Sinking Cruise Ships and Daily Bread
Abridge Worship Provided By: Rev. Jacob Shaw (Please note that this is not a verbatim account of our Sunday morning worship, but rather a condensed version for those at home to study and enjoy, Blessing)
Opening Prayer:
Spirit of God, dwell among us and revive us. You alone know the grace and peace that can nourish us to full strength in body and soul. Feed us, Bread of Life, with food that lasts. Give enough to share with others who also hunger, even if they know not what they hunger for: We rejoice in your bread, for it truly satisfies. Give us the wisdom to receive it, that we may taste and see your goodness, O Lord. Amen.
Scripture Readings: Ephesians 4:1-16 and John 6:24-35
Ephesians 4:1-16 (NIV)
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why itsays: “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.”
(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
John 6:24-35
Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Reflection:
Within this allegorical conversation of the bread of life, Jesus answers one of the biggest questions, if not the biggest question to ever inflict on the human mind.
The question is, why are we here? What is our purpose, what it the meaning to life?
Did you catch what Jesus said?
Jesus said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
Now how Jesus frames the statement is different than the question of the meaning of life framing I am putting around it, he says the work of God, not the meaning of life. So, I’ll use a bit of a metaphor to explain how I link the two, let say you are on a cruise ship taking a vacation, you are there to relax, eat food, sing karaoke, and enjoy the oceanic view. The purpose of your trip is solely about enjoying the peace of that reality. It is kind of like being in the Garden of Eden, the buffet of peace is open, just don’t eat the Coleslaw. Now, if suddenly, like the titanic, you hit an iceberg while on your cruise, and now your on a sinking ship, which will now plunge into the icy abyss that is chaotic waters, the purpose of your trip suddenly changes from enjoyment to finding a way to get from where you are to a lifeboat that can now save you.
The meaning of the peaceful cruise is still a true and valuable experience, and if you can save yourself, you might just be able to get back to that peaceful existence, but in the moment when you and your world are plunging into darkness, you have one job; to get your butt to the lifeboat, and because hopefully you are not totally selfish, you will help as many other people get to that lifeboat too. As said, the peace before the boat sank is still good and true, and the peace of a new boat – a safe and secure boat, is also good and true, but between those states, you have one priority of focus, meaning, and purpose.
I hope you are catching the metaphor I’m throwing your way. Eden was the boat, we sank the boat with sin, we are now it a world of chaotic waters, and Jesus is the lifeboat trying to pull us out, Jesus is walking on the water, calling the storm, and trying to get us to climb into his kingdom, his salvation to save us from what otherwise is a cold and dark death.
That is why I believe that Jesus, saying, the work of God is to believe in the one he had sent is the answer to the question of the meaning of life because Jesus’ statement is a salvation statement. Jesus’ conversation is in the context of his wider ministry which was a ministry to restore to life what had been lost into sin, death, and the devil.
Belief in him is the lifeboat, which brings people to safety. It doesn’t mean that there is no meaning to the life before the fall, nor does it mean there is no meaning to the new creation, you can even say there is meaning to our current struggle and suffering, but rather what the focus is on; the purpose to the existence we have, right now, as the ship sinks, the purpose for our mortal lives is to believe in Jesus Christ the sole lifeboat that leads to eternal life.
There is a bit more to add to this because Jesus refers to belief as work. In our current age, belief is often seen as a more mental or blind faith sort of pursuit, and in contrast to the rest of our daily life, our beliefs are like a backdrop or a footnote in our wider story. When we fill out our biographic information we don’t tent to lead with I’m am a Christian who is named Jacob, we tend to be the opposite, I am Jacob, I’m from Canadian, I like football, skipping stones on the water, ice cream, and after three paragraphs, I go to church or I am a Christian might be mentioned.
I think bread was God preferred metaphor many times in describing faith, because food, at the time of Jesus, when this revelation was all cascading out, was a major focus of every day life, it was not a foot note.
Today we often take for granted the effort in the production of food, but in ancient times, food had be cultivate by hand, blood, sweat and tears poured out into those grain field, it was hard work, seeds needed to be sown, weed cut out, pest need to be delt with, fields need to be protected. There was harvest, and milling, and preserving, and baking, each with a skill set and knowledge, practice, day in and day out, all to produce a loaf of bread, which then like repetition would be eaten with each meal like clockwork. The belief in bread to sustain was etched into the life and work of the ancient people.
So when Jesus says your work is to believe, and I am the bread of life which is crucial to this operation, that means each and every day, the faithful need to be sowing seeds of belief and faith, they need to be cultivating the fields for harvest, they need to be grinding faith with care and dedication, they need to be baking with hopeful expectation, they need to feast on the daily bread that is our Lord, in prayer, in sacrament, in study, and by living out the way, truth and the life of Christ.
God has given us the work of faith to be the production of the meaning of our lives. A meaning which will save us from the starvation of the material world, and forever feed us by Spiritual means. Which will be like a life-boat on an open chaotic ocean.
We need this work of belief for two pragmatic reasons. Let’s jump back to that cruise ship for a second. If you have ever been part of security or part of leadership staff, you will know that there is always training in case of emergency. If there is a fire, these are the steps you need to do, if there is a tornado, here are the steps you need to do, if the ship is about to go down here are the things you have to do.
If you have ever been a part of a work environment where you get trained in these situation, you know that there is continual training each year. You review the protocol, you practice the drills, you inform guests about the basics, you update the emergency lights, and sign. It is something you return to again and again and again, because of two reasons, your life, and someone else’s. Your life, your neighbors’ life.
Your belief is going to save you, but as you mature, as you grow and become less like an infant being batted around in the waves, as Paul says in Ephesian, your faith will begin bearing fruit, the bread of life will become easier for people to access because of your faithful work of belief. It will be like the trained officer, so faithful to the protocol that when a ship is going down, he is able to stay calm and collected directing others to the salvation that they need.
So yes, the meaning of life is to believe in Jesus, to have a practice of belief that is so worked into your being it is like the very food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe. It is a belief that gives life to your Spiritual Body.
And knowing in faith we are not going to go down with the ship, that we are sustained and saved in a belief in Jesus, we live out the work of our belief, and so we enter into a word of prayer…..
Let us pray…
Lord, help us to see that our belief in you is a sacred gift, a gift we are called to work on, and work with. It is a belief in the Alpha and Omega, it is the belief in the Way, the Truth and the Life, it is a believe in the only Being which is truly eternal and existent. So we believe, and we continue to work on it! Amen
Homework:
Believe… and when you doubt, review the scripture, pray, and worship, begin the drills of belief, and save your life!
If you need help on this reflective journey email: minister@mountainviewunited.ca
Closing Prayer: Our Father, feed us this day, sustain us this day, deliver us this day and forever more. Amen.
Meme of the Week:
Thank you for joining us this week. If you have any thoughts, feelings, or prayers, feel free to leave them in the comment section below. Please be respectful of others’ posts and make room for all those joining us.
Leave a Reply