Readings: Psalm
84 John 6:56-69
We pray: Holy God,
as we hear your Word for us today, open our hearts and minds to your teachings,
that we may know your presence and be open to your voice in our very
souls. In Jesus name. Amen.
Today we conclude
our series of Gospel readings from John 6.
And we hold today’s verses in relationship with Psalm 84, the psalm for
today. One speaks of a strange and
difficult faith journey, of people deserting because it’s too startling, too
hard for them, of the people of who chose to stay and become a community. The other gives pointers into the reason that
some chose to continue the journey, the compelling presence of God who enters
our world and our lives in love.
We continue in
John with the ‘I am..” statements, with the problematic concept of Jesus flesh
and blood being the path to eternal life, the analogy of Jesus, the bread of
life in whom we live forever, the relationship that the Word has with the
Father and with us.
The lectionary doesn’t take us to the last two verses
of the 6th chapter of John – where Jesus reminds those who have
stayed, the twelve, that one of them will deliver Jesus up to be killed. Another problematic and discouraging moment
for the faitithful. John is reminding us throughout that Jesus has come to us
both as the sign and the interpreter of the sign – and it is a difficult thing
he is asking of us.
There are three
things from this reading today that I would like to explore. The strangeness of the life we are to live in
Christ, the choice we make to stay or go and the shape of the community for
those who stay.
Our calling to
walk the way of Christ takes us on a journey that is difficult,
counter-cultural, often counter intuitive, and asks much of us.
It strangely asks of
us not just our loyalty but our very lives. It wants more from us than simply
following the rules for good living, asking instead that God’s law be imbedded
in our hearts. A quote from Dawn Wilhelm: our
calling is more than skin deep, it reaches beneath the surface of our lives and
into our workplaces, bank accounts, family relationships, eating habits, daily
practices and all the other ways we choose to live and die for Christ and our
neighbours.[1]
Walking with Jesus
demands of us that we care for all people, hands on, and that we challenge the
powers that do otherwise.
Our calling
expects us to walk into situations where we feel vulnerable, helpless, where we
need to trust in God to see us through.
And lastly it asks
us to put aside much of what we thought we knew and to be open to other ways of
being.
These were the
words that Jesus was preaching to the disciples who flocked to hear him speak –
and some of them were leaving, quite a few in fact.
We can’t of course
be exactly sure what triggered the exodus – the language of flesh and blood
would have been particularly loathsome for the Jews of the time – a capital
crime according to their laws made even more horrendous by speaking of human
blood to be drunk. The fact that this
man, this ordinary bloke was making claims of special relationship with God –
claiming the right to criticize, to poke away their lives and their rituals of
faith where he thought them off track would have sent some away I am sure. And there was the sheer complexity and
unexpectedness of the teachings he was putting before them – throughout the
gospels we hear again and again that even those who were by his side all the
time were confused, not able to get the point Jesus was making until it was
explained multiple times. Maybe it was
just too hard for some.
It begs the
question of what it is that has people walking away from God’s message of love
and reconciliation today, away from the church that is supposed to live that
message? There will be similar reasons: too hard, too much work, too complex,
too uncomfortable, asking too much of us. Perhaps the added factor we need to
consider today is that people might might not be walking away from God but
rather walking away from a church that practices hypocrisy, irrelevance, bigotry,
abuse: teachings that Jesus would have overturned in the same way he overturned
those tables in the temple - in anger and despair. We have to recognise that
what is called Christian today is all too often nothing of the kind – that
there is chasm of self interest and false teaching that comes between, on one
hand, God coming to us in the person of Jesus, and all that we know of his way
– and on the other, the church which causes suffering and division and treats ‘the other’ as having
less value. Jesus weeps at pain inflicted by his church
But whatever it
was that sent people on their way, some stayed.
Some wanted to continue the journey despite the difficulties. It is a
particularly poignant moment – picture it.
Sitting here in church, Jesus is preaching a bit of a challenging
message and people just start leaving – and it might even turn into a bit of a
flood, some not quite knowing but following the crowd – until just a few are
left – the core, the stubborn, the deaf (just joking). And they are asked: Do you want to go
too? There is a silence – until one says
what all are thinking: Lord, to whom can
we go? You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.[2]
There is
absolutely no sense of the remaining saying ‘Yeah we get it. The teaching makes
total sense and we understand it perfectly.’
It much more like: hey we too are confused and perplexed but what we do
know is this – we have come to believe that You are…..the bread, the water of
life, the light of the world, the way, the truth and the life…… And so we stay
with you.
I once had someone
walk out on me in church – and it was nothing I said, I hadn’t even got to the
sermon. The challenge was that I was a
woman daring to lead worship and, after a suitable dressing down, the offended person
stormed out. We introduced a time of
silence that day – for no-one had words to offer for quite some time. But we stayed and we prayed and we came
together as community in the name of Jesus in a way we would not have without
that angry and rather sad young man.
The twelve stayed,
for they, like the psalmist, understood what it meant to ‘abide’ in Jesus, an ’incarnational abiding’ where we are with
and in the body of Christ, deep in
relationship, assured of the presence of God even in our perplexity and
confusion. There are the words from the well known hymn Abide with Me[3]
(the writer was dying of leukemia at the time):
Not a brief glance I
beg, a passing word,
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.
But as Thou dwell'st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.
And so community
of faith was formed, recognising the difficulty, the strangeness, the
unexpected, accepting if not always understanding the upside down wisdom that
affirms vulnerability, grace, kindness and love to all people and in all
situations. We are that community – a
people here because, for all our uncertainties and questions, we choose to
follow a teacher who offers us deep abiding relationship in God, who gave of
his all so that we might know the truth of God with and in us.
The so we revisit
the psalm, letting some of the words invite us into that place of belonging,
reminding us of why we stay, who we stay with – the Holy One of God.
How lovely are
your dwellings, O God, how beautiful are the holy places. ….they are the
temples of your living presence. And
your Spirit makes a home deep within us; let us welcome and delight in your
presence.
Blessed are those
whose strength is in you, in whose heart are your ways,
who trudging
through the plains of misery find in them an unexpected spring, a well from
deep below the barren ground, and the pools are filled with water. They become springs of healing for others,
reservoirs of
compassion to those who are bruised. The
end is glimpsed in the midst of the journey:
the fulfilment is
beyond our imagining.
…One day lived in
your presence is better than a thousand in my own dwelling. …You are ready with
bountiful gifts, overflowing to those who follow you. Living God of love, blessed
are those who put their trust in you.
Margaret Garland
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