August 18, 2024

Pentecost 13 (Lectionary 20) , Year B

John 6:51-58

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Here’s what happened while I was starting to write this on Thursday morning. I was at the desk here with my laptop, and at about 11:25 the lights flickered. They flickered again and then flicked off, and all the background noises of air conditioners and fridges and computer fans went quiet. The very annoying slow beep of the fire alarm system – the beep that means the power’s out - started to go. Someone came up from the daycare downstairs just to see if the power was off up here too, and Pastor Andrew in the office next door packed up his things and went home where the computer works and where he could see. About ten minutes later the power was still off, and I had this weird thought out of nowhere: What if this is it? What if the power grid, the whole thing everywhere, has just failed and things will never be the same again? Right wing extremists took it down, or a Russian hacker or Canadian with a grudge broke the whole system with a keystroke, or mother nature just said “Enough is enough; it’s time to reset the balance.”?

I get that way sometimes – I’m pretty sure a small thing might actually be or become a huge and awful thing. So a power outage really is the end of the world.

I kept on at my laptop, writing away, and then, and I’m not making this up for dramatic effect, the moment I was typing those very words – “a power outage really is the end of the world” – the lights came back on. It’s not the end of the world! And then, as soon as I typed that last sentence, the lights went out again.

What if it’s all coming crashing down?

Then I remembered the words I’d just been reading and hearing from that gospel today: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” And I wasn’t thinking about the eating flesh and drinking blood part – more on that later – but I was remembering that promise of Jesus, that we abide in Jesus, and Jesus abides in us. We remain in Jesus, and Jesus remains in us.

And maybe Jesus would expand on it all and say, “If the world is falling to pieces – You abide in me and I abide in you. If the bad guys are taking over, you abide in me and I abide in you. If there’s no power grid and easy food supply any more, and your comfort and your security turn out to be an illusion – and they are – You abide in me and I abide in you.” If all that is gone, the one who keeps on calling himself the Bread of Life who will not leave us hungry is still here.

I need to remember now that I say all this as a privileged person, who has a car and a job and enough money to jump on a plane and fly around on fancy trips now and then. And I’ve come to think that all that is normal. Jesus says that same thing to anyone of us, anyone of you, who has not known and does not know comfort and security and privilege, or whose world has already seemed to come apart: “You abide in me and I abide in you.” “You remain in me and I remain in you.” “I am the bread of life and I will not leave you hungry.”

When Jesus says that I know that it might sound very different for you than for me, and I won’t pretend to know that I know how different it is.

In all these weeks of Jesus talking about being bread of life, he also talks a lot about eternal life, and he talks a bit about heaven, but it’s not just “You will go to heaven” or “One day you will be with me,” or “I will raise you up.” Jesus is very clear: “I have come down from heaven. Bread of life has come down from heaven. Even manna in the wilderness has come down from heaven.” And in all of that, Jesus is saying that whatever is going on in life, he is settled in here with you, with me, with us, right in the middle of whatever is going on. When the world seems to be coming to an end, when the world seems fresh and new; when you feel like life is great or when you wonder how you’ll get through another day, the word from Jesus is the same: “I’ve come here to be with you, and I will abide in you. And you will abide in me.” “You remain in me. And I remain in you.”

That is how closely God is tied up in our lives. That’s what eternal life is: The living God lives among us now. Now. Just like the living God always will.

Two hours after the power goes off, the power still isn’t on, and my laptop’s battery is slowly dying. The day cares have sent all the kids home to parents who have to figure out what to do with this unfriendly new twist in the day’s plans. It’s not the world falling apart, but it’s the world unpredictable. The unpredictable world where the Bread of Life lives and stays.

My laptop is almost out of power so I pack everything up and head over to Coffee Culture so I can plug in and write there. Now I don’t ever go to a public place and sit there and gawk or be the creepy guy in the corner watching everyone, but I can’t help but hear bits and pieces of conversation. So I think it sounds like someone’s getting interviewed for a job over at that table; I hear pieces of chatter about university starting soon, or the family, or the Bombers. I see a few people sitting alone with computers. I don’t think they’re writing sermons. Maybe they’re applying for a grant or a job, or writing their first novel or noodling around on TikTok. Who knows? There’s a couple or two, or I assume they’re couples, and the same regulars are working behind the counter. There’s someone even older than me scrolling through whatever’s on their phone. Seniors these days, you can’t get them off those things… I have no way of knowing whether any of these people have some sense that they abide in Jesus and Jesus in them, but I can guess that there is so much joy and so much hurt there, and there is a lot of “My life is finally coming together” and a lot of “My life is falling apart.”

I look around and get a quick glimpse of so much of the life where Jesus is committed to being at home. I look around and remember that the word come down from heaven, the Bread of Life come down from heaven, loves us and our fleshy everyday lives. And the living breathing Spirit of Jesus lives right here among us in all of our lives. Among all those people at Coffee Culture on a Thursday afternoon, where the power is on and the world doesn’t seem to be falling apart. Among all those people who don’t have four bucks to spend on a decaf cappuccino and not even notice. In a world on the edge of peace or a world on the edge of disaster. Whatever the state of the world, Jesus lived his life in this world. Gave his own flesh and blood, gave his bread, for the life of this world.

Look around wherever you are today or tomorrow or the next day. See who’s around you – don’t gawk and stare in some creepy way, though – and remember that that’s where Jesus abides, where Jesus’ spirit abides. With all those people. And then see if that does something to the way you see the people around you. What does it mean if Jesus lives right there with that person? Then see if it does something for the way you see yourself and your own life, where you abide in Jesus and Jesus in you.

And one more thing…because there’s always one more thing, right? There’s this other part of the reading we heard today, and it’s kind of strange and if you find it hard to figure out that’s OK. Here it is: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” It has a strange and kind of, well, you know…ring to it, right? Jesus might be talking about communion, but even today Biblical scholars don’t agree about whether that’s what Jesus is talking about here. It does fit with a textbook Lutheran understanding of communion: We officially believe that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ, but we don’t try to explain how that works other than to say that when Jesus says, “This is my body, this is my blood,” he means “this is my body and this is my blood.” Jesus is here: in the bread, under the bread, with the bread. Now if you’re not quite sure about that, that’s OK. We don’t all necessarily believe in all the official ways.

But wherever we’re at with that, here’s where Jesus is. Right here. And if Jesus is in the bread and wine that we eat and drink, we somehow leave this place with Jesus so close that it’s as though he now lives right in here. And in here, in us, the Body of Christ. Jesus abides, remains…. And goes with us as bread for the world.

As we leave this place we learn to see again that just like Jesus is in this bread and wine so Jesus is in us and the world around us, in all the world around us. In its dying’s and risings, in the people and the life around us, when the lights go out or when they come back on; in a cross and an empty tomb. The one who gave life to it all, the Living Bread who died and rose for it all, the one whose Spirit keeps making it new, lives here right now; abides in us and with us. Keeps on raising up new life, like it will go on forever.