Love Under Pressure: Lift Our Eyes

Watching someone discover living water fills Jesus in a way that bread cannot. Lifting our eyes and offering the love of Jesus to others fills us in a way the most delicious bread never can. Not even those cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster. Nope. Not that soft buttery bread that we dip in the dried tomato olive oil that drips down our cheeks. Not even that or any cheese bread. All you gotta do is put cheese and bread together, and it's amazing, but none of that even compares. You're hungry now. Right? K. Back to the bible. Back to the bible. Then Jesus says the words that sit at the heart of this passage. He tells the disciples, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. [00:52:04] (70 seconds)  #LivingWaterOverBread

Here's what we know. Love under pressure lifts its eyes. Under pressure, it's easy to look down. It's easy to focus on survival. It's easy to keep our head down and just get through the day, but Jesus calls us to lift our vision, to lift our eyes, to look at the fields. God is already at work, and we get to be a part of it. [00:56:36] (37 seconds)  #LiftEyesUnderPressure

May we together learn to lift our eyes, to notice the people, to see the work of God unfolding all around us because when we do, we discover something beautiful. The work of God does not drain our souls. The work of God fills and nourishes our souls. For you, for me, when we agree to lift our eyes, we see the ways that God is at work, and we realize something that is most beautiful, seeing and serving, that is the food, that is the bread, if you will, that sustains us. And when we feast on that type of bread, then we are living in a way that god has called us to live. [00:57:35] (58 seconds)  #ServingIsSoulFood

Look up. See what God is doing because sometimes we become so focused on the task right in front of us that we miss the bigger movement of God unfolding all around us. The disciples were focused on lunch. Jesus was focused on transformation. Jesus was focused on lives being changed. Now many scholars believe that Jesus may have literally had his disciples all around him, and then literally he was pointing towards the fields at that moment because the Samaritan woman had already gone into town and the people were following her walking out in order to meet Jesus. Now imagine this, the crowd of villagers coming across the field and Jesus saying to the disciples, do you see all of them? Do you see the harvest is already happening? [00:53:22] (64 seconds)  #SeeTheHarvest

This connection is so awesome. Have I told you how cool the bible is lately? Now just go with me on this. If we step back and we look at the bigger picture of the gospel story, remember just a few weeks ago in our Lenten journey, we followed Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, and he was hungry, and he was tempted. The tempter told him to turn the stones into bread, and Jesus responded, man shall not live on bread alone. Now here in John's gospel, we see what that looks like lived out in everyday life. Jesus is nourished by participating in the work of God. See that connection? Is that not the coolest thing? [00:51:15] (49 seconds)  #NourishedByMission

Jesus says something that reminds us how god's work unfolds across time. One sows, another reaps. In other words, the work of God is bigger than any one moment. It's bigger than any one person. It's bigger than any one pastor. Someone plants a seed, someone else waters it. Someone else witnesses the harvest, and that is how the kingdom of God grows. [00:54:26] (34 seconds)  #OneSowsAnotherReaps

Think about the people who planted the seeds of faith in your life, in my life, in our life, could be our parents, grandparents, or teachers, or friends, or Sunday school teachers, or coaches, people who showed us what faith looked like in everyday life. Someone planted those seeds and now we are a part of that harvest. Look around. Look around. You are a part of that harvest. So lift up your eyes. That is our invitation for today, to lift our eyes, to notice the people around us, to see where God is already moving because the harvest doesn't always look all that dramatic. [00:55:00] (66 seconds)  #WeAreTheHarvest

Sometimes the harvest looks like a conversation. Sometimes it looks like a simple invitation. Sometimes it looks like a person asking a spiritual question for the very first time. Sometimes it looks like a neighbor who just needs someone to see them. And sometimes it looks like a woman at a well who becomes the first evangelist that Jesus sends. [00:56:06] (29 seconds)  #ConversationsAreHarvest