St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
John 6:51-58
You may recall a couple months ago
when we ended our Year of the Bible
with a gameshow called
“Fr. Lonnie’s Bible Bonkers.”
And you may further recall
that the second place prize
would be the opportunity
to choose any song in the whole wide world,
and I would have to weave those lyrics
into a sermon on an upcoming Sunday.
Well, unfortunately for us all,
today is that day.
Listen closely, my friends,
for at some point in the next few minutes
you will hear reference to Rick James’ 1981 single hit . . .
“Super Freak.”
June Dollar and Brian Arsenault,
this one’s for you.
And may God have mercy on your souls.
* * *
But what I really want to talk about today . . .
is vision.
Several months ago
during our Parish Meeting back in February,
I spoke to you about vision.
Specifically,
I spoke about the prophet Habakkuk . . .
a prophet who felt rudderless,
who was visionless . . .
a prophet who was sitting to the side and asking,
“Lord, what are we supposed to do?
Who are we supposed to be?
Lord, where do we go next?!”
And out of nowhere,
like a bolt of lightning from the sky,
God says:
“Write the vision!”
“Write the vision, Habakkuk!!
Write the vision!
Make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time.
“Write the vision, Habakkuk!!
Write the vision!”
And I spoke about how
it is time for us as a church
to join with God
and write the vision for St. John’s
and the many new years
that lie ahead.
* * *
More on that in a minute,
but first, let’s talk about Jesus
because today,
Jesus lays out his own vision,
and y’all . . . it’s a weird one.
Carb days.
Jesus said,
“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.”
As visions and marketing plans go,
this one is pretty terrible.
That’s why it says,
“The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,
‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’”
They’re grossed out!
It’s like that one guy on TikTok and Instagram who says,
“Eeeew, brother, eeeew. What’s that brother?”
Or, in the paraphrased words of Rick James,
it’s like they’re all thinking,
“He’s a very nasty guy . . .
the kind you don’t take home to mother.
He’s the kind of guy you read about.
That guy is pretty wild now.
He’s a super freak,
super freak
He’s super-freaky.”
But Jesus takes it even further!!
“Very truly, I tell you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink his blood,
you have no life in you.
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood
abide in me,
and I in them.
Chew,
chomp,
guzzle,
gnaw,
ruminate,
devour.
Like animals feeding.
Like a rodent going and going and going.
Like a camel or a cow chewing the cud.
Like a lion tearing the meat and gulping it down.
Hook line and sinker
‘til you have it in your bones
and your very DNA.
That’s Jesus’ vision.
It’s a strange one.
It makes you think.
But in the end, the message is clear:
“You need me,
and I have come to be
the very life you live.”
* * *
Your new rector is not so new anymore.
Our honeymoon is long over.
Our new car smell has finally worn off.
We stand on the precipice of our 200th anniversary
with the hope of hundreds more years still to come.
And—most importantly—
there is a wide
and hungry
and hurting world
just waiting out there
for St. John’s Episcopal Church
in Tallahassee, Florida
to awaken and arise—
as the sleeping giant that it is—
and to grab hold to its vision
of God’s love, healing, inclusion, and grace
and to speak those things into existence
in ways large and small
old and new
because if we don’t
I don’t know who will.
God has given us something beautiful here
in the way that we believe and talk at St. John’s . . .
in the way that we live and love . . .
something winsome and compelling . . .
something unique and special . . .
something different from what the world is peddling
and I don’t think we even have to try that hard
to offer it to the world . . .
but we do need a vision.
To that end,
I want to invite you to something.
On Sunday, September 15
—just about a month from now—
we here at St. John’s
will have a parish-wide Visioning Day.
It’ll take place after the 10 a.m. service.
We’ll have a potluck lunch together—
we’ll provide the fried chicken,
you provide the desserts and sides—
and then we’ll have some conversations around our tables
about what makes St. John’s unique and special now
and about the world God wishes us to build
as we look into the future.
Some of you were here in years past
when St. John’s had things like Visioning the Vineyard.
It won’t be exactly like that.
Visioning the Vineyard was more about
creating a strategic plan . . .
coming up with things to do.
This is not that.
Before we can come up with things to do,
we first have to discern who we are
and who we will be as the future unfolds.
And so, during our conversations
on Visioning Day,
we’ll ask things like:
“If someone were to ask you
to tell them about your church—
what makes it special,
what keeps you going back,
why you go at all—
what would you say?”
“And looking to the future,
in this divided, frantic, and angry culture,
what is the one ‘message’ only we can convey?
What is the world only we can shape?
What is the message God is waiting for us
to write on Habakkuk’s tablets . . .
to fling into the world
like a beacon in the night?”
We won’t end the day
with a nice tidy little vision statement,
but all that we talk about
and dream and hope and believe
will be captured
and taken to the next step
where the Vestry and others among you
can chew on it,
chomp,
gnaw,
ruminate on it
and pray over it with God
to deliver back
a vision for our coming days.
No priest—including me—
can ever or should ever
come up with the vision
by himself or herself.
Your vestry cannot
and should not
come up with it by themselves.
Only we
can discern who we are
and where God is taking us next . . .
so we can invite others
to come along with us.
And besides,
there will be fried chicken!
So come on.
Like I said, mark your calendars:
September 15.
It is about a month from now.
* * *
I will conclude with this.
It was a joy last night
to celebrate Fr. Hugh’s 45th anniversary of ordination.
And last week,
we celebrated my second year with you.
What I did not mention
is that this also marks
the 18th anniversary
of my own ordination to the priesthood.
I am now about two-thirds of the way
through my vocation.
Pension fund, here I come.
But more than that,
I want you to know something.
In those eighteen years,
I have been part of many churches.
I have seen a lot of churches.
I know a lot of churches.
And this one—
this one is special.
Not because of any one person.
Not because of any one program.
Not because we always get it right.
This place is special
because of who God is—
and because of the love,
the healing,
the inclusion,
and the grace
that we dare to offer in God’s name.
Sometimes we get it right.
Sometimes we do not.
But the journey is worth it.
And we are on it—together.
And y’all—
this world is starving for that kind of witness.
Hungry for it.
Desperate for it.
And most don’t even know it yet.
So once again,
in the life of this beloved parish,
it is time.
Time to write the vision.
Time to make it plain.
Time to lift it high
like bread in the hands of the Savior
and say,
“This is who we are.
This is what we’re for.
This is the love we long to share.”
So come.
Mark your calendar.
Bring your sides and your stories.
Because on September 15,
we will gather—
to gnaw,
to chomp,
to chew
on fried chicken
and on the Living Word of God.
And by God’s grace,
we will come to know who we are—
because we will know,
deep in our bones,
that we are his.
Amen.