Preaching text: John 6:56-69
I remember it well. 1986 or so. The time I purchased my first Michael Card album. It was Scandalon. It was an odd choice for a teenage Christian music lover. It was not rock-n-roll or rap. Michael’s more of a singer-songwriter type, mellow, calm, quiet. Think James Taylor with a Bible. But there was something about his music that drew us in. Yes, us. Myself and all my teenage friends who listened to Christian music. There was just something to it, something rare and unique. A depth and a sincerity that we weren’t getting in the other musicians we listened to. It was grown up music.
The title track of the album was “Scandalon.” That’s the Greek word from which we get the English word “scandal” and it means to be offended or scandalized. Unsurprisingly, the song is about how truly offensive Jesus was.
That wasn’t something people liked to talk about. It still isn’t.
He will be the truth that will offend them one and allThat’s the chorus to Scandalon and the whole album is like that. You quickly realize that what it’s pointing to is a truth we Christians don’t like to admit. This isn’t really a religion. It’s not something you’re supposed to just put on once a week and be done with it. This will be your whole life. Jesus asks, no, demands, nothing less of us.
A stone that makes men stumble
And a rock that makes them fall
Many will be broken so that He can make them whole
And many will be crushed and lose their own soul
And that’s exactly what the crowds listening to Jesus’ teaching about the bread of life are starting to realize in today’s lesson. The metaphysical cannibalism is hard enough to understand, but the implications of it once you do are overwhelming. We are his and he is ours. All of our life is found in him and all of him is found in all of our life. There’s not separation. No division.
The crowds cannot accept this. Even among the Twelve there are those who question (Judas in particular), but Peter silences them for the moment with his wondrous confession. “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter’s right, of course, but we all thought this was supposed to be easy.
We all did. All of them then and all of us now. To back to Michael’s amazing lyrics....
It seems today the Scandalon offends no one at allLast week, I spoke of substitute Jesus’s. Of turning the Christ into a tabula rasa onto which we can project all our desires and how often we prove true the atheist saying that we create God in our own image. For the prosperity preachers and their followers, Jesus is 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. He becomes us, not we become him.
The image we present can be stepped over
Could it be that we are like the others long ago
Will we ever learn that all who come must stumble
No, to the prosperity preachers, I say Jesus is the bread of life. He is all that we need for life and meaning and purpose. To the racial supremacists, I say he is the one who came, lived, died, and rose again for the sake of all the world, not just your part or your people. To the culture warriors, I say he is the one who cried from the cross “Father, forgive” and then gave his life a ransom for all sinners of all stripes. To the jinoists, again, he is the one who came for all the world, not just our part.
And if that is who he is, that is who we are meant to be. At least in as much as we are able. That is our goal, unachievable perhaps, but something to which we are called to constantly and continually strive. That calling becomes, not surprisingly, our whole life.
Why? Why put such a monumental effort into a herculean task? Because of the greatest scandal of all. You are so important, you are so valuable, you are so precious that God himself died for you. You with all of your failings and vices and mistakes and flaws. You with all the times you’ve embraced false Christs and chased after them, heedless of the pain it caused the real one. You, who like the crowd, has wandered away so often. And me, the same. And everyone else.
The greatest scandal of all is that God values you more than himself. He values me more than himself. That’s how much he loves us. That’s why he died for us and it’s why he rose again for us to grant us life eternal. It was all for us. And if he loves me that much and if I know he loves you that much, how then can I live my life believing that I am in some way better than you? How can I live my life believing that I am in some way better than anyone else? How can I use him as a bludgeon upon those who don’t know him as well or at all? How can I do any of that when I know how much they matter to God?
Our lives must become a conduit for him. We must draw people to the Christ by showing the world who he truly is. I know I don’t do that perfectly; far from it. But every day, I wake up determined to show the world who our God truly is. And yes, he’s offensive. To love the unlovable. To forgive the unforgivable. To embrace the outcast. These are sins for which the world has little patience. But we are Christian and we follow one greater than the world. One who demands our whole life to his service and the services of those he loves. That’s what we’re to do. To love the unlovable. To forgive the unforgivable. To embrace the outcast. Just as he did. We are a scandal. We are the Church. Amen.
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