The Bread and the Wolves
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham,
Rector
St.
Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 12,
2012; 11 Pentecost, Proper 14, Year B
Episcopal
Revised Common Lectionary
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."
________________________________________________
I am the bread of
life. John 6:35a
At our household table, bread is usually just an accompaniment
for the other main courses. Bread is not
the most important or even an essential element of many of my meals.
But to Jesus’ listeners, bread was the staple of their diet. Scholars tell us that a majority of people in
first century Israel were malnourished, some severely. We may see a reflection of that in Luke 6
where Jesus’ disciples pluck grains of wheat and rub them together in their
hands to eat even though it is a Sabbath.
There was almost no meat in their diet, although fishermen would keep a
small portion of their catch for their family.
Bread was the one food that first century commoners most
likely possessed. It wasn’t unusual for
a poor family to have nothing else but bread, and they would put salt on the
loaves and eat them. There is a Middle
Eastern saying that refers to extreme poverty:
“Living on bread and salt.”
Traditional eating in the Middle East often doesn’t include
the use of utensils. They will use bread
instead, tearing off a chuck of the pita-like loaves and dipping it into one of
several bowls on the table, containing the main dishes. [i]
So when Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” we might
imagine his listeners thinking of the life-giving staple of bread, and maybe
also bread as the instrument for obtaining the better things in life. Jesus is offering them the basic staple of
life and also he is giving them the means to full life, abundant life. He himself is that staple and that means.
There is the old saying:
“You are what you eat.” So think
with me for a minute, what it might mean for you to let Jesus be your bread of
life. We participate in the liturgy of eating
this bread of life every Sunday at our Eucharist when we partake of “the Body
of Christ, the Bread of Heaven.” We feed
on his life to nurture and renew our lives, and to guide us into the abundant
life that Jesus promised.
So, let’s look at his life as our staple. What do we see? We see a life characterized by compassion and
love. We see someone grounded and
confident in his intimate relationship with God. We see someone who challenges cultural values
whenever those traditions seem to divide or diminish other human beings,
especially the vulnerable or outcast. We
see one who brings healing and coherence in his very presence. And we see a person in profound conflict with
the established powers of privilege and control.
Love and compassion.
Healing and justice. Forgiveness
and inclusion. Coherence and
courage. These are some of the
characteristics of Jesus. This is the
bread of life that satisfies our true hunger.
There is an old Cherokee legend. A chief was teaching his grandson about life:
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two
wolves.
“One wolf is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret,
greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, self-doubt, and ego.
“The other wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, and faith.
“This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every
other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked
his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old chief simply replied, “The one you feed.” [ii]
To eat the Bread of Life is to feed your own soul with the
Spirit of Jesus. That means avoiding
some food. If “you are what you eat,”
you also “are what you think.” Whatever
you ingest mentally feeds one of the two wolves within you.
Think about what you give your attention to. What is your diet of thoughts? …of conversation? …of television? …of reading?
What subjects consume your attention? Which wolf do you feed?
I find some news programs and talk radio seem to feed the
wolf of anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, inferiority,
lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
Turn ‘em off. The same with
magazines and books, and maybe some people.
What can you digest that feeds joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, and faith? -- The good
wolf.
Be intentional about choosing what captures your
attention. Ask yourself as you go
through your day moment by moment, which wolf am I feeding?
We live in a time when it can be hard to judge the quality
of what we are mentally digesting, hard to tell the difference between what is
true and what is false. We are given a
pretty regular diet of potentially polarizing information. How do we know what is true?
A friend forwards something from the internet. It makes some claims that seem pretty
inflammatory. I try to check out those
things on snopes.com. Snopes.com is a
non-partisan, apolitical web site dedicated to checking out the truth of
internet rumors, email-forwards, and other stories of uncertain or questionable
origin. Don’t hit the “forward” button
until you’ve checked it out. And if you
find it is untrue, click “reply” and ask the person who forwarded it to you to
correct the misinformation they have distributed, and to do so to everyone they
misinformed. Remember the ninth
commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbor.”
When I see or read political claims or hear campaign ads, I
often like to check them out at factcheck.org.
Factcheck.org is a non-partisan, non-profit website service of the
Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania. They do a solid job of checking the accuracy
of political statements and commentary.
Having a fundamental commitment to being truthful is the
first step on the road to spiritual maturity. [iii]
Yes, we are all rather poor arbiters of truth, for we are all nearsighted,
subject to seeing what we expect to see based on our cultural conditioning,
bias and prejudice. So we promote our
sense of the truth humbly, always ready to be taught and corrected.
Ultimately our being is grounded in the acceptance of God,
not our own capacities. God knows us and
regards us through the divine lens of pure, unbounded love. God feeds us with God’s own divine nature –
God is love. How much of your day each
day can you feed on that love?
Will the bread of Christ be only an accompaniment to your
other interests, your main courses? Or
will it be the staple, the means to your striving for an abundant life?
Which wolf will you feed?
The wolf of anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity,
guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and
ego? Or the wolf of joy, peace, love,
hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, and faith?
You are what you think.
With what will you fill your mind?
I’d like to close with a passage from St. Paul’s letter to
the Philippians. It’s something that I
have taped to the side of my computer monitor.
[i] from my friend Paul
McCracken of the Jerusalem Institute for Biblical Exploration who was our guide
for our 2010 trip to Israel. Paul sends weekly
notes on the lectionary, available by email request to: paul@jibe-edu.org
[ii] from the website First People, The Legends, http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html
[iii] Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled
posted by Lowell @ 8/11/2012 02:35:00 PM
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