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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