Scripture: Song of Solomon 2:8-13 Has anyone other than me ever wondered what a romance novel is doing in the bible? Seriously the content of this on book if it were to be made into a movie would be rate R if not X. Yet here it is in scripture and here you are reading it. There are some that will spiritualize the book and say all the intimacy is symbolic of our relationship with God. Bernard of Clairvaux has a very great work in this area one I personally fell in love with. The thing is Bernard was a monk so I can understand why he refered every form of intimacy to his relationship with God. On the flip side there are some that will basically take the book as it is written. Which is a love story between Solomon and one of his 400 odd wives. I can understand this as well. Their are seveal great teachers that use this book to teach other about love and marriage. The thing is life is physical and spiritual. I believe that both ways of looking at may be benifital. I think we miss out of the totality of this book because we look at it in one of these two ways. It is no wonder that our ideas of sexuality and marriage are so messed up. You see a love story is in the bible that should tell us that there is more to marriage than the physical. There is a spiritual side to it as well. One that reflects and reminds us of God the creator and lover of creation. Marriage is a reenactment of creation in some way. The love and passion God had in creating the world is reflected in the love and passion between the couple. The issue is marriage has become cheap. Too many people enter an exit too easily and many fail to even reflect on what is behind this most sacred of mysteries. It is sacred because it is the part of human relations that we can participate in the ongoing creation of the world around us. It is not for everyone. It is an act of worship. Without God it is merely a biological expression. Without the physical it is a pointless contract with shared assets. It has meaning only through and in God, we cannot make it anything it is not. It is a sacred act of worship honoring creation, the intimacy and dedication God has for humanity, and honoring to humanity. Have we ever really honestly looked at marriage? We are getting worked up about it but why? I know we have various ideas, but what are our ideas based ourselves or God? I am going to guess that most of us have a personal agenda of some sort, and along with that I am sure each of us have a very messed up understanding of marriage and human sexuality. “Arise, my love, my fair one and come away” God is calling us to a relationship with him. Before we do too much with marriage maybe we need to learn a bit about love first. Today as you pray I encourage you all to consider your relationships and how they encourage both the body and spirit.
Scripture: John 6:56-69
An American hero is gone. The death of Neil Armstrong is the closing of an era. For years I would spend my Saturday morning just before the cartoons started, that’s right kids there was a time when cartoons were only on one day a week, and on that day it was only on from 8-12, well before the cartoons started I would often sit on the floor in the living room watching videos of Apollo 11. I would eagerly watch as the shadow of lunar module neared the surface of the moon, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I heard the voice of Neil Armstrong say, “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I can only imagine if I were to have been watching live. I heard the stories, watched the videos, and stood in amazement while I viewed the relics of an era that passed before my birth. The last great pioneers, the last explorers, the men and eventually women that inspired me to do my homework are slowly passing on into the mystery of death. They pursued a mystery that inspired science fiction writers for centuries. These explorers that inspired the past generations pass on, yet what do they leave behind?
Do we still dream or are our dreams silenced by the stresses and obligations of life? I used to imagine as a child of being the first man to land on Mars, I would run tests to see if during the season after the dust storms when the skies of mars were clear if there were high amounts of carbon dioxide in the air do to the dry ice at the poles. It is funny how plans and dreams change. I never even tried to go out into space. The era of space exploration is nearly over, at least the era that we have known in the past. It is no longer a realm of exploration but entering into the era of profiteers.
With the changing of time come new adventures. For my generation it is not space that holds the world in awe but areas of genetics. I moved from being the first man on Mars to dreaming of becoming a genetic engineer. To be able to manipulate genetic codes to increase the potential of food, or even to unlock the possibility of biological computers became the next great frontier. Of course there is many different opinion in this area but I was excited by the possibilities.
Plans change, and dreams evolve. I do not know if you noticed but not only am I not sitting in a Mars rover, I am not engineering crops either. Something grabbed hold of my adventurous spirit that again moved my life.
An enigma often drives the human mind into action. For the artist they may see something that inspires them to make an attempt to create. To a writer they get a news story or a bit of research that grows into a novel. A mystery or a challenge is presented before them and they cannot rest until they have mastered it. For others it may be a new technological advance like the smart phone or an Ipod that inspires something greater. They are challenged to make programs or apps to improve life or at least make it more entertaining.
Imagine just for a moment the disciples of Jesus. They know that they are living in a time where things are about to change all around them. They can nearly feel, taste, and smell the emergence of a new age. For centuries the teachers of their culture have said that God will send a messiah, an anointed person that would lead the nation of Israel into greatness. Everyone in the nation was eagerly anticipating the advent of this person. Some of these people feared the coming of this great man; they lived in fear because they had a life built upon the current systems. If this man came in their lifetime everything would change and their livelihoods would be threatened. They invested their time and energy in keeping things the same. Then there is the other side, those that anticipate the advent of the Christ as the hopeful future and fulfillment of the nation and culture.
This is a setting that we find these men and women. Last week and this week we meet Jesus in one of His most difficult teachings. He tells them to gain the ultimate dream that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. The very saying is so crazy to our rational ears that it is even 2000 years later hard to even imagine how they could have been received on the day that they were spoken. We know that they said it was hard to understand and who could accept it. To these those listening Jesus is either telling them to participate in the most un-kosher of meals or He was saying that He was the mother of life.
Jesus asks, “Does this offend you?” Does it offend us? Every Christian denomination has an interpretation as to what Jesus exactly means when He says these words. For some they believe that Bread and Wine become the actual blood and flesh of Jesus that the believers would then consume, and in doing so Christ is literally in them. Some believe that the Spirit hovers around the bread and wine and by eating and drinking we are allowing the Spirit to enter. Others believe that it is a symbolic statement where we remember the words spoken and through the memory we are inspired to reflect more deeply on Christ. Which is the truth? Could it be that all are correct?
It is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith, what is the truth of the Lord’s Supper? This conversation occurred just prior to the Passover Feast, the time where the Hebrew people remembered that God preserved them while allowing the first born of all the Egyptians to die. The angel of death passed over their houses because they painted on the frames of their doorways the blood of a lamb. Their salvation was shared with everyone in the house; those that ate were ready to be called into action at a moment. What saved the people from the threat of death? Was it the blood, the meal or the trust in the declaration of God?
Some would say that the blood saved them, and they would be right. Others would say they were saved by their faith, and they too are correct. But what if I were to say that the Angel of Death could not affect them because they had inside of them the Spirit of Life? They ate and drank in the name of God. They shared the meal with their friends and their families; there was an intimacy between God and the people. What does this say, where is the spark of life?
Jesus goes on to mystify His followers by suggesting that the spirit is greater than the physical. That there is something greater at work, something that fills the body, that inspires and grants true life.
I ask what is it that drives you? What excites you, inspires you, gives you a reason to go beyond? This is the mystery of intimacy with God. We are both body and spirit. We cannot separate these aspects of our lives. We can, however, starve one. Through the lens of history we have observed what happens when a culture starves one aspect of humanity. The Soviet and Nazi cultures both tried to focus all the attention to the body, or the physical aspect of humanity. They devoted themselves to nationalism, science, and social experiments. In the process of focusing their full attention to the physical they lost the humanity, the culture became inhumane. On the other end of the spectrum there are societies that focus all their energies on the spiritual or religious. The golden age of the church, history often refers to as the dark ages. This era gave us witch trials, the inquisition, and the crusades. In all the spirituality they too lost sight of the humanity, and became inhumane.
We may be quick to think that Jesus is embracing the spiritual focus. The culture of the Hebrews was a theocratic culture, a culture under the rule of God. It would be easy to assume that theirs was a culture that focused on the spirit above all else. The problem is that they were looking not for God but a king. Their minds were stuck in the physical. They had lost sight of the true spirit that gave the power, this is why Jesus stormed into the temple over turning the tables and driving out the sacrifical animals. They no longer focused on the worship of God but on the worship of the status quo. There must be a fusion between the body and spirit. There needs to be a balance between the religious and the scientific. Without this balance we lose intimacy with God and ourselves, we lose our humanity and we fail to treat others as people loved by God.
Jesus in His ministry feed the body and the soul. He healed the body and the soul. Jesus says I am the true bread; those that eat of me gain life. They gain food for the body and more. Those that ate of the bread of Christ were inspired to do more, to boldly go to the ends of the earth preaching the Gospel that the kingdom of God was at hand. Those that neglect the true intimacy of Christ begin to fade into darkness. They begin to lash out, responding to many like a caged animal if any of their life choices are questioned. They seek honor and status. But what do they truly gain?
When Neil Armstrong was asked about his mission to the moon, it was not uncommon for him to simply say that he was just doing his job. He never regarded himself as a national hero, but always as an engineer complete with white socks and a pocket protector. A man that inspired me and countless others to try harder ultimately led me to the very feet of Christ. A man of science in some way assisted my journey to become a man of the spirit. I know nothing of Neil Armstrong’s faith, but I do understand his passion. He lived by spirit. As Friends that is really all we urge. We gather together to encourage one another to live the life God leads within you, to strive to follow the dreams, find your ministry wherever that leads, and to embrace the light burning within you. That light has a name, Jesus, and in Him we have life. Not only life in this physical realm but life everlasting. As we enter this time of open worship let us look at our lives, our passions and our fears. And let us enter into a new era where we embrace the fullness of life in ourselves and in those around us through that intimacy of Humanity and God.
Scripture: Psalm 34:15-22 How many of us have scars? I have a few. The great thing about scars are the stories that are attached to them. These are stories of triumph, bravery, humor, and stupidity but I love to hear the stories about the scars. I do not have any triumphant scars but I have a few that would be attached to the stupidity or humor realm. I have one large scar on my fore head that came from a fall. The fall happened because as a child I observed my dog eating rocks so I thought I needed to too. Of course rocks are no good to eat and in the process of getting sick I tripped and knocked my head against a foot scrapper on our porch. Blood was everywhere and I thought I was going to die, of course I a bit dramatic. These scars tell a story about our lives. Sometimes they bring us pride while sometimes the tales are attached to painful memories. God know the stories of your scars. The psalmist says that God hears the cries of the rightious and his face is aganst the evil doers. This means that God is there which us as we gain the scars that tell the story of our lives. I know that many of these scars are very painful, some of the unseen scars are deep and still hurt years after they were first gained. To say that God was with us when we got the scars does not give us much comfort. In fact it can cause us to look to God as a participant of the evil. But that is not the case. God allows us to live freely, He does not often put Himself in the way of human choices. He allows millions of people to choose to smoke even though the are causing their death. He allows an abuser to abuse even though the pain inflicted on another is great. He allowed millions of people to die in horrific ways through out history. Why? I sit and wonder. I say it would be better if God would save us from all trouble. But then what would we be without our scars. The scar of the cancer survivor gives hope to the person that just received a diagnosis. The scar of the soldier gives pride to the nations. The scar of the child allows us to laugh with them as we remember the first bike ride. The pain often times give us strength. The scars often give greater hope. Yet God remembers. I love the tv show Bones. I love it because it shows that even when all else is gone and the only thing that remains is the foundation of our base structure, they can still find the truth. The bones still tell the story that our scars left behind. God keeps our bone He protects our inner most being. He will not allow us to be totally boken. He knows our story deeply because He is with us all the time. I do not know if that gives anyone comfort but it does me. He knows the pressure my job is causing my body and how that affects my spine, feet, and legs. He knows because He walks with me, and He is trying to lead me in a way that will bring hope to others that have burdens on their shoulders. Cry out to God, seek Him in the times of trouble. It is like putting on the armor of God. When we seek Him we receive the strength to endure. It may not take us out of the situation, but we can have the hope that He will keep the evil doers from breaking our bones. Because the bones remain, our story remains, our place in history and how we live remains and can give hope to others even centuries beyond our lifespan. I want my bones to tell the story of love and grace!