15th Sunday after Pentecost
September 2, 2018

²²But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ²³For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; ²⁴for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
  ²⁶If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. ²⁷Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. – James 1:22-27

¹Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, ²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jewish people, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) ⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
  but their hearts are far from me;
 ⁷in vain do they worship me,
  teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
  ¹⁴Then Jesus called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
  ²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” – Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

I would like to invite you, as you are comfortable, to close your eyes for a moment. Make sure you are sitting comfortably on your pew. Take a deep breath in and slowly let it out. Then let yourself breathe normally. And without judgment or a need to fix or change anything, begin to bring your awareness to your body. Notice the feeling of your feet on the floor.

Notice the way in which the pew is supporting your seat and your back.

Notice the feel of your clothes on your skin.

Again without judgment or need to fix it, notice anything that is tense or anything that hurts or just doesn’t feel comfortable.

Notice how your breath feels coming in and out of your nose or mouth, how it feels in your lungs.

Notice how the air around you feels on your skin.

Pause in that feeling of awareness of your own body…And before you open your eyes again, pause in gratitude to God for your body. Amen.

Maybe for some of you that was a new experience, and maybe for others something you’ve done before. I hope that it was helpful to you, though I recognize that not everyone will respond to the same types of practices like that. But the first time I experienced something like that I was pretty blown away by how different I felt, body and spirit. And I felt more connected to and aware of God’s presence with me. I think before and even since I am sometimes slow to pay attention to what my own body is telling me and how that affects my thoughts and feelings and even my sense of God’s presence.

I share it with you today because our readings this morning are all about embodied faith. They are about what we do with our bodies and with other people’s bodies in the practice of our faith. Jesus and the Pharisees are having an argument about hand washing. James is entreating us to act out the word and not just listen and think about it. And even in the first reading we hear an exhortation to abide by God’s guideposts for living, which at its most basic broad strokes and in its finest details affects how we treat our own body and the bodies of others.

But it is appealing sometimes to dismiss the physical, embodied practices of our faith and instead imagine that we are really just spirits trapped in a physical body. Perhaps it elevates us a bit in our own thinking. It gives us the sense we can escape the limitations and failings of the body. When we realize that our bodies will eventually begin to age and to break and fail and even die, it’s appealing to focus on some other part of ourselves. When our bodies hunger or thirst or shiver or ache, we might wish to be really something apart from our bodies. When our bodies lead us into temptation or leave us too tired to do the things we know we ought to do, it might be a comfort to think that we are really something other than our bodies.

People of faith have too often been guilty of offering a prayer or blessing in place of giving food or water or shelter. Not that we shouldn’t also offer prayers and blessings, but they should not be an excuse to ignore the physical, embodied needs of those who are hungry, in prison, sick, wounded, and oppressed. It is tempting sometimes to think that our faith is really about our non-physical selves communing with God, and that our messy, imperfect bodies that have to eat, and rest, and, yes, even go to the bathroom, are merely an impediment to communion with God.

But our readings today root us back in our bodies. Jesus is having an argument with some of the religious leaders about hand washing. They had expanded the religious law from the ritual hand washing of the priests to everyone washing their hands before a meal as a way of reminding people of the sacredness of our daily lives, the sacredness of every meal, the sacredness of bodies that need to wash and eat. One could read this text and on first hearing think that Jesus is dismissing all that, pointing people to some kind of higher plane of being. But I think Jesus is saying that they, and here we might place ourselves along with them, haven’t gone far enough. They have done a good thing in reminding people of the sacredness of daily living, if sometimes a little too legalistically. But they have not moved from that to the kind of whole life transformation that practice ought to bring. It is not that the tradition itself is bad, but that they are too busy policing the tradition while ignoring the embodied daily-life kind of needs of the people around them.

This is what James is speaking of when he talks about true religion – not one that remains in the realm of disembodied beliefs and thoughts, but one that is expressed in care for the bodily needs of the vulnerable. It is not just about hearing the word, but about doing the word. And that goes all the way back to the instructions given to the people in Deuteronomy to keep the commandments. Not to please God but to live in ways that embody God’s love and grace in the world.

What I think is at the heart of our readings today is the need for faith to be lived out in embodied practice. It means that if we believe in the power of baptism to bestow grace and forgiveness that we do it and experience it in worship with abundant water. And that when we encounter water in our daily lives that we use that opportunity to rememeber God’s love washing over us. And that when we live in the world we not only offer a cup of cold water to a thirsty neighbor but that we are mindful of caring for the waters of our planet and that we make every effort to ensure all people everywhere have access to clean water. Embodied faith in worship and in the world.

It means that if we believe in the power of Holy Communion to share the presence of Christ, that we do it regularly in our worship with singing and with thoughtfully prepared bread and wine and that we share it in a way that gives everyone access to the table. But then it must shape our living so that when we eat at our own tables we pause in gratitude for what God has done for us and not just share food with a hungry neighbor but also care for the earth that produces our food and work to make sure that every person has access to enough to eat. Embodied faith in worship and in the world.

It means that if we confess in the creed every week the resurrection of the body, that perhaps we pause there to honor our embodied selves, just as they are. Some of us make the sign of the cross on our bodies at that moment to bring home those words and the way in which God has claimed our embodied selves with love and life. But then those words should take us into the world to care for hurting bodies and for bodies that have been marginalized and oppressed, imprisoned or beaten, detained or demeaned. It should shape our living. Embodied faith in worship and in the world.

What we do with our bodies in worship matters because it affects how we live in the world. And how we live in the world with our bodies matters because it affects how we understand God’s love and grace. One always informs and shapes the other.

But more than anything, it matters what we do with our bodies in worship and in the world, because God showed us just how important human bodies are by taking flesh. God doesn’t merely inhabit a human frame but becomes in Jesus a fully embodied human being, taking on all its frailty and limitations. And in doing so redeems them. Redeems our embodied lives. Redeems all the times we fail to honor the bodies we are and the bodies that others are. Redeems the whole embodied world in all its glorious messiness. Redeems you and me.

So pause, once more, closing your eyes for just a moment if you wish. Breathe deeply, and bring awareness to your body. And know, down to every cell, the God whose love embraces you. Amen.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

14th Sunday after Pentecost
August 26, 2018

¹⁰Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of the Lord’s power. ¹¹Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹²For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. ¹³Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. ¹⁴Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. ¹⁵As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. ¹⁶With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
  ¹⁸Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. ¹⁹Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, ²⁰for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak. – Ephesians 6:10-20

A suit of medieval armor weighs anywhere from 25 pounds for a simple chain-mail shirt up to as much as 110 pounds for a full-on suit of armor.

A modern foot soldier in Afghanistan wears an average 63 pounds of gear and armor to do his or her duty.

And a firefighter’s gear for going into a fire weighs somewhere around 45 pounds and in certain cases as much as 75 pounds.

These people past and present have managed to accomplish a great deal while being weighed down under their protective armor, but when I hear those numbers I want to crumple under the weight, just thinking about it. I imagine trying to move about, especially in a suit of rigid metal like a medieval knight, and I can only imagine mustering a few stiff, awkward movements.

It’s that image and that feeling of weight that comes to mind as I read the description of the full armor of God in our Ephesians reading today. Of course I stand for truth and righteousness and faith that this armor is supposed to represent. Of course I covet the sense of protection that armor brings. But my experience in the world is one of bearing the heavy weight of all those things, that it’s hard and sometimes challenging work to wear that armor. On top of all the other weight we carry around, I find myself crumpling under the thought.

Because already I am weighed down by the endless violence that takes place around the world. With admiration for those who have been willing to risk their lives for their country, I worry about the way in which all around the world we have become used to solving our problems with the violence of endless wars. I worry about the way in which we are so used to it that we cease to pay attention to the catastrophic war taking place in the Congo, the ongoing devastation in Syria, the perpetuation of conflict in Afghanistan. Collectively we put on the heavy armor of battle, trusting in the power of violence to save us.

And we can get weighed down by all the walls we try to put up to keep us from people who are different from us. We put up defensive walls, literal and metaphorical, to protect us from people we perceive to be other. People whose skin is a different color, whose primary language is different from our own, whose socioeconomic status is different from ours. It’s hard work to bridge differences, and as heavy as they can be, putting up walls and defenses are often easier. I sometimes let myself take that easy road and end up walled in and weighed down in my own little bubble.

And I worry that we even wear our faith in ways that weigh us down. Sometimes we wear our religious practice as a shield against the world. Or we put our trust in the protection we think will come by believing the right things or doing the right things. I have sometimes been guilty of reading this passage from Ephesians as yet another thing we need to do. We better make sure we tell the truth perfectly, live righteously always, proclaim perfectly a gospel of peace, and maintain faith free of doubt. If we can do all that then we have kept up the armor, and we have defended ourselves from the forces of evil, all the things that threaten to tear us down. While our faith does and should call us to transformed living and challenging work, we can easily weigh ourselves down with the burden of saving ourselves and the world. Wearing that kind of armor causes us to lose the flexibility and freedom that Christ offers us. And it isn’t the kind of armor that saves us.

This passage is describing something quite different from this heavy armor we too often try to put on and clumsily wear around. The kind of protection God gives from the world isn’t in the form of chain mail shirts or Kevlar vests. It’s more like the waters of baptism. Rather than a heavy metal suit, which weighs us down and walls us off, imagine a fluid watery covering that surrounds us in the promises of God. In baptism we put on Christ – the truth, the righteousness, the peace, the faith of Christ. Forever after we wear that watery garment, which reminds us against all the evil we encounter, against all the powers that rebel against God, against all the forces within us and beyond us that threaten to tear us down, that God’s love is stronger than anything.

Unlike metal armor, this watery protection is permeable. It flows and allows us to give and receive. But because it assures us that God’s love is stronger even than death it allows us to be vulnerable to the world in ways that open us to both the love and the pain around us. It allows us to care for others and to take in the care of others. It keeps us connected rather than walling us off. And in its permeability and transparency it manages to remind us of the ways in which our trust in weapons and armies, our trust in walls and armor, our trust in our own power is so much weaker than we realize in comparison to the incredible power of unlimited love and grace.

Unlike metal armor it is flexible and mobile. It allows us to let go of the rigidity with which we so often approach things, to let go of the ways in which we can be afraid of and anxious about change and things that are new. It allows us as people and as the church to adapt to new ways of God’s love being shared in the world. It washes away what needs to be cleansed and carries forward into the future what is needed for new life and growth.

And though water is actually quite heavy, unlike metal armor is has the capacity to lift us up. To float us forward. To carry us through all those other things that make us weary and leave us crumbling under the weight of the world. This watery armor carries us from the font to the grave and into God’s life forever always holding us in that love that knows no bounds.

So you who are baptized and you who long for the waters of baptism, feel the full armor of God washing over you, lifting you up, connecting you to the source of all life. Feel the power of God’s love forever surrounding you. Know the power of God’s having claimed you and called you beloved. Know that protection now and always.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

[Jesus said,] ⁵¹“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.”
  ⁵²The Judeans then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So 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. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” – John 6:51-58

What have you consumed already this morning, just in the time since you woke up?

I’ve eaten scrambled eggs, toast, and a large travel mug full of strong green tea. But I’ve also been consuming all manner of other things from the moment I woke up. Before even getting up, I took in brief news headlines that popped up on my phone overnight. Before leaving the house I took in an image of myself in the mirror to make sure there wasn’t anything glaringly out of place. I listened to a podcast on the drive down from Amherst this morning. Much as I try to avoid them I took in the large advertisements that line parts of the highway. I’ve subconsciously taken in who knows how many brand names and images. Maybe you’ve read the newspaper, watched the tv, or taken in the fresh air on a morning walk.

We live in a consumer society, where moment by moment the culture around us invites us to not just to want but to crave, to need more, to take into ourselves more. We are promised that the next version of the iPhone, the next fad diet, the next new car, the next promotion or raise, the next lifestyle change, the next bite of food will bring us the happiness and satisfaction that we crave. And as a result we can hardly get through a morning without being offered choice after choice of thing to consume. Sometimes I fear that those very things we seek out start to consume us.

We take in airbrushed images and magazine headlines that tell us our bodies aren’t good enough, thin enough, beautiful enough. And we are told to change what we eat and how we live to achieve the unachievable. And the images we have taken in begin to shape what else we consume in unhealthy ways.

We eat up only the news and conversations which reinforce our existing world view such that we learn to fear and demonize those who think differently. Before we know it we have divided the world into us and them and we begin to lose our creative power to see something deeper than our differences. The ideas we take in shape us and form us.

Maybe just as insidious we take into our own heads the voices that tell us we are not enough, the voices that tells us to be ashamed of who we are, the voices that keep us from loving and forgiving ourselves. We too easily hear criticisms and dismiss praise, taking in even unwarranted negativity in ways that shape our thoughts and actions.

We can cultivate other ways of being, but I think there must be something deep in our beings that is susceptible to the messages we simply cannot help but eat up. The things we consume seep deep inside us, become part of us. They shape us, they mold us, they create part of our identity. The things we consume so readily, begin, I’m afraid, to consume us.

So I’m skeptical when Jesus invites us to consume him, not just living bread, not just bread that is shared and bread that feeds body and soul but, as he repeats over and over in our gospel reading: to eat, to chew up, to gnaw at the very flesh and blood of Jesus. I’m not skeptical like a friend of mine from high school who was totally turned off to Christianity because she thought we were cannibals for eating Jesus’ flesh and blood. I can trust something about the mystery of Christ’s presence in all that. But I’m skeptical because I know what happens when you consume something. It becomes a part of you. It gets taken in to every cell, finds a way to touch each part of you. It begins to shape something about who you are and how you live.

And I’m not sure I want Jesus quite that close, at least not all the time. There are parts of me that I’d rather Jesus not see and touch. The parts of me that get impatient, the parts of me that are uncharitable and less than generous with others, the parts of me that are happy with the ways I enjoy privilege and power. I don’t really want Jesus knowing every last part of me, because not every last part of me is so great. And I’m not sure I want Jesus to know that. So consuming Jesus, when I really think about it, feels a little threatening, let letting Jesus in a little too close.

I’m also not sure I want Jesus changing me. Because when Jesus enters people’s lives he calls them to some pretty hard stuff. He calls the rich to give up their wealth for the sake of the community, he calls the meek to lead out in front, he calls the religious leaders and political leaders to make way for God’s movement in other people and places, he calls the disciples to go out without any provisions and to go into hostile territory to proclaim good news and to forgive with abundance. If we consume Jesus I worry that Jesus might start to shape and mold me into something I admire but which I am scared sometimes to actually become. I’m afraid consuming Jesus will lead me to take risks and to do some uncomfortable things for the sake of loving my neighbor.

When I read today’s gospel, something about it makes me ponder all those reasons I’m hesitant to consume Jesus. But I keep coming back every week because it’s in this meal that I have most clearly and most often tasted grace. In seminary when I wasn’t sure if I was welcome in the church I heard the proclamation that this bread, this Jesus is “for you,” and I felt that welcome down to every cell. When I cannot let go of a sense of shame for things I’ve done and left undone, it’s the bread eaten in community that sinks into my body and loosens the things I’ve held too tightly. When I haven’t been able to let go of my anger or grief or pain, it’s consuming Jesus that somehow has a way of wrapping that anger, grief, or pain in God’s gentle embrace.

The thing is that in consuming Jesus, Jesus doesconsume us. Not in the way that so many other things do, not in a way that eats us up or breaks us down or makes us less ourselves. But rather when we consume Jesus, Jesus wraps every last little bit of us in love and acceptance – the parts we are proud of andthe parts we might want to hide from God. Jesus swallows us in a blanket of grace that honors our imperfect selves just as they are. And Jesus does transform our lives, sometimes in ways that challenge and scare us, but always in ways that help us andour neighbors live more fully into God’s reign of peace and grace, to live into God’s eternal life.

So come now to the table. Come to receive what Jesus offered the hungry crowds and the questioning disciples, and even the skeptical bystanders and cranky religious leaders: the living bread, Christ himself. Come consume and be consumed. Come know the profound grace that is offered, and the joy of being formed into God’s holy people.

-Pastor Steven Wilco