John 6:56-69
14thSunday after Pentecost ~ Lectionary 21
This is our fifth Sunday reading from the 6thChapter of John’s Gospel. Have you had your fill of bread yet? This series of readings began with a large crowd following Jesus because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick [John 6:2b]. They were with him all day watching him heal and hearing him teach. When it got time for dinner, Jesus wanted to feed the people, rather than to send them away. You remember the story. A boy shared all the food he had. Jesus gave thanks to God, and miraculously, 5 barley loaves and 2 fish were more than enough for everyone.
The next day, this same crowd followed Jesus across the sea to Capernaum. In the synagogue there, he continued to teach them, saying, “I am the Bread of Life. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I am them.” To the Jewish people, this was scandalous. Children of God don’t eat flesh with blood in it! That’s what Pagans do!
Jesus’ teachings were hard! They were hard to understand–Jesus is the Son of God, the true Bread from Heaven? They were counter-cultural—the first shall be last, love your enemies? This last encounter pushed some away. Many those who had been following him turned back. Jesus watched these disciples whom he had healed, and taught, and fed, and loved, as they walked away. Then, turning to his most faithful, the twelve, he asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” How many times had they asked themselves that same question? Do you also wish to go away? Do you?
The truth for all of us is that sometimes the answer is yes. We stop and think twice when Jesus calls us, as he did Peter, to step out of the boat, take his hand and walk on the water with him. It’s not easy to trust Jesus completely when he calls us out of our comfort zone to do something we’re sure will drown us. Leaving seems like a better alternative than loving our enemies. We think about walking away when we pray for a miracle that never comes. When God opens our eyes and our hearts to those who walk the streets and sleep in the woods because they have no other place to go, our insides fill with tears. When children are violated by the ones who are supposed to keep them safe we think about walking away from the God who let that happen.
Following Jesus is hard! Sometimes, we want to protect our hearts rather than give them away. It seems to come naturally to respond with anger instead of seeking to understand. It’s easier to go along with the crowd rather than speaking out against discrimination and injustice.
Who or what we have faith in has been an issue ever since Adam and Eve and the snake and the fruit. Choose this day whom you will serve, Joshua tells the Israelites as they gathered before God. Do you also wish to go away?, Jesus asks. Simon Peter answers him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Even as we hear these words leave his lips, we know that we have gone elsewhere. We have devoted ourselves to money or to our work, as if they can save us. We find fleeting comfort from a few glasses of wine, or in an unhealthy relationship. We turn to our favorite vice and forget to pray. It is so easy to slip away from Jesus a piece at a time. Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, says Peter, the one who will later deny Jesus three times, and, along with the other apostles, abandon him at the cross.
You may remember this story from Mark’s Gospel. There was a father whose son had a spirit that caused him to have seizures. The father brought him to Jesus. Take pity and heal him, if you are able, the father asked. “Jesus said to him, If you are able! —All things can be done for the one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out, I believe; help my unbelief![Mark 9:14-24]. We, too, live with this paradox.
It’s not God’s love that is in question. It never was. Adam and Eve, the Israelites, the ones who followed Jesus, Peter–all of them, were already chosen and loved by God. In John’s Gospel, even the ones who walked away from Jesus were called his disciples. God had already chosen them. Even when he let them walk away, his love went with them.
God has already chosen us. What about our part of this relationship? What about our faith? It is the Holy Spirit that makes faith possible. In the explanation of the third article of the Apostle’s Creed, Luther writes, I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith.[1]
Professor emeritus Timothy Wengert expounds further:
Faith…comes by hearing—not by deciding or willing or coming to God. God in Christ comes to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit calls through the gospel (Word and Sacrament) and thereby puts an end to our works. Faith is not a work or even a “response”; it is an event, what happens when we hear the lover’s voice and fall in love…In the midst of our deafness, God speaks; in our blindness, God shines.[2]
To put it simply, faith is a relationship response. We are grateful to have a relationship with our Preschool families, and to have children worshipping with us. Jesus said that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it[Luke 18:17]. Children aren’t hung up on theology, or creeds, or praying the right words. What matters is that they are loved. Children form loving relationship without going through a decision-making process. Teenagers do the same, although hormones seem to be responsible for the lack of thought. Remember the first time you fell in love?[3]
Because our human sinfulness enters into all our relationships with us, they are messy, complicated, inconsistent and unreliable.[4] But God’s love for us never waivers. God gives us what no one and nothing else ever can—not our partner, not knowledge, not money, not anything. Do you also wish to go away? Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1]Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds. Book of Concord. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.
[2]Wengert, Timothy. Martin Luther’s Catechisms. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009, 62.
[3]This is the description used by Rev. Dr. Dave Delaney in an e-mail to me.
[4]Ibid.