House of Bread

John 6:35, 41-51

I talked to the Young Disciples about building a house out of Bread. About having our focus on What is eternal; about trusting in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the only one that can pull us up out of the ditch of our self delusion and corrupt nature. No matter how many bricks we lay in this world. It is all temporary. The things we build will eventually come down. Our bodies, no matter how well we take care of them will eventually return to the earth. So we have to orient ourselves to what is eternal. We have to eat of the bread that that leads to eternal life.

I Posted a picture on Facebook yesterday. It's a picture of me and my sister on one of our weekends at our fathers cottage on Houghton Lake. From what I can tell I was probably five or six years old and my sister is about two years older than me.

This is not a picture that I would pose for now under any circumstance. In it I am wearing a bathing suit. That's one strike against it. But that is not the most objectionable part of the photo. My father, whom I estimate was around 27 years old when he took the photo and perhaps had not yet fully embraced his role as an adult, suggested that my sister and I hold empty beer cans and act as if we were drunk. We did. I am not sure why I was holding a hammer in my other hand, just as it is a mystery why my sister was holding a BB gun in hers. With all my father's mistakes, miscalculations and odd choices I can say this about him: He believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God. And Because of that I know that we will see him again in the resurrection.

Fast forward 35 years and here we are. A lot has happened in the past three and a half decades. Life is different. I finished elementary and secondary school. I went to college. I made mistakes. I got married, had kids. Went into the ministry; Had some more kids. Had another kid. You know what? 35 years goes really fast. I suspect based on my experience and the things that folk with more life experience than I, say: The next 35 years (if I am blessed to have them) will go even faster. And if I am not careful. If I don't intentionally make my way through life seeking the will of God, I may just have a few regrets.

That kid in the picture is a lot different than the person that stands before you know. Like you I have experienced loss. I have experienced Joy. I have experienced life. There is one thing that is unchanging. The spirit in that kid in the picture is the same spirit that lives in me now. I can connect to that picture of my self because there is the part of me that was created by God. It is the way that God created me to be. The way that God wanted and wants me to go. It is the potential that is in all of us. It is the innocent, undefiled pure nature that is in all of us.

But that nature gets hidden doesn't it? That carefree attitude about life dissolves a little and gets muddled. We forget what is real and what is important and give into what is urgent and demands our attention. We get knocked around in life and we look for a little relief from the pain and sometimes we don't make the right choices. Sometimes we feel like life is going to come crashing down on us and its going to take us out. So we spend our time trying to manage the crisis. We keep the dangers at bey. In the process we lose ourselves. We lose the perfection that God put in us. At some point in your life you may have realized that you want to life a better life. You don't want all that garbage... all that baggage. So you set out to try harder, to do better, to live life right. Well good luck!

It is impossible to get is all right. We are weak creatures! We are weak but He is strong!

December 1999 I had my life all together. I had it. I knew what I was doing. I had a wife, a son, a daughter a business. I was a member of the Lions Club. I pressed myself into a lifestyle where I was in control. I had all I wanted and I was miserable.

Before bed one night I prayed to a God that I knew as a child and had forgot to keep in touch with. I simply said “Help me.” I don't know if it was the next morning or the one after that but I went into our restaurant early one morning to bake bread. I was good a baking bread. With the drone of the two oven fans and the squeak of the conveyer belts along with the repetitive nature of making dozens of loaves of bread coupled with an open heart to God created, for me, the perfect environment to hear from God.

It was like a lightening bolt. I felt God in my life like I never knew was possible. I was given the vision to see that I was on the wrong path. I could see where I needed to go. I was given the carefree spirit that I had in that picture me with my sister at the cottage at Houghten Lake but it better, I had the wisdom of experience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I knew the love of God and I knew that it had nothing at all to do with anything I had done or not done.

I talked to a pastor about my experience. Pastor Harry. He explained to me that Jesus the Son of God was born in Bethlehem. The word Bethlehem is two Hebrew words put together. Beth meaning house and lehem meaning bread. House of Bread. He was delighted with my story of baking bread and God speaking to me through that experience. He asked me to share that story several times. Pastor Harry has been gone two years now. With all his mistakes, miscalculations and odd choices I can say this about him: He believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God. And Because of that I know that we will see him again in the resurrection.

In today's Gospel lesson Jesus said. “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of this world is my flesh.”

So how is it with you today? Is life passing you by? Perhaps life is running you over. Jesus invites you to find life in him. To draw spiritual nourishment from that which is eternal. The things of this life are temporary. When you put your hope and trust in things that are temporary you are sure to be disappointed. Jesus is the only true source of hope.  

Baptism of Rylee