<html><body><div>I'm going to have to cut back - the first mailing of the first part was rejected....</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER
PENTECOST</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2
SAMUEL 11:26 – 12:13a<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PROPER 13 b</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>EPHESIANS
4:1-16<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>5<sup>th</sup>
AUGUST, 2018</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>JOHN
6:24-35<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>PSALM 51:1-13</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Is it gluten free?”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“What?”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Is it gluten free? Is the bread
gluten free, Jesus? I have food intolerances.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We all have our difficulties, and
seldom are they inconsequential. The reactions can range from discomfort to
something severe enough to require hospitalisation.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The question of whether or not the
bread is gluten free, is safe for everyone to eat, came to my mind, however,
when I read the Gospel for this morning. Bread, along with water and wine, is
one of the three basic symbols for Christians. It’s a sign of invitation, that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> are welcome at the table of
God, that no one is or can be excluded, unless he or she chooses to stay away.
And, of course, not only is the Bread and Wine present here on the Altars of
the World, as the Body and Blood of Jesus. The Bread and the Wine also
represent to us, also speak to us, of the fact that we are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ALL</u></b> invited to participate in the heavenly banquet to all
eternity. We are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b>, without
exception, invited to live in God’s joyful, loving Presence for ever. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOTHING</u></b> should keep us away,
then, nor should we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>EVER</u></b>
think of trying to keep anyone away from being a participant in this Eternal
Feast.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But concentrating on the bread
without digging deeper into the readings probably brings us to miss the point.
Yes, as John’s Gospel tells it, Jesus used the word several times in these few
verses. And, yes, Jesus certainly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DOES
</u></b>want us to know that He commands us to share bread, to enable everyone
to find satisfaction in a physical sense as well as spiritual and emotional
ones. But when Jesus invites us to take the Bread, and t share the Bread, He
was saying, Take Me. Become Me. Make your life so parallel to Mine that, soon,
people will look at you and see Me.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Of course, they’ll still see you.
They’ll see the size, the shape, the hair and eye colour. Yet, as mystical as
it sounds, and it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b>
mystical, when people look on you they’ll see that you’re filled, you’re
committed, you’re in love with Me.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It has everything to do with how you
understand what the Bread is and does.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The scholar, Bruno Barnhart, wrote
in Jesus’ voice, saying, “‘I am your food. I have come to be consumed and
assimilated: first into your hearts and minds through listening and faith; then
into your very bodies which I will transform into my own …’</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Jesus is the divine light and life
made visible, audible, touchable … and finally ingestible. To ‘see’ him, to
listen to his words and believe in him, and thus to feed upon him, is to begin
to surrender the boundaries of one’s own consciousness and one’s own being.” <sup>1</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Surrendering to Jesus is what life
is all about for a Christian, not so that one loses all sense of identity, but
because of who Jesus is, we still retain all our characteristics. These are
changed, of course. No longer is there anything that will inflict harm, or
distress and other – whether knowingly or unknowingly.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"></b></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There is no longer a need to be in
charge. There is no longer a need to bully people or to put them down. There
is, instead, a strong desire to build people up, not into <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>OUR</u></b> image, but into the image of Jesus who lives in us.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s amazing how many things we
learn when we’re young and have taken them for granted.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Your will be done, here, now,
exactly as it is in heaven. And done by me.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Too often we try to alter the recipe
for bread. Too often we only serve it to particular people. Too often we try to
control how big or how little a piece we give to others, and to ourselves.
This, despite the fact that Jesus said that He exists that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>EVERYONE</u></b> will be satisfied, and not experience hunger of any
sort.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IF</u></b>
Jesus is within us, then we make Him known by how generous we are, and how
vitally important to the whole world do we understand bread to be.</span></p>
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