Inge Williams, Vicar (Intern)
John 6:56-69
56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This 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 for ever.’ 59He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’ 61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, ‘Does this offend you? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But 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. 65And he said, ‘For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.’
66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ 68Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’*
Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Let me repeat that. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Our seminary preaching professor told us never to use imagery of blood or guts in our preaching. And here, in my first Sunday sermon of my internship year, Jesus goes on talking about how his disciples should eat his flesh and drink his blood. Jesus wasn’t listening during my preaching class apparently! You might not even have realized how strange these words are when I first read them, because I think if you go to church long enough, you get numb to the words Jesus speaks here. We might think of communion, where we have heard “the body of Christ given for you” over and over again, and Jesus’ body is like a tasteless, cardboard-like communion wafer and it’s not like we have to think about real flesh and real blood. After a while, we totally lose the shock value of these very strange, graphic words. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
So even though we might be numb to the words in this lesson, imagine you are one of those in the crowd, who had come to hear this captivating teacher. Last week, when your stomach was gurgling and in pain from hunger, he fed you and five thousand people with five barley loaves and two fish. And now all of a sudden, instead of just giving you what you wanted, that is, something to eat, he said that eating his flesh and drinking his blood was the way to have eternal life. Apparently the word that is used here isn’t the normal word for eating, but a word that comes closer to gnaw- like what a dog does with a new bone. Ewww! I don’t know about you but I can’t blame those in the crowd who crawled away from Jesus. It is a repulsive teaching. These are difficult words to hear and accept. Jesus’ followers here are scandalized, offended by Jesus’ teaching; they do not want to hear these strange words, nor are they happy that the crowds are dispersing. The disciples say, “Lord, this teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?” The crowd is leaving because of Jesus’ “difficult teaching.”
Have you ever experienced this? You might join a new group, and when it’s all fun and games, everyone shows up, but when the work gets difficult, the numbers start to dwindle? There is something very human about wanting all the showy beauty of religion without real commitment. In our own time and culture, it is pretty common in many churches that we only want to hear about what Jesus can do for ME, we only want to hear what Jesus can give to us. He can feed us with the bread of life, he can make everything better and fix our messed up lives in a snap, etc. It’s like the televangelist preachers whose sermons feel like an infomerical for a miracle cleaner, and it’s only going to cost you $19.95. No commitments involved! Or you surely know the megachurches where people gather around in droves, only soon to dwindle again like a field of weeds. Martin Luther called this “the word without the cross,” in other words hearing about Jesus’ forgiveness and promise of new life without obedience, without the necessity of discipleship. Jesus is calling the crowd to a radical way of following him, and he isn’t worried about the crowd taking off. He refuses to only give them what they want to hear. Instead, he gives them an option, asking the disciples, “do you want to leave, too?” This begs the question, when it’s easy to follow the crowd and leave, why would anyone stay?
Before I left for Seattle, my Mom and I were watching a video on the internet. A friend of hers on facebook had posted a link to an interview that she had done with a man named Shane Claibourne. Shane Claibourne grew up as an evangelical Christian in East Tennessee, and he was explaining in the interview what it was like growing up in that religious environment. “A lot of people talked about how Jesus saved their lives,” he said. A whole list of folk songs scrolled through my head that reflect this, like I’m so glad Jesus lifted me, etc. I knew what he was talking about. But Shane went on to say, “you know, that’s fine and all, but Jesus wrecked my life.” Shane explained how as he read the stories of Jesus, his teaching disrupted Shane’s life so entirely that his faith of discipleship led him to live on the streets of Philadelphia with the homeless, addicted, and forgotten. Shane heard Jesus’ hard, difficult teaching: that to serve the least of these was to serve Jesus, that it’s wrong to pray for a hungry person without feeding them, that in order to find his life, he would have to lose it. He founded a house called the Simple Way, a community that lives in Philadelphia’s most impoverished neighborhood, shares in ancient Christian habits of prayer, and welcomes all to community dinners. Shane gave up the “easy” way of wealth and privilege and turning a blind eye to the world’s deep injustice, for the simple way of neighborliness, love for the outcast, and Jesus’ values.
Jesus wrecked Shane Claibourne’s life, he witnessed in that interview. While he may have wrecked all of Shane’s old expectations about religion, Shane found new, eternal life. Instead of running away like the crowds from Jesus’ hard, difficult teaching, Shane echoes the words of Peter, who said to Christ, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We often think about eternal life as loooong, life in some other, heavenly plane, but in John’s Gospel, eternal life is not about quanity but quality- it’s both deep and wide, like “there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide” that we sang at VBS two weeks ago. Eternal life is both deep and wide- the fullness of life, or abundant life, real life, truly living. Even with the difficult teaching, Peter knows that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Not running away from the hard-to-accept teachings of Christ, Shane Claibourne and Peter found real and eternal life, the deep and wide fountain of Jesus’ truthful words.
As a church, we belong to the remnant of disciples who didn’t flee with the rest of the crowd. So many of our churches have dwindled in numbers and projections say they will continue to decline. Luther Memorial has its own story which I have heard a bit about in my first weeks here and look forward to hearing more as our year together goes on. Even if there is less of a crowd than in the past, what a gift it is to stand here in this sanctuary today with you, with a remnant who have a sense of discipleship, who hope to embody Jesus’ mission of embracing the outcast, comforting the lonely, healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind; you who have developed creative ways of sharing Christ’s love in this neighborhood, welcoming passers-by with a beautiful garden, feeding those without a place to call home, celebrating your life together with a sense of fun and joy. What a gift it is that you have remained with Jesus, are able to say, “Lord, you have the words of eternal life,” that you are still looking to him for guidance and direction of your ministry.
Today, as we come to the altar for Jesus’ body and blood, for bread and wine, we remember that this is our food for the mission he has entrusted us with in the world. As we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we pray that Jesus would literally transform us from the inside out, in body, mind, and spirit, that his eternal life would renew us totally. His body, the bread of life from heaven, and his blood, the cup of salvation, nourish us physically for our work as disciples. We could be like the crowd and run away, but when we stick around, when we eat his flesh and drink his blood, I think we might just taste and see the full, eternal life Jesus has promised. May we be fed to love God and serve our neighbor, in Christ’s name. Amen.
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