Stephen V. Sprinkle
Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11, Year B-8/01/2021
Exodus 16: 2-4, 9 -15
Psalm 78: 23 – 29
Ephesians 4: 1 – 16
John 6: 24 – 35
“Here’s the Question No One Seems to Ask Any More”
Then [the crowds who tracked Jesus down after he fed the 5,000] said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” – John 6:28
So, what did you want to be when you grew up—back in the day? I used to be asked that question when I was a kid. Didn’t you? So, how did you answer? And I have a further question for you then, the same one I put to myself:
“Was your public answer the same as the secret answer you held in your heart for who you wanted to be?”
John Claypool, the longtime Baptist pulpiteer who later in life became a big steeple Episcopalian, said that when he was a child, and when grown ups asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d answer in ways that would flatter them. Smart kid. For example, if an attorney asked him what he wanted to be, he’d say, “I want to be a lawyer!” If a school teacher asked him, then Little Johnnie would say, “Why, I want to be a teacher!” And if a doctor asked him, he spoke right up and said, “I wanna be a doctor, just like you!”
But in his secret heart, Johnnie Claypool admitted he really didn’t want to be any of those things. Instead, he confessed, “I want to be King of the World!”
So, take a moment right now, and think back. What was your childhood answer to what you wanted to be when you grew up? Was your public answer the same as your secret wish? And then, in these moments of private candor, how is all that working out for you, now that you are all grown up?
We compartmentalize, don’t we?
- Public commitments and private wishes
- Childhood dreams and mature adult decisions
- Fantasies and quote “Real Life” unquote
So, where does God fit in to what we wish to become, either publicly or privately—or does God figure into the equation of what makes up your public and/or private life at all? Perhaps we Christians would be better served by flipping the question, so that it confronts us where we live:
“Where, Dear Christian, do you fit into what God wishes each and all of us to become, rather than the other way around?”
So much hangs on our continuing struggle to set ego aside, and become God’s person.
Look back at the Gospel reading for this morning. Yes, there are striking ways that have markedly changed since Jesus got questioned by his followers that day in Capernaum…that day following the way he fed the 5000+ back on the other side of the Sea of Galilee.
Here’s the first marked difference: these boats-full of Jesus’s newest admirers crossed land and sea to catch up to Jesus again. They had experienced a miracle! They had heard this Jesus teach with the authority of God! They had eaten their fill of loaves and fishes until they couldn’t stuff in another bite—but they were hungry for more. And they asked for it.
You see, to them, Jesus was the irreplaceable link to the God-sized hunger they bore in the very center of their being. So, they went looking for him—not to do them another miracle. He had already given them a miracle.
They rented, borrowed, or even commandeered boats to cross the Sea of Galilee to where they heard Jesus had gone. They were not in search of his pastoral care or to secure him as a recommendation for their résumé—or even to join them for lunch. They sought for Jesus himself!
Like they say in the southland from which I come: “Honey, who looks for Jesus anymore? Who goes the distance to find Jesus and ask him the question upon which our Christian lives depend?” Especially if discipleship like that requires us to do the hard work of changing our minds and learning how to pray with out ceasing again.
That’s the second way the followers of Jesus did something markedly unlike what we do in Dallas today: They asked him the question nobody seems to be asking much at all anymore:
“Tell us, Jesus: What must we do to do the works of God?”
- Not what are you going to do for me, Jesus?
- Not how are you going to satisfy my consumer demands on the church, the church staff, and my feelings?
- Not how can I get my religion fix for the week, or punch my attendance card until I just happen to get around to attending church again sometime this month or next?
I suspect the hunger of our ancient faith ancestors drove them to stumble beyond their own egos into a more momentous question than they originally had any intention of asking:
“What must I do to do the works of God?”
–And Jesus answered them: “Get hungry. Get hungry for something besides your own self-gratification. Get hungry for the Bread of Life. I AM the Bread of Life. And anyone who tastes my Bread will hunger only to do the works of God who sent me.”
Fr. Christopher and Fr. Stephen know that this year I am celebrating the 44th year of my ordination to the Ministry of Jesus Christ. I have served on five church staffs. Taught seminarians. Gotten degrees. I am painfully aware that like so many of the parishioners and students I have served, I have too often sadly majored in minor issues, groused about a life that is so full of abundance, and hungered for that which is not Bread. But like Rectors everywhere, I have also borne the discontent of a people who cannot get it through their heads that following God, doing the works of God, is not ultimately about them. So quickly the people of God forget God in their headlong search, not for Jesus, but for something to satisfy them. Like the Hebrew people grumbling and grousing about the food God sent them from the sky! Criticizing what they are called to do and to become, complaining that “We’ve never done it that way around here before”…preferring the comfortable fleshpots of the devil they know rather than the unknown open future they are called to travel into with Moses, and our Bishops, and our rectors and leaders. To seek Jesus, the Living Bread.
Do not think that ministry is a glamorous round of pleasant things. Sometimes, it may be, but just like Christianity, ministry is about God, and only about the people of God insofar as they become like Jesus in their works and ways. God has turned toward us, and now it is our turn to turn toward God. The work of ministers is to lead and equip the people of God to concern themselves with how the works of God may be done in this time and place—and then to go and do it. This, Beloved, is a hard saying.
I posted a meme on social media as a reflection on my work as a minister after four decades of ordination. To date, it has gotten 137 likes or loves, 19 comments, and 15 shares. This meme has proved more provocative than I at first imagined, so it must point to a real problem and a real truth. It reads as follows:
EVERY CHURCH WANTS A GREAT PASTOR UNTIL THEY FIND ONE THAT REQUIRES THEM TO BE GREAT CHRISTIANS.
Could not the same thing be said of Jesus, the Living Bread? Everyone wants a true redeemer until that redeemer says to them, “Take and eat of my Living Bread. You shall never be hungry for anything else ever again. So, get up! We must be going to do the works of the One who sent me.”
Remember what you once secretly hoped to become? How’s that been working out for you?
You still have a chance to become something new if you are hungry enough… to follow Jesus.
Amen.
