I was told a few years ago in Washington, D.C., that I was one of very few Episcopal priests who actually used the word “Jesus” in preaching. Today we’re going to talk about relationships with Jesus. We might even use the word “Jesus” a lot this morning.

The setting for today’s story follows on last week’s feeding of the five thousand. The story begins with the people who remained overnight after having their bellies filled the day before. “They themselves got into their boats and followed Jesus to Capernaum.”

I have no scholarly backing for this, but from the few words describing this setting, it must be early morning and Capernaum must have been enough of a rowing job across the sea that for Jesus and the disciples to be there already would have meant that they departed while it was still dark. The people are hungry so they ask Jesus a loaded question. “Rabbi when did YOU get here?” Translation: “We’re hungry again. Are you going to feed us like you did yesterday?”

Let’s stop the story right there because our childhood memories of Jesus are going to help us understand what happens next. As children, many of us were taught that if we did not give our life over to Jesus, we would spend eternity in hell. You can see that today on a billboard sign coming back from Tahlequah. Jesus is pictured in the background as this hip looking white guy who might have just stepped out of a tattoo parlor. The sign reads “Eternity without Jesus is hell.”

Once presented with that rosy concept, most children and adults will say “I’ll take Jesus.” They may not believe all the rest of the stuff, but if for no other reason than to hedge their bets, they’ll go along with the program. “What if it’s true?”, they ask. So with this approach to Christian formation, we manipulate our children and adults into having a relationship with Jesus, even though they probably don’t even know what that means. Hook, line and sinker they have just purchased fire insurance.

Isn’t it odd that we manipulate people into believing, and as a result the new believers turn around and manipulate Jesus? It’s a theological “what goes around comes around” thing.

Back to Capernaum: Jesus sees the same kind of manipulation going on. He tells them, “You are looking for me not because you saw signs but because I filled your bellies yesterday.” For them, Jesus was a kind of magic bread machine that required no coins or expense. Many people today, thousands in Muskogee, preserve this kind of magic thinking. For them, all they need to do is stand up in church saying, “I have a relationship with Jesus”, and Jesus will bless them with full bank accounts, beautiful spouses, and well behaved children.

Trouble is, Jesus would have nothing to do with this nonsense.

Somewhere along the line, as children, most of us learn a thing or two about the nature of relationships. We learn that healthy relationships are based on self-giving and unhealthy ones focus on receiving. We learn that having a relationship with someone because of what they can do for you is wrong. We call that “using” someone else or manipulation.

Now here’s the interesting thing: The majority of people who call themselves Christians are just like the people at Capernaum. They profess to believe in Jesus because of what he can do for them. It is an unhealthy, manipulative relationship. They actually tell Jesus, “Give us some bread.”

Each time the crowd at Capernaum asks Jesus a question, he responds by talking about the bread of life that is imperishable, that leads to eternal life. Let me back you up to the purpose of the entire Gospel of John – that you may have faith in Jesus who reveals the nature of God. The five-thousand, who were fed, filled their bellies but missed the sign. Poet T. S. Elliot says, “They had the experience, but they missed the meaning.” Jesus tells them that. They missed the nature of God revealed by Jesus. It went right over their heads.

What is this bread of life, this imperishable food that gives eternal life? First of all, it is not something you can do on your own. You cannot be “spiritual but not religious” and really grasp God’s signs while hiking alone in the woods. God’s nature is revealed to us though Jesus Christ who is really, truly present right here in our community. It is what we do in our common life together; in our community, in our communion that enables us to see the signs.

Jesus constantly referred to his followers as sheep. That is why we don’t sit in our comfortable places and receive a little cup of wine and a morsel of bread. Like sheep, we must go to the altar rail, getting down on our knees, extending our hands in the ancient symbol of a person pleading for mercy. Like sheep we need frequent, regular feeding. Like sheep, we need to know there is a shepherd who will bring us back to the flock when we mess up.

Frankly, fire insurance is an easy sales job. This bread of life stuff is a lot more difficult to market. People won’t sit still long enough to get the concept. Then they won’t come to church often enough to experience the presence of Jesus. Finally when they become old and life’s infirmities slow them down, they may pause to ask themselves if they made the right decisions, but their life patterns are all set by then. A magic bread machine is a lot easier.

Week after week, we come to the altar rail. We leave all the messy stuff of life behind in our pews. We no longer worry about the problem we have with our brother or sister. We are alone, on our knees, with hands extended for bread, pleading for mercy. At the same time we are together shoulder to shoulder with other people in our community. We are in this together. Every now and then we get a little glimmer of heaven. We KNOW that there is a lot more going on than some bread, a little wine, and some old music. We absolutely know there is more. We return to our seats with the peace of God that passes all understanding. It doesn’t happen every time; hopefully, just often enough to keep us coming back.

When we are old and life’s infirmities have really slowed us down, we are going to pass through that glimmer we saw at the altar rail years earlier. We will know that Jesus has called us home.

The first thing you need to know is that the Episcopal Church does not bestow “sainthood” on anyone. We have adopted many of the traditional saints of ages past such as St. Francis, St. Paul, and St. Mary. I am not sure where the cutoff date is, but at some point in the past, say the 19th century or so, the Episcopal Church simply recognizes significant contributions on our annual calendar. We have dates for Harriett Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr. This week we celebrate the “Feast Day” for Jonathan Daniels. The story is important to our individual and national lives.

In 1965, Daniels was a seminary student at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge Massachusetts. In March of that year, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked students and others to join on a march to the state capital of Alabama demonstrating support for the civil rights movement. At evening prayer in the chapel that week, Daniels reflected on Mary’s song we just heard in the Gospel. He wrote the following in his journal:

“I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary’s glad song. ‘He hath showed strength with his arm.’ As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled ‘moment’ … Then it came. ‘He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.’ I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin’s song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.”

Jon worked tirelessly in Alabama, bringing black people to the local Episcopal Church, setting up tutoring programs, registering people to vote and protesting discrimination. Picketing local businesses landed him in jail for a week. Upon release from jail on August 20, the racially mixed group attempted to enter a local store for lunch. They were met at the door by a man with a shotgun. After a brief confrontation the man pointed his gun at the young black girl in the front of the group. They were less than ten feet from the shooter. Jon pushed the young woman to the ground. In the process, he took the gunshot in his chest. He died within minutes.

Dying for the cause of advancing the dignity and rights of people you don’t even know is one way to get on the Episcopal Church calendar.

They say that hindsight is 20:20. It is easy to look back in history and retroject our present values. We can look back with clarity on those days in the 1960s and say “Civil rights and the sexual revolution were difficult things in their day, but in the end, they were the right things to do.”

But in 1965 when the rector of the local parish was supportive but not totally enthusiastic about integration; when politicians on all sides mourned about the death of the country; when school boards refused Federal orders and when storekeepers took shots at young blacks, was the decision to join in protests and help with integration so clear cut? Would you have joined Jon Daniels? In our baptismal covenant we pledge to “respect the freedom and dignity of every human being.” Those are easy words to say, but how far would you go in carrying them out?

In our day, political and religious leaders have learned to grow their followers by fanning the flames of extreme positions, and systems of oppression have grown even more powerful and interlocking. What are the evils that we are called to confront and how far will we go? Are we even able to clearly identify the issues that oppress and marginalize people today? Can we do this without falling prey to one extreme ideology or another?

C. S. Lewis pointed out that evil does not go away. It just changes costumes. Can we recognize it when it walks in the room?

Life may not present opportunities to us as it did for Jon Daniels. We are not all destined to take a bullet for someone else. But we are expected to help others and respect their freedom and dignity. Christian living is not about going to heaven when we die. It is about making the world a better place for other people. The question is, how do we know what to do? How do we know when to act? Where do we get our marching orders?

Look at what motivated Jonathan Daniels. He was obviously attuned to the issues of the day. He had obviously been thinking and praying about the evils of segregation and the unfair ways that black people were treated. What was it that led him to delay his seminary training and head to Alabama into the unknown?

Two things: First was regular hearing and reading of scripture and serious reflection on it. How can we grow this practice here at Grace? One thing I plan to start this fall is a Wednesday night Bible study. I will lead one track for teens and youth. We will find another person to lead a parallel adult track. Both groups will discuss the same scripture every week. This year we will tackle the major stories of the bible. We also have Education for Ministry for adults as well as adult and youth Sunday school. What else can we do to ground our lives in scripture?

One goal of regular reflection on scripture is for you to have the same experience Daniels had where he said “I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled ‘moment’…” Straining toward the decisive, Spirit-filled moment.

Second was his regular attendance in church. That Spirit-filled moment may happen to you at the grocery store or in your morning workout, but chances are much better that something stirring will happen to you at church.

The Episcopal church Daniels attended was in downtown Boston. It has always been a lively place with a huge diversity of social and economic classes. There the marginalized gather alongside the wealthy. It is a “high Anglo-Catholic” church with “smells and bells,” genuflecting, Latin psalms, chanted Eucharist, the whole enchilada. Prayers of the people at Church of the Advent in Boston are a riot of petitions. Poor people pray for situations in their neighborhoods while the wealthy pray that fair solutions can be found to the problems of the day. I knew people who attended that church during Jonathan Daniels’ day and it remained that way thirty years later when I attended it.

So regular worship and reflection on the Bible are the two things that set Jon Daniels on his path. You don’t have to go to seminary or be ordained to make a difference. You just have to show up and engage with the Bible.

We have baptized some babies and a few adults since I have been at Grace. I sometimes wish I had the guts to tell people that the Holy Spirit writes a tattoo across your forehead. “Warning, taking your baptism seriously might be hazardous to your health.” But it’s the best thing you’ll ever do.