Sermon (19 August)

1 Kings 2.10-12; 3.3-14

Ephesians 5.15-20

John 6.51-58

About 15 years ago I was traveling through Europe with some friends. We had spent a day in some Turkish baths in Budapest – lovely – and decided to go see some more of the city in the afternoon, hiking up the Gellert mountain.  Being somewhat intelligent and terribly frugal, we stopped at the little girls’ room before leaving the baths. Even the bathrooms were lovely – mosaics in the tiled walls, fountain sink, very private stalls with floor to ceiling coverage. Quite dignified and classy.

So, we went and did what we were there to do. And then came the hitch in our plans for the day. The stall that I was in had decided it liked me – the latch on the door malfunctioned and became stuck. So there I was – trapped – in a small room with a toilet. Now, in our normal North American public washroom set up, one could just crawl under the stall wall. However, floor to ceiling tiled walls… proper door with handle… I was trapped in a 2.4x4foot box, in 30 degree temperatures. If I hadn’t been claustrophobic before, I certainly was afterwards!

My friends and I tried everything to get me out of there – kicking the door from both sides (fail), dismantling the lock mechanism (fail), my friends went as far as dismantling another stall’s lock to try and see how it worked (also pointless). So they went out to get help. Well, language was a bit of a problem, and with gender boundaries were still very heavily guarded, especially with tourists in a Turkish bath, the maintenance people were more than a bit hesitant to come into the ladies’. Finally, however, one of my friends literally dragged one maintenance guy into the room enough that he understood both the problem of the locked door, and the desperation of the person trapped within the stall.  Long story short, 20 minutes later the door was opened and I was freed, thanks to 7 Hungarians and a crow bar. 

The experience of being trapped is NOT a good one. While my being trapped was temporary, I was in no immediate danger, etc., it’s the type of thing that stays with you long after you’ve been freed – to this day I check for an escape route every time I need to use the facilities.  It does seem a little comical, but there is no way I want to experience that again.

Being trapped is something that can happen to anyone at any time – there were three stalls in that bathroom; I just happened to get into the stall with the latch that had been functioning fine until that use.  It was just a fluke; it could have happened to any of my friends or any of the other folks there. Being trapped is also something that we may not realise until we’re well into the situation – I had been trapped in the stall with no concerns until I wanted to leave.  Being trapped sometimes means denying the obvious –there was a moment of blissful ignorance of jiggling that door handle when I was sure that I had just forgotten how to open a door, and so I kept jiggling the knob and turning the lock over and over again – it seems silly, but that thought was a preferable to being trapped.  And then, of course, there’s the feeling of panic and helplessness – I was trapped and there was nothing I could do about it. All I could do was sit down and wait, and try to remain calm.

Being trapped is not fun. It’s not something anyone would ever WAT to do. And yet, people get trapped all the time.

Being trapped doesn’t have to be just a physical thing – for my example today I’ve used that stall.  But the trap that we can all get into is the trap of earthly understanding.  And the readings today are reminding us that we do get trapped, and challenging us to break free.  Earthly understanding will not bring us true freedom; it can change and bend and adapt and even be wrong.  It is the understanding of God that will truly set us free.

So let’s consider this earthly understanding – it can happen to anyone, at any time.  We’re all encouraged to be caught up in the goings-on of world around us, to engage with the ever-changing fashion, to fit in and be popular. We sometimes don’t even realise that we are trapped in those earthly concerns until it’s too late to do anything about it – we see people all the time get caught up in buying things they don’t need because of an enticing advertisement, or doing things that contradict their faith because of peer pressure.  We also find new and exciting ways to deny that what we are doing is a trapping – we seek out the loopholes and grant ourselves arbitrary permission so that we don’t have to really consider our behaviour as something negative, so that we justify what we are doing as righteous.  I recently heard one person say that the book they were reading (some 50 Shades of smutty) was just to know how to counter the evil in the world... right.  And sometimes, when we spend some time reflecting and praying, we will recognise that we have become trapped. We are caught in earthly ways and the earthly thinking, based only on how we understand the earthly reality around us, and there is nothing we can do by ourselves to get out of that trap. Because there is nothing that we have been doing that glorifies God. There is nothing that we have been doing that transcends our very limited earthly trap.  And the more we think on it, the smaller and smaller that trap seems.

I know I’ve been there.  I’m willing to suggest that we’ve all been there.  And I do so because this is not something new – if it were, we wouldn’t be receiving guidance from the scriptures on this very topic.

Solomon today shows us that when we focus on God, we will be rewarded. He demonstrates that when we put our desire into serving God, that we will be enabled and empowered to complete that service within the context of the world, without becoming trapped.  Solomon knows that governing the people is a difficult task.  He knows that riches and treasurers could make things seem easier – foreign trade, economic growth, negotiations, etc. But instead of these things, Solomon asks God for wisdom and understanding. He knows that for his governance to be effective and faithful it must look beyond those trappings.  And so God grants him his request, and also grants him some riches and treasures so that the earthly practicalities of his Godly-understood governance will be easier for him.

Paul reminds the community at Ephesus of the same benefit of focus.  “Be careful how you live.” He says.  Don’t be foolish and easily distracted by shiny objects and temporary amusements.  Be wise, make the most of your time here on earth to focus on God and to help others focus on God. 

Jesus too is trying to remind his community that they are trapped into earthly thinking, into spiritual ruts that are not celebrating true life in and through the power of God.  These people, his own home community from his youth, are trapped.  They are taking things literally and out of context.  When Jesus speaks, he is offering them eternal life through the living bread of heaven; the people, however, are hearing him offer them earthly things which are unpalatable and will spoil.  They do not hear the promise of salvation given through the metaphor; they are trapped into hearing an earthly meal plan. These are the people that Jesus has come to save, and he finds them trapped.  He finds them unaware that they are trapped – they are Jews, following the written law without giving it much consideration.  They go so far as to deny their trapping, by denying Jesus.  It’s as though they are saying “We’re doing what was written down, what more do we need? Your words are confusing us Jesus, in a way that the written law is seeming more clear than ever. It’s easier for us to just follow the written law – it’s what everyone else is doing, after all!”  And so Jesus sees this trap – he recognises that his own people are stuck in earthly ways.

Jesus’ words spoke to his people then, and they speak to us - his people – now.

Jesus’ words are a promise to all that will hear them, all that will believe them.  He is promising the gift of true freedom whenever they, WE, wish to receive it. He is promising that we can receive the very essence of his divine nature, the assuredness of the eternal life that he is offering to us, whenever we are wanting to receive it.  He is foretelling his own sacrifice, his own death and resurrection, into that promise. “Break free from your earthly trapping” he invites us. “Come and take what I am willing to give to you and for you – come and receive a love so perfect that nothing on this earth can hold it back – even earthly life itself.” Jesus is telling his people, then and now, that he will give up everything he has - including his life – that we might live outside the traps that the earth sets up for us.  Some people choose to stay within their traps, believing it better to maintain the life they have rather than face change.  But even a comfortable trap is still a trap.

And so we are encouraged to recognise when we are trapped, To move past our ignorance and cultural expectations and earthly thinking.  We are encouraged to ask for help and understanding.  And Jesus is promising to give us the strength that we need to avoid being helpless within those traps; he is giving us the hope that we need to break free from them and live in faith. And that freedom is greater than anything the earth has to offer.