My daughter and I moved to south GA from NJ when she was 3 years old. Having left a traumatic situation, my daughter was insecure about her safety – and rightly so. Our lives were threatened in very real ways for 9 years after I left my abusive first husband, her father.
Since I was working full-time, my daughter went to a wonderful 7th Day Adventist day care, where Miss Martha became her person. If I wasn’t around, my daughter felt safe with Miss Martha, which was vital to her healing.
People need to feel safe and loved. When we do, we can relax. Unless we are able to relax, a continual state of excitement will wear out our hearts, elevate our blood pressure and sugars, and ruin our digestion. We may experience constant anxiety and even lapse into depression. This is trauma response 101.
As people of God, prayer and presence enable us to relax. Prayer and being regularly in the presence of God enable us to shift from our normal state of awareness of the things of earth to a grace-filled consciousness of the heavenly realm.
In our readings from last week and this week, we learn how to make this shift. Jesus says it simply: believe.
In today’s story from Exodus, Moses and his brother Aaron have led the people into the wilderness. They’re hungry and afraid, so they complain, “Why did you lead us out here… to die of hunger?” This isn’t a short-sighted complaint. It’s a real one.
We often picture the exodus of the Israelites in the wilderness as we see it depicted in art - which is interpretive, not historical. There were actually about 650,000 people following Moses and Aaron. That’s more than twice the current population of St. Louis, which is 277,000.
Imagine two men trying to organize the daily feeding of 650,000 people in the desert. It’s an impossibility. This is similar to the impossibility Philip mentioned to Jesus when Jesus told them to feed the 5,000 men, which meant about 20,000 people, in last week’s gospel story. “Six months wages wouldn’t be enough to buy the food we need,” Philip said.
In both stories, we hear they were being tested. Would the disciples be able to shift from their earthly awareness to a heavenly consciousness? Did they believe?
The answer is kind of... Sound familiar? So, God showed them – again – just as God did in Exodus and in story after story in our Testaments, Old and New, that God would take care of them because they were beloved of God.
These stories teach us that our security is found only in God. We may think we can take care of ourselves and do things that will ensure our safety, but all of our efforts guarantee us nothing and what we end up with is no more life-sustaining than fouled manna full of worms.
Last week we heard that after feeding the people, Jesus walked on the water to the disciples who had left on their boat headed for Capernaum. Jesus wasn’t on the boat with them because he had gone off to a mountain by himself.
When the disciples saw Jesus walking toward them on the water, they were terrified. Jesus assured them of their safety, and “immediately,” their boat reached land, that is, their anxiety was calmed.
When did you come here, they asked. They knew he didn’t get on the boat with the disciples, so how did he get here? It’s a reasonable question, from an earthly perspective.
Jesus answers, however, from a heavenly perspective. You came looking for me because you want more of that food you had yesterday which satisfied your belly but somehow left you wanting more. Seek the food that satisfies your soul, food that endures for eternity. That food will be given to you by the Son of Man, on whom rests the seal, which means the security, of God.
Their next question seems strange: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” The Greek says it like this: What do we do to bring to pass the works of God?” In other words, how would this covenant work? What’s our part in it?
Jesus’ answer shifts them from earthly awareness to heavenly consciousness. The work of God is this: that you believe in the one whom God has sent.
They’ll consider it, but they need a sign. Moses gave our ancestors manna in the wilderness, they said. What will you do?
Jesus answers them, Moses didn’t give our ancestors manna, God did.” The true bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
We want that bread, they say. I am that bread, Jesus says.
As Sujanna+ reminded us last week, ‘I am’ is the name God calls themself when Moses asks God, what should I tell the people when they ask who sent me, and God says, Tell them I Am sent you.
In today’s gospel, Jesus claims this name and the life-giving power of God saying, “I am the bread of life.” Jesus is the food that gives life to body and soul and endures for eternity and whoever believes in him will never hunger or thirst again.
Here is the ultimate shift from earthly awareness to heavenly consciousness. Jesus, the Messiah of God, didn’t come as a political Messiah to liberate the Jewish people from Roman occupation. Jesus came to liberate the whole world, all people, in every time and place, from the power of sin and death and to give us eternal life; life in the eternal presence of God.
We, who believe, have this life in us because this life is Jesus who dwells in us.
What must we do for the works of God to come to pass in our time? We must believe. Do we believe?
When I ask, do we believe, I’m not asking do we assent to, or even acknowledge this truth. That would be nothing more than an earthly awareness. When I ask do we believe, I am asking, do we know and feel in every cell of our being, beyond our comprehension, that God is in us, working through us because we are beloved of God?
The letter to the Ephesians reminds us that we are called to live as Jesus did, humbly, with gentleness and patience, “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
We have been uniquely gifted by God to accomplish this in our lifetimes. God gathers us together into the part of the body of Christ we call “our church” to equip us to do the work of ministry. It is in community that our individual gifts come together into a powerful whole that none of us has on our own. This is the synergistic reality of being the church.
We walk together, as a church community, into Christian maturity, a maturity where we can love our enemies, not vilify or kill them; a maturity where we don’t shoot children because their blackness scares us; a maturity that has compassion for, not judgment against, those who are hungry or afraid or strangers among us.
The dream of God lives in us because God lives in us, the church, and ourselves as individual members of it. Trusting that God will provide all we need to do the work They call us to do, we learn and practice together, as a church community, how to represent Christ in the world, gently, humbly, with our metaphorical towels wrapped around our waists.
We practice first in here with one another, then we take it out there, into the world, until the mission of the Church, which is that the whole world is restored to unity with God and each other in Christ, is accomplished. (BCP, 855)
We cannot rely on our own strengths or smarts to do this. We may, at times, feel insecure or afraid, attacked or abandoned. That is why it’s so important to nourish ourselves continually with holy food of Communion, the bread of life and cup of salvation, to strengthen us, body and soul, so that God can work with us, through us, and accomplish all God has promised.
Let us pray:
O God, our source and our life, in you alone is our safety and security. Strengthen our belief by your continual presence, that we may faithfully serve others guided by your goodness and mercy, all the days of our lives. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
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