The First Sunday after Epiphany 2011
Bread for the Journey. Bread for the Journey. Let’s begin the journey of the stewardship of our lives with an overview of where our journey begins and where it ends and how we get from the beginning to the end.Psalm 139 tells us about our beginning: “O Lord, you know me. . . . For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb” (Psalm 139:1,13; NIV, adapted). Psalm 139 tells us that for every one of us the journey of our life begins as a gift from God who created our inmost being and knit us together in our mother’s womb.
Psalm 139 also tells us that the journey of our life continues with God. God did not create us only to abandon us by the side of the road to fend for ourselves. The journey of our life takes place in the constant presence of God. Psalm 139 says, “Where can I go to hide from your spirit? Or where can I flee away from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, the Pit, you are there. If I take flight on the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast” (verses 7-10; NRSV, adapted). In other words, wherever we go on the journey of our life, we go with God and God with us. Jesus said, “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The journey of our life is a journey from God and with God. Even when it does not feel like it, even with it does not look like it, even when we do not think it is so, even there God’s right hand holds us fast.
Every one of us is on a journey from God, with God and to God. Jesus also said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:1-3). That’s the journey of our lives: from God, with God, and to God. The entirety of our existence is played out within the envelope and the embrace of the constant presence of God. God is at our beginning, and God is at our end, and God is at our every point in between.
Now, if that is so—and I for one believe with heart and mind and soul and strength that it is so—then it follows that the journey is the thing. It’s about the journey, not just the destination. Some of us Baptists, among other Christians—and among some Jews and Muslims, too, for that matter—have gotten that whole destination and journey thing the wrong way round. You’ve heard the old story about the revival preacher who got all wound up in his sermon one night and said to the congregation, “Everybody who wants to go to heaven, raise your hand!” A smattering of hands went up, and he said, “Come on, don’t be bashful! Raise your hand if you want to go heaven!” More hands went up, and so he said it again, until everybody in that little church had a hand up, except for one grizzled old fellow way at the back. And the preacher pointed at him and said, “You there! In the back! Don’t you want to go to heaven when you die?” “Oh, when I die?” the old man asked. “Well sure, I do,” he said. “But it sounded to me like you were trying to get up a busload to go right now.”
That old fellow at that back of the church knew better than to sell the journey short for a busload of the destination. He knew better than to think we live without God on earth in order to live with God in heaven. We don’t go to heaven to be with God. The whole message of Advent and Christmas and Epiphany is that heaven came down and glory filled our souls. Emmanuel is his name: “God is with us”: “Lo, I am with you always,” Jesus said. So, if God in Jesus Christ is with us always, then our Christian faith and practice is not about where we’re going as much as it is about how we’re getting there from beginning to end. It’s about the journey from God, with God and to God.
Frank Mayfield is 97 years old, and he’s been a member of First Baptist Greenville since . . . well, since Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Frank grew up in the thriving metropolis of Cowpens, SC, where his father owned and operated a general store. Frank cut his teeth on retail sales and operations, and as a youngster he aspired to be a great salesman. And he became one, too, a salesman with a national and international reputation. For you literary buffs out there, if the great American playwright Arthur Miller had ever met Frank Mayfield, his Pulitzer Prize-winning-classic Death of a Salesman would have been a very different play. Frank Mayfield is no Willie Loman.
One day when Frank was young, he told his father that his goal in life when he grew up was to make a million dollars. I probably don’t need to point out that 90 years ago in Cowpens, SC, a million dollars was an astronomical sum of money. There weren’t any millionaires in Cowpens in those days. In response to that astronomical goal, Frank’s father said something to him that he has never forgotten, and by which he has lived ever since: “Frank,” his father said, “enjoy the journey. Enjoy the journey.” Jesus said of his own teachings, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). The point of my teachings, Jesus said, is so that my joy may be in you, and so that your joy may be complete. Could Jesus have said, “Enjoy the journey,” any more clearly? From God, with God, to God: enjoy the journey.
In this morning’s gospel lesson from the sixth chapter of John Jesus is in a conversation about the journey. In particular, he’s in a conversation about bread for the journey. The conversation takes place in the aftermath of an amazing event the day before in which Jesus had fed a crowd of 5,000, we are told, in spite of the fact that there was initially no more food at hand than five barley loaves and a couple fish (John 6:9). That amazing feed reminded at least some people in the crowd of the great journey of Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness toward the land of promise. On that journey, we are told, the Israelites awoke to a daily provision of “manna.” The books of Exodus and Nehemiah call the manna “bread from heaven” (Exodus 16:4; Nehemiah 9:15). The Israelites received their “daily bread” in the form of manna, and when Jesus fed the whole crowd that was following him, that made some folks think of Moses and the Israelites and the manna.
But Jesus said to the crowd, “The only reason you’re following me today is because you got your bellies filled yesterday” (John 6:26). “I fed you because you were hungry, but I’m not just talking about your physical hunger,” Jesus says. “I’m talking about your spiritual hunger. I’m talking about the emptiness in your soul, not the emptiness in your stomach I’m talking about feeding you with ‘the food that endures [not for just a day, but] for eternal life. The bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” When they heard that, at least some people in the crowd said, “Sir, give us this bread always.” “Let heaven come down and glory fill our souls,” they said. To which Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry” (John 6:35). Jesus was talking about our spiritual hunger, the emptiness in our soul.
This time next week, our Cuba mission team who leaves on Thursday will be worshiping and breaking the bread of life with our sisters and brothers in our partner congregation La Iglesia Bautista del Camino in Guanajay. This plate and cup and pitcher for communion that the team will carry with them as a gift from us are a reminder of what fills the emptiness in our soul. They are a testimony to the spiritual reality that even though our two nations are separated from each other by political and economic and social ideology and demagoguery, our two people, First Baptist Greenville and the Baptist Church of the Way in Guanajay are united in communion and in community in Christ.
The first time Javier Perez and I sat down together to talk about our respective congregations and communities and countries, I listened to him talk about how the souls of Cuban people have been emptied by decades of poverty and alcoholism and addiction and domestic violence and discrimination against women and homophobia and racism. But you know what? As I listened to him, I realized how the souls of American people have been emptied by decades of poverty—and affluence—and alcoholism and addiction and domestic violence and discrimination against women and homophobia and racism.
In Guanajay and in Greenville, as we have worshiped together and prayed together and worked together and talked together, we have discovered together that “We are trav’lers on a journey, fellow pilgrims on the road” and that “we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.” We have discovered together that “We are one in Christ our Savior” and that we “are sent to serve the Lord.”
And that’s the final piece of the overview of our journey. We are not a congregation of wanderers and seekers. To be sure, every one of us at some time or another finds ourselves wandering in a wilderness and seeking something we have lost and cannot find. But together as a congregation in communion and in community with Christ and with one another we are created and called and sent to serve the Lord, each and every one of us a minister in each and every interaction and transaction of our lives.
That’s our journey: from God, with God and to God; the journey is the thing; enjoy the journey. As fellow pilgrims on the road, worship together, pray together, work together, and talk together to discover together that each of was are created and called and sent to serve the Lord.
And that’s the invitation this morning to the journey of the stewardship of our lives. Our invitation hymn is “We are one in Christ,” which is printed in your order of worship. The invitation of Christ and this congregation is open as we stand and sing together.
Photo by Alex Leung from Six Steps Photostream, used under license of Creative Commons.
This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.
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