Our God Will Not Be Contained

This sermon is part of a series I did for the Deer Creek Charge on the story of King David. I won't post the whole series, just parts of it. I hope it gets you interested in the story from 1 and 2 Samuel to check it out for yourselves!

Scripture: 2 Samuel 7:1-14a (NRSV)

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.”

But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: “Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, 'Why have you not built me a house of cedar?' Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.”

Sermon: Our God Will Not Be Contained

We're continuing to study David this week! Again, I encourage you to read along during the week in first and second Samuel. David's is the longest continuous story in the Bible, and we won't do it justice in just the few weeks we'll look at it in worship. But at least it will give you a taste of the story if you don't know much beyond David and Goliath!

Let us pray:

Patient Teacher,

We give thanks for another opportunity to explore your love for us

through the story of David. May the words of my mouth

and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Amen.

David wakes up one morning, and in the style of his dance, he is overwhelmed by the way God has loved him. I don't know if you have ever felt that way, when you wake up one day, the sunshine kissing your face, feeling rested and full and content. There isn't always a reason, you know. Just sometimes you get caught up in beauty and realize how beloved you are.

This is how I see this scene in 1 Samuel. King David has successfully and somewhat peacefully brought together Judah and Israel, scattered, fragmented tribes of people who have dispersed since being led into this land of milk and honey from Egypt. He has suffered persecution, and also already committed some evils or at least questionable acts like his own involvement as a mercenary soldier among the Philistines who killed his beloved friend Jonathan. But he has also felt overwhelmed by the presence of God in his life, and I don't mean overwhelmed in a bad way. I mean completely covered by the beauty of God's presence. And so we read today how he gets caught up in that moment, looks at the richness of his own life and wants to give back to God.

So he speaks to Nathan, a fascinating man we too often forget about. Nathan is a prophet. You will notice if you read through the Old Testament especially in Samuel and Kings, though also in the books called The Prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, that prophets accompany kings. See, God did not want to give the people a king. Samuel, the priest and prophet who anointed David, did not always want to give the people a king. God was supposed to be their king! But the people were stubborn, and living under intense violence, and so God gave them a king. However, as we saw with Saul and will see with David, and as we see with our own politicians consistently in both parties, with power comes corruption. Prophets are supposed to keep kings honest. We see throughout David's rule that though he can be corrupt, he does listen to and take the advice of the prophet Nathan. And so here he seeks out Nathan to run by his idea.

So here's King David, living in what is essentially a palace, a house of cedar, having grown up sleeping in sheep pastures when he was shepherding. And he remembers dancing in front of the Art of the Covenant, that box, that, while beautiful in and of itself, has been housed under a tent. And he thinks to himself, and then asks Nathan what he thinks, “Aha, God doesn't have a fancy house like me. I can build one, an offering of sorts for all God has done for me!” So it is a piety that can be twinged with a little guilt. Nathan agrees that this would be a good idea, at first.

But as so often happens with all of us, God laughs at David's plans, coming to Nathan later that night to say so. David, like we often do, is missing the point, and God turns the tables on him. I really like the way Kate Huey, a United Church of Christ pastor, paraphrases God's response:

“Hey! Did you hear me complaining about living in a tent? No, I prefer being mobile, flexible, responsive, free to move about, not fixed in one place.” God then turns the tables on David and says, “You think you're going to build me a house? No, no, no, no. I'M going to build YOU a house. A house that will last much longer and be much greater than anything you could build yourself with wood and stone. A house that will shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after 'you lie down with your ancestors.'”¹

There is a lot to unpack here, though I think Rev. Huey has presented the conversation in a way that makes a bit more sense to us. God turns the tables on David, reminding him that, though he means well, God cannot be contained. Here is David, with his assumptions that God should live in the wealth that he as a king lives in.

Last week, we talked about how David moved God to the center by bringing the Ark of the Covenant from gathering dust in his brother's barn to his new capitol city. As we remember from last week, the Ark of the Covenant was not a boat, like Noah's Ark, but it was from way back in the time of Moses when the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness. It was a beautifully crafted chest made of wood and covered in gold that contained reminders of how God provided for the Israelites: a jar of manna, Aaron's staff, and the ten commandments were found within. And since it was created, the Ark traveled beneath tents. And as the Ark was mobile, it symbolized God's mobility, the fluid ways that God could interact within the community, which in and of itself in the time of the escape from Egypt was a mobile community.

David was bringing in a time of supposed stability, though. Finding the Ark a new home, Jerusalem, was part of that stabilization. And it is funny--- I spoke last week about how sometimes we just need to be undignified, like David was when he danced in front of the Ark with all his might glorying in God's presence with him. And then this week we read about how David was trying to make God a bit more dignified by putting God in a real house instead of a tent. And God points out how silly David's assumptions are. God prefers being mobile, flexible, responsive, free to move about, not fixed in one place. And God is, in effect, choosing to be homeless.²

We don't understand that choice. David probably did not either, but did not have the time to process it before God proposed alternate plans. But we do have time to look at this choice this morning, and it is the piece of the scripture that has captivated me since I first read it.

I think the reason why I was so captivated by God's insistance on freedom of movement was because too often we see our own buildings trying to box God in. We complain a lot in institutional church meetings and in seminary about people's attachment to church buildings. I've worked some in cities like York, Pennsylvania, and Newark, New Jersey, where the church is so focused on keeping an old building up and running that they cannot devote sufficient time and energy to mission and outreach. And even if the building is not a financial burden, sometimes congregations are so inward focused that the church building becomes a sanctuary away from the world, rather than a place to invite people in to meet God. It is like pulling teeth to remind people that *“The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is the people.”*

But our God is a God who cannot be contained, a God who shows up in mysterious people and mysterious times. Our God makes home not out of a building but out of people we would never expect, people like David, and people like us.

This is where God's promise to David comes in, when God says, in Rev. Huey's words, “You think you're going to build me a house? No, no, no, no. I'M going to build YOU a house.” God refuses David's gift, a gift that shows an obvious misunderstanding of God's purposes, much like we see the bumbling of the twelve disciples over and over again in the Gospel stories, but then this surprising homeless God does something more surprising. God promises to build David and house, a lineage, one protected and nurtured by God. David thought a house would be a way of abundantly providing for God. But God says no, mobility is abundance, and demonstrates that abundance by promising to build David a house.

And so God provides David with an unexpected abundance when God promises David a house, a dynasty. I admit I am uncomfortable with this part of the story. Hasn't God already noticed that David messes up sometimes and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to promise his line a throne forever? And doesn't God know that just because you are born of some fancy dynasty doesn't make you a good ruler? Where's the democracy, God?

But I think this is more about hope, abundant hope, hope of abundance, than it is about the divine right of kings. To return again to Rev. Huey's paraphrase, God says that God will build “[a] house that will shelter the hopes and dreams of your people long after 'you lie down with your ancestors.'” And on top of this, God says, “I will be a father to [your offspring], and he shall be a son to me.”

This is “the core of Messianic hope in the Old Testament.”³ It promises us that God's presence with us endures, and more than that, that there is something more to come. For us, as Christians, we understand yet another twist: God's throne is like God's house building skills--- the throne looks different than what we expect. Jesus is a king we do not expect. This house God builds does not follow the pattern of, for instance, English kings who become more and more corrupt. God turns our understanding of this house, this dynasty, for David on its head.

And God part of the way God does that is by expanding this promise into more than just a biological family. When reading the Old Testament, we see that even if this is a promise to David specifically, it extends to all Israelites, it is a hope for all Israelites. This hope God offers all people, a hope of a different way of living, one we cannot often imagine but one we have tasted, even briefly at times. It is a way of peace and security. A way of abundance.

In the Epistles in the New Testament, we read this house metaphor even more expansively. The author of Ephesians writes in chapter two verse twenty-two: “you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.” (NRSV) Here, we see that this house is not just within David's family, not just within the Israelites, but that God has built a house in all of us.

Rev. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, a United Methodist pastor and blogger writes:

You are a house. God has chosen you as a tent to move about and live in. Your opponents are also houses of God. And we all are a house where God lives, not in any of us alone, but in the sacred space among us. Be mindful of this mystery, for it is the foundation of a great and powerful dynasty.⁴

I love this. God has chosen each of us, each of our bodies in all their problems, as a dwelling place, rather than a house of cedar. And such a reminder tells us that we aren't the only dwelling places. God can use each of us with all our faults, the way God used David with all his, and the way God uses those we might not like as much.

The hope of the dynasty, then, is a hope that one day we will see that sacred space around us and find abundance all around us. It is a hope that one day we will stop trying to contain God, to domesticate God by saying God only belongs in Church, or that God only belongs to us Methodists and not to Presbyterians, or that God only belongs to us Christians. God has broken out of those containers and said, “I will build YOU a house. I will move and dwell within you AND your neighbor AND the guy who lives down the street you may not like as much.”

God provides for us in ways we never imagine, just as God did for the Israelites in the wilderness, just as God did for David. And just as God does for us today. God shows a mobility and freedom that provides us with an abundance and unity we would never expect.

Let us pray:

Our God-Who-Will-Not-Be-Contained,

We don't always understand your ways of abundance,

presenting you instead with gifts we think you'll like but gifts that end up boxing you up. Be patient with us.

Remind us that you have chosen us as your dwelling places,

and guide us to living into this un-contained abundance. Amen.

1Kate Huey, “Wherever You Are,” Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Weekly Seeds, Congregational Vitality and Discipleship Ministry Team, Local Church Ministries, United Church of Christ, 22 July 2012, http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/weekly-seeds/wherever-you-are.html

2“God's choice to stay homeless, however, surprises us.” Joni S. Sancken, Proper 11 [16], Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year B, eds. Ronald J. Allen, Dale P. Andrews, and Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 332.

3Richard W. Nysse, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a, Commentary on Alternate First Reading, Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, WorkingPreacher.org, 19 July 2012, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=7/19/2009.

4Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “I will make you a house,” Unfolding Light, 20 July 2012, http://unfoldinglight.net/?p=1353.

Searching for the Bread of Life

So I know I am posting these sermons a bit late (this one was given July 29, the tenth Sunday after Pentecost), but here it is. I wanted to post this sermon, given my second month at the Deer Creek Charge because I think the personal stories are important to connecting with a new congregation. I also wanted to post this because of this funny story: At Deer Creek, I put the supplies for a kids sermon on making bread in the box for my new blender. Everyone saw the blender and got all excited, asking me if we were going to have margaritas. I pointed out that Jesus said he was the bread of life, not the margarita of life, but I have been thinking about ways to preach Jesus as the margarita of life...

Also, we used a communion liturgy written by myself and Amanda Rohrs-Dodge and it was very well received. You can check it out here. 

Scripture: John 6:24-35

So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.

When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Sermon: Searching for the Bread of Life

Today's scripture reading comes almost immediately after the feeding of the five thousand, which is why Jesus talks about how the people were following him, not because they wanted to learn more, but they wanted to be physically fed again. The people are treating Jesus as another Moses, here.

In Exodus chapter sixteen, verse three, we read that after the Hebrews have been liberated in Egypt, the people began complaining: “The Israelites said to [Moses and Aaron], ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.'”¹ So God creates manna. Again, the story from Exodus: “When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.'”²

This background is important to the story because, though Jesus' words in this scripture are beautiful, I hear a harshness in them, particularly when he tells them not to work for the bread the perishes. I think the harshness comes from this backstory of the complaining Israelites who refuse to trust the God who has brought them out of Egypt. Jesus knows the ways that we refuse to trust God, and the ways that we, like the crowd gathered in the story, want to see more signs, want Jesus to continue to do for us without responding to his teaching.

But Jesus is patient with us, even when we can sense that he doesn't want to be! He teaches us yet again about his way of abundant living, saying, “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Let us pray:

Patient teacher,

one who nourishes us and fills us,

help us be bread. Teach us this morning and every day

to center our lives on you, so that we may be sustained by you

and led into more abundant living. Amen.

Bread of life. I think this is a hard concept for many of us who have never been hungry to understand. Of course, some of us have been hungry, and most of us have seen hunger in ways we will never forget. Most of us are disconnected from the baking of bread--- that's why I brought in the supplies to make bread today for the kids. But I don't want to lose this, of all of the Gospel of John's what are called “I am statements”--- you know, “I am the way the truth and the life”--- because when Jesus says that he is the bread of life, when he says “whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” he is talking about abundant living in a way that shows the physical and connectional ways that we are to live.

Last week I talked a little about how God cares for our well being, God cares about our bodies. Jesus fed five thousand hungry people, not because he was expected to do so by that crowd, not only as a sign of his power, but because he had compassion for hungry people. Jesus has compassion too this morning in our story. The crowds have searched and searched for him, but, as he explains to them, they don't even know what they are searching for. They are looking to feed on bread again, and while Jesus cares about their hunger, he points out a deeper hunger within them. A deeper hunger within all of us.

We are hungry not just for food. Food was a sign for many of the crowds gathered that day, a sign of a different way of living, but many of them did not understand that sign, as many of us may not today. But I think they were seeking after that abundance that Jesus showed him in the fragments; how Jesus could feed five thousand people with a five barley loaves and two fish, fragments, and how Jesus cared about the fragments of the meal and collected them into baskets. From the fragments comes abundance with Jesus. And that's what the people were searching for.

When we talk about eating and abundant living, we are not talking about the Desert Fathers of early Christianity fasting in the desert. Some may be called to such a life, and some fasting is important to all our spiritual lives. And of course, abundantly living does not mean sitting on the couch with bags of chips and oreos lined up, either. We are talking about having enough, about being healthy, and if we have enough food sharing with those who don't, and finding ways for them to be fed always as well.

When Jesus uses the metaphor of bread, he is talking about what for many people, though this may not be true today, was a staple in their diets. Jesus is not the icing on the cake of life, he is the bread of life, a wholesome staple in our diets, not something extra that spruces things up a bit. Jesus feeds us and wants us to feed others.

That is the connectional piece of the bread of life. Jesus doesn't stop with being our sustenance, but calls us to feed the world, by witnessing to our faith in words, like sharing our stories, and in deeds, like feeding the homeless.

And we celebrate this abundant life every month with communion, a simple taste of bread and juice to symbolize an sustaining meal--- a meal that goes beyond the elements of food to knit together the people sharing together and open up ways for us to seek that abundant living together. Many of us may not think much about communion. Unfortunately too often rituals that we do with regularity, to imprint them onto our bones, can become meaningless, things that we do without thinking about them. But I want us to turn to the Lord's Table now to think about what this Bread of Life can mean with a story of my own encounter with the Bread of Life.

I studied abroad in Toulouse, France, my junior year of college. I was not a happy person then, though. While I was excited to live outside of the country, I was nervous, as many of us are when we are far from home, and I felt kind of dejected. See, I thought that God was calling me to be a missionary at the time, but my study abroad plans to go outside of Europe fell through, and so here I was, nineteen, so sure of God's call on my life, only to find that I didn't know where God was leading me at all. I had been seeking the Bread of Life with such certainty that I knew the way--- and maybe I did. Many of us feel God's call on our lives but sometimes that call changes or is lived out in ways we never expected. I think that is what happened to me. But I didn't know this at the time. I just knew I was tired and frustrated.

And I was lonely. Aaron and I had talked on the phone at least every day for the past five years before this--- and I went the entire month of September without hearing his voice at all. My sister Kate was starting college and I was missing all her exploits, and Suzanne was getting her driver's license. My host family was wonderful and the other women in the program--- we were all women that year--- were great, but I still felt alone.

I was going through what I think we are all familiar with in one way or another--- spiritual drought. I am the kind of person, as many of you may have noticed, who tries to see God in everything, particularly outside. But when I was in France, I felt as though I was walking through a fog or that kind of mud that sucks at your feet so you have to focus all your attention on the next step and ignore whatever is around you. This was perhaps one of the worst spiritual droughts of my life, though many of us have much less dramatic, day or week long drought, and many of us have droughts that last for years and years and we can't pull free. I knew I was in a funk, and I knew I didn't want to be in that funk anymore. I think that those people in the crowd following Jesus that day were also in a spiritual drought. They were seeking a way out, but they didn't know what they were searching for. They just didn't want to be in that drought anymore.

And so they started looking for Jesus. And I, I kind of did the same thing. I did what I as a preacher's kid knew to do. I went to church.

There are not many Protestant churches to go to in France. Though I have found beauty in Catholic worship, I really needed the familiarity and comfort of a protestant church. I looked around until I saw the closest one to my host family's house, called the Temple du Salin. The church sits facing a park, so I sat in the park for a few minutes before church started. I was afraid to go in the sanctuary early because my French was still very shaky and I didn't want to be pulled into a conversation. I also didn't want to have to sit alone inside a church for very long.

When I finally walked in, the building was enormous and cold. It was stone, and ancient, as most buildings are in Europe. In the winter time, I later learned, they had these kind of old looking red hot heaters hanging from the ceiling to give off a little warmth. The pews were not even remotely full. See, France is a largely secular country, and those who are religious are usually Catholic or, increasingly, Muslim. They are usually either older folks or they are immigrants, which is actually a trend in most parts of the USA as well. So we in the pews were an eclectic bunch, and no one really sat near one another.

I couldn't understand most of what was going on--- I was newly arrived, you see, and even though I had aced most of my French classes, you don't really know a language until you've been immersed in it. I didn't know any of the songs. And so I had almost resolved not to go back to the church...until it came time for communion.

Communion was when that little church came alive. It was what held that little church together, I think. The dark stone sanctuary became vibrant and warm. Everyone stood up and fanned around the sanctuary in a big circle. And then we all served one another communion. The bread, ordinary bread that was pre-cubed, which I usually hate because they kinda end up hard like crutons, was passed around the circle, each one of us serving one another with words of blessing. And let me tell you, that faintly stale bread tasted so amazing that first Sunday, like a little bit of heaven.

Then they passed the cup. Now, in France people care much less about germs than we do. When you buy bread, no one wears gloves to hand it to you, and they give you a little piece of paper to hold around the baguette with--- but if the baguette just goes in your bicycle basket, it certainly is not protected from the elements! So they passed the cup--- which was filled with wine: grape juice is hard to come by in Europe--- again with words of blessing to one another, and we all drank out of the same cup. It was liberating--- though when later in the winter I would take communion and hear the sniffles around the sanctuary and be sniffling myself, I must say sometimes I passed the cup without drinking. But in that moment on that day I could not think of any other ritual that would make us more connected.

This was the first time I felt as though I was a part of something bigger than myself. I didn't feel alone anymore. It was a simple communion with stale bread and germy wine, and we were ordinary people standing around that room. Some of us might have had a good week, some of us might have been having trouble at work, some of us, like me, were lonely. And yet, we all came together and blessed one another. I wanted to say with the crowd in our Gospel lesson this morning, “Sir, give us this bread always.”

I was able to start to come out of that spiritual drought after taking communion that day. Though I still struggled with loneliness and a deep sense of loss because I didn't know where God was calling me, I was able to make meaning in my time there. I began volunteering at a women's shelter. I traveled to visit friends. I made new, close friends. I even began to look at seminaries, though I refused to acknowledge any call to ministry at the time. But the Bread of Life was sustaining me, leading me to an ever-greater abundance.

May you find the Bread of Life sustaining too this morning. May we all be led to say as the crowd did, “Sir, give us this bread always,” until it becomes a prayer.³

Let us pray:

Bread of Life,

we give you thanks for the ways you have fed us in our faith journeys,

and we ask this morning that you feed us always,

and that we may respond to being fed by feeding others.

As we gather around your table this morning,

nourish us and strengthen us for the work ahead. Amen.

1Exodus 16:3. NRSV.

2Exodus 16:14-15, NRSV.

3Christopher Morse, Theological Perspective on John 6:24-35, Proper 13 (Sunday Between August 1 and August 6 inclusive), Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, vol. 3, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 312.

Do Not Fear, Only Believe

Okay, so even though I had a huge list of stuff I wanted to write about but only wrote about two of those things, here we are moving on. This is my first sermon for my first appointment, Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor United Methodist Churches.

Before even getting to the sermon, I need to write what probably should be its own post of gratitude. I was welcomed with countless hugs and good food by the congregation. My dad came out to support me in worship, as did my almost brother-in-law David Harrington. Aaron turns out to be an amazing preacher's husband, so I am even more excited to have him as my partner in ministry. At Deer Creek, Ruthanna Hipley, a woman who watched me grow up at St. Paul, came in to see me preach. At Mt. Tabor, Caitlin Katrinic, who went to high school with me and Aaron, showed up and sang beautifully. And on top of all this was the surprise appearance of Carolyn and Wendel Thompson, friends who went to Bosnia with us in 2004! I am so filled with joy and honored to be beginning this new part of my ministry journey at Deer Creek and Mt. Tabor!

Scripture: Mark 5:21-43 1

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."

So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?" But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe." He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!" And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Sermon: Do Not Fear, Only Believe

I am so blessed to be here this morning as your pastor. Bonnie and I knew each other before we knew I would be coming here, and she used to brag about you a lot. So that good recommendation on top of being home is really exciting. Aaron, my fiancé, and I graduated from North Harford, and we always said we were going to move to the city or someplace and not come back; yet here we are, seven years later, and we could not be happier to be home. We keep talking about how beautiful Harford County is, and now, of course, we have one of the most beautiful views in the county from our own front porch!

But this is still a scary time for us, as I'm sure on some level some of you may be scared or at least nervous. Change, no matter how many times you go through it, always comes with some level of uncertainty that can be unsettling. When I passed my first ordination exam, we were excited for half a second but then we were afraid we would be placed far away--- Aaron works at APG--- because we thought there were no appointments available in Harford County, and lo and behold, we end up right down the road from where we grew up! But we are still scared, still trying to figure out what this part of our ministry journey will look like.

And so all this is what's going on in my mind when I read the scripture for this week. It's no surprise that Jesus' instruction to Jairus in our Gospel lesson this morning jumped out at me: Do Not Fear, Only Believe.

So will you pray with me?

Patient Teacher, Gracious Healer,
we come to you this morning, uncertain, but reaching out to you.
May we feel you reaching back to us, lifting us up,
as we look to your life this morning to learn how we are to live. Amen.

Jairus was afraid. He probably had watched his little girl slowly fade away, sitting by her bed without sleep, his own face mirroring her sickly one just from the sheer exhaustion of worry. Because what else can you do when your child is sick and you are no healer? He sits. He worries. He waits. Until he heard about Jesus.

So too, the unnamed woman interrupting Jairus' story this morning was also afraid. You see blood means life. "Blood was such a sacred, precious, and dangerous force in Jewish belief and practice because it was what God said constituted the very life of a being," according to one of the commentaries I read in preparation for today.2 So the unnamed woman is watching her life seep out of her day after day for twelve years. She has been to see physicians, she has tried everything. And still she bleeds. There is nothing left to do. Until she hears about Jesus.

Femme Touchant Jesus by Corinne Vonaesch

But hearing about Jesus doesn't even end the fear there for either of them. Jesus' presence doesn't even end the fear. Jairus knows there is no time left. He tells Jesus, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." Jesus is his last hope. When Jesus agrees, I can still feel the anxiety within Jairus as he scrambles through the crowd, praying for a few more minutes. You can see on the image of our bulletin today how Jairus is pulling Jesus and all the people pressing in around Jesus, Jairus, and the woman.

The woman sees there are too many people pressing in, too many needing healing--- why would Jesus stop for her? She's a nobody, certainly not a synagogue leader like Jairus. She's a woman, first of all, and maybe she's heard that Jesus does have women followers, but still she must doubt his acceptance of her. Besides that, she could touch him and render him unclean under Jewish purity laws; but even beyond that, how is she supposed to explain to a man what is wrong with her? Even today, two thousand years later, there is such a taboo about women bleeding! She fears his rejection. And yet she presses ahead through the mass of people, arm outstretched as far as she could reach.

It is at these anxious moments when I can really relate to Jairus and the woman. I knew as soon as I got the call about this charge that the Holy Spirit was in the room with the bishop and the cabinet, sending me where I needed to be. I am confident, as Jairus and the woman who was bleeding were confident of Jesus' healing power. But there is still so much uncertainty, so much about which to be anxious.

But Jairus and the woman turned their fear into boldness.

The woman in particular. She had two moments of boldness, the first being when she reached out to touch Jesus. She grasped that one thought in her mind: "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." That's all well and good, a simple solution, right? In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is constantly surrounded by crowds. He is always amidst all these sweaty, needy people. I don't know if any of you have seen Jesus Christ Superstar before, but there is a scene in which a crowd of people almost crawl over the stage and chant/sing, "Won't you touch, will you heal me Christ?" all while reaching out to Jesus, pulling on his clothes. It is overwhelming. This bleeding woman in this story is like one of those people. She must see that. Surely she fears never getting to him, never being healed, and yet she boldly pushes forward, herself crushed beneath the mass of people.

And then--- the moment of wholeness. She was healed, but she barely processes the thought before yet again, she must be bold. Jesus turns around and asks who touched him, looking around him, searching faces for some sign of who he healed.

This moment really must be frightening for the woman. Did she go through all that only to have her healing taken from her? But, she must have felt no choice but to act boldly again. If she has the faith to know that just brushing against Jesus would bring healing, perhaps she would know Jesus could recognize her. And so, it is out of this fear that she comes forward to reveal the truth. In Mark's gospel, the term truth is only used to describe Jesus' teaching, yet here it is used to describe the unnamed woman.3 Despite her fear, through her trembling, she speaks boldly. And Jesus blesses her, telling her to go in peace, healed.

Now, Jairus' boldness was in his ability to continue to move forward. Can you imagine the turmoil inside him when the people came from his house to say that his daughter was dead? He has watched her fade away, sat beside her, only to leave her to finally find help. But it was too late. Instead of succumbing to grief, though, he put one foot in front of the other, supported by Jesus' words, "Do not fear, only believe."

We have all come to points in our lives when we are grieving, or afraid, and yet must keep moving. That time for you may not be having a new pastor. One of your church's great gifts is forming pastors for ministry. Yet there is still uncertainty, and you are still grieving Bonnie, who just blossomed under your care. And, as you have done in the past, and as I am learning to do, we step through that grief, that uncertainty, to act boldly. To believe, as Jesus told Jairus not to fear, only to believe.

I learned the importance of believing in spite of fear, of acting boldly, when I served as a student chaplain in a hospital in New Jersey, particularly from my friend Lauren who was also a student chaplain in our first week at the hospital. Lauren is not afraid of much. She is one of those people who exudes confidence about her ministry. When we divided up floors in the hospital to serve as chaplains, though, she specifically asked not to be on the oncology floor. Now, most of us have been to the oncology floor of hospitals before--- very few of us have not been touched by cancer in our families or friends. So we know that it is a very hard place to be for patients and caretakers alike. But it was more than that for Lauren. She had lived with a family in college and the man of the house had become in those years a second father to her. In her last year of college, he died after a long, protracted battle with cancer. She was still grieving and didn't think she could face situations so similar to her own so soon.

But the end of our first week, the Spirit had other ideas. We were sitting in the break room, packing up to leave and debriefing, when a patient advocate walked in needing a chaplain. Apparently a family in oncology had been asking for a priest for two hours for their mother on hospice care and could not get through and the patient advocate was desperate. Lauren and I just looked at each other. We went down to the oncology floor with the patient advocate and met the family. They still really wanted a priest, so I, rather cowardly, volunteered to find the priest, telling the family I would be back when I contacted him--- though I tried for almost an hour before I could go back to them with the priest.

Lauren took a deep breath and then began to talk to the family about their mother. Initially, the nurses told the family they still had a few hours left, but while Lauren was in the room, they realized it was only a few minutes. Lauren arranged the family around the bed and they listened to the mother's favorite music in silence for a few minutes as the mother passed away. Then the daughter asked Lauren to say something. Lauren read Psalm 121.

I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.4

This is a beautiful Psalm. One of comfort, one that reminds us of the peace that the mother of this family now has, and one that reminds us of God's constant presence with us, even when we don't feel it.

Lauren's hands were still shaking when I found her in the hallway, bringing the priest in too late behind me. But the family thanked her for her presence, telling her it had been a perfect death which confused Lauren who had been so scared throughout the situation. Yet the family was at peace.

This experience for Lauren was difficult, even ugly in a way because of the way it sneaked up on her. But she believed. She had faith. This is not to say that she had faith that everything would turn out all right in the end. Faith, as one of my seminary professors has said, is not about certainty but about courage.5 Lauren's faith in this story was not about certainty, it, like that of the woman and Jairus, was about courage. Lauren was uncertain what would happen in that room. She was dealing with her own fear, her own grief, her nerves, her confusion in that room. She had no idea how she would react to the situation, how the family would react...but she was courageous through her fear, believing the God was present with her and being witness to that presence with that family.

The woman who came to Jesus for healing was courageous when she spoke the truth, believing God was present with her. She wasn't certain what would happen if she spoke up, but she had the courage to do what she thought she had to do. So too, Jairus was courageous when he continued to lead Jesus to his home, though he must have been breaking apart inside at the news of his daughter's death. These are people who do not let uncertainty or fear stop them, but rather they have the faith to act towards wholeness, to bring in miracles.

May we also in this time of transition in the life of this church act with boldness. May we act out a faith not of certainty but of courage as we begin this journey together. Amen.

Movement, movement, movement...and repose

Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?' say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where light comes into being on its own accord and established [itself] and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children and we are the elect of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of the father in you?' say to them, 'It is movement and repose.'"

-From the Gospel of Thomas, translated by Bart D. Ehrman

Movement and repose. There are songs that haunt you, that get in your head and play out as you try to go about your daily business. When I served as a chaplain this past fall, I had mewithoutYou's cover of Nirvana's "In Bloom" (listen here). In my old age, the more mellow sound of mewithoutYou really hit me, but I really felt those lyrics, that I didn't know what "it" means, what anything meant, and I really did feel in bloom. This, of course, did not change between fall and spring semester, but another song began to resonate within me. One
that spoke to me not just about my continued learning but that articulated a liminal space I was in. A space of movement and repose.

I am not someone who is good at repose, which is perhaps why this song, using the Gospel of Thomas passage, catches me off-guard and seeps under my skin. The song is another mewithoutYou song (to get another glimpse of my obsession with this band [blame David Hosey], read this) called "Paper Hanger:"*



I love this music video because as the music builds and Aaron Weiss screams movement, he is flailing his arms about with joyful abandon. That is partially why I am so drawn to this song. I want to exhibit some of that joyful abandon, at least once in a while. This is the first meaning of movement and repose to me: movement and repose is about this ability to be free and whole, to dance.

Many of us are the kinds of people who are constantly moving. Aaron, my partner, always kind of reproaches me for it, telling me I don't know how to relax. This is true. Whenever I try to do nothing, I usually end up falling asleep! This is not what mewithoutYou or the author of the Gospel of Thomas mean by movement and repose. It isn't even about the ability to relax in the midst of working all the time. Instead, Aaron Weiss' dancing is closer to a definition of what movement and repose means: a state of joyful abandon in which we can be moving to the rhythms of the call God has placed on us and still live sabbath.

The reason why this song has pulled me in, even now when I spend most of my days napping, reading, and talking to our bird Teddy, is because my last semester of seminary, even though I needed one class to graduate, I took five classes, worked two jobs, underwent ordination exams, and went to General Conference. I had that movement part down, but I had no idea the meaning of repose. But what we learn from the concept of movement and repose is that you can't do just one. Jesus says that if they ask you for the sign of the father, tell them it is movement and repose. It is the interaction of the two that is wholeness and fullness.

There is nuance to movement and repose I am still mulling over, but I needed to write something for myself about how this little phrase has gotten under my skin, not least because as I become a pastor for the Deer Creek Charge, I want to enact movement and repose as a kind of spiritual discipline. To be a pastor whose life looks like Aaron Weiss' dancing.

Our lives are not our own;
even the wind lays still,
our essence was fire and cold
and movement, movement.
If they ask you for a sign of the Father,
tell them it's movement, movement

and repose.

Belated General Conference Reflections

Continuing in the vein in which I have operated all semester, I am belatedly offering my General Conference reflections. These particular reflections come from my journal entries for the first and last day of conference (April 24-May 4). For more reflections from more folks, see the OnFire blog.

Portions of this reflection are crossposted on OnFire.

So General Conference was overwhelming.

I got up early on the first day, April 24, realized I forgot a bunch of important stuff, finally got to Tampa, dropped off my bags, and didn't see the hotel room again for a long time after that. Now, of course, there are people who don't sleep at all during General Conference, so I should not complain, but just the running around without having any clue what is going on is pretty tiring. When I got home from Conference, I slept several 10 hour nights to make up for this and was still tired.

But the thing about any big United Methodist event is that no matter how boring voting on whether we should end at 9 or 9:30 or at the discretion of the committee chair is, no matter how tired you are, and no matter how stressful the day has been, there are these moments of intense, beautiful connection, like when I was standing in the airport and jumped into a conversation with random people because I noticed one of them was wearing UM swag. When a friend I hadn't seen in a while jumped out of nowhere and gave me a hug--- oh and there have been so many hugs from so many people! When a person I had met five minutes before bought me coffee because I was already looking frazzled. When I got a text message courtesy of one of those mass text-messaging organizing tools following a proposed rule to outlaw protests because people know how powerful our demonstrations were before and just how close we are to making the church a more just place. So that last one was a crazy run on sentence, but you get the idea. When me and some seminary friends skipped down the river walk and just breathed in the salty air.

There was a commissioning service for Common Witness Volunteers in the evening that first day in what's called the tabernacle--- a big tent across from the convention center. In it we sang a song by Holly Near:

I am open and I am willing
for to be hopeless would seem so strange
it dishonors those who go before us
so lift me up to the light of change.

These moments of connection lifted me up to the light of change. It reminded me through all the stress and through the fear--- frankly, fear that the church won't change or that it will for the worse--- that we can do beautiful things together. Lifting each other up to the light of change. This is the connectionalism I wrote about when I wrote about why I am a United Methodist.

But.

General Conference was ugly. I have seen Annual Conference before; I know that "holy conferencing" is 99 percent of the time bullshit. But the degree to which we were not church was staggering. Every vote was 60-40, every single one in favor of the status quo. Even after moving speeches from Garlinda Burton and Erin Hawkins of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women and on the General Commission on Religion and Race among so many others, the votes were the same. Delegates were not open to the movement of the Holy Spirit at all. Their minds were made up, votes bought and paid for, no returns.

But around 4pm that last day there was an explosion.The General Conference secretary announced that the Judicial Council ruled Plan UMC unconstitutional.

Plan UMC was the attempt to salvage the restructuring plan proposed by the Connectional Table that failed in committee. It was created by an ad hoc group that included IOT folks and Plan B, another restructuring plan. These plans were not goof for women, minorities, or anyone in the Central Conferences, a theme of General Conference 2012. Fed by fear-mongering over the USAmerican church decline and urges to cut spending, though, Plan UMC was narrowly voted through and was to become our restructuring plan, despite the fact that there were major issues around protecting the rights of women and people of color. When the General Council on Financial Administration reported back on it, they swore that the restructuring plan could be implemented within budget. And with a sinking feeling, I thought we were done for. Nice try justice voices in The UMC. The only thing that was to come out of General Conference 2012 would be an institutional move further away from the kindom of God.

But then the secretary of General Conference announced that the Judicial Council ruled Plan UMC unconstitutional.

There was this intense feeling of release, release into chaos maybe, but release. The tension that had been present all of conference over everything, sexuality included, finally exploded as every person breathed out together, whether or not they were pleased by the announcement. I called my roommate and texted my TA for the General Conference class and started to feel this strange giddy sensation of hope. Someone called for a time to caucus, and it was granted, but the bishops themselves were so disoriented the break was extended into dinner time. The General Conference secretary left us with the words (in reference to the rushed creation of the Connectional Table?), "And remember when we come back after dinner that we should be working for quality not quantity..."

Giddy, exhausted, nervous. But I wasn't the only one who felt weird. When I got back to the conference center everyone was weird. People were not making any sense whatsoever, until finally Rev. Laura Easto from Baltimore Washington stood up to chastise everyone. She said she felt the Holy Spirit move with the judicial council decision and the fact that we were still talking about that restructure plan was ridiculous. She called us instead to repentance. It was powerful and effectively ended conversation on restructure and moved us to other items of business. Finally Joey Lopez, my hero, moved to end General Conference, so we did! With a short worship service and hugs from everyone. So General Conference did not end on this horrible note, but we left with hope.

One of the problems lamented by everyone at the beginning of conference was a lack of trust. I myself felt a huge distrust of delegates and the whole process. There was no movement of the spirit (except for in the judicial council decision), no holy conferencing. But I leave the conference with a little bit of trust budding, trust in young people, including myself, WAKING UP. We are going to change the church, even if we have to drag it kicking and screaming.

Taking back the communion table May 3; photo from UMNS

Apologies

Apologies again. I try to put something up on the blog at least once a month so you don't forget about me, but this semester has been absolutely insane. But I have a few reflections in the works to be published when possible:

• Reflecting on General Conference, which is the only body that speaks for The United Methodist Church and meets every four years. I will be going with a seminary class and volunteering with OnFire, the young adult chapter of MFSA.
• Celebrating the powerful experience that was praising orgasms and reclaiming our vaginas and declaring "I'm so over rape" under the cross in Craig Chapel at Drew Theological School for our seminary performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
• Naming the conflict for me that is loving this community at Drew Theological School and knowing my real home is with Aaron and the rest of my family. I have felt the pull with Bosnia as well. So I really want to meditate on the meaning of home a bit as I look forward to sleeping in the same bed for a whole year when I move into my parsonnage.
• Exploring the meaning of movement and repose...

So stay tuned. In the meantime, here is a photo I took on a sunset flight with Aaron over the Chesapeake Bay. We all need the peace of sunset sometimes.

You Got a Beautiful Taste

I schedule people to bake bread for our Thursday communion service at the Drew Theological School chapel service. So this year, we had a service on the Spirituality of Bread Baking. Amanda Rohrs-Dodge and I put together the liturgy as well. It was a fun service and very uplifting for me. The following is my written reflection, the order of worship, and the video from the service.

Often, our communion bread for Thursday eucharist is home-baked by Theo school students. In this service of word, music, readings and communion, our bakers will describe their spiritual and theological approach to providing this most sacred element to our worship life.

Service of Word and Table
Thursday, February 9, 2011
Craig Chapel, Drew University
Spirituality of Bread Baking

Prelude Prelude in G Major J.S. Bach

*Call to Worship:
ONE: This bread which we will break is the new manna in the desert. It nourishes and sustains us on our journey. This bread of life will be ours to bless, break and share. Let us pray to the Creator:
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we are led into the desert, and our spirits wither like grass
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When the fire of love dies down within us,
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we forget your promise, God,
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we are tempted to turn our faces and look away from brothers and sisters in need
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we drift from this table of fellowship
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: This bread symbolizes the hope and the help that is always available to children of God.
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread. Amen.

*Opening Prayer
Gracious and loving God, we come before you this day to honor and praise you, and to remember the ways in which you are present in our lives. Like a baker that kneads sticky dough into smooth loaves, you blend this community together, each one of our unique gifts an artisanal ingredient. Let us be bread, blessed by your Word, that we may go out and feed the world. Amen.

*Hymn of Praise
O magnify the Lord, for God is worthy to be praised!
Hosanna, blessed be the rock,
Blessed be the rock of my salvation! (repeat)

Scripture:
Exodus 16:14-15 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat."

Reflection: Jessica and Sandy Stenstrom [baking together]

Scripture:
Matthew 13:33 The kin-dom of heaven is like yeast, that a woman took and mixed in with the measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

Reflection: Theresa Ellis [sourdough]

Sung Scripture: Light of the World from the musical “Godspell”
Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth.

Reflection: Amanda Rohrs-Dodge [ingredients and method of breakmaking]

Scripture:
Acts 2:46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts...

Reflection: Betty Gannon [the mess]

Sung Scripture: Taste and See FWS 2267
Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

Reflection: Shannon Sullivan
Jesus should taste good. I am not confident of too much else we can say of Jesus, but I know that Jesus tastes good. That is part of why I feel compelled to bake bread for communion in the first place--- I wanted to make some good Jesus. Taste is not often a sense that we experience in worship; more often we are assaulted by flat pita bread or stale cubed bread convenient to serve to the congregation without getting too messy. But we are a people who believe that God is in bodies, bodies with taste buds. We follow this guy who was accused of being a glutton for all the partying and eating he did (Matthew 5, Luke 6), and yet we walk up to the communion table very solemnly and come away from the table bored.

When you bake bread, you feel the stickiness of the dough turn smooth under your kneading fingers, the air slowly becomes heavier with the smell of baked bread, and when you take the bread out of the oven and gloss the browned and warm bread with butter that melts as it touches the crust, it is a full sensory experience, and it just makes me hungry describing it. But making bread makes me feel so alive, so in tune with my senses, that I can't just walk up to the table solemnly, and to leave the table bored would feel like blasphemy. No, I want to remember at the table using all my senses that the Lord is good. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good. And my prayer for you today in this community is that you do.

Communion

Invitation
Christ our Lord, the Bread of Life, calls all who love him to his table, inviting us to never be hungry. As people who seek to live in the abundance of Christ’s love, let us confess those times we have fallen short and remain hungry.

Confession and Pardon
Merciful God,
we confess that we have not lived into the abundance you provide for us.
We have failed to feed our neighbors,
and we often deny our own spiritual hunger.
We close our ears to the sounds of rumbling tummies,
and instead live out of fear of scarcity.
Forgive us, we pray.
Free us from our fear so that we may truly live in joyful abundance
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Taste and see that the Lord is good!
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!
Glory to God! Amen.

The Passing of the Peace

Choir Anthem Truly Yours Zelman/Miller

The Great Thanksgiving:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

We praise you, Master Artisan, who from the very beginning created new things with your hands. You shaped humanity from the dust of the earth, and breathed into us the warm breath of life. When Pharaoh enslaved your people in Egypt, you brought them out of slavery and into the desert. You provided them with manna covering the surface of the wilderness, a fine, flaky substance that sustained your people as they journeyed to the Promised Land. The exodus is remembered through the breaking of unleavened bread, and together with all your people we remember these works and praise your name.
Sanctus FWS 2257b

Just as you fed your people in the wilderness, so too your Son fed thousands by the sea of Galilee, and promises that all who come to him will never hunger or thirst, for he is the bread of life.
Some found this teaching difficult and turned away, shutting their minds to the vision of a world where none are hungry or thirsty. For some it was easier to wash their hands of his teaching, and so they gave him up.
At his last supper with his friends, Jesus took everyday bread, formed by human hands, blessed it, broke it, and shared it with all around the table, saying “Taste, and see.”
When supper was over he took the cup, ordinary grapes crushed by ordinary people, blessed it, and shared it with all around the table, saying, “Take, and drink. As often as you do this, remember me.”
And so we remember these mighty, yet ordinary life-giving acts in Jesus Christ, and we offer ourselves, ordinary people capable of extraordinary things in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of our faith:
Memorial Acclamation FWS 2257c

Pour out your Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine.
By your Spirit, knead us together as one bread, one body in Christ, that we may be bread for the world, making Christ known to one another in the simple act of breaking bread together until Christ comes and we feast at his heavenly table.
Through your Son, the Bread of Life, with your Holy Spirit among us today, all honor and glory is yours, Master Artisan, loving and sustaining God, now and forever. Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer W&S 3071

Breaking the Bread

Giving of the Bread and Cup

Songs during Communion
Let Us Be Bread
One Bread, One Body

Benediction

Closing Song We Are Called FWS 2172

Worship Notes:
Call to worship adapted from Bread Breaking Prayers at http://emmauscommunity.net/
Opening Prayer and Communion Liturgy by Amanda Rohrs-Dodge and Shannon Sullivan, 2012.
Many thanks to all who have shared in the ministry of baking bread.

Video of the service after the jump.