Do You Also Wish to Go Away? Sermon for 8-27-06
Scripture: John 6:56-69 and Ephesians 6:10-20
The Gospel of John, especially the 6th chapter, reports at length about Jesus being the bread of life, the bread that will take away all of our hunger. Even more shocking to the crowds is his saying that he and his Father are one and that he came from heaven. And then the ultimate offense comes as Jesus starts talking about how his disciples must eat his flesh and drink his blood. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life,…for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (6:54-5). For many of his followers, Jesus had just gone too far, speaking in cannibalistic terms and claiming equal authority with God. This was really an early turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Many of you will remember how popular Jesus had become with his acts of mercy, his driving out demons and his miracles, especially the feeding miracles where many thousands of people were fed from a few fish and loaves of bread. The crowds started to diminish. Many left because they did not understand what he meant when he talked about his body as food and his blood as drink. Others left because they had come to get free food, see a good show. They wanted something to fill their stomachs, not their souls. Others just couldn’t believe that God would choose such a common, ordinary person, a carpenter, someone whose family they had known, someone they had grown up with to be spiritual food.
After all, who was this Jesus? I’ve heard some interesting debates. Please be assured these are not my beliefs; however, they are interesting. Some folks say that Jesus was Black: After all he called everyone brother and sister; he liked Gospel, and he couldn’t get a fair trial. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish: He went into His Fathers business; he lived at home until he was 33; he was sure his Mother was a virgin and his mother was sure he was God. Still others have argued that Jesus was Italian: He talked with his hands; he had wine with every meal; and he used olive oil. There are many other good reasons about who Jesus was; however the most compelling evidence for many are these proofs that indicate that Jesus was a woman: First, he had to feed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food. Second, he kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it; and third, even when he was dead, He had to get up because there was more work for Him to do.
Enough humor for this sermon. Getting back to other possibilities why many disciples decided to leave Jesus, it’s possible that some did understand what Jesus was saying and they did not want God to get that close to them—they preferred to be in control of their own lives. No way were they going to choose to let God work through them, direct them to go places they would not go on their own. These things that Jesus was teaching were just too hard for his disciples. They asked, “Who can accept such far-out teachings?” And they left. After many had turned back Jesus called the twelve apostles together and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter, always right there, responded rhetorically, “Lord, to whom could we go? You have the words of eternal life.” At least eleven of the twelve apostles were completely committed to Jesus.
Do all of you understand what commitment is? Ask yourself, what or to whom am I committed? When I married Neill, I had been very hurt by the lack of commitment and fidelity from my first husband. I had been hurt so much that my attitude in the beginning of marriage was more one of: “I’ll give this a try; No way am I going to go through anymore hurt. If things get rough, I’ll just go back to California.” Neill and I joke about that phrase today to remind us of how far we’ve come. Neill really taught me a lot about commitment—how your attitude of perseverance vs. “I can check out at any time” makes such a difference in resolving the rough spots. Peter and the other disciples closest to Jesus had that kind of commitment although they may have wanted to go, were scared enough to hide themselves, to deny Jesus. Except for Judas, they all remained committed to him. What about you? Do you want to leave Jesus? Or have you already left him spiritually? Does your desire for worldly success or your enjoyment of rest and leisure prevent you from taking time to come regularly to worship, to participate in the work of the church or to serve those that are in need? Does your spending on luxuries keep you from giving your fair share to the church and other charities? Are you okay with your children playing sports on Sunday morning rather than going to Sunday school? Do you spend more money on entertainment than you do on your pledge to the church? I know I’ve been asking a lot of these hard questions lately and some of you may be feeling uncomfortable or maybe even irritated with me. It’s not easy to follow Jesus. Jesus asks us for a commitment, not a compromise. He doesn’t change the message so that it will be easier for his followers, so his disciples won’t leave him. We are not called to follow Jesus only when it suits us, but to be with him and follow his teachings in good times and bad.
Paul knew it was not an easy thing to follow Jesus in a world that has so much darkness and evil. Most progressive Christians don’t say much about evil today; however, I do believe there are all kinds of evil forces, evil actions all around us. What do I mean by evil? Pick up a newspaper and just start reading: innocent citizens killed in Iraq ; trial of Saddam for chemical genocide of Kurds; pedophilia extends its reach through the Internet; Gang related bomb kills at least 10 in Moscow Square (all from Monday morning’s NY Times online.) Evil is action that leads to death and destruction, great harm and pain, inhumane, wicked, morally reprehensible actions. I am not one to classify groups of people or nations as evil. I believe more about evil as a verb than as a noun. Most everyone some time has done some evil act; that does not make them an evil person. But getting back to the letter to the Ephesians, the author is warning the people of darkness and evil. What do we usually do to deal with these horrible situations? We try to avoid face-to-face contact such as with the homeless on the streets of our cities. We go to the country or to the nearby suburbs, or build gated communities to try to keep them out and keep us isolated and safe. Some of us get apathetic, or even deny that folks are starving, that the earth is being ruined, that there are many lonely, old and sick folks in nursing homes, that genocide is really happening in Sudan. If we can’t see these things in the flesh maybe they aren’t really there. It’s much more comfortable just to see these problems on TV where we can shut it off when we want to.
Ephesians talks about Christians living in a real world filled with injustice. You heard in the reading from the NRSV of the Bible words such as “Belt of truth and “breastplate of righteousness”. Let me share with you a more modern translation from Eugene Peterson in The Message, “Be prepared. You are up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so when its all over but the shouting you will still be on your feet. Truth righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s word is an indispensable weapon. Prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each others’ spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.” These words are much easier for us to understand and relate to. There are just two of these “weapons” that I would like to explore further with you. One is faith. It’s so hard to keep the faith when things are not going well. As Christians we are not exempt in anyway from the sufferings in life: we get sick, we lose jobs, we get divorced and so forth. What’s different is how we deal with this suffering. With faith, a close relationship of trust and love with our divine Spirit, the process will be different We can’t prove God, we can’t prove eternal life, but you can see and feel the difference when you are filled with the Spirit. In our church, our religion, our faith there is both lightness and darkness. Every once in awhile in church we hear a word, a sermon, an anthem, that for a moment stirs up in us that holiness that we long for, that truth that suddenly bursts forth in great light. It feels like God has really heard the longing of our souls and furthermore has answered, has been speaking just to us. Then there is the darkness of our faith when so often there are no such moments—when the service does not speak to us of the presence of God but instead just increases the absence of God, not only in this place but in the depths of our being. It’s hard to hear the still-speaking God. How do you find the holiness? How do you pray in the Spirit as Ephesians says. Maybe praying is hard for you, especially the meditative type. Maybe your mind is wandering all over the place, mine certainly does much of the time. But keep trying. Be sure to spend part of your day, for me the morning works best, in quiet devotion, prayer, and spiritual reading. I have included a prayer in your bulletin that you might use every morning to start your day. From this prayer, hopefully you will go on to both talk and listen to God. To tell God what’s on your mind, to lift us those people and concerns that are nagging at you, maybe just visualize them surrounded by light. There’s so many ways to pray. Some of the best prayer for me is just to sit quietly and ask God to let only things God wants me to think about come into my mind. I get many thoughts during such prayer, and they certainly are not all from God, but I believe that many are and that’s one of the ways God speaks to me. Closed doors are another dramatic way of God speaking. If you are paying close attention, you may notice how a new and better door opens after the disappointment of the one that closed.
So I will ask you again that question of Jesus, “Do you also want to go away?” How strong is your commitment to your faith? The way, the path of Jesus, is not an easy way. It’s not easy to get up every Sunday morning to come to church. And for some of you every Thursday evening to come to choir practice. It’s not easy to go to committee meetings and visioning retreats. It’s not easy to get up early once a month to do a work day at the church. Some of the people that do this are getting tired. Others keep going about the busyness of church without any real conviction or passion or joy.. There are different seasons in our lives. What we did in our 50’s and 60’s may not be what we want to be doing in our 70’s and 80’s. There’s always something that is important for each person to do, and no one has to do everything. The metaphor that Jesus uses tells us that we, the church, are the only body Christ has. We as individuals are the only bodies that he has. Jesus “has no hands to reach out to people with except our hands, no feet to go to them with except our feet, no other eyes to see them with, no other faces to show them his love.” [1] When we take seriously our commitment to God and each other, I believe we do reap a harvest of abundance, of joy and peace that no one can ever take away. Peter’s reasoning for not going away was that Jesus had shown him eternal life and further, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” My sisters and brothers, I do not want to go away, because I feel blessed beyond all description to be loved so unconditionally from the great Spirit and to be able to love and serve all of you. It’s not always easy, but my rewards far outweigh the difficulties. My hope and prayer are that you will also feel that great blessing. Amen.
[1] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark, p. 284.
The Gospel of John, especially the 6th chapter, reports at length about Jesus being the bread of life, the bread that will take away all of our hunger. Even more shocking to the crowds is his saying that he and his Father are one and that he came from heaven. And then the ultimate offense comes as Jesus starts talking about how his disciples must eat his flesh and drink his blood. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life,…for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink” (6:54-5). For many of his followers, Jesus had just gone too far, speaking in cannibalistic terms and claiming equal authority with God. This was really an early turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Many of you will remember how popular Jesus had become with his acts of mercy, his driving out demons and his miracles, especially the feeding miracles where many thousands of people were fed from a few fish and loaves of bread. The crowds started to diminish. Many left because they did not understand what he meant when he talked about his body as food and his blood as drink. Others left because they had come to get free food, see a good show. They wanted something to fill their stomachs, not their souls. Others just couldn’t believe that God would choose such a common, ordinary person, a carpenter, someone whose family they had known, someone they had grown up with to be spiritual food.
After all, who was this Jesus? I’ve heard some interesting debates. Please be assured these are not my beliefs; however, they are interesting. Some folks say that Jesus was Black: After all he called everyone brother and sister; he liked Gospel, and he couldn’t get a fair trial. But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish: He went into His Fathers business; he lived at home until he was 33; he was sure his Mother was a virgin and his mother was sure he was God. Still others have argued that Jesus was Italian: He talked with his hands; he had wine with every meal; and he used olive oil. There are many other good reasons about who Jesus was; however the most compelling evidence for many are these proofs that indicate that Jesus was a woman: First, he had to feed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food. Second, he kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it; and third, even when he was dead, He had to get up because there was more work for Him to do.
Enough humor for this sermon. Getting back to other possibilities why many disciples decided to leave Jesus, it’s possible that some did understand what Jesus was saying and they did not want God to get that close to them—they preferred to be in control of their own lives. No way were they going to choose to let God work through them, direct them to go places they would not go on their own. These things that Jesus was teaching were just too hard for his disciples. They asked, “Who can accept such far-out teachings?” And they left. After many had turned back Jesus called the twelve apostles together and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter, always right there, responded rhetorically, “Lord, to whom could we go? You have the words of eternal life.” At least eleven of the twelve apostles were completely committed to Jesus.
Do all of you understand what commitment is? Ask yourself, what or to whom am I committed? When I married Neill, I had been very hurt by the lack of commitment and fidelity from my first husband. I had been hurt so much that my attitude in the beginning of marriage was more one of: “I’ll give this a try; No way am I going to go through anymore hurt. If things get rough, I’ll just go back to California.” Neill and I joke about that phrase today to remind us of how far we’ve come. Neill really taught me a lot about commitment—how your attitude of perseverance vs. “I can check out at any time” makes such a difference in resolving the rough spots. Peter and the other disciples closest to Jesus had that kind of commitment although they may have wanted to go, were scared enough to hide themselves, to deny Jesus. Except for Judas, they all remained committed to him. What about you? Do you want to leave Jesus? Or have you already left him spiritually? Does your desire for worldly success or your enjoyment of rest and leisure prevent you from taking time to come regularly to worship, to participate in the work of the church or to serve those that are in need? Does your spending on luxuries keep you from giving your fair share to the church and other charities? Are you okay with your children playing sports on Sunday morning rather than going to Sunday school? Do you spend more money on entertainment than you do on your pledge to the church? I know I’ve been asking a lot of these hard questions lately and some of you may be feeling uncomfortable or maybe even irritated with me. It’s not easy to follow Jesus. Jesus asks us for a commitment, not a compromise. He doesn’t change the message so that it will be easier for his followers, so his disciples won’t leave him. We are not called to follow Jesus only when it suits us, but to be with him and follow his teachings in good times and bad.
Paul knew it was not an easy thing to follow Jesus in a world that has so much darkness and evil. Most progressive Christians don’t say much about evil today; however, I do believe there are all kinds of evil forces, evil actions all around us. What do I mean by evil? Pick up a newspaper and just start reading: innocent citizens killed in Iraq ; trial of Saddam for chemical genocide of Kurds; pedophilia extends its reach through the Internet; Gang related bomb kills at least 10 in Moscow Square (all from Monday morning’s NY Times online.) Evil is action that leads to death and destruction, great harm and pain, inhumane, wicked, morally reprehensible actions. I am not one to classify groups of people or nations as evil. I believe more about evil as a verb than as a noun. Most everyone some time has done some evil act; that does not make them an evil person. But getting back to the letter to the Ephesians, the author is warning the people of darkness and evil. What do we usually do to deal with these horrible situations? We try to avoid face-to-face contact such as with the homeless on the streets of our cities. We go to the country or to the nearby suburbs, or build gated communities to try to keep them out and keep us isolated and safe. Some of us get apathetic, or even deny that folks are starving, that the earth is being ruined, that there are many lonely, old and sick folks in nursing homes, that genocide is really happening in Sudan. If we can’t see these things in the flesh maybe they aren’t really there. It’s much more comfortable just to see these problems on TV where we can shut it off when we want to.
Ephesians talks about Christians living in a real world filled with injustice. You heard in the reading from the NRSV of the Bible words such as “Belt of truth and “breastplate of righteousness”. Let me share with you a more modern translation from Eugene Peterson in The Message, “Be prepared. You are up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so when its all over but the shouting you will still be on your feet. Truth righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s word is an indispensable weapon. Prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each others’ spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.” These words are much easier for us to understand and relate to. There are just two of these “weapons” that I would like to explore further with you. One is faith. It’s so hard to keep the faith when things are not going well. As Christians we are not exempt in anyway from the sufferings in life: we get sick, we lose jobs, we get divorced and so forth. What’s different is how we deal with this suffering. With faith, a close relationship of trust and love with our divine Spirit, the process will be different We can’t prove God, we can’t prove eternal life, but you can see and feel the difference when you are filled with the Spirit. In our church, our religion, our faith there is both lightness and darkness. Every once in awhile in church we hear a word, a sermon, an anthem, that for a moment stirs up in us that holiness that we long for, that truth that suddenly bursts forth in great light. It feels like God has really heard the longing of our souls and furthermore has answered, has been speaking just to us. Then there is the darkness of our faith when so often there are no such moments—when the service does not speak to us of the presence of God but instead just increases the absence of God, not only in this place but in the depths of our being. It’s hard to hear the still-speaking God. How do you find the holiness? How do you pray in the Spirit as Ephesians says. Maybe praying is hard for you, especially the meditative type. Maybe your mind is wandering all over the place, mine certainly does much of the time. But keep trying. Be sure to spend part of your day, for me the morning works best, in quiet devotion, prayer, and spiritual reading. I have included a prayer in your bulletin that you might use every morning to start your day. From this prayer, hopefully you will go on to both talk and listen to God. To tell God what’s on your mind, to lift us those people and concerns that are nagging at you, maybe just visualize them surrounded by light. There’s so many ways to pray. Some of the best prayer for me is just to sit quietly and ask God to let only things God wants me to think about come into my mind. I get many thoughts during such prayer, and they certainly are not all from God, but I believe that many are and that’s one of the ways God speaks to me. Closed doors are another dramatic way of God speaking. If you are paying close attention, you may notice how a new and better door opens after the disappointment of the one that closed.
So I will ask you again that question of Jesus, “Do you also want to go away?” How strong is your commitment to your faith? The way, the path of Jesus, is not an easy way. It’s not easy to get up every Sunday morning to come to church. And for some of you every Thursday evening to come to choir practice. It’s not easy to go to committee meetings and visioning retreats. It’s not easy to get up early once a month to do a work day at the church. Some of the people that do this are getting tired. Others keep going about the busyness of church without any real conviction or passion or joy.. There are different seasons in our lives. What we did in our 50’s and 60’s may not be what we want to be doing in our 70’s and 80’s. There’s always something that is important for each person to do, and no one has to do everything. The metaphor that Jesus uses tells us that we, the church, are the only body Christ has. We as individuals are the only bodies that he has. Jesus “has no hands to reach out to people with except our hands, no feet to go to them with except our feet, no other eyes to see them with, no other faces to show them his love.” [1] When we take seriously our commitment to God and each other, I believe we do reap a harvest of abundance, of joy and peace that no one can ever take away. Peter’s reasoning for not going away was that Jesus had shown him eternal life and further, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” My sisters and brothers, I do not want to go away, because I feel blessed beyond all description to be loved so unconditionally from the great Spirit and to be able to love and serve all of you. It’s not always easy, but my rewards far outweigh the difficulties. My hope and prayer are that you will also feel that great blessing. Amen.
[1] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark, p. 284.
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 3:23 PM
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