Was to be preached on August 19, 2018 (Illness intervened)
Preaching text: John 6:51-58
Last Sunday, I ended my sermon with a question. Do we believe Jesus when he claims to be the “bread of life?” Do we trust that he is, indeed, all that we need for life, meaning, and purpose? Do we take him at his word when he makes these profound claims?
Given all the evidence, I think the answer is an obvious no. It’s hard to blame us. We humans are skeptical creatures. Life in this broken world has taught us to doubt most claims, especially those which seem too good to be true. The world is not trustworthy and the people who populate it less so. How can we believe such wild promises? We don’t. Not easily.
And that’s okay. Most of us here, I suspect, would certainly claim to want to believe them. After all, why come to church if not to nurture our often flagging faith? “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief” is our sincere prayer. Help us, Lord, to accept these promises. Help us to believe in you.
That’s all well and good. Doubt isn’t so much where we get in trouble. Where we get in trouble is when we start looking for substitutes. Instead of the “bread of life,” we start looking for what one might call “spiritual junk food,” stuff that looks good, promises a lot, but is ultimately empty. And we in the Church have been devouring that spiritual junk food like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
So much so that I happened upon an article this week with the title “The Church has a real problem with Jesus.” And it certainly seems that we do. I’ve noticed this. I’ve experienced this. You see, I’ve always been a little baffled by the fact that I have been perceived as this radical super-liberal preacher. Now while I’ll admit I’ve overstepped the boundaries of political discourse on more than one occasion, I don’t believe that’s where I’ve really earned this reputation. I’ve earned it because of my more general preaching of caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter. You know, what one might call basic human decency.
I just don’t get it. When did that become something radical or political? We used to call it having manners or being polite or just being a decent person. But then we started calling it “being PC” and we decided as a society that was a bad thing, so instead of being decent to one another, we complained about not being able to be total jerks to one another. “Waah! Why can’t I call black people the n-word?” I don’t know. Maybe because it’s really rude and offensive and it’s not something decent people do. This isn’t hard.
And ironically, it has often been Christians who’ve bellyached the loudest about this. Doubly ironic since I learned how to be a “decent human being” from Jesus of Nazareth. Not directly, of course, but through Sunday School teachers, pastors, and folks in the pews like you. People who taught rightly that caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter was stuff Jesus did. And if we’re Christians, you know maybe we should at least try to be a bit like the Christ.
But nope, instead of eating the bread of life, we have dived in to the junk food the world offers: hate, bigotry, greed, gluttony, lust, self-superiority, and all sort of vices. For the prosperity preachers and their followers, Jesus is now a get-rich-quick scheme. To the white supremacists, he is a symbol of their racial idolatry. To the culture warriors, he is the personification of an unyielding judge that holds sexual sins like abortion and homosexuality as unforgivable abominations. To the jingoist, Jesus is the truest true American who wrote out founding documents like holy writ. Regardless of particulars, he is ever and always a bludgeon, a weapon, to be turned on those we feel do not measure up.
The real Jesus is none of those things. We’ve made Jesus into what we desire, instead of allowing him to be what he truly is.
And who is he? He cares nothing for riches and actually promotes his followers to surrender their wealth for the sake of others. He gives no heed to race, creed, or national origins: Greeks, Samaritans, Romans, Jews, he welcomes them all. And those sexual vices we get so bent out of shape over are of little regard to him. In fact, some of the worst violators, the prostitutes and adulterers find places of honor at his side in the Gospel stories. That’s the bread of life. That’s who he is. Giving, caring, loving all people.
But we’ve sought our substitutes for one reason and one reason only. We are afraid. We’re afraid we’re going to die. Why is greed so popular? Because we need more and more, otherwise we might not have enough. Why is hate so popular? Because those people over there, those people, they’re going to kill us all!!!! They’re coming to get us! Be afraid!
To which Jesus says “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.” You will not die, but live. Have no fear.
I am the bread of life, Jesus tells us. He is all that we require for life and meaning and purpose. He is our all. He is our everything. Do we believe it? Perhaps not yet, but a good start might be to stop looking to our fears, for they are the illusion. Focus instead on the one who came to give his life for the world and follow in his footsteps, live (in as much as we can) as he did. Doing as he did, acting as he did. You know, like caring for the poor, helping the downtrodden, welcoming the stranger, standing up for what’s right, giving people the benefit of the doubt, forgiving people’s foibles, and being kind and compassionate to all we encounter. Being human to one another. If we focus on that, then we won’t have time or energy to worry about our fears. I think we’ll find in the meantime that Jesus will take care of us. That is what he means when he calls himself the bread of life. All that we need we have in him. It’s ours. There is nothing to fear. Trust in God and live as Christ would. Amen.
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