Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Living Bread
Amy McCreath
Introduction:
What is divine wisdom? How do we resist hearing it and acting on it? How can we let ourselves be formed into the wise ones God yearns for us to be, for the sake of all of God’s creation? This week’s readings are rich in story, image, and exhortation, offering many possibilities for eco-centered preaching.
Exegetical Examination of Ecological Themes:
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Our first reading comes from Kings, the culmination of the Deuteronomic telling of Israel's history. Drawing on religious and royal archival material and folktales, Kings is not a straight ahead history lesson as much as it is a theological and moral commentary on the consequences of heeding or turning away from divine wisdom. Today's reading finds young King Solomon talking with God in a dream. When God offers him the chance to have anything he wants. Solomon asks for a wise and discerning mind so he may govern well.
the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night – As in many places in scripture, here a dream serves as the medium of a message from God. [Cf. Laban’s dream (Gen 31:24), The wise men’s dream (Mt. 2:12), Pilate's wife’s dream (Mt 27:19)].
although I am only a little child – Throughout the scripture stories, God calls the unexpected person and the person who feels unprepared into leadership. [Cf. Call of Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Jonah, Mary, Jesus}
Ability to discern between good and evil....wise and discerning mind – Solomon seeks to connect with the divine wisdom which is foundational to all being, and which is woven into and shown forth in the created order (Proverbs 8). This wisdom is of the Creator, and stands in contrast in the Hebrew scriptures, to the unwise and evil resulting from following false gods and idols (Wisdom 10-19).
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Written by Paul from prison, Ephesians celebrates the life of the church and the role of Christ as the head of creation. In this section Paul is painting a picture of what it looks like to live as followers of Christ. It is important to remember that the letter is addressed to a community, so his teaching, admonition, and encouragement is for communal life.
....Not as unwise people but as the wise – Earlier in the letter, Paul has explained that Christians are wise because they share in God’s wisdom through Christ (Eph 1:8 and 3:10).
...the days are evil – The letter is written to people living within structures and systems that tempt them to pull away from God’s wisdom and ways.
....be filled with the Spirit, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God – Worship, especially thanksgiving, is presented as the antidote to temptation to selfishness. Jewish and Gentile teachers of the day would have frowned upon drunkenness and labeled it a vice. But here, the interesting point is how it is contrasted with thanksgiving. Instead of being drunk with wine, we are to be “filled with the Spirit.” The teaching contrasts selfish abundance (greed) with self-giving abundance (grace).
Note that the call to praise God in all things is coming from Paul while in prison. We may feel trapped by the climate crisis and/or the political log-jams that prevent urgent change, but we are still called to praise.
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Rather than parables and proverbs, this gospel shows Jesus offering symbolic discourses which often focus on his relationship to the Father and to his followers. It is possible it was written for a community where Jesus's divinity was in dispute. Today's gospel is one of the many "I AM" discourses in the gospel, from a section in which he is trying to explain who he is through words and deeds.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. - One of seven I-AM statements in John, all of which help us understand Jesus’s divinity. Here emphasis is on the incarnation: Jesus "came down from heaven."
eat my flesh and drink my blood – According to the New Interpreter’s Bible, in Hebrew, the verbal formula ‘flesh and blood’ emphasizes the corporeality of human existence. Using it here, the writer is thus affirming of the incarnation of the Son of Man.
The disciples will later say, “This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?” Do we resist the corporeality of God in Jesus and its implications for how we treat the cosmos into which God came?
The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh – “world” here is κόσμος “cosmos”. God’s saving action (which started with creation) is for the life of the whole of the cosmos, not just humans.
Eat – vs. 54-58. The Greek is τρώγω, which is better translated as “gnaw.” This is not the typical word for ‘eat.’ It seems to be an abiding way of receiving life, like plants that need watering or a constant supply of sunlight. One scholar explains that it means “to eat fruits, nuts, beans, etc., which require cracking” (E. W. Bullinger).
Sermon Starters:
1. Re-grounding ourselves in Holy Wisdom:
These passages urge us to re-ground ourselves in Holy Wisdom. Like Solomon, we should seek God’s wisdom and live into it. A preacher could speak to the “evil days” resulting from the modern mindset which disconnects “us” humans from creation. We are seeing the impact of this foolish human-nature dualism in myriad ways, of course, from species extinction to wildfires, to the degradation of nutritional content of food.
The preacher could then center the need to return ourselves to the position of co-inhabitants with all creatures with different ways of being alive. Philosopher Baptiste Morizot describes this wisdom as “living in alliance with all of creation.” Indigenous spirituality has offered this wisdom as well, both theologically and practically (see the volume by Woodley, below). We are part of a community of creation, mutually dependent with all of it, designed to travel a path of mutuality.
The preacher wishing to include stories that both inspire and invite a personal and communal re-grounding of self and creation can find abundant source material in Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s chronical of holy wonder in nature, Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit.
2. Opening ourselves to transformation:
Solomon has everything. He is succeeding, and he is wealthy. Life is good. And yet he opens himself up to God's wisdom and the possibility of being transformed. This story might lead into a sermon on the risk and gift of following God’s wisdom. In the face of the climate crisis, many of us in the global north must set aside our “good life” to seek God’s wisdom. This will lead to our transformation and our redemption.
South African theologian E. M. Konradie writes about how the climate crisis has many dimensions, but the central one is moral: the key impediment is our refusal to live into the wisdom we have about what is needed and actually change our behavior. A preacher might echo Paul’s call to the Ephesians to live lives that reflect transformation in Christ. Today that means rejecting our culture’s debasement of the sanctity of life in nature, whereby we treat it as merely a commodity. We are drunk on the wine of comfort rather than filled with the Spirit of love. What would it look like for the church to adopt and advocate for a standard of living based on loving and sharing rather than growth measured by GDP?
This sermon might end with sharing some tools for transformation or leading into a teaching series introducing these tools. Some possible tools to consider:
Supporting sustainable businesses, perhaps by learning about B-lab, which creates standards, policies, tools, and programs that shift the behavior, culture, and structural underpinnings of capitalism.
Adopt a community “Environmental Rule” such as the Benedictine one including a sense of place, labor that honors the earth, stability, self-suficiency, and simplicity, outlined by Samuel Torvend in Monastic Ecological Wisdom.
(In the United States) Joining the Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for moral revival, which centers the voices of those most impacted by climate change, racism, and economic injustice. A scripture study group using We Cry Justice could grow out of this commitment.
3. Thanksgiving as formation for living into right relationship with the earth
A sermon this week might pick up on the end of the Ephesians reading, lifting up the wisdom of singing praise to God. This activity may seem like a holy waste of time but is an embodied practice of hope. This sermon might begin and end with singing today’s psalm, which is a song of praise to God including praise for all God’s works.
In our song of praise we are joining our voices with all of creation, and as Pope Francis emphasizes in Laudate Si, every creature has a message to convey. The entire creation is an expression of God's love, so in joining with it, we are joining in that love. The preacher might discuss here the spirituality of Francis of Assisi, whose sense of sanctification was that it came from connecting outward with creation.
Our central song of thanksgiving is the eucharist (Gr. for thanksgiving), through which we receive the “living bread” Jesus speaks of in today’s gospel. A sermon might open up the formative power of ongoing participation in the eucharist, as we return again and again to join ourselves with Christ's body and Christ's saving work. It might meditate on God’s use of created matter - bread and wine –to express God’s love, a focal point for pondering the gracious mystery of creatio ex amore. Our song of praise at the altar transforms us and sanctifies us, we are blessed to become instruments of change and compassion in the world. We are given our vocation.
Sources and Resources:
B-Lab. https://www.bcorporation.net
Beatrice Bruteau, "Eucharistic Ecology and Ecological Spirituality," CrossCurrents, Winter 1990-91.
Mark Davis. https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/ Exegesis of John 6:51-58.
Paul Escamilla. Longing for Less in a Culture of More, (Abingdon, 2007).
Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit (Little Brown, 2021)
Adrian House, Francis of Assisi: A Revolutionary Life (Hidden Spring, 2001).
Daniel Day Kaufman, “The Gospel of All Creatures,” www.mennoniteusa.org, May 7, 2024.
E. M. Konradie, Christianity and Earthkeeping: In Search of an Inspiring Vision. Stellenbosch: SUN Press, 2011.
Baptiste Morizot. Ways of Being Alive. (Polity Press, 2022)
Teilhard de Chardin. “Mass on the World,” 1923.
Liz Theoharis, ed. We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign. (Broadleaf Books, 2021).
Samuel Torvend. Monastic Ecological Wisdom: A Living Tradition. (Liturgical Press, 2023).
Norman Wirzba, “Created out of nothing means created out of love,” The Christian Century, November 17, 2021.
Randy Woodley, Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision, Prophetic Christianity (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2012).
Author Bio:
Amy McCreath serves as the Dean of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston, MA, on unceded Nipmuk and Massachusett land. She enjoys watching squirrels, birds, and geese as she walks across the Public Garden and Boston Common on her way to work. She also serves as President of Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission, which is dedicated to robust liturgical renewal and centering the climate crisis in worship. Her spiritual homeland is the sand dune region of the shore of Lake Michigan.