Month: August 2024

Dress Code

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

Ephesians 6:10-20 NRSV

A few years ago, I had a conversation with my sister who was teaching in a public school in Winston-Salem. She shared with me how her school went through a radical transformation under the leadership of a new principal. She said that discipline problems decreased, attendance increased, and grades improved. he entire school was transformed.

“What happened? What did this new principal do?” I asked.

“I would have to say that it is the uniforms,” she answered.

“The uniforms?” I asked.

“Yes, it was amazing.  The students started acting like students. They actually started listening, behaving, learning. The kids love their uniforms!”

“Is that all there is to it?”  I thought to myself, “Dress like a student, and bam, you’ll be a good student!?”

On the surface, our scripture lesson’s admonition to get all dressed up for Jesus sounds rather superficial. Is that all it involves?

Do you want to be a police officer? Then go out, get a police uniform, put it on, and, bam, you will be one!

Want to be a doctor? Then go out and get a long white jacket and a stethoscope, put it on, and, bam, you’ll be one!

Want to be a Christian? Then get up on Sunday morning, and put on the right clothes, attend a Sunday School class, participate in worship—read the responsive reading, bow your head and close your eyes during the prayers, open your hymnals and sing with the organ, listen to the sermon, eat the bread, drink from the cup, pass the peace, and bam, one day you’re a Christian!

That can’t be right. Can it?

Surely being a Christian is more than simply putting on “the whole armor of God?”  But this is not the only place that Paul talks about getting dressed up for God. In Romans 13 we read Paul saying that we ought to “put on Christ.” In Galatians 3 we read Paul saying we should be “clothed with Christ.” Is that all there is to it?

John Wesley once said to his preachers, “Preach faith until you have it.” Wesley was inferring that maybe in order to have faith, we must first act like we have it.

Maybe we too make the mistake in thinking that the Christian faith is only something that is deep within, on the inside. But maybe faith is also something that is without, on the outside.

As a pastor, the excuse I hear the most from people who do not attend church is that church folks are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Many of them say that the reason they do not identify with organized religion, is because the Christians they know do not seem to be following the Jesus they know.

Then that is when I used to explain that the Christian faith is much more than external actions. It is also a matter of the heart, the mind, something that happens in the depths of the soul. Christians are not perfect. They are just forgiven, as the bumper sticker defends us.

But over the course of my ministry, I have learned that these critics have a good point. Maybe the Christian faith is more external than it is internal: a set of practices, a way of life, and even some predictable motions that we go through on Sunday mornings, regardless of our inner disposition. Maybe what we feel, and understand, and even believe on the inside is not as important as what we do on the outside. Perhaps we have to sometimes act our way into believing, before we can believe. Perhaps we have to do faith, before we can have faith.

Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that we have to earn salvation or God’s love. I believe in grace. I believe salvation is a gift that comes from God and not from our good works. Thus, when I speak about doing faith to have faith, I am talking about our faith in God, our love for God, our service to God, not God’s faith in us or God’s love for us.

I think it needs to be pointed out that Jesus never says anywhere, anything remotely close to: “Close your eyes and think real deeply about me until you come to that self-awareness whereby you believe in me.”

As I mentioned last Sunday, at the end of his sermon on the mount, Jesus did not say, “hear these words, meditate on these words, study and believe in these words.” No, Jesus said, “Do these words.”

When the rich young ruler asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus tells a story about picking up a stranger who was beaten, robbed and left bleeding on the side of the road. He told a story about bandaging wounds and paying for healthcare. And then, what did Jesus say?  “Believe in this story.” Have faith in this story.” No Jesus said: Go and do this story.

Disciples, do you want to have faith?

Then Jesus says, “Follow me.” Put one foot in front of the other. They don’t have to be big steps. And they don’t have to be perfect steps. Stumble after me. They don’t even have to be steps. Crawl if you must. Do whatever you can to imitate me. Try to move and live as I move and live. Act like you are a disciple. Make believe that others, even strangers, are your siblings. Act like you love them more than yourself. Even if you don’t feel like it, always do unto others as you would have it done unto you. No matter how painful it may be, or how little sense it makes, give some of yourself away every day. Forgive as you have been forgiven. And eventually, by the grace of God, it will come to you.

The Apostle Paul never says, “Believe deep within your heart that Jesus is Lord and you will be saved.” Instead, he says, “Profess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.” “Go tell someone. Tell everyone. Show everyone. Act like you are a follower of Christ, and you will be saved.”

Therefore, when someone comes forward to profess Christ as Lord and to be baptized, perhaps I should have never asked questions like, “Do you believe deep within your heart and do you understand with your mind that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, your Lord, your savior?

Maybe I should have always said: “You want to be a Christian?  Then go out and tell somebody that you are a Christian. Demonstrate to someone that the way of love that Jesus taught his disciples is the way you have to love. Invite at least one person to church next week. Give generously and sacrificially of your income through the church. Volunteer to serve on a ministry team. Join the choir. Make it a priority to attend a Sunday School class. Visit someone who is sick. Feed someone who is hungry.  Do something for someone who is poor. Defend someone who is marginalized. Stand up for someone being bullied. When you hear someone denigrating immigrants, do something, say something. Put on Christ. Wear the shoes of Jesus every day of the week, not until you get Christ, but until Christ gets in you.”

When someone in trouble comes to me and says, “I just don’t know how God is going to get me through this. Deep down, I know I really don’t have the faith I need to make it.”

Maybe I need to say: “Just act like you have it. Try to believe it. Even if your believing is weak, even if it is shallow, even if it is just pretend, pretend that you are going to make it. Crawl out of bed, get dressed, walk tall, keep your head up, act like you’re going to survive, and somehow, someway, you will. Because, before you know it, the Holy Spirit of God will be in you and living through you.

Coming out of seminary, nearly every pastor I know experiences what is called “imposter syndrome.” I know I had a terrible case of it. I just didn’t think I had what it took to be a preacher. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t faithful enough, and I certainly wasn’t religious or even spiritual enough. I remember serving my first church feeling like I was mostly play-acting, playing the part of a preacher. I spent the first year just going through the motions leading worship, visiting the sick and the homebound, preaching funerals and officiating weddings. I must have been a pretty good actor, because at the end of the year, the church voted to raise my salary. That’s when it started occurring to me: “maybe I really am a preacher.” Perhaps it’s the same way with being a Christian.

Somebody criticizes the church by saying, “Oh, those folks are just playing church.” Have you ever heard that? But maybe to truly be the church, we must first play church. To be the body of Christ in this world, we must first act like his body. We must go to the places that Jesus went. See the people Jesus saw. Do the things that Jesus did. Forgive as Jesus forgave. Love as Jesus loved. Give ourselves away as Jesus gave himself away.

Thus, Paul tells the Christians in Ephesus: Don’t go out in this world poorly dressed. If you want to play football, put on a helmet and start practicing. If you are going to play softball, get a good glove and start practicing. And if you are going to be a disciple, put on Christ and start practicing. Put on faith. Put on grace. Put on mercy, and put on justice. Dress up in love. Wear compassion. Don yourself with forgiveness. Clothe yourselves with good purposes. Adorn yourself with selflessness. Wrap the promises of God around you and practice.

Worship, even if you are not in to it. Read the Bible, even if you don’t understand it. Sing the hymns, even when you don’t feel like it. Pray, even when you don’t believe in it. Give, even when you’d rather hold on to it. Listen to a sermon, even when you’d rather ignore it. Take communion, even if you don’t want it. Serve, even when you are tired of it. Make a commitment, even if you are afraid of it. Believe, even if you doubt it.

Then, having dressed for the faith, go out and share it, live it, do it, and be it. Put on the whole armor of God, and before you know it, by the grace of God, you will become that which you profess.[i]

[i] Thank you William Willimon for this sermon title, thoughts and interpretation of Ephesians 6:10-20.  Pulpit Resource, Logos Productions, 2006.

A Living Poem

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment
“Love was Linda’s native language.” – Bryan Cox

John 6:51-58 NRSV

When I think about the state of Christianity in America today, what saddens me the most is the failure of Christians to follow Jesus, to actually do the things that he commanded us to do, to live the way of life and love that he modeled—

Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. Giving generously to the poor. Showing hospitality to the stranger. Welcoming the foreigner. Accepting the outsider. Providing healthcare for all. Feeding the hungry. Liberating the oppressed. Forgiving debts. Worrying less about the speck in another’s eye and worrying more about log in our own eye.

Do you remember his harsh words of warning at the end of Jesus’ first sermon?

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall….  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! (Matthew 7:24-27)

Jesus is a teacher who teaches not only though ideas, stories, and metaphors, but also through a living, active example. He teaches us to not merely think about God, believe in God, and worship God, but to actively serve God by serving others—selflessly and sacrificially. Jesus teaches us to live God.

This morning’s scripture lesson is the closest account in John’s gospel of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Through rich, metaphorical, and poetic language, I believe John drives this point home. A life of faith is an active life of selfless, sacrificial service. And this is true life—life that is full, meaningful and eternal.

There is perhaps no story in the Bible which underscores this high calling better than the beautiful story of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus encounters a lawyer who asks a very important question, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds:

A man traveling down a road encounters a band of thieves who rob and beat him and leave him half-dead on the side of the road.  After two religious leaders passed the man by on the other side, a Samaritan came by and was moved with pity.

He went over to the man.  He took very expensive oil and wine, poured it on the man’s wounds, and wrapped them up in bandages. Then he picked the man up. He placed the man on his own animal. He brought the man to an inn took good care of him throughout the entire night. The next day, he reached into his pocket and took out some money which equaled two days’ wages. He gave the money to the innkeeper and said, “Take care of him, and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Then Jesus tells the lawyer: “If you want to inherit eternal life, if you want to experience life that is full, lasting and meaningful, “Go and do likewise.”

I love that the Greek word translated “do” here is poiei.  Jesus says to “go and poiei.”  I love it, because this word poiei is related to our English word, “poetry.”

Poetry is something that that has been fashioned, beautifully made, by human creativity. A poem is created with words. It is something “done” with words that has a deep, meaningful, and lasting meaning.

To experience life that is full, meaningful, and eternal, Jesus said, we “must go and poiei” like this Samaritan. Our lives must become poetry. We must fashion our lives in such a way that the way we live, love and work, all that we do is like poetry, a beautiful hymn of praise to God— a poem that lifts up the fallen, pours expensive oil on their wounds, bandages their hurts, gets them more help if needed, and forgives their debts. If we want to experience life that endures forever, then we must live a beautiful poem of selflessness and sacrifice.

One of the most beautiful poems of Jesus’ selfless love occurs later in John’s gospel as Jesus washes the feet of the disciples.

In what is perhaps best be described as poetry in motion, (go back and read it, paying attention each action) getting up from the table, taking off his outer robe, tying a towel a towel around himself, pouring water into a basin, washing the disciples’ feet, wiping them with the towel that was tied around him. And afterwards Jesus says:

“I have set you an example, that you should also “do” (I hear poiei) as I have poieied to you…If you know these things, you are blessed if you poiei them.

I believe Jesus calls us to become poetry in motion by figuratively and literally getting up, taking off our jackets, rolling up our sleeves, pouring ourselves out, bending ourselves to the ground to touch the places in people that most need cleansing.

Of course, we remember Jesus says something very similar after the last supper when he said: Do this in remembrance of me.” As he breaks the bread and pours the wine, Jesus says remember me by doing, again, I hear, poiei-ing. Remember me by being poetry. Remember me by being a beautiful hymn of praise to God.

An interesting aspect of communion is that the partaking of this meal is one of the most active things we do in worship.

In the worship services of some churches, you could sleep during the entire service if you wanted to. But you can’t do that here, not here in our services where we participate in the very active Lord’s Supper every Sunday. You might be able to take a nap during the sermon, but everybody’s gotta wake up to do communion!

To worship around this table every Sunday, we need to be active. And it is through our active participation around this table, I believe Jesus reminds us that that we have been called to a very active service.

Jesus is calling us to remember him, not by merely thinking about his body given for us, but to remember him by doing, poei-ing, giving our own bodies—by living selflessly for others. Jesus is calling us to remember him not by merely thinking about his life poured out, but to remember him by selflessly pouring ourselves out—by living sacrificially for others.

Contrast that with the way of life and leadership that many Christians support today—a self-interested, self-serving way which has brought to life the “distressing” portrait of the world described in Paul’s second letter to Timothy: a world where someone is idolized for being a…

…lover of himself, a lover of money, a boaster, arrogant, abusive…ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, implacable, slanderer… a brute, a hater of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, a lover of pleasure rather than a lover of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Oh, how we are going to miss Linda Cox’s faithful leadership behind this table where she offered Communion prayers from her heart like none other. But it is not her service at the table that is going to be as missed as much as her selfless, sacrificial service out in this community. Her husband Bryan, a professional linguist, said, “love was Linda’s native language.” Isn’t that beautiful?  The Holy Communion she served from this table was but a rich, poetic metaphor for her life, as Linda’s life itself was poetry in motion, a beautiful hymn to God.

Through her career as a school teacher to underprivileged children in Washington DC, through her service as a public school teacher here in Lynchburg, through her volunteerism at Virginia Baptist Hospital, through the pastoral care Linda provided to this congregation, and to anyone in need, and through the way she made all of us feel loved and welcomed, whether this was our first time in this sanctuary or our thousandth time here, Linda was a reminder that through the meal shared at this table, Jesus says to us: Don’t just remember me, my love and my grace, everything that I have taught you in your thoughts and prayers. But poiei this.

Remember me by poiei-ing everything that I have taught you to poiei.

Remember me by being poetry in motion.

Remember me by loving and extending grace to others.

Remember me by serving God by serving others selflessly and sacrificially.

Remember me not just with the singing of hymns, but by becoming a beautiful hymn to God.

Remember me by loving others in ways that have a deep and lasting meaning.

Remember me with beautiful actions of mercy and kindness.

Remember me by offering the outcast community.

Remember me by never judging another.

Remember me by giving to the poor, healing the sick and feeding the hungry.

Remember me by creating a sanctuary where all are welcomed and no one is judged, a table where even those who betray me, deny me and abandon me are always welcomed to return to be enveloped by grace.

And then experience the fullness of life—life that is full, abundant, meaningful, lasting, and eternal.  Amen.

Hanging Between Heaven and Earth is

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 NRSV

John 6:35, 41-51 NRSV

How many times have you been the object of misdirected grief and frustration? Maybe it came from a loved one, a close friend or perhaps a spouse. Out of nowhere they snap at you with this unprovoked ferocity to which you quizzically respond: “Why are you yelling at me?” “What on earth did I do?”  To which they respond: “I am not mad at you. You just happen to be the only one in the room.”

Perhaps we have all been the victim of such misdirected grief. And perhaps all of us have expressed such misdirected grief and frustration. We’ve given it to our spouses. We’ve given it to our children. We’ve given it to our friends. We may have even given it to total strangers.

And then there are those times when we are so filled with pain and grief that our screams of pain are completely undirected. There are some experiences in this broken world which are so painful and so dreadful they cause us to scream out whenever, wherever, to whomever or whatever. Sometimes our screams are loud reverberations. And sometimes our screams are silent aches. They are the unavoidable, gut-wrenching responses to the frequent tragedies of life.

Sometimes it happens after a bitter argument with a loved one. It may occur after receiving a grim diagnosis. It could happen after a serious injury or during a prolonged illness. It might happen after visiting a loved one in the nursing home, or in the doctor’s office, or an ICU waiting room.

It could happen while listening to the outrageous lies from a presidential candidate during a press conference. Or listening to bigotry, racism and misogyny that sounds more like is coming from 1924 than 2024. Or when a white supremacist compares himself to Martin Luther King Jr.

And sometimes it just happens out of nowhere. We scream out in grief, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently—a scream of shock and disbelief, a scream of anger and frustration, a scream of anxiety and fear, a scream of bitterness and hopelessness. We scream out whenever, wherever, to whomever and whatever.

So, perhaps we can empathetically relate to the undirected and undeveloped cries of King David. When David learned that his son Absalom had been found slain, his body in a tree (and I love the way this is worded on our text) “hanging between heaven and earth,” David painfully and relentlessly laments aloud to no one in particular. Later we read in verse 33: “The king was deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, he said, ‘O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”

The cries of David are like our cries when we have been overwhelmed with profound grief. They are fearful cries oftentimes addressed to the wind. They are angry cries. And they are hopeless cries.  They are cries of utter despair. Walter Brueggemann calls the words of David “unformed, pathos-filled grief…addressed to no one in particular, surely not to the God of hope.”[1]

Like his son Absalom, David himself was hanging somewhere between heaven and earth.

David was not addressing God, as, at the time, he was probably questioning the very existence of God. He cried out like I suspect most parents would, whenever, wherever and to whomever.  His cries were undirected and undeveloped.

And yet, I do not believe his cries were unheard. One of the greatest lies I hear from some evangelicals that is that God only hears the prayers of Christians.

Let me call your attention to a wonderful passage of scripture found in the second chapter of Exodus. We read that the Israelites in Egypt groaned under their slavery. The scripture tells us that they groaned and cried out.  Much like King David, their cries of grief and frustration and despair were undirected and unformed. Yet, we read that “out of their slavery, their cry for help rose up to God. God heard their groaning. God looked upon them and God took notice of them” (Exodus 2:24).

The cries of the Israelites, the cries of David and the cries of you and the cries of me may be undirected but they are never unheard. Our cries may be undeveloped groanings, but they are always understood.

The good news is that although David’s “primal scream” addressed into the wind is initially one of desperate despair, it can be interpreted as the first step to hope. God hears our undirected and undeveloped cries.  God hears our loud reverberating cries and our silent aching cries. God sees us when we are hanging somewhere between heaven and earth. Although we may not address heaven, although we may doubt the very existence of heaven, heaven sees us and heaven hears us and heaven takes notice of us.

The wonderful truth is that God hears our pain. As Paul Duke has said, we can “pray our pain.”[2]  Isn’t that wonderful?  We can pray our pain.  In fact, I believe our pain might be our best prayers in that they are probably our most honest prayers. Our most disjointed and incoherent groans into the wind may be our most articulate and eloquent prayers to the God of hope. The good news is that some of our best communication to God, some of our best talks with our creator may be what Fred Craddock calls “praying through clenched teeth.”[3]

Dr. Ernie White, one of my seminary professors who was stricken with cancer while I was a student, shaped my theology when one day he told the class, that although he could not explain it, somehow, someway, the sicker he got, the more pain he experienced, the more hopeful he became. He said that it was in his weakest moments when he felt the closest to God.

The Psalmist proclaims: “When we cry out from the depths, the Lord hears our voices. Let us wait for the Lord, and hope in God’s word” (Psalm 130).

Hanging between heaven and earth, crying out from the depths whenever, wherever, and to whomever, God hears us. And if we will wait for the Lord, I believe we will hear wonderful words of life and hope. As the psalmist proclaims, we will know a steadfast love which has great power to redeem.

Hanging between heaven and earth, Jesus to say to us:

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry…  I am the bread that came down from heaven.”  “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate 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.

God, the holy Creator of all that is, is even now lovingly emptying God’s self and pouring God’s self out for us. Revealing to us that God is here with us, not away from us; God is here for us and not against us.  God is here meeting us in the depths of our pain, offering us the very best gift God has to offer, the gift of God’s holy self.

God is working in this fragmented world recreating and resurrecting, working all things together for the good, doing all that God can do to “wring whatever good can be wrung out” of the tragedies of life.[4]  Although we can never go back before the injury, before the illness, before the diagnosis, before the argument, before our job was lost, before our relationship ended, although we cannot go back to the good old days, we can go forward with God into good new days.

Although our screams may be undirected, they are never unheard. Although our cries may be undeveloped, they are divinely and empathetically understood.  We can pray our pain.  And if we wait and hold on somewhere between heaven and earth, God, the bread of life, comes down to meet us in our pain and to envelope us with God’s steadfast love which has the power to redeem our deepest despair into our highest hope.

We will then be compelled to share this hope. For we each know someone who is even now hanging somewhere between heaven and earth—hanging and crying out aimlessly and hopelessly.

They may be a member of this congregation: awaiting test results that are a matter of life and death; dropping of their child off at a university far away from home, sitting alone grieving the loss of their loved one. They may be a family member, a neighbor or a co-worker, facing the most difficult days of their lives.

The cries come from parents of school children in Gaza crying out in the grief after losing their children to indiscriminate bombs. They come from parents in Israel who still have no word from their kidnapped loved ones. They come from our southern border, from asylum seekers, many who are LGBTQ, seeking a life free of violence and oppression. They come from hospitals in states where women are denied healthcare. They come from people right in here in Lynchburg who are denied a living wage by their employers. They come from parents of children going back to a school where their child bullied by students and the administration. They come from cities and communities who have experienced devastating flooding, gun violence, and polluted drinking water.

We need to demonstrate with our steadfast love, with our words and our deeds, with our voices and our votes that God hears them, and God loves them. Although at the time it may be difficult for them to believe that God even exists, God hears them and God understands. We are being called to wrap our arms around them and feed them bread—bread not to merely get them by until their next meal, but bread from heaven which has about it what New Testament Scholar Charles Cousar calls “the tang of eternity.”[5]  With all that we are and all that we have, we are called to empty ourselves, pour ourselves out to feed them the bread of hope which satisfies now and forevermore.

[1]Walter Brueggeman, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly Gaventa, James D. Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year B. (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993) 460.

[2]Paul Duke, “First Prayer from the Ashes” Review and Expositor 4 (1992): 618.

[3]“Praying Through Clenched Teeth” is the title of a sermon by Fred B. Craddock included in The Twentieth Century Pulpit, Vol. 2, ed. James W. Cox (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981) 47-52.

[4]This quotation is from sermons by John Claypool that I have been privileged to hear at various conferences.

[5]Brueggeman, Cousar, Gaventa, and Newsome. Texts for Preaching, 463.

The Bread of Eternal Life

On By Rev. Dr. Jarrett BanksIn Sermons Year BLeave a comment

John 6:24-35 NRSV

Today marks my one-year anniversary as the Senior Minister of this church, and I thank God for the honor and the privilege of serving alongside you.

There are many reasons for which I am grateful, but as someone who led a feeding ministry for three and half years in New Orleans before moving to Virginia, this morning I want to talk about the Christ-like way we have made addressing food insecurity. It was one year ago yesterday that I met some of you at the Park View Community Mission to feed our hungry neighbors with a beautiful spirit of grace and generosity.

I love that you understand that feeding people who are hungry is continuing the mission of Jesus in this world. And feeding hungry people, generously and graciously, with no conditions or strings attached, is following the particular way of Jesus.

It would take all afternoon to tell you stories from my ministry about how Christians have failed to grasp this great gospel truth—stories of people and organizations who have demonstrated a misinterpretation our gospel lesson this morning.

As I have shared with you before, as we fed people in the greater New Orleans area each week, we were continually criticized by other Christians. They would say something like: “Pastor, I love the way you feed people, but people need more than the bread that perishes. They need the bread that will give them eternal life. They need the living bread. They need Jesus.”

This is the theology behind many Christian service organizations today that I believe is doing great harm to others, that is causing religious trauma, all in the name of Christ.

“You need food? You need shelter? Well, we’ll give you a hot meal and a warm bed. But first, you need to attend a Bible study or listen to a sermon, or allow me to me pray with you.”

I know of one ministry to the homeless in another state that provides a program to help people back on their feet. They will work with you, feed you, clothe you, help you find a job, as long as you turn in a Sunday worship bulletin from a list of approved churches in town.

Because they say that feeding people only something to tie them over until their next meal is not enough. They say they must offer them something which has eternal consequences. They must offer them Jesus. They must do more than feed their stomachs. They must feed their souls.

However, when we look at the context of our gospel lesson, we see that Jesus had just fed the multitude with absolutely no strings attached.  And we have enough biblical acumen to know that Jesus never once said, “Feed the hungry, if…” or “Feed the hungry, but…” His command and his example was always: “Feed the hungry, period!”

And in addition to being antithetical to the way of love that Jesus taught and embodied and to being a gross misinterpretation of scripture, we have enough common sense, decency, and humanity to know that using food or any of the basic necessities of life to manipulate people to accept the Christian faith, or any faith, is just pain gross.

And we know that whenever Jesus encountered hunger, whether the hunger be for food, water, peace, safety, health care, wholeness, grace or love, Jesus was always moved by the hunger. His own stomach ached from the hunger. Bs heart burned, and he always did all he could do to alleviate the hunger. He always preached against the systems of injustice which created the hunger in the first place.

This is why I am so grateful for this church. Because as wonderful as it is showing up at Park View once a month or volunteering with Meals on Wheels, or purchasing food to stock a little food pantry, for this congregation, you also believe it is not enough. And by believing it is “not enough,” you are not talking about saving their souls so they can die and go to heaven. You are talking about doing something that prevents people from being hungry in the first place.

You have heard the words of Jesus: “Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”

And you come together each week as church, and ask God and one another: “What works of God must we that have eternal consequences, that have implications on this earth long after we are gone?”

And we hear Jesus’ response: “This is the work of God: that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Jesus says we should believe in the One who taught and embodied a way of loving and living, a way of giving and advocating, a way of serving and organizing, that can nourish and sustain the world for decades after our lives on this earth end.

Jesus reminds his disciples that the way we live and sustain life means more than we know. Baking, serving. and sharing bread, when it is done in the inclusive, gracious, peace-making, justice-seeking way of Jesus, doesn’t just sustain us until our next meal, but has eternal significance. It is about life after our deaths, which means that it has ramifications for this world after we are no longer in it.

I cannot wait for Connor and Maria’s new baby girl Phyllis to join us here on Sunday mornings. And I long for the day—when Josh Brandi’s baby girl who is due to come into this world in December, and my granddaughter, who is due to arrive at the same time, will join Phyllis and all of the other girls who are a part of our congregation, girls like Addie Baugher, Frankie Brickhouse-Bryson, Leighton Lindmark, and Feyre Barricklow-Young. I long for the day that these girls will all join us here to remind all of us of the bread for which we must work for their sakes.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for the freedom and the opportunity for these girls to thrive in this world long after most of us are dead and gone.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to be their authentic selves, precious beings who are created in the image of God, not confined the selves that others may want them to be.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls have access to the best education possible, have the best teachers, and are always taught the truth about our history, no matter how difficult that truth is, and never have to fear that their classroom might be a target of gun violence.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to fall in love and marry the person they choose, or they are free to make the decision to never marry or have children, and know that they will still be equally valued with certain indelible rights.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls will always have a voice and vote, a world where they are free to make her own healthcare decisions without interference from any government, a world where they will enjoy the same freedom their grandmothers once enjoyed.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for world where these girls can choose a career which brings them joy and doesn’t pay or treat them differently because of their gender.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls never have to put up with any misogyny or discrimination in the workplace or the marketplace and certainly at church.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls are free to choose their own faith, and live out their faith, whether it is the Christian faith of their parents or it is another faith or spirituality which gives their lives meaning and purpose helping them to love their neighbors as they love themselves.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world for these girls where science is believed and the earth is respected, where people do all they can do, even if it means some sacrifice, to reverse climate change to prevent ecological devastation.

The words of Jesus to work for the food that endures for eternal life is a call to work for a world where these girls will never doubt that they have the opportunities to live up to their fullest potential, which includes one day being president of these United States.

For this is bread of God that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

And, this morning, we have gathered here in this place, to say together: “Give us this bread always.”

Amen.