9th Sunday after Pentecost (Pr. 14) August 10, 2003 “Series B”
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Let us pray: Loving God, it is often easier for us to trust our minds than our hearts. Sometimes we believe only what our eyes let us see. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts to see Jesus – not merely as an historical person, the son of Mary and Joseph, a carpenter turned teacher and prophet. Let us see him as the Christ, the Son of God, the bread of life who alone can feed our soul’s hunger for forgiveness and renewed relationship with you, the author and giver of life. Amen.
Shortly after Josie and I began dating, I became aware that when we were together with her family, the discussion with the guys would inevitably turn to hunting. It was a passion shared by her father and brothers, and it wasn’t long before I was invited to join them on a hunt. Oh, I had hunted a little when I was in high school, but I never really got into the sport, like they were.
Of course, I didn’t have any hunting clothes. I didn’t even own a rifle. But that was not a problem. They had plenty of rifles, so they lent me one. They had plenty of hunting clothes, so they fitted me up with the essentials. Then they took me to a range to see if I knew how to shoot, where I think I more than held my own.
Then came the day of the hunt. Josie’s brother took me into the woods, and posted me an hour before daybreak, where I sat until three in the afternoon. I was frozen stiff, and the only creatures I saw all day were some squirrels and chipmunks that seemed to be toying with me. I fact, I was beginning to think that Josie’s Dad and brother were toying with me.
But then Bud came up to me without his rifle, his buck already in the car, and suggested that if I wanted to see some deer, I should follow him. I was just so happy to be able to move, that I quickly accepted his offer.
I don’t think we went more than 500 yards from that spot in this new environment that I had memorized, when Bud turned to me, put his finger across his lips to signal silence, and whispered, “There’s four deer sneaking through that thicket. Do you see them?”
I looked at where he pointed, shook my head, and responded in frustration, “No, I don’t see any deer.” Bud then put his hand on my shoulder, pushing me to kneel, and again asked, “Do you see them now?” I stared in the direction that he had pointed, for what seemed to be a minute, until I saw the legs of the deer sneaking through the brush.
“Now I see them,” I whispered back to Bud, in a tone that caused the deer to pick up their pace, in a direction dead away from us. I stood up, looked at Bud, and said, “You must have x-ray eyes. How in the world did you ever see those deer?"
Bud looked at me, shook his head, and said, “Ron, you might be a good shot, but you’re not going to be a good hunter until you see the deer. I’m going to give you a tip that my dad gave me a long time ago. When you’re hunting, you have to change your focus. It’s natural for our eyes and minds to focus on the trees. But when you hunt, you have to stop looking at the trees, and focus on the space between them. That’s where you’ll see the deer.”
In all honesty, Bud’s statement may seem obvious, but as most hunters know, it is not as easy as it seems. Now, when I come in from hunting, I’m not just cold and physically exhausted, I often experience eyestrain. Yet Bud’s words that day enabled me to look beyond what my mind wanted to focus on, to see that for which I was hunting.
In this series of Gospel lessons from the sixth chapter of John, which began with Jesus miraculously feeding 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus has been trying to get the people to see beyond the obvious, to gain a new focus, to look between the trees. As the crowds followed him, he challenged them, saying, “You seek me, not because you saw signs of God’s presence at work among you, but because you got your tummies full. Seek the bread that lasts forever.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus says. “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Yet again, the people didn’t get it. Their focus was fixed, they couldn’t see between the trees. They said, “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 responded to their questions by saying, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me…It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God’.”
Now, I’m not going to profess to be a great hunter. But I’ve come to enjoy the sport a lot more because Josie’s brother Bud took the time to draw me into it, by teaching me to see with a new vision. And that is what Jesus tells us God does. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God enables us to see with eyes of faith, gives us a new way to focus, so that we can see God’s presence at work in Jesus.
And God’s Holy Spirit is at work among us this morning, calling us to look between the trees and behold bread of life – God’s grace for the world. Through the words of Scripture, the Holy Spirit is at work calling us to behold the presence of God at work in history. And I believe that the Holy Spirit is at work through the proclamation of this sermon, calling us to a vision of faith that enables us to see the Scriptures as they relate to our present day lives.
In just a few minutes, we will celebrate the baptism of Katelyn Haggerty. In this sacrament, the Holy Spirit is calling us to look beyond the obvious, physical act of water being placed on her head as a human ritual of initiation, and behold the presence of God claiming her as his own. In fact, as an adult, the Holy Spirit has truly drawn her to this day. In our sessions together, Katelyn shared with me that she has really felt this need to belong to the church. Today, through God’s grace, she will not only belong to the church, but will belong to God, united to the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, as a child of his whom he loves.
Finally, the Holy Spirit calls us to look beyond the obvious, physical act of eating a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine, and recognize our Lord’s presence in the sacrament of communion. Listen to Jesus’ words: “I am the bread of life… 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 for ever; and the bread that I will give for the live of the world is my flesh.”
Through the vision of faith, we come to the table of our Lord, and with the bread and wine, our crucified and risen Lord is present to feed us with his forgiving grace. With the bread and wine, our Lord is present to assure us of his promise of eternal life, accomplished for us through his death on the cross for our redemption. With the bread and wine, our Lord is present to nourish us in faith and unite us as a family in communion with God.
I believe that there is a lot more going on in this service of worship, than what our eyes would naturally focus on. But thanks be to the Spirit of God that leads us to see with eyes of faith, God’s presence among us. Thanks be to the grace of God, that enables us to learn to see between the trees, and behold the bread of life for which we long.
Amen.
