Scripture:
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 Ephesians
5:15-20, 6:10-20 John 6:51-71
In our Gospel reading, Jesus has just experienced a major
rejection – in his own stomping grounds, no less. A day ago he had fed the crowd of five
thousand, and the next day, the crowds followed him across the Sea of Galilee
wanting more. But Jesus knew that if he
just kept feeding them, they’d never get past the bread – today we’d say that
the crowd wanted to treat Jesus like a vending machine…..hit the button and out
pops a loaf. But, in John’s gospel, the
feeding was intended as a sign, as an act that tells something about who Jesus
is – and in order to understand the sign, they’d have to get past their own
hunger and their own obsession with bread.
In effect, Jesus was inviting
them to go deeper by offering them more than bread – in fact, Jesus offered
himself, his life, his own flesh and blood.
When Jesus offered bread, the crowds gobbled it down until they were
full. But now he was offering himself,
and the crowds weren’t biting. Jesus had changed the menu, and they turned up
their noses.
Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from
heaven.” And many in the crowd thought,
and some likely heckled, “You’re the living carpenter that came down from
Nazareth to fix my mom’s chair a few months ago! Who the heck do you think you are? Bread from heaven my foot!” But Jesus kept pushing that image: “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.”
And the crowd took Jesus’ words at their literal value, and were
repulsed: “Hey Jesus, you want me to
nibble on your ear?” “Hey Jesus, jack
frost may be nipping at your nose, but I’m not touching it with a ten-foot pole.” And eventually the crowds stomp off in
disgust. And, perhaps a humorous note
buried between the lines of the text - remember that, at least in the other
gospels – it’s not stated so explicitly in John’s gospel – before all this
happened, Jesus and his disciples had been trying desperately to get away from
the crowds, trying desperately to get some downtime just for themselves, and
the crowds just kept stalking him. Jesus
teaches them, and tries to send them away with a full stomach, and they just
keep coming back for more. Jesus offers
himself, his life, his own flesh and blood for them, and they run
screaming. And Jesus finally gets his
time alone with the disciples. Isn’t it
ironic, don’t you think?
The image of Jesus offering his flesh and blood was a
stumbling block to the crowd, and it was a public relations problem for the
early church – there were always rumors floating around the Roman Empire that
Jesus’ followers practiced some weird kind of cannibalism. By contrast, after two thousand years of
church history, we hear the words “eat my flesh, drink my blood” and our minds
go right to the idea of holy communion – and likely this was part of what John
intended.
But I’d like us to spend a little more time unpacking the
image of eating Jesus’ flesh and blood. No, Jesus doesn’t actually want us to make
finger food out of his fingers. But
let’s think of what happens when we eat a sandwich or drink some juice. Our bodies break down what we eat into
vitamins and minerals and proteins and such – into molecules and atoms – and in
turn those vitamins and minerals and proteins and molecules and atoms are
incorporated into our bodies – except for the parts our bodies can’t use, which
are eliminated. In short, what we eat
becomes a part of us. As the saying
goes, we are what we eat. And so when
Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he’s talking about
us taking Jesus into ourselves, so that Jesus – his life, his teachings, his
death and resurrection - becomes part of our bodies and minds, part of our
flesh and bones, to nourish and strengthen us – or, to turn the image around, we become part of Christ’s larger body here on
earth. It’s not just about praying a
little prayer or reciting a creed, and then going on with our lives unchanged,
not just about showing up Sunday morning to give a nod to God, and then live
life on our own terms the rest of the week.
It’s about Jesus taking over our lives, and let me tell you, if you give
Jesus an inch, he’ll take a mile. Nobody sits Jesus in the corner. Jesus invited the crowds to eat his flesh and
drink his blood – and some of the prophetic books in the Old Testament have
similar images. For example, in Jeremiah
15:16, Jeremiah writes, “your words were found, and I ate them, and your words
became to me a joy and the delight of my heart” – and in the 3rd
chapter of Ezekiel, God literally tells Ezekiel to eat a scroll containing all
that God has for Ezekiel to teach, and so Ezekiel eats the scroll – we’re told
that in his mouth it was sweet as honey – and so those teachings now became a
part of Ezekiel. Jesus takes this image
one step further, asking us not only to eat Jesus’ words, but his life, his
death, his resurrection, to let all that Jesus was become an inseparable part
of who we are.
This account in John’s gospel can give us comfort. Jesus offered bread, and the crowds ate
gladly. Jesus offered himself, and the
crowds ran screaming. In Capernaum, his
own stomping ground, Jesus was rejected – and the other three Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, likewise report Jesus being rejected in his hometown. Jesus offered all he had, all he had to give,
and his offering of love was rejected.
The prologue to John’s gospel says that, “He was in the world, and the
world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received
him not.”
I think we all know what it is to be
rejected, to put ourselves out there and offer others the best we can, and have
it rejected. We research and think and
ponder to choose just the right gift for a loved one – and the loved one says
thanks, without a lot of enthusiasm, never uses it, and six months later we see
that gift we put so much time and energy into choosing on a table at a flea
market. Or, on a deeper level, perhaps we carefully tried to raise our children
in the way of the Lord, and our children left the church and think of our faith
as old wives tales, as fairy tales. Or at our jobs, we worked our heart out on a
project, only to have it trashed by our supervisor, or cancelled at the last
minute, or put into a pile or onto a shelf and forgotten. Or maybe it’s us that’s put on a shelf, or
put out with the garbage, when the company we slaved at for decades lays us off
five years before we’d planned to retire.
Or we’re attracted to someone and
work and plan to ask that person out on a date, or perhaps talk about taking a
casual friendship in a more serious direction, only to have the other person
laugh in our face – “me date you? - are you kidding me?” To quote the old Doobie Brothers song, “She
had a place in his life/ He never made her think twice.” Or, to quote the movie title, “He’s” – or
she’s – “just not that into you.”
It’s a terrible feeling, rejection
is. Rejection feels like a kick in the
teeth, a punch to the gut. Perhaps we
can take comfort in knowing that Jesus, too, was rejected, and that if we
follow in the way of Jesus, we too may experience rejection. After the crowds stalked away, Jesus turned
to his disciples and said, “Do you want to bail out on me too?”
And what did the disciples say? “Simon Peter answered [Jesus], “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.” Hey, Jesus, we’ve got nowhere else to
go. We know there’s nothing else better
out there for us. You’re all we’ve
got. And Jesus replies, “Did I not
choose you, the twelve. Yet one of you
is a devil.” – referring to Judas. So
everyone else deserted Jesus, and even among the only ones who stayed, the
twelve, Jesus knew one of them was going to be trouble.
And yet Jesus kept going, despite
rejection, kept ministering, kept teaching, kept healing. He knew that what he had was from God, and
was good, and needed, and he didn’t let peoples’ rejection stop him. Jesus said that “no one can come to me,
unless the Father draws him” – and so, if people rejected them, oh well, the
father hadn’t drawn them, or at least not yet.
In the same way, when people reject us, that’s no reason to be
discouraged or to stop what we’re doing.
Now, not to say that rejection can’t be a learning opportunity, perhaps
a time to ask if we should be doing things in a different way or whatever.
But rejection from others doesn’t
diminish the value of us, doesn’t diminish the reality that we are loved, that
we are created in God’s image, have “that of God” inside us, are redeemed by
Christ’s blood, are precious in God’s eyes, even if others can’t or won’t see
it. In fact, especially, precisely if we
are faithful to the Gospel, we can pretty much be guaranteed that, at some
point, we will experience opposition, will experience rejection – following
Jesus isn’t a recipe for winning a popularity contest. The people around us are broken and in pain –
and often, so are we – and when we touch that place of pain in others, even if
that touch is intended to heal, we’re going to get a reaction, like when the
dentist is drilling and hits a nerve.
And when we challenge the system, challenge what Catholic Worker
movement cofounder Dorothy Day called “this filthy rotten system”, this world system
that puts corporate greed ahead of human needs ….oh boy are we going to
experience opposition and rejection – the powers and principalities and
spiritual wickedness in high places, the powers that be, don’t like being
called on the harm they cause. These
days, people get arrested and go to jail for doing stuff like that! So we can’t let our sense of worth, our sense
of who we are, depend on the applause of others, but rather on the knowledge
that God loves us, will never stop loving us – particularly if we’re doing the
work to which we feel God calling us. If
we’re going to be rejected, let’s be rejected for the right reason, for
following in the way of Jesus who likewise experienced rejection. When life beats us down and we can hardly
stand, we can go to Jesus…when we can’t stand on our own, and really none of us
can stand on our own, we can be found, in the words of an old hymn….
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand/ I am tired, I am
weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light/ Precious
Lord, take my hand,
lead me home.
It goes both ways. All of us have been rejected, and all
of us have ourselves rejected others.
Our own life experience, sometimes our prejudices, sometimes our own
woundedness and pain and just plain tiredness and exhaustion, prevent us from
understanding the pain and the life experiences of others, especially if they
differ greatly from our own. And so we
turn others away. And truth be told,
there are times when we have to reject other peoples’ behavior, if it’s a
threat to themselves or to other people. To use a ridiculous example: Hey, if somebody walks in this church waving
around a loaded gun, I’m not inviting them to come back next week. Some peoples’ behaviors have to be
rejected. And sometimes people come with
problems that are more than we’re equipped to take on, and the best we can do
is make a prayerful, dedicated effort to refer them to somebody better equipped
to help….for example, while in seminary I had one course in pastoral
counseling, I’m not a psychotherapist – I don’t have that skill set - and if I
try to pretend to be one, I’m going to hurt other people and myself. Nobody
wins when I try to be something I’m not, even trying to be helpful. But we can
reject bad behavior and refer requests for help and still be mindful that the
person in front of us, even if they’re behaving very badly, even if their needs
overwhelm us and frighten us, is a
beloved child of God, like us created in God’s image, like us precious in God’s
sight, even if they’ve lost their way and need help finding the path home. We can still try to maintain some kind of
relationship, even if it’s only at a distance.
If we can’t see them in person, if seeing them in person causes too much
pain, at least we can accept their phone calls.
Or if we can’t do even that, if even talking to them on the phone causes
too much pain, at the very least, we can pray for them…..nothing and nobody can
stop us from praying for them.
After the crowds and many of Jesus’
fair-weather followers walked away, Jesus asked the twelve who remained, “Do
you also wish to go away.” And speaking for the twelve, Peter said, “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.”
When rejection punches us in the gut, may we hang on for dear life to
the words of eternal life that Jesus offers – and may we offer those same
life-giving words in God’s name to those around us, to our neighbors, here in
Bridesburg, elsewhere in Philly, across the country, around the globe, who are
dying for a word of good news. Amen.
