Sunday, January 18, 2015

Sermon on John 6 for Sunday, January 18

John 6:60-70 
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

   60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61 But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 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. 65 And 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. 67 So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”
  68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
  70 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.”

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Monday was fun, right?
Let’s be honest—there wasn’t much productivity in the city of Columbus on Tuesday.  The OSU football team found an amazing rhythm the last 3 games, and they peaked at the absolute right time.  I went to the Michigan game, which is a story for another day, and Michigan ran up and down the field on them.  The next three games, however, they played the type of football that propelled them to the first championship in the newly-formed college football playoff.  The entire city celebrated, some of the students perhaps a little too ardently.  I was in a bar on High Street watching the game, and when I emerged I could look down the street and see nothing but sirens blaring against the night sky.  As it was 20 degrees and past midnight, I was ready to be home in bed, but I recognize that not everyone thinks the same way.  I did learn the answer to a question I had always wondered about—I overheard that people actually buy couches before the game to burn afterwards. 
Forgetting all the rioting, however, we can focus on the joy of the triumph, on the celebration, on the victory that the football team brought to the town and the state.  It’s fun to win, right?  It certainly beats losing.  I’ve been a Bengals fan since I moved to Cincinnati at the age of 6, and I remember the joy of the Bengals going to the Super Bowl when I was still a child, and it was so much to cheer for the Bengals.  The next 25 years, well, they weren’t quite as much fun.  There was a lot of losing, and it was tough.  I endured a lot of 3-13 seasons, and they weren’t nearly as much fun as the Super Bowl season. 
This ‘winning’ mentality is alive and well in the country.  We love winners.  They are celebrated and lifted up as people to emulate.  They are studied and dissected so we will know how to become winners ourselves.  We buy their books and read their Twitter feeds in the hopes of gaining some insight into how we, too, can win.
What happens, then, is that this mindset infects the church.  I would call it a theology of glory, of triumph, and we begin to believe that everything in the church needs to be upbeat, victorious and cheerful.  We start to feel like every single day should be a mountaintop experience, and that the essence of the religious life is to go from moutaintop to mountaintop, with our feet barely dropping as we leap from religious high to religious high.  This is the theology that sells Joel Osteen’s books, the idea that our best life is just within our grasp, if only we can channel enough positive energy and let God give us all the money and happiness and wealth that we desire.  If we are failing, we are told, it is because we aren’t praying hard enough, or because we don’t really believe enough, and that we just need to try more in order in to succeed, to win in life.  Church, then, is an opportunity to get together and celebrate all the wonderful things in life, and if we’re doing it right, then we won’t have any bad things left. 
The problem, however, is that life isn’t really like that.  If you’ve been alive for more than a few minutes, you know that life doesn’t exist only on the mountaintops.  You know that life doesn’t always feel like winning.  You hear people talking about how the religious life should leave you happy all the time, and perhaps you doubt if you are doing it right, because you may be filled with doubt and questions about what God is up to, because perhaps you are struggling with doubt, depression and fear, maybe you are struggling with illness or mourning or trying to walk with a loved one through the valley of the shadow of death.  Maybe you’re in one of those places where the light still shines, but there is plenty of darkness surrounding it. 
To those of us wondering why the religious life seems to be such a challenge sometimes, I’d like to turn to the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel.  See, it’s not just us that wrestles with walking faithfully with God.  The challenge of the faithful life isn’t new—to those who walked and talked with Jesus, they struggled to make sense of it all, too.
Here in John 6, we have 2 amazing miracles, back-to-back.  We begin with Jesus miraculously feeding 5,000 people, and then Jesus walks on water in the middle of the night in the midst of a storm.  The next day, when the crowd discovers he has gone, they seek him out and ask him a rather absurd question:  they ask for a sign, as though feeding 5,000 of them with five loaves and two fish wasn’t quite enough.   
Then Jesus launches into this incredibly complex teaching about bread.  He tells them that he is the bread of life, and he references the manna that was given in the wilderness.  God fed the Israelites manna every day for 40 years in the wilderness, sustaining them on their walk to the promised land.  They ate this food and still perished, and Jesus is trying to help them see the shift that is taking place with his arrival—God is looking beyond the physical life and sustenance and inviting them into a spiritual meal where the soul is fed and sustained by belief in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 
Those who are listening to Jesus struggle with this, because they’re thinking of physical bread, but Jesus has shifted the conversation to another level, but they haven’t followed him up.  He’s inviting them into eternal life, and they’re wondering about eating bread.  Jesus is leading, but it’s a hard road to follow.  He claims that he is the only way to the Father, at which point many of the disciples turn back, unable or unwilling to follow the challenging road that he beckons them toward.  It’s hard to believe, to trust in him and perhaps face persecution, to trust in him and let him lead.  It’s hard to believe, especially when we still have so many questions.
Jesus, watching so many leave because they are unwilling to deal with the challenges, then turns to the 12 and asks if they will go, too.  Peter answers beautifully:  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
This, friends, is a simple statement that leads us forward.  It begins with a question—to whom shall we go?
There is no one else, friends, who can offer what Christ can.  No one else can offer life that transcends death, love that transcends hatred, power that is eager to serve.  Plenty of people or things may promise life and love and permanent health, but we’ve seen those promises fall apart.  There is always someone willing to promise the easy road, but we know that life is filled with challenges.  People get sick.  Loved ones die.  Plans change.  Marriages fall apart.  Business go bankrupt.  People let us down.  Friends betray us.
This happens, and only God is still faithful.  Life happens, and in the midst of the darkness, only God’s light still shines.  Only God is still there when everything else has fallen away.  Only God will never let us down.
God has the words of eternal life, friends, and following him is hard.  We often have questions.  We wonder why every day can’t be Easter Sunday, joyous and triumphant.  We wonder why there is death and pain and heartache.  God has promised so much, and the world seems to fall short so often.
Friends, it is hard to be the church.  But we are called to endure, to patiently persevere, to be faithful to the end.  Peter says it best—we have believed, and have come to know, that Christ is the Holy One of God.  We may not understand everything, but each day we take another step of discipleship, and we shall endure through the storms of life, and only when we reach the end will we be welcomed into a Kingdom that truly is the church triumphant.  We catch glimpses here and there of what that theology of glory truly is, but we must wait until we pass through the shadow of death to glimpse it in full.  Until then, we shall endure as the church can, trusting the promises of Christ to shepherd us through the end into life everlasting, recognizing that the final victory awaits and that one day, we shall dance forever in the light of God’s grace.
Let us pray

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