god feeds us: 7th after pentecost

The first reading is Isaiah 66:10-14.

The holy gospel according to Luke (10:1-11, 16-20).

After this the Lord appointed seventy others

       and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place

              where he himself intended to go.

       ²Jesus said to them,

              “The harvest is plentiful,

                     but the laborers are few;

                            therefore ask the Lord of the harvest

                                   to send out laborers for the harvesting.

              ³Go on your way.

                     See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.

                     ⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals;

                     and greet no one on the road.

                     ⁵Whatever house you enter, first say,

                            ‘Peace to this house!’

                                   ⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace,

                                          your peace will rest on that person;

                                   but if not,

                                          it will return to you.

                            ⁷Remain in the same house,

                                   eating and drinking whatever they provide,

                                          for the laborer deserves to be paid.

                                   Do not move about from house to house.

                            ⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you,

                                   eat what is set before you;

                                   ⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them,

                                          ‘The reign of God has come near to you.’

                     ¹⁰But whenever you enter a town

                            and they do not welcome you,

                                   go out into its streets and say,

                                          ¹¹‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet,

                                                 we wipe off in protest against you.

                                                 Yet know this:

                                                        the reign of God has come near.’

¹⁶“Whoever listens to you listens to me,

       and whoever rejects you rejects me,

              and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

¹⁷The seventy returned with joy, saying,

       “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

¹⁸Jesus said to them,

       “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

              ¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions,

                     and over all the power of the enemy;

                            and nothing will hurt you.

                                   ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this,

                                          that the spirits submit to you,

                                   but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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This past week has been a week focused on food for me.  I have had a lot of conversations about food and nourishment and bodies.  On Thursday, NPR was doing a segment on struggles with body image and eating.  On Wednesday during our conversation about congregational care and Good Shepherd outreach, we also talked about the abundance of treats and sweets, which can be detrimental to the real nourishment our bodies need.   

I also successfully canned my first ever jams—freezer and cooked!  I ate food from my own potted plants and from the CSA box I receive.  And I made new recipes with new foods.  Food is amazing and I do love it :)

One of the summers that I worked at Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp, our theme was The Great I AM.  We talked about Jesus’ different “I AM…” statements in John each day.  My favorite day was “I AM the Bread of Life” because the kitchen would bring each bible study its own fresh baked loaf of the most delicious bread!  And we would talk about the gift of hearty, nourishing bread and food compared with the easy sugars and the many fad diets around disparaging bread and carbs.

And today, in Isaiah, God is again feeding us.  God cares for us and feeds us as only a mother nursing her child can.  God feeds us with God’s very life and being and God comes to earth, becoming us and again feeding us with his own life.  You see, we have an incarnational God—one who becomes human with us. 

Our God loves and values us so much that she takes on our very own being—human flesh and blood—to care for us.  Jesus walks among us teaching and guiding us, nurturing our spirits, and feeding us physically as well.  And Jesus gives his entire self over for our lives.  Jesus nourishes us with his own body and blood, feeding our bodies and souls.

God’s incarnation and nurture for us is part of God’s care for our whole selves.  God cares for our physical needs, feeding us with the bread and cup and the whole of creation.  God gives of her own being to nourish us.

And God cares for our spiritual needs, feeding us with the body and blood that restore our souls, bring our broken bodies together in community as Christ’s body, and give us alternative ways of being in the world.

Particularly over the last few weeks, it is easy to get caught up in pain, anger, hurt, and despair.  To look at attacks from Pulse in Orlando to Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport, from flooding in West Virginia to the Dhaka attack in Bangladesh—it is so easy to sink into a despairing apathy, wondering where God could be.  How could a loving God exist in the face of all this brokenness?  Where is God in my own life?

We are broken people.  We name that together during confession and forgiveness each week.  We mess up, we sin, we hurt others, and we hurt ourselves.  That’s part of why we come here week after week.  Not because we are perfect, but precisely because we are not.  We cannot make ourselves perfect; we cannot heal all the hurts of the world on our own.  None of us can, no matter how hard we try.

We need God.  And we need to be fed by God.  We need God’s assurances of love and care for us.  We need God’s nourishment.  We need to gather as broken people to receive bread broken and life outpoured.  We need it.  And God knows it.  God comes to us and feeds us.

The nourishment we need creates space also for us to re-engage the world around us.  The way we experience news these days easily desensitizes us to the truly deep evils in the world.  Technology has made us both better at knowing about these evils and this violence, and better at perpetrating them.  And it becomes overwhelming and isolating.  We lose sight of each other, of our humanity, of hope.

But when God feeds us at the Table, we are reconnected to God and each other.  We can take deep breaths and look again with compassion on one another, ourselves, and the world.  When we are fed and nourished, God also opens up the space we need to be open and compassionate with each other and with ourselves.

God feeds us, provides for us, and provides for the whole of creation.  God gives life through the food we eat—the hearty wholeness of fresh baked bread, the warm joy and celebration of wine and juice. 

God feeds us fully.  And God sends our nourished broken and yet made whole bodies into the world with hearts full of compassion and ready to share our food with the world.  God sends us out open to those we encounter so that we can engage with others, bringing peace to their house.  God sends us out fed and nourished to respond to others’ hospitality with hospitality ourselves, as the 70 did when Jesus sent them out. 

God gives us birth and carries us in life.  God gathers us in together, feeds us, and sends us toddling off into the world she so lovingly creates and recreates.

Thanks be to God.