Summary
This past week my family, along with my younger brother’s family did something very Norwegian, we went hiking in the mountains. A week ago yesterday we traveled by train North to Reinheim National Park, South of Åndalsnes. We hiked first to the hytta of Pyttbua, spent the night and then the next day hiked over the mountains to the beautiful Veltdalshytta, which sits on the shore of an amazing lake with waters that were an emerald green. Then after two nights there, we hiked back to Pyttbua, and then the next day down to the train.
It was a beautiful trip, but it was a hard trip too. It takes a lot of energy to hike numerous kilometers up and over mountains, often stepping from boulder to boulder, then crossing streams, and descending steep slopes, all the while carrying numerous kilograms of equipment, clothes and food upon one’s back. Each night we were tired, frankly I am still a little tired. Yet tiring though it was, it also felt good!
What allowed us to keep going was that we were hiking together, as family, as a community.
For instance there were times that my brother Jonathan took his ten-year old daughter’s backpack and carried it for her when she was struggling up a mountainside. Often a hand was offered from one to another, to assist in climbing up on to a boulder, or down a slippery slope. We literally carried one another’s burdens of food, and first aid. We took turns cooking and washing up, and cleaning the hyttas before our departure.
Perhaps more importantly we spoke words of encouragement to one another, told jokes to raise each other’s spirits and provide a laugh. My nephew Paavo asked me, “What is red, and smells like blue paint?”
Hm, I wasn’t sure.
“Red paint.” he laughingly replied.
I laughed too. A simple, but humorous joke that kept me moving my feet.
And we told stories. Reminisced about our last hike together, and sat in wonder together too, while gazing out at God’s awesome creation.
Our hike was truly an act of community.
When reading again, the scriptures for this morning, Paul’s teachings in Ephesians really hit a note with me, when coupled with John’s 51st verse, and our experience hiking this past week. Let me explain to you what I mean.
In verse 51 of the John reading, Jesus says, “…the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jesus is life, he is the spiritual, the eternal food that we need. Jesus, is whom makes life, eternal life for those whom believe.
That right there is the essence, the focus of our Christianity, Jesus’ gift of life.
There is nothing that we do for salvation, but believe. Jesus is the giver, we are the receivers.
It is what we do with the life that we are given, that Paul focuses upon in the Ephesians passage from the Bible. How we live out the life we receive from Jesus is a response to the eternal and earthly gift of life that Jesus gives to us.
So, what Paul is saying is, ‘How we act, is how we live. How we live, is our reaction to Jesus’ gift of grace.’
It’s quite simple isn’t it? Our lives are our response to Jesus gift of salvation. The way we live is the evidence to the world of Christ’s presence in our lives. It is also the evidence to ourselves that Jesus’ gift matters to us.
So, what we do each day, what we say each day, and how we treat others truly matters.
Let me put it in another way.
I have a magnet that has hung on each refrigerator that Emily and I have ever had. It is a quote from Annie Dillard that reads, “How we spend our days, is how we spend our lives.”
It is a quote that I thought of as I was thinking through the scripture from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. You see, Paul is writing about how we should try to act, how we should try and spend our days. If we use our days striving to speak and act in Jesus’ way, than our lives will reflect the same. The world will know us by God’s love.
In reading Paul’s teachings we come to realize that what people too often take as admonishments to save one’s own life eternally, are actually teachings for a life lived in loving Christian community.
In Ephesians, Paul points out this fact. We are not told to speak the truth to save ourselves, but because lies destroy relationships and so, destroy community.
In the same way we are taught that we should not steal, for that destroys trust. Rather, we need to give to those who are at that moment in need. To give good things to someone, creates trust, and so, relationship.
The same is said of evil talk, it destroys others, ripping people down, and thus killing relationship. Rather, Paul teaches that we should by building other people up, and giving the gift of grace through forgiveness.
No one wants to eat the ‘Bread of Life’, when the person, or people trying to serve the ‘Bread’ are spreading lies, or speaking evilly of others, or abusing others through their actions. If we claim the name of Christ as ‘Christ’-ians, Christians, then we need to try and strive every day to speak and act in the world, in our relationships as Christ, as Jesus teaches us to, as he did.
In the gospels Jesus is constantly talking about loving one another. He lived life in the manner, that it can only be understood, that a Christian life, is a life of loving relationship. If we are to bear the name of Christ, then we need to try and speak with others in the way that Jesus did. We need to try and act in the world as Jesus did.
We have got to look beyond our own self-interests. We have got to try and stop thinking of ourselves first. Jesus calls us into relationship, with him and one another, we do not do ‘faith’ alone.
Yet, we Christians are continually struggling with this fact. Jesus models and teaches that life needs to be lived in loving community, and yet, too often we are trying to live out our faith selfishly alone.
If you have noticed, I keep using the little phrase, “we need to try,” as I am talking of speaking and acting in Jesus’ name. Through the use of this phrase I am reminding us that we need to try, and then try again, and again, and again. In continually trying, we will succeed, even as at times we will fail.
Yet even our failures, do not need to ultimately be failures, if we repent and ask for forgiveness from our Lord Jesus the Christ, and from one another. For in asking for forgiveness, as well as in offering forgiveness, we are living out the wonderful spiritual reality of the grace and salvation that Jesus gives us, and we’re doing it in such a way that it is experienced first-hand in the world!
Forgiveness can only happen in relationship, that is how Jesus offers it to us, and how it lives within humanity here on earth.
In closing, let me read to you again the last four verses of Paul’s teaching from today’s scripture. They are verses that remind us of the reality of what the ‘Bread of Life,’ what Jesus means for us in our lives, and they show us how life lived in community as ‘Christ’-ians, can see us through the mountains of life.
Please listen, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Let us live in love, as Christ loves us.
Amen.
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