But, as is so often the case, God had other plans.
There was a hesitation—not really doubt, not even fear, Jane couldn’t explain it, but something caused her to pause and in that moment she heard Joe say “it’s not hopeless. Please don’t jump.” Suddenly, gentle giant of a man wrapped his mammoth arms around Jane and lifted her to safety. Jane says it was a Holy Spirit moment….Joe, the truck driver who saved her life, agrees. “I don’t know what came over me-- It had to have been a higher power. I did the rescuing, but it wasn’t me, someone/something else took control.
Yes, God had other plans.
Elijah’s toast. He’s done. He dared to disagree with Jezebel and neither she nor the king were amused. Elijah’s running for his life. He knew there was nowhere to hide, he knew eventually the King’s guards would find him and that would be that. So, Elijah, exhausted and disgusted with himself collapses under the broom tree—begging death to overtake him.
But God had other plans.
A divine messenger awakens Elijah and says, “Get up! Eat something!”
Elijah opened his eyes and saw bread and water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep.
A second time the messenger awakens Elijah, saying, “Get up!”
“Eat something, you have a difficult road ahead of you.” Get up!
Elijah got up, ate and drank, and refreshed by that food, carried on.
Because God had other plans.
Several years ago I heard Katharine Jefferts Schori preach a wonderful sermon on the gospel story of Jairus’ daughter. Remember the story? Jairus comes to Jesus, begging him to heal his daughter. Jesus dilly dailies and when he finally reaches the girl, everyone says she is dead. Jesus clears the room, takes the girl’s hand and says, “Talitha Cum” which means, Little Girl, Arise, but which Bishop Katharine translated as “Get Up, Girl!”
This girl was as good as dead, but God?
God had other plans.
Through messengers, prophets, apostles, the Holy and Undivided Trinity calls to us all the time, telling us to
“Get up girl, get up boy, get up man, get up woman, get up church, get up world, there’s work to do!”
And my friends WE’RE just the people to do it.
God has plans for us:
Get up, woman!
That’s what the Holy Spirit was saying to Jane as she climbed over that guardrail.
Get up, man!
That’s what God was saying to Joe, the truck driver who prided himself on not getting involved but who got involved and pulled Jane from the edge.
Get up, prophet!
That’s what the messenger was saying to Elijah, “your work is not yet done.”
And yes, by the way, the road will be long, the journey tough, but GET UP, for I need you---yes YOU---to do this work and to do it now.
It’s a good message and it’s one we’d all be wise to heed.
Get up girl. “I am the bread of life.”
Get up boy. Those who come to me, fully and completely, will never ever be thirsty.
Get up woman. Follow Me.
Get up…
What’s that, you’re too tired? You’ve tried everything and nothing works? Well, get up ---through me you’ll find your way. I need you… there’s work to be done.
Throughout this month of August we read what’s known as the Bread of Life Discourse. In these 50 + verses Jesus repeatedly tells us that he’s all the nourishment we need. That the strength we find sapped from our very being; that the hope we find elusive at best and utterly absent at worst isn’t gone, it hasn’t run out, it hasn’t been removed.
It’s still there.
It’s always there.
Jesus is telling us in John’s Gospel, Elijah is showing us in the reading from Kings that hope and strength aren’t things we create, or earn, or acquire. They’re gifts, given to us by and through the unending, outrageous, abundant love of God.
It can’t be said enough. God loves us beyond all measure.
But God’s love of us doesn’t mean that the road won’t be long, bumpy, scary and full of detours.
It will be. It is!
And that’s just what Jesus is trying to get across to us in these endless verses about being the Bread of Life.
Life isn’t easy. We’re faced with challenges all the time. Scary things.
Difficult things.
Heartbreaking things.
There are times when we want to give up.
There are times when we, just like Elijah, want to set ourselves down under a broom tree and fall asleep, hoping to never wake up.
There are those of us who, like Jane, have contemplated ending it all by our own hand.
There are those of us who’ve lost the ones we love because they became overwhelmed, heartbroken and at the end of their rope.
Life is most definitely NOT EASY.
But, as the Church in Iona says in their invitation to communion and as Jesus is telling us through the Bread of life verses and the messenger told Elijah and Bishop Katharine told us in the sermon:
“Come to this altar, we have a holy meal to share.
Come, those of you who have much faith and those who feel you have none.
Come, those of you who have tried to follow Jesus, but believe you’ve failed.
This is the feast of Jesus our Lord;
holy food for holy people.”
So get up folks….come and be fed, God has plans for us.+
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