John 6:56-69 and
Ephesians 6:10-20
It’s
the last Sunday of August and we have come to our final serving of bread. This sermon series has been a challenge for
me: to preach for a whole month on just one section of text and just one
topic. I have to admit it has gone
better than I thought it would. If
nothing else, everyone here ought to remember what we have been talking about
in church. We have been talking about
(and eating) bread.
We
are in our final reading from John chapter six.
You will remember the setting.
The day before Jesus fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and two fish. He crossed the sea, walking on the water, and
the crowds followed him in boats. They
came looking for more bread, but Jesus challenged them to consider a different
kind of loaf. Not the barley loaf of
yesterday but the bread of life of tomorrow.
Jesus
then began a discourse on how he himself was this bread of life. Like manna he came down from heaven but
unlike manna those who eat him will never die.
People begin to be offended and ask questions. Rather than make things easier Jesus makes
them harder. He begins to use graphic
language about how folks need to eat his flesh and drink his blood for
life. He talks about rudely eating him,
chewing with the mouth open, and that this is the only way to eternal life.
Our
new material for this week shares the final reaction of the crowds to this
strange discourse. The disciples appear
to have had enough and say to Jesus “This teaching is difficult; who can accept
it?” I think at this point everyone is
in the same boat. The things Jesus says
are strange and challenging. His
teachings are offensive and they draw us out of our comfort zones. I am sure that at some point this month you
have probably thought something very similar; “This teaching is too hard!” I know I have thought that.
Once
again, instead of making things easier Jesus continues to spin a complicated
theological web. “You think this is
offensive?” he seems to say. “You ain’t
seen nothin’ yet! I am so much better
than manna that I don’t just come down from heaven but I am going to go back up
again!” That’s it, the last straw, and
the writer of the gospel of John tells us that because of this many of Jesus’
disciples turn back and no longer went about with him.
Jesus’
actions here in John chapter six fly in the face of what many consider to be
the most successful way to run a church.
Pastor Wallace Bubar in this week’s Christian Century illustrates it
wonderfully when he writes . . .
“What was Jesus
thinking? He had such a great following
before he spoke. He’d just fed 5,000
people, and they were ready to sign up to become disciples. This would’ve been the time to use his best
preaching material – toss out a few Beatitudes, or tell a couple of stories
about farmers or sheep. Jesus could have
had the biggest church in town.
But instead he
launched into a ridiculously long, convoluted discourse about eating his flesh
and drinking his blood, which – let’s face it – sounds creepy. And when he was confronted with raised
eyebrows and expressions of bewilderment and a barrage of questions, Jesus
didn’t let up but just kept getting more and more obscure.
No wonder his
followers started grumbling: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept
it?” Many turned away and went home,
never to be seen again.
And Jesus let them
go! He let them just wander off and made
no attempt to stop them. He didn’t say,
“Hey, hold on a second! Let me break it down for you.” He didn’t offer a Jesus for Dummies version
of things. Instead he made things
difficult. He left his followers with
their questions unanswered, apparently preferring to let them go off and
wrestle with those questions rather than give them easy answers or a
user-friendly faith."
As
a pastor, I have to admit, that I love that Jesus just lets folks go. Sometimes it feels like the only mark of a
successful pastor is growing the church and bringing folks in. Let me tell you, every single church wants to
grow. But that’s not the example that
Jesus sets. Jesus shows us that teaching
the gospel is more important than growing the church; and that if folks leave,
we shouldn’t feel compelled to chase after them.
I have always been
of the opinion that everyone is on their own faith journey. You can do it in my church or you can do it
in the church down the street. As one
friend of mine put it; the church has an open door policy: the front door is
certainly open, but the back door is open too!
People will move in and out of the community of faith. It is God who works in each person’s life to
determine these steps. As Jesus said,
“No one can follow him unless it is granted by the Father.”
After
the crowds leave, Jesus turns to the disciples and shows them the door as
well. “Do you also wish to go away?” he
asks. Peter responds “Lord, to whom can
we go? You have the words of eternal
life.”
I
love Peter here. While some read this as
a bold declaration of faith I read it as a shrugging of the shoulders. Perhaps it is simply a reflection of my own
faith journey, or my own experience of the front and back doors of churches;
but I hear Peter say “Where else would I go?
This is hard, it’s confusing, and frankly it stinks sometimes, but it’s
still the best thing going.”
Our
faith is one of questions, and it always will be. It is a faith of mystery and complex ideas
and things that we are just never gonna get.
And yet we keep coming back for more.
We keep coming back, because we have tasted the bread of life. And after eating the bread of life, nothing
else in the world will satisfy.
This
whole month we have been pairing these readings from John with the letter to
the church in Ephesus. Our final reading
from Ephesians is one that sounds offensive at first. Using military imagery, the writer encourages
us to put on the whole armor of God. I
am one who bristles at the image of shield and sword. I also bristle at the language regarding
spiritual warfare. This passage is a
challenge.
And
yet upon further study, the scripture reveals that these implements of war are
not for war at all, but are for peace.
The purpose is not to fight, but to go out into the world spreading the
gospel of peace. Now that is something I
can get behind.
Our
reading concludes with a word on prayer.
The writer says that we should pray in the Spirit at all times; praying
for each other, praying for the world, praying for peace.
When
I pair these readings, I find that prayer might just be the answer to our
questions. When things of the faith get
tough, and Jesus is leaving us with more questions than answers, and that back
door begins to look awfully good, the place to turn is prayer. If we can simply quiet the mind, and commune
with the divine, it gets better. We find
not answers exactly, but we find that though we have questions, we can be OK
with questions, we can be OK with ambiguity, we can be OK with not fully
understanding but believing and following anyway.
As
I mentioned last week, this church is hungry for the bread of life. We are hungry to go deeper in our faith. In Sunday school we are sharing with each
other what we believe about God. All are
welcome and it is never too late to join this conversation.
Paired
with that, on Tuesday nights, we are going to gather here in prayer. We are going to gather here in a way that
just lets questions be, rather than searching for answers. We are going to gather here to use our bodies
and our hearts a little more and our minds a little less. We are going to gather here to just be with
each other, and to just be with God. I
hope you can join me here in the sanctuary at 6pm, with quiet and candles
starting on Tuesday September 4th
You
know, I called this sermon, “One Last Serving of Bread” but it’s really not the
last serving of bread you will have here.
Every Sunday, this is a place to gather with others to celebrate and
enjoy the bread of life. We will gather
again for communion in just a few Sundays and eat bread together. And we will gather next week, to chew on the
bread of life in Sunday school. We will
even begin to gather on Tuesday evenings to search out deeper nourishment to
feed our spiritual hunger. This church
is a church of bread, this church is a place to come and be fed.
Like
the early followers of Jesus, there will be times in our lives when our faith
leaves us with more questions than answers.
That’s OK. One of the few things
that Jesus actually makes clear here in John chapter 6 is that if we are to
follow him, than we need to be willing to be confused, even offended, by the
things he says and the places he takes us.
But as Peter said, “where else would we go” Jesus still has the best
game in town. Amen.
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