This Difficult Teaching

John 6:56-69

August 26, 2018

            Back in the early 1990’s, a movie came out about the afterlife. It wasn’t your typical film that about what heaven or, for that matter, what hell may be like. Defending Your Life had a different take on what happens when you die. Daniel Miller, a man in his 30’s, divorced, working in a comfortable job, living a comfortable but non-descript sort of life, dies suddenly in a car accident. He wakes up dead and finds himself in Judgment City; it’s sort of the waiting room of the afterlife. Arriving in Judgment City is your first stop when you die. Actually, the first stop is being housed in a Judgment City hotel room to sleep, because apparently dying takes a lot out of you and the newly dead need their rest.

            What happens in Judgment City? The name is rather self-explanatory. You, actually your life, is judged. Judgment City is where you defend your life. During the day, you are in a courtroom of sorts. Like any courtroom, you have a prosecutor and you have a defense lawyer – more of an advocate really. You, your advocate and the prosecutor watch clips from your life. Then you’re asked to defend the decisions you made or didn’t make. There are two possible outcomes – you go back to earth to live a new life and get it right this time or you go … on. The “on” is never fully described. It just means that you got it right in your life on earth, and you’re allowed to go … on.

            Judgment is not based so much on morality, but on whether or not you lived your life in fear. Morality, standing up for your convictions, doing what is right, is connected to fear. It takes courage to do the right thing. Daniel Miller, played by Albert Brooks – who also wrote and directed the movie – was not a bad or immoral person. He didn’t do anything particularly wrong. But he didn’t do anything particularly memorable either. He lived a very fearful life. It probably didn’t seem so fearful when he was living it. He lived a life that many people live. It was … fine. But it turned out that most of what Daniel did and did not do was based on fear. And fear is what you are judged on. Did you live your life in fear? Then you need to go back and do life again. Learn to live without fear. Learn to be brave, to be courageous. Learn to live without fear.

            The nice thing about Judgment City is that while you defend your life during the day, at night you can have fun. You can eat anything you want without gaining a single ounce. There are restaurants and even bowling alleys – Judgment Lanes. The majority of the people in Judgment City are old, but another person close to Daniel’s age is Julia, played by Meryl Streep. Julia’s life had been full. She definitely lived without fear, or if she was afraid, she overcame it. Daniel falls in love with Julia – really falls in love. And it’s this love that finally pushes him to find his courage. He was sentenced to go back, to live life again. Julia was allowed to go on. Without giving away the ending, Daniel changes his life … or his afterlife.

            A life lived in fear is the premise of Defending Your Life. I realize that this does not meet our Christian understanding of the afterlife. But what about our life now? Do we live lives of courage or do we live lives of fear? I pose this question because I think that fear plays a part in the passage we read from John’s gospel.

            We have finally reached the end of chapter 6 in John. Next week we return to Mark’s gospel. We get a break from pondering Jesus as the bread of life, the living bread from heaven, and especially, eating his body and drinking his blood. I mean it when I say we get a break. These words are not easy to read, to preach or to understand.

            According to the text, we are not alone in finding them challenging. Those listening found them hard to swallow as well.

            “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.’”

            Note that it was not just any old folks who struggled with what Jesus was teaching. John refers to them as disciples. These were people who had followed Jesus, who were learning from Jesus, who believed in Jesus. They were disciples, but Jesus’ teaching about being living bread from heaven was just too much for them. They couldn’t wrap their heads around it. They couldn’t go any further, and they turned back. They turned away. They were afraid.

            The word that the New Revised Standard Version translates as “offend,” actually comes from the Greek word for scandal. Jesus asked them if his words scandalized them. To go even deeper, the root of this word literally means “stumble over.”

            Do my words, my teachings scandalize you? Do they make you stumble? Yes. The disciples who had been following Jesus stumbled over his words, and they could not find a way to get back up and keep going. It was just too much.

            What about Jesus’ words made them so fearful, other than the obvious answer that delving into his flesh and blood has an “Ew! Yuck!” factor, as we talked about last week? Remember that the underlying theme in John’s gospel is relationship. Jesus, the Word became flesh, became this flesh so that we could have a relationship with him, and through him, with God. Abiding in John’s gospel is about abiding in relationship. Staying in John’s gospel is about relationship. Jesus gave up his flesh and blood so we, the world could have a new relationship, a new life with God. Considering all of this some 2,000 years later, we might think that there should be no fear involved whatsoever. These disciples who turned away just didn’t get it. They did not have all the knowledge that we have. They were afraid because they didn’t know the rest of the story, and we who do, are not afraid.

            Or are we? Think about it. What does it take to be in a real relationship, a full relationship, an intimate relationship? It takes vulnerability. It takes intense honesty. It takes a willingness to reveal ourselves, to show ourselves with all of our flaws and failings. I think this is true in our marriages, our family relationships, and our deepest friendships. Being vulnerable, being honest, being willing to show ourselves for who we truly are is a scary thing. Staying on the surface of a relationship is much safer, much easier.

            If it is scary in our human relationships, how much more frightening is it when we consider our relationship with God? I’m not talking about a relationship based on the fear that God is going to strike us down at any moment. I’ve heard that kind of relationship preached far too often. I’m talking about recognizing that being in relationship with God calls for a deep and abiding trust. It calls for a willingness to let go of control, to realize that there is more than we can understand or explain. For us being in a relationship with God the Father comes through being in a relationship with Jesus the Son. That relationship with the Son calls us to imitate the Son. That is discipleship. We seek to follow Jesus, to be his disciples. But that means we are called to do what he did, to live as he lived. We are called to love, really love in word and in deed, the stranger, the other, those who seem most unlovable. And we are called not just to pity, but to put ourselves in their shoes, to walk their journey. Being a disciple calls us to hard places and to do hard things. This is a difficult teaching, and it is a difficult doing.

            It takes courage to love like this. It takes a letting go of our fear. But when we let go of our fear, when we step up and find this courage, we have a fullness of life that is joyful and brimming, overflowing, with love and hope. This is the abundant life that Jesus spoke of. It is a life based not on fear or caution but on love.

            It would be easy to walk away. Sometimes we do just that. I know I have. We are ever walking the line between discipleship and betrayal. Perhaps we don’t betray as Judas did, but we betray when we give into our fear, give into hopelessness. But the good news is that we are covered by grace. Jesus does not stop calling; Jesus does not give up on us or walk away from us. May we summon up our courage and let go of the fear which keeps us from living full lives; lives of discipleship, lives of love. After all where else can we go, really? Who else can we turn to? It is Jesus that has the words of eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Living Bread

John 6:51-58

August 19, 2018

            “This is my body given for you.”

            “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.”

            “The body of Christ.”

            “The blood of Christ.”

            I sometimes wonder what it would be like if someone who had never heard anything about church – about Christ, about Christianity, someone with no cultural references, no memories of visiting church with their grandparents or going to Vacation Bible as a kid – walked into our church just as we were celebrating communion. What would they think? What would they hear? What would they see? What would they believe we were doing?

            I read a story in a blog I follow about preacher and scholar,Martin Copenhaver, who witnessed a moment like the one I described. The setting was a traditional church. The communion table was spread with fine linens and a beautiful chalice and plate. The minister stood and solemnly intoned the words of institution: the body of Christ, the blood of Christ. And in a moment of quiet, a holy pause, a little girl in the congregation who was really listening to what was being said, suddenly exclaimed, “Ew! Yuck!”

            It was when I was attending a Catholic Junior College that I first realized that different denominations understand what happens in the Lord’ Supper differently. Some traditions, such as Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopalian, believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood. When we were discussing this belief in my required theology class, Father Dolehide asked a Catholic student what he thought about when he took the Eucharist. The young man looked somewhat shamefaced, and then he said,

            “Honestly, Father, I just close my eyes and try not to think about it.”

            My fellow student’s answer was not, “Ew! Yuck!” But the underlying sentiment was similar to that of the little girl’s. He was taught that the bread and wine became the body and blood, so he just closed his eyes and tried not to let his imagination get the best of him.

            I admit that I take comfort in our Presbyterian understanding of the Lord’s Supper. This is a communion table, not an altar. Christ is spiritually present, which means that we are eating bread and drinking wine – or grape juice. There is no mystical substitution going on. The bread stays bread and the grape juice stays juice. I take great comfort in all of that, because I get the “Ew! Yuck!” factor. If I really believed that the bread became flesh and the wine became blood, it would be a lot harder to deal with. My comfort level about communion remains high until I get to this passage from John’s gospel.

            “So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 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.’”

            Our English translation does not adequately describe the scandal of these words, nor the shock and disgust the people listening to Jesus must have felt. What Jesus was saying was an abomination according to the Law and prophets. It was repugnant.

            John’s gospel is metaphorical and layered with meaning, but in this case, the verbs in Jesus’ words are vivid and more literal. The first verb for eat was more like a gentle supping, but it switches to a verb that can be translated as gnawing. When Jesus spoke of eating his flesh, he wasn’t necessarily being metaphorical. He was talking about them gnawing his flesh. Was Jesus inviting the people around him to come over and take a bite of his arm or leg? No, of course not. But clearly he was trying to make a point, an intense point. I am the living bread. God gave your ancestors manna in the wilderness to sustain them, but that manna did not last. I am the living bread, I am the bread that lasts. If you want to abide in God, then you need to abide in me and I in you. You have to eat this living bread and drink this living blood.

            Abiding in John’s gospel is not just about staying someplace. Abiding in John’s gospel is about being in relationship. Jesus was making the connection between God and him; a relationship with God comes through him, the Son. And that relationship was cemented, founded, grounded, made eternal through eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

            So what does all of this mean? What does this have to do with us, not just when we’re sitting here gathered around this table, but in our everyday lives? How will digging into this strange passage from John help us on Tuesday? How does it counsel or comfort us as we just try to get through the everydayness of life?

            I think we have to go back to the first chapter of John, to those first verses, specifically to, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God, our God, is not just out there somewhere watching from a distance – like that popular Top 40 song from years ago. Our God is the incarnate God; as Dr. David Lose put it, the carnal God. God became one of us. The Word became flesh, our flesh. I learned this week that the Hebrew idiom, “flesh and blood,” is about a person’s whole self. If I speak of giving God my flesh and blood, then I am giving God my whole being – my heart, my mind, my body, my soul, my everything. God becoming flesh and blood in Jesus was God giving us God’s whole self, God’s whole being. God asks the same of us in return. Jesus, in dying on the cross, gave his whole self, did he not? He gave his flesh. He gave his blood.

            As strange and even gory as his words sounded, Jesus was not speaking of something cannibalistic. He was telling those who would listen, that he would give his flesh and blood to them and for them. He gives his flesh and blood to us and for us. He gives his life so that abundant life for the world, for all of us, is possible – not just in some distant future, but right now. It is about a relationship, an abiding in him, in God through him, that goes far beyond any external relationships we may have.

            To quote from Martin Copenhaver:

            “The New Testament uses many different images to express the intimate relationship between Jesus and those who believe in him, and John gives us many of the most familiar expressions of this relationship: Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep. He is the vine and we are the branches. He abides in God and we abide in him.

            In this passage, however, language is pressed to its limits to express the indissoluble participation of one life in another. For those who receive Jesus, his life clings to their bones and courses through their veins. He can no more be taken from a believer’s life than last Tuesday’s breakfast can be plucked from one’s body. It is the ultimate communion – the coming together, the union of the Savior and the saved.”

            “The indissoluble participation of one life in another.” Whenever we gather around this table, whenever we share the bread and drink the cup, we are remembering and renewing this indissoluble participation of our lives in Jesus and with one another. God became flesh and blood so that God’s whole self would be given to us. Jesus literally gave up his flesh and blood through death for our sake. God resurrected Jesus so that new life could be ours. Jesus is the living bread, and we are called to taste it, to eat it, to remember and know that “that his life clings to our bones and courses through our veins.” Sisters and brothers, may we all taste and see the goodness of our God.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rules for the New Life

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

August 12, 2018

            Many years ago when my kids were younger, we were getting ready to go on a road trip. I no longer remember exactly which trip this was – I think our destination was somewhere out west – but our road trips usually involved long hours in the car. I would always come up with activities that would make time pass a little easier. My love of listening to audio books started on these long car journeys. But no matter how hard you try to keep folks engaged, when you’re in the car for a long period of time restlessness eventually sets in. And when restlessness reared its head the trouble would start.

            In order to create a more harmonious atmosphere for our drive, and to preserve my sanity, I sat down and created a list of rules. I printed it out and read it aloud to everyone who would share space in the car. I told everyone involved that I was bringing it with me as a reminder of how we were all expected to behave. I don’t remember my rules verbatim, but I know they sounded something like this.

            1) Sibling shall not hit, tease, annoy, irk or otherwise pester other sibling.

            2) Children shall not backtalk or sass a parent.

3) All litter, including candy wrappers, paper, straws, etc., shall be thrown away at every stop.

            4) There shall be no whining.

            5) Mom will be listened to; i.e. no interrupting, no talking over or ignoring her.

6) This trip is supposed to be fun, so everyone will have fun – whether they like it or not.

I’m sure there were more rules than that. Knowing me, I probably came up with ten; kind of a Ten Commandments of a family car trip. But we hadn’t even walked out the door of our house before at least two of the rules were broken. I don’t think we’d even reached our destination before I abandoned the whole list altogether. It was a long trip.

I’m not telling you this to disparage my children; but long trips confined in a car wear on everyone – kids and adults alike. I thought perhaps my list of road trip rules might soften the edges of the journey. But I forgot how hard it can be to abide by certain rules when you’re dealing with other human beings. That seems to be a universal reality.

My title for this sermon is not my own, meaning I didn’t pluck it out of my own imagination. Although it is not in your pew Bible, it is the subheading of this particular passage in my Bible. Rules for the New Life – everything about this particular passage is summed up in the title. We have a new life together; therefore we need new rules for how to live this life together.

You may be thinking to yourself, why are you saying it’s so hard for us to follow rules? We follow rules all the time. Our society and culture is predicated upon the assumption that most people will follow the rules. Rules set the boundaries of our society. Abiding by the rules makes it possible for us to live in society, to function in society. There have to be rules, and we all follow them. If we didn’t there would be mass chaos all the time.

Since there isn’t mass chaos all the time, it would seem safe to assume that we already know the rules that help us live together somewhat harmoniously. But these rules in our passage today read differently than say traffic rules. These are rules for the new life. And abiding by these rules can be much more difficult and challenging than taking turns at a four-way stop sign.

At first reading, it seems as though if we just obeyed these rules than everything would be hunky dory. Again, it may seem as though we already obey them. Most of us don’t go around lying, and the first rule in verse 25 is “putting away falsehood, let all of us speak truth to our neighbors …”

Does that mean that Paul thought everyone was a liar or a potential liar? No, but it does mean that it can be easier to avoid the hard truths we should speak to one another. If you were here last week, think about the passage that was read from Second Samuel. Think about the hard truth the prophet Nathan had to confront David with. David broke several of the commandments with his relationship with Bathsheba, and with setting her husband, Uriah, up to be killed on the front lines. Nathan telling David, “You are the man!” was a hard truth. Maybe other people in the king’s life would have probably just told him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear. Sometimes putting away falsehood is not so much about lying as it is about truth, hard truth.

Paul went on to talk about being angry. Just as Jesus addressed conflict among his followers in the gospel of Matthew, assuming that there would be conflict, Paul rightly assumed that people would get angry. Anger is a reality, but it’s how you handle your anger that can make all the difference. Not all anger is bad. When we see injustice, oppression, cruelty, we should rightly be angry. But what do we do with our anger? How does it motivate us? What actions stem from our anger? If we respond to cruelty with more cruelty, is that being angry but not sinning?

Paul’s words about thieves should be obvious. Thieves should give up stealing. However this was not just about refraining from one bad behavior; it was about turning that behavior into something that served others. Engage in honest labor, not just for your own benefit, but for the benefit of the needy all around you.

Another rule for the New Life is one that I especially struggle with: watch my words. It’s not that I try to speak evil, but how often have my words torn down rather than built up? One admonition that my mother repeated over and over was “you can’t take back words.” That goes back to being angry, but not sinning doesn’t it? How many times have I said something in anger that I regret? More times than I’d like to admit. You can’t take back words, so let no evil talk come out of your mouths. Words that tear down cause grief to the Holy Spirit.

The community that Paul addressed came together not because they were of the same birth family or the same ethnic or cultural background. They came together out of love for God in Jesus Christ. They formed a community because God loved them first, and because they recognized that love. The seal of the Holy Spirit was what bound them together, and to tear down one another in anger grieved the Spirit that formed them.

These rules for the New Life called the community to “put away bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together will all malice.” But these rules were not just about what they should not do, they were also, and even more importantly, about what they should do.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The Rules for New Life are not just rules about what we don’t do, but are about what we are called to do. They are about who we are called to be, and how we are called to try and live with one another. The Rules for New Life are a reminder that our lives are not our own. Our lives belong to God. The Rules for New Life are a reminder that we are not just individuals taking up our own particular space in the world. We are members of one another. We belong to God, and we belong to each other.

Just this week I stumbled upon a news video from the BBC about a Greek woman known as Mama Maria. Greece has been a landing point for the thousands of people fleeing the violence and war in Syria and other places in the Middle East. Many refugees have found shelter in other European nations, but many more have been turned away. Many of these refugees have been sent back to Greece. Yet whether a refugee is just arriving to Greece or returning, Mama Maria feeds them. She owned a restaurant in her small village, and she fed them there – by the thousands. She never charged anything, she just fed them. She saw them suffering and scared and far away from home, so she did the one thing she knew could do. She fed them.

She fed them until threats against her forced her to close her restaurant. She was told repeatedly to stop doing what she was doing. But her belief that this is her calling is so strong, she refuses to stop. She can no longer feed refugees in her restaurant, but she can feed them in her home. And she does; because we are members of one another. Maybe Mama Maria would not articulate it that way, but she doesn’t have to. Her actions speak for her. In her act of feeding, she imitates God. She loves as Christ loved us.

We are members of one another. Ultimately, this is what these Rules for the New Life are all about. They are a reminder that living together in this new life is not just about restraint or refraining from bad behavior. It is about actively seeking to do what is good and kind and tenderhearted for the other. It is about forgiving. It is about imitating God; the God we know through his Son; the Son who willingly died so that we might live a new life. We are members of one another, may we follow the rules of this new life, now and always.

Thanks be to God. Amen.