Make Your Amen True

Proper 14, Year B

Jesus said to the people, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35)

“Make your AMEN true.” – St. Augustine, sermon, 4^th c.

Augustine was referring to what we call – the great Amen – at the end of the Eucharist.  If you notice in your bulletin, as in the prayer book it’s ALL CAPS and italicized.  Because it’s different than any other Amen we say.  It is the great AMEN because it gathers into one all that has come before: the scripture stories, which hopefully the preacher has illuminated; the prayers we say on behalf of ourselves and others, the ways in which we thank and acknowledge God in our lives; the confession we make, the things we’re sorry we’ve done or wish we could do again; and finally, our acknowledgement of the saving act of God through Christ’s life, death and resurrection all for our forgivness and knowledge of God’s grace.  When we give our assent to that – Augustine reminds us – make it true!

So be it.  That’s the literal translation of Amen – So be it.  Augustine’s reminds us that as we are about literally integrate Christ into our bodies – so we should take seriously what could be a rote call and response.  Every time we say that AMEN together – we are new, we are different.  And our sacred action deepens our knowledge of God.     

Jesus tells us – I AM the Bread of Life – but it is our agreement our “so be it” that makes that statement real for us.  It is our AMEN that turns a symbol into sustenance.

This spring and into the summer a group of us reread and discussed the book, The Shack.  I’m sure many of you are familiar – hope we can have a field trip when the movie comes out in the spring.  At its essence the book explores a central perennial problem – why is there suffering?  Why if God is good is suffering allowed in the world?  Why if God loves us in the way Jesus says do bad, sometimes horrible, often times completely unfair things happen to us and to those we love?

The way it deals with these questions I think is incredibly creative and inviting – and very much in the tradition of the sacred stories we call scripture. Because it is a story of how someone grows in a relationship, in their knowledge of God. There is a central character – Mack whose child dies, 6 years old – in one of the worst ways a parent can imagine – her life is taken from her.

In the book – Mack has a vision – or maybe a dream – or maybe a literal experience of meeting God about 5 years after this event.  While he was religious, he went to seminary as a young man – we aren’t surprised to learn that after he lost his child – he lost interest in religion and God.  God – for that matter – could stuff it.  Mack is angry, furious at God. I don’t think it would be too far to say, he hates God.  He hates what happened and he hates the God he believes allowed it to happen.  And his anger is destroying him inside and out.

The story is basically a conversation with God.  Not just God as one being – but God, of course, as three.  Mack meets and talks with God – Jesus – and the Holy Spirit.  They talk about lots of stuff – how God can be three in one – how God created the universe – all sorts of stuff – but again and again Mack returns to wanting to understand why his child had to die and why God hasn’t “made it right” (in the way Mack wants it to be made right – which is basically, retribution).

In one chapter as Mack speaks with a personification of Wisdom – or the Judge – she asks him, Mack which of your children do you love most (he has 5).  And he replies, I don’t love any one of them any more than they others.  I love each of them differently.

The Judge asks him to explain.

Well, each child is unique.  And that uniqueness and special personhood calls out a unique response from me.  And when I think of them individually – I realize how I’m especially fond of each of them.

Well what about when they mess up – the Judge asks.  What about when they don’t behave, or make choices you completely disagree with, or even worse – when they act in ways that embarrass you.  Doesn’t’ that affect, even diminish your love for them?

No, it doesn’t.  I’ll admit it affects me – I may get embarrassed, my pride may be hurt – I may even get angry or furious – but they are still my son or daughter – so I still love them, fully.

The Judge responds – You are wise in the ways of real love.  So many believe it is the love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it.  Love is just the skin of knowing. (The Shack, Wm. Paul Young, 2007)

What do you think of that?  It isn’t the love that grows it’s the knowing – Love is the skin of knowing.  Love is the container.  As we grow in a relationship – as the relationship deepens that is what causes the love to deepen and grow - or not. 

Jesus knows who he is talking to in this section of chapter 6 – and they know him.  What was once referred to as the crowd – is now called – the Jews.  How come?  Because that sets apart the people who know Jesus from those who don’t.  Jesus was Jewish.  He was one of them in community. 

The people who know Jesus – know him from his origins.  This isn’t JESUS.  It’s – hey, isn’t this just Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Whose father and mother we know?  Who does he think he is saying he comes down from heaven?

It would have been easier for him to only go to people who were meeting him for the first time.  It’s riskier for him to share the truest part of who he is with the people who know him – because sometimes when we share the truest part of who we are – the skin of love is tested.  When we share the truest part of who we are in a relationship, sometimes that love needs to stretch – and that hurts.  Sometimes – it can break.

But Jesus in John’s gospel is the revelation of who Jesus is.  It’s not focused on the story of Jesus’ life like Matthew, Mark, Luke.  John’s gospel gets right at the heart, the truest part of what we know in Christ – which is to say – God.  And in John these revelations are definitively and succinctly articulated in the I AM sayings:

I AM the bread of life

I AM the way, the truth, the life

I AM the good shepherd

I AM the gate

I AM the vine

I AM the resurrection and the life

Those are be truths to be explored in relationship. They are invitations to anyone who wants to get to know God through Jesus.

If you met yourself as you were five years ago, or maybe 10 years, 20 years – gosh, maybe just last week – would there be things you know now that you’d like to tell yourself?  Or maybe the opposite, maybe you wish there were things you didn’t know.  When we explore who we were – we understand better who we are.  Knowing ourselves helps us grow.

Because we are constantly becoming.  We are not complete.  Which means our relationship with God is constantly becoming – our relationship with God is not complete. 

How have you grown in your knowledge of Jesus, of God?  Do you view it – experience it – as you do the other loving relationships in your life?  

As Mack, the character in The Shack – lets go of his limited ideas of love to embrace this all-encompassing love of God – as he embraces these I AM statements that are the sustenance for living – God shares with him what the author says is the essence of what he was trying to express in the story -

“If anything matters, then everything matters.  Because you are important, everything you do is important.” 

That’s how deeply God knows us.  That everything you are and everything you do matters to God.  - When we connect our AMEN to that truth – when we here God say I AM and we respond SO BE IT we strengthen the skin, the love that holds that knowledge.

And hopefully it strengthens in us a desire to connect God to all that we do.  So that we might grow in our awareness that every day – God provides our daily bread.  Every day there is hope.  Every day - everything about who we are matters to God.  So be it.

- The Rev. Arianne R. Weeks