August 22, 2021

Proper 16

John 6:25-69

The Rev. Francene Young

Since July 25th, our Sunday Gospel readings have been from John 6; the Bread of Life Discourse. We start with Jesus feeding the 5000 with two fish and five loaves before heading off to Capernaum at the time of the Passover. Walking on water to calm the seas for his frightened disciples were sailing toward Capernaum.

Some in the crowd of 5000 chase after Jesus to Capernaum looking for more of this miracle bread. Jesus challenges them for seeking only food to fill their stomachs and tells them he is the BREAD of LIFE (uh?)

On the third Sunday, Jesus tells them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” After chasing Jesus down to try to make him their new King of miracles, the people began to complain about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’? I think we have heard this rejection before coming from Jesus’ own family members who said he was crazy!

The last Sunday, Jesus proclaims, “I am the LIVING bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Jesus begins to foretell of his personal 2 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 sacrifice on the cross for our sins, but this to a bit too farfetched and difficult to understand.

Now last week, I talked about Soul Food. Food that feeds the soul providing some type of comfort in tough times. Let me give a brief history about SOUL FOOD.

Adrian Miller, is a lawyer and culinary historian. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position.

Miller’s first book as a culinary historian is titled “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time, For this book, he was won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. He has been nicknamed “The Soul Food Scholar.”

In his first book, Miller writes that Soul food is a coined term that captures the humanity and heroic effort of African-Americans to overcome centuries of oppression and create a cuisine that deliciously melds the foods and cooking techniques of West Africans, Western Europeans, and Native Americas. When you hear the words “Soul Food” what do you 3 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 picture?

At another time, I would ask you to shout them out loud, but due the circumstances, let me name a few: fried chicken, smothered pork chops, okra, Oxtails, Chitlin’s, coconut cake, peach cobbler, as well greens with salt pork, or ham hocks, black-eyed peas, and cornbread—These dishes have sustained generations of people.

For many, these dishes celebrate a heritage of culinary genius, community-building, and resourcefulness. Yet there are some who reach the opposite conclusion and criticize soul food as an incredibly unhealthy cuisine that needs a warning label, or as slave food that is unworthy of celebration. While it is true, many of the items on this list are not as good for us as they used to be, since few of us are laboring long hours in the fields to burn it off, I must admit, they do satisfy a hungry palate!

The story OF SOUL FOOD begins here in the antebellum South where millions of West Africans, forcibly removed from the home countries and enslaved, created one of America’s earliest fusion cuisines under difficult circumstances. 4 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69

On a typical day, the field slaves rose to eat a breakfast of buttermilk and crumbled cornbread. I remember eating this with my mom when I was a kid. Somewhere long the journey, I dropped that from my menu.

The term soul food became popular during the 1960s.

Black power advocates, at the time, were seeking to unify African Americans across class, geography, and varying experiences and saw our Soul Food as a powerful connector.

During my first year in boarding school, I was given this book as a gift from a classmate. IT IS TITLED SOUL FOOD and was published in 1969. The book is 49 years old. I keep it in a zip lock bag because it has started falling apart. I dare say that even my Bible is not in this condition.

For the last four Sundays and today, Jesus is telling the people that HE IS THE BREAD OF LIFE. HE IS THE TRUE LIVING BREAD. 5 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 TRUE LIVING BREAD THAT CONSTANTLY FEEDS AND SATISFIES THE SOUL. Jesus is offering us himself as the TRUE BREAD FOR the soul. The TRUE LIFE GIVING SOUL FOOD.

It is the Living Bread, the Living Soul Food that is the very presence of Christ within us. It encourages us, forgives us as we forgive each other, offers hope, and it restores life, now and offers eternal life. In receiving Christ, by eating the Bread (both figuratively in faith and literally in the Eucharist) we find nourishment and refreshment for our souls. Our deep hunger is satisfied as we eat this Bread. Eat this Bread and you will live, he promises. But even more than that, eat this Bread and I will abide with you, and you will abide with me.

Retired Bishop Larry Goodpaster writes; 6 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 “To abide is to know that no matter what comes our way, we will not be deserted nor left to face whatever the matter is on our own. Christ comes to live within us, to take up residence in our spirits, and promises not to leave. He wishes to abide in us and therefore we in him through the Bread of Life.” The LIVING BREAD; THE TRUE SOUL FOOD.

In the letter from Paul to the Ephesians that we read today, Paul tells the Ephesians to Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

You might be asking 7 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 “What has this to do with SOUL FOOD or the THE LIVING BREAD.” As I see it, it is only after we have allowed Christ to abide in us and know that we are in HIM can we muster enough strength and courage to put on the full armour of God and STAND FIRM.

I have been personally struggling with how to stand strong with everything going on in this world. Covid continues, the fall of Afghanistan, fires in California, hurricanes on the East Coast. It makes one afraid to get up in the morning.

Then in the midst of a dreaded morning, I happened upon a story in the July-August Issue of Christianity Today titled “The Girls Who Would Not Bow.” It is the story of almost 100 of 276 Nigerian Girls who were kidnapped from their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria by Boko Haram in 2014. Their faith gave them the strength to put on the Full Armour of God and survive. Their Whispered Prayers, Hidden Bibles, Secretly Scribbled Verses feed the Inside the Resilient Faith of the kidnapped Girls. Due their faith in God, they would not bow to Boko Haram. They STOOD FIRM. THEY STOOD THEIR GROUND. 8 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69

The story written by journalists Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw. There is a subtitle: HOLDING ON TO FAITH

As reporters for The Wall Street Journal, we set out to try to understand the riddle of the hostages whose plight captivated the world in 2014: What had it taken to free them? What were the consequences of that deal? And, perhaps most importantly, how had they survived? As we plunged further into the secret world of drone surveillance and hostage talks, we confronted a leviathan of a story As we interviewed some 20 of the young women, we discovered something about the beating heart of this story that much of the foreign coverage had missed. We saw clearly how the THE WILL OF THESE teenagers to survive was inseparable from their faith. Most of the students were Christians.

These young women had endured three years of captivity, deprivation, and pressure to convert to Boko Haram’s creed by holding onto their friendships and their faith. At the risk of beatings and torture, they whispered prayers together at night, or into cups of water, and memorized the Book of Job from a smuggled Bible. Into secret diaries, they copied Luke 2, because they saw themselves in Mary’s ordeal of giving birth to Jesus. They transcribed paraphrases of psalms in loopy, teenage handwriting: “Oh my God I keep calling by day and You do not answer. And by night. and there is no silence on my part” (22:2). 9 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 They came of age in captivity, pressured daily to marry fighters and embrace Boko Haram’s creed in return for better food, shelter, clothing, and soap. By their second year, many were badly malnourished. Months of hunger and vanishing rations had left some of the women unable to stand without help. Their guards had refused to share meals or even jugs of water— except for washing before prayer. Boko Haram itself, though running low on rations, still promised what little food it had to those who agreed to convert and marry into the sect. More than 100 of the girls refused. Many of them had been members of choirs in their church, and all of them knew the words to a hymn from Chibok they sang when their guards were out of earshot: “We, the children of Israel, will not bow.”

I share this story to illustrate that while physically hungry, these teenaged girls holding on to the TRUE SOUL FOOD OF JESUS THROUGH SECRETLY PRAYING, WRITING AND SINGING, PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUT OF GOD AND STOOD THEIR; SINGING WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL; WE WILL NOT BOW. MOST OF US WILL NEVER FACE THIS TYPE OF HARDSHIP; WE MAY FACE OTHERS BUT CONTINUING TO 10 THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THAT FEEDS THE ARMOR JOHN 6:25-69 BE OPEN TO THE TRUE SOUL FOOD THROUGH THE LIVING BREAD; JESUS CHRIST, WE, TOO CAN PUT ON THE FULL ARMOR OF GOD AND STAND FIRM AGAINST THE CHALLENGES WE FACE. As I think about the strength of those Nigerian girls, I can almost hear them singing into their cups of water “ I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back; no turning back.”