Get Real

In the classic film, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” there is a wonderful scene in which ten-year-old Elliot Taylor explains to his brother’s friends how it is that they plan to get E.T. back to his spaceship. One of them, named “Greg,” interrupts saying, “Couldn’t he just beam up?” With more than a little disdain, Elliot replies, “This is reality, Greg!” Little children don’t know what’s real or unreal. They haven’t yet developed a cogent epistemology (logic of knowing) or ontology (logic of being), as a philosopher might say. They don’t know what’s real, whereas adults do—and adults are wrong according to Jesus, for you must become as a little child to enter the Kingdom. When I was a youth pastor, we’d take 150 high school kids to camp every year, and at the end of camp, we’d have a “sharing time.” Kids would share about new Faith or thoughts of suicide that were now squelched by Hope or memories of abuse enlightened by Grace. There would be tears, hugs, and laughter—love incarnate. And invariably, a middle-aged volunteer counselor—God bless them—would stand up and say, “This is wonderful, but let me challenge you: ‘What difference will your faith make back in the real world?’” I sympathized with the question, but I always wondered, “What’s “the real world”? Mortgages, taxes, responsibilities?” To Moses, and speaking from a burning bush, God says, “I Am who I Am.” And, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” And, “Say this to the people of Israel, YHWH (Yahweh).” God’s name means something like “I Am that I Am” or “I Am ‘amness’” or, “I Am I Am.” By Jesus’ day, “I Am,” (“ego eimi” in Greek) had become a personal name for God, the Uncaused Cause, the Ground of All Being. Even physicists say that there’s something more real than real beyond the Universe (the Big Bang) and that there’s something more real than real inside of you (consciousness or “spirit”). And these two things seem to be separated from each other, for we keep asking the questions “What’s real? How would I know what’s real?” and “How do I become real?” It’s as if I have been exiled from my own garden—who it is that I am. Or perhaps, “I Am that I Am” has somehow been fragmented into billions of pieces. John Nash was one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, but he struggled with mental illness. At one point in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” his wife looks him in the eye and says, “You want to know what’s real? This is real,” as she strokes his face and places his hand upon her heart. “Maybe the part that knows the waking from the dream—maybe it isn’t here,” she says as she puts her hand to his head. “Maybe it’s here,” as she places her hand on his heart. John chapter six is what I call a “sign sandwich.” It’s the fourth of John’s seven signs, and it raises the question, “What’s real?” John 6:1-14 is all about multiplying bread (one side of the sandwich). “Where will we buy bread to feed all these people?” Philip says, “Get real, Jesus!” (OK I’m paraphrasing), and Andrew basically says the same thing, but points Jesus to a little boy with five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus makes a banquet. Liberal theologians like to suggest that perhaps there was no “miracle,” but that people were just motivated by the little boy’s example to share what they had. If you were there that day, I’m sure you’d wonder: “Did that just happen? What’s real?” John 6:15-21: Jesus walks on the raging sea. Conservative theologians love this. When the disciples call out to Him, He answers, “ego eimi, I Am.” That answers one question: Jesus is entirely capable of multiplying fish and loaves. And yet that raises other questions like: “Why did Jesus take that little boy’s lunch? Why didn’t He walk on the water for the crowd to see? Why don’t we walk on water (Aren’t we to do ‘greater works than these’?) And why did Jesus and John act like this was no big deal?” It’s as if we just needed to know that he walks on the raging sea (demons, death, and hell) at 3 a.m. Get real. As I shared last time, I’ve heard the voice of the Evil One at 3 a.m. But I’ve also witnessed Jesus destroying the works of the Evil One at 3 a.m . . . And I’ve wondered, “Jesus, why don’t you do this when and where the crowd would see?” It might help them believe that God exists; but it might not help them want to share their lunch because they believe... in Love. John 6:22-58 is all about bread (the other side of the sandwich). After Jesus feeds the 5000, the crowd tries to take Him by force and make Him king. Jesus runs away, but then He comes to His disciples, walking on the sea. In the morning, the crowd finds Him again. And He teaches about the bread, saying, “I am (ego eimi) the bread of life.” At the end of the chapter, almost all of the crowd leaves. Soon they’ll chant “crucify,” then take His life on a tree in a garden, as they break Him into billions of pieces—fragments of “I Am” trapped in vessels of “I Am Not.” In both John 6:11 (the first half of the sandwich) and in John 6:23 (the second half of the sandwich), John makes a really big deal out of the fact that when Jesus took the bread and multiplied it, He gave “thanks.” That’s eucharisteo in Greek; it’s where we get our word “Eucharist.” For what did He give such thanks? I don’t think it was bread. In 6:27, Jesus calls it, “the food that is being lost.” Which means that the fragments that the disciples were to gather into 12 baskets weren’t just fragments of bread but fragments of bread that were also something else... like maybe His body. It wasn’t bread, crowds, or spectacle for which He was so exceedingly grateful. Those things were actually the temptations of the devil, which He formerly had resisted in the wilderness. I suspect that many of you, like me, allow yourself to be tempted by the devil at 3 a.m., for you haven’t multiplied much bread, drawn a crowd preaching the Gospel, or walked on water. And so, you wonder, “What must I do to be working the works of God?” I suspect that Jesus gave thanks to God the Father that day, NOT so much for the bread, the crowd, or the spectacle, BUT for the fact that the little boy shared his lunch— not because he had to but because he wanted to. Jesus thanked God for the Will of God in that little boy. Jesus is the Free Will of God in flesh. Years ago, my infant daughter stood on my lap in her diapers as I fed her with goldfish crackers. Suddenly she stopped, looked at me, reached into her mouth, pulled out a glob of chewed-up goldfish crackers, put them in my mouth, and then smiled. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with wonder, gratitude, and joy, for I realized that my love was returning to me through this little bag of dust that had become conscious of me not as a thing but a person. She loved me. She can never do better than that. The little boy must’ve overheard the conversation between Jesus and His disciples. So, as Philip says, “It’s impossible. I’ve done the math. Get real!” —this boy must’ve been pulling on Andrew’s sleeve, saying, “You can have my lunch! Here’s my lunch!” He’s a little kid; he didn’t do the math; his right hand didn’t know what his left hand was doing; he doesn’t have to do this; he wants to do this. Andrew says, “Well Jesus, there’s this kid.” Jesus looks and thinks, “There it is: that for which I will sacrifice my life. There it is: My love returning to me through this little vessel of clay.” It was ultimate reality that walked on the raging sea at 3 a.m., and it was ultimate reality that said, “You can have my lunch!” through a little bag of dust pulling on Andrew’s sleeve. God is Love, which means that all real Love is God. You can’t do better than that. Some of you listen to the voice of the accuser at 3 a.m. as he tells you, “You’ve failed at providing bread; you’ll never draw a crowd; you’ve done no spectacular miracles.” And so, you cry out, “What must I do to be working the works of God?” And . . . I bet you’re already doing it. You care for your grandkids because you want to do so; you stick it out in a painful marriage because you’ve already given it to Jesus; you are kind to a grumpy neighbor. You’re doing it; you’re getting real. On the other hand, if you have all prophetic powers, understand all mysteries, and deliver your body to be burned, but have not love, you are nothing; you are not real; you are your own worst nightmare. John 6:28, “They said to him, ‘What must we do to be working the works of God?” What a strange question. Have you ever asked that question? I have. Have I forgotten that I am the work of God? It is who it is that I am. And anything else is a nightmare. John 6:29, “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe (trust) in him whom he has sent.” It’s not my work; it’s the work of God. And Jesus is, literally, the will and the work of God. Faith in me is Jesus willing and working in me. How did he get into me and you and that little boy? Love, breathed into that boy, must’ve recognized Love in the Word that he heard. And so, he loved as he had been loved; he shared his lunch. He shared his bread with Jesus, for he knew that Jesus had already shared Himself with him. And how did Jesus get into you and me? The same way. He took bread and broke it, saying, “This is my body given to you.” Ultimate Reality (ontology) hangs on the tree in the middle of the garden. I could know Him (epistemology) as a thing (take His life), and all reality would die. Or I could allow Him to know me (give his life) for he is a person, and everything would live. At His table, we confess that we have all done the first and profess that He is always doing the second. And so, “We love because He (has always) first loved us,” writes John. “God is Love.” “This is reality, Greg.” This is reality, Children of God. The adults want to dissect E.T. (and Jesus). But Eliot (like all little children) knows because he is known. You must become like Eliot to enter the Kingdom. The adults at camp used to ask the campers, “What difference will your faith make in the real world?” And it turns out that Love is using everything in this false world to create faith, for faith in Love makes everything real. You can’t do better than that. Get Real.