Charlie Used To Do That
Sermon
ASSAYINGS: THEOLOGICAL FAITH TESTINGS
Sermons For Pentecost (Middle Third)
The people said, "Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, just as the scripture says, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' " Jesus answered, "What Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven; it is my Father who gives you the real bread from heaven."
Jesus is referring to the fact that even when God gave the whole Israelite community manna the people still complained; they were not satisfied. God then gave the Hebrews quail and they continued to be dissatisfied. Later on the whole Israelite community complained to Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses struck a rock and water came out of it for people to drink. But the whole Israelite community continued not to be satisfied. They continued to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
"I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. "He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
Jesus is once again making reference to a common everyday thing in order to say something about the kingdom of his Father. Jesus uses bread in his little object lesson. There were two kinds of bread: good bread and bad bread; the bread of life and the bread of un-life. Today, in our culture, people who raise livestock know the importance of good nutrition for their animals, not for themselves. Ironically, the intelligent farmer orders the best possible diet for his pigs, which he raises to die, while he feeds white bread to his children, whom he raises, presumably to live. Why? Because there is a large profitable animal feed market for the bran and the wheat germ which the miller gets free. The best part of the grain of wheat is stolen before it ever gets to us and is poured into animals to make them healthier than children.
In Jesus' day the farmers did not know this yet. So they left the good stuff in their bread; the bran and the wheat germ. This is the part of the bread that spoils quickly, turning rancid and moldy. This kind of bread couldn't be kept without a great deal of preservatives, like white bread can be kept today. A loaf of white bread will keep in my refrigerator for well over a week. But in Jesus' day, and continuing even today in the Middle East, bread had to be baked fresh every morning. And if not eaten that same day, by nightfall the same bread would be hard, stale and the mold and fungus of decay would be already beginning its work. This was the bread of un-life which Jesus would have been thinking about as he told his hearers about himself being the bread of life. The bread of life would have been the fresh smelling newly baked bread of the morning dawn. This is what Jesus was. "I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. Jesus was referring to himself as the bread which would be everlastingly fresh. He was comparing his kingdom with a never ending dawn's early light where the aroma of fresh baked bread would fill the people so that they would never be hungry again. This bread, Jesus was saying, would have the preservative of the Father's kingdom.
What is this bread of life like then? Since in Aramaic one of the meanings of Satan or evil is distortion, the bread of life would be able to discern truth as opposed to falsehood. Thus, the preservative of the kingdom would be to preserve the people from illusion. The bread of life then, would be to not let the people become separated from the reality and love of God. The bread of life would be to know that the bread of un-life, the bread of death, Satan himself, this illusion, can really have no lasting effect upon us. That is if we continue to eat the bread of life. In a sense, Jesus is saying here that if we partake of the bread of un-life, of death and illusion, we will become part of that very death and illusion. We will become partners with it and therefore co-inflictors of it. So Jesus says, "Come to me, I am the bread of life, partake of me, and you will never be hungry ever again."
What does this bread of life look like? I will answer with two short stories:
It was the year 1917. The place was an Armenian hospital in Mezre. Day after day, Elizabeth Caraman, a nurse in that hospital, cleansed and bound up the wounds of Turkish soldiers who had been wounded on the battlefields. Often when the soldiers came to her, hastily applied bandages were dried on to a gaping wound. It was extremely painful to remove them.
One day Elizabeth was working on an especially bad wound. To help the young soldier think about something besides the pain, she told him a little about her own history. "My father and I were deported from our home by the Turks," she said bitterly, "and my father was thrown into prison. In 1915 they took him out of his cell, rolled him in a carpet and hoisted him up on a donkey. Together with other Armenian men they sent him away to die." At this moment, Elizabeth, for some reason, looked up. To her surprise the young soldier was staring at her with a look of horror in his black eyes.
"What is the matter?" Elizabeth asked.
"I killed your father," he said in a low voice. Elizabeth could only gasp. With a super human effort, she went on cleansing the wound. "I rolled him off the donkey onto the ground," the soldier continued. "With one jab of the bayonet I killed him. I have never been able to forget it. The whole business of killing has sickened me."
Elizabeth felt a wave of hatred and sorrow sweep over her. Here was the murderer of her father. In some strange way, the enemy had fallen into her hands. She had the power to destroy him. At this moment Elizabeth thought of her mother. What would she have done? Her mother loved Christ and tried to follow him. She would have tried to help this young man.
The power and light of her mother's life reached out to Elizabeth.
Gently Elizabeth turned to the soldier lying in front of her. "Christ says we must forgive our enemies. For his sake, I forgive you." she said. The soldier stared at her in amazement. He could not say anything. Every day, when Elizabeth came to his bed to dress his wound, she saw him looking at her with awe and wonder in his eyes.
Finally, one day, he said to Elizabeth, "Your Christ must be very great! He surely is the bread of life. His teachings really live in your heart, for I see them in your life."
How glad Elizabeth was that God had given her the power to forgive her enemy! It cleansed all bitterness from her soul. Now she was free to love and live again.1
Charlie was a man who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knew he was extremely blessed by God. He had a loving wife who stood by him in both good times and bad times. He had four beautiful daughters and two wonderful sons. One evening, on his way home from the furniture store at which he worked, he thought about how hard they had all worked in building the house on Brady Street which they had moved into the previous year. "Yes," he considered, "my family and I are certainly blessed of God!"
Every day on his way home from work Charlie would take a kind of inventory of things that needed to be done as he walked past the church where he had been a member since his baptism in 1917. Whenever he was at the church he would notice things that needed to be done. Sometimes they were just little things like changing a light bulb. On his way home from working at the furniture store all day, if there was something that needed fixing, Charlie patiently climbed the church steps and went to work at the task at hand.
Sometimes it was marks on the tile floor scuffed by the children's playing. "Many people in the congregation wouldn't agree with me," Charlie thought, as he began to remove the scuff marks with lots of elbow grease, "but I love these marks made by the children. Oh my, what would the kingdom be like without the energy and aliveness of kids?"
On other days it would be light bulbs that Charlie would stop and take time to replace. Consider, he would, the light of Christ as he moved throughout the church with his ladder. On another day he remembered that the previous Sunday he had noticed a leaky faucet that needed new washers. As he checked out the spigot he remembered the life-giving water of his baptism. Sometimes squeaky doors had to be oiled and he would go around to every door and oil the hinges and latches so that they worked properly. While doing this he would recall that Jesus was the door to life. That Christ was the threshold to the kingdom of God. The next day it would be windows. One day he would clean the outside. The next day he would clean the inside of the windows. And the next day he would check and oil the latches and sand and revarnish any bare wood that he saw. As he looked through each window he would think, "It is only with the heart of the kingdom that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the naked eye."
Then there was always the furnace in the hall. Charlie replaced the filters and made sure that the pilot light was on. And he would be reminded of the love and warmth of God's Son, Jesus. On hot summer days he would often fix screens and while doing so reflect on the cool breeze of God's mercy. There were always wastebaskets that needed to be emptied and trash that needed to be carried out for the garbage man to pick up. And Charlie would consider humanity's garbage, sin, the dark side. The next day when he would be cleaning the dirty oven he would in turn rejoice in the reality that God redeems his children from their sin and darkness to newness of life.
Charlie was certainly a man blessed of God. He was blessed in knowing God's Son, the bread of life. Charlie lived a long rich life. When he was 87 years old he slipped on the ice while walking up his front steps one evening having been at the church to fix a leaky commode. He never returned home after that. When he left the hospital he went to live at a nearby nursing home where he received the best of care.
And for a long time after that members of the church where Charlie went would say things like, "Look at those marks on the floor, why aren't they being cleaned up? I cannot see to sing or read in church. The lights above me are burned out. Why doesn't someone fix those darned doors that squeak so loud when you come into the church? Why is it so cold in here? You mean to tell me that someone didn't get the furnace ready for winter?" And at least one person always seemed to be standing nearby and would say, "Well, Charlie used to do that." Charlie died in 1987 at 94 years of age. People still ask things like, "How come these windows are so dirty?" There always seems to be at least one person who remembers and says, "Well, Charlie used to do that." Nobody ever really knew because Charlie always made sure that nobody was around when he did his little deeds. Accolades Charlie did not want. He only desired to work with Jesus in being the bread of life for others. And even today someone will come forward and say, "Well, Charlie used to do that."
1. Adapted from the story "Could He Ever Be the Same Again?" in Courage in Both Hands by Allen A. Hunter (Fellowship of Reconciliation, 21 Audubon Ave., New York, 32, New York.)
Jesus is referring to the fact that even when God gave the whole Israelite community manna the people still complained; they were not satisfied. God then gave the Hebrews quail and they continued to be dissatisfied. Later on the whole Israelite community complained to Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." Moses struck a rock and water came out of it for people to drink. But the whole Israelite community continued not to be satisfied. They continued to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
"I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. "He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
Jesus is once again making reference to a common everyday thing in order to say something about the kingdom of his Father. Jesus uses bread in his little object lesson. There were two kinds of bread: good bread and bad bread; the bread of life and the bread of un-life. Today, in our culture, people who raise livestock know the importance of good nutrition for their animals, not for themselves. Ironically, the intelligent farmer orders the best possible diet for his pigs, which he raises to die, while he feeds white bread to his children, whom he raises, presumably to live. Why? Because there is a large profitable animal feed market for the bran and the wheat germ which the miller gets free. The best part of the grain of wheat is stolen before it ever gets to us and is poured into animals to make them healthier than children.
In Jesus' day the farmers did not know this yet. So they left the good stuff in their bread; the bran and the wheat germ. This is the part of the bread that spoils quickly, turning rancid and moldy. This kind of bread couldn't be kept without a great deal of preservatives, like white bread can be kept today. A loaf of white bread will keep in my refrigerator for well over a week. But in Jesus' day, and continuing even today in the Middle East, bread had to be baked fresh every morning. And if not eaten that same day, by nightfall the same bread would be hard, stale and the mold and fungus of decay would be already beginning its work. This was the bread of un-life which Jesus would have been thinking about as he told his hearers about himself being the bread of life. The bread of life would have been the fresh smelling newly baked bread of the morning dawn. This is what Jesus was. "I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. Jesus was referring to himself as the bread which would be everlastingly fresh. He was comparing his kingdom with a never ending dawn's early light where the aroma of fresh baked bread would fill the people so that they would never be hungry again. This bread, Jesus was saying, would have the preservative of the Father's kingdom.
What is this bread of life like then? Since in Aramaic one of the meanings of Satan or evil is distortion, the bread of life would be able to discern truth as opposed to falsehood. Thus, the preservative of the kingdom would be to preserve the people from illusion. The bread of life then, would be to not let the people become separated from the reality and love of God. The bread of life would be to know that the bread of un-life, the bread of death, Satan himself, this illusion, can really have no lasting effect upon us. That is if we continue to eat the bread of life. In a sense, Jesus is saying here that if we partake of the bread of un-life, of death and illusion, we will become part of that very death and illusion. We will become partners with it and therefore co-inflictors of it. So Jesus says, "Come to me, I am the bread of life, partake of me, and you will never be hungry ever again."
What does this bread of life look like? I will answer with two short stories:
It was the year 1917. The place was an Armenian hospital in Mezre. Day after day, Elizabeth Caraman, a nurse in that hospital, cleansed and bound up the wounds of Turkish soldiers who had been wounded on the battlefields. Often when the soldiers came to her, hastily applied bandages were dried on to a gaping wound. It was extremely painful to remove them.
One day Elizabeth was working on an especially bad wound. To help the young soldier think about something besides the pain, she told him a little about her own history. "My father and I were deported from our home by the Turks," she said bitterly, "and my father was thrown into prison. In 1915 they took him out of his cell, rolled him in a carpet and hoisted him up on a donkey. Together with other Armenian men they sent him away to die." At this moment, Elizabeth, for some reason, looked up. To her surprise the young soldier was staring at her with a look of horror in his black eyes.
"What is the matter?" Elizabeth asked.
"I killed your father," he said in a low voice. Elizabeth could only gasp. With a super human effort, she went on cleansing the wound. "I rolled him off the donkey onto the ground," the soldier continued. "With one jab of the bayonet I killed him. I have never been able to forget it. The whole business of killing has sickened me."
Elizabeth felt a wave of hatred and sorrow sweep over her. Here was the murderer of her father. In some strange way, the enemy had fallen into her hands. She had the power to destroy him. At this moment Elizabeth thought of her mother. What would she have done? Her mother loved Christ and tried to follow him. She would have tried to help this young man.
The power and light of her mother's life reached out to Elizabeth.
Gently Elizabeth turned to the soldier lying in front of her. "Christ says we must forgive our enemies. For his sake, I forgive you." she said. The soldier stared at her in amazement. He could not say anything. Every day, when Elizabeth came to his bed to dress his wound, she saw him looking at her with awe and wonder in his eyes.
Finally, one day, he said to Elizabeth, "Your Christ must be very great! He surely is the bread of life. His teachings really live in your heart, for I see them in your life."
How glad Elizabeth was that God had given her the power to forgive her enemy! It cleansed all bitterness from her soul. Now she was free to love and live again.1
Charlie was a man who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knew he was extremely blessed by God. He had a loving wife who stood by him in both good times and bad times. He had four beautiful daughters and two wonderful sons. One evening, on his way home from the furniture store at which he worked, he thought about how hard they had all worked in building the house on Brady Street which they had moved into the previous year. "Yes," he considered, "my family and I are certainly blessed of God!"
Every day on his way home from work Charlie would take a kind of inventory of things that needed to be done as he walked past the church where he had been a member since his baptism in 1917. Whenever he was at the church he would notice things that needed to be done. Sometimes they were just little things like changing a light bulb. On his way home from working at the furniture store all day, if there was something that needed fixing, Charlie patiently climbed the church steps and went to work at the task at hand.
Sometimes it was marks on the tile floor scuffed by the children's playing. "Many people in the congregation wouldn't agree with me," Charlie thought, as he began to remove the scuff marks with lots of elbow grease, "but I love these marks made by the children. Oh my, what would the kingdom be like without the energy and aliveness of kids?"
On other days it would be light bulbs that Charlie would stop and take time to replace. Consider, he would, the light of Christ as he moved throughout the church with his ladder. On another day he remembered that the previous Sunday he had noticed a leaky faucet that needed new washers. As he checked out the spigot he remembered the life-giving water of his baptism. Sometimes squeaky doors had to be oiled and he would go around to every door and oil the hinges and latches so that they worked properly. While doing this he would recall that Jesus was the door to life. That Christ was the threshold to the kingdom of God. The next day it would be windows. One day he would clean the outside. The next day he would clean the inside of the windows. And the next day he would check and oil the latches and sand and revarnish any bare wood that he saw. As he looked through each window he would think, "It is only with the heart of the kingdom that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the naked eye."
Then there was always the furnace in the hall. Charlie replaced the filters and made sure that the pilot light was on. And he would be reminded of the love and warmth of God's Son, Jesus. On hot summer days he would often fix screens and while doing so reflect on the cool breeze of God's mercy. There were always wastebaskets that needed to be emptied and trash that needed to be carried out for the garbage man to pick up. And Charlie would consider humanity's garbage, sin, the dark side. The next day when he would be cleaning the dirty oven he would in turn rejoice in the reality that God redeems his children from their sin and darkness to newness of life.
Charlie was certainly a man blessed of God. He was blessed in knowing God's Son, the bread of life. Charlie lived a long rich life. When he was 87 years old he slipped on the ice while walking up his front steps one evening having been at the church to fix a leaky commode. He never returned home after that. When he left the hospital he went to live at a nearby nursing home where he received the best of care.
And for a long time after that members of the church where Charlie went would say things like, "Look at those marks on the floor, why aren't they being cleaned up? I cannot see to sing or read in church. The lights above me are burned out. Why doesn't someone fix those darned doors that squeak so loud when you come into the church? Why is it so cold in here? You mean to tell me that someone didn't get the furnace ready for winter?" And at least one person always seemed to be standing nearby and would say, "Well, Charlie used to do that." Charlie died in 1987 at 94 years of age. People still ask things like, "How come these windows are so dirty?" There always seems to be at least one person who remembers and says, "Well, Charlie used to do that." Nobody ever really knew because Charlie always made sure that nobody was around when he did his little deeds. Accolades Charlie did not want. He only desired to work with Jesus in being the bread of life for others. And even today someone will come forward and say, "Well, Charlie used to do that."
1. Adapted from the story "Could He Ever Be the Same Again?" in Courage in Both Hands by Allen A. Hunter (Fellowship of Reconciliation, 21 Audubon Ave., New York, 32, New York.)
