Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – August 26th, 2018

Text: John 6:56-69 Revised Standard Version (RSV)

56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” 59 This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper′na-um.

The Words of Eternal Life

60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. 67 Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

 In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.

This week’s Gospel lesson is both a recap of sorts of last week’s and a further account of Jesus’ words to the disciples. This repeat underscores how important this event was for John and the early church. It is equally important for us today.

The most significant thing about it – beyond the bold statement that Jesus was indeed the “bread which came down from heaven” – is that it wasn’t just the hangers-on in the crowd who were offended by his words, but his own disciples. That’s how shocking Jesus’ statements were. Completely unprecedented. “The people in today’s reading who now desert Jesus…are precisely those who had, in fact, believed in Jesus, those who had followed him and had given up much to do so. But now, finally, after all their waiting and watching and wondering and worrying, they have grown tired, and they can no longer see clearly what it was about Jesus that attracted them to him in the first place, and so they leave.”[1]

Right. Jesus, bread of life. Check. Some disciples didn’t get it and fell away. Check. But we get it. Check.

Um – wait a minute – in all honesty, do we ourselves really have clear understanding of what it means to say that Jesus is the “bread of life”?

Here’s a helpful summary:

First, when Jesus says this, he is saying that he is essential for life.

Second, the life Jesus refers to is not physical life, but eternal life. He’s trying to get the people to stop focusing on physical bread – after all, this whole discourse began when Jesus confronts the crowd by saying, in effect, “You’re just following me because I filled your bellies with bread” – and into the spiritual realm. He makes a contrast between what He brings as their Messiah with the bread He miraculously created the day before. That was physical bread that perishes. He is spiritual bread that brings eternal life.

Third, and this is very important, Jesus makes yet another claim to being God. This statement is the first of the “I AM” statements Jesus makes in John’s Gospel. Note here that the phrase “I AM” is the ancient covenant name of God (Yahweh, or YHWH), revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:14. The phrase speaks of a self-contained and self-sufficient existence that is an attribute only God possesses. It is also a phrase the Jews who were listening would have automatically understood as a claim to being God. Quite aside from Jesus’ claim to being living bread and his statement that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will be satisfied and gain eternal life, his “I AM” statements that boldly assert that  he is indeed God could have been the real straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of his followers.

Fourth, along with the word “abide” that we talked about last week, there are two other important words to take notice of: “come” and “believe.” “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35) This is an invitation for those listening to place their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. This invitation to come is found throughout John’s Gospel, and here’s a key concept: Coming to Jesus involves making a choice to forsake the world and follow him. Believing in Jesus means placing our faith in him, trusting that he really and truly is who he says he is, that he will do what he says he will do, and that he is the only one who can.

Fifth, there are the words “hunger and thirst.” We have to stress here that Jesus isn’t talking about helping us to get rid of physical hunger and thirst. Remember what Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” When Jesus says those who come to him will never hunger and those who believe in him will never thirst, he is saying he will satisfy our hunger and thirst to be made righteous in the sight of God.

All this is what’s behind Jesus words about being the bread of life. But those who were shocked and deserted him when he said those words were stuck on physical bread, and completely missed the point.

That point is: Just as Jesus had and has a all-consuming personal relationship with God, so too does he wish for us to have that same kind of relationship with him. Despite his many faults, despite his denial of Jesus on that fateful night of betrayal, and despite his blowing hot or cold at a moment’s notice, Peter gets it right in today’s passage: 67 Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

And so also is it with us. At the end of the day, we, too, have nowhere else to go, because there is nowhere else where we can find those words of eternal life, nowhere else where we can be strengthened by the awesome grace and love of God.

With those hard words “eat my flesh and drink my blood,” Jesus asks us, calls us, invites us, into life, real life, with him.

As William Barclay puts it: “Peter’s loyalty was based on a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. There were many things he did not understand; he was just as bewildered and puzzled as anyone else. But there was something about Jesus for which he would willingly die. In the last analysis, Christianity is not a philosophy which we accept, nor a theory to which we give allegiance. It is a personal response to Jesus Christ. It is the allegiance and the love which we give because our hearts will not allow us to do anything else.”[2]

All we have to do is say, once again with feeling – “Yes!”

In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.

[1] Lose, David, “Pentecost 13 B: Looking for God,” http://www.davidlose.net/2015/08/pentecost-13-b/, August 17, 2015

[2] Barclay, William, The Gospel of John, The New Daily Study Bible, Volume I, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 268