To Whom Can We Go

Scriptures:  Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18;  Ephesians 6:10-20;            John 6:56-71

 A common theme of our three Scripture reading today is the choice to follow Jesus. It’s one of the questions that has perplexed the church through the ages:  Why can a person go for decades seemingly uninterested in the things of the Spirit, and then in one moment their live turns around?  Why are people in one place people are hungry for the Gospel, while in other places there’s no interest at all?  When I was in Cuba, the pastors we met, especially on the very rural western side of the island, told us that there was a real hunger to hear the Gospel…one farm worker told us his conversion story in which the farm worker was so amazed to see a pastor dressed in the same way that the worker was, in overalls and work clothes, the pastor humbly working the land, that the farm worker asked the pastor to tell him more…..and eventually the farm worker became a Christian, joined the pastor’s church – and eventually the farm worker himself received training to become a pastor and was in the process of planting a church of his own.  And we who were visiting marveled among ourselves, and asked why moments like that so rarely happen in our experience.

In our Old Testament reading, Joshua, who had led the children of Israel into the promised land, is now old and gray.  Before his death, he calls all the tribes together one last time, reminds them of all that God had done for them, and then puts the question to the people: “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness, put away to gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”   And at that moment, the people clamor, “We will serve the Lord.”  From our perspective, we know that the people would sometimes fall short, would sometimes fall away, and from time to time would have to be called to repent, be called back to faithfulness.  But Scripture preserves that holy moment when all the people were on the same page, united in saying “We will serve the Lord.”

In today’s reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus concludes a long teaching discourse about himself as the bread of life.  From the standpoint of numbers – especially in our day of megachurches - Jesus’ sermon was an epic failure: he started with the 5,000 whom he had fed and who were ready to hail him as their king, and by the end of the conversation, he’s down to just the twelve disciples – and we know that even one of those twelve will someday betray him.  The crowd was disgusted when they heard Jesus saying such things as “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.”  From our standpoint, 2000 years later, we know that Jesus wasn’t talking about physically eating his body, but about being sustained by Jesus’ teachings – remember, Jesus told the crowd, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  And of course when we hear Jesus’ words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we think of Holy Communion.  But the crowds heard Jesus at a very literal level – and what they heard turned their stomach..  And Jesus’ saying that “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” didn’t make the crowds any more receptive.  The crowds whom Jesus had fed no doubt thought that while Jesus knew how to put on an amazing picnic, the guy was a raving lunatic.  If Jesus thought these folks had the least inclination to nibble on his toes or whatever, it was about time for the crowds to find another meal ticket. 

Even over some 2,000 years, you can hear the discouragement in Jesus’ voice as the crowds walk away, and he asks the twelve – “Do you also wish to go away?”  Hey, disciples, I’ve managed to offend everyone else, and they’ve voted with their feet.  If you’ve been looking for a chance to bow out gracefully, now would be the time.  But Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."  Though the circumstances are very different, this story has a lot in common with the story in the other Gospels, when Jesus first asked the disciples, “who do people say that I am”, and after hearing their responses, then asked them, “But who do you say that I am.”  In the other Gospels, Peter answers this second question, “You are the Messiah.”  In John’s Gospel, Peter says “You are the Holy One of Israel.”  In both cases, Peter, speaking for the disciples, expresses loyalty to Jesus.  In our reading from John, more than loyalty – Peter is saying there’s nowhere else to go, no one else to whom they could turn, literally no other options.

So the many voted with their feet to walk away from Jesus, and the few voted with their feet to stay.  Jesus’ words themselves tell us what makes the difference:  Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me, and I will raise up that person on the last day…..no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”  Later on in John’s account of the last supper, in Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples, he returns to this theme: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.” 

How do people come to a place in which they feel compelled to follow Jesus?  Some people grow up in the faith, like a fish surrounded by water, and have really known no other way of being.  Others come to Jesus in a moment of crisis, when they’ve seemingly run out of options and cry unto the Lord, “Help!!”.  So there are different experiences of coming to follow Jesus.  And our two readings, from Joshua and from John’s Gospel, likewise give us two different perspectives, two different ways of looking at the moment of decision.  Joshua urges his followers, “Choose this day”.  Jesus tells his followers, in effect, “No one can choose to follow me unless the Father has first chosen that person.”  I don’t want to use these passages to get into a discussion about predestination vs free will – various parts of Scripture can be interpreted to support both doctrines, and I think both perspectives try to turn the mysterious workings of the Almighty into some sort of simple formula – “if A, then B”. But there’s nothing predictable about it – after all, as Jesus told Nicodemus, “the wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes – and so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  After all, we’re not told any more about the crowds who walked away from Jesus.  Did their walking away from Jesus at that moment mean that they rejected his message forever, and that God had rejected them forever?  Or could Jesus’ words have planted seeds in their mind that bore fruit later.  We’re not told.  We just don’t know.  What we’re told is that at that moment, thousands walked away while twelve stayed.

God’s workings are indeed mysterious.  I’ve told some of you that I preached my very first sermon at the church where Isaac, our friend from Liberia, had been worshipping.  That Liberian church, a small independent congregation, was at that moment looking for a denomination in the United States with which to affiliate – and I was invited to one of their worship services to speak on behalf of the UCC.  I told the pastor and Isaac – who was the pastor’s right hand man – that I’d bring greetings on behalf of the UCC.  Isaac replied, “You will preach.”  And I said, “No, I’ll just bring greetings; I want to hear your pastor preach.” And Isaac said, “You will preach.”  And I said, “No, I’ve never preached in my life; please, I’ll just say a few words on behalf of the UCC and then I’ll sit down.”  And Isaac said, “You will preach.”  Well, we went back and forth a few more times, but finally Isaac wore me down and I said, “Oh, all right, I’ll try to cobble some hallucination of a sermon together, and I’ll come preach at your church.  Just please don’t expect much of anything; I’ve never done this before.”  As it happened, the Sunday of my visit was Trinity Sunday, and so I put together what I thought was a fairly coma-inducing sermon on the Trinity.  After my sermon, the pastor did an altar call.  And I thought to myself, “Oh no….”  For the most part, UCC churches, at least the ones I’d attended throughout my life, don’t do altar calls.  But, I figured, my sermon was so awful, nobody would come up – so I was safe.  So, as it happened, a mom with several children came up, with several elders of the church accompanying the family.  The pastor invited me to pray over them – as he said, “since they came forward under your preaching”, and I responded, “Oh, no, this is your church, we’re doing this together!”  And so we both laid hands on the family and prayed over them.

I don’t know what happened to that mother and children who came forward; I’ve lost track of their story.  What I do know, though, is that Isaac, the pastor’s right hand man, responded as well, and I’ve been able to follow his story – and in fact all of us at Emanuel are now a part of it.  Later in the same year after I preached at his church, Isaac accompanied me to Old First Reformed UCC, at 4^th & Race Streets in Old City Philadelphia, where I was an active member at that time.   Worship at Old First is very different from worship at the Liberian church – but Isaac made a choice to stay at Old First.  When I became pastor here at Emanuel, Isaac started visiting from time to time.  And when his wife came over from Liberia, he chose to bring her to join the church here at Emanuel.  Over the past several years, he’s often talked to me about his dream of starting a congregation for the United Church of Christ back home in Liberia.  All of which is to say, God has a way of using the most unlikely moments as turning points, as moments of decision.  Like the farm hand in Cuba who was so impressed by the humility of a pastor who himself was also a farmer, that the farm hand responded to the call, first to become a believer, and then to become a pastor himself.  Like the mother with her children at the Liberian church, who in the midst of a sleep-inducing sermon not only stayed awake, but heard God calling her to new life.  Like Isaac, a strong Christian who in that same hour heard God calling him to serve the Lord in a different congregation, among people he didn’t yet know.  For both the farm hand and for Isaac – I hope for the mother as well - making a choice may have began at a particular moment, but that initial choice becomes the basis for all choices thereafter, until one can truly say, “To whom can I go? Who else will I turn to?  Who else can I trust?  For me, it’s Jesus or nothing.” 

These ongoing choices are the subject of our reading from Ephesians.  Paul writes, “Be strong in the Lord ….put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For our struggle is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities and the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God….” and then Paul goes on to describe this armor – “Fasten the belt of truth about your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet put on whatever will prepare you to proclaim the Gospel of peace.  With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one.   Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  I struggle with this passage – the word “armor” makes me feel claustrophobic, defensive.  I don’t want to walk around in a clanking suit of armor.  But Paul’s words are a recognition that life can take us to some really scary places, that in our lives we will face threats to ourselves and our loved ones, to our communities, that are deeper and more pervasive than just this or that bad person, in which there is societal evil, systemic injustice, evil on a cosmic scale, that grinds us down in a way that threatens our faith, threatens to turn us against our neighbor, threatens to make us hopeless and bitter, threatens our very will to live. And we need to be prepared spiritually to stand in the face of all that. So Paul’s metaphor of armor, naming each piece, is really about choices, about the way we live.  Will we choose to live in a way that’s grounded in truth, that comes from a place of righteousness?  Are our feet prepared to take us where God wants us to share good news, in a world that’s full of bad news.  Are we equipped with faith, and salvation, and the word of God?   These are the day-by-day choices that come as a result of that initial choice of God to call us, and our choice to respond to God’s call.  After all, getting someone to come forward at an altar call isn’t really all that difficult – a pastor with strong oratorical skills can pile on emotional manipulation until, at least in that moment, a certain number of distressed, desperate souls will say “yes” to just about anything.  But what will happen the morning after?  Will the person ask him or herself, “what on earth came over me” and shrug it off as some sort of emotional meltdown, like someone would shrug off a bad hangover?  Or will their lives change in such a way that they live into the decision for Jesus that they’ve made?  Will their new-found faith go the distance?

About a week ago, I went to a retirement banquet for the Rev. Dr. Geneva Butz, who had served as Associate Conference Minister for the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference – who was my pastor for 20 years at Old First and my mentor even since then, who preached at our 150^th anniversary, and whom many of you have met.  Geneva is legendary for her gift of encouraging and empowering people to step out on faith and try things they never thought they could do.  As part of the retirement banquet, there was a sort of mock exit interview.  The interviewer asked Geneva – what is your favorite word?  And Geneva said, “Yes”.  And then Geneva was asked what was her least favorite word. And Geneva responded, “No.”  And everyone at the banquet laughed, because we had all experienced that once Geneva had some vision in her head in which she saw a role for us, she wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Geneva wouldn’t argue….she’d just persist, just keep on asking, keep on reminding.  She just kept on until she heard, “Yes.”  But many at the banquet also gave testimony to all the doors that opened, all the adventures of faith experienced, as a result of saying “Yes” to Geneva – for example, a church member who said “Yes” to Geneva’s request some years back to host a visiting family from Germany is still in touch with this family, decades later, as they’ve visited back and forth many times. And God is like that.  Those whom God has chosen, God pursues – in the words of the poet Francis Thompson, like the hound of heaven, tracking us down no matter where we hid ourselves, never giving up, never letting go, until God gets us to say, “Yes”.

Do you hear God calling, feel God pursuing you, hear the footsteps of the hound of heaven?  Perhaps you hear Jesus calling you to turn for the first time and follow him?  Or perhaps you heard Jesus calling you to  renew your commitment to following him.  Perhaps there’s some bad habit or besetting sin or rebellion against God that has tripped us up over and over again, that God is calling us to leave behind.  Perhaps you hear Jesus calling you to step out on faith and attempt something bold, when our inclination is to stay within our comfort zone.  Perhaps the Lord has put some person’s name on your heart, to talk to that person and hear their pain, and to share good news.  I’m not going to ask you to come forward, or even to raise your hand – but I would urge you to listen to that voice within you, to that call, whatever it is, and quietly, within your heart, to let your faith in God overcome your fear of the unknown, to say “yes”, to say “yes” to God – as God, who first chose us, has said “yes” to us, as God has said “yes” to Emanuel Church, in the face of many difficulties, over the past 150 years.  May we open our hearts and minds to whatever call God has for us, and may we say yes.  May it be so with us. Amen.