August 23, 2015

                  When we think of God, how do we place God? Where is God? We look upward to heaven, as if God is far away, overlooking all things. Our instinct is to set God apart and far away. This is correct as an understanding of God’s otherness. This way of understanding God forgets how God acts in history and in our lives. God is very different from us, yet God chooses to come quite close.

                  Solomon was able to build a temple for God. He fulfilled his father’s dream. When the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the holy of holies, God’s glory filled the temple. Solomon begins a lengthy sermon, or speech or prayer. He wonders how this is possible. Can God who made everything fit inside a little building (no matter how glorious?)? Then Solomon continues to speak about how this temple will be a place of return and a place for everyone who seeks God. (Our reading omits many of the warnings to remain faithful to God.) The great miracle is that God has come near. God is in the holy temple. God is in the great city. God is in the midst of the people. Therefore, the people are urged to remain faithful, and when they stray, to return again to the place where God has met them.

                  We know that God cannot be contained in a place or a building. We come here to find God and we know that God can be found anywhere. We are here for ourselves. We are here to remember. The danger is that we can become content with God at a distance. We want God to contained in a temple, or a church. It makes life simpler to compartmentalize our faith so that we don’t have to imagine God in other places of our life.

                  Faith is hard. Who can be loving and just and merciful all the time? Our culture invites us to keep our faith to ourselves and not to let it trouble us in other relationships or exchanges between other people. We also know that God doesn’t want to be kept safe in a room or in an hour on Sunday. We have to do the difficult work of living our faith in every place and in every moment, even while we are interacting with people who do not share our faith.

                  I think part of what is so challenging about Jesus telling us he is our food and drink is that he is saying that he is part of us. Certainly people were troubled to hear about this quasi-cannibalism of Jesus. I also think they were scandalized that he equated himself with God as his Father and how he invited us into an intimate union with God.

                  Our faith then is not a personal compartment in out heart that we visit from time to time. Our faith is the whole of us, continually being fed and enlivened by the nourishment of Jesus. This sounds difficult to believe and even more difficult to live. The end of the letter to the Ephesians encourages us to ready ourselves. Paul uses the imagery of a soldier putting on armor. We can set aside the violence of the military life and accept the discipline and intention of it. Unlike a soldier who is proceeding under orders no matter the outcome, for us there is a kind of certainty. All of the pieces of armor are a way that we accept what is already true. We are preparing ourselves to live what God already accomplishes.

                  Faith is not an idea to be understood, as if we could find success if we could explain what we believe more perfectly. Faith is a matter of choice. We choose to believe. We accept the hard sayings of Jesus and live as if they were true. The challenge for us is less about understanding and convincing – it is more in accepting and acting.

                  Jesus is the bread of life and we live on this supernatural food. We are invited to offer ourselves to give life to the world. We gather here to be fed and to encourage one another. Our life of faith is not lived in this place and time – we are bread of life and we live in the world. We may literally feed people in the food bank; we may give aid and assistance to those in need. We also live as we demand justice and mercy in our workplace and in our schools. We live faithfully as we raise our children and live in peace with our neighbors. We live faithfully as we look beyond the borders of our comfort and seek to feed all God’s children – even those who don’t look like us.