Pentecost 13 9/03/06 Text: John 6:51-58 Title: You are what you eat.
Pentecost 13
9/03.06
Text: John 6:51-58
Title: You are what you eat.
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things, we humbly come before you this morning, asking you to clear our minds of all distractions, so that we might fully understand your holy words to us, and thus become the people you want us to be. Lord speak, for your servants are listening. Amen
Perhaps you remember being told as a child. “Unless you eat your peas, you will not be allowed to play with your friends after dinner.” “If you don’t eat your liver, you won’t grow up to be strong and healthy.” “If you don’t drink your milk, your bones will be weak and your teeth will fall out.” And just think of the number of times we were subtlety told through television advertisements: “Unless you eat Wonder Bread, your young body won’t be built strongly 12 ways!”
What is it about food? We have to have it, but let’s face it; some people eat to live while others live to eat. Go to almost any bookstore and you will find a whole section devoted to cookbooks. Look up “restaurants” in the phone book and you can always find an abundance of places to eat. There are racks of magazines that tell us how to present food in the most appealing ways. If that is not enough, there is the Food Channel on TV, dedicated to giving us 24-hour access to anything we would ever want to know about food, cooking and all the best places to eat throughout the world.
Today's gospel is also about food and eating and drinking. Not just any kind of food and any kind of eating, but eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking of his blood. To those who do not understand what Jesus is saying it is down right disgusting. Jesus tells us, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven", the bread which is the “life of the world." With those words, we are reminded of the Lord’s Supper, the supper in which we have forgiveness, life, and salvation.
But, is Jesus talking about his Supper in our text, or is he talking about the whole Jesus, the bread of life, the full consumption of His person and work in the nature of the Gospel? It could be both the Lord’s Supper and the full consumption of Jesus the Bread of Life. Just as Moses was given manna in the wilderness to feed the people of God, thus sustaining them, so Jesus in the Gospel is giving of himself, the very life-giving bread and drink which provides his people with eternal life.
What ever Jesus is talking about, his critics then and now, still ask, "How can this man give us flesh to eat?" Jesus answers them by saying, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Eating flesh, and drinking blood, these are extremely repugnant notions. It sounds an awful like cannibalism.
So we too, just like Jesus’ followers that day say to Jesus, “This is a hard saying; who can take it in?" Many followers of Jesus could not take it in, for we are told by John that many who once followed Jesus turned away from him.
Jesus here seems extremely strange, distant, and hard to take. Why, if Jesus is whom he says he is, does he talk about himself in a way that is so disgusting that it drives people away? Just what are we today to make of such a hard, strange saying?
Jesus appears to be demanding hard things of us, but he really is not, for he is making promises offered to us through faith, the faith he gives us. Jesus tells us that he is the bread that has come down from heaven. He is the bread that will satisfy all of our longings. We are to feed on him and we will be satisfied forever. Jesus promises us that he is the answer to our deepest hungers. He tells us that we are to feed upon him and be filled, that he is more than food and drink, he is the source of our very lives.
And that scares us. That is why we spend so much time and put so much effort into making Jesus into something that we can handle. If we can make Jesus into just being another great prophet then we do not have to deal with his demands.
Jesus offended those who stood around him that day, just as he offends people today. They deserted him, just as people desert Jesus today. Pastors and congregation try to ignore Jesus’ hard sayings, so that their churches will grow. And the world laughs.
If Jesus is, and he is, the "Word made flesh" as Saint John tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel, then we should actually be surprised when Jesus is not confusing, mysterious, or strange.
After all, we, as sinful human beings, are always attempting to put God into a box we can handle. John tells us over and over in his Gospel that the "light shines in the darkness," our darkness. Jesus came unto his own and his own did not receive him. It is truly hard to believe that Jesus is God and so, many are offended by him in his day and ours.
Sometimes when I am visiting with people they will say, "I wish I could have lived in the first century and witnessed for myself the work of Jesus, actually seen him face-to-face." What they are implying is that they would have come to faith, if they had been there. They would have followed him and not walked away. Well if that is the case, why is it that the majority of people deserted him after he said, “"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."?
You see the problem is not that we do not have enough evidence to convince us that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Our problem is that Jesus and his teaching is difficult, demanding, and goes against our will. It is not for us to choose to believe in Jesus on the basis of certain proofs and arguments. It is for Jesus to choose us, to come to us, to speak to us, to reveal himself to us.
You are here this morning not because you did a study of all of the world's alleged saviors and decided that Jesus had the most to offer. You are not here because you assembled all of the available historical data and it all added up to Jesus. No, you are here because Jesus, through the Holy Spirit has come to you, spoken to you, and chosen you to be his disciple.
Just as he did in the Gospel reading for today, Jesus keeps talking to us, just as he did his disciples. He keeps working with us. He keeps speaking and revealing his will to us, even though we understand so little about him.
You see, understanding the hard sayings of Jesus is not the answer to life’s problems. The answer to life’s problems is found in our loving Jesus, our following Jesus, and yes our feeding on his body and drinking his blood, either literally when we partake of His Supper, or figuratively through his Word, for he is the bread of life.
Last week I saw a religious cartoon that was based on our Gospel reading for this morning, the eating of Jesus’ flesh and the drinking of his blood. It went something like this.
The first panel shows two sheep talking during a coffee break. One of the sheep is having a hard time understanding Jesus words as they are said in the Gospel. So he asks his fellow sheep who happens to be well schooled in theology, “Does Jesus have to get so yucky? Does he have to tell us to drink his blood?” In the second panel, the wise sheep answers him, “Those listening to Jesus that day were offended too. All they could think of was where it said in Holy Scriptures that it was wrong to consume blood, for one of the prophets had written that it is wrong to drink the blood of a creature, ‘For the life of the creature is in the blood,’ but it goes on to say that the blood makes atonement’. You see my friend you need the eternal life of Jesus in you, for it is the perfect medicine.” In the last panel we see that the first sheep, the one who thought that drinking Jesus’ blood was yucky, gets it as he replies, “I see, Jesus’ blood gives us life, forgiveness, and salvation, and its side effects are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. My dear fellow missionaries, “You are what you eat.” Amen
9/03.06
Text: John 6:51-58
Title: You are what you eat.
Heavenly Father, creator and sustainer of all things, we humbly come before you this morning, asking you to clear our minds of all distractions, so that we might fully understand your holy words to us, and thus become the people you want us to be. Lord speak, for your servants are listening. Amen
Perhaps you remember being told as a child. “Unless you eat your peas, you will not be allowed to play with your friends after dinner.” “If you don’t eat your liver, you won’t grow up to be strong and healthy.” “If you don’t drink your milk, your bones will be weak and your teeth will fall out.” And just think of the number of times we were subtlety told through television advertisements: “Unless you eat Wonder Bread, your young body won’t be built strongly 12 ways!”
What is it about food? We have to have it, but let’s face it; some people eat to live while others live to eat. Go to almost any bookstore and you will find a whole section devoted to cookbooks. Look up “restaurants” in the phone book and you can always find an abundance of places to eat. There are racks of magazines that tell us how to present food in the most appealing ways. If that is not enough, there is the Food Channel on TV, dedicated to giving us 24-hour access to anything we would ever want to know about food, cooking and all the best places to eat throughout the world.
Today's gospel is also about food and eating and drinking. Not just any kind of food and any kind of eating, but eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking of his blood. To those who do not understand what Jesus is saying it is down right disgusting. Jesus tells us, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven", the bread which is the “life of the world." With those words, we are reminded of the Lord’s Supper, the supper in which we have forgiveness, life, and salvation.
But, is Jesus talking about his Supper in our text, or is he talking about the whole Jesus, the bread of life, the full consumption of His person and work in the nature of the Gospel? It could be both the Lord’s Supper and the full consumption of Jesus the Bread of Life. Just as Moses was given manna in the wilderness to feed the people of God, thus sustaining them, so Jesus in the Gospel is giving of himself, the very life-giving bread and drink which provides his people with eternal life.
What ever Jesus is talking about, his critics then and now, still ask, "How can this man give us flesh to eat?" Jesus answers them by saying, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Eating flesh, and drinking blood, these are extremely repugnant notions. It sounds an awful like cannibalism.
So we too, just like Jesus’ followers that day say to Jesus, “This is a hard saying; who can take it in?" Many followers of Jesus could not take it in, for we are told by John that many who once followed Jesus turned away from him.
Jesus here seems extremely strange, distant, and hard to take. Why, if Jesus is whom he says he is, does he talk about himself in a way that is so disgusting that it drives people away? Just what are we today to make of such a hard, strange saying?
Jesus appears to be demanding hard things of us, but he really is not, for he is making promises offered to us through faith, the faith he gives us. Jesus tells us that he is the bread that has come down from heaven. He is the bread that will satisfy all of our longings. We are to feed on him and we will be satisfied forever. Jesus promises us that he is the answer to our deepest hungers. He tells us that we are to feed upon him and be filled, that he is more than food and drink, he is the source of our very lives.
And that scares us. That is why we spend so much time and put so much effort into making Jesus into something that we can handle. If we can make Jesus into just being another great prophet then we do not have to deal with his demands.
Jesus offended those who stood around him that day, just as he offends people today. They deserted him, just as people desert Jesus today. Pastors and congregation try to ignore Jesus’ hard sayings, so that their churches will grow. And the world laughs.
If Jesus is, and he is, the "Word made flesh" as Saint John tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel, then we should actually be surprised when Jesus is not confusing, mysterious, or strange.
After all, we, as sinful human beings, are always attempting to put God into a box we can handle. John tells us over and over in his Gospel that the "light shines in the darkness," our darkness. Jesus came unto his own and his own did not receive him. It is truly hard to believe that Jesus is God and so, many are offended by him in his day and ours.
Sometimes when I am visiting with people they will say, "I wish I could have lived in the first century and witnessed for myself the work of Jesus, actually seen him face-to-face." What they are implying is that they would have come to faith, if they had been there. They would have followed him and not walked away. Well if that is the case, why is it that the majority of people deserted him after he said, “"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."?
You see the problem is not that we do not have enough evidence to convince us that Jesus is the Savior of the world. Our problem is that Jesus and his teaching is difficult, demanding, and goes against our will. It is not for us to choose to believe in Jesus on the basis of certain proofs and arguments. It is for Jesus to choose us, to come to us, to speak to us, to reveal himself to us.
You are here this morning not because you did a study of all of the world's alleged saviors and decided that Jesus had the most to offer. You are not here because you assembled all of the available historical data and it all added up to Jesus. No, you are here because Jesus, through the Holy Spirit has come to you, spoken to you, and chosen you to be his disciple.
Just as he did in the Gospel reading for today, Jesus keeps talking to us, just as he did his disciples. He keeps working with us. He keeps speaking and revealing his will to us, even though we understand so little about him.
You see, understanding the hard sayings of Jesus is not the answer to life’s problems. The answer to life’s problems is found in our loving Jesus, our following Jesus, and yes our feeding on his body and drinking his blood, either literally when we partake of His Supper, or figuratively through his Word, for he is the bread of life.
Last week I saw a religious cartoon that was based on our Gospel reading for this morning, the eating of Jesus’ flesh and the drinking of his blood. It went something like this.
The first panel shows two sheep talking during a coffee break. One of the sheep is having a hard time understanding Jesus words as they are said in the Gospel. So he asks his fellow sheep who happens to be well schooled in theology, “Does Jesus have to get so yucky? Does he have to tell us to drink his blood?” In the second panel, the wise sheep answers him, “Those listening to Jesus that day were offended too. All they could think of was where it said in Holy Scriptures that it was wrong to consume blood, for one of the prophets had written that it is wrong to drink the blood of a creature, ‘For the life of the creature is in the blood,’ but it goes on to say that the blood makes atonement’. You see my friend you need the eternal life of Jesus in you, for it is the perfect medicine.” In the last panel we see that the first sheep, the one who thought that drinking Jesus’ blood was yucky, gets it as he replies, “I see, Jesus’ blood gives us life, forgiveness, and salvation, and its side effects are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. My dear fellow missionaries, “You are what you eat.” Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 6:34 PM
|
0 comments
