Becoming Bread
Nourished by the roots
August 6th
Gary Harder
Text:
John 6:15; 25-35
This will have to be a very serious sermon. A very, very serious sermon. No smiling allowed. You see, if you smile, I will have to smile. That won’t do. If I smile I will reveal to you that one of my front teeth is gone. I don’t want you to know that. My dentist tried glueing it back in several times, but it keeps breaking off again Somehow, once the tooth is broken off its roots, you can’t reattach it again. There must be a metaphor in that. In fact, there must be a sermon in that. In fact, I have entitled this sermon, “nourished by the roots”.
Introduction
That afternoon we stopped in Rosemary, Alberta, where I grew up. We spent some time in the well maintained Rosemary cemetery where my dad is buried. Even took some pictures of dad’s gravestone. That night, tenting at Dinosaur Provincial Park, a place I knew well from my childhood, I had a dream about my dad. Ever since dad died 42 years ago I have had occasional dreams about him, maybe one or two a year. Almost always they have been pleasant dreams from which I awake grateful for another picture reminder of who he was to me. This time I woke up dissatisfied, frustrated, longing for something more. Something was unsettling me, leaving me melancholic.
Second thoughts on the feeding of the five thousand
I will get back to the dream later. Most of this sermon will be kind of in the form of a travel diary, but I do want first to enter our text from John 6 to provide a framework.
John six is the pivotal chapter around which our summer series “becoming Bread” is based. Both Tera and Jodie have preached on parts of this chapter, the first part and the last part. I want to look at the chunk in the middle.
John Chapter six is the story of the feeding of the five thousand. This story seems to be an especially important one. All four Gospel writers tell it. The story is huge. It is seen as so symbolic of what God is like. A crowd of people following Jesus are hungry. A boy offers a few loaves and a few fishes. And God somehow multiplies these very small gifts and provides enough food for everyone, with 12 baskets full left over. Lavish, almost wasteful abundance. God provides lavishly. Like God did when providing mana and quails to the people of Israel hungrily travelling through the desert.
But then, in John’s Gospel, the story takes a weird turn. It seems almost as though Jesus has second thoughts about feeding the five thousand. It seems as though Jesus regretted doing it.
The first thing was that the people, now fed, get excited about what this could mean for their future security of food. They are ready to make Jesus their king, ready it seems to force him to become king. How wonderful to have a king who can feed them all every time they are hungry. Food king. Spectacular kind of king to have.
The second thing was that those fed had really missed the larger point, the deeper message, the deeper feeding God wants to offer. Sure we need physical bread to keep us alive. But this feeding was meant to symbolize a spiritual feeding , an offering of God’s extravagant love, a gift that makes life full and purposeful and overflowing with meaning. The people had seen only the superficial miracle, the shallowest strata of what Jesus had done, the very surface level feeding.
Jesus escapes the crowd, and “withdrew again to the mountain by himself”. Much to ponder when you mean one thing with a miracle and the people take a different thing from it. Much to regret when people refuse to see beneath the surface.
I suppose it’s a bit like giving a handout to a street kid. You give a dollar or two. Maybe you even buy her a meal. Makes you feel good for a few minutes. But then you realize that you haven’t solved anything. So she eats for this day. What about tomorrow? Deep down you know you haven’t solved anything. You haven’t gotten to the roots of her problem. Still probably a good thing to do, mind you, letting her eat for today if she is starving. But what about tomorrow?
The next day the crowd does its detective work and finds Jesus on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, at Capernaum. Jesus, still upset, confronts them and their superficial cravings. “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life.”
The people are on the defensive. And in defence mode they go back to Scripture, back to the original story of the feeding of the thousands, back to mana and quail in the desert when the fleeing people of Israel were starving. “Our ancestors ate the mana in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
They still haven’t seen mana as sign, as symbol. They have gone to the roots of their faith story but come out empty. Haven’t gone deep enough. Those roots won’t nourish. The tooth has broken off from its roots and can’t be glued on again.
Jesus replies, “My father wants to give you the true bread from heaven. The bread of God is that which gives life to the world… I am the bread of life. With this rebuke, and this claim, ringing in my ears, I return to my travelogue.
Mennonite Church Canada Assembly in Edmonton
Our whole three week trip this summer had the feel of going back in time, of going back to the roots of important people and important places and important things in our lives.
First stop was Edmonton, of course, to attend the Mennonite Church Canada annual assembly. Edmonton had been home to us for almost 16 years before we moved here to Toronto. Going back there to the church I was pastor of always brings back many feelings of a church home and of people deeply loved. There they were in green shirts organizing us all and running a logistically smooth and efficient assembly. Adela, in junior youth when we first came to Edmonton, now chief organizer, doing a superb job. And Bruce, likewise in junior youth then, so skilfully led all the conference music, aided by a fine little orchestra from First Mennonite Church.
I have a strong emotional connection with Mennonite Church Canada. I have deep roots there. I have attended almost every national assembly over the last forty years, and have had many leadership positions in it. There is a strong sense of “my people” there for me. But I confess that the biggest part of conference for me this year was visiting friends. This was the first layer of impact. Every lunch, every supper, every in-between part – visiting almost non-stop. I did attend all the conference sessions, but not quite all the workshops. In fact, none of the workshops. They were “elective” I decided.
After the people part, after the visiting, the second layer of conference impact was what actually happened at the sessions. Tuesday, Pastor’s Conference, was, in my mind, very stimulating. Arnold Snyder and Sue Steiner gave us some history lessons on “Anabaptist Spirituality”. Good stuff that, worthy of a sermon all on its own. Perhaps some time in the future.
The worship times were mostly very satisfying to me – the very spirited singing, the prayers and litanies, and even the preaching. The business sessions were – a bit on the routine side, nothing really grabbing my emotional buttons, at least at first. For the third year now we have been seated in table groups for the sessions. Roundtable discussion format they call it. The same eight people assigned to face each other and discuss together each day. I really like this. I really like the discussions it fosters. I think we should adopt this style for our congregational meetings.
But our table of eight didn’t really get too exercised about either of the two major issues brought forward for discussion and decision.
1. One issue was finding a theme Scripture verse for Mennonite Church Canada. Everyone assumed this would be easy. 1Corinthians 3:11 has long been our General Conference motto. “Other foundation can no one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. But it wasn’t the motto for The Mennonite Church (Old Mennonites), and we are now one integrated conference. And we didn’t want to impose our motto on them. So it was suggested we have a different motto for every two years. But we said, “no, we like 1 Corinthians 3;11”.
2. The second issue carried more undercurrents. On the surface it was a straightforward recommendation that we allow for area conference membership only. That means that a particular church could decide to belong to, say, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, but not belong to Mennonite Church Canada. A church can belong to an area conference only, and if it isn’t comfortable with what’s happening with Mennonite Church Canada, why, it doesn’t have to belong there. Simple solution. Area conference membership only.
Almost no one at the conference liked this idea. It fractures our sense of peoplehood. And yet we voted overwhelmingly in favour of it. We couldn’t find a better alternative. We saw it as kind of like the lessor of two evils.
You see, there is quite an undercurrent, with some dangerous whirlpools, flowing underneath this one. Six churches in BC, and one in Alberta, don’t want to be part of Mennonite Church Canada, but could be persuaded to continue to be part of their area conference. And if they weren’t allowed an area conference membership only, they might leave the Mennonite Church altogether. And to maintain at least some contact, we voted yes, though nobody did so enthusiastically. We voted yes even as we wondered if it would do any good, or if some of these churches were still really Mennonite anyway. We grudgingly said that perhaps this was the “pastoral way” to try to keep at least some contact.
Finally it came out publically. The undercurrent came to the surface. The issue was named. All of this has to do with us, with TUMC, and with me as your pastor. It has to do with our openness to homosexuals. More specifically, it has to do with Mennonite Church Canada not disciplining us. Which to me seems quite unfair. In the first place, in our polity, Mennonite Church Canada cannot discipline member churches. That is up to the area conference.
In the second place, other Mennonite Churches in Canada are more radical than we are on this issue. And several Mennonite Churches in BC are at very much the same place as we are. But we have the website. We have made ourselves vulnerable. So the attention in on us. It also seems somewhat unfair to me because some of the BC leaders, when pushed, will acknowledge that they are struggling with many issues in their area, many of them having to do with what it means to be a Mennonite. The BC conference has many internal struggles. But it is easier to point to TUMC as the problem.
And then a third resolution came forward, one I very much appreciated. This one asking the General Board to urge “the government to enact legislation which w
ould allow conscientious objectors to direct the military portion of their taxes to activities of development and peace”. Our Canadian government has increasingly moved toward direct military intervention and away from its more traditional peacemaking role – eg. Afganistan. And now in the present Middle East crisis Canada is vocally siding with Israel, even as civilian casualties, including Canadians, are killed in Lebanon. So many of these civilians are children.
We passed this resolution almost unanimously.
It is ironic to me that at a place where it seems to me that Mennonite Church Canada is really quite healthy – structurally, spiritually, even financially – some churches are choosing to leave it. The spirit of the assembly was very good. The worship was inspiring. The discussions were upbeat and respectful. The thing is really quite healthy, it seems to me.
Family roots
From Edmonton we hitch a ride to Abbotsford with Abe, member of a BC church which has just decided to leave Mennonite Church Canada. We will have intense conversation, but not primarily about Area Conference Membership only, or even about TUMC. Though we will go there too. Abe’s wife died five months ago. His has been a trip of grieving. He retraced his wife’s roots in Saskatchewan, and then stopped in for Assembly in Edmonton. And his journey with grief was so much more important than any undercurrents of conflict. Grief. Loss. The presence of God when life is torn apart. Returning to your house after a six week trip when you know there will be no one there to great you. Will it still feel like home to you? Abe shares deeply. We are privileged to enter this journey with him.
Abe is the third man in three days who shares intense grief with us. We spend the free afternoon of conference with close friend Paul whose wife Marianne died a year and a half ago. Life does go on, but so does grieving.
And then another Paul, this time a cousin, surprises me at coffee break time, and we share a half hour together. His wife died, also of cancer, five months ago in Ohio. He is making a cross North America grieving trip, he says. “I drive a bit and cry a lot” he says. “And I think this is a healing thing”, he adds.
And their grief sinks deep inside of me. It makes me ask fundamental questions of life. And makes me wonder how I would respond if Lydia should die before me. What would my grief journey look like? What would nourish me then? Would my faith in God’s presence be strong enough to sustain me? And I realize that I probably can’t answer those questions ahead of time. I am sobered by that.
The family thing
Visiting family in Abbotsford, BC, is a delight. Mom is still doing so well at 93 years of age. Her body doesn’t work as well anymore, of course, though she still marches up and down stairs with some alacrity. But her mind and her spirit are still mom, and we have many good conversations. She still has interest in what’s happening in our lives and in the broader world.
The rest of my brothers with their spouses by now all live in Abbotsford, so we do visit non-stop. We are at very different places in our beliefs, in our convictions, in our faith journeys. We can visit well with each other separately, but some topics we do avoid when we are all together. The five days there feel very enjoyable. And if you haven’t eaten a raspberry/blueberry pie from Krause farms, you don’t know what you are missing. The thing is six inches high. Absolutely awesome.
The dream
Our son Mark, with his family, drove our car West, and Lydia and I will drive it back East. We anticipate a bit of conflict with each other on the way. We plan to dawdle a bit, getting home, doing some camping and some visiting of family and friends along the way. But our definition of dawdling is not the same. I am more inclined to step on the gas and Lydia more to stepping on the brakes.
We do take a few days to enjoy the mountains. And a few days to enjoy visiting with Lydia’s brother and wife in Calgary. And then it is that we arrive in Rosemary on a Tuesday afternoon.
For a while I am almost disoriented. So many of the land marks have changed in the nineteen years since we were there last. Almost didn’t recognize the farmyard where Ed grew up. And I almost drive past our old farm yard. The big water ditch is gone. Most of the trees are gone. The landmarks ingrained on my brain have mostly disappeared, discombobulating me. The old house looks small and lonely in its almost bare spot. We take a few pictures.
We stop next at the corner where once stood the gas station. It is no longer there, long abandoned, weeds and a few shrubs in its place. But this corner has important memories. Here it was that I gave Lydia the engagement ring. Certainly not the most romantic spot, now – or then, I suppose. But was there a romantic spot in all of Rosemary? We take a few more pictures.
On to the village of Rosemary. But again some disorientation. The railway tracks are gone. So is the grain elevator. Ah, but the cemetery at least is still where it is supposed to be, and the graves. Dad’s grave specifically. And grandfather’s. Again a few more pictures.
I am aware of deep emotions tugging at my spirit. It is remembering dad, of course, and his death at 56 years of age. But something else is going on too. We have decided not to stop in to see anyone in Rosemary. This is where I grew up. This is the place of my childhood. We do stop at the familiar church, a building my teenage muscles helped build, try the locked doors, and take a few more pictures. But we have not planne
d to see anyone. The surface level reason is that all the most important people to me – immediate family and close friends – have either moved away or have died. But I think something else was going on underneath. Rosemary Mennonite Church, my home church, the church that nurtured my spiritual formation, is the Alberta church that recently decided to leave Mennonite Church Canada and be provincially active only. All because of TUMC. All because of me, their errant native son.
I feel a deep sadness. And a frustration that I don’t know how to engage in dialogue with this church with such a different world view. It feels a bit like the tooth is broken off from its roots, and no amount of glue will hold it in place anymore.
And that night, tenting at Dinosaur Provincial Park, I dream about my dad. He is on a tractor, finishing some farming task. I am waiting for him to finish, looking forward to some conversation with him. I am longing to connect with him. I want to engage him. I don’t know about what. Maybe I want to ask him about what is happening in the church, the Rosemary Mennonite church and my home church now. He was always very wise about such things. Maybe I want his wisdom about life generally. Maybe I just want his blessing on me – on my life and on my work and on my family. I don’t know.
Dad wasn’t particularly good at engaging us when we were children. Didn’t know how to play with us. He couldn’t easily enter the world of children. But everything changed when we became young adults. Then he could easily enter our world, have rich conversation, enjoyable discussions. But I had only a year or two of these, since I was only 22 when he died. So much still to talk about. So much left unexplored in our relationship with each other. So many stories left untold.
In the dream I am temporarily distracted. I look away. And in that moment dad finishes his one task, and immediately sets off on another. He is gone, he and the tractor fading into the distance. The opportunity to converse is lost. And I wake up with such a sadness, such a sense of loss. I wake up feeling empty inside, longing for something more, so very melancholic.
And that is the reality, of course, in any dying, any grieving. Time for engagement is gone forever. It will never come back, the dream always ending with the one who has died fading away not to return.
I share the dream with Lydia as we drive through the prairies to Herschel Saskatchewan, our next stop. So much of my roots – who I am, my faith, even my calling to ministry, go back to dad and mom. And to the very rural Rosemary Mennonite Church. Solid roots they were, pushing a little sapling out into the larger world to experience God in an urban setting among urban people. And despite my sadness, I give thanks to God for that heritage. I give thanks to God for those roots.
But I also feel that this church’s journey, TUMC’s journey, around the issue of homosexuality, has had a great deal of integrity, even if not always full wisdom. I do not regret the space God has led us into. I cannot regret the thing which has severed me from those Rosemary roots, though I much regret the severering. I do not feel sorry for myself – just sad.
Conclusion
Jesus confronts the masses whom he has just fed because they see life too shallowly. They see only the physical bread he has fed them with, and they covet the twelve baskets of left-overs. They cannot see that this was meant to be only a sign of God’s extravagant love. They cannot see the deeper meaning, the deeper feeding God offers.
And that in the end is the challenge for me, and for you, and for the Rosemary Mennonite Church – to go beneath the surface of life and of faith and of the Scriptures, to go beneath the surface of God’s many feedings – to see the signs of God’s extravagant, though never predictable, love.
I give thanks to God for providing the mana when I need it, even in the form of dreams, not so that I can store it up to provide absolute security for the future, but enough for each day so that I know I can depend on God’s love. As for the broken off tooth, there is a solution for that too. Its called an implant. Attach it to the bone. And then it will never come off.