(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Doing The Work” originally shared on July 31, 2024. It was the 322nd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
If doing the work of God isn’t impossible,
you’re doing it wrong. Today, we’re going to find out why.
I am a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan. I grew up during the
Lombardi years. When I was in high school, my dad introduced me to some of the
players because his business supplied some of their off-season businesses. Ray
Nitschke used to come over to our house.
I saw an ad on TV the other day
promoting the beginning of football season and, I have to say, I wasn’t too
excited about it. It’s become such a big business. It’s all about the revenue.
The personalities, the human
stories that are told, all seem filtered through publicists, managers,
trainers, physicians, estheticians, lawyers, and pr firms to sell a product.
Baseball players call the big
leagues “The Show”. I don’t think that modern pro football is too different.
And yet, every player has to
qualify to get their jobs. They have to do the work.
And once it gets started, I know
that unless something horrible happens, I’ll be excited to see my team play. And when it’s over, I’ll be adrift, wondering what I’m going
to watch on TV without football. Again.
I feel the same way about the
Olympics. I knew it was coming, but I can’t say that I was really excited about
it.
The athletes, and even their
families, seem to be carried along by the hype. Celebrities make their cameos,
soon followed by some reference to their current products, soon followed by
their commercials in support of their products.
It all reminds of what comedian
Fred Allen said about the Hollywood of the early 20th century. Beneath all that
fake artificial tinsel lies the real artificial tinsel.
And yet, every athlete had to
qualify to compete. They had to do the work.
And now that the Olympics have
been going for a few days, I’m a fan! I follow swimming mainly, but I’ve also been
excited about rugby, water polo, and the little sports you don’t even think
about any other time of the year like archery and kayaking. I’ve even watched
soccer! 😊
Plus, my wife, Rev. Sally Welch,
was a Chaplain in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and we’ve been watching for
some Chaplains, but we haven’t seen any. Yet. 😊
And when the Olympics are over,
I’ll be adrift, wondering what I’m going to watch on TV now without the Olympics. Again.
The Gospel reading that will be
heard this coming Sunday in the vast majority of churches throughout the world,
John 6:24-35, is also about “doing the work”.
But the work it describes is
nothing like what we might first expect, and, because of it, the Christian life
never lets us down or leaves us wondering what to do next.
Jesus had just fed the 5,000,
walked on water, and reached his disciples in a storm on the Sea of Galilee.
Then they had all landed at
Capernaum, the site of Peter’s mother-in-law’s house, a place where they
gathered frequently. And then this happens, beginning with John 6:24,
24 So when the crowd
saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into
the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
25 When they found
him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come
here?” 26 Jesus answered
them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw
signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for
the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which
the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his
seal.”
Jesus had their number pretty
good. Jesus was really popular when he was giving away the free food and medical care, but once he
scales back, and starts pointing to his coming death on the cross for their
salvation, his popularity sinks like a stone.
So, when they find Jesus, they start by
making small talk, like, “So, when did you come here?” They were cool.
Jesus knew their motivation, though, and Jesus
gets right down to business. He tells them, flat out, to work for what’s
important, and that eternity is more important than time.
He tells them to work “for the food that
endures for eternal life”, and that there is actually no work to be done for
it. The Son of Man (who is Jesus) will give it to them. He’ll give it to
them!
Jesus is telling them that eternity starts
right now. To reset their scale of values. That God will give them faith: a
living relationship with the one true living God, and Jesus is God.
And all they saw was the free food,
not the person giving it to them, standing there, right in front of them.
Well, Jesus wasn’t giving them the answer
they wanted. Maybe they could do that feeding thing themselves.
The passage continues with verse 28,
28 Then they said to
him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered
them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
The way to perform the works of God, Jesus
says, is to have faith, to believe, in him whom he has sent: Jesus.
What they wanted was to be able to perform
their own miracles. But the crowd had a gross misunderstanding of miracles.
Miracles aren’t a suspension of the laws of
nature. Miracles are, as John calls them, signs. Miracles point backwards to
the way things God made them to be at Creation, that human beings messed up and
continue to mess up. And miracles point forwards to the future, when God will
restore everything and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
And in-between, Jesus points to the greatest
miracle, the restoration of the relationship with God for which we were created
that we call faith, accomplished for us on the cross.
Jesus is more than what meets the eye, but
the crowds don’t see that. They just see a free meal.
They didn’t see the signs that God showed
them. They didn’t want to know what those signs pointed to at all. They just
wanted the bread that spoils.
The text continues with verse 30,
30 So they said to
him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and
believe you? What work are you performing? 31 Our ancestors ate
the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven
to eat.’ ” 32 Then Jesus said to
them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from
heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of
God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
I guess they forgot about Jesus feeding
the 5,000. They didn’t see the sign.
The bread of the ancestors of the Jewish
people was manna, the dew-like substance that would spoil in a day that God
gave to the children of Israel to eat after he had liberated them from slavery
in Egypt. They ate it in the desert, waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled
They learned that God would feed them in the wilderness, and they learned to
trust God for it every day.
But now, Jesus is the bread that came down
from heaven that lasts forever.
Do you keep extra food at home in case of
power failure? Do you keep food for an emergency like an earthquake? Of course
we want to be prepared for a disaster.
Do you keep food that lasts forever? Jesus?
A living relationship with the one true living God? Of course we want to be
prepared for eternity. The Son of Man will give you this food. It doesn’t cost
any money. This food is Jesus, and Jesus has paid the price to give it to you with
his blood.
What work we do, what it is of ourselves
that we give away, comes in response to the heavy lifting that Jesus has
done for us at the cross. We receive it as a gift and it changes us. We
are a new creation. We are born again, we live from the inside out. We live in
God’s reign now and forever. Eternity begins now, in this life. It means a new
life. Now.
As I’ve said before, faith is like a beard;
if you let it grow it becomes the first thing people notice about you.
I started growing this beard 10 years ago
this November. I’m coming up to my 10-year beardaversary! 😊 But it didn’t grow
because of something that I did. It grew because of something that I stopped. I
stopped shaving.
New life begins with repentance, a turning
away from the old life. New life comes in a living relationship with the one
true living God in Jesus, fully God and fully human being.
What must we do? Stop resisting the eternal
love of God and be who you are, a new Creation. Walk away from your old life
without God. Open your heart and receive God’s transforming gift of new,
eternal life, through faith, to make this world more like the world that God
created and like the world that is to come.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:31-33,
31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will
we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed
your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and
all these things will be given to you as well.
When we receive Holy Communion, we commune
with God. Bread is not a metaphor for Jesus’ presence or a symbol of it. Jesus
is present in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine. God is present
there, given for you.
Our passage for this coming Sunday concludes
with John 6:35,
35 Jesus said to
them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and
whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
This coming Sunday will be the 2nd
of 5 Sundays in a row in which our Gospel reading will be about bread. Bread.
Bread. Bread. Bread. Bread. Why?
I think that it’s a reminder.
It’s a reminder of the one thing we need in this life: Jesus.
The ancient Olympic Games began in 776 B.C.
and ended in 393 A.D. They were a big deal, and Olympic sports would have been
familiar to Paul.
Athletes didn’t compete for medals, but for
a crown of olive or laurel leaves. That’s where our use of “laurels” when
people receive honors comes from.
Paul refers to Olympic sports more than once
in the New Testament. Here’s one of them, in, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:
24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all
compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win
it. 25 Athletes exercise self-control in all
things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable
one. 26 So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as
though beating the air; 27 but I punish my body and
enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be
disqualified.
Notice that Paul didn’t describe athletic
events from the point of view of a spectator, but as a participant.
When we go to the altar to commune with God,
our only attitude can be humility and gratitude. We are not spectators. We are
actively receiving forgiveness of sins, life and salvation, as gifts!
In one of my favorite movies about Martin
Luther, the 16th Century Church Reformer, he’s teaching some
students about faith, that we can’t earn our way into heaven, but that faith is
all that is needed for salvation, and one of the students says, “It can’t be
that easy.”
Luther replies, “You think faith is easy?”
What is the work of God but to believe?
It’s like what Detrich Bonhoeffer said about
grace, it’s free but it’s not cheap.
I was paid for by the death of Jesus Christ,
and our lives have been utterly transformed by it.
What is the work of God but to believe?
We can only respond to God’s gifts with
worship. Worship.
Soren Kierkegaard, the Lutheran Danish
philosopher and theologian, once reflected on people who go to a worship
service and sit there as spectators, as at a play. They expect to get
something. But that’s consumerism, not worship.
The question to ask, Kierkegaard said, when
worship is over is not, “What did I get out of that?” but “How did I do?”
What is the work of
God but to believe?
Do you remember in Math classes when the
teacher asked you to solve a problem but to show your work? (I apologize if
I’ve given anyone the willies by bringing up a childhood trauma.) 😊 He or she did that so
that they could see that you weren’t taking a shortcut, or worse. In the same
way, we show our work to show that our knowledge, given by God, is real. Jesus
says, in Matthew 5:16,
16 In the same way,
let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and
give glory to your Father in heaven.
What is the work of God but to believe?
Martin Luther, in showing what the Bible teaches
in his Small Catechism in the third part of the Apostles Creed, the part about
the Holy Spirit, says,
“I believe that I cannot by my own
understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the
Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true
faith.”
What is the work of God but to believe?
At a time when people believed that rich
people were good because they thought, “obviously”, they were being blessed,
Jesus said it’s actually nearly impossible for rich people to be saved. And
then this happens in Matthew 19:25-26,
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly
astounded and said, “Then who can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals
it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
There is
nothing we can do to be saved. Salvation is a gift. We can’t earn it. We can’t
fully understand it except as it is revealed to us by God. All we can “do” is
receive the gift through faith, itself given by God.
What is the work of God but to believe?
I was told in
seminary that preaching a 20-minute sermon is equivalent to doing 8-hours of
manual labor, but I don’t think that’s true. I’ve done long days of manual
labor.
I worked in
factories and on farms during college and seminary. I worked for a railroad
maintaining and repairing tracks with the same hand tools that had been used
for 100 years for several summers.
Though, the
hardest physical work I did was the summer I worked in a concrete block
production factory the year before they automated, stacking concrete blocks in
cubes all day by hand. A new assistant high-school football coach joined us
during the summer and I thought he was way too old for that kind of work. He
was probably around 26 or 27. 😊
But there is
no amount of labor that we can do to become Christians. That’s why, if doing
the work of God isn’t impossible, you’re doing it wrong. It’s impossible for
us, but nothing is impossible for God.
What is the
work of God but to believe that Jesus has redeemed us and made us new?
Martin Luther said, “we are all mere beggars
telling other beggars where to find bread”.
This is the work of God: that you believe in
Him who He has sent: Jesus, the bread of life. Jesus, who did the work of
salvation for us on the cross.
