[Propertalk] Proper 13 b 2018 - part 3

[Robert P Morrison]

If part 2 makes it, here's part 3

	With an incredibly prescient twist, however, the compilers of the
lectionary, having taken us through the twists of the lives of Saul,
David, Bathsheba and Uriah, bring us to the story of the confrontation
of David the king and Nathan the prophet. 

	One might think that David had crossed the line one too many times
for him to be regarded with any degree of favour by the people of his
kingdom, never mind God. Yet Nathan’s parable hits home and brings
David to his knees. He recognises how messed up his life and actions
have been. 

	The first words of the psalm might have been those on the king’s
lips. “Have mercy on me, O God”, words we say, for instance, when
we open the season of Lent. Our lives, just as David’s, have been
filled with shadows, with darkness, with things which may embarrass us
to remember, far less speak. We may have hurt people incredibly. We
may have denied people’s dignity, denied the Christ in them. We may
have refused them the Bread, the Water, the Wine which might have
brought them life and hope. 

	But, despite what you and I may have done, there is ALWAYS hope of
forgiveness, of mercy, of resurrection to a life given and purposed by
God. 

	David’s heart-felt pleas for forgiveness brought him the blessing
he so desperately needed. The Ephesians – we’ve no idea in what
they’d been engaged, but it must have been very shady for Paul to
have written to exhort them to turn around, to come to Christ the
Bread, to serve Him with humility and gentleness. 

	What is the work of God for us, but to bring us to face those things
which turn bread stale and vinegar the wine. 

	God has given the Power of Bread, Wine and Water into our hands. God
allows us to choose. God begs us to choose to “grow up in every way
into him who is the head, into Christ,” to use the Bread, the Wine
and the Water to bring life to the world, to counteract destruction. 

	There is SO much which tears us apart – within families, within
groups, within cities and nations, among our sisters and brothers of
the world. Yes, some of us may have been hurt, by the church, by
society, by people whom we know and people whom we don’t know. We
have stood by, or participated in the smearing of others’
reputations and denial of their humanity and Christlike potential. We
need to confess that. Then we need to set it out of our lives. If we
ask it of God, if we seek mercy, if we resolve to turn away from
everything which diminishes ourselves as well as others, then God IS
merciful; God WILL give us the joy of saving help again. God WILL
renew us for the ministry to which each of us is called. 

	Sara Miles wrote, “I took communion, I passed bread to others, and
then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I’d
experienced. I started a food pantry and gave away literally tons of
fruit and vegetables and cereal around the same altar where I’d
first received the body of Christ.” 4 BECAUSE she first received the
Bread and the Wine, Sara gave to others. 

	When you and I receive the Bread and the Wine together this morning,
ask God, “Whom do you want ME to serve?” 

	And maybe check to see if someone has an allergy to gluten – or
anything else which might be toxic to them. 

	NOTES: 

	[1]  _“The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center” _by Bruno
Barnhart. Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, © 1993, quoted
by Suzanne Guthrie in _“At the Edge of the Enclosure” _ 

	_ _ 

	2 _“take this bread”_ by Sara Miles, Ballantine Books, New York,
N.Y. © 2007, page 3. 

	3 Sara Miles, Op. cit. Prologue, page xi. 

	4 Sara Miles, Op. cit. page xi __

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20180803/15519097/attachment.htm>