My friends, for the past 5 weeks; we have been pondering the meaning of Jesus’ words to us, that he is the “bread of life”  along with the call for us to be “bread,” his life for our world.

We have talked about what that entails for each of us—loving as Jesus loved this world and its people, speaking our truth, as we come to know it, inspired by the Spirit of God, within our families, at work, at church, in our wider world and speaking that truth whether it is to our priest, our bishop or our pope. We have learned recently what happens when the truth is kept in the dark from the People of God.

With that then as a backdrop; we move on to a new theme today in our readings—that of faith.  The issue of faith is not separate from our action of sharing Jesus with our world, in all its aspects, but faith, our faith, in fact, gives us the strength, based on what we know from Jesus’ life with us to remain strong to do what we must to become our best selves, walking in his footsteps.

To have faith, to believe as Joshua is asking the Israelites at Shechem in today’s 1^st reading is no small task.  First and foremost, he wants them to believe in some god—commit to following a force greater than themselves—he sees this as so important that he tells them if it can’t be YHWH, then choose to believe in the god of the Amorites that your ancestors believed in who previously lived on your land.

Joshua though, as all prophets do, leads by example—“He and his family will believe in YHWH.” The people do eventually follow his lead as they realize that the God of Joshua has been with them too when they lived in slavery and that this God brought them out of that land and time.

Joshua relates the story of how their God has loved and cared for them and that gratitude must be their response along with serving faithfully this God who has not    abandoned them and never will. Joshua doesn’t want them to be “wishy-washy,” but find and know in their hearts what it is that they believe and be willing to stand up and say it and act upon it in their daily lives.

As a bit of an aside; I wanted to call your attention to the name that Joshua uses to speak of God—YHWH, devoid of vowels. This text comes to us from The Priests for Equality, as you know.  Writing God’s name in this fashion is being true to the Israelites’ notion that they really couldn’t adequately speak of the awesomeness of their God.  Our church hierarchy today would do well to learn from their example that they can’t put God in a box, defining, in their minds, who God is, complete with gender—male of course, and made in their image and likeness so as to give to us, those that they supposedly shepherd, a God that supports all that they design and do.

I just finished reading John Shelby Spong’s latest, and in his words, “final book” entitled, Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today. It’s a remarkable book wherein he gives us 12 theses, challenging within them, the core tenets of our faith.

Spong, an Episcopal bishop for many years, as well as an international speaker and writer, has proven himself to be one, over his ministerial lifetime, a deep thinker and spiritual person of prayer and faith out of which his Spirit-filled ideas flow.  He writes and speaks not for his own aggrandizement, but for the good of the People of God.

Just some of the topics he challenges us to look at and either re-commit our faith to, or leave behind are: original sin, the virgin birth, atonement theology, Easter, the ascension, life after death.  It is not that he is in denial necessarily about these issues, but is clearly looking to have them make sense in our lives today. We have talked about that a good deal here as we try to make the Scriptures come alive in our day.

To have faith generally means to believe in something that we can’t completely understand.  That is different from being asked to believe in outdated concepts such as original sin, virgin births and atonement theology, Bishop Spong would say.  If a concept does not enhance our beliefs, but merely confuses us, then perhaps a further look is necessary.

Priests for Equality have aided us in this regard when we try to update our Scriptures,  being inclusive in as many ways as possible—in gender and in culture, to name just two, so that the Scriptures can become a living document for all.    Paul’s letter to the Ephesians today is a case in point.

This translation speaks of “loving your partners.” Older translations always spoke of, “husbands loving their wives.”  With the new translation, “loving your partners,” this once dead reading to gay couples is now opened up for them and is alive. Spong would say, “Updating our language allows us to see broader ideas rather than getting caught in words that exclude and divide.

And finally, in our sometimes struggles to understand and to believe, Jesus asks us all from the Gospel today, “Is this a stumbling block for you?  Are you going to leave me too?”

This last question from our brother Jesus today, lets us know that there were no doubt many who couldn’t believe or didn’t want to believe that doing what he asked,  loving radically and “wastefully,” as Spong says, as Jesusand his Abba did, would lead to anything good.

In our Catholic church today; there are no doubt many who if they haven’t already walked away, will now, over the revelations out of Pennsylvania of the sex abuse of over 1,000 children by 300 priests and the cover-up by bishops and popes.

This past week has also brought forth statements by authors, teachers, theologians—a letter signed by over 3,000 such individuals asking that all bishops within this country voluntarily resign as an action representing good faith in resolving this crisis.  Such an action is truly needed! Adding women as priests or allowing for married men won’t fix this broken system.  Change in total must happen—“clericalism,” the institution that sets clergy above the people they supposedly serve, has to go—now!

It has been suggested by some that a commission of 2/3 laity with full voting powers be set up to lead these necessary changes as it seems rather unlikely that these changes will come from the hierarchy.  Jesus’ question today, “Is this a stumbling block for you?” is certainly apropos.

Faith, in its truest sense calls us to be thinking, loving, compassionate people—faith only makes sense if we, each of us, are willing to say and do the hard things that will convict us of being Christians—followers of Jesus! Amen? Amen!

My friends, once again, our Scriptures today speak about “the bread of life.”  As in past weeks, as we have looked at this theme, realizing that Jesus is speaking about more than, “eating his actual flesh and drinking his actual blood; we might question why he doesn’t just speak in plain terms, this is really important—listen up, I really want you to get this; listen to what I say, watch what I do and do the same!

In all actuality, as you think about it, this is just what Jesus did!  He definitely got their attention when he said that they needed to “eat his flesh and drink his blood.”  Right away though, comes the grumbling—how can he say this?

So then, for the apostles, the people of Jesus’ time and for us; we need to keep listening, hearing his words, watching his actions.  Throughout Jesus’ public ministry there were always those who followed him for the physical food that he gave and this is understandable—it is the human condition—people are hungry—physically, and must be fed.  Jesus’ greater mission though, as we know, was to feed their minds, their hearts and their souls.

We know from elsewhere in Scripture, Matthew, chapter 4, that Jesus says, [we] “do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  This text clearly states what Jesus’ mission among us was really all about.  Yes, we need physical food, but to really live; we need to live out of the emotional and spiritual parts of ourselves that move us to see our separate existence as more than just about ourselves—but about our sisters and brothers sharing our world.

So again, why not just say that?  I believe that Jesus wanted his hearers to understand how important this was to him, thus the terminology; you must eat my flesh and drink my blood.  Flesh and blood, we might say, is what is deepest, most intricately, ours.  It would be like some of our present day sayings—“this is my heart and my soul” when speaking about an idea that is of great importance to us.  When considering our morals, those ideas/concepts that are most important to us, for those with children, “I would give my very life to preserve that idea, (that person).”  This is the same idea as Jesus is expressing in the Scripture passage from John—my words, my actions are, “my body,” “my blood, take them, eat them,” so to speak, make them your own!  And when we do this, we can truly say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Galatians 2:26).

We have talked often in the past of how we are called to be “bread for our world”—I offer a few examples out of this past week or so that I am aware of, from others and out of my own life:

• Recently, Pope Francis challenged us all on the issue of inclusivity where issues around life are concerned. He stated basically that we can’t as Catholics, as Christians condone in any way, capital punishment. It is easy enough I think for people to see that we can’t support life in the womb, but be willing to take it later as punishment for another’s sin—that just isn’t ours to decide, to judge, because as we know, many times, in the past, we have got it wrong. Regardless, Francis tells us that this isn’t our call.
• This past week; we learned of over 1,000 children being sexually abused by over 300 priests in Pennsylvania from 1950 onward, and of the systematic cover-up of these crimes, sending abusers onward to other parishes to abuse again and this was done with the knowledge of bishops, cardinals and the pope. Not only this, but the church hierarchy documented their crimes and it was this documentation that finally brought these crimes into the light of day. One has to wonder at the arrogance that allowed for such “foolishness” as spoken of in Proverbs today and downright evil expressed in cruelty to those least able to defend themselves. And in all of this; we have to come back to ourselves, continuing in the words of Proverbs today to “walk the path of understanding” realizing that each of us has a duty, as in our simple safety statement for our parish, to be watchful and have no fear in reporting those actions that we know are wrong even if we must implicate a bishop or a pope. And it is in that light that I wanted you all to know that just yesterday, I signed a letter from the Roman Catholic Women Priests (RCWP) addressed to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) naming this long-time problem and in no uncertain terms demanding that they live out their calls to leadership and make the necessary changes needed to right this grievous wrong. If you would like to read this letter, I have placed it on our website, allareonechurch.org.
• On a personal level, this past week, Robert and I took the opportunity to visit a friend who recently, along with her family, went into the Hospice program as she has struggled for several years battling cancer, realizing now that palliative care is her best option for herself and her family.  You will notice that I included her family here as this is definitely something that involves one’s family as they all go through it together.  I was poignantly reminded of this by another friend as we shared about our mutual friend.  I said, “She has been struggling with this for over 5 years and my friend said, [her husband] “has been too!” Indeed!

Our visit, as I reflect on it, and told someone later, “really felt like being on holy ground.”  When someone is dying, they are at a different place than when that isn’t the case.  We held hands, without words—it was really beyond words, we gave hugs and held on, we talked of the goodness of life, of past memories—we call that life review—we talked of our children and grandchildren and just knew that it was good.  It was “the bread of life,” the body and blood of Jesus.” I know there are those of you who have experienced the same with family and friends.

So my friends, following our brother Jesus is always going to call us beyond what the crowd may be doing at any particular time.  Following a crowd simply because we fear standing alone may be the “foolishness” that the writer of Proverbs is asking us to abandon.

The psalmist in 34 says, “Taste and see that God is good—let the humble hear [the voice of God] and be glad.” It seems that humility may be needed to get beyond ourselves.  And finally, in Paul’s words to the Ephesians, we hear, “Don’t act like fools, but as wise and thoughtful people”—make the most of your time and give thanks for everything.

Even in our visit to our friend on Hospice; we came away being thankful for the time spent and the intimacy shared. May we each, friends, pray for the strength to touch our world with as much “body and blood,” as we are able. Amen? Amen!