Joel D. Kline
August 10, 2003
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
The Ninth Sunday after
Pentecost
I was in the second grade, and my class had taken a field trip to a nearby bakery, learning the art of baking large quantities of bread. Each class member was given a fresh loaf of bread, still warm from the oven. I remember how excited I was, carrying the bread home. All I could think about was how good that soft, fresh-from-the-oven loaf of bread smelled, and how good it would taste. When I got home, I placed the bread on the kitchen counter, then decided that I would first play outside before indulging in the pleasure of eating the bread. Imagine the dismay I experienced when, upon returning home, I discovered that my family had eaten all but the crust.
Surely one of the greatest aromas we experience is that of freshly baked homemade bread. And yet, we who have become accustomed to an abundant supply of food, have lost much of the sense of bread being the staff of life. But when the Gospel writer John portrays Jesus as making the claim, “I am the bread of life,” he has in mind that Jesus is indeed the staff, the substance, the crux of life. Jesus does not simply provide that which satisfies our physical hunger. Much more, Jesus ushers us into relationship with the God who satisfies the deepest hungers of our soul, the yearnings that gnaw at the very core of our beings.
This is the first of seven “I am” statements attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, each revealing something of the character of Jesus, and something of the relationship between Jesus and God, between Jesus and us. “I am the bread of life” (6:35, 48); “I am the light of the world” (8:12); “I am the gate/the door” (10:9); “I am the good shepherd” (10:11); “I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25); “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6); “I am the vine” (15:5).
There is poetry in these descriptive words of Jesus. There may be no special rhyme or meter, but even so, the words are poetic. For poetry is that which is able to stir the imagination, touch the heart, and teach more deeply than the head alone can know. Clayton Schmit, professor of preaching at Fuller Seminary, reminds us that the author of the Fourth Gospel is “not as interested as the other gospels in giving the objective details of Jesus’ existence as he is in telling us more deeply who Jesus really is. One ought not read John too literally,” suggests Schmit, “or you will miss the point of what he is saying.” For the writer of the Gospel uses poetic language to underscore the mystery of God taking human flesh in Jesus, the wonder of God becoming fully human, living among us and embodying the fullness of love. John’s Gospel uses poetic language, that we might grasp the incredible gift of love that stands at the very heart of the universe.
The fourteenth-century mystic Catherine of Siena frequently addressed her prayers, “O Divine Madman,” and spoke of God as being “crazed with love, drunk with love.” It seems to me that John’s Gospel is written precisely out of the same conviction—that God is indeed a God of unlimited love—a love we can scarcely fathom. How tragic that so many would seek to reduce God to a wrathful and vengeful Being, a God eagerly waiting for us to trip up, a God in the business of condemning. In that most familiar verse from John’s Gospel, John 3:16, we are reminded that it is love that motivates God to send Jesus, and it is God’s desire that all creation come to experience the gift of salvation—abundant life and love.
In his book Ruthless Trust Brennan Manning contends that it is mystics and artists who most assist us in exploring the depths of relationship with this God who loves us with a love that will not let us go. Poets, artists, and mystics interrupt our complacency, reminding us that things do not have to remain as they currently are. A major task of the ancient prophets of Israel was to help persons envision a new future in which swords would be transformed into plowshares, the bonds of injustice would be unloosed, the hungry would be fed, the light and love of the Lord would be embraced by all, and justice and peace would reign supreme. The poet-prophets among us look to the horizon and see a shadow of God’s new world unfolding.
Karl Rahner, twentieth century Catholic theologian, underscores our need for the artists, poets and mystics among us, when offering this prayer: “Eternal God, let them say what your Spirit has given in their hearts, rather than that which would make pleasant hearing to those who represent the forces of all that is average.” Faith will not let us rest satisfied with the average, with the customary, with business as usual. Faith ever keeps us anticipating the coming of something new; faith requires imagination.
I spent much of my early years in life lamenting that I was not a creative or a particularly imaginative person. Poetry and art did not come easily to me. I had some ability on the piano, but mine was a more mechanical experience; I do not have the natural ear for music with which great musicians are blessed. But I have come to understand through the years that creativity takes many forms. While the words I speak are seldom original, I have come to see that my ability to synthesize the thoughts of others, my ability to craft a sermon out of the disciplines of reading, Scripture study, personal reflection, and listening with the heart to the questions and struggles and hopes of others—this is a kind of creativity, a kind of poetry, if you will. Each of us has been gifted by God, and often those gifts only become apparent to us as we seek to put our faith into practice, and enter into relationship with one another in the faith community.
Yet faith is not something easily measured or calculated. Instead, as Clayton Schmit asserts, “Faith is trusting in the poetry that says that Jesus is more than you can wrap your mind around…. Faith takes imagination. It takes a heart that is open to see what the mind cannot.”
Life itself is full of poetry. Who among us has not had some of those moments when something profound happens within us, something so profound that the words we use to describe the experience seem woefully inadequate? Perhaps it was at a time when you came face to face with the natural beauty of a magnificent vista, and you were filled with a sense of wonder and awe in the face of God’s majestic creation. Or perhaps it was a profound yet unexpected sense of being loved.
Some years ago, on a silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, I was reading a book in which the author suggested that occasionally we ask God to communicate how God feels about us. It seemed a little odd to me, and yet our most meaningful human relationships are enriched as we affirm our love and care for each other. And so, sitting in a room with a wall of windows offering a view of Kentucky’s rolling hills, I somewhat self-consciously asked God to share God’s feelings for me. Almost immediately a bird flew into one of the windows, not once, but several times. The bird would hit the window, shake itself off, then fly right back into the same spot. What I heard in that was God saying, “I’ve tried to communicate with you over and over again that I love you. Do you now get it?” Some would dismiss it as mere coincidence. All I know is that when I “got it,” the bird quit flying into the window.
For me, it was one of those poetic moments in life not easily spoken of, yet a moment significant in my spiritual journey. A moment that reminded me anew of how deep is God’s love for me, and indeed for all creation. A moment that ushered me more fully into the presence of the bread of life, the One who provides nourishment for the soul, strength for the imagination, and hope for the future. How frequently our clearest vision for living comes when our eyes are closed, the richest sounds are heard in the silence, and our deepest understandings comes from believing with our hearts what our minds alone cannot comprehend.
Walter Brueggemann recently retired as professor of Old Testament at Columbia Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. In his book Finally Comes the Prophet: Daring Speech for Proclamation, Brueggemann asserts that
The reality of God’s self-giving outruns all our capacities to speak about it. We have no language to say fully what we know about God’s love, which in self-giving, transforms. Unless we speak poetically, God’s self-giving transformation will be heard as a form of cheap grace that costs God nothing because God simply overrides. Our poetry, however, helps us articulate how costly our new life is for God…. It is a total giving, out of extravagance, that runs beyond payment, but at deep cost.
The bread of life comes to us as a free gift of grace, but it is a gift that costs God dearly. And ultimately it costs us as well, as we take on new ways of thinking, as we encounter transforming moments of silence, as we embrace new ways of interacting with one another, and as we find new ways of experiencing life as a gift.
Floyd Mallott was a professor at Bethany Seminary in the generation before my time. In his book Studies in Brethren History Mallott makes the assertion that the early Brethren were mystics, and he defines mystics as those who seek direct inward experience of God without intermediaries. That is to say, each of us can have firsthand encounter with the bread of life. At the same time, our personal experiences are challenged, deepened and enriched by the insights and experiences of one another in the church community. We do not walk alone in the journey of faith. We can be artists and poets, prophets and mystics, guides and encouragers, for one another. Our task is to fund the imagination for each other, that we might more fully become a prophetic community, a community that seeks to embody in our life together the values of the kingdom of God. Our task is to become what Martin Luther King, Jr. labeled “the beloved community,” the people of God embracing justice, love and peace in their relationships with God and with each other.
In order to embrace that vision, we must see with more than our physical eyes. Our hearts must be open to see what the mind alone cannot grasp; we must see through the eyes of mystics, poets, artists and prophets. To see and experience life with the eyes of faith requires that we feed on the bread of life, the kind of bread that nourishes the soul, stirs the imagination, renews the heart, and offers hope for the future. Shall we not listen for the One who speaks deeply to our hearts and our imagination, the living bread from heaven?
Creator God, Source of all good gifts, Maker of the heavens and the earth—you call us to hold all of life as sacred. Yet we confess that all too infrequently do we uphold the sanctity of life. We find ourselves living instead in fear, suspicious of those who look different than do we, wary of those with differing views and perspectives towards life. We make peace with a world that places trust for security in the production of more and more military weapons. We close our eyes to the injustice all around us –the ever-growing gap between rich and poor, the on-going presence of racism, sexism, and abuse all around us, and sometimes, O God, within us.
Forgive us, God, and grant us eyes of the heart that can see your vision for life—a vision of a new creation, a vision of life in which justice and peace, compassion and grace, loving kindness and mercy gain the upper hand.
O God, you who love us with a love that will not let us go, guide us through our fears and uncertainties, that we might clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, patience, and love, which is able to bind all things in perfect harmony.
God, may the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. Empower us with your Holy Spirit, that our hearts may be filled with gratitude and joy as we celebrate the gift of life and imagine new possibilities.
Hear us now as we hold before you, God, those in special need of your healing touch … Touch each with your peace.
Gracious God, may your kingdom come among us, may your will be done, here and now, in our hearts, in this community of faith, and indeed in all creation. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen.