed.

6 I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me *

and saved me from all my troubles.

7 The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him, *

and he will deliver them.

8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; *

happy are they who trust in him!

The Epistle

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

The Gospel

John 6:35, 41-51

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They 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’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Some Reflections

If we knew how to listen to God

If only we knew how to look at life

All life would become a sign

All of life would become a prayer.

-Michel Quiost

1918-1997

In my religious tradition, if there is leftover bread after communion, it is carefully placed in a ciborium ( a round cup with a cover) which in turn is placed within a tabernacle. The tabernacle is near the altar – in a wall maybe or carved into the reredos. If there is a tabernacle (or ark, sometimes it is called) in the church, a perpetual lamp is lit nearby. I remember this lamp from my childhood, a gentle glowing presence, a candle in a red glass cylinder hanging from the ceiling. Silent. Comforting.

The tabernacle evokes the tent of the presence far far back in our history when the children of Israel lived in the desert after escaping slavery in Egypt. The tabernacle was surrounded by a cloth fence, and a courtyard in which there was a golden laver and an altar for sacrifices. Inside, the tent had two sections – the larger contained an altar for incense, a candelabra, and a table for the showbread – an offering to God.

A veil separated the square inner room from the outer. Behind the veil was the Holy of Holies. Inside the Holy of Holies the Israelites kept the Ark of the Covenant which contained the tablets of the law given to Moses on Sinai, Aaron's rod which had once flowered with almond blossoms, and a jar of manna, to always remind them that God provided bread in the wilderness.

Centuries later, after the Israelites had conquered and settled in Canaan, King David, musing on his roof, (presumably his lovely neighbor was not bathing that day) thought: I live in a cedar palace – but the Holy One still lives in a tent. He sought advice from Nathan the Prophet. The Holy One was not pleased at the thought of a temple fixed in one place. Nevertheless David's son Solomon built a very fine temple (despoiling the remaining cedars of Lebanon).

The structure of the tabernacle, architecturally and symbolically in terms of degrees in which you could approach the divine, was the template for the Temple of Solomon and later, the Second Temple, built by Herod the Great. The destruction of the temple in 70 c.e.sent Jews and Christians alike into a diaspora where God again moved with the people. (The Ark of the Covenant had long disappeared when the first temple had been destroyed.)

When Jesus died, Mark tells us, the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. That image not only suggests grief, but a freedom – an unveiling – a letting out. Not that God was stuck in the Holy of Holies – but that in our minds, God dwelt there. (This is always a danger, isn't it?)

And this happened. Two people were walking to Emmaus. A stranger came and talked with them – about the scriptures - on the road. When they reached Emmaus, they urged the stranger to come inside, for evening was at hand. There, at table, the stranger took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. They recognized him. And he disappeared.

From then on, the community had to remember carefully and meditate upon what had happened at the last supper with Jesus.

In the franticness of church life, it is hard to slow down enough to remember the Holy of Holies. If I do not reverence the Divine with all my being, how then, can I partake of the Holy and carry the Divine within myself, and then bear it out again into the broken, dangerous, suffering world? And while I know the Temple veil is ultimately torn, if I do not embrace the sense of Presence in the sacred space, how will I recognize it in the hubbub of life outside?

Suzanne Guthrie, Episcopal Priest and writer

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