Choose.

John 6:56-69

“…chose this day who you will serve…”  --Joshua 24:15

A long, long time ago, someone accused me of being indecisive.  At the time, I couldn’t decide whether the person was right…  or wrong.  A few years ago, I participated in a week long Conflict Transformation course presented by the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center where we learned skills for mediating conflict and using disagreement creatively within the life of the church.  It was an excellent course and I would highly recommend it!  During that course, I learned I had a gift for seeing both sides of most issues.  That gift is useful for mediation, but is also a curse that frequently leaves one balancing in precarious indecision on barbed wire fences.   Over the years, I have learned to be more decisive, but it still doesn’t come naturally.

I am grateful that my salvation does not depend on my ability to decide, but rather, on God’s willingness to decide for me.   The story of the Bible is, at it’s heart, the story of God choosing for humanity. God chose to create us.  God chose to call Abraham and Sarah and bring a blessing from their progeny.  God chose to rescue God’s people from Egypt and bring them home from Exile.  God chose to send prophets to call the people back to faithfulness time and time again.  And, when the time was right, God chose to send God’s Son, to come among us, die for us and rise again so that we might have life and have it abundantly. In this week’s Gospel, Jesus says, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”   I rejoice that, down through time, the Father has granted humanity, and me, and you that gift again, and again and again.

But, God also gives us the ability to choose.    I have a strong belief in human agency.  That too is a gift from God.   Unfortunately, down through the ages, we human beings have frequently used that agency to choose poorly.  Sin – our estrangement from God and from one another – clouds our judgment and results in pain, suffering and sorrow; injustice and oppression, tragedy and death.   God always chooses for us.   But we always have the option of choosing against God.  When we do, bad things eventually result.

The verse from Joshua quoted above begins,  “Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve…”   In other words, you have two choices:  serve God or pick something else.   But the implication is that the “something else” never measures up.  Not even close.   Peter essentially says the same thing when Jesus asked the disciples if they are going to walk away like others have,   “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life…”  (6:68) What choice is there really? Peter says.  Joshua bases his choice on all that God has done for the Hebrew slaves in the Exodus.   Peter bases his choice on all his experiences with Jesus.   We base our choice on an empty tomb.   We are free to pick something else to base our life upon… but, as people of the Resurrection, why would we?

I can still succumb to the scourge of indecision sometimes. I have learned to embrace it as a gift – especially when I am helping people work through a conflict.  But, because I know God has chosen me, it makes it possible for me to choose God…  even on those days when my faith wavers with doubt and uncertainty.  Maybe especially on those days.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thank-you for reading.  This will be my last “On the Way” for a while.   Starting next week, I will be taking a three month sabbatical to do a little traveling, immerse myself in writing a book, relax and recharge.  My next “On the Way” will be for the First Sunday in Advent and will post on Friday, November 30.  Really.  It’s not that far away.   In the mean time, God bless you and keep you always! 

You Are What You Eat

John 6:51-58

“…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  

--John 6:53

About a dozen years ago, I went to the doctor for my first physical in a long time.   After doing all the usual tests, poking, prodding, and examining, the doctor sat me down and said, “do you want to live long enough to see your daughter grow up?”  

I was shocked.  “Of course!”  

“Well, if you don’t do something to get your health under control…   you won’t.”  

It was like a slap in the face.  I was overweight, had high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high triglycerides, and cholesterol.  By pretty much every measure, I was a total wreck.   “What can I do?”  I asked.

“For starters,”  The doctor said kindly, “you need to change your diet and start exercising.”

It’s true:  “you are what you eat” and what I was eating was killing me.  Literally.

Over the next six months, I got serious about changing my diet and started exercising.  After a year, I had lost thirty pounds, and had my blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol under control.   

The doctor was shocked. “What did you do?”

I smiled.  “I just did what you said.”

He laughed.  “That’s amazing!  No one ever actually listens to me!”

You are what you eat. 

But that’s not only true of our physical selves.  It is also true of our spiritual selves.   The world offers all sorts of spiritual junk food that bloats us and doesn’t last.  Too often we stuff ourselves on things that will abandon us and ultimately let us down when the reality of death slaps us in the face.  I think that is what Jesus is trying to impress upon his listeners in this week’s text.   After Jesus feeds 5000 people with five loaves and two fish (John 6:9), the people are so impressed that they follow him around the Sea of Galilee.  But, when he sees them, he says to them,  “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (6:26)   They wanted junk food.  Jesus was offering them so much more.

Loaves, you see, don’t last. Jesus does.

Jesus says we need to eat his flesh and blood in order to live.  This vivid language echoes the words Jesus spoke to his disciples when he shared his Last Supper with them.   Words he spoke on the night before he died for a starving world.  On the night before he offered his flesh and blood for the life of the world.    

As Christians, we need a steady diet of Jesus’ love, grace and forgiveness not only to survive, but to thrive in our lives.   These things come to us as pure gift.   But we dine on them through spiritual practices that have fed Christian faith and life down through the centuries: reading, reflecting and meditating upon God’s Word, and sharing in the sacraments of baptism and holy communion; through prayer, worship and the mutual support, encouragement and guidance of a community of faith.  Without these practices of faith, we starve.  

We are what we eat.  

So, come to the banquet! Eat and drink!  Let the Lord fill you with the food that will last…  forever.

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Thanks for reading! 

Feeding the Deep Hunger

John 6:24-35

“I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry…”

This next week, I will be in Moshi, Tanzania for a summit between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT).  We have been planning this summit for almost two years and I am excited that it is almost here (though I am not at all excited about the long plane trip!)  The purpose of the summit is to talk together about how we walk with one another in mission and ministry in the years ahead.   I think we have a lot to learn from the ELCT!  The Tanzanian Lutheran church is one of the fastest growing Lutheran bodies in the world.  They now have more members than the ELCA. 

I often get asked how congregations can get their church to grow.  Frequently, those asking the question are looking for some magic formula for attracting people to their congregation.  (There is none.) The assumption is that if they just institute the right program, or offer the right kind of music, or provide some service to lure people through the doors, or create the right ad campaign, the church will grow.  If we could just pull off a “loaves and fishes” miracle or even just put on a great pot luck, maybe the crowds would flock to us like they did to Jesus.  But, Jesus says pretty clearly that the crowds and their full bellies completely missed the point. Jesus tells the people something much deeper is going on than the signs he is performing.  

So what’s the Tanzanian’s secret?

There is no secret. In my visits with our brothers and sisters in Tanzania, I have observed that they simply have a passion for Jesus that they just can’t hold in.  They understand people’s spirit-deep hunger and offer them the nourishing food of God’s healing grace, love, compassion and forgiveness.  Their passion for Jesus and his Gospel animates their lives, their vibrant worship, and their infectious faith.   They invite.  They serve. They care.  They invite some more.  They gather around Word and Sacrament in the open country under the bushes and rough built structures and stone and concrete churches.  (The gathering place is really irrelevant).  They care for their neighbors in need, no matter who they are (Lutherans or Pentecostals or Muslims or Traditionalists). Oh, and did I say that they keep inviting people to “come and see” this Jesus who has changed their lives?  

Can we get that passionate about our faith?  About our Lord?  About the love and grace we know through him?  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I think we can.  We need to.  Because there are people all around us who are hungry, starving really, with a spirit-deep hunger.  

Jesus is still the bread of life.  He invites us to come and eat.  To taste and be satisfied.  To drink and have our deepest thirsts slaked.  That doesn’t mean life will be easy or perfect (life in Tanzania can be pretty hard). But it does mean that we will never have to face those challenges alone, and that ultimately the power of God’s abundant, eternal life will win out even over death itself.  

Peace,

Bishop Mike

Please pray for safe travels for all of us who are making the trip to the summit in the next days, and for the Spirit to bless our conversations, help us discern what is good and true and guide us as we make decisions about stepping into the future God has prepared for our two church bodies.   Thanks for reading.