Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: Hospitality, Reconciliation and the Living Bread

Today's Scripture Readings

1 Kings 19:4-8 (NRSV)

Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you." He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Psalm 34  (BCP., p. 627)


Ephesians 4:25-5:2 (NRSV)

Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

John 6:35, 41-51 (NRSV)

Jesus said to the people, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, `I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the 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."

Blog Reflection

St. Benedict in his Rule, chapter 53, On the Reception of Guests begins with the following at verse 15:

Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received; our very awe of the rich guarantees them special respect.

The kitchen for the abbot and guests ought to be separate, so that guests--and monasteries are never without them--need not disturb the brothers when they present themselves at unpredictable hours.  Each year, two brothers who can do the work competently are to be assigned to this kitchen.  Additional help should be available when needed, so that they can perform this service without grumbling.  On the other hand, when the work slackens, they are to go wherever other duties are assigned them.  This consideration is not for them alone, but applies to all duties in the monastery; the brothers are to be given help when it is needed, and whenever they are free, they work wherever they are assigned.  (R.B. 1980, The Rule of St. Benedict: In Latin and English, p. 259).

Sr. Joan Chittister in The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century wrote:

The fact is that we all have to learn to provide for others while maintaining the balance and depth, of our own lives.  The community that is so to greet the guest is not to barter its own identity in the name of the guest.  On the contrary, if we become less than we must be then we will no gift for the guest at all. (p.233).

As we continue through the sixth chapter of John, Jesus is identifying who he is.  He identifies as "the Living Bread".  Jesus proclaims that whoever partakes of him as the Bread of Life, comes as someone moved by God to approach and receive this grace.  Jesus is the fullness of God's grace as the Word made flesh. Yet, as Jesus shares the ultimate in hospitality, he still remains who he is.  The Holy One of God, sent to love us and help us become more like God.

Notice in the Gospel, Jesus says: "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and who ever believes in me will never be thirsty."  Jesus never said, nor implied that only those lesbian or gay people who will seek to change their orientation, who comes to him, will never be hungry.  Jesus' invitation and proclamation of himself, is to share what he is with all who come to partake of God's grace through Christ.

Many of us feel a lot like Elijah.  We have been working for justice and inclusion.  Trying to talk to people we know, and others across political and religious lines about why we need to be concerned about the dignity of every human being.   We have gotten politically sandbagged.  They have spread lies and misinformation everywhere.  We are often worn out and in need of refreshment.   We need to escape to find rest and refreshment.  To pray and find peace with God and ourselves.   We need to be loved by our partner(s) and given the energy to get back into the activities of our lives.

Jesus invites us to come to him as the Bread of Life.  The Living Bread sent by God to welcome us and reconcile us.   God invites us to see sin and grace from a Christ centered model, instead of a crime and punishment model as Patrick S. Cheng writes in From Sin to Amazing Grace; Discovering the Queer Christ.   To understand that sin is an immaturity that keeps us from being more like Christ, and grace is to mature more into the image of the Divine.  When we receive Jesus as the Living Bread, we are welcomed by God's hospitality, and reconciled by Christ's Divine and healing grace.   The healing grace that helps us to grow in the knowledge and love of God for us and others.

The ministry of hospitality and reconciliation we are nourished to continue in, calls us to give of ourselves for others, without compromising who we are.  As LGBT people, we are called to reach out to others, to share and help, while never giving the anti-LGBT folks the power to decide who we are, or how we love others.   It is way too easy to allow them to have more power over us than they should have.   In the example I gave from St. Benedict's Rule, the community welcomes and feeds the guests, but at no time do they stop being the community that they have created.  They go about their work, and help each other as the need and availability arises.  So, should all of us do for each other.

As people of faith, we are commissioned to not only be who we are, and to offer ourselves in service to others, we also have a great responsibility to do so, going forward in sanctifying grace.  The grace that calls us to mature, by being more like Christ.  The One who gives of himself for the good of others, while sill remaining who he is as God's beloved.

So should we all do.

Amen.


Prayers

Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always
those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without
you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (Proper 14, Book of Common Prayer, p. 232).

O Lord my God, 
Teach my heart this day where and how to see you,
where and how to find you.
You have made me and remade me,
and you have bestowed upon me
all the good things I possess,
and still I do not know you.
I have not yet done that for which I was made.
Teach me to seek you,
for I cannot seek you unless you teach me,
or find you unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire,
let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you,
let me love you when I find you.  Amen.  (Prayer by St. Anselm, St. Benedict's Prayer Book for Beginners, Ampleforth Abbey Press, p. 118).