Creekside Church Sermon of August 3, 2003 "Deep Unto Deep " John 6:35, 41-51	Rev. David Bibbee
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While praying, a man's mind began to ruminate about the particulars of God's being. "Oh God?" "Yes," God replied. "I'd like to ask you a question." "Go ahead," God said, "I'm all ears." "God, what is a million years to you?" God answered, "A million years to me is only a second." "Hmmm," the man thought. "Then how much is a million dollars worth to you?" God said, "A million dollars to me is as a penny." "I see...." the man said. Then he asked, "God, can I have a penny? God replied, "Sure you can!..... just a second."

Thinking about God requires thinking in very BIG and BOLD categories. Whether talking about God's glory and majesty, God's awesome, creative powers revealed in the tiniest detectable particles or into the incomprehensible reaches of the universe; whether we are drawn to God's steadfast love and goodness, or God's timelessness which had no beginning and has no end, we must think BIG-- VERY BIG.

The language of mathematics, physics, and science is not adequate, because God's measure is beyond measure. The language of philosophy and theology is not adequate. Language itself is inadequate. All language about God is metaphorical. This is a fancy way of saying that no words we can utter can ever capture the being of God. All we need to know about God and his desires for us is found in the Scriptures, and yet, even the language of scripture falls short. What we have are approximations, inklings, holy hunches. This is why, when words fail us, we appeal to the language of expression known as poetry.

Think back to the time when you were madly, helplessly, head-over-heels in love. The love letters you wrote, contained imagery you didn't normally use. "You have stirred emotions from the depths of my being I never knew existed. I long to embrace them always even as I long to embrace you, my dearest love." You groped for the right words to convey your feelings, but even your best attempts were inadequate. As a popular "slow dance" song from 1970 put it, "Its only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away."

In our worship and devotional life, we rely upon the language poetry. For example: "A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone..." "Before the hills in order stood or earth received her frame, from everlasting thou art God, to endless years the same." "Immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise." The language of hymns is lofty, but not literal. It points to something beyond words themselves. The poetry of scripture and song puts us in our place. It reminds us of our FINITUDE and God's MAGNITUDE.

Poetry helps us see what we can't see. I like the way Peter Gomes puts it. He says, "The object of Christian theology (scripture and hymns as well), is not to reduce incomprehensibilities to our small size but rather to make us grow up in some small degree to the capacity of the subject."

With this in mind, let's look at our gospel text from John 6. First, let's see preceding this passage, Five thousand people, give or take a hundred, had come to see Jesus. Many were in need of healing, and the whole crowd needed fed. Andrew found a kid with five loaves of bread and a couple dried fish. With the meager offering Jesus managed to feed everyone. When all had eaten their fill, there were twelve baskets full of leftovers! Needing to get away from the crowds, Jesus then retired to a secluded place that wasn't secluded enough. The crowd found him, and he knew why.

In Thursday's USA TODAY was a headline: "Louisiana Black Church Will Pay Whites to Attend." In an effort to integrate his church, Bishop Fred Caldwell is offering white people $5 an hour for Sunday services and $10 an hour for the Thursday service. He got the idea from Jesus' parable of the vineyard workers who were all paid the same, though some toiled all day and some didn't even work long enough to bread a sweat. Bishop Caldwell says his plan is no different than other functions which churches have used to draw people. Lots of methods have been employed to integrate churches, but have not worked.

To get the money, visitors must register when they attend. Bishop Caldwell will pay them from his own pocket, and if necessary, will enlist the help of the church. When asked why he is doing it he said, "I just want the kingdom of God to look like it's supposed to."

The goal is great. The ends are good, but the means is questionable. When the crowd caught up to Jesus they asked, "So..... when did you get here, Rabbi?" Jesus said, "Look--- you know and I know why you're here. Its not because you saw God at work in me. You want another all-you-can-eat buffet. Don't labor for Chinese food that fills you for the moment and leaves you hungry an hour later. Strive for the spiritual food that sticks to the ribs of your soul and never leaves you hungry."

Maybe I'm too cynical about human nature, but why will white people will come to Bishop Caldwell's church-- soul food or cold, hard cash? Do you think they will give some of the money back when the offering is taken? Jesus didn't play this game with the crowds that followed him.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke emphasize "details" about Jesus' identity and ministry and the events surrounding it. John is different. The things Jesus says in John are wrapped in mystery. What Jesus means is often elusive. His listeners consistently don't get it. Read John with only a literal understanding, and you'll not see the bigger picture of God he paints.

When Moses asked God's name, the voice from the burning bush said, "I am that I am." (This is not to be confused with Popeye the Sailor Man who said, "I yam what I yam."). Jesus echoes God's "I am," declaration to Moses. "Before Abraham was, I am..." "I am living water..." "I am the vine..." "I am the doorkeeper," "I am the Good Shepherd." "I am the bread of life. Those who come to me will not hunger, and those who believe in me won't thirst."

The literal-minded were lost. "He's a man but says he is bread. How can a man be bread? How can bread be a man?" Is he the result of genetic engineering?" They wanted something concrete that could be seen, touched, weighed, and measured. "What do you mean, you're the bread that comes down from heaven? Just give us the facts. Tell us who you are. Show us what you can do-- a little 'slight of hand' like that bread and fish thing you just did."

The Jews bickered about what he meant. They couldn't get a satisfactory answer, either, so they said what they did know. "Look…we know who you are-- you're Joe and Mary's boy!" They didn't have the imagination necessary to look through the window of Jesus' words to the wonder of what God was doing through him.

While traveling out West, John and I visited the Badlands National Park in South Dakota. While shooting video footage at an observation deck, I asked a gentleman if he would film John and me. He turned it into an interview, asking us all sorts of questions. Learning I was a pastor he asked, "What do you think of what the Creator has done with this place?" I said, "God sure knows how to use erosion to make a stunning picture."

We arrived at the perfect time. The setting sun illuminated the landscape and cast shadows over the beautiful formations. An interesting Badlands phenomenon is the illusion of scale. I filmed what appeared to be a large mountain with a smaller one in the forefront. Then John climbed from behind the front formation. What appeared to be large was only a couple feet taller than John. The next day we drove through the Big Horn Mountains. Here, John filmed me standing at the foot of a granite wall, then he vertically panned the scene behind me. Back, back, back the camera went until blue sky appeared 1,000' above us.

I take this as a parable of how we view God. We reduce the scale so God is still bigger than we are, but not by much. God is domesticated. God is manageable. God is predictable. God is our "buddy". Jesus is our personal restaurant where we can get "filled up" with whatever it is we want Him to fill us. Such a God is only as deep as our desires.

The Badlands were beautiful and rugged, but the Big Horn's were awesome. Standing beneath the rock walls with my neck craned back, I felt what is described in Psalm 42:7--"Deep calls unto deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." That spectacular place said to me, "God is neither tame, nor controllable, nor predictable, nor anybody's buddy."

GOD IS MORE..... more than we can measure, more than we can calculate, more than our eyes can see, more than we can imagine. This week on the PBS program NOW, Bill Moyers was interviewing the author of a new book called The Pursuit of Wisdom. The author is a university professor whose last name is Klass. He has observed what many have concluded about today's young people. They no longer believe as other generations that science, technology, and medicine will produce a better world. They don't believe these things will save us. They are asking big questions. They want to know how to live meaningful lives. They want to make a difference in the world. They want depth. They are more spiritually inclined than previous generations. In a class that Klass teaches on Genesis, students are drinking the ancient biblical stories like people dying of thirst. They are captured by the stories, not on the literal level, but deeper. Their imaginations are stirred. They are eating living bread.

Jesus said to his perplexed audience that their ancestors had eaten manna in the wilderness. It was a daily ration that God provided to keep them alive. But he said that those who were fed in the wilderness were dead and gone. Why talk about manna when you can have living bread? Regardless what awaited them, their souls would be nourished by the unseen, inexhaustible bread given by God whom eyes had not seen, nor ears heard, nor human hearts conceived.

Every Friday evening at dusk along a deserted stretch of eastern Florida coastline, there walked a bent over, white-haired old man. He carried a bucket filled with shrimp. Sitting on an old pier he waited as white dots on the horizon grew larger and the sound of screeching grew louder. The old man and the seagulls had a standing appointment each Friday. For about a half hour he was surrounded by what looked like a cloud of handkerchiefs waving in the wind. He fed the gulls until the bucket was empty. He often stayed a while, and occasionally, one of the birds perched upon his head while he thought of a time long past.

After he died, the gulls continued to go to the pier each Friday at sunset, though no one was there to fed them. It was as if they were honoring the man who for so long had honored them.Based upon what you saw you would conclude that the guy just liked feeding birds. What you could not see was the event that inspired it.

Some of you may remember hearing the news in October 1942 that the decorated pilot, Eddie Rickenbacker was lost at sea. He and his hand-picked crew were to deliver an urgent message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. Somewhere over the South Pacific the crew became lost and out of radio contact, and they ran out of fuel. Rickenbacker ditched the plane in the ocean, and it remained afloat just long enough for the crew to escape. Within minutes the tail section of the plane disappeared, and eight men on three rafts gazed upon 360 degrees of ocean and horizon.

They were afloat for a month fighting the weather, salt water, and the scorching sun. Some nights the couldn't sleep because of the sharks, some ten feet long, that rammed the rafts. Their biggest threat, however, was starvation. Their rations were gone or destroyed by day eight. They needed a miracle.

In Rickenbacker's own words, this is what happened next: "Captain William Cherry read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out the glare, I dozed off. Then something landed on my head. I knew it was a seagull. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew it too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food.... if I could catch it."

He did. The bird was eaten. Intestines were used as bait to catch fish. That single gull, which for some unknown reason was hundreds of miles from land, gave itself as a sacrifice which kept the men and hope alive. It was a sacrifice Eddie Rickenbacker would never forget, which is why, many years later you saw him, a bent over, white-haired old man, carrying a bucket of shrimp to feed the gulls. It was his way of remembering the one that had given itself without a struggle... like manna in the wilderness.... bread from heaven.

When you come to church you will see no sign that says, "Leave Your Head at the Door." Worship should engage all the senses-- brains included. But in worship, as in all aspects of a Christian's life, brains can take us only so far. The brain wants facts-- size, weight, chemical composition and the like. It must see in order to believe.

But deep within us is something that sees what can't be seen. It doesn't have to see to believe. It doesn't get hung up with questions like: "How could Jesus possibly feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish? How did he "come down" from heaven-- on a cloud, a staircase, a parachute? What is the secret ingredient in "living bread" that makes us live forever?

Its all a matter of the heart. The heart embraces what the head cannot. It sees and hears what our eyes and ears cannot. We have a word for it--FAITH. Jesus told us that life is more than food and the body more than clothing. He told us that what will ultimately satisfy us is neither food nor fame, friends nor family, nor personal success. There is nothing wrong with these things-- its just that they cannot connect our depths to God's depth.

Next Sunday we will share the sacrament of communion. Living bread will be served. If you are counting on it taking the place of Sunday dinner, you will be disappointed and very hungry. You are only going to get a little bite of bread and a sip of juice. But if you will use your imagination and look beyond the literal, you will see something greater. As you eat and drink, you will take Jesus at his word-- "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more, and thirsts no more, ever." (Matt. 6:35 in The Message)

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