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Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's August 6, 2006 Sunday worship service. Truthfully Speaking II Samuel 11:26-12:13a; John 6:24-35 Bethel 8/6/06 Rev Marc Sherrod, ThD There are two things that seem to me, essential, if you desire to live a faithful and truthful life. Our two texts speak to these two essentials. First, there is the need we all have for someone who will be honest with us, to hold us accountable to what we claim as our highest values and two, we need a community of faith that invites us in, embraces us for who we are, with encouragement, nurtures us in Christian faith, and holds us accountable to live a disciplined lifestyle. Let’s take the first one: someone to be honest with us. The bright, powerful, accomplished King David, was also quite capable of serious, deadly treachery. In a moment that echoes with deep truth across the ages, David had his neck saved by Nathan when Nathan confronted David’s sin and said, “you are the man.” As much as King David had going for him, he had begun to think and act as if he could chart his own course, that he was the master of his own destiny, even when that destiny included taking another man’s wife and life. We know all about his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and, when she got pregnant, his desperate attempt to get the husband, away fighting the King’s war, back to Jerusalem so that it would appear he were the father, but Urriah, the Hittite general would not cooperate, and the King carried out what amounted to a political assassination of Urriah, an attempted cover-up for the King’s sin. David had fallen prey to the fallacious logic that since he was king, he could do what he wanted. We see the consequences of such an attitude from those in positions of power and authority. Now, what’s that got to do with you and me, we wonder? I doubt if anyone here thinks they are queen or king and thus above ethical law. However, we do have to be careful that we don’t insulate ourselves from the bigger picture of God’s way and God’s world. The danger of such insulation is that we carve out for ourselves a cozy corner of how we view life and the world. The next step can be to set ourselves up as the rulers of that universe. For sure, a lot can be accomplished that way, but we have to be alert to what happens to one’s spirit when one becomes overly self-confident in one’s independence and self-autonomy. God made us interdependent and God made us to live in community. We need persons honest enough to remind us just how inter-related we are to one another. Honesty might well be the highest measure of true friendship. I read about a minister’s spouse, married for some 45 years, who gave her husband a plague that read: Marriages are made in heaven But so are thunder and lightning Yes, we need someone who will from time to time be honest with us, as Nathan was with David, and say, “You are the man. You can do better and you can be better. Do you want to?” It is your choice. Truth speaking was a divine necessity for Nathan, even though it involved great risk to take the King to task for being out of alignment with the divine will. To David’s credit, and to the world’s and to our benefit, David did want to do better. He listened to Nathan. “I have sinned against the Lord,” David said. He turned himself over to God and God did wonderful things through him. God desires to do such with each of you. Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Jesus is the bread of life. God gave us Jesus to show us the way. God has given us this sacrament to remind us of the way. Here, God’s truth in Jesus speaks to us, calling us out, reminding us of who and whose we are, telling us to live dependent on one another and dependent on God. Jesus was not sure, in our text from John for today, that the people who thronged after him were ready for the “whole story.” It was bread they came seeking after when they sought Jesus and he provided food for a multitude from five loaves and two fish. And now, they come seeking him again. He even questions their motives: “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” It is good to have your fill of bread. Would that all people had their fill each and every day! Would that we with so much bread would share it with those who have little or none! Would that, as with the manna from heaven that Israel ate in the wilderness – there would be food enough for each one of us day by day . . . as in fact there is, for the world food supply is more than adequate to feed every man, woman, and child upon this planet. But to come to Jesus only for the bread that satisfies our bodies one day, and leaves us hungry the next, to turn to him only for the physical and immediate blessings of this world, is to miss the significance of who Jesus is, and indeed, to miss the significance of what life itself is all about. In our fears and insecurities, it is so easy to miss the deeper meaning of things. It is so easy to focus on the gratification of physical needs, so that we forget that there are greater things – things that satisfy not only the body – but more critically, satisfy the soul. Jesus always takes us deeper than we initially expected. Look at the crowds in this story from John. Jesus held up to them that they were coming after him because of the bread and had not understood the deeper meaning of following his presence. Jesus’ bread is more than bread. It is broken bread, poured out blood. We have the sacrament of communion as a vivid reminder of the lifestyle God desires. It is the lifestyle that gives us life that never ends though we may die. It is life broken away from our selfish moorings and given in selfless service to God’s people and the world. This is the lifestyle that provides the meaning that never runs dry. This is the life that Jesus calls us to when he says, “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” More than the bread we eat every day, the bread of life points us to the cross, where we see that the design of the godly life is the life given up, sacrificed, for tohers. Two things we ask, Lord, someone to be honest with us; and a community of faith to call us out and encourage us to give our lives away and to choose the real bread of heaven. Amen. Here, O our Lord, we see you face to face, Here would we touch and handle things unseen Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace And all our weariness upon you lean. As we prepare to receive the gifts God has given us in Christ, in his broken body and poured out blood, let us hear anew the call to truthful speaking and the full dedication of our lives as we bring our tithes and offerings to God. Let us now receive the morning offering.
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