Seeking What Gives Life, by Rev Steven R Mitchell 8-19-2012

Seek What Gives Life


By Rev Steven R Mitchell

Mountain View United Church, Aurora, CO 8/19/2012

Based on I King 3:5-14 and John 6: 26-34, 58



Often times, when looking in the “personals” you will come across ads of people who are looking for someone to spend some “intimate” time with in order to not be alone. Many times these ads will say something to the effect of, “looking for love in all the wrong places.” What they really mean is they are looking for the wrong type of companionship. These people realize that there is a loneliness within them that they think can be filled by having another person around. The unfortunate reality is that the loneliness isn’t from being by oneself, but rather a lack of something deeper within them. What they are lacking is an inner wisdom of who they are.

The Hebrew scripture that we read this morning speaks about the young man who became king and yet felt that he wasn’t prepared for the job. He might very well have not been raised to know how to act and speak like a king, as he had an older brother who by rights should have been the next king. Yet the young men’s father, King David on his death bed, appointed not the elder son, but the younger son to take his place as ruling Monarch. This tells me that David saw something in Solomon that he felt would make him the better ruler. Yet Solomon states that he doesn’t know how to come or go as a King, so in a dream, Solomon has a visit with God. God asks Solomon what he would most like to have as a gift from God. Solomon replies that what he most needs as king is “Wisdom” so that he might serve the people to the best of his ability. Why? Because these people are God’s people and Solomon wishes, I think, to please God.

The definition of Wisdom is: The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight. Common sense; good judgment. Most translations use the word “mind” in connection to “wisdom”, but I think the word “heart” better describes the essence of “wisdom.” Our minds can think critically, but wisdom goes deeper than just critical thinking. It also involves “feeling” and “intuitiveness”, and these specific attributes we tend to apply to the heart as providing.

Solomon, so pleased God in his request that God gave him not only the gift of “wisdom” but also “riches” and “honor” among all the nations. God also told Solomon, that if he continued to follow after God, that he would also be given a longer life. Even though Solomon ruled for forty years, which sounds like a very long reign, he didn’t follow God through the last part of his leadership. Solomon, might have ruled in part with wisdom on behalf of his subjects, he most certainly did not use wisdom to live his personal life, and eventually fell away from following God and took to following many minor gods which were introduced by his many wives and concubines. In other words, Solomon basically got off track and minimized his relationship with the God of his father and of his people.

In this morning’s passage from John, we see a huge crowd, pressing Jesus for more signs to prove that he is the son of God. The story just before this text talked about the feeding of the five thousand and how many of them went searching for Jesus after he left in a boat. Jesus tells the crowd that they are not looking for Jesus because of the “truth” that he can provide, or because of the miraculous signs that Jesus has performed in their presence, but rather because they ate all the food that they wanted. Jesus urges the crowd to look for what will feed them eternal life.

At this point the crowd wants to know “what they must do in order to accomplish what God requires?” Jesus tells them that, “God wants them to believe in the one who God sent to them.” Meaning Jesus. This is where we can become splintered within the church, because we can take several differing paths in understanding what Jesus was saying here. One way is to believe in Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. The way that I understand this passage is to take Jesus not as a sacrificial lamb, but rather infusing the essence of Jesus’ teaching and his understanding of relationship with God.

The crowd wanted a sign; they said that their ancestors received manna while out in the dessert as they followed Moses out of Egypt. They were confusing how the manna was provided. They understood that the manna came because of Moses and failed to recognize that it came from God. They saw the earlier feeding as coming through Jesus, not from God.

I wonder if we are any different today, in how we look to God. Do we see the miracles that are given to us daily? And if we see miracles, do we miss the point of them? Do we see them as not only gifts from God, but as an indication of our relationship with God and that it is through this relationship that we find “life”? You see, we can receive many things that will temporarily satisfy us; possessions or achievement of personal goals, that like after a meal make us feel satisfied but a few hours later, we are hungry again.

As a church we were born out of a vision in the 1960’s that three denominations had; a vision of being able to come together with differing talents and gifts of these denominations to minister to the community of Aurora. The problem with a vision is over time it can be lost, very much like King Solomon, we become distracted by many opportunities and forget what the original agreement was about. Over time, we have acquired new members who were not a part of that vision and might not know about what the original idea was for Mountain View. Times have changed as well, and the way that we do “church” is not consistent with the way that the general population understands. Now we can resist modern norms and behaviors but this over time isolates us and what our purpose for “being” is about. It puts us out of touch with the larger community.

This coming Friday and Saturday, we as a church have the opportunity to spend time in conversation about “who” we are, “what” we want for our community of faith, and “where” does God want to lead us? We in essence are going to be asking God for “wisdom”. As the crowd asked Jesus, “What must we do in order to accomplish what God requires”, we too need to consistently be asking this same question. As a child of God, if we are interested in an active relationship with God, we must not just ask for specific things, for that makes God nothing more than a “Santa Clause” or a “Genie.” In order to deepen our relationship with God, to walk in God’s way, we must let God speak to us and listen, both individually and corporately.

Solomon at the beginning of his kingship was walking close to God, for God came in his dreams. Solomon was able to ask God for “wisdom”, the gift that not only would make him an effective ruler, but also a gift that would have the potential of deepening his relationship over time with God. Jesus was telling the crowd, not to look at things in life that only sustain life temporarily, but to eat the bread that gives life eternal. This bread was the “truth” the “wisdom” that Jesus taught. It’s like taking a bag of liquid “Jesus” and receiving an I.V. that gives us this wisdom, this infusion of Jesus’ essence that allows us to incorporate it into who we are.

If this community of faith wishes to continue to have a long life we must consistently be asking for the gift of “wisdom” that only comes through God. We need to ask for not just concrete direction and understanding, but also for the “intuitive” and the “feeling”, for the “wisdom”, the “vision” that is needed in order to do the best for what God has for us to do.

It most likely will not come through a letter written by God, but rather, it will come through our preparing through prayer, specifically asking for “wisdom” and for “vision” prior to our meeting this coming weekend, and then through our taking time to open our minds, our imaginations, and our hearts, to the bread that God has in store for us. The bread that gives us nourishment and life, that in turn we might provide God’s nourishment and life to a world that is desperately looking for relationships in all the wrong places. Amen