O God of all Creation, satisfy us with your love
which is making all things well. Amen.
When was the last time you can say that you were satisfied? Maybe after an excellently prepared meal? Completing a project that you’ve been working on for a while? Getting good test results back? Satisfaction is something retailers and businesses want from us – that’s why they ask us to complete satisfaction surveys. They want us to be satisfied because a satisfied customer is likely a repeat customer. And so we are promised that a particular energy drink will satisfy our thirst, or that we’ll find the softness of a shirt to be satisfying, or that we’ll be satisfied with the new gutters with leaf guards. Satisfaction, it seems, is everyone’s goal. After all, that’s why we go on vacation, purchase things, and do things for entertainment.
But
according to research by Gallup, the number of Americans who say they are “very
satisfied” with life is at a near-record low and the number of people who say
they are at least somewhat satisfied with life dropped five points just in the
last year. About half of us, statistically speaking, are unsatisfied with our
standard of living, personal health, work, community, education, and amount of
leisure time. For all of the promises for satisfying shampoo, fitness classes,
or cruise ships, as the Rolling Stones put it, we “can’t get no satisfaction.”
The
spiritual diagnosis of the issue is a fairly easy one to make. As Jesus tells the
crowds that were coming to him, “Do not work for that which perishes, but for that
which endures for eternal life, which I will give you.” Last Sunday, we heard
the beginning of chapter six of John – the feeding of the 5,000: a huge crowd
by the standards of the day. One of the major fishing villages, Capernaum, had
a population of about 1,500, so a crowd of 5,000 was massive. Among them, they
had five loaves and two fish, which Jesus took, blessed, broke, and gave to the
point that everyone was satisfied and they had twelve baskets of leftovers. The
crowd’s hunger might have been satisfied, but their thirst for power was
surging. John records that they sought to make Jesus their king, as they imagined
the military and economic advantages of having never-ending and instant food.
And so, Jesus retreated and left them.
As
we heard as today’s reading begin, the crowds found him and they wanted more
bread. This is our problem as well, we always want more and we never seem to
get enough. Jesus cautions the crowd – don’t strive for bread that perishes,
for things that will fill you for a few hours and then leave you hungry, for
things that will decay and go bad. Just as we all know that a bowl of ice cream
is not as nutritious as a bowl of vegetable soup, we also know that 30 minutes
of meditation, prayer, reading Scripture, or talking to a friend is better than
30 minutes of watching cable news or scrolling social media. But once we’ve had
a taste of something quick and easy, like bread that just appears without
having to plant, harvest, knead, and bake, we don’t particularly want the other
kind. It’s why so much of our culture is disposable and one-time use – it’s not
necessarily the best quality, but it’s easy. And we like easy. But, as we’ve
seen in studies and know by experience, the easy stuff, the stuff that perishes
and isn’t designed to last, doesn’t satisfy us, and so we are left as an
unsatisfied, anxious, and depressed people who are wandering and searching for
the next fix that will again give us something exciting and make us feel alive.
Instead
of continuing to seek out and consume things that don’t satisfy us for more
than a minute, Jesus tells us to seek the things that will be everlastingly
satisfying. As Jesus says at the conclusion of today’s reading, “Whoever comes
to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
That’s quite the promise – to always be satisfied, and yet Jesus makes good on
that promise because he is the bread of life. Jesus is the food that sustains
those who fight long and hard for justice like William Wilberforce or Harriet Tubman.
Jesus is the bread that gives courage to those who face persecution and death
like Maximillian Kolbe in a Nazi concentration camp or Oscar Romero facing the death
squads of El Salvador, or Nelson Mandela facing imprisonment in Apartheid South
Africa. Jesus is the bread of sufficiency that was more than enough for St.
Francis or Mother Teresa to richly live lives of poverty.
The
bread that Jesus gives is a peace that passes all understanding – a trust that
God is with us and for us no matter the conditions of life. It is a peace
rooted in the reality that salvation and reconciliation come through the Cross;
a peace grounded in knowing that even in the valley of the shadow of death, our
Good Shepherd is with us. It is a peace that assures us that all shall be well.
The bread that Jesus
gives us is about grace – knowing that we are loved not because we’ve earned
it, but because God has chosen to love us. And because we don’t have to earn
our belovedness, it means that we can never unearn it. We are already worthy
and always loved. So instead of striving to be better or more deserving, we can,
instead, be satisfied in the love of God that is already ours.
The bread that Jesus
gives is about mercy – knowing that we are forgiven for our mistakes, failings,
shortcomings, and ignorances. That doesn’t mean we don’t apologize when we are
wrong and attempt to make restitution, but mercy means that we can judge
ourselves and others gently because we know that we are forgiven and that
perfection is not the expectation.
Grace, mercy, and peace
are descriptions of the bread that Jesus gives us. It is a bread that is given
in abundance, that never runs out, and never goes bad. This bread is what truly
satisfies us – when we learn to live in love instead of competition, when we
forgive as we have been forgiven, when we root our identity and mission not in
our accomplishments or wealth but instead in our belovedness as children of
God. As St. Augustine famously said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest
in God.”
When Jesus says that he
is the bread of life, it is a gift that allows us to live differently and be truly
satisfied. It is a gift that grounds us in our belovedness, makes us confident
of our dignity, and assures us that all shall be well. It’s why the Eucharist
is so central to our faith – as we receive that bread, we are feasting on the
bread of life and are given a taste of what true satisfaction is about.
For the remainder of this
sermon, I’m going to talk about a significant and potentially existential crisis
that comes from our inability to be satisfied with what we already have. Upon
recommendation by the Environmental Stewardship Committee, the Vestry has recently
adopted a Creation Care Covenant that is intended to guide our commitments and
decisions as a Parish. Later in the liturgy, we will hear this Covenant read.
In our first reading this
morning, we heard the prophet Nathan tell a parable to King David after the atrocity
he committed against Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah. It is one of the most
disturbing and despicable stories not just in the Bible, but human history, so
I’m not going to go into those details. Nathan knows that he can’t just go to
the king and read him the riot act – he needs to get David to own his sins for
himself. So he tells the story of a rich man who has many flocks of sheep
taking the one lamb that a poor man owned and using it to serve dinner to a
guest. David, not knowing this is a parable, is enraged and says, “This man
must be punished!” To which Nathan replies, “You are the man!” David immediately
recognizes the truth and begins a process of repentance.
I don’t know that we need
a parable to recognize the truth of the manmade climate crisis. Storms are more
intense, summers are hotter, winters are less wintery, droughts and fires are
ravaging the western parts of this country, plastics are polluting our oceans
and bodies, ecosystems are dying, and food shortages are causing a refugee
crisis throughout Africa and the Middle East. Our friends at the Bishop Hannington
Cathedral in Mumias, Kenya have told us of the issues they face related to climate
change.
Our desire for more and more
and our inability to be satisfied are driving this crisis. I know that a lot of
people say things like “Climate change is too big of a problem for individuals
to solve; action has to come from nations and corporations.” That might be
true. It might be too late for riding a bike, recycling, or solar panels on our
roofs to make much of a difference. But it’s not too late for the Church, the Body
of Christ, to make an impact. If we can live into our sacred vocation given to
us in Genesis of being stewards and keepers of the earth, the 2.4 billion
Christians around the world can make a monumental difference. Nearly a third of
the world’s population is a part of the Body of Christ, nourished by the bread
of life. If we adjust our habits as consumers who are already satisfied and use
our voices as Nathan did, we can return to treating Creation as a gift instead
of an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The Covenant that St.
Luke’s is adopting has three aspects, modeled on the liberating, loving, and
life-giving example of Jesus Christ. The first aspect is loving formation: we
commit to learning more about the wonderful Creation that God has made and ways
to care for this sacred gift. The second part of the Covenant is about
liberating advocacy – recognizing that
issues of the environment and climate change are directly related to issues of
justice, class, and poverty. Our insatiable appetite for more has real consequences
in the form of human and animal suffering, and we strive to have the courage of
Nathan in naming the fact that we are a significant cause of the problem.
Lastly, we prioritize life-giving conservation. There are always choices to be
made, and we intend to make the best choices that we know how to when it comes the
environment. This might mean spending more money on compostable, recyclable, or
reusable products, it might mean spending more time washing dishes instead of
using disposable products, it might mean changing our habits.
The purpose of the Covenant
and these practices are two-fold. The first reason we are adopting this
Covenant is to put our faith into practice. Saying that we recognize Creation
as a gift from God and that we are its keepers is one thing, aligning our
actions with those intentions is another. Our faith is incarnational, meaning
that it’s not intellectual, but something manifest in the world, just as God’s
love was manifest in the flesh of Jesus. The other reason for this Covenant is
that the Church must lead. Congress is not going to address climate change,
Silicon Valley and Wall Street are only exacerbating the problem, and other
activist groups simply do not have the organization or reach to address such a
system issue. We are choosing to adopt this Covenant to be a light for others
to follow. To all of those who are on the Environmental Stewardship Committee,
we thank you for your leadership and we pray that God will guide us to perceive
what is right, and grant us both the courage to pursue it and the grace to
accomplish it.
In both our very human desire for satisfaction and our planet's need for us to be partners instead of masters, we must learn the word “enough.” All we need has been provided in Jesus Christ, the bread of life. His grace, mercy, and peace are enough to satisfy our deepest longings, to reconcile our deepest divisions, and to alleviate our deepest fears. Jesus Christ is the bread of life who is making all things well. Let’s eat and be satisfied.
