"The Child's Meal"
In this world of spiritual starvation, Jesus Christ offers us food and drink for eternity
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, December 9, 2001
Text: John 4:27-38
My heart was pounding and racing, for I received a call in my room in residence at Mount Allison University informing me that something for which I had waited a considerable time had arrived downstairs in the lobby of the residence. The assistant don said: "Get down here immediately, Andrew, because I fear that if anyone knows it's here, it will disappear quickly."
So I ran downstairs with utmost haste and excitement, trying not to trip over myself, and there it was waiting for me on the table in the entrance-way to my residence: the box which I had anxiously awaited. I grabbed it, tucked it under my arm like a rugby ball and ran upstairs with it post-haste. In my room, I ripped open the covering and it was as I expected - a parcel from my mother and father.
They were living in Bermuda at the time, which was near the end of first term. I had only been away from home a few months and this was the first time that my parents had decided to give me something.
So I anxiously opened the parcel and found on top (you know mothers) two pairs of woolen socks. Very exciting, I thought. The next thing I saw, underneath those, was a jar with sand in it, from Elbow Beach in Bermuda. Something to stop me from feeling homesick, I thought. Then third, a not-so-subtle thing: It was some stationery, with envelopes. Apart from writing "Use them" on it, my mother and father could not have been more forthright, could they? Then, under that, the fourth of five things, the thing about which I was really, really excited.
My mother, throughout Advent, always made mince pies with a sugar-coating on them. In this piece of plastic and Tupperware® were two whole layers of pies. They were mine, all mine! Oh, I was so excited. I shut the door and I enjoyed myself for quite a while. It was lovely to find my parents thinking of me.
But I thought of that parcel and what it meant to me, for I was starting to feel homesick and a little lonely, especially since I was on my own in a foreign country and in college for the first time.
I went back recently and read the "Letters and Papers from Prison" by the theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was in prison right before the end of the war and was ultimately executed by the Nazis. Dietrich Bonhoeffer received a similar package while he was in prison, and he wrote a letter to his mother and father in thanks for what he had received. This is a portion of what he wrote:
It is Monday and I was just sitting down to a dinner of turnips and potatoes when a parcel you sent me arrived. Such things give me a greater joy that I can say. Although I am utterly convinced that nothing can break the bonds between us, I seem to need some outward token or sign to reassure me. In this way, material things become the vehicle of spiritual realities. I suppose it is rather like the felt need in our faith for the sacraments.
You see, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer hungered for was reaffirmation of his parents' love. He needed a token; he needed a sign; he needed a gesture to show that in fact he was loved. The arrival of that package, when he was in prison, was precisely the reaffirmation that he hungered for. Dietrich and I had received what is euphemistically known as a care package.
In many ways, the text read for us this morning is Jesus' care package to his disciples, for he took them to one side and said: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me."
So I want to look at this care package from Jesus to his disciples, for it was a care package that was not only applicable in its time, but is applicable for us even today. To understand what Jesus is saying, we have to understand the context of the whole story in which the Gospel of John places it.
Many of you will be familiar with the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at Jacob's well, but if you aren't, let me briefly tell it to you.
Jesus asked his disciples: "Would you go and get some food for me?" So they went into town and left Jesus all alone.
As Jesus was sitting at a well, a Samaritan woman came along to draw water. Jesus said to this Samaritan woman: "Do you know, I would like you to draw some water for me."
The woman was astonished, not because Jesus was asking her to do him a favour, but because he was a Jew and he was talking to her, a Samaritan. She couldn't believe that this Jew would talk to her and recognize her.
Jesus said: "Well, I don't have a bowl to get the water out, so I'm asking you, would you do this?"
She said: "But I'm a Samaritan. You shouldn't even be talking to me."
Then Jesus sort of shifted the conversation and said: "Well, why don't you get your husband to draw the water for me?"
Then, petrified, she said: "I don't have a husband."
Jesus said: "I know. You've had five husbands and the man that you are currently with is not your husband."
Well, she was absolutely astonished at this: "Oh, you must be a prophet! How do you know such things?" She was terrified, because Jesus seemed to know all about her life and she couldn't imagine how he, a Jew, could know her life, as a Samaritan.
The two of them entered into a great discussion about the spirit and worship, but what is interesting is that Jesus said to her: "You know, I can give you water from this well that will mean you will never have to thirst again. I can give you something spiritual that will be so great that you will never in your life have to thirst for anything more."
Now Jesus wasn't saying that she wouldn't have to go and get water from a well. He was speaking metaphorically. He was saying: "I am going to provide for you."
Well, that's the end of the story as we know it, until the disciples came back. When they came back, they saw Jesus having yet another conversation with this woman, because she was so overwhelmed by what Jesus had done that she ran into the streets to a neighbouring town to get her friends. She said: "Come and see, for I think I have found the Messiah and he told me all about my life and he is amazing. You have really got to meet this man."
Enter the disciples. Finally they came back with the food and they handed it to him and now begins the story of the meal, because when they came back with this food, Jesus said to them: "But the food that I've got is to do the will of the Father who sent me." In other words, "I want to give you, as disciples, now, spiritual food."
So he continued the theme that he carried on with the woman at the well. He was going to give her enough drink that she would never thirst; he was willing to give them food for which they would never go hungry. And now begins the story of the meal.
The meal really, in a sense, is two parts that John is giving us. The first, like any great meal, is an invitation, an invitation to a meal.
A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to attend a dinner of ministers. Our host very graciously decided to bring 12 ministers to dinner. Well, you can imagine how much conversation there was at that meal, can't you?
After about two or three hours, one of my friends decided to thank my host for the meal. Now, I think this was set up, but I don't know. He went to the host and said: "On behalf of all of us, I would like to thank you for this wonderful meal."
The host said: "Oh, don't thank me, thank God."
My friend said: "Well, the meal wasn't that good, you know."
Well, this meal that I am talking about today is that good! It is that good. It is a meal for which we have to thank God, and the invitation to this meal is what makes it magnificent, because it's as if Jesus Christ, through this story, is giving an invitation to every one of us here to eat of the food that lasts forever. For what we find in this is that the disciples, when they came back, were irritated. They were as mad as heck. They had gone off to get food in another town and when they came back, Jesus said: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me."
They must have felt like saying: "Well, why didn't you just tell us that before we went into town to get the food?"
But what really upset them (and this is clear in the Gospel of John) is that Jesus had been talking to a woman. We read that they were overwhelmed. They marveled at the fact that Jesus was having a discussion with a woman. Why? Well, because women in Jesus' day, and in the land in which he lived, were very often oppressed people.
Many of us cannot imagine, in our somewhat enlightened days, what it was like to be a woman in the time of Jesus. There were debates, for example within the Greek community, as to whether a woman even had a soul and was, therefore, worthy of spiritual attention. In the pagan cultures that were around, while they created goddesses in some ways emulating women, the reality was that they might have worshipped a female spiritual being, but that didn't translate into treating women with respect. In fact, many pagans who worshipped goddesses would actually expose their little daughters to the friends of the fathers. At the time of Jesus, people would actively pray that they would not give birth to a daughter but to a son, for a son was of infinitely greater value than a daughter - a bit like what we are finding in China today.
So women, in the time of Jesus, had little or no currency. They certainly had little or no spiritual power and the only power that they could exercise in a meaningful way was the power within the home.
But Jesus was different. He was different from the paganism around him; he was different from the prevailing intellectual culture; he did not debate whether women had souls: Jesus treated women as valued members of the kingdom.
Just recently I was reading the biography of Supreme Court judge, Bertha Wilson, who was involved with the United Church of Canada and is married to a minister.
There is a wonderful account of how Bertha Wilson dealt with the role of women in Canadian society and within the law. There was a fascinating debate going on within feminism as to whether women should be treated as special, and distinct from men, and have special rights, and have special privileges and be set aside for special attention; or, whether women were to have sameness, in other words, they were to be treated identically to men; that they would have the same rights as men, not special rights but equal rights.
Well, Bertha didn't get caught up in these arguments. One commentator said what she held in common was a profound belief that we are all human beings. It's not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of our sense of having a common creator. Therefore, the role of women within the law, (although there might have to be special things done to bring women into a position of equality) is essentially to share a common humanity.
Well, I think that Bertha Wilson is echoing here very much the sentiments of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus wasn't treating this woman at the well as if she was any more unique than the disciples, or any different. He was treating her in the same way as he treated the disciples. He was in fact inviting her to participate in this food and in this drink, which comes from the power of God's spirit and God's heart.
But not only was this invitation to women, it was an invitation to foreigners. The woman was a Samaritan. She was an outcast. She was considered somewhat lower than the average Jew. Many times in the gospels Jesus reached out to the Samaritans and tried to show that they were valuable in God's eyes; that even a woman who is a sinner (I mean, she had five husbands, and the man that she was living with was not her husband) and still Jesus reached out to her and said that she could, if she believed in him, have drink that would sustain her for the rest of her life.
Jesus, therefore, is offering an invitation. One of the concerns that I have, post- September 11th, with all our talk and concerns about terrorism, and refugees and foreigners, is that we as Christians must not lose sight of the fact that, in the grace of Jesus Christ, there is an openness. There is an invitation to come and to participate at the well, to come and participate at the meal of God's kingdom. For indeed, the way of Jesus Christ is to offer himself and open himself, even against immense criticism: derision for speaking to a woman, criticism for associating with a Samaritan, condemnation for associating with sinners.
But Jesus was convinced that the invitation to the meal was an open invitation. That is what the Christian faith has always been about. It's an open invitation to participate in the grace of Almighty God in Jesus Christ.
But that brings us now to the meal. The meal is fascinating. Jesus says to the disciples: "You know, I have food to eat that you do not know." He was saying [paraphrase] "You've brought me loaves, you have brought me food that is physical; but I have a food that is spiritual, a food that is going to last forever."
Now, along with many commentators, I think that Jesus had in mind the passage from Deuteronomy 8:3:
For man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD.
This is reiterated by Jesus in Matthew's Gospel. On numerous occasions, Jesus refers to the fact that the Word is in fact the food; that greater than bread is the power of God's word. John's Gospel goes to great lengths to show that the Word of God is actually Jesus himself, as he begins the Gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
In other words, what Jesus is saying to the disciples is: "Look, here in me is something greater than you can ever imagine: When the world hungers, when the world thirsts for truth, when it thirsts and hungers for God, when it desires spiritual things, here I am. Therefore the food that I am giving you to eat is greater than anything that you might currently know. I have shared it with the Samaritan woman and I am about to share it right now and right here with you."
But this is not a food that was just given to the disciples. This is a meal that continues to feed people and has continued to feed people for over 2,000 years. It feeds people, for example, who are living with the uncertainty and the confusion of the world in which we live and the anomalies of the things around us that confound us.
I was reading something delightful just last week, about some children in Seattle who were asked to describe what a paradox is, or what a contradiction is to an English teacher. There were some real gems in all of these - children are often wiser and more insightful than we are. One of the children wrote back the following: "Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?" You've got to think about that one, don't you?
"If" (I love this one) "the Seven Eleven is open 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors?"
One child wrote (and he was absolutely incredulous about this one): "Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?"
And here's the killer - I mean, coming from Seattle, the home of Boeing, I think this is just brilliant and I've wondered about this myself. "Why are there flotation devices under aircraft seats instead of parachutes?" The world in which we live often doesn't make much sense, does it?
There are many people, I think, for whom the world often makes no sense in more profound ways than this. They are seeking that spiritual food, something to sustain them in difficult and uncertain times.
I think that is one of the reasons for the occult becoming part of the mainstream in our society these days. People are searching and they are seeking. They will turn to anything; they will be duped by almost anything in the hope that it will give them something to hold onto, some sense of meaning or purpose.
I think people are looking for ways in which, for example, spirituality and faith can make a positive difference in life.
This past week I was invited to a lunch hosted by a gentleman who, in the United States, is working on the relationship between health and spirituality. He is a man who single-handedly set up 70 courses in medical schools in the United States on the relationship between faith and healing. Looking at real evidence and real concrete things, in the Journal of the American Medical Association just this past year he wrote the following. It's a long essay and he is basing it on our own Canadian doctor, William Osler, who once said that faith heals:
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses quantitatively confirm that religious involvement is epidemiologically a protective factor.
He goes on to show that when people have a terminal illness, for example, if they are men and if they are practising their faith, they have a 50 per cent longer lifespan; that women who practise their faith have a 30 per cent longer lifespan; that there is statistical analysis to show that 80 per cent of the people who come into hospital believe in God, but only 10 per cent of doctors ever talk about God to their patients when, in fact, one of the most profound things that people have in their lives is faith and belief.
In other words, this is a society, I do believe, that deep down its heart is crying out from a position of faith. Crying out from a position of faith in a world of violence - and the Lord only knows we need to pray, particularly right now, for the peace of Israel. In a position and in a time of violence, crying out for a source of peace and wanting something more. Hungering for it.
People are living hard lives, going home after hours of work and sitting in tiny little apartments, waiting for something good to happen. Deep down in their heart of hearts they are hungering, they are asking, they are waiting for something spiritual to give them hope and to give them strength and meaning in their daily lives.
Well, Jesus takes the disciples to one side and says: "You have got to stop searching. The harvest is already here. You don't need to go looking for salvation. You don't need to earn salvation. Salvation is here amongst you in the Word of God. You don't need to strive. You don't need to bomb a building to prove yourself to God. You don't have to go and get bread to prove yourself to me. Salvation has come. It's in your very presence. The harvest is here. The meal is ready. Here I am."
To those who are striving for peace in their lives, Jesus is saying, "My word is here. Here I am. Why are you searching? Why are you waiting for some future time and a harvest? I am here amongst you."
For people who are looking for meaning, for people like the woman at the well who are looking for affirmation and for forgiveness and for hope, Jesus is saying: "Here I am. If you'll believe in me you'll never thirst again."
In a world that is searching and seeking and striving and wanting to look in all different corners for the truth, Jesus is saying to the disciples: "Here I am."
And when the woman, after she had met Jesus, had gone away to her friends, she gave them the invitation: "Come and see. Come and see."
You know I said a little while ago that there was a fifth thing in the box from my mother. The fifth thing was a little piece of paper, an innocuous piece of paper that had actually stuck to the bottom of the box that I didn't see until about two days before I went home for Christmas.
You know what my mother had done? To make me feel comfortable she had decided to outline the menu of the Christmas dinner that we were going to have so I could look forward to it with mouth-watering anticipation. I thought, what a lovely thing to do: to give me the menu for a meal that I would be having after she had already shown that she loved me.
Jesus, you see, outlines the menu for us: "The meal is ready and here I am. You can feast on my word. You will never be thirsty if the waters of my life and my spirit are in you. You will never go hungry for spiritual things if you will only cleave to me."
One of the most beautiful expressions of that menu was something that I was given in a card just this week. It's very moving. It is the prayer that was given at the installation of the new president of Harvard University, back in October. It was given by Peter Gomes, the minister of the Memorial Chapel, which is in Harvard University. He had decided to send out this prayer to all those who support the ministry of the chapel.
In a world that is seeking and hungry, with those university students and faculty there to hear all this, I couldn't help but think this is one of the most magnificent things I have heard in years. The concluding prayer went something like this:
In this moment of high endeavour and great expectation, Oh Lord, fix thou our steps that we stagger not on the uneven motions of this world. Give grace to the living, rest to the dead, courage to the anxious, patience to the weary. To this foundation, dedicated to truth and nourished by a steadfast providence, grant us the blessing of a useful, hopeful future.
And then these great lines:
Where there is no greatness without goodness, no vision without virtue and where scholarship is made perfect in service, now Lord of all good beginnings, let us depart in peace.
That, my friends, is the menu, Jesus Christ is the meal, and you are warmly invited. Amen
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.