15Walk with your eyes wide open and make wise use of your time, 16for the days we live in are full of worthless and troubled ways. 17Keep foolishness far from you and welcome the ways of wisdom, for then you will clearly see the path that Creator has chosen for you. 18It is not wise to drink too much, for that will lead you to a life of emptiness and sorrow. Instead, fill yourself with Creator’s Spirit, who will lead you into a life of beauty and harmony. 19At your gatherings, tell the ancient stories and sing the traditional songs. Sing spiritual songs from your heart as you dance before the Great Spirit, 20giving thanks to Creator always.
First Nations Version:An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament(Downer's Grove IL: InterVarsity Press 2021, ISBN 978-0-8308-1350-6).
Today's reflection is also brought to you by John 6:51-58.
"I am the living bread from above. The ones who eat this bread will live beyond the end of all days. And this is the bread that I will give as a gift to the world – my human body."
52His words caused great division among the Tribal Members, and they began to argue with one another. "How can this be? Will he give us his flesh to eat?" 53"I speak from my heart,” Jesus answered. “The only way to have my life in you is to eat the body of the True Human Being and drink his blood. 54Then, the life of the world to come will be yours, and at the end of all days I will bring your body back to life. 55My body is true food. My blood is pure drink. 56The ones who eat and drink my body and blood live in me, and I live in them. 57In the same way the living Father sent me and gave me his life, the ones who feed on me will have my life. 58The bread from above is not like the bread our ancestors ate – and then died. This bread gives people the life of the world to come that never fades away, full of beauty and harmony."
(Also from the First Nations Version...)
I intended to give the following reflection to the Community of Emmanuel this morning, but ended up in Lethbridge instead because my father-in-law is in hospital (thus this moodling's format is rather strange as I'm moodling on my cell phone, sorry.)
When Pastor Quinn asked me to lead this service so he could go on a little camping trip with one of his sons, I said, “Sure, I think I can do that.”
But when I read the scripture that we just heard, I thought, “Hoo boy. This could be interesting!” And I said a few prayers that went like this – "HELP!"
The first reading we heard from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians isn’t so tough to talk about. The Ephesians, the people Paul was writing to, were a small group of Christians in a big Greek city that worshiped the nature and hunter goddess Artemis. Paul was encouraging the little Christian group to stay connected to Jesus, to remember that they are loved by God, and to live lives worthy of that love.
And the words Paul says still speak to us at the Community of Emmanuel, for sure. “Walk with your eyes wide open and make wise use of your time … Keep foolishness far from you and welcome the ways of wisdom, for then you will clearly see the path that Creator has chosen for you.”
Paul tells us that “it is not wise to drink too much” which is something we all know well from experience, but really, it applies to all of life – when we overdo things, eventually it makes us feel bad, and we crash into “emptiness and sorrow.” Instead, Paul says we should live in “Creator’s Spirit, who will lead [us] into a life of beauty and harmony.”
And Paul’s closing comment reminds me of good times, hearing my uncles and aunties telling old stories and singing traditional songs. He says we can “Sing spiritual songs from your heart as you dance before the Great Spirit, giving thanks to Creator always.”
To me, that sounds like a very good time!
But then we get to Jesus in the Gospel according to John, saying, “The only way to have my life in you is to eat my body and drink my blood.”
What???
He goes on to say, “Then, the life of the world to come will be yours, and at the end of all days I will bring your body back to life.”
Yeah, okay, I can live with that.
But then he goes on, “My body is true food. My blood is pure drink. Those who eat and drink my body and blood live in me, and I live in them.”
You know, the words that come after this scripture verse say that there were a lot of people who were turned off by this kind of talk coming from Jesus. They reacted just like I did. “What??? “These words are too hard to hear,” they said. “Who can even listen to them?” they said.
But Jesus is speaking at a level beyond how we think when we hear those words. We have to try to think about them differently, more deeply.
I didn’t really get this kind of thinking until I started reading about a woman who was born in the 1300s. She lived in a little shack built against the side of St. Julian’s church in a little town called Norwich, and no one knows her real name, but we know the people of Norwich called her Mother Julian.
I went back to reading Julian during the pandemic because her life was lived in a scary time that had a lot in common with our time.
We’ve just lived through a pandemic – in Julian’s time, half her town died from the Black (bubonic) plague. She lived during the hundred year’s war between her country, England, and France, and these days, we are always hearing about war in Ukraine and Palestine and violence in other countries.
We are seeing a rise in poverty and homelessness, and Julian saw a lot of violence when poor people tried to overthrow the rich. There were people hunted down because of their beliefs and burned at the stake in her time. We have racism and homophobia. There were doomsday preachers in her time, and there are in our time, too.
But Julian had an experience that convinced her beyond the shadow of a doubt that God was in charge and that all would be well. Wars, plagues, poverty and violence meant that life in Julian’s time was soaked in the blood of many people who suffered and died. More suffering people came to her for counsel and help.
Fortunately, a vision Julian had when she was very sick herself showed her that when Jesus became human like us, he knew all about blood and suffering and death and all the horrible stuff that we face as human beings. That’s when she realized that his language about giving his body and blood was really his way of saying “I give myself to you, fully and completely, because I love you so much. I’m all yours. And I promise you a life better than the one you’re living right now. I’m in charge.”
Julian’s vision of Jesus helped her to give hope and optimism to the people who visited her little shack every day of the rest of her life. People who were sick. People who had lost loved ones. People worried about their family members fighting in the wars. People who felt that God was punishing them for their sins.
And you know what she told them? She told her visitors that the Creator of the universe doesn’t pay much attention to sin and throwing people into hell because God is the biggest love ever and can’t hate anyone or anything means he and she has created.
According to Julian, the only thing about sin that bothers the Creator is the pain it causes for his beloved people. Creator doesn’t punish us for the things we do wrong and the mistakes we make, but if we are greedy, cruel and unkind, our actions create their own misery in our lives, don’t they? And that’s kind of what Paul is saying when he says we should avoid sin in so many of his letters.
Probably the most famous saying from Julian of Norwich is this: Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. In other words, sin happens, but everything is gonna be alright.
But let’s leave Julian and go back to this thing about eating and drinking Jesus’ body and blood. A lot of Christian churches have taken those words for the communion service, to eat bread as Jesus’ body, and drink wine or juice as his blood. But sometimes, I think bread and wine are just too little and ordinary to represent the huge love that Creator, Jesus, and the Spirit are offering to us.
So I’d like to invite you to close your eyes for a moment, get comfortable, and breathe in and out gently.
Now imagine you’re in a place that you really love.
Imagine that Jesus is with you.
He is looking at you with deep, deep love. The deepest love.
Listen to these words and imagine him saying them to you:
"I am Creator’s son, and I am part of everything in this world, everything you’ll ever need to have a beautiful, blessed, happy, good life.
I am love beyond love.
And if you are willing to receive my love in your life, to hold onto me, I offer you an eternity of joy even though life here and now is challenging.
I love you so much, that I’m giving myself to you completely, body and blood and all the beauty of creation.
Eat me. Drink me. I’m all yours. I love you that much.”
Jesus,
Thank you for being with us. Thank you for giving us your love beyond love.
Be with us as we try to live in your love, as we do our best to love others and this world you have given us.
Bless all those we love, and those most in need of love.
+Amen.
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