In
the summertime, between the congregations' comings and goings and the preacher's,
we can lose the continuity of the lectionary passages from week to week. Those of you who have been here every week
are getting to hear the perspectives of three different preachers on the sixth
chapter of John.
The sixth chapter of John begins with
the story of how Jesus fed a crowd of five thousand people. Then the next few passages tell what it means
for Jesus to feed people.
John tells us that some people have
been following Jesus looking for free food...
and that Jesus explains that the food he gives is the kind that endures
for eternal life.
When Jesus insists that he is
offering spiritual food, another misunderstanding surfaces. The crowd was expecting a messenger bringing
spiritual food from God to be special somehow... or different.
But Jesus was just another person they had watched grow up among them.
Jesus has been going around telling
people not to work for the food that perishes--
but for the food that endures for eternal life. He's been saying, "I am the bread of
life. Whoever comes to me will never be
hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."
He’s been playing to mixed reviews. The crowds have responded to his claim to be
the bread of life by saying, "Give us this bread always." There are people in the crowd who know
they’re hungry for what Jesus is offering them.
The Jewish religious leaders are complaining
about Jesus because he claims to be the bread that comes down from heaven. They’re offended by what he has to say. It goes against everything they believe. So they don't want what Jesus is offering.
Sometimes churches lose sight of why
we're gathered as part of the church of Jesus Christ. Or we'd rather forget. A few
verses beyond where we stopped the gospel reading today, we hear the people
saying, "What you teach is difficult, Jesus."
Today's gospel lesson is part of a series
on the bread of heaven. The sixth
chapter of John is full of statements that were offensive to those who heard
them. First Jesus suggests that he’s
God's own manna come down from heaven to give life to the world. We’re used to hearing that sort of thing from
him by now, but imagine hearing it for the first time, from a human being who
looks pretty much like you: "I am
the living bread that came down from heaven.
Whoever eats of this bread will live forever."
In today’s lesson we hear Jesus taking
the offense to an even higher level by
choosing really gory words to describe what he means. In the other gospels, Jesus calls this bread
his body. In John's gospel he calls it
his flesh-- his skin and muscle
tissue. In the other gospels, he offers
it to be eaten. In John's gospel he uses
the word for "chomp" or "gnaw", so that a more literal
translation of his invitation would go something like this: "Those who chomp my flesh and guzzle my
blood have eternal life; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true
drink."[1]
This is not a nice image. As someone suggested, it sounds more like
something for a butcher shop than for a church.
Add to that the fact that Hebrew scripture clearly forbids the drinking
of blood, and you can understand why Jesus' followers begin to argue at that
point... and later say, "This teaching is difficult," they said.
"Who can accept it?"
Jesus won't let up on them. If they’re going to follow him all the way,
then they’re going to have to give up their need to understand, agree, or approve of everything he says or
does. They’re going to have to believe
him, even when what he says offends them.
They’re going to have to trust him, even when what he does goes against
everything they’ve been taught. You can
almost hear their minds slam shut.
I'm reminded of a story Clarence Jordan
tells about an integrated Baptist church in the Deep South. Jordan was surprised to find a relatively large
church so thoroughly integrated-- not
only Black and White... but also rich
and poor.
The church had an old hillbilly preacher. Jordan asked him, "How did the church get this way?"
"What way?" the old preacher asked.
Jordan explained how surprised he'd
been to find a church so integrated...
and in the South, too.
The preacher said, "Well, when our preacher left our little
church, I went to the Deacons and said, "I'll
be the preacher."
"The first Sunday I preached, I
opened the book and read, 'As many of
you as has been baptized into Jesus has put on Jesus... and there is no longer any Jews or Greeks... slaves or free... males or females... because you is all one in Jesus.'
"Then I closed the book and
said, 'If you one with Jesus, you one with all kind of folks. And if you ain't, you ain't."
"Well," the preacher said, "the Deacons took me into the back room
and told me they didn't want to hear that kind of preaching no more."
Jordan asked what he did.
"I fired them
Deacons," the preacher roared. [Obviously, this wasn't a Presbyterian church.]
"Then what happened?" asked Jordan.
"Well," said the old hillbilly preacher. "I preached that church down to four. Not
long after that, it started growing. It
grew and grew and grew. And I found out
that REVIVAL sometimes don't mean bringin' people in... but gettin' people out that don't love Jesus."
"Does this offend you?"
Jesus played to mixed reviews. He had hot and cold responses.
Some people left Jesus because they
wanted free food-- but not spiritual
food. Others left because they couldn't
believe that God would send spiritual food through a person who seemed as ordinary
as Jesus. Still others left because they understood exactly what
Jesus was saying... and they didn't want
to let God get that close to them. They
wanted to run their own lives, rather
than let God live and work through them.
But others stayed, because they believed Jesus was offering them
something they were hungry for.
Throughout this sixth chapter, we
hear a theme of HUNGER-- the hunger
behind and beneath all other hungers...
the hunger for a knowledge of God...
the hunger for a word from the Lord.
Jesus understood this. That's how he was able to resist the wilderness
tempter's lure into something less--
when he tempted him to turn stones into bread. "One
does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
From Adam and Eve until now, there's
no question that's more fundamentally human than this one: "Is there any word from God?" "Does God have a word that will satisfy
the hunger that gnaws away, deep inside me?"
There are hungers-- and there are hungers. When we compare the two versions of the
Beatitudes, we hear the Gospel of Luke speaking of those who are in need of physical
food... while the Gospel of Matthew
speaks of those "who hunger and thirst for righteousness."
In the beginning of the sixth
chapter of John, Jesus feeds five thousand people. They were in need of physical food, so he
miraculously provided enough food that all ate and were satisfied.
The following day the crowd returns to
Jesus. It's apparent that they yearn for
something more than food to satisfy physical hunger. They have a deeper hunger... a spiritual hunger.
The hymn we sang as our prayer for illumination
is intended to come before not communion--
but the sermon. The poet knows
the longing to hear a word from the Lord.
My spirit pants for Thee,
O living Word!
What about you?
Do you know this hunger?
Like the people in today's gospel
story, we have a decision to make. We
can follow Jesus and let God's presence and power direct our lives... or we can ignore Jesus and spend our lives
on other things.
We make this decision in big ways at
confirmation... or when we decide to
join the church. But we also make it
every day of our lives, in lots of big
or little ways.
We make a choice every time we
decide to listen to God's voice or ignore
it when it tells us that we're special...
God's beloved children… called as partners in Christ’s service. We make
a choice every time we hear God's voice calling us to love everyone---those who
are close to us…and even strangers...
even our enemies.
Throughout the sixth chapter of
John, in all the talk about BREAD,
something has been said over and over which is the real offense behind
all the other offenses. In fact, it's
the offense of the GOSPEL: we have LIFE
by GRACE. The bread God gives from heaven gives life to the world.
The conflict of the gospel is in how
we choose to respond to God's gift. The
question we have to answer is this: Do we
determine our own lives... or does God?
In every paragraph of this chapter
of John, it's clear that the people
around Jesus want to be in charge. They
demand that Jesus do what Moses did.
They demand signs. They want proofs
so that they'll have adequate reasons to decide that Jesus is really from God. They want Jesus to be king-- the kind of king they wanted.
But, over and over again, Jesus
keeps saying one thing: life from heaven
is a GIFT. Trust this, and life is yours.
That's what he told Nicodemus, when
he came asking what he should do-- and how
he should do it. Salvation is
"from above."
The message of the gospel really
isn't so hard to understand. It's hard
to accept, because it cuts across all the calculations and achievements that we
want to do to earn our salvation.
Every day, we need to choose. Standing before God's amazing GRACE, how do
we respond?
The good news in the gospel story is
about GRACE... about God's GIFT to
us. The bread in the wilderness was a GIFT. The bread as word from heaven is a GIFT.
The Word became flesh and came to
live among us... full of grace and truth.
To all who received him, who
believed in his name, he gives power to become children of God.
From his fullness we have all
received, grace upon grace.
So--
let us taste the bread of life...
let us taste and see that it is good!
Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
August 16, 2015
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