Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Scriptures: 1 Kings 2:10-12 & 3:3-14, Psalm 111, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58
CHILDREN’S MEDITATION
“The Pastor and the Shoemaker“
Many years ago, in a town called Wittenberg, there lived a famous pastor, whose sermons and whose love of God’s Word were known all over the land. There’s a story they tell about this pastor and a shoemaker.
Now, this pastor pretty much always had a tummy ache, and he only stopped reading and writing to walk to the bathroom, but one day, the pastor was walking back from the bathroom to the library when he realized that his feet hurt, too. He had worn holes in the bottom of his shoes! With a sigh, he left his library in search of new shoes.
The pastor walked into town, trying not to limp, and found the shop of the shoemaker. Inside, the shoemaker was leaning over his workbench, carefully forming a new pair of shoes with his tools. He looked up to see the pastor, and gave a huge grin.
“Pastor,” said the shoemaker, “welcome to my humble store! I’m glad you came. I’ve been itching to ask you a question about how to make my shoes.”
The pastor looked around the shop. The shoes were exquisite: they were hand-made, like everything back then, and of the finest craftsmanship. Further, they were priced fairly.
The pastor scratched his head. “Mr. Shoemaker,” he said, “Your work is beautiful, and you have a lifetime of experience. What could I possibly teach you about making shoes?”
“I need to know how to make better Christian shoes! How do I do this? Should I put little crosses on them?”
The pastor smiled. “My friend,” he said. “You make good Christian shoes this way. Tell this to your heart: say, ‘I make these shoes because God has called me to do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor.”1
The pastor saw that the shoemaker was already doing what Christ wanted him to. He walked away in his comfy new shoes, hopeful that the shoemaker understood that “When a Christian serves their neighbor, God is present.”1
1: These quotations are adapted from a sermon Luther preached in 1522, trans. Frederick J. Gaiser, from Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Accessed at https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/25-4_Work_and_Witness/25-4_Editorial.pdf.
SERMON
We human beings have a tendency to identify with our line of work as our vocation, even to think of what we do as our identity. This isn’t how God sees us, and those of us who seek to follow Christ must be cautious, and look for a waving red flag whenever we’re tempted to reduce a person’s role or identity to a brief word or phrase.
The tale of the pastor and the shoemaker itself falls into this trap: we identify both characters by their roles. If we were to try to tell the story from the perspective of God – which I admit even before trying is impossible on this side of the resurrection – we’d have to rename both characters as “beloved child of God, made in the divine image and justified by Grace alone.” That would be confusing, so we call them pastor and shoemaker.
And yet we see with the only eyes we have; we hear with our only set of ears, and so I’ll be as clear as I may.
We taste with the only mouth we have. In today’s Gospel reading, we again hear Jesus talk about the Bread of Life, doubling-down on the image to the point that it’s almost gruesome. The people who hear him are confused, perhaps even horrified, that he’s telling them to eat them. It’s a difficult concept, and one that shouldn’t sit lightly with us, either.
Especially considering that you are what you eat.
There’s a literal side to that that’s worth considering, especially if you’re like me and you’ve had a doctor suggest you change your diet for better health.
This isn’t what Jesus is talking about. The religious authorities listening to him make that mistake, and Jesus corrects them. To move us away from too literal an understanding, I’d like to turn that statement into a question. Rephrasing “you are what you eat” to-
What feeds you?
In the children’s sermon, you may have guessed that the pastor was based on the reformer Martin Luther. There’s a beloved folk tale that popped up after Luther’s death, in which the moral of the story seems to be that God “likes good craftsmanship.” It’s generally agreed that that doesn’t sound like Luther at all, so I rewrote it with quotations from a sermon Luther delivered in 1522, which goes a little something like this:
[Christians in positions of authority should tell themselves,] Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. […] When a […] neighbor [is] oppressed, […] think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor….The same is true [a] for shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or [teacher]. [A] Christian tailor [will] say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor. When a Christian does not serve the other, God is not present; that is not Christian living.
The word vocation just means call. The idea of Christ’s call for each person’s life was very important to Luther, and it’s something we should probably stress in church. The clearest way I’ve heard it put is this: “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need” [Frederick Buechner]. In other words, it’s what feeds you, and is related directly to how God formed you.
When we talk about “calling,” we tend to focus on how a pastor is “called” to ministry. The next time you’re chatting with a pastor, ask her or him to tell you their “call story” – it’ll be a fun three hours. I’m going to share a portion of my call story, as a witness to how God was faithful in my life, and what being fed with the Bread of Life means to me.
I’m in the Navy Reserves, now. But back when I was training in the Air Force as a Chaplain Candidate, I underwent Officer Candidacy School as a 2LT. I was placed in a training flight of 15 other, much younger officers, all of them medical and law students. I was at least 10 years older than most of them, and that can make a difference when you’re waking up at 4am, ready for review in 3 minutes, and have 2 hours of physical training before breakfast. In the first week, knowing only that I was a chaplain and was old, they nicknamed me “Chaplain Gramps.”
The second week, we had our first practice test of the physical exam, including timed pushups, situps, and a mile-and-a-half run. It turned out I was not only older than everyone else, but I was faster than all but one former college football player. I earned my way out of “Chaplain Grandpa,” eventually becoming “RevBev.” Honestly, I was hoping for “Chaplain Waffles” (which tells you a bit about the diet I wish I could eat), but I was happy to have graduated from a nickname that made me feel like an outsider.
But I felt an unexpected emotion at the results of my physical fitness test. It wasn’t pride – I’m too critical of myself to feel proud of any accomplishments. It wasn’t relief – I’d been training hard and long and had been ready. No, it was a gratitude I still find difficult to put to words.
Whatever I say about it must witness to how great God is, and acknowledge that we are indeed on God’s time. Because at age 19, I was told that I’d never run again, but at 36, I could pass the strenuous Air Force physical fitness test. As a high school runner, I had overused my knees so badly that the cartilage under my kneecaps was pulverized. I walked with crutches, and then a cane, and even after two surgeries experienced continual pain and swelling. This was not a great way to spend my 20’s.
Through rehab and over time, the pain lessened, but I hadn’t even thought about running for years. This changed as I entered my 30’s, and realized that the window was closing on a lifelong dream, and I was almost too old to enter the military. I had always wanted to serve my country this way, but my knee disqualified me – even if it hadn’t, I’m opposed to violence based on the teachings of Jesus, and so instead tried serving our country by representing our nation over the years as a teacher in Korea and Albanian public schools and universities.
But my itch to join the uniformed services never went away; it got stronger as I saw friends returning from combat zones changed people, and even lost a childhood friend to suicide. I felt the urge to help them. At the time, I didn’t know what a chaplain was, but I felt that even experiencing their hardships alongside them would make a difference.
And so I prayed, and I felt silly as I did, because it seemed hopeless: “Lord, if there’s a chance for me to serve before I’m too old to join, let me run again.”
Unfortunately, I hate running, and so even after praying I didn’t take the obvious step of trying right away. But one frigid January morning, I found myself trying on new shoes and stepping out of our apartment building. It was not a great run, but I ran. There’s no-one to thank but God for this.
That was my first step toward military chaplaincy, which was the call to ministry as I first discerned it, and therefore the reason I serve here. I’ll save the rest of my call story for another time, but if there’s one thing to stress this morning, it’s that in the call that has become my third career, and brought me to serve at St. Stephen’s, my identity is in Christ. My titles may be “pastor,” “chaplain,” “lieutenant,” but who I am is “beloved child of God, made in the divine image and justified by Grace alone.”
I didn’t always feel it, but even on my worst days, Christ was present. I wasn’t always a good steward of my gifts, my time, or my money, but God was faithful.
You are “beloved child of God, made in the divine image and justified by Grace alone.” This is how much God loves you, that God sent Jesus to earth; that Jesus walked to Jerusalem, toward the Cross, and out of love for you gave up his life, defeating sin and the grave so that you may live forever in him.
This is the message of our Gospel reading today as well. God created you, God loves you, and God knows exactly what feeds you. Today we will partake of the Bread of Life as we remember Christ’s life, example, and resurrection.
So we live the lives we’re given. Jesus’ message in John is the same today as it was not-quite-2000 years ago. This is how we persevere. It looks like living without fear, with care for yourself and others, and thereby embodying God’s love as we are enabled. It looks like loving God, striving to do so with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our minds. It looks like loving and serving our neighbors.
What feeds you? God help each of us to remember that it is the Bread of Life.