Resurrection:Being the Bread, May 13,2012

RESURRECTION: BEING THE BREAD

John 21: 1-13

John 6:47-51

Matthew 7:7-9

St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church

Rev. Gary Paterson

May 13, 2012

[The sermon started with a two-voice drama entitled, “I’d Rather Be Bread,” written by Joseph Juknialis, found in Winter Dreams and Other Such Friendly Dragons]

“I’d Rather Be Bread”

A         If you had your choice, which would you rather be?

B          Huh?  Which would I rather be?

A         Yes!  Would you rather be bread, or would you rather be a stone?

B          Oh, I guess I’d rather be bread.

A         Bread?

B          Right!

A         I’d rather be a stone.  You can’t build a house out of bread.

B          You can’t build a family out of stones.

A         Stones are strong.

B          But bread, when it’s shared, is even stronger.  Did you ever share a stone?

A         What good is bread once it’s shared?  It’s gone.  And what have you got left?  But with a stone….

B          What you’ve got left is …. a stone.

A         At least you’ve got something.

B          I’d rather be bread.

A         If I asked you for a stone, would you give me bread?

B          If I asked you for bread would you give me a stone?

A         You’re not fair!

B          Hungry people would rather have bread.

A         But I’m not hungry.

B          So you rather be a stone?

A         I wouldn’t want to be bread!

B          Hungry people would love you.

A         And then I’d be all used up.

B          But they wouldn’t be hungry.

A         And I wouldn’t be! Period!

B          But you are now?

A         I  am what, now?

B          You’re being?!?

A         I’d rather be a stone.

B          I’d rather be bread.

A         Stones are good for sitting on.

B          Bread is good for sitting with.

A         Stones are good for throwing.

B          Bread is good for giving.

A         Stones are always the same… strong and solid.  You can be secure like a rock.

B          Or cold like a stone.

A         Or stale like yesterday’s bread.

B          Or useless like one in a million stones.  I’d rather be bread.

A         I’d rather be a stone.  Stones are good for making slippery ways rough.

B          And smooth ways bumpy.  But bread can make a bumpy life smooth.

A         If you like breaded life.

B          Rather than stoney living.  Stones don’t care.

A         And bread does?

B          When it’s shared.

A         If I asked you for a stone, would you give me bread?

B          If I asked you for bread, would you give me a stone?

Friends, in just a few moments, I will be inviting you to come forward, with your stone in hand… the one you received along with the bulletin when you arrived here at the church for worship.  I’ll be inviting you to come forward, and exchange your stone for bread….

Now, I know that stones can represent good things – strong and beautiful; but today I’m asking you to stay with the metaphor of this short drama….  What would it be like to live as bread?  To be the bread?   Long ago St. Augustine pointed out the strange ways in which we talk about the Body of Christ -- we name the bread of communion as the  Body of Christ… “Take, and eat this bread, the body of Christ, broken for you.”  But elsewhere in our Scriptures we also here the wild claim that we, the gathered church community, we are the body of Christ.  The bread and the people of God… both are the body of Christ.  And so St. Augustine claims that when we come forward for the Bread… it is the body receiving the body; that is, as we accept the Bread of Life that is Christ, we are receiving ourselves, our truest selves. 

So what would it be like to surrender your stone, to exchange it for bread … and receive yourself; receive the Bread of Life and become the Bread of Life.  Before I invite you forward, I want to think about that stone, your stone.  Feel how it fits in your hand; the weight of it; the shape; the roughness, smoothness.  Let your imagination slide around your stone, and hear how it whispers to you.

Perhaps this stone speaks of the burdens you carry, the baggage that weighs you down.  We are all are carrying so much “stuff” – past mistakes and failures; old tapes and ways of being that we can’t seem to shake free from; present day compulsions and addictions; fears and worries; painful memories; guilt and despair; bent over by grief, by sin, by weariness.   But then I remember the gospel story of the woman who was bent over, crippled by life, so that her face forever stared at the dirt;  I remember how she came to Jesus, asking for healing…. and Jesus looked, touched her, and said, “Stand straight!”  And she did, as the weight of her life was  suddenly lifted; she was unburdened; the millstone was gone; she was free.  An image … true…  the writer, Virginia Woolf’s suicide; overcome by depression, self-doubt, and despair, she chose to end her own life -- she filled her pockets with stones and walked into the river … and went under with the weight of it all… and drowned.  Let go of the stone; I’d rather be bread… and Jesus said, “Come unto me all you who labour and are heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest.”   Let go of your stones… and receive the bread.

Or maybe your stone is a weapon.  I have just returned from Israel and Palestine… a place where young men literally use stones as weapons. But then I think of Jesus, who, when presented with a woman taken in the act of adultery and asked to pronounce judgment, looked at the gathered crowd (which included folk just like us, I am certain) and said, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.”  And I remember how everyone dropped their stones, and left.  As a kid, I remember hearing, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”  Not true… words, names… they’re powerful, just like stone.  The words we use to put down, to hurt, to blame… racist, ethnic or sexist slurs; veiled prejudice, bullying, the violence we do to each other.  What would it mean to drop out stones… to become vulnerable, to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies?  Do we have the strength, the faith to drop our stones, to choose the way of bread… to be gentle, to be “soft”…. soft?... not an easy word to embrace.  Try courageous, or well…. loving.  The first to drop defences;  hands unclenched, open; hands filled with bread rather than stones. 

Let your imagination move again, and suddenly these stones are the building blocks of  the walls you run into out there in the world… like the Berlin Wall of the last century, the wall between Israel and Palestine.  Or maybe it’s the more common walls of the ghetto and the gated community; the invisible wall around the Downtown Eastside; the walls that keep us apart, distant from the “other,” the one who is different, the one who makes us feel uncomfortable, afraid; the stranger.   Stones build the walls between us and our neighbours.  But as the poet Robert Frost remarked,

                        Before I built a wall I’d ask

                        What I was walling in or walling out,

                        And to whom I was like to give offence;

                        Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

                        That wants it down.

And, of course, it’s not just the walls between, but one that surround us and hem us in.  All that frightens, restricts, closets us… hard memories, fears, shame and guilt, anger too;addictions, sometimes a drivenness…  But then comes the invitation – would you rather be bread?  Then let the stone be rolled away… Lazarus, come out the tomb… every Lazarus… let that stone be rolled away, and instead receive the Bread of Life. 

Though ancient wall may still stand proud

And racial strife be fact;

Though boundaries by be lines of hate,

Proclaim God’s saving act. 

Walls that divide are broken down,

Christ is our unity;

Chains that enslave are thrown aside,

Christ is our liberty. 

Or maybe when you come up with your stone, reaching for Bread, what you are needing to let go of in your hunger for security.  You want a firm foundation, the rock of certainty, something strong to stand on.  But if you have your castle self firmly stuck in place, on the hill, the rock, how then can anything change; clinging carefully and tightly like an ocean limpet to the rock of safety.  All the stuff you do to make your life safe; now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with insurance policies, mortgages, long-range plans, annual check ups with the doctor, but just don’t lock yourself into one set point; don’t lose the possibility of changing, moving; just don’t fool yourself into believing that you’re really in control.   In order to listen and respond to the invitation, “Come, follow me,”  we’ll need to let go of whatever safe stone we’re stuck on. 

Those first disciples, out in their boats, fishing away on the Sea of Galilee – our gospel story this morning --remember how they saw the resurrected Christ as he stood on the shore, beckoning them, speaking to them… inviting them to eat the bread and the fish.  The shoreline Christ, in that in-between space that is neither firm land nor ocean; the space that cuts between, where the tides keep moving, and the sand keeps shifting under your feet.  I wonder if that’s still where Christ will meet us… in the in-between spaces, where there isn’t a rock to stand on.  The shoreline Christ, inviting us into less certainty about control and security, and instead, trusting that God is, finally, the only Rock we have to stand on… and that rock turns out to be bread, the Bread of Life. 

So come now, with your stones… be they burden, weapon, wall, or illusion; come drop your stones and receive instead the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ.  And as we come, let us sing:

Bread of Life, feed my soul,

As the presence of the Spirit makes me whole.

Bread of life, fill my heart,

With the grace and mercy you impart.