Dear Church Family,
At Debra Lancaster’s home-going last Monday, we had so many people that wanted to give condolences. There were people from many different churches the Mormons, Pentecostals, Sanctified. Our dear Bea Logan had to get up and say, “We really have to cut the remarks to two minutes for sure.” This one bishop from our community got up and I thought with her looking so dynamic and filled with the Holy Spirit that she couldn’t stay under two minutes. But she got up and said, “Our life and our relationship with Jesus is like a motorcycle ride. You have to lean in when you are making those turns.” Amen! Alleluia! Church, we know we have to lean in and we get help from many sources from our leaning in. It is one truth that is proclaimed today so strongly that Jesus is telling us that “He is the bread of life and whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” Alleluia!
Church, what a blessing for us to have this great gift that helps us, as much as everyday receiving Holy Communion to lean into this closer walk with the Lord because that’s what we want in life. Jesus tells us, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” We feel that God is drawing us as we freely want to lean in. When you make your next ride in the car and you go around the turn a little quickly you can feel yourself leaning in and thinking Jesus is there as you desire to want to lean in and have that closer walk with Him. Alleluia!
Are you familiar with the word “Viaticum”? This is a word which mean food for the journey. It is especially given as an extra blessing when a person might be near death. When I was anointing Regina Duncan, who is Gloria Chunn’s daughter at Barnes hospital a month or so ago, I told her, “This Holy
Communion is food for the journey in your crossing over to the kingdom.” It seems to be a special blessing with that. I think of that food for the journey as I reflect on the 1st reading of Elijah who was deeply distressed and depressed because Jezebel had been hunting him to kill him and he was ready to give up. So he asked for death. He went to sleep under a broom tree and an angel touched him and ordered him to, “Get up and eat.” He go up, looked around and there at his head was a large hearth cake and a jug of water. After eating and drinking he didn’t feel so depressed but content. He laid down again, but the angel woke him up again and said, “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!” He got up ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God. Again, a little reference to using the word, forty, as we use it so often in
Scriptures in both old and new testaments. So, there was food for the journey and we receive this food each and every day of our lives especially on Sunday, the Bread of Life.
Church family, I will give you a third point, the Words of Saint Paul when he says, “So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed Himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” When I hear the word “aroma,” I become aware of my sense of smell. There are lots of wonderful smells that we remember all the way back to our childhood. You could probably think of some memory of cooking smells from your mother, grandmother or maybe dad preparing barbeque. Whatever it is, it’s a wonderful feeling to feel God’s aroma of love and He wants us to have that aroma of love. He wants us to as the psalmist says today, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” by your actions again being reaffirmed to love one another, compassionate and forgiving. So go about this summertime with that sweet, sweet spirit of the Lord. Alleluia!
Love, Fr. Bob
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