A Reflection for Pentecost 13 - During Lockdown
A Prayer of Approach - based on Psalm 84
These words by Carol Rose Ikeler are a reminder that we are 'Church' whenever we are praising, loving and seeking God.
The Church is wherever God’s people are praising, knowing they’re wanted and loved by their Lord.
The church is wherever Christ’s followers are trying to live and to share out the good news of God.
The Church is wherever God’s people are seeking to reach out and touch folk wherever they are – conveying the Gospel, its joy and its comfort, to challenge, refresh, and excite and inspire.
Gospel Reading John 6:56-69
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever
eats me will live because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your
ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live
forever."
He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is
difficult; who can accept it?"
But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to
them, "Does this offend you?
Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have
spoken to you are spirit and life.
But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the
first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would
betray him.
And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted by the Father."
Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with
him.
So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
Simon Peter answered him, "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."
There are three things from this reading today 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.
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.
It is a particularly poignant moment – picture
it in our time and place. We are sitting together in church, and Jesus is
preaching a bit of a challenging message, there is a bit of squirming on the seats and suddenly people just start leaving – in fact there was 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 disciples 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.
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 of faith together 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.
May the words of Jesus invite us into that place of belonging in this time of separateness, reminding us that we choose to stay in community with Jesus, the Holy One of God, and with each other with, the people of God. May your Spirit makes a home deep within us; let us welcome and delight in your presence. Amen.
Prayer
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