"Bread of Life" by Peter Hawisher-Faul

Sermon given on February 17, 2016
Scripture: John 6:35-51

The crowd that Jesus is speaking to followed him hoping he would perform another miracle. The day before, Jesus used five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand people. Then Jesus snuck away from the crowd, walking on water to join his disciples on a boat.  Jesus and the disciples went to the other side of the local sea, but the crowd got in boats and followed Jesus the next day. They were looking for another miracle, maybe some more bread and fish, but Jesus doesn’t give them another miracle. Instead, he says “I am the bread of life.” “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus is saying, you think want bread, you think you want a miracle, but what you are really looking for is me. Jesus feeds people not just for their survival, but that they might know the Creator through the Son.

Here at the CA, a lot of people first come for the food and community. People hunger and thirst for food and fellowship, but that alone will not satisfy our desire to know God and our place in the world. We long for food and community for the sake of survival, but we also have many other needs that capture our attention. We might not be longing to see God feed five thousand people. We may be thirsty for God to show us a career path that will lead us to success and a meaningful impact on the world. We may be hungry for a sense of belonging in a community where our voices are recognized and heard. We may be looking for hope in a nation where power is misused. I think we all have miracles we pray for, ways that we want God to feed our hunger and thirst for life. When we pray “give us our daily bread,” it means much more than providing food for us to eat.

When we think of Jesus as the bread of life, it might be tempting to think of Jesus as spiritual food that fulfills disembodied needs rather than an answer to earthly problems. But I think it is no coincidence that Jesus says “I am the bread of life” the day after feeding bread to five thousand people. Jesus feeds people because he is the bread of life. Jesus cares for our hungers and thirsts, but they will never be satisfied. We will always be hungry for more. No matter how full or satisfying a meal is, we’ll still be hungry again in a matter of hours. It is not enough to find meaning by satisfying our own needs. We have to look beyond ourselves, toward the needs of others, and ultimately toward God. We were created by God and we will only find true fulfillment directly from God.

Jesus says he is the bread of life because as God’s son, only he can satisfy our existential need to find ultimate meaning in God. Jesus is saying that the only way our hungers and thirsts will truly be satisfied is if we understand our lives to be fulfilled in him. Jesus says that he will receive everyone his Father sends to him, he will never drive them away, and he will raise them up on the last day. In Christ our hunger is satisfied because it doesn’t have the last word. For as long as we live, we will have needs that we cannot survive without, but Christ calls us beyond our individual needs. Because Jesus is the bread of life, we can always come to Christ, we will never be turned away, and our lives will have meaning beyond our own needs. Jesus is “food” for us because he fulfills our needs, but unlike any other food the bread of life satisfies our eternal and existential needs.

This might seem pretty philosophical, but I hope to make clear that having faith in Jesus as the bread of life changes the way we approach our other needs. First, it puts our needs in perspective. Our hunger and thirst do not provide ultimate meaning beyond survival. Second, the bread of life uses our hunger and thirst to call us beyond our own needs. While hunger itself does not give our lives meaning, it make us aware of our dependence on God and each other, pointing us toward dependence on God. This is part of why Jesus feeds the five thousand, to call attention to what God has done. Jesus feeds people so that the crowd may see and believe that he is the bread of life. Jesus also compares himself to the manna that came from heaven to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. Just as manna sustained the people of Israel when nothing else could, Jesus, the bread of life, gives our lives meaning beyond our needs and limits. Our hunger for food shows our dependence on the earth, farmers, and the environment, each of them calling us beyond self-sufficiency and toward dependence of God in Christ.

Every Wednesday night at the CA we share an experience of what it means to receive Jesus as the bread of life. When Jesus says “I am the bread of life” he calls us from the meal we just shared to the meal we are about to share. Much like when Jesus feeds the 5000, we share a meal together. While this meal satisfies our hunger for food and community, the meal we had anticipates the meal we are about to have, communion, sometimes called the Eucharist which means “thanksgiving.” The Eucharist is a celebration of Christ as the bread of life, that Christ’s life was given for the world and we share in Christ’s life in gratitude. In gratitude, we give our lives for the world as an extension of Jesus’s work. This is why the church is sometimes called the body of Christ. Martin Luther once described eating the Eucharist like a wolf that devoured a sheep, but the sheep was so powerful that it turned the wolf into a sheep. The bread of life is food for us that turns us back toward the world that we might feed others.

As followers of Christ, we meet other’s needs, feeding the hungry as Christ did. Sometimes we feed the hungry on Wednesday nights, but we also look beyond our community. We may not feed 5000 people with five loaves and two fish, but at the CA we serve at places like Broad Street Ministries and UniLU’s Feast Incarnate. When we feed others, we not only meet immediate needs but extend Christ’s invitation to receive the bread of life to others as we have received it from Christ.

Jesus said “I am the bread of life.” He is food for us and for others. He is food that satisfies a hunger for meaning that could only be satisfied by God. This calls us beyond our own needs into community as the body of Christ, turning our hungers and needs into symbols of desire for God.

"Trust" by Megan LeCluyse

Sermon given on February 3, 2016
Scripture: Luke 5:1-11

There’s a chance that some of you have heard me say this before, but growing up, I could never do a trust fall. Like where someone stands behind you to catch you, and you lean back, trusting the will catch you and not let you hit the floor. It didn’t matter if your hands were 6 inches behind me or halfway to the floor, I couldn’t do it. It didn’t matter who it was, even when it was my own mother standing behind me, I didn’t budge. As soon as I tried to lean back, I took a step back, catching myself, not allowing someone else to help me out. Which is kind of ironic, because in some ways I am the product of an act of trust that led to many other acts of trust. My parents’ first real interaction involved trust – they shared a boss, Lou, with whom my mom was supposed to have a lunch meeting, but she also had a paper that had to be turned in, and it had to be hand delivered in those pre-e-mail days. My dad was just finishing up a meeting with Lou, and when my mom said she needed to get this paper turned in, their boss said, “Don’t worry, Joe can turn it in for you.” So my mom handed this person who she’d just met her paper, wondering if it would really get turned in or not, and if she should contact the professor to check. 8 months later, the paper writer and deliverer were married.

I think this is one of the places where our faith and our culture rub against each other, in ways reflected by the two examples above. My unwillingness to let myself depend upon another person to catch me reflects so much of what American individualism seems to praise – pull yourself up by the boot straps, rely on your own hard work, and believe that asking for help, or admitting you can’t do something, can be viewed as a sign of weakness. Doing what you need to do to get to the top is praised. Trust and vulnerability are too often seen as things that could damage you, not help you. Trust and you could be betrayed, show vulnerability and you could be exploited. True. But the blind trust of handing your paper to a stranger reflects what God says would be best for us, to trust one another, but more so to trust God, and that what God has in store for us is better than we can even fathom. And trusting God means also accepting that we are not in control of everything, including our own lives.

Now I’ll admit understanding what it means to trust God, in correlation with what we are still supposed to do, can be tricky. And even what it means to trust God can seem a little hard to understand. Too often, God has been portrayed as a vending machine God, pray for X, and God provides X. Now some say X could be whatever, including a Porsche, and that if you pray hard enough, God will provide you a Porsche. Now most would say that’s a bit too far, God doesn’t provide luxury items. But what if we’re praying for God to heal someone, to make somebody’s cancer go away. I’ve known really good people, faithful people who had lots of people praying for them, who have died from illness. I struggle with what I think it means when people say, “God answers prayer,” or trust that God hears you, and prayer is a topic that deserves it’s own conversation. Because I do believe that prayer is important, and it’s meant to be a conversation, and I do believe that we can trust that God is present with us no matter what happens, that God wants to be in conversation with us, and that we probably need to spend more time listening than we do talking, more time thinking maybe we ourselves don’t have all the answers.

In tonight’s Scripture, Jesus is early in his ministry, but has already developed a crowd that is following him around. It seems like it’s morning, and Jesus wants to speak to the crowd. The fishermen have come in from being out at night fishing, and have not had a good catch. As they stand at the shore cleaning their nets, Jesus borrows a boat so he can go out to sea a little, creating an amphitheater-like effect. You have to wonder what these fishermen, who would soon be disciples, were thinking as they listened to Jesus talk.  They were clearly influenced, and though Simon Peter wanted to rely on his own knowledge that there were not a lot of fish to be caught this day, they trusted enough to take their boats back out, and drop their nets down. The number of fish soon started breaking the net, and they had to use both boats to get their catch back to shore! And then they trusted this guy enough that they gave up their career, and went to follow him and be disciples, fishing for people.

Trusting God means living our lives in a conversation with God, and choosing to trust the voice of God when we hear it, in whatever form that might take. And then it means acting on what you have been told. It means depending on God instead of depending on yourself, relying on God and others to get you through each day. It doesn’t mean sitting around praying for God to do life for you, Jesus didn’t put the nets down for Simon Peter, James, and John. But they listened when he told them, against all conventional and situational wisdom, to put their boat back out to sea. If fishing, and leaving their work to follow Jesus was their version of the trust fall, they leaned back, trusting that God would be their support, and through their actions call us as disciples to do the same. Amen.

"Are we ready to Follow Christ?" by Megan LeCluyse

Sermon given January 27, 2016
Scripture: Luke 4:14-21

Let me tell you the story of a young man, who was given the name Giovanni at his baptism. Giovanni was born into a wealthy and large family; he had 6 siblings. His mother came from a well-to-do family herself, and his father sold high-end fabric, specializing in silk. His father was away in France when Giovanni was born, and when he arrived home he decided he wanted his new son to be called Francesco, which means the Frenchman, possibly because of what had happened during his business trip. Francesco embraced the life of luxury that he had been born into. Had there been tabloids at the time, his picture would probably have been in them. Then, around the age of 18 or 19, he decided to join the military. Sent out on a military expedition, he ended up being captured, and spent a year as a prisoner of war. Some say it was during this year that Francesco began to change. Yet when he returned home after his release, there was no real discernable difference in how he chose to live his life. Before going back off to fight again, he became seriously ill, and this illness also created a spiritual crisis for him. After recovering, as he went back off with the military, he had a strange vision, in which he returned to his hometown, but had lost his taste for the extravagant life he had led. A year later, as he once again set out, he had another vision, directing him to return home once again, which this time he did. He took a pilgrimage to Rome, and there he spent time with some beggars. He returned home from his pilgrimage, began living a very simple life, and started to preach on the streets, soon developing a following. Any guesses as to who this young man was?

 Hopefully some of you have heard of Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church. Francis spent this rest of his life living in very simple conditions, having no more than the bare minimum of what he needed. He lived in tune with nature, and is often portrayed with animals. He restored several chapels in the area around where he lived. He and his followers, which included women, some of whom formed the Order of Poor Clares, served the poor.

Part of the story is that many of those who knew Francis growing up were not happy with the changes they saw take place, as he went from a carefree wealthy party boy who did his duty by going off to fight, to a young man who literally dropped the life he had known, shedding his fancy garments, and was radically transformed. While we have no evidence that Jesus was ever a party boy, the scene is today’s reading is a similar situation. Jesus is returning to his hometown, and with some pretty bold things to say. People were expecting that when the Messiah came, he would look like the knight-in-shining-armor, leading the Jewish people to a military victory over Rome. So it’s one thing to proclaim that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him, but then he also rubs salt into that by saying that what he will do is care about the poor and oppressed, the blind and the captives. Let’s just say that this doesn’t go so well, I mean, who is Joseph’s son to be talking like this. He says a few more things, and next thing you know, the people are trying to throw him off a cliff, so he heads out of town.

As we do our survey of the Bible, there are a few themes that stand out, and that show up again and again and again. One is what we looked at last week, that God has claimed you as a beloved child of your creator. Another is that God isn’t focused on, and didn’t become human primarily for, the wealthy and privileged. No, God came for those on the margins of society, for those not welcomed at the fancy dinner parties, for those who nobody wanted to talk to, for those who were broken, for those who needed healing. When God made the Israelites the chosen people, God wasn’t choosing a military powerhouse. No, the Israelites were a small, minority group, not very powerful, and soon enslaved. The wealthy and the popular are welcome to join in the party, but the party isn’t about them. That’s the kind of God we have.

Not many of us will have the radical transformation that St. Francis had, or return to our hometown only to be driven to the edge of a cliff. And while I think asking questions about how we chose to live and what we chose to buy is important, I don’t think we are all supposed to live in poverty either. But Jesus’ proclamation about why he came is still something we are supposed to hear and act upon. We have a new Francis, one who can helps us see both the complexity and the calling of following Christ today. A year after Francis became Pope, Jim Wallis wrote a piece for Sojourners on the new Pope. He looks at how Francis is trying to make it not about him but about the Christ he follows, and poses these questions to Christians today:  “Are we Christians ready and willing to follow Jesus? Are we ready to love, embrace, forgive, and show mercy as Jesus would have us do? Are we ready to stand with and give our lives for the poor and call the global economy not just to charity, but to justice? Are we willing to take “a preferential option for the poor,” and apply it to both our personal and public lives?

These are big questions, and ones we will spend our lives figuring out, especially as you graduate and begin careers from one of the most prestigious universities in the country. But the fact that they are big, daunting questions doesn’t give us an excuse to ignore them. So are you ready and willing to follow Christ? Amen.

"A Place to Belong" by Scott Sprunger

For queer people looking to join Christian communities, it can feel like a game of Minesweeper. You try your best to feel your way around the board. But if you make a mistake and say the wrong thing to the wrong person, it’s game over.

That’s why I was so lucky to find the Queer Christian Fellowship, a constituent group of the Christian Association.

For the first half of my college career, I wanted nothing to do with the Christianity that I had been raised in. But after a while, I found I had spiritual needs that weren’t being met. I wanted to look for a Christian community on campus but I didn’t know where I would be welcomed.

Finally, during a student activities fair, I discovered QCF. Through QCF, I’ve found a community where I know I’m not alone. And more importantly, a community where I know I’m loved for who I am.

I’ve been a member of QCF for over a year now. We do a lot of activities together. We hold Bible studies and group prayers. We eat at restaurants together and attend worship services with each other. But the most important thing I’ve found in QCF and the larger CA community is unconditional support. Whether I’m stressed about something as small as tonight’s homework or as big as my plans after graduation, I know that I can bring my worries to the CA and find people who support me.

QCF has inspired me because I’ve seen how each of its members choose to live out their faith. It’s a blessing to be around people who haven’t given up on God, even when they were mistreated by their religious communities. QCF has taught me that God’s love is bigger than hate of those religious bullies who would shut us out. Everyone is invited to God’s party.

"Baptized and Claimed" by Megan LeCluyse

Sermon given January 13, 2016
Scripture: Matthew 3:13-17

Back in December, someone I know wrote a post on Facebook cautioning people against using the term “adopt-a-family” for the holiday season. As the mother of adopted children, she explained that adoption isn’t something you do for a brief time, such as buying gifts for a family who may have less than you, and that hearing these terms can be confusing for kids who are adopted.  Adoption, she stated, is something that is for life. Adoption is a relationship, one in which you bind yourself to another being. In adoption you are claimed. Although she is not a human, this would describe how I feel about my own puppy, Penny. In adopting her, Annie and I have claimed her as our dog, and I think by now she knows that, and while she may test our patience, also wants to be close to us. When we first got her, she hadn’t been wearing a collar, and didn’t like having one on. But now, she does not like not having her collar on, which she may or may not be aware has the tags that identify her as ours. Her collar is like the permanent marker that writes “Andy” on the feet of the toys in Toy Story, and the toys know to whom they belong because they have been claimed. If they forget, they only need to look at their foot.

This year, we have been looking at a fast-paced arc of the Bible, and some of it’s major themes, as we fill in the blank. One of the major themes we find throughout the Bible is culminated in tonight’s Scripture, and in each of our own baptisms. God claims us, just as God has always claimed God’s children. That’s what we see so much of in the Old Testament. We see that God has claimed God’s people, and loves them no matter what they do. And trust me, they test God’s patience more than a little bit, screwing up big time again and again, straying for the goodness that God offers, chasing shiny idols and running after their own foolish ideas. But God is faithful, and when the people remember to look at the foot, metaphorically speaking, or when the remember to look to God in prayer, or whatever it is that reminds them of their creator, they remember they have been claimed, and repent, and turn back to God. Did you know that’s literally what repent means, to turn 180 degrees. They turned from wherever they had strayed off to, and God is there waiting.

The beginning of Jesus’ public ministry is God announcing that Jesus is claimed by God in a pretty undeniable fashion. Jesus goes to his cousin, John the Baptist, in order to be baptized. And for those of you who are from traditions like my own that practice infant baptism, we aren’t talking about putting a handful of water on his head, we are talking about dunking Jesus down into the Jordan River. As he comes out of the water, a dove descends, and a voice says, “this is my son, the beloved.”

We too are claimed by God, and this is one of the reasons we are baptized, as a sign and seal of this identity as God’s child. Paul talks about us being adopted as children of God, and that is something that lasts forever. One of the major themes of the Bible, one we see from Abraham though the early Christian disciples, is God saying, Remember Who and Whose You Are. Although it may not literally be written on our skin, we bear the image of God within ourselves. You are God’s sons and daughters, beloved Children of the most high God. Amen.

I invite you to write God's name somewhen on yourself, as a reminder that God has claimed you as God's own. 

"Home" by Catalina Mullis

As the year comes to an end, I, like many others, begin to reflect on the past year of my life, the things I experienced, and the things that I would like to experience in the upcoming year. 

My year, like most of my life really, has been filled with extensive travel. I spent January-June studying abroad in Salvador, Brazil. In June, I returned to my home in Los Angeles. In August I left to go back to Philadelphia for school. And now, I find myself once again in Los Angeles. Like a nomad, I've never really stayed in one place; I just keep moving and moving and moving. 

That's why, in the past, when people asked me where "home" is, I didn't really know how to respond because in many ways, I never felt like I had a "home," and just when I started feeling fully comfortable in one place, I'd have to leave again. 

It was discouraging, to say the least, and at times, it left me with an incredible sense of loneliness. 

So, when I arrived at the Christian Association as a freshman in 2013 and read that it was "a home away from home," I wondered if that could be true for me; Could this place really offer me something I never felt that I had?

While at Penn, I have left the Christian Association many times; for winter and summer breaks, for study abroad, and soon (sniffle), for life as I prepare to graduate. 

But I can honestly say that the CA has indeed offered me a "home," not really in a physical sense (don't get me wrong, the CA is one of the coziest places to be and I LOVE it), but more so in a spiritual sense; the CA has shown me that my "home" is always with me, that my "home" is my God, my Savior Jesus, the Lord I didn't know before Penn but whom I came to love throughout my time at Penn. 

So, when I find myself traveling the world without a physical place to call home, the CA has helped me see that all I have to do is be still, and know that Jesus isalways with me. 

He is my "home" forever and ever and ever. 

Hallelujah!!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and may you be filled with joy, because the Lord has come! 

Amen.  

Swords to Plowshares by Peter Hawisher-Faul

Sermon delivered December 2, 2015
Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5

In many of his sermons, Martin Luther King Jr. imagined a future for our world he liked to call “the beloved community.” The beloved community is a future where we have used non-violent principles to abolish racism and poverty. Reverend Doctor King believed that all peoples could get past the differences which segregate, divide, and stratify our societies. He knew it would never be easy, but he thought that we needed that kind of optimism to strive for real justice in our communities.

The prophecy in Isaiah we read points Israel to a similar hope. Isaiah gives all kinds of warnings later in the book; warnings that God will condemn Israel to be conquered by other nations; warnings that much of Israel will live in exile; warnings that God’s people must learn to live justly and follow God. In spite of all the hardship, Isaiah tells the people that one day, God will come and build a house on a mountain, and all the peoples of all the nations will come to it and seek God’s instruction. When this happens, God will mediate conflicts so that war will no longer be necessary. Weapons will be recycled into farming equipment.

In their history, the people of Israel did find glimpses of peace. Many of the people were eventually able to return from exile and Solomon’s temple, which had been destroyed, was eventually rebuilt. But history moved on, wars returned, and the prophecy of Isaiah still urges us to wait for the day that God will abolish war.

As Christians, we see the fulfillment of the establishment of God’s house in the incarnation of God in Christ and the sending of the Spirit. Jesus may not have built a house on a mountain, but Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, healed the sick, lived in non-violence, and taught us to forgive and love one another. Jesus commissioned his followers to spread his gospel and the early Christians began to understand themselves as the body of Christ, continuing the work of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But history moves on, wars return, and the prophecy of Isaiah still urges me to wait for the day that God will finally abolish war. This waiting is sometimes called the “already but not yet” of Christian hope. God has already brought salvation in Christ, but that salvation is not yet done being worked out in the world. We live between the times. This waiting is part of the meaning of advent. We decorate with evergreens in winter because we look for signs of renewal in the world around us. We wait in advent for the celebration of birth of Christ, but we are also are waiting for the end of a world sustained by violence.

But where does this leave us? It is tempting to think that it leaves us as the keepers of God’s teachings. Sometimes Christians like to think of the church as God’s city on a hill, where we wait expectantly for all nations and people to stream into our sanctuaries in search of God’s truth. This is the temptation to believe that if all the unbelievers would just become Christians, then violence would cease in the world. If we look at Isaiah, however, I don’t think we get off the hook that easy.

Right after the image of all the nations streaming to Zion, the scripture pleads to its audience “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” This is our task: to walk in the light of God’s teachings, the teachings that will make war unnecessary and transform the tools of destruction into tools for growth and life. We are not a city on a hill that is above reproach and immune to failure. We resort to violence and perpetuate injustice just as easily as the people of Israel did. Rather than hoping for non-violent solutions to conflict, we have often looked for the next war to be the solution. There was a war that was supposed to end all religious wars. There was a war that was called “the war to end all war.” There was a “Cold” War with proxy wars to end the arms race. And now we seem to have wars to end the threat of terror. I don’t know that these wars could have been prevented, but these wars show even Christians are far from beating their guns into trowels. Rather than being in the position of Zion as teachers of God’s instruction, Christians are right alongside all the nations and peoples who seek God’s instruction at the house of God.

We may have some knowledge through Christ that helps us to live in non-violent love with each other, but that knowledge is not a privilege---it’s a responsibility. If we have heard God’s instruction, we are responsible to obey. We who claim to follow Christ should know better, making it all the more convicting when we fail. We do not wait sitting down in idleness, but walking in the light of the Lord and seeking to follow God’s instructions.

Because we walk in the light of the Lord, we do not wait passively but actively, working and praying for a more peaceful world. In the light of the Lord, we may find hope in the potential for peace. One day, the United Nations and the international community may reach a point where all of its conflicts are resolved nonviolently. One day, the work that began in nuclear disarmament might be completed as total disarmament. As Martin Luther King Jr. looked for paths of peace and reconciliation, we look for ways to follow God rather than assume that violence is a necessity. Rev. Dr. King might have been optimistic, but he was not unrealistic. He knew there would always be conflict both locally and internationally, but he believed that it could be resolved non-violently. Isaiah affirms that with God’s help this is possible.

We may not live in a world without war, but we are still called to imagine such a world and to work for it. We walk in the light of the Lord, following God’s instruction as we have been taught by Jesus. This advent you are likely to sing or hear “O Come O Come Emmanuel” again, whether it be in the supermarket or in your home church. When you hear or sing it, I challenge you to pray not only with expectation of Christ being born in Bethlehem, but to pray in hope for this world and its leaders. Pray that all the nations would hear and heed the instructions of the Lord. Pray with Mr. Luther King Jr. that one day, maybe even in our lifetime, God would lead all peoples to resolve conflicts without violence.

Sometimes it is difficult to even imagine a world without violence. Creative and life-giving imagination takes work. It might be difficult to imagine a world without violence altogether, but should it be so hard to imagine a world without public shootings or murders in the street? To help us imagine a more peaceful world, there is a group of Mennonite welders in Colorado who formed an organization called “rawtools.” In the spirit of our passage in Isaiah, these welders take guns and weld them into farm tools. They hope that confiscated illegal guns can be recycled into tools of cultivation, creating a powerful and embodied symbol. As our responsive activity, I would like each of you to describe or draw a way that you can imagine the world without violence.