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Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 20, 2006
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Proverbs 9:1-6
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:53-59
Every year I am so grateful for our family’s trip to Cape Breton. As we drive across the Canso Causeway onto the island the air seems crisp and clear. We always open our windows and let the cool sea air fill our lungs. As I take deep gulps of air and look out across the blue twinkling sea, I can feel my whole body begin to sink deeper into the seat of the car as I begin to let go of the stresses and strains that have filled my life over the past year. As we get closer to Dunvegan, the tiny village on the West coast of Cape Breton, just North of Inverness, and the campsite that will be our home for the following week, I begin to take in that from now on there will be no more cell phone coverage! This is a time for our little family to be alone together, doing whatever we feel like doing, a wonderful time to deepen our connections with one another and with God.
That evening, after we have pitched the tent and everyone is in bed I crawl out of my sleeping bag and sit on the sand dunes looking up at the stars that fill the sky. The milky-way spreads out in front of me, and I remember once more just how small our universe is in the scheme of it all. As always I am comforted by the sound of the waves crashing on the shore and the high rocky hills all around, and the deep internal certainty that God the creator is greater far than all that is in my sight. In the face of all this beauty, of all that is, I find myself able to quietly place the people and the things that concern me into God’s loving hands – at least for these few weeks while we are away.
And yet, at the same time, even as I am upheld by the beauty of my surroundings, I am also deeply aware that this moment is a wonderful gift, something that should not be taken for granted. Having lived on a small island in Scotland I realize that those who live here year round experience this rugged coastline in a very different way than those of us who come only in the summer. For all too soon the deep chill of fall will begin to take hold of the days, the nights will grow longer and the sea will once again become wild and untameable. I know that life is always hard for those who try to eke out a living whilst clinging to the edges of the world, so I am grateful to those who make it possible for me to be able to come and enjoy, be refreshed and leave.
As we drive back to Connecticut at the end of our vacation we spend time talking about the special moments we have shared. We ask each other what we have treasured about the last few weeks – what changes we want to make in our life to ensure that we don’t lose our closeness to one another and to God. We think about Sabbath time. We decide we’ll turn off the television during the week so that there will be more quiet space, more opportunities to talk or read or listen to music. We recognize how easy it is to let the complexities of modern life distract us from the importance of our relationship with God and how that leads us eventually to lose our way, and even to lose ourselves.
One experience in particular has stuck in my mind this year, something I hope I will be able to remember in the coming months. A few days ago David took Matt on a fishing trip. It turned out that the fishing actually happened in a fully stocked trout pond where you were literally fishing for your supper! But that was a wonderful first time experience for Matt who landed a 2lb 11oz. trout on his first try. When he got a trout that weighed a meager pound and a half he wanted to throw it back because it was only a baby who hadn’t finished growing yet! As we cleaned up afterwards, I was chatting with the man who ran the outfit. “Would you like me to take some brochures back to the camp site for you so you’ll get some more business?” I asked innocently. We’d only come across his place because someone had told us about it, not because we’d seen it advertised anywhere, and then we’d had a heck of a time finding our way down the river to his place. “Oh, no!” he said. “To tell you the truth I haven’t had any brochures made up this year. I have enough customers without advertising!” He then went on to tell me how the lady with the ice cream shop on the corner near the coop had said the same thing to him when he asked her why she didn’t advertise more. She had enough customers without advertising. Why would she try to get more? I was staggered by this response. What a different approach to life than the typical American response. These people knew when they had enough and they didn’t keep on trying to get more. They didn’t need to make more money if they had enough to meet their needs. I pondered what they had said. Isn’t that the wisdom of God – to know when you have enough and stop always needing more? Perhaps one of the reasons for the ceaseless activity in our lives is the insatiable appetite for more that seems to preclude our ability to enjoy the things we already have. And the time it takes us to make more and more money in order to have more and more things – aren’t we just cluttering up our lives with activity until we have no time to sit and gaze at the stars and wonder who we are in relationship to God.
“Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink of his blood you shall not have life within you.” (John 6:53) What will it take for us to receive the fullness of life that we are offered in Christ? We certainly can’t run off to Cape Breton every week, just to look at the stars! But eating and drinking – such an important part of our lives. We can come together to eat and drink the flesh and blood of Christ, to remember who we are. I remember once, trying to help some children understand about the Eucharist, this strange thing we do every Sunday as we take little pieces of tasteless, flat wafers and dark, red wine, say some words over them and offer a taste to everyone in the room. I said to two of the children “I want you to get as close to each other as you can.” After a lot of wiggling around, standing shoulder to shoulder and back to back one of them turned round and hugged his friend.
”That’s right!” I said. When you care about someone, when you hug them you are very close to each other. I then gave them a piece of chocolate and told them to get as close to it as they could. They quickly popped the chocolate into their mouths and ate it. “You see!” I said. “When you eat something it goes right inside you. It becomes part of you.” The physical action of walking up to the altar, taking the bread which is Christ’s body and placing it in your mouth so that it becomes a part of you, as you kneel alongside others who do the same, some of whom you know well and some not so well, is what allows Christ’s life to be formed in you, and not in you alone, but in you alongside all these other people who have given their lives to be moulded into Christ’s body on earth, the church. That’s why it is so important for all of us, young, old, rich, poor, married or single to come to the altar every week, perhaps more than once a week, to receive the gift of life Christ offers in the bread and the wine. And as we allow ourselves to be molded into the body of Christ we will begin to perceive what the important things in life really are – like my friends in Cape Breton who realize that making more and more money is not in the end what life is all about.
I sometimes wonder why so many people who call themselves part of this community are not with us on Sunday mornings. They come once in a blue moon, well perhaps at Christmas and Easter and a few other special occasions throughout the year. They seem to want to come when it suits them, get a quick fix of bread and wine like drinking a shot in a bar when things are bad, before walking off into the night alone. To eat this bread and drink this wine, the body and blood of Christ is to receive the fullness of life for which every one of us longs, to become one with the creator of all things – the sun, the moon and the stars, the oceans and the hills. As we allow God to fill our lives, as we drink in deeply of the Spirit, we will find the answer to all our cares, all our fears, all our hopes and our desires. But we have to make space for God in our hopelessly overcommitted lives.
One thing I will never forget as long as I live is the sight of Chris, the father of a tiny baby called Ailie who died of Cids on the day after her baptism. As you can imagine it was an extremely emotional service and many tears were shed that day by pretty much everyone who was present. We celebrated Eucharist. We broke the bread and poured the wine as Christ asked us to do. And when it was all over we sang the song, “I am the bread of life.” When it came to the verse “Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of Man and drink of his blood you shall not have life within you,” I glanced up at Chris. He was standing with his arms raised, tears pouring down his cheeks, singing at the top of his voice.
I think in the end, that’s part of the reason we come to church week after week. We come so that like Chris, we will be able to sing praise to God no matter what happens in our lives. We come so that we will be able to sing to God, with tears running down our cheeks. We come so that we will be able to praise God even in the face of death because in our hearts we are so deeply in touch with the reality of God’s love for us, and for the entire created order. Look at the stars and the crashing waves and the hills. Receive his body, broken for you. Live your lives in the fullness of all that you have been given, and give thanks to God for all that you have received.
In Christ’s name
Amen
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