Pray with me, my friends,
That May I preach in the name of the Creator, the Sustainer and the Sanctifier. AMEN
The last time I preached I talked about the apostle Thomas and how strong his belief in Jesus was. Thomas, who was willing to follow Jesus even unto death, taught us so much about questioning and faith. Today, I’m going to speak about things that are more down to Earth. This summer I am studying Eco-Theology and I’d like to speak about “Sustaining”.
In our Collect this morning, we prayed for Jesus to “renew your people with your heavenly grace and in all our weakness sustain us”. What does it mean to sustain – I looked it up and it said to comfort and assist. I think it means to actually keep alive. There are several ways to sustain. We can physically sustain through food or water or spiritually sustain someone. We can support physically, emotionally, politically, or financially. But supporting is not sustaining. Sustaining means to keep alive – as in sustenance farming, hand-to-mouth, at the very edge of life and death.
When we look to our readings today, we get a clue as to what kind of sustaining Jesus is talking about. He says “I am the bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry”. Jesus is talking about feeding one so completely, as to be filled with God’s unconditional Love of all Creation. It is the ultimate gift of grace.
Our Gospel today also mentions another time when God sustained His people – and provided the only food that kept them alive. During the Exodus from Egypt, the Jews had only enough food with them as they could carry when they fled to the wilderness. Eventually they ran out of that food and the people began to starve. Moses prayed to God to sustain the people and God provided. In today’s Gospel Jesus reminds us of this story when he says, “Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
When I was young, I can remember hearing this Gospel and that manna was bread from Heaven. Mum described it to me like a thin waver. I imagined the Jews waking in early morning to find the fields covered in the thin wafers of the Eucharistic. Imagine, fields of Gluten-Free hosts! As I grew up, I researched what was manna could be – and today, scholars are not exactly sure but they lean towards the idea of a secretion by insects - the crystallized honeydew of certain scale insects that flock to tamarisk trees and make the fields appear covered in hoarfrost. It appears with the dawn and dries in the early sun, but disappears as the morning wears on. This thin secretion, looks a lot like coriander seed but much paler in colour. Then, as now, the manna can be ground into cakes and eaten.
This truly was bread from heaven for starving people – but as time passed and people developed and society became more sophisticated, God send another Bread of Heaven for us. He sent Jesus, to sustain us. To satisfy our every hunger. The Eucharist is our chance to enter into that very special moment with Him that will sustain us until the next time we are able to meet with him in that Holy space. It is also an opportunity to enter into communion with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, that we may sustain each other.
The Jews cried out and God sustained them. We cry out and Jesus sustains us –
but we have a very special place in this creation. Up to now, we have seen ourselves as stewards, but somewhat at a distance – picking and choosing where to nurture, prune, fertilize, or ignore. It is written that St. Francis of Assisi would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of brother or sister. Such a conviction cannot be written off as naïve romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behaviour. In order to support a sustainable world we need to rid ourselves of any notion that we are masters or conquerors of our world and begin to see ourselves as equal members – equal citizens of this biotic community. God calls us to be Co-creators of this special creation.
Now, the Earth is crying out – and we can help to sustain her. Today, there is wanton destruction of species and significant alteration of the planets climate. How can we embrace her and make the changes to help chart a more sustainable future? “Simply - each of us as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.” (Pope Francis Laudato Si’)
We are a chosen people – a chosen generation who can change how we relate with the Earth. Like the prophets of old who said “Don’t choose me, God, it is too much to ask of me”, God says, “You are going there anyway”. We are not asked whether we wish to live at this particular time – we are here – the work is before us.
It’s not about giving up your car to be “green”, it is about discerning how we are to relate to this new ecological moment. It’s not about making sacrifices to sustainability, it’s about making a space for a new and possibly enhanced way of life. It may hold hidden harvests for the spiritual as well, not only for our families and nation, but for our larger household – the Earth.
In his Earth Day 2015 statement, Archbishop Fred Hiltz reminded us that “Anglicans and Lutherns made a commitment to address these issues and to discern ways we might be healers of the Earth. He said, “we are Called across this country to take action together for the love of the world’.
Richard Louv, an American journalist, wrote, and you may have heard this already, “ a kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rainforest – but not about the last time he explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move.”
Here is our call –it is simple. The Earth needs all of us, to join with all of creation, as equal partners, intimately united with all that exists in a radical love and deep ecology.
Let us pray:
Jesus, Bread of life, Sustainer of our everydays. Give us the insight and strength to join with you and the Father to be Co-Creators: praying, preaching and acting daily, taking up our place in this special Creation and be sustainers of life and love.
AMEN.
I end with a short reflection from today’s psalm,
Give us the joy of your saving help again and sustain us with your bountiful Spirit. (Psalm 51.1-13)
AMEN
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