2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33
Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2
John 6:35, 41-51

How generous are you? Does it depend on the day or the mood you're in? Does it depend on what you are being asked to share? I like to think of myself as a generous person, but ask me to share my french fries and all thoughts of generosity fly out the window. I inexplicably revert to my three-year-old self who only wants to say, "MINE! MINE! MINE!"

As members of the Judeo-Christian faith, we believe that generosity is a good trait. We strive for it in our efforts to be faithful people and we encourage it in children and people who are new to the faith. We place this priority on generosity because we believe that it is a core characteristic of who our God is. And in our efforts to lead a good Christian life, we believe that we are to be imitators of God in this characteristic.

This has been true since the beginning of our faith tradition. The Hebrew people held the belief that God's generosity was a very important characteristic. Many of their stories were told to demonstrate this point to all who would be followers of their God.

One of the main stories that they told to reinforce this belief was of God's miraculous provisions for them during their long journey through the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land. Along the way on that journey, when food was not to be found and all that had been brought with them from Egypt had long since been used up, God provided the people with bread, manna from heaven. And not only did God provide enough so that everyone was able to eat ( a generous enough act) but everyone was able to eat until each was filled. How could this be seen as anything but a sign of God's abundant generosity?

This story, therefore, held a very special place in Jewish religious life. And we can be sure that it had been told and re-told many times by the time of Jesus. So, can you even imagine the shock and offense those listening probably felt upon hearing Jesus' claim: "I am the Bread of LIfe"? With this statement he appropriated the name of God from the days of old, "I AM." and at the same time he equated himself with the life-saving provisions that the generous "I AM" had provided for their ancestors on their journey through the wilderness.

It is no wonder then that the religious leaders wonder out loud to themselves and all who will listen about the parentage of such a person. We probably all have met people before who have made statements or given commands when we didn't think they had the right to do so. In these situations, someone may exclaim, "Who does he think he is? God?" And that's exactly what the Jews are asking: "Who does this Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, think he is? God?"

Jesus' answer? "Yes."

Quite a bold statement. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He goes on to claim that that whole manna feeding in the desert wasn't that great of a thing. The proof? Well the people who ate it went on to die! It was just a temporary fix for a physical need.

Now Jesus has the people's attention! The religious leaders can't believe that this man, who's parents are well known in the community, is making such outrageous statements. This mere human is claiming to be God and to offer provisions better than the ones that their God offered them in the past!

But this is where the religious leaders, and even Jesus' own disciples, get off track. Jesus isn't trying to tell them that he is better or different from the God that provided the manna to their ancestors. He is trying to tell them that their understanding of who God is is too narrow. He is trying to shake them from their habit of expecting God only to provide for their physical needs. He is trying to tell them that God, through Jesus, also wants to provide for their spiritual needs.

It's so much easier to focus on the physical needs - because we know when those are met. Provisions for spiritual needs are harder to identify and to quantify. But Jesus is trying to get the listeners to understand that focusing on only the physical needs is short-sighted. Their physical needs will one day end, but their spiritual needs will continue into eternal life.

What are the fruits of the Spirit that Paul extols to the new Christians in Galatians? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. God wants to give us provisions to allow us to flourish in these and other spiritual ways just like God wants to provide food, clothing, and shelter so that we can flourish physically.

Let us boldly petition God to meet all of our needs - those we can see and measure as well as those inner needs which can't be measured - by joining together in singing the first verse of our hymn together.

v. 1: Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren; I am weak, but Thou art mighty; Hold me with Thy powerful hand; Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, Feed me till I want no more, Feed me till I want no more.

I have to admit that when I pray for God to provide for me, I often am praying (sometimes secretly and other times not so secretly) for God to make my life easier. I want provisions that will make me happy, healthy, financially secure, and able to weather any storm. I think we all wish for provisions that will allow us to live in such a way.

That is what the early Christians in Ephesus wanted as well. But they were struggling. They were facing discrimination, not only from the pagan Roman authorities, but also from the Jewish religious community who didn't think that these Christ-followers were true to the faith of the Hebrew God.

And their struggles weren't limited to external sources. They were having a hard time figuring out how to be a worshipping community together. They were quarreling over issues amongst themselves and they wondered how they could claim to receive this Bread of Heaven that Jesus talked about and still have these day-to-day problems.

Paul understood the new Christians' struggles and wanted to help them navigate the strange new waters in which they found themselves. So he gave some very practical advice to the people. We find one such list of practical advice in our passage from Ephesians this morning. Here, Paul is offering a list of do's and don'ts.

With this list Paul is trying to help the people to understand that just because they are followers of Christ, it doesn't mean that all of their problems will disappear. They are human. They are trying to build a new community with other humans. Problems are bound to arise. We can see that Paul understands this when we read his advice in v. 26 where Paul says, "Be angry." That is how our English translations put it. In the original Greek, the phrase has the feeling of: "Be angry, if you must...."

"Be angry, if you must." Paul is acknowledging that anger is inevitable. Sometimes anger can even be helpful. Anger is a natural emotion. God was said to have been angry many times in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures.

"Be angry, if you must..," Paul says. But he goes on to say, "But do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger." Don't let anger sit there and fester. Don't let it make you act irrationally. Rather, acknowledge it. Face it - either on your own or, if possible, with the person with whom you are angry. And then, resolve it.

That sounds good doesn't it. And the way Paul puts it makes it even sound like it should be relatively easy and straight-forward. But it is anything but. How many of us have acknowledged our anger, and maybe even have had a chance to talk it through with the person we were angry with, and, thinking it has all be resolved have gone on with our lives only to discover at some point in the future that we are still angry about that issue? Maybe that person does something else to upset us and in confronting that person we bring up not only the new offense but also that old one that we thought we had resolved.

Anger is real and so is our propensity to hold a grudge. And anger that arises from a deep sense of hurt is the hardest to forgive and let go of.

But Paul says that to be a Christ-follower is to forgive "as God in Christ has forgiven you." This is where we need the Bread of Heaven to help us. Because forgiving others is a hard business. Letting go of anger takes a lot of work.

Paul reminds us that God forgives us again and again. No matter how often we turn away from God and brake the covenant that God offers us, God assures us that God will remain steadfast in love for us. Through this continual offering of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, God offers us the provisions we need to be able to give and receive forgiveness from others.

King David knew first-hand God's generous forgiving power. During his time as king, he had had ample opportunities to test God's patience and steadfast love. But God continued to guide David and to provide for him even into his old age.

In our passage from 2 Samuel for this morning, we read just the very end of the story of Absalom's failed attempt to overthrow his father, David. I think we all can agree that David would have been justified in calling for Absalom's death in the face of such an act of treason against his own father. But David did not do that.

Having experienced the forgiving love of God himself, David extended his forgiving love toward his son. He asked his military men to have favor upon his son and to not kill him in battle. And when David receives news that some of his men did not follow his order and killed Absalom when they had the chance, David weeps for this son who was ready to kill him. David knew God as both his protector from that horrible end as well as the healing power that allowed him to offer Absalom forgiveness.

I pray that none of us ever face such a treason in our own lives. But I know that we all will face situations in which we may be hurt emotionally or physically. God offers us, as God offered to David, healing and protection Let us join together in asking God to provide for us in this way by singing the second verse of our hymn for this morning.

v. 2: Open now thy crystal fountain, whence the healing stream doth flow; Let the fire and cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey through; Strong deliverer, strong deliverer, Be Thou still my strength and shield, Be Thou still my strength and shield.

Forgiving as God in Christ forgives us brings healing. That is what Paul wants the people of Ephesus to understand. That is what Paul's message is trying to tell us today.

The Greek word that Paul uses in verse 32 when he tells the people to "forgive" as God forgives comes from the same root as the word "favor." The act of forgiveness is a favor - not only to the one who has committed a wrong, but also to the one who has been wronged. This act helps the one who is offering forgiveness to let go of the hurt and the anger that the wrongful act as brought.

This favor in no way condones the act or dismisses the wrongfulness of it. Instead, the favor of forgiveness says: I know that that act was wrong but I am no longer going to let the act hurt me or affect my decisions or actions.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could make up our minds to extend this favor to ourselves and to the offender and then go on our way? Forgiveness takes time; sometimes a short while and other times many, many years - as was the case for Amir, the narrator of the story in the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

In this story, Amir is a grown man who is married and living in the East Bay of San Francisco. He is relating the long journey that brought him from Afghanistan, where he was born and raised for 18 years, to the United States. His mother died in childbirth and his father always felt distant from him - no matter how Amir tried to reach out to him.

Amir and his father had house servants - a man, who Amir's father's had known for many, many years, and that man's son Hassan. Hassan's mother had run away shortly after the birth of her son. Amir and Hassan had grown up together almost as brothers but not completely because of the difference in their ethnic background.

Amir had always felt that his own father seemed nicer and more attentive to Hassan than he was to Amir, his own son. Several years after his father's death, Amir learned why. While on a trip to Pakistan to visit an old family friend who was dying, Amir learned that Hassan was really the son of Amir's father - they were in fact brothers.

Amir learns this after learning that Hassan and his wife have been killed by Taliban forces who have taken control of Afghanistan following the pull out of Russian forces. They were killed simply because they were considered to be of an inferior race. A similar fate no doubt awaits their son, Sohrab, who is residing in an orphanage in Kabul. Learning of this situation Amir feels he must act to save the boy. Amir risks his life to retrieve Hassan's son from the orphanage and finds a way to bring him back to the United States where he and his wife adopt him as their own son.

After returning to America with the boy, Amir one night learns about forgiveness quite unexpectedly. Here is how he describes it:

"Sometime in the middle of the night, I slid out of bed and went to Sohrab's room. I stood over him, looking down, and saw something protruding from under his pillow. I picked it up. Saw it was [the] Polaroid [from the old family friend], the one I had given to Sohrab the night we had sat by the Shah Faisal Mosque. The one of Hassan and Sohrab standing side by side, squinting in the light of the sun, and smiling like the world was a good and just place. I wondered how long Sohrab had lain in bed staring at the photo, turning it in his hands.

I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between two halves, [the family friend] had said [to me] in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of [my father's] guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. [My father's] other half, the unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in [my father]. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of his heart, [my father] had thought of as his true son.

I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

God wants to help our pain to gather its things so that it can slip away unannounced in the middle of the night. God generously offers us forgiveness and offers to fill us with the Bread of Heaven that will help us on this journey. God gives freely of God's self so that we might be able to give freely of ourselves - offering the favor of forgiveness not only to others but most especially to ourselves.

Then we will begin to know God's miraculous healing. Then our fears will begin to subside. Then we will gladly look forward to crossing to the other side of eternity where we will be able to sing unending songs of praise to our generously loving God.

May we all know the healing balm of God's forgiveness in our own lives so that we can join in singing songs of praises.

Amen.

Let us stand and invite God to help us on this eternal journey by singing the final verse of our hymn together:

v. 3: When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside; Death of death, and hells destruction, Land me safe on Canaan's side; Songs of praises, songs of praises I will ever give to Thee, I will ever give to Thee.

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