John 6:60-69
Some weeks ago, I chose this text for
today’s sermon because it fit in to the ideas I was seeking to address
before my time with you is over. I never gave it a thought that this is
also Thanksgiving Sunday and while this is a good text, rich in
meaning, it is a strange text for thanksgiving worship. Of course, I
can rationalize it all by saying, when we speak about a relationship
with God as seen through Jesus Christ, we ought always to be thankful.
There, the theme has been addressed- I feel better now!
Today, I want us to look at how the
story of salvation has been told in every age in the understanding of
the age in which it was written.
The texts for today are offensive to
all- no one is left out. First there is Joshua, leader of the
Israelites, successor to Moses and now old in years himself. Joshua not
only was the Israelite leader he was also their warfare General. In the
name of Yahweh, he led the Israelite army in the bloody conquest of
Canaan. Just to refresh your thinking, the land of Canaan, the land
into which the Children of Israel came following the 40 years in the
wilderness was a territory comprising the current lands of Israel,
Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. It was a large area and to conquer this
land, in the name of Yahweh, Joshua was the commander and chief of the
Israelite army and successfully led them through 31 conflicts in seven
years. The book of Joshua is a book of war and fighting and the path of
Joshua to the scripture of today is coloured by the blood they trampled
through.
In this path of destruction, Joshua
and the army conquered the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizites, the
Girgashites, the Amorites and the Jebusites and in the process killed
every single man, woman and child. This is not the story of some
African rebellion in Nigeria or Rwanda; this is ethnic slaughter in
the name of God, not unlike some of the tragedies of today in the name
of religious leaders. Listen to Joshua 10:40 “ So Joshua defeated the
whole land, the hill country and the Negev and the lowland and the
slopes, and all their Kings. He left no one remaining but utterly
destroyed all that breathed as the Lord God commanded.”
Does this sound like the God you and I
worship? Here is yet another graphic example of the foolishness of
reading the Bible literally. The Bible reflects the cultural
understandings of the day in which each book was written. Thank
goodness, conditions evolve and in the process improve. While warfare
is still horrible, it is much more humane than these ghastly pictures
in Joshua where he is commander and Chief of the Lord’s army. Yet that
was the medium of success in that day and age. The writer is trying to
show that salvation comes through almighty God and that is evidenced in
that era by success in conquering and destroying one’s enemies.
Things have improved and while we are
anxious for things to be better, none of us would want to return to
those ruthless days of old when killing was common and accepted anymore
than we would want to return to 300 AD dental work or medial surgery.
Even though some people in the middle- east still agree with this old
method in proving their deity’s power, slowly God’s plan is growing and
evolving. But it’s so slow, you say. Aye, by our measurements it is but
remembers, a thousand years is but one day with the Lord. God’s time
schedule, with all eternity at hand is quite different than our little
allotment of time on this earth; so we walk by faith and look forward,
always to a brighter tomorrow. For our day, this is a troubling story.
Now, if that story does not offend
you, how about the story of Elijah. Most of you have heard the story;
it’s found in the book of 1 Kings beginning at chapter 18. After a
series of crisis, including a dreadful drought, Elijah goes, as
instructed by Yahweh to meet King Ahab, husband of Queen Jezebel. Ahab
is weak beside the strong Jezebel who is a devout follower of Baal and
has her own bevy of priests to preside over all types of worship in the
Kingdom.
Elijah goes because Yahweh says, if
you go to Ahab, in my name, I will cause rain to come to the land. When
Ahab saw Elijah, he said, "Is it you, you trouble maker?” Elijah said,
"You have forsaken Yahweh and are worshipping Baal. Yahweh is going to
punish you even though you have 450 priests and Yahweh has only me.
Gather the people at Mt. Carmel. Let each of us have a bull; let the
priest of Baal choose the bull they want and cut it up in small pieces
and place it on the wood.”
Let each of us call upon our God to
set the bull and the pieces on fire and whoever answers with fire will
truly be God.” The assembled people said, “That’s a good solution.”
You remember how it goes: the priests
of Baal pray till noon and there is no fire. Elijah stirs up emotions
by jeering and mocking them and saying, “ your God has gone on a
journey, or is asleep and must be awakened.” He priests continue in
prayer until evening, still there is no fire.
So, late in the day, Elijah builds an
altar of 12 stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, has a
trench dug around it and commands the cut up bull to dowsed in water.
He then prays to Yahweh and fire descends, burns up the bull and even
laps up the water around the alter and in the trenches. When the people
saw this, they fell on their faces and proclaimed, "The Lord God of
Israel is God."
One can scarcely think of a more
graphic story than that in the culture of that time. What could
possibly be a greater example of God’s all-powerful salvation that
this dramatic story. Yet even with this incredible victory in his
grasp, Elijah is not content. He orders all of the priests of Baal be
captured, commanding that not one of them escape. Elijah then had them
brought to the brook Kishon and systematically killed all of them, thus
enraging Queen Jezebel. Elijah has to flee because the Queen wants him
killed as her priests were.
Is this the God you and I are called
upon to worship? Certainly, in our day and age we would not condone any
such harsh treatment. Again, we read this story, not for its literal
aspects but to see the writers were proclaiming Yahweh
as The Great God in a world
of many Gods. Involvement by God or gods
in the human scene was an accepted manner of communicating the
greatness of God as the worthy recipient of one’s allegiance and
adoration. Here is another example of where the Bible is not factual,
but it is true. We grasp what the writers were trying to say to their
readers in the context of their cultural understanding.
Now we turn to John. In this section
of the New Testament, Jesus really
upsets the religious faithful.
In the preceding verses, Jesus says “I have come down from
heaven” and “I am the bread
of life.
Your fathers ate bread in the
wilderness and they died. This is the bread that came down from heaven,
if anyone eats this bread he will live forever and this bread I give is
my flesh.” The Jews
asked “How can this man give
us his flesh to eat?” Jesus replied “Unless you eat the flesh of the
son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life within you.” Hearing
this dismayed them, because the Hebrew scriptures strictly forbade the
drinking of blood. Many of Jesus followers said “This is a hard
saying, who can listen to it?” And many that were there began to pull
away and leave the presence of Jesus. But Jesus was unrelenting.
He stated, “Do you take offense at this? What if I were to go up to
where I was before and leave you all here alone with stiff necks from
looking up at me?” The people were incensed.
Jesus, seeing that many were leaving,
turned to his twelve disciples and said “Do you wish to go away?”
Peter answered “Where would we go, to whom would we flee? You have the
words of eternal life. We have come to believe that you are the Holy
One of God.” Jesus answered “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and even
one of you is a devil?" He was speaking of Judas Iscariot. Isn’t that a strange passage? There
is
no explanation by Jesus. That’s what they wanted, so they would have
information to decide, but Jesus said that it was not their decision to
belong to him. That decision, he said, is God’s, so don’t
blame me if you don’t get it.
Does this sound like the Jesus that
you and I have heard about, tried to follow and worshipped as Lord?
This story about Jesus offers no compromise. If you can’t buy in, he
seems to be saying, you are free to go. It is Peter who speaks for us
and says "OK, but where can we go? There is no other, you have the
words
of life.”
There you have it: three very
different and difficult texts. Now, what do we make of
them? Well, it seems to me that we need to understand that
the Bible is always talking about salvation. Joshua is talking about
the sacred history of Israel, and proclaiming to all the memory of
God’s
covenant with Israel. God is able to fulfill all aspects of his
promise. In the O.ld testament, God promised Israel a land, and God
fulfilled that
story in Joshua. Perhaps that will help you understand the passion of
the people of Israel for their land. It is theirs, they say, because
God gave it to them. God promised it through Moses, and delivered it
through Joshua.
That is the message also in the Elijah
story. God keeps his promises. His leaders are carefully chosen, but
progress is slow. It is chiseled out of human experience, like the
Sphinx is out of sandstone. And then comes Jesus. The message is very
different, the style is not geared to conquest or killing. Instead,
Jesus calls the followers of God to come to him. He is the bread of
life, his is the sacrificial blood and here, in this encounter in John,
we see graphically presented for us a sacramental understanding of the
Bible. The story points to a reality, and it is the reality, not the
story that we grasp. Those who were troubled were locked into a literal
understanding of “flesh and blood.” That remains a huge problem for our
Roman Catholic friends, who hold to transubstantiation: that the
elements
of the mass are changed to Christ’s flesh and blood when the Priest
raises the host.
Somehow Peter saw in Jesus what a
godly life was and that revelation and relationship was greater than
anything that Peter did not understand. That is the way it is with us,
I think. None of us understands Jesus completely. In fact, if you
encounter anyone who claims that they understand Jesus fully, or they
know the mind of God, stand clear of them. Only idols have all the
answers. We walk by faith and strive to emulate the way of Jesus the
best we are able. That’s what it means to be a Christian. It does NOT
mean that we have all the answers.
These stories seem to me to have added
meaning in our day and age. when so many are simply walking away from
the Church. There are many reasons why some people do walk away- some
of
them may even be valid. Usually however, the reason is petty and even
selfishly motivated. Comments like "if they vote that way, I am gone,
or
if money goes to that cause or that group I am leaving." Years ago,
there were Church squabbles when Churches opted out of the pew payment
plan. Churches used to
have a charge
associated with pews in the sanctuary. Families paid a yearly fee for
the use of a particular pew. In addition, certain locations were deemed
to be superior to others, so they cost more. Churches rebelled against
this elitist system, because they asked "how will we balance our
budgets? People won’t just give."
I hear all of the time "I don’t go to
Church anymore because the Church is too liberal, or too conservative,
it is
hypocriti- or you
fill in the blank. What all are saying is "I want a community in which
all
agree with me." That means we are candidates for a Church with a
membership of one- me.
There is no perfect Church, anymore
than there are perfect people, or perfect understandings of God and
Jesus. You get Joshua and Elijah. You get spooky apocalyptic stuff in
Daniel and Revelation, and you get the beauty of the Psalms. You get
saints who inspire you, and you get the weak members of society who are
trying to be good but often fail.
If you belong to the United Church of
Canada, you get a Church on the forefront of social progress. We were
one of the first to ordain women, a leader in the gay rights movement,
a world leader in ecumenical relations and unifying mergers. You get a
bureaucracy that is heavy with activists and system oriented people,
but
you also get some saints who give there all to worthy endeavors
worldwide.
You get people who are in love with
the
Presbyterial system, and some others who despite the reality of the
Church's polity think that each congregation is independent and not
part of the whole. You get Churches that sound like a rock and roll
concert on Saturday night, and others that sound like the Protestant
Vatican. You get some poorly put together services, and some rich with
meaningful liturgy; you get random thinking and the freedom to believe
what motivates you, and you get the marvelous creed that serves as an
open and accepting guideline.
Wherever there are people, we will
get some things that offend us, but here we learn that there are people
who see things differently than I do, yet believe just as sincerely.
We are a Church. We need each other to
save us from self-righteousness and forming judgmental attitudes that
turn people away. In truth, wherever God is God, there will be things
that offend us, because even though we are one body, we are different
people. with differing interests and needs. Do you ever feel like leaving? Of
course you do- we all do. B,
and when the chips are down, these are the people with whom we want to
associate as we grow on the journey of faith. With folks like all of
you,
right here, we can know the Holy God we seek and follow Jesus the
Christ in an accepting environment. With that, we can deal with any
thing that offends us. Thanks be to God.