A Reading from the Second Book of Samuel (11:26-12:13a)
When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Psalm 51:1-13
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; *
in your great compassion blot out my offenses.
2 Wash me through and through from my wickedness *
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions, *
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you only have I sinned *
and done what is evil in your sight.
5 And so you are justified when you speak *
and upright in your judgment.
6 Indeed, I have been wicked from my birth, *
a sinner from my mother’s womb.
7 For behold, you look for truth deep within me, *
and will make me understand wisdom secretly.
8 Purge me from my sin, and I shall be pure; *
wash me, and I shall be clean indeed.
9 Make me hear of joy and gladness, *
that the body you have broken may rejoice.
10 Hide your face from my sins *
and blot out all my iniquities.
11 Create in me a clean heart, O God, *
and renew a right spirit within me.
12 Cast me not away from your presence *
and take not your holy Spirit from me.
13 Give me the joy of your saving help again *
and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.
A Reading from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians (4:1-16)
I, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.” (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
The Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to John (6:24-35)
On the next day, when the people who remained after the feeding of the five thousand saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 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. 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.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 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? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 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. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” 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.” When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
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TODAY’S HOMILY
by the Rev. Michael Kreutzer
Earlier this summer, our family spent a week in Lakeside, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie near Sandusky. Micaela and Mark each brought a friend, so it was Judy and I and four 15-year-olds. We had a great time. Lakeside is a very enjoyable, relaxing, vacation spot, to which some families come year after year. This was our first time there.
One afternoon, the boys were off swimming in the lake, and the girls were meandering along the side of the lake and talking, and Judy and I walked the few blocks to the center of town. Nothing is very far away. We went into one of the small stores there, one that, among many other things, includes a glass case filled with penny candy. Two little girls were standing there, deep in thought. One of them had reached up and placed a pile of coins on top of the case and had asked the woman who works there “What can we get for this much?” Very patiently and kindly she told them that they could get one of these bigger pieces of candy, or four of these, or they could get two of these and one of these over here. The two little girls stood there fidgeting and fretting over their options; and one of them sighed in frustration, “I just don’t what I want!” For them, this was a major life decision.
Even for us adults, it is not always easy to know what we want, especially when we are dealing with questions that are of much greater import than the one these little girls were facing. Some people, even when they reach the age of 50 or 60, are still struggling with what they want to do in life, what they want to be in life. Others, who may have decided their direction long ago, reach a point where they realize that what they thought they wanted was not really what they wanted at all. They had achieved what they wanted to achieve or had come to possess what they wanted to possess, but it had never given them the happiness and the sense of fulfillment for which they were longing in the first place.
New Testament scholar Gerard Sloyan, in commenting on today’s gospel reading, has observed (John, p. 69): “Knowing what you want out of life is half the battle, if you want the right things.” That is the problem that we sometimes have, and that was the problem that the crowds who followed Jesus seemed to be having: they thought they knew want they wanted, they thought they knew was they needed, but they actually were looking for the wrong thing
They had just been fed the day before with the bread and fish that had been multiplied by God’s power working in Jesus. It called to mind the manna that their ancestors were said to have had in the wilderness. And they had decided that this was the food for which they were longing the most. “Sir,” they insisted, “give us this bread always.” They were sure that this was what they wanted: a steady supply of these barley loaves.
But Jesus recognized their much deeper hunger: what they really wanted, what they were really longing for, what they really needed. He knew that, at that deeper level, they were longing for “bread” that would feed them, not just for a few hours or for a day, but for a lifetime and beyond. Jesus was offering them that bread. In fact, Jesus was that bread.
How much time and effort do we spend working for and longing for the wrong things: for things that can never bring us what we really want? Or, as the Book of Isaiah (55:2) pointedly asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”
For some reason, we claim that we believe that we find our ultimate happiness in God and in the life of service and self-giving to which God calls us; but then, in our lives, we keep God in reserve, as a last-resort, after we have tried everything else first. We keep looking in all the wrong places, and we miss the source of life who was there all along. There seems to be something fundamentally wrong in our approach, something that is inconsistent with our stated beliefs.
But there is still another flaw in our approach to finding the fullness of life; and it, too, plays a part in today’s gospel reading. In the crowd’s exchange with Jesus, they ask him: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” And Jesus, in effect, responds, “You don’t have to ‘do’ anything. In fact there is nothing you can do to get or earn what you most want. But it’s already there for you, not as something to be earned, but as a totally free gift from God.” God is ready and willing and waiting to give us the fullness of life, the fullness of happiness for which we most long. God wants to give it to us for free, but we keep trying to pay for it. And it just doesn’t work.
What is it that you most want out of life? Is it really the things that can be bought, the job or position for which you work, the recognition that you seek, or any of the other things for which people struggle all their lives, only to find that that wasn’t really what they wanted at all? Or, when you finally take time to focus on what is most important, most central to your life, is it not the sense of acceptance and love and purpose and fulfillment and hope and fullness of life – none of which can be bought or earned, but all of which are God’s free gifts to us?
God reaches out a hand, offering us that living bread: the bread that will feed our deepest hunger, the bread that will feed us forever. When will we reach out our hands and take and eat?
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