The Onion Is Ours

Sermon-Year B Proper 17-August 30, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I hate to say this, but Jesus was wrong. It doesn’t happen very often, and I usually try to overlook it, but in this case-Jesus made a mistake. We should wash our hands before we eat. Is this so wrong? Of course not! My grandmother said it, my mother said it, and my wife says it-and that means that Jesus was wrong. The Pharisees tell Jesus that they caught his followers eating without washing their hands first. Why is that so upsetting to Jesus? What parent in their right mind would take Jesus’ side in this debate?
First of all, have you ever heard of the Washington Generals? That’s the team that plays the Harlem Globetrotters at all of their exhibitions. The Generals had a record of 6 wins and 13,000 losses over a 40 year period. THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO LOSE. The Pharisees are the Washington Generals of the gospels. So why is Jesus arguing with the Pharisees over something so mundane, so insignificant as hand washing? Doesn’t this seem a little, um, small and petty to you? When Gulliver traveled to Lilliput you know what the Lilliputians were fighting over? Whether you should crack your eggs at the small end or the big end. Seems rather, “small and petty” doesn’t it? So here is Jesus fighting with the Pharisees over something so minor, so trivial like cracking their eggs-and clearly Jesus is picking the wrong end of the egg.
When the Jewish people were taken into exile in 587BC by the Babylonians , they were not just defeated, they were destroyed. There was almost nothing of their culture, their history, their life, left. So when they returned to Israel 70 years later they had to work very very hard to hold on to their identity-and the primary way they did this, was by holding on to ancient rituals and traditions-things they had taken for granted- before they were taken into exile. Out of this group a reform movement developed called, the Pharisees. The Pharisees worked very very hard at keeping their Jewish identity. They believed that the best way to hold on to their Jewishness, to be faithful to God, was to keep the laws. Does this sound so wrong? Of course not. We applaud cultures who strive to keep their identity, we approve of keeping the law, right?. For the Pharisees, their goal was to maintain the separateness and uniqueness of Judaism. The Pharisees and their party represented about 5% of the Jewish people, but they were the good 5%, the powerful 5%, the religious 5%. The word Pharisee means “separate ones”. That was what Pharisees tried to do, to make their faith and practice better, to encourage people to obey God’s commandments, to push people to be more holy-is that so wrong? Of course not.
I have said this to you many times, the Pharisees didn’t think that Jesus was religious enough. He, or his disciples (which is how they could argue with Jesus), didn’t always keep all the religious rules and practices. This morning’s story wasn’t so much about not washing before they ate, it was about not treating things as holy. It was about not staying connected to the traditions. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not.
But for Jesus it opened up a whole can of worms. What is the purpose of tradition? Why do we have rituals? What’s the point? And Jesus unleashes a torrent of teaching on the Pharisees, these Washington Generals. First he calls them a name, “you hypocrites” he calls them. Do you remember what a hypocrite was? They were actors in Greek plays. So he’s saying that they are playing a role-not being honest.
Then he says, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition”. Harsh words. He’s telling them that they’re holding people down, using the letter instead of the spirit of the law. They’re using the law to inhibit the Spirit. Harsh words. And he says, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile." You know what Jesus is saying. It isn’t the law that gets us in trouble, it’s what’s in our hearts. It’s what we mean, what we intend, what is behind the actions. It is why we do something, even more than what we do. It isn’t breaking the laws and rituals that is the problem, it’s closing off our hearts to God. The Rev. Steve Kelsey recounts the story told in Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, of the stingy old woman who sought, from the misery of hell, the lake of fire where she found herself after she had died, to be raised to the comforts and joys of heaven. “I wasn’t all THAT bad!” she asserts to an angel passing by. “What about the time when the poor beggar came to my door and I gave him an onion?” The angel swoops down and hovers just above the old woman, as together they look back upon that scene from her life. The woman had resentfully come to the back door of her grand mansion to try to shoo the beggar away, complaining loudly about the filthiness of his hands and face. “You don’t even wash before you come to beg?” Nonetheless, the woman had reached down into the bottom of her larder and produced a rotting onion that she handed over to the beggar.
“Well,” said the angel, “that should be enough to open the doors of heaven for you.” The angel lowers to her a rope with that very onion tied to its end. The woman grabs on, but as the rope is lifted, others in the lake of fire climb on, hoping to be pulled out as well. The old woman, alarmed by this, cries out, “Let go! Let go! It’s not you who are being pulled out! It’s me! It’s not your onion! It’s mine.” And just when she says, “It’s mine,” the onion snaps in two, falls out of the rope, and she falls back into the lake of fire. The angel weeps, as she flies away. If only the old woman had had it in her heart to say, “The onion is ours,” surely the onion would have been strong enough to have pulled all of them out together.
Rituals and traditions are important-and have an aim-to help our hearts. When they no longer do that, they no longer serve their purpose. Jesus is calling the Pharisees, and then the crowds-and now us- to see what is our purpose, what is our mission. Laws are good. Rituals and traditions are good. Routine practices and disciplines are good-as long as they serve the purpose of strengthening our hearts. The temptation is always to forget their goal, why we have them in the first place.
The Pharisees wanted to make sure that the good people, the right people, the ones who kept the laws, were separate. They forget the purpose of the law wasn’t to isolate Jews, to keep only the Jews holy, to separate them from the unholy- but to have them serve as a witness to the world of a loving, caring, merciful God. A God of Love. They… forgot.
We all forget. We get lazy. We take wrong turns. We separate ourselves. We make mistakes. Rituals, traditions, help us. But they are not the goal. They are the tools that we have to help us hold on to the truths.
A couple of years ago Deborah and I were on our way to dinner. We were stopped at an intersection and a car with pizza delivery flag on top of it blew through a stop sign , turned a corner and raced ahead of us. I followed the car into the parking lot of the pizza place and asked to talk to the manager. When he came out, I told him what his employee had done and how she had put people in danger with her reckless driving. He said he would take care of it. As I walked out, another customer turns to me and says, “when you pulled in just now you almost hit me-I think you should worry more about your own driving.”
In the opening of Fiddler On the Roof to introduce the idea, Tevye at one point says: “And why do we do this?(meaning keep all the customs) I'll tell you (long pause) I don't know. But it’s tradition!”
Some theologians call Jesus the most anti religious person to ever lead a religion. Anthony deMello tells this story: there was an Indian guru who would have meditation services every evening and his cat would always run into the temple through the middle of the meditators. So every evening before the service, the guru would tie the cat to the tree outside. Then the guru died and the new guru also had the cat tied to the tree every evening in the same way. When the cat died, the new guru had an assistant immediately go out and buy a new cat to tie to the tree in the same way. The new guru even wrote a manual on the correct way to tie the cat to the tree before meditation services. What are the cats that we are still tying to trees?
What are the ways traditions gets in the way of the heart? What are our blockages that clog the arteries to our hearts? Are the traditions in our lives helping us-or separating us? Did Jesus come into our lives, to improve our traditions, and rituals? Or to change our hearts? Today’s gospel isn’t about the washing of hands. It isn’t about cracking eggs at the right end. It isn’t about tying cats to trees or stopping reckless drivers. It’s about giving onions to beggars. It’s about keeping the main thing, the main thing. Today’s gospel is about having a religion of the heart, and about letting traditions serve that religion-and not the other way around.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,
7:2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.
7:3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;
7:4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)
7:5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
7:6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
7:8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
7:14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
7:15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
7:21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,
7:22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.
7:23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

Not Comfort But Salvation

Sermon-Year B Proper 16-August 23, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We started 4 weeks ago with Jesus at his highest point in his ministry. 5000 gathered around him, and were filled. It is the peak of his popularity. John Dominic Crossan in “The Essential Jesus, points out that one of the most popular visual representations of Jesus in the early years of the Christian movement was the feeding of the multitude.” Jesus had arrived. Thousands of people were following him, surrounding him, listening to him. HE. COULD. DO. ANYTHING. Except give them what they wanted.
In Medieval England, the person in charge of bread was called the “loafward” (sort of like our senior or junior warden). Over time Loafward was abbreviated until it became the word “lord”. The “lord” was the person in charge of distributing bread-in other words, of keeping people alive.
So here are thousands of people who are looking to Jesus as the Lord, the loafward, the one who gives them bread. And throughout the 6th chapter of John Jesus offends, disturbs, and alienates all these people. We are now at the end of the chapter, and almost all the people have left. Jesus has told them that he is not just the loafward-he is the loaf, the bread of heaven, and unless they eat his flesh and drink his blood, they will never be a part of him. For a good Jew, a faithful Jew who lived and died by observing strict dietary laws, Jesus’ words were so scandalous, so disgraceful, that they could not stay and listen to him.
The Rev. Dr. David Lose professor of Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary writes
“No wonder, then, that many of those following Jesus now desert him. And at this point we need to be careful, for it's always tempting to write off those who gave up on Jesus as people too stupid or lazy or unfaithful to believe. But note that John calls these folks not simply "the crowds," as in earlier passages, but rather "disciples." The people in today's reading who now desert Jesus are precisely those who had, in fact, believed in Jesus, those who had followed him and had given up much to do so. But now, finally, after all their waiting and watching and wondering and worrying, they have grown tired, and they can no longer see clearly what it was about Jesus that attracted them to him in the first place, and so they leave...and who can blame them?”
Jesus goes from being the most popular person in the land, to the loneliest in just a few verses. And Jesus is surrounded now, not by thousands-but by a few. And not necessarily the best few. Just the 12 who are left. And, “So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Do you realize how close Jesus was to being finished? What if those last 12 had said, “uh, we just have to go out for a pack of cigarettes, we’ll be back in a little while?” What if they had said, “we just need to reassess our options.” What if they, too, had left?
Jesus is at the crossroads, literally. He has just said that living in him will be the most demanding, most difficult, hardest thing that anyone ever does. And people who had liked him, and followed him up til then, suddenly couldn’t get away fast enough. And he asks the last 12 still standing if they want to leave also.
And you know what, they must have been dying to go. Everything Jesus has been teaching is so difficult to understand, so painfully obscure and incomprehensible. They must have wanted desperately to run after all those other people who were slipping away.
And Jesus, who could have told them thanks for staying, or praised them or given them gifts, SOMETHING, ANYTHING to keep the few remaining, simply turns to them and asks, “Do you also wish to go away?” Haven’t you ever felt that way? Haven’t you ever been to a point in your faith when you just wanted to walk away, when you were tired of being a follower?
You know how they felt, don’t you? Maybe you just didn’t have a convincing answer to a tough question someone asked you about being a Christian. Maybe you felt angry at God, or confused, or unsure, or worst of all-maybe there have been many times in your faith when you felt nothing at all about God.
Peter, the spokesman for the 12 who remained, says the famous question, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. Peter doesn’t say he wants to stay, he doesn’t say that he is happy, he doesn’t say that he’s going to lead a successful life now. Peter has no choice. He knows that he is in the presence of truth, and regardless of how he feels, he has to give this answer-where else can we go?
“In the Preface to her book Amazing Grace, subtitled “A Vocabulary of Faith,” Kathleen Norris tells of an evening when she was making a presentation on this “vocabulary of faith” when a question was addressed to her concerning the real value of these “words of faith.” I don’t mean to be offensive,” her questioner said, “but I just don’t understand how you can get so much comfort from a religion whose language does so much harm.” Taken aback momentarily (Ms. Norris understood the question all too well, for she had, herself, been distanced from faith and its vocabulary for many years), she struggled to respond when in a moment of inspiration it came to her that the problem lay in the word “comfort.” “I said that I didn’t think it was comfort I was seeking,” Ms. Norris said, “or comfort that I’d found. Look, I said to her, as a rush of words came to me. As far as I’m concerned, this religion has saved my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. So it’s not comfort that I’m talking about-but salvation.” (pp. 3 and 4)
We have listened for five weeks as Jesus went from giving people what they want, being the loafward, to being almost alone. It was short journey. We, too, struggle with difficult words, with Jesus talking about his body as a metaphor for living in him. It has not been an easy 5 weeks. And now it ends with Peter’s simple statement of faith, “69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” These were words that did not come easily. And they would certainly cost Peter a lot in the days ahead. But for Peter, all of Jesus tough words weren’t about comfort, they were about salvation. He couldn’t turn away, he couldn’t leave. This morning’s gospel is about choice, and Peter doesn’t feel that he has a choice. Neither is there a choice in the first reading
“choose this day whom you will serve” Joshua says to the Hebrew people. “Lord, to whom can we go? Peter says to Jesus.
For Joshua, for Peter, for me. “Choose this day whom you will serve”. But there is no choice, no decision involved. Once the truth is clear, once the bread is presented, once I stick out my hands to receive the gift of life, how can I say “no”? How can I follow something, someone else? I cannot.
I have 2 granddaughters, you may have heard. And when we talk to our kids they will put them on the phone. Lauren, the 6 year old, will talk to us and we actually carry on a conversation. But when Danielle, the 4 year old is on the phone. We get about every 5th word. It makes for some very strange discussions. Finally I will yell into the phone, “KYLE, what did she say???” I don’t always understand her, but I have no doubt about my love for her, or what I am willing to do for her. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. I am not always sure what that means, but I know that I choose him. Amen.
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 forever.” 59He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
60When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?9 D 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.” 66Because 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.”
Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: "Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Then the people answered, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; for it is the LORD our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; and the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God."

Flesh And Blood

Sermon-Year B Proper 13-August 16, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Two quick personal stories. Most of you know Kyle, our kid. From time to time someone will say to me, “Debby was married before-so Kyle’s not your flesh and blood is he?” And I always try to remember to say what I believe is the truth, “no, he’s more than flesh and blood, he’s my son.”
It was 1971. I was taking confirmation classes. Again. The first time I didn’t feel “ready”. In those days you couldn’t take communion until you were confirmed. And when I didn’t get confirmed the first time, a year later, I couldn’t stop thinking about communion. I would never receive, I kept thinking. And then the day came, I was confirmed, but most of all what I remember is this place in the palm of my left hand where the wafer was put by the bishop. I thought to myself, “I’ll never forget this moment, when I first felt the body of Christ in my hands.” I probably will some day. But so far… I thought I knew what communion was back then. But almost 40 years later, I am less confident, less positive. I know that it is sacred, I know that it’s holy. I can talk all day about the Doctrine of the “Real Presence” which is how we define what happens at the Eucharist. But what words can describe a spot in your hand, a place in your heart that you still remember?
Jesus is STILL in chapter 6 of the gospel of John (this is the 4th week of this lectionary), and we are STILL listening to him tick off people by telling them that he is the Bread of Life. I told you last week that theologian William Countryman calls this “obnoxious discourse” (something I’m familiar with) because everything Jesus says seems designed to irritate the people listening. Jesus went from having a crowd of thousands following him early in this chapter, to having just a few at the end. Increasingly as he describes who he is and what he is, he is offending and scandalizing those listening. He tells them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood! Do you have any idea how upsetting this had to be to good Jews? Judaism was the first near eastern religion to ban the eating of any meat with blood still in it. They were the first religion to go out of their way to forbid the consuming of certain foods because they were unclean. And here is Jesus telling people to devour his body and blood, teaching people that they HAD to eat his body, drink his blood in order to live.
It is a scary passage today, with Jesus saying that he has to come into us, if we are to come into him. In the earliest days of the church (and even still today) Christians were constantly accused of cannibalism in the Eucharist. How can Jesus talk like this? And what does he mean telling people that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood if they are to live forever? It is shocking and offensive.
There is a great story from World War II. A wounded soldier is captured. the doctor attending him, tells him that he must receive a blood transfusion in order to survive. The soldier demands to know whose blood is it. the doctor tells him there is no way of knowing, that it’s just blood. the soldier responds, “I would rather die than receive the tainted blood.” And so he did.
Did you know that the Gospel of John is the only gospel without the story of the last supper? Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have accounts of Jesus eating with his friends the night before he dies, but in John, Jesus washes their feet. I bring this up every year at the Maundy Thursday service. Scholars think that John the writer didn’t want to put it in his story of Jesus because Jesus devoted so much teaching about it here in chapter 6. Jesus spends this whole chapter, as you have been hearing, actually trying to shoo people away, trying to explain how followers are supposed to connect with him-in the days to come. It drove people away. It was too hard, too difficult a teaching. John is dealing with the issue of how people will connect with Jesus when he is no longer physically present. How will we do it? How will we know him, when we no longer see him? Remember it’s at the end of the gospel of John, that we hear the story of Thomas saying, “Unless I see and touch the risen Lord, I will not believe…” John knows how hard this is for the early church. How do we believe when we can no longer see and touch? How do we believe when Jesus is gone?
And so we have this long teaching with Jesus saying, my body will live in you, and you will live in me-through this meal. It horrified the Jews. It outraged Jesus’ followers. How can a meal keep someone real? Another war story.
Psychologist Robert B. Cialdini once told about a German soldier during World War I whose job it was to capture enemy soldiers for interrogation. Because of the nature of trench warfare at that time, it was extremely difficult for armies to cross the no-man's land between opposing front lines; but it was not so difficult for a single soldier to crawl across and slip into an enemy trench position. The armies had experts who regularly did so to capture an enemy soldier, who would then be brought back for questioning. One particular German expert had successfully completed such missions. He was sent out one day to cross the distance, slip into the enemy trench, kidnap a British soldier, and bring him back to the German interrogators. As he entered the British trench, the unsuspecting soldier, who had been eating at the time, was easily disarmed. The frightened captive with only a piece of bread in his hand then performed what may have been the most important act of his life. He gave his enemy some of the bread. So affected was the German by this gift that he could not complete his mission. He turned from the British soldier and re-crossed the no-man's land empty-handed to face the wrath of his superior officers.
John the gospel writer recorded today’s words trying to help Christians long into the future understand how Jesus could be in them, and they in him, when they could not see him or touch him.
We describe the Eucharist as a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. We teach that it is our way, at every service of worship, in which we can be joined again to someone who lived 2000 years ago and thousands of miles away. It is not easy to explain, it is difficult to put into words. All we can do is tell the story of the connection we experience, the life we feel, the reality we live. Is Jesus alive in us? Are we alive in Him? We may have difficulty describing how it happens, but the key is what it means in our lives. Because of taking this bread and wine, do we believe that Jesus lives in us? Because we receive this meal do we live in him? This is our challenge. Can a simple meal of a crumb of bread and a sip of wine grow life in us, and us in Christ? Is this flesh and blood? Yes, and it is more than that-it is a spot that stays in our hearts forever. A Baptist once asked an Episcopalian, “Why don’t you have altar calls, where people are invited to come forward and accept Jesus into their lives?” The Episcopalian replied, “We do. It’s called, the Eucharist.”
John 6:51-58
6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
6:52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
6:53 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.
6:54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;
6:55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
6:56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.
6:58 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."

Do You Think My Life Is Getting Easier Or Longer?

Sermon-Year B 10 Pentecost-Proper 14-August 9, 2009
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen."
I hadn’t been at Trinity too long, back in the mid 80s. I was trying to get around and visit some of the older people of the parish who couldn’t get to church very often. So I call up this woman who is in her 90s and ask if I can visit. “Sure,” she says, “come on over anytime.” “Ok,” I answer, “I’ll be over later today- and I’ll bring communion with me.” There’s this long pause, then she says, “Why are you doing that-I’m not dying.” I splutter, and try to explain that communion isn’t just for those who are dying, but I can tell that I’m not making any headway. A few minutes later, her son who was in his 60s calls me up and wants to know where do I get off telling his mother that she’s going to die. A few months later I call up a different older woman who was a long time member of Trinity and ask if I can visit. She says “yes”, and with great trepidation I asked if she would like me to bring communion with me. “Hell yes!” she shouts into the phone, “what took you so long? Do you think my life is easy-or getting longer!?”
We have been reading every Sunday this year from the Gospel of Mark, but Mark is short. S o when Mark reaches the story about the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus, the only miracle story in all four gospels, the lectionary switches us to the Gospel of John for 5 weeks. In this gospel Jesus always explains what his miracles mean. So for 5 weeks after the feeding of the 5000 we have several verses, a whole chapter, of Jesus teaching. This teaching can be confusing-and difficult. Jesus wants people to understand that he doesn’t do magic tricks, that feeding a large group of hungry people isn’t his purpose. He has come into the world to save it. Each week Jesus engages a different set of people to help them understand. Two weeks ago it was a large crowd. Last week and this week it is “the Jews” (by which John the evangelist means the religious authorities). So Jesus is trying to make sense to them of who he is-and why he’s here.
It was not easy for “the Jews” to understand how he was the bread from heaven. It is not easy for us, and we have had 2000 years and are on the other side of the story. How is Jesus the Bread of Life and what does that mean?
I’m going to read a short piece by Brian Peterson, Professor of New TestamentLutheran Theological Southern Seminary Columbia, SC , about today’s gospel.
" A diet of bread, week after week, may get rather tiresome and stale – unless careful attention is paid to the movement of John 6. … In last Sunday's text, the center of attention was upon Jesus as the gift from the Father for the life of the world. Building on that claim, this Sunday's text focuses on Jesus as the center of faith to which the Father draws people. The movements within chapter 6 for these two Sundays, and for the one that will follow, are certainly interconnected, but they are not identical. Jesus is not simply repeating himself, and John is not writing in circles…. The crowd concludes that Jesus has not come from Heaven, because they know his parents. Familiarity is breeding contempt. One who has been among them cannot possibly be what Jesus claims to be. …The truth is not found in knowing the human parents who have nurtured Jesus' childhood. Rather, the truth is found in knowing that Jesus has come from the Father in Heaven. The crowd's self-assured "knowledge" stands in their way of seeing the truth. ….The only way out of such deadly unbelief is to be drawn into faith by the Father, and this activity of the Father is a major focus of today's text. …. Faith is not simply a human choice to be made, but is the activity of the Father drawing people to Jesus. The word used in verse 44 is the same word used to describe fishing nets being hauled into the boat (21:6). We must be dragged into faith by God; there is no other way to come. …. there is promise and hope in this text's declaration that God does in fact draw people to faith in Jesus. God is busy doing that right now ("the work of God", verse 28) through the words of Jesus read in this text ….Even to the grumblers, Jesus comes as the bread of life, opening our eyes and hearts to new possibilities. …..Jesus seems intent on making his claims as difficult and offensive as possible. As conversations go on and objections are raised, Jesus does not seem interested in making it easier to swallow. ….If the crowds have been offended by trying to reconcile Jesus' heavenly claims with Jesus' familiar parents, what will happen when they are faced with the brutal reality of the cross? The bread from Heaven will give life to the world, astonishingly, by dying for it. This bread of life from Heaven is no "free lunch;" it will cost Jesus his life. Feeding on this bread will bring us as well to the cross (12:32).”
This is not an easy teaching. One theologian called this “obnoxious discourse” and Jesus uses it often in John. It means that faith is not easy (we’re dragged into it!), understanding can be difficult, and following Jesus as the bread of life will be costly. Here is a story I found helpful.
At the foot of a great mountain in China lived a father and his three sons. They were a simple and loving family, whose great joy was sitting, eating a meal together and sharing their lives. The father noticed that travelers came from great distances eager to climb the dangerous mountain. But not one of the travelers ever returned. The three sons heard stories about the mountain, how it was made of gold and silver at the top. Despite their father’s warnings, they could not resist venturing up the mountain. Along the way, under a tree, sat a beggar, but the sons, ignoring him, did not speak to him or give him anything. One by one, the sons disappeared up the mountain, the first to a house of rich food. The second to a house of rich wine. The third to a house of gambling. Each became a slave to his desire, and forgot his home. Meanwhile, their father, more and more depressed at his sons’ absences, missed them terribly. “Danger aside, “ he thought, “I must risk everything and find my sons.”
As he climbed the mountain he reached the summit, he found indeed that the rocks were gold, and the rivers ran with silver. But he hardly noticed, so intent was he on recovering his sons. He only wanted to find them and help them remember the love they had once shared. On the way down the mountain having failed to discover them, the father encountered the beggar under a tree. He asked the beggar’s advice. “The mountain will give you your son’s back,” the beggar advised, “only if you can bring something from home that will cause them to remember their father’s love.” The father raced home, grabbed a bowl of rice. He returned up the mountain, and gave some to the beggar. He then found the three houses where his sons were living. Carefully he placed a single grain of rice in the mouth of each son. And as the rice touched each boy’s tongue, each son20realized how stupid he had been, how empty his life truly was, and that he wanted only to return to his father’s home. One by one the sons and the father walked down the mountain, and returned to their house.
The simple piece of bread that we receive each week in the Eucharist is but a taste of love, an invitation to come home, a reminder that a loving parent is waiting. These morsels we pass out at each service, are supposed to bring us to our senses. This is the Bread of heaven dragging us into faith-and keeping us there. This is both the reminder, and the reality, that Jesus is with us, and in us, as we move forward in faith. In the Catholic tradition, when someone is dying, communion is brought to them. It is called, the Viaticum. It is from the Latin, meaning, “bread for the journey”. Life is not easy. And it isn’t getting longer. And this small piece of heaven we receive each week, reminds us that we need bread for our journey, that we need Jesus in us, and with us as we move through life. Quite often we don’t understand, and even more often we are dragged into faith. But that is ok. The father is always climbing the mountain to find us. Amen.