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<div><span style="font-size: small">Sermons for Proper 13 </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small">John 6:24-35<span style="color: black"> - <strong>"</strong></span><b>I Am the Bread of Life<strong><span style="color: black">"</span></strong></b></span></div>
<div><span style="font-size: small">Psalm 51 <span style="color: black">- <strong>"</strong></span><b>God Can Turn Your Trash Cans into Treasure Chests<strong><span style="color: black">"</span></strong></b><span style="color: black"> by Leonard Sweet</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black"> John 6<font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">,</font></font> the sermon title “I Am the Bread of Life" </span></span>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Sometime
this week you will make a trip to the grocery store to get a loaf of
bread. It will be readily available on the shelf. There will be quite a
variety to choose from. You will pay little attention to the price, not
realizing that the packaging that the bread is wrapped in actually costs
more than the wheat that is in the bread. All in all, you will think it
a very uneventful trip, but you will be wrong.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">It
is quite difficult for me, as an American, to understand the importance
of bread unless I turn on my TV and watch what is going on in so many
parts of the world today. When there is no staff of life there is
suffering and famine. A simple loaf of bread: Something, which we do not
give a second thought, but in certain parts of the world it means life
itself.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">It
is only as we comprehend that situation that we can really begin to
understand the importance of bread not only now but also in the time of
Jesus. Just think for a moment how so many significant theological
events in the Bible revolve around the subject of bread. The most
important event in the Old Testament of course, was the Exodus
event--the trip from Egypt to the Promised Land. But what caused the
Hebrews to be in Egypt in the first place? It was for want of bread you
will recall. The wheat crop had failed due to draught, and the Hebrews
had migrated to the land of the Pharaoh because there was a surplus in
storage there. It was bread, or the lack of it, that initiated this
whole chain of events…</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining <a __removedlink__1475388285__href="http://www.sermons.com/signup" target="_blank">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a></span></span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">_______________________</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">Psalm 51<font size="4"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">,</font></font> the sermon titled “God Can Turn Your Trash Cans into Treasure Chests" by Leonard Sweet </span></span>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Southeast
Asia is hot. The economies of its countries are sizzling, especially
Viet Nam and Indonesia, with the highest growth rates of almost anywhere
on the planet. Investors and tourists from all over the world are
flooding both countries. Of course, Bali, Indonesia, is where everyone
wants to go. But if I could go anywhere in Southeast Asia, it would be
the island of Sumatra. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Why
Sumatra? Because this island is the archipelago of 17,000 islands known
as “Indonesia” is where the “manna” of that country is grown. The best
coffee in the world comes from Sumatra. It is called Kopi Luwak coffee.
Kopi Luwak is one of the most unique coffees in the world, and very hard
to find. Only a couple of thousand pounds of this coffee comes up on
the world market each year. And almost all of it comes from the island
of Sumatra. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">This coffee bean has an interesting story and one that echoes with our Psalm today…</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining <a __removedlink__1475388285__href="http://www.sermons.com/signup" target="_blank">http://www.sermons.com/signup</a></span></span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Thinking Metaphorically<br>
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In a sermon on the "I Am" sayings of Jesus, I once mentioned the Simon
and Garfunkel song which had the line, "Where have you gone, Joe
DiMaggio, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. What's that you say,
Mrs. Robinson? Joltin' Joe has left and gone away." Originally part of
the soundtrack for the film The Graduate, the song "Mrs. Robinson" has
become one of the 1960s' best-known, iconic ballads.<br>
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But in a 60 Minutes interview a few years back Paul Simon mentioned that
some time after the song was released, he received a letter from Joe
DiMaggio in which DiMaggio expressed his befuddlement at what in the
world that song could mean. DiMaggio wrote, "What do you mean 'Where
have I gone?' I haven't gone anywhere! I'm still around--I'm selling Mr.
Coffee." Then Mr. Simon smiled wryly at Mike Wallace and remarked,
"Obviously Mr. DiMaggio is not accustomed to thinking of himself as a
metaphor!"<br>
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But then, who is? Most, if not all, of us see ourselves as real people
with literal, descriptive identities. For instance, I am a pastor, a
husband, a father, a committee member, a volunteer, a son--these are all
straightforward descriptions of who I am in relation to the people
around me in life. Like most people, I cannot readily conceive of myself
as a symbol for something, as a kind of metaphor that represents
something beyond myself.<br>
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Indeed, if someone came up to you at a party and said, "You are my
shelter from the storms of life," well, you'd be taken aback. Then
again, if you met someone who constantly spouted self-referential
metaphors, you'd have to wonder about him or her. We expect people to
denote themselves by saying things like, "I am a plumber" or "I'm a
stay-at-home Dad." But our eyes would widen if someone said, "I am the
oil that lubes my company's machine" or "I am the antibody that shields
my family from the virus of secularism."<br>
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This is not a terribly typical mode of discourse. Yet Jesus, with some
frequency, did refer to himself in a metaphorical mode, starting with
John 6:35 when Jesus said, “I am the Bread of life.”<br>
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Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations<br>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Our Help Comes from Above</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small">Looking
out at my backyard during the fall, I noticed the leaves falling while
the tree branches remained stretching heavenward--not only did they
remain that way after the leaves were gone, but when the snows came and
the often brutal winds of Chicago seemed to bend them into submission.
But in the spring the trees seemed to speak to me saying, "Notice that
we kept our branches lifted towards where our help comes from." To me it
seemed that they praised God with or without leaves, as if they knew
that keeping their branches up was a means of patient waiting faith, and
it was in the spring when the buds appeared on their branches that
those trees seemed to say to me, "We told you. We told you that our help
comes from above."<br>
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So not only does this text tell us that God provides through Jesus not
what we want but what we need and that God's promise can sustain us
through all times, but, finally, the text tells us God's presence
through Jesus allows us room to grow in grace.<br>
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Ozzie E. Smith, Jr., What Do You Want?<br>
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