Sustenance

There’s a true story of St. Francis that when his father accused him of selling some of his father’s merchandise to raise money for the church, that Francis gave his father everything. Not only his money but his clothes.

       And since Francis was on trial, in the church, in front of the bishop, he stood there naked in church.

       Symbolically Francis was stripping off his earthly identity and standing there as God’s naked and vulnerable child.

       There is actually quite a bit of nakedness in the bible.

Adam and Eve in the garden.

       Drunk Noah is euphemistically uncovered.

David dancing when the ark came to Jerusalem.

       King Saul was stripped naked by the Holy Spirit when Saul was looking for David.

According to scripture Isaiah ran around preaching naked for three years. Most of us hope that it is metaphorical not physical, but it might have been both.       There is a story of a young man running naked away from Jesus’ arrest at Gethsemane.

       There are the seven sons of Sceva, who try to cast out an evil spirit in Jesus’ name, even though they are not followers of Jesus. The evil spirit knows Jesus and knows Paul, but doesn’t know these guys, and so the man with the evil spirit beats them up and strips them naked.

       And Jesus himself was stripped naked three times before his crucifixion. And on the cross is naked.

       Naked we came from the womb and naked we return, but in between we clothe ourselves in all kinds of stuff.

       Just think of all the clothes that people wear. Military, police and other uniforms. Work clothes, Priestly robes, religious gowns. Academic regalia, Designer jeans, sporting gear and Olympic medals. We wear makeup and skin lotions.  

       We wear bikinis, burkhas and bearskins.

Prom dresses, wedding gowns, Oilers jerseys and business suits.

       The old saying is: “Clothes make the man” with the idea being that what we wear influences others and even ourselves.

       It is said that many years ago that the hosts of BBC radio wore tuxes to give the news on BBC radio, to remind them that is manner in which they should give the news.

       But we wear more than clothes. We wear identity. We wear masks to hide our true selves. We wear culture and family and social customs and religious and moral beliefs.

       We wear our emotions, pride, anger, jealousy, love, adoration among other things.

       In fact, sometimes we carry and wear so much emotional baggage, that we can hardly stand up. No wonder Jesus invites us to cast our cares and burdens on him. “Come to me all you are weary and carrying heavy burdens.”

       And is some ways spirituality is about getting naked. It is just being your naked self before a naked God.

       Father Richard Rohr writes in his book “Simplicity: the freedom of Letting go”

"The goal of all spirituality is to lead the 'naked person' to stand trustfully before the naked God. The important thing is that we're naked; in other words that we come without title, merit, shame, or even demerit. All we can offer to God is who we really are, which to all of us never seems like enough.”

Spirituality is about looking at your true self and stripping away all the masks, the culture, the peer groups and pressure, the games we play, the airs we put on, the social and religious conventions…. and getting down to who you are at your core…

…so that you can be the person you want to be…

…so you can be the person God made you to be…

So you can be yourself…

So you are truly free to love and to choose life in all its fullness…

And while the goal is emotional and spiritual and mental nakedness before the divine… nakedness before other humans is scary, risky and sometimes even dangerous.

I have to tell you what our family thought was kind of funny recently.

Fiona’s brother had a triple bypass about ten days ago or so. He is home and doing well.

But he shared that getting ready for surgery meant lying on a bed totally naked while a female nurse shaved all the hair off his body under his neck.

We laughed because we know what kind of consternation that might cause him.

I think women who have birthed children can tell of what it means to be totally naked in front of health care professionals in ways men don’t understand.

Being naked before others is uncomfortable and risky and scary and sometimes even dangerous.

And that is the same for mental, emotional and spiritual nakedness as well as physical nakedness

The reason we wear masks after all, is because we have learned that we can be hurt when we are totally open and vulnerable and truthful.

       Why do children lie? They want avoid pain. The pain of disapproval, the pain of punishment, the pain of embarrassment…

       True story. A little girl takes a few toys from the daycare and puts them in her backpack.

Mom finds them and has a little talk about stealing and not taking things that don’t belong to you.

       She tells her daughter that they will take them back tomorrow and she can tell the daycare teach that she is sorry.

       Next day when they go to daycare, the little girl takes the toys back and gives them to the teacher and says: “My mom stole these.”

She couldn’t face the pain of the truth.

We are hardwired to try and avoid pain, and most of our defense mechanisms such as repression, regression, projection, reaction formation etc. etc., are basically ways to avoid pain.

A lot of emotional illness is around people who have experienced emotional pain, but don’t know how to deal with that pain in a healthy way.

So, while the spiritual goal is to stand naked before God, the reality for a lot of people is that the evil spirits of this world have beaten them up and left them naked and hungry and cold and alone.

And most of us when we come to church, actually just put on a brave face and reply to the inevitable question: “How are you today” with the equally inevitable… “I’m fine” even if we are not fine.

So today we come to a little story about Elijah. To set some context there has been huge contest between the prophets of Baal and Elijah. Yeah, you didn’t know that prophets had Olympics too.

       And Elijah has defeated the prophets of Baal. Whereas all 450 prophets of Baal they couldn’t call upon their god to rain down fire from heaven on their sacrifice, Elijah all by himself calls upon Yahweh and fire rains down on the sacrifice.

       And after humiliating them, Elijah takes it one step further. He has them all taken prisoner and taken to the river where according to scripture Elijah kills them all.

So, Queen Jezebel when she hears about it puts a contract out on Elijah’s life and Elijah runs away to the desert and sits down on a bush and wants to die.

He isn’t the only prophet who wished for death. Jonah sat under a bush and wanted to die. And Moses too asked to be put to death thinking that God and his people weren’t treating him very well.

       And there is of course Job who after suffering great loss wished that he had died at birth.

One wonders, or at least I have, why Elijah was so despondent. Why was he afraid of Jezebel and not the prophets of Baal? Is it because Jezebel had an army at her disposal with real swords and not just prayers?

If God did such a miracle with the prophets of Baal, why not protect Elijah from Jezebel?

A couple of points need to be made. The threat to his life was obviously real and while miracles happen in the bible, many of the prophets and disciples and Jesus himself are not protected from the violence of humans.

But the second point is this. Maybe, just maybe Elijah is overwhelmed with the executions he carried out. Maybe while that was expected of him, maybe his soul could not carry the magnitude of what he had done. Maybe he realized violence is not the way.

Guilt, aloneness, tiredness, fear, anxiety… or a combination of any of the above.

Elijah is alone, vulnerable and emotionally and spiritually naked.

       And in his need an angel comes and gives him food.

Cake. I love it. Is this the first angel’s food cake? The angel doesn’t speak to him. Doesn’t say” there, there everything will be all right.” Doesn’t say: “ Don’t be a chump, Elijah, stiff upper lip and all that.”

The angel doesn’t coddle him, condone him or chastise him. The angel knows that the journey is hard and it is not over.

       So, the angel gives Elijah what he needs.

Food and drink. Nourishment…and divine presence.

When you are down and out. When your resources run dry. When you are afraid? When you feel like dying…

What is it you need?

Who is it you need?

What is the bread you need…the manna you need… the water you need… the cake you need…

When you are spiritually dry what is it you need?

Let me suggest some things that people need. It is not an exhaustive list, and at the same time I am not suggesting that everybody needs the same spiritual food.

I think people want to know and feel and experience that there is a spiritual dimension to life. That life is not just facts and science and formulas and rules and numbers.

       They want to know that life has meaning. They want to know that there is more than just physical existence.

       For some that is wanting to know or experience God.

I think most people want to be loved and accepted for who they are, and would like the space and freedom to be naked and vulnerable emotionally and spiritually and find that safe place to be themselves, and find people who will love them, forgive them and accept them unconditionally.

I also think that many people have found that organized religion, instead of giving this experience of the divine and all the freedom, life, love and acceptance this should mean, organized religion was somewhat complicit in many of the world’s problems. Organized religion instead of being the safe place for one to be oneself, often was a system of rules, regulations, orders, instructions with lots of guilt and condemnation. If people find a place in organized religion they need a safe place to be themselves.

I think that most people need practical ways to practice their spirituality. It might be meditating, hiking, special meals, family, conversation, worship, scripture, prayer, yoga, art, music, volunteering to give meals to those in need.

       And not only do they need those practices, they need to understand that those practices feed their souls. They need awareness with their practice.

And people need not only to see and feel the divine and the sacred in the universe, they want to feel it IN the universe. With a big emphasis on the word IN. Not separate from the universe, but IN the universe. In nature, in people, in the arts, in conversation, in their bodies, in their food, in their drink, in their sexual expression, in their relationships.

In other words, they want to find the sacred in the profane and the profane in the sacred. They need Heaven and earth to not be two separate things. They need the unity of the physical and spiritual for their good health.

       And people want, and need to know, that even when they screw up, even when they make mistakes, even when they do things that are wrong and they did them deliberately, that they are not lost, that there is hope, that there is forgiveness, that there is possibility, that they can be better.

       I don’t know a more satisfying bread than the bread of forgiveness. An unconditional love, that just keeps loving you, no ifs, buts, or maybes.

What is it you need today to sustain you?

You might need rest. You might need to take a step back from doing too much, thinking too much, trying to solve the world’s problems, or even your own, and just give yourself a break.

You might need food, nourishing food, that is good for your body.

You might need to move. Some form of exercise, even as simple as walking an hour a day, might make a huge difference…

So, you might need physical nourishment…

But you might need the bread of heaven. You might need angel’s food cake.

You might need something that feeds your soul, your spirit, your emotional self, your wounded heart, or even your guilty conscience.

I am the bread of life, Jesus says. When the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness they were fed manna.

That was physical food that sustained them, but Jesus says he is a food that sustains our souls, our spirits.

He himself is family to us.

He himself is a safe place for us

He himself is unconditional love

He himself is a listener, a guide, a confidante, a friend

He himself is forgiveness, utter, total, unconditional forgiveness

He himself is a purpose and meaning.

He himself is both divine and human, connecting the sacred and profane giving meaning to all of life.

He himself prayed, walked, enjoyed meals and wine, saw beaty in nature, told stories, forgave, healed, worshipped, enjoyed conversation and friends, and saw the good in people, and practiced spirituality in almost all he did.

He himself is the one with whom we can be totally naked, totally free, and totally ourselves

He himself is our nourishment. Amen.