Brad Sullivan
Proper 16, Year B
August 26, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69
Choose Whom You Will Serve Eat
“Choose whom you will serve,” Joshua said to the Israelites. Will you serve God, or will you serve some foreign false god or idol? Joshua had taken over leadership of Israel from Moses just before they entered the promised land after fleeing from Egypt and spending 40 years in the desert. In today’s passage, Israel had finished settling the promised land, the territory was all divided up, so, Joshua was leading the people in renewing their covenant with God. Choose whom you will serve.
In the context of our Gospel reading today, I think it might be more appropriate to say, “Choose whom you will eat.” I know; it sounds bad, but Jesus said that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood abide in him, and he abides in them.
Of course, Jesus is not talking about literal eating. Instead of saying, “go eat Jesus,” think instead about, “having a diet” of Jesus. If I were to say, “I have a pretty steady diet of Jimmy Fallon in the evenings,” I think you would all understand that I mean I watch the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon most evenings. I don’t actually do that, but I needed an example that most everyone would get. We don’t say, “I eat people,” but we do talk about having diets of a particular person’s music or writing, teachings or commentary.
So, Jesus is telling his disciples to have a pretty steady diet of him. Spiritual food. Soul food. Heart food. Heck, even brain food.
I tend to have problems when I choose food other than Jesus. I tend to get frustrated pretty easily; I’ll make comments under my breath, roll my eyes, the kind of general nastiness that is terribly destructive, even if it is sometimes seen as no big deal. Such nastiness, such disdain for another is a big deal. It reduces the beautiful, beloved humans around us to contemptuous things to be conquered. I was reminded of this recently. Such behavior is not the way of Jesus, and such behavior comes from eating any of a thousand things other than Jesus.
When we’re calm and at peace with one another, in good times or in bad, it’s a good bet we’ve been feeding ourselves with Jesus. On the other hand, when the little things leave us angry, resentful, contemptuous, it’s a good bet we’ve been eating something else.
There’s the old Cherokee proverb which says there are two wolves inside of each of us struggling for control. One of the wolves is darkness and anger, violence and hatred. The other wolf is light and peace, compassion and love. Which one wins depends on which one we choose to feed.
So, how do we feed the good wolf? How do we make a diet of Jesus? Well, there are thousands of ways to make Jesus our soul food diet…at least 42 ways to make a diet of Jesus. One way I made a diet of Jesus back in high school was reading scripture every night and praying just before going to sleep. This practice filled my soul and gave me visions of what life can be.
Paul’s words from Ephesians from a couple of weeks ago: “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” More than good advice, more than a command to try harder and do better, these words from Paul give a vision of what life is like when we make a steady diet of Jesus. Reading or remembering Paul’s words; putting away all anger, and wrangling, and slander; being kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving; I picture myself living those words in daily life. I breathe Paul’s words in and let them feed my soul, feed the good wolf, and for those moments, I am what Paul describes. My anger melts away and in its place, forgiveness, healing, and love fill my body and soul.
Scripture of one way to make a diet of Jesus. Prayer is another: sometimes with words, sometimes in the silence of the moment, simply being present to God in creation all around you. Eucharist is a way to make a diet of Jesus. Prayer and bible study with others. Serving people around you. Allowing people to serve you when you are in need. Not responding to someone when angry or upset, but waiting until you are at peace so your response can honor the made in God’s image human being in front of you. Noticing…simply noticing the lives of those around you, choosing not to be indifferent to the lives and the challenges of those around you.
All of these and so many more are ways to make a diet of Jesus.
See, God desires lives of peace and wholeness for each of us, and, in the realm of , “you are what you eat,” God offers himself as our soul food so that we may have lives of peace and wholeness.
Last week in a radio interview on NPR with a young woman whose life was made whole and set on a new path when she chose to make a steady diet of Jesus. Lulu Garcia-Navarro* was interviewing Yvonne Orji, a comedian and actress in the HBO show, Insecure, and she described her character in the show as “a beautiful mess.” She can’t quite get life together, doesn’t have great relationships with guys, though she keeps trying, dislikes her job, and is basically struggling in a life that she doesn’t know how to manage.
When Mrs. Orji, first got the script, she said that the character in the show was who she would have been like if she hadn’t gotten saved when she was 17. She’d grown up as a Christian, but not necessarily making a diet of Jesus. In college, she was planning on going kinda nuts with her newfound freedom and likely make a lot of mistakes which could have had some lifelong consequences.
Then she went to a Bible study and heard a woman there refer to God as “Daddy.” That seemed odd to her, calling God “daddy, but she said, “there was something so pure and passionate about [this woman’s] relationship with God that caused that to not be weird for her.” Yvonne decided she wanted that, whatever she had to do, and she stared making a diet of Jesus. That changed the course of her life, gave her strength and security to follow where God was directing her, which was different that what her parents wanted for her, and brought her to a place of peace and wholeness, living a life that she never imagined.
That’s what happens when we make a diet of Jesus. Rather than the unhealthy chaos that comes from filling our souls with all the junk food out there, making a diet of Jesus brings us peace and wholeness, and even new direction, that we may never have imagined, or maybe have only imagined.
So I leave you with an imagining, with an image of what life on a steady diet of Jesus can look like, in the words of Terri Hendrix in her song called, The Last Song.
May your peace be an anchor in stormy times.
May your hope run like a river that will never run dry.
May your burdens grow light;
May your worries subside.
This is my prayer for you.**
* https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=639321123
** https://terrihendrix.bandcamp.com/album/wilory-farm
