Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Jesus as the bread of life is a beautiful, powerful metaphor, but does anyone else feel they’ve had their fill of it? This is the fifth Sunday that we’ve heard this theme. Today, more bread isn’t the only thing that seems a little much, a little excessive. Jesus says some really strange things. He says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” And twice he talks about, “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood.” If you heard these words without any context, you’d have to assume Jesus was talking about cannibalism. These are really unappetizing words.

I think I’ll always remember that this passage was the assigned scripture for my first Sunday as pastor here six years ago. I really didn’t want to start my ministry here thinking about flesh-eating followers of Jesus. I much prefer more palatable teachings about love and service and being kind.

No wonder Jesus’ first hearers disputed among themselves, asking, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” How can this be? If we spend a lot of time around the church, we sometimes forget how strange Jesus’ words are, until we put ourselves in the place of someone who hasn’t domesticated or spiritualized them. If we hear these words, as if for the first time, we realize that Jesus is making some pretty radical claims. Jesus is saying the God of the universe has come, in the flesh, so that we can consume God. And that’s pretty intense. Do we really want a God who is that close, that intimately involved in our lives?

This isn’t a God who’s just icing on the top of a good life,  a light, fluffy, unobtrusive God. This is a God who wants to get under our skin, burrow within us, and seep into every nook and cranny of our beings. This is not a God who stays at a safe distance sending down teachings, ideas, and motivation. This is a God who wants to get into every aspect of our lives. It almost sounds like God wants to consume us, to claim us, and change us from the inside out.

That’s not the kind of God we’d likely choose off a menu. This is not a comfort food God – warm, fuzzy, not too demanding. A God who wants to be consumed and consume us is not all that appealing. And yet, the good news of Jesus is that God doesn’t wait until we desire or accept or believe or understand any of this.

God just comes to us in Jesus. And Jesus gives his very self to feed us with what we most need. God knows that on our own, we don’t choose what we really need. We consume so many empty calories.

We seek fulfillment in all sorts of things that leave us wanting. So, Jesus helps us to see how hungry and thirsty we are and awakens our yearning for God. God knows that we are so often consumed by things that drain our life – consumed by worries, fears, anger, stress. So, Jesus helps us identify what’s eating at us and sets us free from it. Jesus draws us into God’s all-consuming forgiveness, love, and abundance.

God also knows that our patterns of consumption keep us focused inwards on our wants and pleasures. So, Jesus comes to turn us outward towards our neighbor and creation, so that our lives will nurture others.  This is a joyful, life-giving way of being that nourishes us and all that God has made.

Jesus gives himself so that we might have what we really need. Jesus does this in all the ways he has promised. Jesus does this when two or three are gathered in his name, online or in person. When we worship in Jesus’ name we become more than we are as individual parts. We become Christ’s body for each other and the world. Through this beautiful, broken, beloved body of Christ, God challenges us, gets under our skin, disturbs us, and at the same time loves, feeds, blesses and transforms us. There are many, many times that the body of Christ in the whole church and in this congregation is not what we’d prefer. But it is just what we need to receive abundant life and to be a life-giving presence in the world.

Jesus, the Word made flesh, also meets us as we hear and reflect on the words of scripture, as we sing, make music, pray and share in silence. In all these ways Jesus frees and feeds us. And Jesus comes to us in the bread and wine saying, “This is my body, this is my blood given for you.” He doesn’t wait to see if we believe this or feel something about this. Jesus simply meets us where we are in a way that we can touch, smell, taste and see – in a way that can get into us.

Jesus also meets us out in the world, in the creation that feeds us, and in those the world considers least and the last. Jesus promises that how we treat those in need is how we treat him. Jesus is present in, with and among us, giving us what we need even if it’s not always what we’d choose.

Through Jesus’ presence, God gets under our skin.
God transforms us from the inside out.

Let’s take a moment of silent prayer.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

These days, we spend a lot of time thinking about the food we eat. Seems like every day there’s a new diet promised to be THE answer for losing weight, preventing cancer, caring for the earth, and basically making you a much better person. We give a lot of thought to the food we consume. And that’s good, because our diets do significantly affect our lives, the planet and other people.

Jesus also invites us to pay attention to our spiritual diets. What helps us to experience the abundant, everlasting life that God gives us? What is toxic? What helps us to nurture others? Dietitians encourage keeping a list of everything we eat during the day to help us be mindful of our food choices. That’s helpful advice when it comes to our spiritual diets as well.

When we wake up in the morning, worries and concerns are often the first things on our plates. We stew about what the day will bring, how we’ll manage it, whether there’ll be enough time, or too much empty time. Our minds gnaw away at the stressors in our lives and soon we find we’re consumed by them. Then, often we open the morning paper or turn on the news, and take in more anxiety producing stuff. As Christians, we’re called to be informed and politically engaged, but too much news can make us really unbalanced.

Social media often gives us even more negativity. It can work us up ‘til we feel like sharks in a feeding frenzy. And everywhere we turn, someone is promising a quick fix to feel better. If you just get the right lotion or dish soap or smart phone app then you will be nourished, then your life will be balanced. There is so much pressure to consume more.

All of this leaves us drained and exhausted, unable to nurture relationships, tend to community and serve others. So we look to vacations, retreats, powerful experiences hoping those will feed and nourish us. But when our daily rituals are so depleting, we aren’t really replenished with just an occasional taste of something good. One healthy meal can’t make up for all the days of junk food and empty calories. We need a steady diet of life-giving nourishment.

That is what Jesus gives us. Jesus Christ, and our life in Christ, gives what we need for a nourished life that can nurture others. In many ways, Jesus provides for us the way grandmothers used to feed large extended families, the way many grandmothers still do. (I don’t mean to reinforce any gender stereotypes here – my husband is the main cook in our house – but I do love the image of Jesus as a grandmother.) With Jesus, and with grandma, there’s one really big meal on Sunday and then you’re sent home with food to last all week long.

On Sundays, Jesus really goes all out and puts on the spread. The whole entire family and all sorts of guests are invited to the table. We share stories from scripture and talk about what matters. We make music, we sing, we pray. We are drawn near to God and to all of God’s beloved children, that is all people. We share a meal together. And Jesus really pours himself into this meal, in fact he gives his whole self. Jesus gives of his very flesh and blood so that we might be filled with his abundant, eternal life. We are fed with God’s forgiveness and healing,

That’s Sunday.  But then, like grandma’s meal, it doesn’t end there.

We’re sent home with good nourishment for the rest of the week.
We’re sent with the wisdom, peace and challenges we’ve received at the dinner table so that we can chew on them throughout the week.
We’re sent with the Bible, God’s Word, and the invitation to gnaw on it and let it get into us.
We’re sent with the Holy Spirit so that we will always be fed by God’s presence with us.
We’re assured that through the power of prayer we can commune with God anywhere.

And we’re reminded, just like a grandma says, that we are part of a family. We are not alone – we have siblings in Christ.
We’re also charged to live out the values of this family – to live in ways that nourish others and creation, as Jesus calls us to do.

These gifts provide what we need for a healthy spiritual diet each day. Prayer can help us to not just mindlessly consume but rather to discern what we want to take in, what we want to avoid, what we’re called to try to make better. Simple routines each day can keep us connected to God’s nourishment. We can begin each day with a simple prayer of thanks, rather than diving into the worries. We can make the sign of the cross on our forehead to remind ourselves of Jesus’s presence with us. We can take a deep breath and a moment of silence before jumping into a task, as we do in our meetings here at Good Shepherd. We can end each day with a practice of gratitude rather than stewing about what went wrong, what we didn’t get done

Reading a portion of scripture each day, even just a taste, offers what we need to face the news and not be consumed by it. For through God’s word, we are assured that life prevails over death, that love is stronger than hatred, that God is present and at work amidst all the turmoil of our world.

We don’t do these things to try to earn God’s abundant, everlasting life. That is given to us, to you. Rather, these practices help us to experience that life deep in our bones. They give us what we need to live as Christ’s body for the sake of those who are hungry and hurting.

Beloved of God, Jesus has given his very self to provide for us now and forever.

We have all that we need to be nourished and to nurture others.

Come and eat!

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

In this strange year of 2021, I find myself having more empathy for the people of Israel in the wilderness. We heard part of this story in our first reading today. It’s a story full of whining, com- plaining and grumbling. I usually feel some exasperation for the Israelites when I hear it. God has just rescued them from Egypt! Yeah, they’re not yet to the land of milk and honey but they are freed from slavery. They’ll get to the promised land soon; they just need some patience, some trust. They need to practice some gratitude.

Now I get it. Now I feel their pain. The Exodus from Egypt was epic, historic, unprecedented – words we’ve heard a lot over the past year. God delivered them. They had such hope for the future.

Yet then they find themselves in the wilderness facing new challenges and so much uncertainty. They don’t know the way to the promised land. They don’t know how long they’ll be in the desert. They don’t know where they’ll find respite. And they are just done with it all. They are weary and depleted. They need a break.

Sound familiar? We endured 2020 and the long COVID winter. Some of us had it easier, others lost so much. And then we were delivered!  God worked through science to give us vaccines and de- liver us from the worst of the virus. Safe, effective vaccines were developed in record time! They give us such astonishing protection against this plague.

Yet now there are so many new and recurring challenges: the Delta variant, lagging vaccination rates, forest fires, floods, smoke, political divisions, racial injustice, decision fatigue about what is safe and responsible regarding COVID. We keep hearing about a post-pandemic future and how much we will need to continue to adapt to meet it. But we’re really tired and we’re still in the wilderness. The promised land of a post-pandemic world, a new and better normal, feels a long way off.

What will this time require of us? What does the future hold? What will happen to our beloved institutions – to congregations, colleges, non-profits, small businesses? What will school be like this fall? These are the questions we carry with us in our wilderness. Sometimes they become much more than concerns. They become complaints, sighs, and anger. And that’s OK.

God can handle it. Over one-third of the Psalms are lament Psalms, God’s people crying out to God:   “Where are you?” “How long?” “Why have you forsaken me?” God can deal with all of this. God received the Israelite’s complaints long ago in the desert and provides what they need, manna and quails to eat. And God does the same for us now. As we bring our questions, concerns, and anger to God, we find that God is still providing for us in this wilderness just as God provided for the Israelites. One way God does this is to open our eyes to see the gifts that have been there, in creation, all along.

Many scholars believe that the manna was always there; the people just hadn’t noticed. Dr. Terry Fretheim points out that in the Sinai Peninsula there is a “a type of plant lice [that] punctures the fruit of the tamarisk tree and excretes a substance from this juice, a yellowish-white flake or ball.

During the warmth of the day it disintegrates, but it congeals when it is cold. It has a sweet taste. Rich in carbohydrates and sugar, it is still gathered by [local residents], who bake it into a kind of bread (and call it manna). The food decays quickly and attracts ants.” ^[1]

In the wilderness, the Israelites discover that God has always been providing for them. They have what they need for each day. They can’t see what the future holds. They can’t secure a future for themselves. They can’t store or hoard this manna. They have to take it one day at a time.

God is always providing for us, always at work in creation, but so often we miss it. We get fixated on ourselves, our tasks, our plans, our worries, and we fail to notice the simple, ordinary blessings that God provides each day. During long months at home, many of us noticed the simple gifts more: good coffee, sourdough bread, daily walks, a card from a friend. Our busyness and our plans were put on hold and our eyes were opened to God’s care in daily life.

Now in this different wilderness, God is still providing for us. There is blessing enough for each day. God is always working to help us to see this. And because we always struggle to see God’s care, God has come to be present with us in Jesus who shares our humanity.

Jesus joins us and works to open our eyes.
Jesus feeds us with God’s abundant love, with forgiveness, with community.
Jesus also breathes on us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that renews, upholds, and ignites us to face each day with hope and courage.

We don’t know what the future will hold. We don’t know how long we will be in this wilderness. Yet God is present with us, and God provides enough for this day.

And when we cannot see this and cannot trust this, God also receives our worries, anger, and complaints. God hears us and all our struggles. God holds us and all our worries. The Spirit works to help us take a deep breath and release it all to God.

Let’s do that now as we prepare to sing our hymn together.
Let’s breathe together and release all our concerns to God.

^[1] Terrance Fretheim, Interpretation: Exodus. (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991), 182.