Fed With Christ to Become Christ

Proper 12B-24

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Jesus bid the people to recline in tall grass on the shallow hills beside the Sea of Galilee. He gave thanks and divided the poverty rations of a small boy to produce a feast sufficient to feed 5,000 men (and their families). It was an occasion of welcome and grace in sharp contrast to the grinding economy of their Roman overlords.

It was a feast that defied all expectation and explanation. It exceeded what they needed and satisfied all that they wanted. God’s math doesn’t add up, it multiplies.

At this table we are fed with the life of Christ to become Christ. There is a miracle here for the taking being replicated and shared in big and small towns, in the countryside and in the cities throughout the world today.

Russ, Joe, Sam, Kari, and I had breakfast yesterday morning in a small town of 1,700 called Mediapolis, Iowa, with twenty thousand new friends. Despite it being Mediapolis, there was no cellular service in Mediapolis. That was typical throughout the week.  Even texting was impossible at times.

We enjoyed all you can eat pancakes served with sausage, coffee and/or tang. We grabbed a small piece of shade in a grassy spot beside the road. We spent the whole week living outside. We drank from lemonade stands run by small children.  We ate homemade pie and ice cream provided by churches and Amish families. We ate pickles and bananas. We ate pork chops from Mr. Pork Chop and Gyros, burritos, pulled pork, and stir fry from local vendors.  It was a week-long party. I met a heterogeneous mix of people from throughout the country, Canada, and New Zealand.

RAGBRAI is an acronym for “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.” RAGBRAI began 51 years ago, in 1973 when two journalists, writing for the Des Moines Register, hatched a plan to ride across Iowa to interview and report on the people and stories they encountered. An estimated 300 people showed up to ride with them. 114 riders made the entire distance that first year. 500 riders joined them on the stretch between Ames and Des Moines.

Now, each year, the ride takes a different route through the state. Small towns vie for the opportunity to host. It is a display of small-town pride, community spirit, and entrepreneurship. 20 thousand RAGBRAI riders are like a river of money, or a happy swarm of locust. They carry almost nothing and must eat/drink whatever they can find along the way. Burning 5 or 6 thousand calories a day means eating a lot of food. RAGBRAI riders are privileged group of people who can take more than a week off, how can purchase good bikes, funny clothes, camping gear, a charter company to hall it each day, and of course, the food.

RAGBRAI is not a religious gathering, but I want to tell you it is an occasion of grace of the kind we need more of throughout America today. It’s an example of the kind of math that doesn’t add up but multiplies.  It is the kind of miracle Jesus shows us at this table. Because God revealed to us in Christ is creator and Lord of all, it is a kind of miracle which is always there for the taking. It is the miracle of fellowship, community, shared joy, that yields the fruit of public trust, safety, and streets to live in.

This phenomenon has been richly described and documented by political scientist Robert Putnam twenty years ago in the groundbreaking book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.” Simple ordinary things we do together, like bowling, or chess, or en masse bike-riding, have a profoundly good effect in building community.  His thesis and remedy for what ails us is simple. Americans are becoming more and more divided and distrustful because they are doing less and less together.

Putnam describes two types of togetherness that are important and essential: bonding togetherness, and bridging togetherness. Ties with other people who are like us provide bonding. These are the people, who when you get sick, bring you something to eat. It is really powerful and important but it can become really awful, hateful, and exclusive without the second kind of connection to others who are unlike us that Putnam calls bridging togetherness. Each is a kind of social capital. Between the two, bridging togetherness is more difficult to sustain than bonding togetherness.

RAGBRAI is an occasion for both types of togetherness.  Teams riding together have an opportunity to draw closer and to bond.  Riders and community members represent people of every age, background, orientation, race, political preference, and economic level.  Simply by being together, waving, and saying hello builds bridging togetherness.

The food at this table bonds us and bridges us. Bonding and bridging togetherness is the miracle-in plain-sight Jesus revealed all those years ago on the grassy hills beside the Sea of Galilee.  Looking at each of us, an outside observer would not be clear what we all have in common.  Sharing the one bread and one body, the one cup of blessing bonds us as living members of each other.

Fed with the life of Christ to become Christ, this table is joined with altars around the world this morning, and with anyplace where the hungry are fed –such as the sharing table of Care for Real, now at their new location on Broadway.

On Sunday, August 25th will be an occasion for bonding togetherness, blessing of backpacks, a potluck BBQ, and ice cream social on the front lawn. Two weeks later, September 8th, for God’s Work Our Hands Sunday, will be an occasion for bridging togetherness as once again we host Care for Real’s volunteer appreciation BBQ that afternoon from 3:00 – 5:00 pm.

When we partake in Jesus’ life at the Lord’s Table, we become a part of one another. Almost seven hundred years ago, Lady Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) had a vision of this union which she described as “oneing.”  She wrote, “The love of God creates in us such a oneing that when it is truly seen, no person can separate themselves from another person” (Chapter 65), and “In the sight of God all humans are oned, and one person is all people and all people are in one person” (Chapter 51). For it is in this oneing that the life of all people exists” (Chapter 9).

In Holy Communion, we are made one with God and each other. Fed by God, we share our bread.  Welcomed by God we show hospitality to strangers. Shown mercy by God, we find room to forgive those who sin against us. Graced by God, we discover the way to build community and heal the divisions in our nation. We find strength to confront systems and powers that perpetuate injustice and degrade life. Come to the Lord’s Table.  Come and eat.  Come, eat, and live.