Beyond the Patio

THE BARGAIN OF A LIFETIME
John 6:51-58

When I read a piece entitled “A Baloney Sandwich” by Bob Benson in See You At The House (1) recently, I was reminded of some of the church picnics I attended when living on my own. Benson’s experience was so similar to mine that we could have been at the same picnics. Like him, I would get ready to pack my picnic lunch, go to the refrigerator and find a dried up piece of baloney and just enough mustard in the jar so that I got it all over my knuckles trying to get to it. I would add a couple of slices of stale bread, put it in a brown paper bag and head off to the picnic.

When it came time to eat I would more than likely find myself sitting beside some people who it seemed had been preparing food for this picnic for the past week. They had fried chicken, potato salad, green salads, homemade rolls, pies, and cake. If that wasn’t enough they had a few things like hamburgers and hot dogs that they could throw on the BBQ. They would spread this feast out next to my baloney sandwich.

Then they would say to me, “Say, Why don’t we put it all together, and share” . I would look down at my meager offering and reply, “No, I couldn’t do that! All I have is this sandwich”

But they would insist, “O come on, we all love baloney sandwiches, and we have plenty here. We’ll put it all together and there would be enough for everyone” .

So I would finally agreed and place my baloney sandwich with the rest, with a certain reluctance but also with an eye on that fried chicken.

One could say that I came to the picnic as a pauper and ended up eating like a king.

As Bob Benson points out:

One day it dawned on me that God had been saying just that sort of thing to me. “Why don’t you take what you have and what you are, and I will take what I have and what I am, and we will share it together.” I began to see that when I put what I had and was and am and hope to be with what he is, I had stumbled upon a bargain of a lifetime. (2)

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I think of that when I confront the Gospel this morning when Jesus talks of eating his flesh and drinking of his blood. What this passage is saying to me metaphorically is that Jesus is willing to offer to us all that he is and all that he has and let us share in it. I know that in my life I don’t have enough love or faith or grace or mercy, but Jesus does. He has all of these in abundance and he is saying, “Let’s put it all together – what you have and what I have – and in that way we can be fully alive together” . It is the bargain of a lifetime.

Jesus uses the word abide in this passage, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them”.

“Abide” denote a very deep kind of union. We can say, “these people abide together.” When people abide, their lives are so intertwined that you can’t think of the one without the other. This is often referred to as “abiding” love.

It is this kind of “mutually indwelling” that Jesus is referring to. We can experience that kind of abiding love here on earth with one another but it is the true abiding love with God that we ultimately desire. That is the kind of love that we yearn for all of our lives. St. Augustine said, “I am restless until I find my rest in you, O God.” This is the Abiding love that is for ever. And Jesus is offering to us if we can put our lives together with his.

There is a story written about Henry Francis Lyte

As the story goes, it was on Sunday morning in 1827 that  Henry Francis Lyte, who was rector of church in the northern part of Scotland, preached what was to be his last sermon and did the communion service for what was to be the last time. At this time his health had broken. The doctor has assured him that if he would go to the French Riviera with its warm sunshine there might be a possibility he would regain his health.

The congregation, with a deep sense of prayer and great sense of hope, came together in the church for the final service. When it was finished, the plan was that Dr. Lyte was to walk through the churchyard, and down a hill to a waiting small boat that was to take him to a larger ship. As he went away he waved his handkerchief to the congregation and they in turn waved theirs to him. They stood in the churchyard and waved at the man that they hoped would soon return to them in good health.

The ship stopped the first night in northern France. The tourists on the ship decided they would like to see a bit of the country, so they all went to their rooms in a little inn.

When morning came it was their plan to have breakfast together. When they sat down for breakfast everyone was there except Henry Lyte. They didn’t know what to make of it, though they knew Dr. Lyte was not well. They sent someone to his room to call him, but there was no response, so the innkeeper was called and he came and hurriedly unlocked the door. Inside the room, stretched across the bed, was the body of Henry Francis Lyte. In his hand was a piece of paper upon which he had written some words, words from the poetic mind of this beloved minister. This is what he had written:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, 0 abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away
Change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not, abide with me.(3)

O course this poem was eventually put to music and has become a most beloved hymn affecting the lives of many people through the years. Why has it become so popular? Because it speaks to the longing of our souls for this kind of deep and enduring relationship with God.

*

I believe that it is this kind of the most intimate abiding relationship that Jesus meant in the words “eating my flesh and drinking my blood” . It meant internalizing the way of Christ so that his life and our lives are integrally intertwined so that you cannot think of one without the other.

Bob Benson put it well when he said:

When I think of how little I bring, and how much he brings and invites me to share, I know that I should be shouting from the housetops, but I am so filled with awe and wonder that I can hardly speak….. He is saying “Everything that I possess is available to you. Everything that I am and can be to a person, I will be to you…..It amuses me to see somebody running along through life hanging on to their dumb bag with the stale baloney sandwich in it saying, “God’s not going to get my sandwich! No sirree, this is mine!….You have been invited to something better, you know. You have been invited to share in the very being of God”(4)

That’s my experience of the Eucharist. I come to the offertory with so little . It is a meager offering, my broken and inadequate life, and sometimes I am reluctant to even give that up. But I offer it with the bread and the wine that is brought forward. Then in the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, our offering is united with Christ’s offering. In communion our lives are given back to us but this time I am aware that my life is united together with Christ. We share life together. Where my offering is meager, Christ’s is more than enough. Where I am broken, Christ has healing. Where I am inadequate, Christ’s Grace and Love is sufficient. Transformation has happened. My life has a greater meaning than I could ever have imagined because I actually share the being of God

To me, that is the bargain of a lifetime.

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(1) See you at the house – The stories Bob Benson used to Tell selected and edited by R. Benson, 1986, A Solitude and Celebration Press Book published by Generous Nashville, Tenn

(2) See you at the house – The stories Bob Benson used to Tell p.68

(3) based on a story told by United Methodist Bishop Kenneth Goodson at Palmer Preaching Week, Glendale, CA. and reported in Pulpit Resource Vol 10, No 2 1982 Glendon Harris, Publisher and Editor

(4) See you at the house – The stories Bob Benson used to Tell p.68-69

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