August 23, 2015

Helen Jacobi

Ordinary Sunday 21     Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18     Psalm 34:15-22     Ephesians 6:10-20     John 6:56-69

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

There is a hashtag on twitter at the moment #ThingsJesusNeverSaid. One of the tweets this week was obviously from a preacher struggling with John chapter 6 as we have been for the last 5 Sundays. It said “Take, eat, this is my body. But first let’s write thousands of pages of theology about it.” [1] #ThingsJesusNeverSaid@fatherTim.

As Susan said in her sermon last week all this talk of eating and drinking body and blood was offensive to Jesus’ audience and can be offensive to us as well. And as we get to the end of chapter 6 today we see the result. John tells us: “Many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” The rest of us write thousands of pages of theology about it! which can be another way of turning back or avoiding the living out of the gospel.

The disciples or followers turned back, they returned home, to pick up their lives again. They found Jesus’ teaching too hard, too challenging. “I am the bread of life” he said “I am bread from heaven”; come break bread with me and you will have eternal life. That doesn’t seem so hard does it? What was so challenging about this teaching that made them turn back?

They had witnessed the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 with the loaves and fish belonging to the little boy; they had heard Jesus reflect on this miracle and make claims about himself; how the bread he gave was more important than the manna, the bread that had fed the people in the wilderness with Moses.

Well nothing was more important for the people of Israel than the story of the escape from slavery in Egypt, and how God fed them in the wilderness till they made it to the promised land. Jesus was saying his bread was more important and more lifegiving. They turned back, they went home.

Jesus went on to claim that he was living bread from heaven, a reference to being the word of God or the wisdom of God. In Proverbs 9: “Wisdom has built her house, laid her table, come eat of my bread and drink of my wine, and walk in the way of insight.” Bread as wisdom; I am wisdom Jesus claims; I am God’s word. They turned back, they went home.

Everywhere they went Jesus gathered all people to his table; even the unclean, even the sinners, the tax collectors and the prostitutes; to eat with the unrighteous was to make yourself unclean in the eyes of God; Jesus gathered them all to his table.

For first century people in Israel/Palestine hospitality was expected and an absolute duty. To welcome the stranger at table was part of God’s way; except that is if your were a tax collector or other unclean person.

And once the person shared bread with you at your table you were then responsible for their wellbeing and protection. They became your responsibility. Jesus wanted the disciples to gather everyone to the table, especially the unclean and the unrighteous. And more of the followers turned back, more went home.

By the time the first century Christians get to hear John’s gospel many Gentiles were part of the faith community. For them meals were important social occasions too; occasions to show off your wealth, occasions to honour some guests more than others, those at the top of the table were fed better quality food and wine than those at the end of the table. Social status and hierarchy was upheld and cemented in the meals of the household. Jesus tells them too that all are welcome at the table and all will receive the same bread and wine, all will be fed by Jesus himself. And they found this teaching difficult, more of the followers turned back, more went home.

Charles Campbell, one of my professors I studied with in Chicago a few years back, says “it is no surprise that a meal, (the last supper) serves as the image for the radical reversal of power Jesus embodied throughout his ministry” [2]. Jesus had been upsetting people all along by breaking bread with them; and so making himself responsible for their wellbeing. And the disciples whom he expected to be hosts at the table with him were not comfortable with these implications at all.

Campbell says Jesus uses table fellowship to stand up to the powers of domination, hierarchy, and the violence of exclusion of his world. It was part of “putting on the whole armour of God” and standing up to the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers, which Paul talks about in Ephesians (6:11). Susan pointed out last week that we need the writings of something like Ephesians to help us live out the theology of John. I didn’t choose the Ephesians reading for today because it has that imagery of armour which feels bit militaristic for our ears. But it is about standing up for what we believe in “Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness”. This was all a bit too tough for the disciples and more of the followers turned back, more went home.

Another writer Loye Ashton [3] says the disciples turn away because they want to separate the holy, the religious ritual, the spiritual, from real life, the life of flesh and blood. And Jesus does the opposite – that is what incarnation is all about. God becoming incarnate, embodied. John says without the spirit, flesh is useless (v63). And so Ashton says this applies to all of life and the way we treat our earth “We eat up the world without appreciating how God has infused creation with the Spirit; thus we use and discard it in materialist ways. The ethical imperative at the heart of John’s incarnational theology of the Eucharist is clear. Will we treat the world around us as incarnational or simply as material?” [4] Therein lies another whole sermon I think!

If we do not turn back and go home, if we stay at the table, by taking the bread and the wine, the body and the blood, we commit to engaging with the world, with the word made flesh, God’s creation. Those who turned back wanted their religion to be holy and separate; those who stay at the table choose to be part of life incarnate. Those who turned back chose to go along with the violence of exclusion, of excluding the “unclean” from the table.

In our OT reading Joshua says “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”; he chose for Yahweh, not for the gods of the Canaanites. We make a choice for God when we respond to the invitation to come to the table. It is a radical choice. Not one we have to make. Most of our friends and families don’t make the choice to come and be part of this worship or the worship of other churches. They choose not to be fed and challenged by the morsel of bread and wine which embody and symbolise our engagement with God’s creation; our choice to see the spirit of God enfleshed in the world.

Jesus asked Peter; do you wish to go away also? Peter answered “to whom can we go? We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God”. For me and my household we will serve the Lord. Here we stand, we can do no other.

As we come to the table today, hear Jesus calling us forth, to partake of the bread of life, promised from the time of Moses. Many found this teaching difficult, many of the followers turned back, many went home. We are here today, invited and included; without thousands of pages of theology we can eat and drink and embody God’s love.

[1] @FatherTim

[2] The Word before the Powers p51

[3] Feasting on the Word Year B, vol 3, p 380-4

[4] p382