August 8, 2021 – Proper 14 (11th Sunday after Pentecost)

Come, come, come, all who are weary;
Come, come, come you heavy laden;
Take my yoke, for it is easy;
Feel my burden rest ever so lightly.
For I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your soul.
I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest for your soul.
Come, come, come, all who are weary;
Come, come, come you heavy laden;
Take my yoke, for it is easy;
And you will find rest for your soul.

(Matthew 11:28)

Jesus tells us over and over that he is the bread of life. Jesus, the giver, is the substance of the gift. Jesus is our gift; God provides us with sustenance. God provides us with a solution. And yet, we are not forced to understand or appreciate the gift. We can always reject a gift or misunderstand the intentions of the giver.

We talk of being in the community of Christ. What does belonging to Christ and to one another mean? A life changed by love and a new requirement of love – a new ethic rooted in love – is upon all of us who are in Christ.

The bread of life speaks to this too – we participate in the life of Christ as bread. The offering of Christ, the bread of life, is the basis of the new community and identity of each of us. God recreates a community to imitate selfless giving.

In light of the Gospel of John and the current challenges we face in the church and indeed in our world, which can put extra strain on our relationships and influence how we speak and act in community, it becomes even more important to show kindness during these difficult times. To show kindness is an act of selfless giving and loving one another.

The Vestry has – as you’ve heard me mention many times – been talking about what it means for our vision of this church to change as we consider the community we serve and how the surrounding people have changed. We are learning to open our eyes to seeing Christ’s work in our midst in unexpected ways. We are opening our ears and bodies to hear and feel the breath and nudge of the Spirit to new and larger things. We are learning to allow our hands and minds to let go of things that we may hold onto too tightly so that we can make room for the unknown and things that aren’t so familiar.

It’s scary work. We as a Vestry have talked about the discomfort that comes with the unknown. We have talked about the fear that we are facing together. We have talked of being in the community of Christ and that our responsibility in that community is to welcome all and to allow all to encounter Christ here. We all have a responsibility in that. 

As Jesus says “I am the bread of life” and welcomes all into our church, we need to turn around and ask what the church needs to be for those who haven’t yet found the bread. Our task this week is to think about how we can welcome those whom we have never met to come to meet Jesus here, so that Jesus can offer that priceless gift of the bread of life.