Rev. Jared Slack
“Do not work
for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has
set his seal.”
Then they
said to him, “What must
we do to perform the works of God?”
Jesus
answered them, “This is the
work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
So they
said to him, “What sign
are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What
work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it
is written, ‘He gave
them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Then Jesus
said to them, “Very truly,
I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my
Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that
which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
They said
to him, “Sir, give
us this bread always.”John
6:27-34
_________________
This morning, I watched an episode of the HBO
Original Series, GIRLS,
where the main character, Hannah, was urgently called home to see her
grandmother one last time before she passed away. Most of her family was there
and in one scene her mother and two aunts were busy wandering around her
grandmother’s house placing
color-coded post-it notes on the items they each wanted to claim for
themselves.
And then I read Jesus’ words
about identifying the food that perishes versus the food that endures. I sort
of got this mental image of myself doing something rather similar to Hannah’s
mom and aunts in my own Christian journey… labeling
those things that I should keep around versus those that just need to go.
I would say that ever since my sophomore year
of college, I’ve been
metaphorically post-it-noting my way through life and tossing out the stuff I
didn’t think I needed anymore.
Fundamentalism went first, Legalism a
close second.
Then all my books by John Piper,
Joshua Harris, Josh McDowell and others in their conservative tribe whose names
don’t alliterate. I sold all my Third Day and Michael
W. Smith CD’s at
Half-Price Books and threw away every piece of WWJD paraphernalia I owned
(there was a lot). And I stopped going to “that
church.” The ones where they
played electric guitars, projected song lyrics onto screens, used dimmer
switches on the lights, and congregants raised their hands and swayed during
worship.
I became a Moderate.
I took three sips of beer on my 21st
birthday under the cloak of night, dangling my feet over the side of a rickety
dock on Lake Belton, toasting the demise of legalism in my life.
I started reading books about the
real history of Baptists in America and wrote a senior thesis titled, “The
Promise of Post-Foundational Theology.” And I started going to “that
church” with a rich
choral tradition, predictable liturgy, and hymnals in the pew backs next to the
visitor cards that they really, really wanted me to fill out and put in the
offering plate as it passed.
It felt so liberating to shed all the
superfluous, perishable stuff… to
rid myself of this need for the, flash-in-the-pan, glitter and glam of my
adolescent faith. To be able to go to church and NOT have my emotions
manipulated. To hear a sermon that DIDN’T
subconsciously tug at that part of me ruled by fear, shame and guilt.
I even skipped church every now and then and I
didn’t feel like an abject failure.
I also got really good at defending my church’s
commitment to classic hymnody and I’m
now the poster child for lectionary loving lumbersexuals the world over.
(I’ll
wait here while you google, “lumbersexual”)
But I have to admit that sometimes I really
miss the dimmed lights.
I miss playing my guitar and singing songs that
were written two weeks ago, not two centuries, and having people stumble and
fumble their way along as they intensely and eagerly seek out the melody to
this new song they're singing to God. I miss the emotion; no matter how
misguided it might have been at moments. I miss feeling things so deeply and
intimately and not having to intellectualize every little thing.
You see, I think there’s
a reason why Jesus came as bread. Gandhi once said, “There
are so many hungry people in the world that God could only come into the world
in the form of food.”
Sure, I don’t
miss the legalism, fundamentalism, guilt, or ooey-gooey love songs about Jesus
being my buddy… but could
it be that some things aren’t as perishable as I once thought? Could it be that the
bread God offers can give life whenever, wherever and however it pleases? Could
it be that we just need to get rid of the labels all together?
Of course, Jesus isn’t
handing out stacks of post-it notes and saying we should clean house regarding
how communities choose to express their faith or for an upheaval of how we’ve
always done things.
Neither am I, for that matter.
Rev. Jared Slack is the Minister to Younger Adults & Discipleship. Follow him on Twitter @jaredslack or check out his blog, jaredslack.tumblr.com.
http://fbcaustin.org/younger-adults-discipleship
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