"God So Loves." A sermon on John 3:16 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Sculpture depicting Numbers 21, on Mt Nebo in Jordan. Photo: Fran Hayes

"God So Loves"

Numbers 21; John 3:11-21

John 3:16 is one of the most quoted and most memorized verses in the Bible.  We may see it displayed for the cameras at sporting events, on banners or signs. In some parts of the country you might see it painted on big rocks by the roadside. It reads simply: “John 3:16.” 

            Depending on where you’re coming from, it’s a verse that can be used both to assure-- or to threaten.  Some invoke it to emphasize the extravagance and universality of God’s love.  Others invoke it to drive a wedge between believers and unbelievers… the “saved” from the “unsaved.” 

            “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.” This is one of the most iconic verses of the Christian faith. It expresses the wondrous love of God, who reaches out to the world in self-emptying reconciliation. And all we have to do is “believe.”

            Some of us memorized this verse, if we when we grew up in the church. It’s a beautiful and simple expression of our Christian faith, of a God who loves and a people who respond in belief.
            And yet, it’s only when we read the verse in its context in the Gospel of John that we can understand it more fully and be transformed by it.

            James Kay, who was my preaching professor at Princeton Seminary, says that when the Christian message is reduced to a sentence, instead of heard as a story, it’s a problem.  When the sentence becomes a magic formula or a mantra or a slogan instead of a story, when the verse is so engraved in our memory and so familiar—the temptation is that we may think we already know what it means.  The gospel of God’s love has become so familiar that we are no longer amazed by its majesty or its mercy.[1]

            And so, Professor Kay says, we need startling images, obscure, bizarre metaphors—like snakes—to wake us up.  We need “strange stories” instead of “safe slogans,” to help us comprehend what’s happening in these verses.

            John 3:16 isn’t meant to stand alone. It opens with a word we translate as “for.”  In the original Greek, it has a sense of “in this manner” or “in this way,” which means that God’s loving gift of the Christ for the salvation of the world needs to be understood in light of what comes before.
            “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

            The allusion is to one of the strangest stories in all of Scripture, from the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Numbers. 

The Israelites on the move from Egypt to the land of promise were their own worst enemies-- but then, who of us is not?  Of all of the harm inflicted upon us in life, some of it self-inflicted. Of all the judgment we encounter in life, a lot of it is self-imposed.  The people were complaining again. This is the sixth “murmuring” incident.  The people are grumbling: why had Moses brought them out into the wilderness to die?

Isn’t it also just like us humans –-- then, as now?  God brings us out of trouble… gets us safely through a time of danger.  Yet we grumble because the place God led us to isn’t as nice as we’d hoped.  What good is it to be God’s own people, if all it gets us is wandering on and on through the wilderness with nothing to eat except manna?

Then what happens next in the story?  Poisonous serpents-- lots of them, biting the people, so that many of them were dying. 

Now, I know the text says that the Lord sent the serpents.  But I have to confess that I have a hard time with that.  I don’t want to believe that the God of steadfast loving-kindness would kill people for whining.

Yes.  God gets frustrated with us.  But given the situation described, I wonder if at least some of the “serpents” could have arisen from within.  I think we poison ourselves sometimes if we get locked into complaining… selective remembering…or useless longing for good old days that weren’t really all that great.

Without even trying very hard, we can poison ourselves or one another-- with anger… bitterness…blaming…  or despair.  So, I think there may be more than one way to understand the serpents.

Now, whether the serpents are literal or metaphorical doesn’t end up mattering very much, because the people come to their senses and come to see that they themselves are responsible for the serpents coming into their midst.  They see that it was their own sinfulness that brought the serpents into their midst and caused their pain.  They repent and pray to be rescued: “Lord, the serpents are biting us!  We’re dying!  Save us!”

God hears them and makes it possible for them to survive.  Rather than making the serpents disappear, God provides an antidote to their venom.  Rebellion and sin have their consequences. God told Moses to make a serpent and set it on a pole, “and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”  God saved them by requiring them to gaze upon a symbolic representation of the very serpents that endangered them.

            "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son...   For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world-- but that the world might be saved through him."

            God loved the world...   loved so much that God gave.  Not to condemn...  but to save, John says.

            But what does this mean?  What does it mean to be saved?  There are different ideas about what words like “savior,” “save,” and “salvation” are supposed to mean.  

            The Greek word that we often translate as “save” can mean to save, to keep safe, to rescue from danger or destruction, or it can be saving someone who is suffering from disease… to heal… to restore to health and wholeness.

           

            “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son be lifted up.” The image of the Son of Man lifted up like the serpent on a pole points to the crucifixion.
            In the Roman Empire, the cross was an instrument of state-sanctioned violence that was used to execute those who destabilized the imperial order.  As Robert Williamson suggests, Christ lifted up on the cross serves as a symbolic representation of the very real violence of the Empire, threatening death for any who refused to submit to its authority.[2]

            In John, “lifting up” has a double meaning.  In a literal sense, it’s about the physical lifting up of Jesus on the cross. But in a metaphorical sense, it’s about how Jesus is glorified on the cross, so that the whole world can see God’s great act of redemption and healing.

            Did you notice? There’s no mention of punishment or payment for sin here. The cross is the sign that reveals God’s love for the world.

            God loves this world.  God chooses not to condemn this world. God desires salvation and life eternal and abundance for this world. And if we love the light more than the darkness, we are called to desire those very things for this world, too.

            That's the call for all who have received the gift of God's Son:  to love the world God so loves, to reflect the light of Christ, and be the light that both exposes evil and reveals truth.

            The Israelites in the wilderness were told to gaze upon the serpent in order to be saved.  I think Robert Williamson is right when he says the way to salvation for us is to gaze upon the crucified Christ--to recognize the violence that has undergirded the prosperity of our own Empire. It is to remember the genocide of native peoples that accompanied the founding of our nation and to face the facts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the inhumane exploitation of life and labor that built the wealth of our nation.
            To gaze upon the Christ is to see the Christ Child among those gunned down in Columbine and Newtown and Parkland. To gaze upon the Christ is to acknowledge how much pain has been inflicted on innocents like Jesus in the name of enriching the few and securing our own privilege.
            If we believe that salvation comes through believing in the Christ who is lifted up on the cross to save us from a life that is complicit with the violence of the Empire of our time, the claim in John 3:16 takes on a much more radical meaning. 
            Gazing upon the crucified Christ means repenting of ways in which we are complicit in systemic injustice and violence and turning away from the politics of fear.
            Believing in Christ means choosing to turn away from the violence of the Empire and to commit ourselves to the reconciling power of God’s love.  

            God loves the world so much, that God comes not to condemn or judge us, but to love and save us.  God labors constantly to give us new birth-- to push us into abundant life-- if we are willing to trust God enough to know God in a new way...to live in a new way that reflects God’s love and justice.

            And that, my friends, is good news!

            Thanks be to God!  Amen!    

---

[1] James F. Kay, Seasons of Grace: Reflections from the Christian Year (Eerdmans, 1994), p. 50.

[2] Robert Williamson Jr, “Justice for Lent: Overcoming Violence (John 3:14-21), at https://robertwilliamsonjr.com/justice-lent-overcoming-violence-john-314-21/

"Living Water, Living Faith: A Samaritan Woman Tells Her Story." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Living Water, Living Faith"

John 4:4-42

            I used to go to the well in the early morning or at the end of the day, with the other women of the village.  The sun is not so bright then, and the air is cooler. 

            The women and girls visit with one another as they draw water and fill their vessels to take water back to their homes.  There’s a kind of sisterhood that’s a natural part of the scene at the well. Long ago, I used to be part of that sisterhood. 

            But now I am shunned.  When I approach the well, the women stop talking.  They look at me, disapproving…rejecting.  When I turn to leave, they snicker.  How did my life end up like this? 

            So now I go to the well at midday.   I have become invisible.  No one talks to me.  You’d think they would be more sympathetic.  It could be any of them who lost their husband, their place in society, their livelihood, and their security.  Their husbands could die, and if they don’t have a son, they could and end up being passed down from one brother to another in a Levirate marriage.  Or their husbands could divorce them.  As women, we don’t have a lot of control over our lives in these situations. 

            I’ve wondered if perhaps my presence reminds them of how fragile their situations are…how vulnerable they are.    

            Several days ago, as I approached the well, I noticed a solitary man sitting there, as if he were waiting for someone.  I was immediately suspicious. This man was Jewish.  But it was very unusual to see a Jew in Samaria.

            You might wonder how I knew he was a Jew.  This is something that we Samaritans notice.  We are taught at a very young age not to have any relations with the Jews.  Jews and Samaritans have hated and mistrusted each other for centuries.  Most Jews try to avoid our people--they see us as outsiders and heretics.  They make wide detours around Samaria when traveling between Galilee and Judea so that they won’t be contaminated by our mixed blood. 

            Jews and Samaritans share the same scriptures--the Torah.  But our holy place is near here, on Mount Gerazim, and the Jews insist the true center of worship is Jerusalem.  Some time ago, Jewish troops destroyed our holy shrine on Mount Gerazim. 

            The Jews are afraid of being ritually contaminated by any contact with Samaritans. 

            And yet this Jewish man talked to me, saying, “Would you give me a drink of water?”

            I wondered:  How can this be?  This Jewish man couldn’t be talking to me-- a Samaritan!  A woman.  An observant Jew certainly wouldn’t be talking with a woman who wasn’t a relative.  He certainly would talk to a nobody like me.  I was so startled by his request that I said, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"

            I didn’t know what to think.  The man disregarded my question, as it was of no concern to him.  He didn’t seem to care that I was a Samaritan.  He looked at me-- he saw me.

            I don’t know when I’ve talked so much.  I’ve been so isolated and lonely.  I don’t know what came over me.  Maybe my nervousness loosened my tongue.  I certainly didn’t expect to have a long conversation with this man.  But he listened to my question.  He took me seriously.  And he responded:

            "If you knew the gift of God, you could have asked, and he would have given living water."

            Well, I didn’t understand what he was saying.  I didn’t know what he meant by “living water.” But I wanted to keep talking with him.  There was just something about him.  So, I asked:

"Who do you think you are?   You don't even have a bucket!

            The Jewish man said to me, "Everyone who drinks of this water from the well will thirst again.  But those who drink of the water I give-- which is living water-- will never be thirsty.  The water I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up eternal life."

            I pondered this puzzling comment and wondered about this "living water".    What could he mean?  Something about that phrase spoke to me and reminded me of the thirst I was experiencing in her soul and spirit.  Would this mean that I wouldn’t have to come to the well again? 

            I hate making the lonely, shameful trips to the well every day.  To never be thirsty again-- that sounded wonderful to me!  I pleaded for him to give me this living water:  "Sir, give me this water that I may never be thirsty."

            "All right,” he said.  “Go call your husband."

           

            There it was.  I was sure then he would treat me like the rest of the town does.  Once he found out I have no husband, I’d be back where I started.  What was I supposed to say to him-- that I had been in five marriages and now was with a man who would take care of me but wouldn’t marry me?  I felt trapped…shamed.  But I told the man the truth: “I have no husband.”

            "That's right,” he said.  “You have no husband.  You've had five husbands, and the one you're with now is not your husband.  You told the truth when you said you have no husband."

            Somehow, when the man said it, I didn’t hear the judgment and scorn that has been my life these past years.  It sounded more like he was naming my pain, the way our society has passed me from man to man until I no longer have even the dignity of marriage. 

            I wonder:  How does he know this about my life?  “You’re some kind of PROPHET-- aren’t you?”

            I don’t know what got into me.  We kept talking.  He told me the most extraordinary thing.  He knew that Samaritans worshipped God at Mount Gerazim, while the Jews worshipped God in Jerusalem.  That is just one of the ways that our two peoples disagree.  But Jesus told me that none of that mattered anymore.   What was important was to worship God in an attitude of spirit and truth.  God is not confined to one place.

            Well, if that were to happen-- we could all worship God in a way that doesn’t divide us into enemies.

            I could begin to imagine a God who valued all people, regardless of where they worshipped or which tribe they were from, or whether their neighbors thought they were worthless.  At least I longed for such a God.  I longed for a God who would give me water when I was thirsty.  I long for a God who loves everybody--even nobodies like me.

            Eventually I said, “Well, such deep subjects.  When the Messiah gets here, he’ll explain all this deep stuff to us.  When Messiah comes, far in a future time.  But not here.  Not now.”

            But the man at the well said: “The hour is coming and is now here.  I am the Messiah--the Christ.  The Anointed One.”

            Then I knew:  this man was offering me the very water that I needed to sustain me.  Living water that gives life!   I had to tell someone-- everyone! 

            I left my jug by the well and ran into town.  I ran back into town and told people, “Come and see!  There is a man at the well who has told me everything I have done!  He can’t he be the Messiah--can he?”

            The people all ran to the well. They listened to me and believed me! They were even talking to me! 

            The people who’d been traveling with the man had come back to the well with some food they’d bought and they tried to get him to eat something.  But he said to them, “I have food to eat that that you don’t know about.  My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to complete his work.” 

            We didn’t understand what he was talking about, especially when he talked about fields and sowing and harvesting.

            Many of the people from our city believed in the man.  They said it was because of what I’d said: “He told me everything I have ever done.”

            They invited him and his friends to spend some time with us.  And they did.  They stayed for two days.

            I found out that his name was Jesus.  He treated me as a fellow human being that deserved the grace of God simply because I was living on this earth.

            I came to believe that my life has value, and so did my neighbors.  They began to treat me with respect and made me feel like I was one of them.

            They came to hear Jesus because of my testimony.  But then they heard the good news for themselves-- the good news of God’s love and eternal life for us all.  We have life that is nourished with living water.

            Thanks be to God!

        

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 19, 2017

"Words of Life," a sermon on John 6:56-69, from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Today the scripture passages given to us by the lectionary have something that could offend most everyone.  First, there is Joshua, hero of a book of wars, in which God serves as military commander of Israel’s invincible army.  As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, Joshua is cleaned up for today’s speech at Shechem-- but he waded through blood to get there. 

            Then there’s today’s gospel lesson, which is the last in a four-part 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 suggested that he was God's own manna, come down from heaven to give life to the world.   Last week Jesus took the offense to an even higher level by choosing really gory words.   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 suggests, 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 began to pull away from him at that point.  "This teaching is difficult,"  they said.  "Who can accept it?"

           

            Any time we gather for Bible study, no matter what passage we study, if we take it seriously, eventually we might hear somebody ask, “Are we supposed to understand this literally or metaphorically?”   “If God did all that centuries ago—why is there such suffering in the world today?”  Or some other tough questions that keep coming up—some of them un-answerable.

            Jesus doesn’t give his first disciples simple answers—or a copy of “The Gospel for Dummies in Three Easy Steps.”  No.  Instead we have a paradoxical gospel that we’ll need to struggle with for the rest of our lives!  This teaching is difficult!

            If the disciples are going to follow Jesus all the way--  then they’re   going to have to give up their need to understand,  agree with, or approve of everything he said or did.   They’re going to have to believe him, even when he says something that 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 some of their minds slam shut. 

            Perhaps one of my colleagues, writing in The Christian Century a few years ago, has it right when he suggests that the real miracle in chapter six of John isn’t that Jesus fed thousands of people at the beginning—but that but that there were even a dozen disciples left by the end of the chapter.[2]

            When Jesus sees the crowds deserting him, he asks the twelve if they want to go away too. 

            Jesus wants them to know that following him on the way is no picnic.  The people in the crowd have their reasons for turning back.   Change is scary.   They don't want to give up their desires, their comforts, their security.  They want to follow Jesus on their own terms, without changing their priorities, without being uncomfortable.  They want to be in control of their lives.  So when Jesus challenges them and calls them to pay the cost of true, obedient discipleship--  a lot of them  leave.

            "Do you also wish to go away?"  Jesus asks.   

            This teaching is hard.   A lot of people aren’t looking to be challenged a lot in their faith.  So…at a time when many denominations and local congregations are seeking to grow or struggling to survive, doesn't it seem like a good idea to put out a message that will appeal to as many people as possible?  Wouldn't it be a matter of good business to find out what the customers want--and then give it to them?    The growing opposition to Jesus in this text seems to be the last word the church wants to hear today.

            But there's no way around the hard word of this Sunday's gospel lesson.  Jesus’ message didn’t didn't appeal to everyone.  Some people didn’t understand it. And some turned away because they did understand.

            The movement of the story in John 6 is telling:   one group after another turns away from Jesus.  At the beginning a huge crowd comes seeking Jesus… seeking what they hope he'll do for him.  In the beginning, the people who came because they want to be “fed” are happy with Jesus.  But later they become disillusioned by his words.  Some take offense at what he says.  Then, in today's text, Jesus' own disciples--  a larger group than "the twelve"--  become scandalized by his words and begin to desert him.           

            "Do you also wish to go away?"   Jesus asks.  Peter speaks for the little band of faithful disciples.  "Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life."

            What do you hear in Peter's response?  Peter is just as offended as anyone else by a lot of what Jesus is saying.  He keeps the traditional dietary laws.  We find out later, in the book of Acts, that Peter never eats forbidden foods, which would include meat with blood still in it.  The idea of gnawing flesh and drinking blood turns his stomach as badly as it does anyone else's.  But where is he to go?  As confusing as Jesus is, Peter has glimpsed something in him that he can't turn away from.  In Jesus, he has glimpsed God.  So, if trusting that means struggling with a whole lot of distasteful things that go with it, then Peter will stay and struggle.  He won't turn away from the life he has been led to--  even if it's miles from the life he thought he wanted.

            We live in a time when many people "shop" for the perfect church for themselves, a church they hope will meet their needs or satisfy their desires.   Peter’s words challenge a lot of us.

            There are times when some folk may be tempted to say,  "If my church votes the wrong way on this issue, I'm outa here."  Or,  "I can't belong to a church that would fund a project like that."  I couldn’t be part of a church that welcomes those people.  I wouldn’t belong to a church that believes that.     

            We may hear people saying,  "I don't go to church any more.  I couldn't take any more of the hypocrisy...  sexism...   liberals...   conservatives...   old-timey hymns with exclusive language...     new, unfamiliar hymns...  lousy preaching...      You can fill in the blank....

                       

            There are a lot of imperfect churches around--  large and small.        I agree with the way one of my colleagues puts it:  When the main reason not to belong to a church is that I can't find a community of faith that agrees with me on everything from what kind of music we should sing to where we should stand on homosexuality or abortion or the death penalty, then I have the perfect excuse never to belong to a church with more than one member--   me.^[3]

             There is no perfect church...  --  if perfect means that I understand, agree, or approve of everything that goes on there.  If you become a Christian, you get a Bible that says God helped Joshua exterminate whole tribes of people right down to the last baby.  You get a household code in Ephesians that makes wives subject to their husbands and tells husbands to sacrifice themselves for their wives… and slaves to submit to their masters.   But you also get the twenty-third psalm and the parable of the prodigal son."

            If you're a Presbyterian, you get a church that's been divided for decades over issues related to human sexuality, a church that was divided for decades over ordaining women to be pastors, elders and deacons…  a church that split over the issue of slavery and then took over a hundred years to get back together.  You get people who only want to sing the hymns they grew up singing… and some people who only want to sing contemporary music.  You get a church that’s been divided for decades over issues related to human sexuality, a church that through study and prayerful discernment has recently made some decisions that have thrilled a lot of people and disappointed and disturbed others.  You get a commitment to scholarly, faithful Bible study and theology and worship that once in awhile can fill you with awe and amazement when it helps us get a glimpse into the heart of God. 

           

            Jesus asked the twelve disciples, "Do you want to go away too?"

            Simon Peter spoke for the whole group when he said, "Lord, where can we go?  You have the words of eternal life." 

            Peter’s words can be a declaration of faith for an ambiguous and troubled world like ours and for people like us.  People who don’t understand everything about Jesus.  People who have plenty of unanswered questions, but keep hanging in there with him anyway.

            We know there are other options for pursuing spiritual enlightenment…  or we could choose not to pursue a spiritual path at all.  Yet some of us keep coming back to Jesus.  Maybe it’s because we’ve heard in his words something that rings true to us in deep ways.   Maybe it’s because whenever we’re in his presence we feel more alive.  Maybe it’s because when we’re joined with this imperfect group of people who are struggling to follow Jesus in the way of LOVE—we experience grace and joy.   Maybe it’s because we know we need to be part of the body of Christ to be encouraged and challenged to live into God’s kingdom of love and justice and peace and hope.

            In my study this week, I came across a story told by a Presbyterian pastor who was serving a church in Philadelphia. In The Christian Century, Wallace Bubar tells about a newcomer who came to their church and went through a new member class—but was reluctant to join.  He read a lot and asked a lot of questions.  He wasn’t sure if he was a skeptic…a seeker…or an agnostic, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t a Presbyterian.  He asked the pastor a lot of questions about the creeds…other religions…the relationship between faith and science…and what it means to believe in Jesus.  He nodded politely when the pastor tried to formulate answers to each question, but the pastor could tell he wasn’t persuading him. 

            In the end, this newcomer said, “Thanks.  I appreciate your time, but I just I just don’t think this is for me.”  They shook hands and parted.

            The next Sunday, the pastor noticed the man slip into a pew in the back of the church.  He stood and sang the hymns with everybody else, but he didn’t join in when they recited the creed.  But when it was time for communion, he came down the aisle.

            The pastor said he was thinking he’d like to ask this man if he’d had some kind of epiphany since they’d last talked, but he didn’t.  Instead, he said, “The body of Christ, given for you” as he gave him the bread.

            After the service, he greeted him and said, “I didn’t think we’d see you here again.” 

            The man shrugged—perhaps as Peter must have shrugged. 

            “Lord, where else can we go?” 

           

            Jesus Christ invites us to follow him in the way of love and life.  If we say "yes" to him, not just with our voices, but with our very lives, then we choose the path that leads to eternal life.

            I pray that we choose life!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 23, 2015

---

^[1]Barbara Brown Taylor, in a sermon on this text in Home By Another Way (Cowley, 1999), p. 176.

[2] Wallace W. Bubar,  in “Living by the Word” (The Christian Century, August 22, 2012), p. 20.

^[3]Taylor, p. 178

A Deeper Hunger: A Sermon from Littlefield on John 6:51-58, preached August 16, 2015

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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1 ^[1]Barbara Brown Taylor, in a sermon on this text in Home By Another Way (Cowley, 1999), p. 176.