“Up the Ante”

Sermon- Proper 13B/Ordinary 18B/Pentecost 10 August 5, 2012


The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of that Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.



Alyce Mackenzie, a Methodist preacher that I like a lot, says that she never watches “America’s Got Talent” but she “eaveswatches”. So that when someone else in her family watches it, she sort of, you know, watches it from the other room. She writes: During each performance the three judges sit at their desks with control buttons. If at any time during the performance they become bored they push an X button and a giant buzzer sounds, testing the mettle and concentration of the hapless juggler, singer, ventriloquist or dog trainer on stage. After each act the judges give feedback. It's always the same advice: "Up the ante. Make it bigger. Make it better. Make it more dangerous. Wow us more or you won't go through to the next round."

Her point is, that’s the people at the feeding of the 5000: “So the crowd says to Jesus, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?” Come on, wow us!

In the gospel of John, people were always trying to get Jesus to give them what they wanted. And every single time, he refuses. He says, I’m not just a miracle worker. I don’t just feed your stomachs. I am more than that. I came to change who you are. They just kept saying, “"Up the ante. Make it bigger. Make it better. Make it more dangerous. Wow us more or you won't go through to the next round."

There is an ancient parable about a holy man who rested beneath a tree at the outskirts of a city. One day he was interrupted by a man who ran to him saying, “The stone! The stone! Please give me the stone!” The man told how in a dream an angel had spoken to him of a holy man outside the city who would give him a stone and make him rich forever. The holy man reached into his pocket and pulled out a large diamond. “Here,” he said, “the angel probably spoke of this. I found it on my journey here. If you want it, you may have it.” The diamond was as big as his fist and perfect in every way. The man marveled at its beauty, clutched it eagerly, and walked away from the holy man. But that night he could not sleep, and before dawn he went back and woke the holy man saying, “The wealth! The wealth! Give me the wealth that lets you so easily give away the diamond.”

That’s the crowd. We have the bread, now we want to be fed every day. Give us the wealth behind the bread! Give us more, feed us every day. Wow us, up the ante!

John liked people being confused in his gospel-it gave Jesus an opportunity to teach. If you looked back a couple of chapters in John you would hear a very similar story about the woman at the well. She wanted to drink of the water forever-and Jesus explained that she didn’t understand that he was the living water. In today’s story, he explains that the crowd doesn’t understand that he’s the bread of life. Each story Jesus takes something common, every day, normal and tries to stretch people’s understanding of who he was and what he’s about. Water. Bread.

Jesus tells them-I am like bread. Only when you eat bread you get hungry again. But when you believe in me, you will be fed for the rest of the journey and feel full the rest of your life. And they tell him, “You don’t understand, Give us the wealth, the wealth.”

“Fred Craddock writes that "they [the people]still want to be in charge, even of faith itself. Show us a sign[they say], we will see, we will weigh the evidence, we will draw the conclusions, and we might even decide to believe (v. 30).”

But we can’t be too hard on the crowd. Remember who they are in the gospel stories-they’re supposed to represent you and I. We struggle with belief, we struggle with faith-we want Jesus to give us what we want, right? They are us.

From Alyce Mackenzie again, “Nothing will change in this story until the crowd gets in on the act. We have to come up out of the audience and onto the stage. We have to vacate our judges' seats. And when we do, we don't have to juggle flaming knives or do graceful acrobatics from a silken rope high above the stage. We just have to believe.”

It seems like such a simple story, such a simple choice-simply believe. But it’s not. Believing that Jesus is the bread of life is not just about believing-it’s about living a different kind of life. It’s not easy and it requires A LOT. It means that we decide to live another way.

Charles Hoffman writes: “In one way or another, each of us is challenged by a personal wilderness: painful loss, physical suffering, financial reverses, betrayal or bereavement. These are roads that we travel not by choice, but by necessity. A Spanish proverb speaks to this condition: "With bread and wine you can walk your road." For us, Jesus is that sustaining bread.”

These are the roads we travel by necessity. When we want the water, when we want the bread-this is what we do. We believe-and in believing-we live. It is not always, easy. Or convenient.

One last story: “It was the year 1917. The place was an Armenian hospital in Mezre. Day after day, Elizabeth Caraman, a nurse in that hospital, cleansed and bound up the wounds of Turkish soldiers who had been wounded on the battlefields. Often when the soldiers came to her, hastily applied bandages were dried on to a gaping wound. It was extremely painful to remove them.

One day Elizabeth was working on an especially bad wound. To help the young soldier think about something besides the pain, she told him a little about her own history. "My father and I were deported from our home by the Turks," she said bitterly, "and my father was thrown into prison. In 1915 they took him out of his cell, rolled him in a carpet and hoisted him up on a donkey. Together with other Armenian men they sent him away to die." At this moment, Elizabeth, for some reason, looked up. To her surprise the young soldier was staring at her with a look of horror in his black eyes.

"What is the matter?" Elizabeth asked.

"I [was the one who]killed your father," he said in a low voice. Elizabeth could only gasp. With a super human effort, she went on cleansing the wound. "I rolled him off the donkey onto the ground," the soldier continued. "With one jab of the bayonet I killed him. I have never been able to forget it. The whole business of killing [himhas sickened me."

Elizabeth felt a wave of hatred and sorrow sweep over her. Here was the murderer of her father. In some strange way, the enemy had fallen into her hands. She had the power to destroy him. At this moment Elizabeth thought of her mother. What would she have done? Her mother loved Christ and tried to follow him. She would have tried to help this young man.

The power and light of her mother's life reached out to Elizabeth.

Gently Elizabeth turned to the soldier lying in front of her. "Christ says we must forgive our enemies. For his sake, I forgive you." she said. The soldier stared at her in amazement. He could not say anything. Every day, when Elizabeth came to his bed to dress his wound, she saw him looking at her with awe and wonder in his eyes.

Finally, one day, he said to Elizabeth, "Your Christ must be very great! He surely is the bread of life. His teachings really live in your heart, for I see them in your life."

We can be the crowd that demands more signs. We can be the man who wants the wealth behind the jewel. We can be the judges who say to Christ: “"Up the ante. Make it bigger. Make it better. Make it more dangerous. Wow us more ….."

Or we can be the nurse who forgives. We decide what this bread will be-bread for a day-or bread for life.

Amen.

John 6:24-35



So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered 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. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal."



Then they said to him, "What must we do to perform the works of God?" Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." So they said to him, "What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Then Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always." Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.



John 4

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

4Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’—2 although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized—3he left Judea and started back to Galilee.4But he had to go through Samaria.5So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’.8(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)9The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’11The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?12Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’13Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,14but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’15The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

16 Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’17The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”;18for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’19The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet.20Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’21Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.22You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.23But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’25The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’26Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’28Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,29‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’30They left the city and were on their way to him.

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’32But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’33So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’34Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.35Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.36The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.37For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.”38I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’40So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days.41And many more believed because of his word.42They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour