Sermon, by Pastor Ronald Nelson
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
August 25th, 2024
Joshua 24:1-18
Psalm 34:1-22
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:53-69
Twenty-First Sunday in ordinary time.
Turtle Island
Well, here we are. This is the last Sunday we will be using the Gospel of John for awhile. But you have not gotten rid of me yet! Or maybe you have? Next Sunday we get back to my favourite Gospel, Mark. Or a special worship on creation?
In the 1970’s, Robert Zimmerman wrote, “Gotta Serve Somebody.” His message was,
“you may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble; you might like to dance…
But you are gonna have to serve somebody…
It may be the Devil or it may be the lord,
But you are gonna have to serve somebody.”
Like all genuine gospel music, the song is not just singable, it challenges some basic common assumptions – This one goes to the heart of our culture’s addiction to individualism and independence.
The fact is that as we head towards our election next year and the USA in 3 months, we must understand that we are obsessed about preserving our individual rights, which is a clear and ironic illustration of the truth of the above chorus. The minute we discover what orients our decisions, what we would protect at any cost, we know what we serve – consciously or not. Bob Dylan could have been paraphrasing what we hear Joshua saying in today’s first lesson. In today’s first reading, Joshua gathered his people and called them to make a solemn commitment. They were to proclaim publicly whether or not they wanted to serve the lord who had freed them, fed them, and brought them - a unique people - to the Holy Land. They swore enthusiastically that they would always serve the lord their God. Their common identity came from God’s work and their response. We know they kept that commitment as “perfectly,” as we keep ours!
All of this leads into our final reflection on John 6, the moment when we hear the reaction of Jesus’ various disciples. The readers of Joshua and John detect an atmosphere of crisis. Would they remain faithful to God or not? Their decision was entirely free. God does not coerce, God simply invites. Or as we heard last week, “wisdom invites, cajoles, and persuades, it never commands.” When Jesus finished explaining that he, Jesus, was the bread given for the life of the world, the majority of his disciples came to the conclusion that it was too much for them to accept. Are we any different today? Some of them apparently cherished the concept of a more mysterious God who stayed on the heavenly side of creation, a God they could worship from a safe, cultic distance. Others realized that the God Jesus represented in his own total self-giving, could only be served in an imitation of that same love, and they found that too costly. The writer of John explained their reactions by simply saying, “because of this many of his disciples turned back, and no longer went about with him.” This basic decision is always a turning point. And for many, probably most, they returned to their former way of life. John does not tell us how Jesus felt. The writer of John only tells us that Jesus knew that some of the disciples lacked faith and that even one of them would betray him.
Of course, Jesus told his disciples that they could come to him without the help of God’s grace, but even with that, did he expect so many to walk off, to leave him? John implies that when Jesus looked to see who remained, the group had shrunk to a mere twelve. A lot less romantic way of explaining how there came to be 12, instead of the twelve tribes of Israel idea that is often used to explain the 12 disciples. Which is the way we have often explained happenings in the bible. Sad to say, making up some grand idea instead of just admitting the facts. We can only imagine the look on Jesus’ face and the tone of his voice when he asked, to the last of his followers, “do you also wish to go away?” The pharisees had begun to talk about eternal-life, the Sadducees refused to go there. The Sadducees felt that believing in heaven created too many complications. I have to confess; I lean towards the Sadducees. Remember, as I quoted last week, the church wants you to “think for yourself.” John 6 paints a picture of Jesus offering us, eternal life.
The writers of Joshua and John presume there are times when we are forced to choose between at least two ways of looking at our faith. In all of the gospel of John, this is probably Jesus’ most vulnerable moment. When you offer yourself to someone else and they turn you down, (I am sure some of us have been there) it sure leaves you vulnerable. On the other hand, it was also the natural result of offering himself for others. Therefore, it was all Jesus could do, he offered himself. The results depended on their openness to his gift of life. Yes, the teachings of Jesus usually led/leads to division. “How can this person give us his flesh to eat?” Taking the literal sense of these words, they missed Jesus’ point. Jesus’ teachings may have been challenging but he did not shy away from them. Peter spoke for his fellow disciples, by responding to Jesus’ question by asking a question (something Peter had learned from Jesus to do). “Lord, to whom can we go?” Then Peter added, showing he had listened, “you have the words of eternal life.” “We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.” Now of course Peter did not fully understand the implications of what he said. Nevertheless, what he said committed him and his companions to continue as Jesus’ disciples with all of the unpredictable repercussions that would entail. I wonder if the founders of this congregation, really understood what they were doing when they took the name St. Peter? Peter had his strengths and his weaknesses. He was not perfect, but his misunderstandings of the faith help us to think about our faith. Peter’s portrait of the process through which they came to believe in Jesus is certainly worth looking at.
So, here we are, we have been contemplating Jesus as the bread of life for five weeks. That is almost as long as Lent and longer than Advent. We have had time to ponder how God has shown, and shows us, love and care. As we now reach to the end of this immersion into the Gospel of John, the scriptures are inviting us to stand with Joshua’s Israelites and Jesus’ disciples as they are asked about their commitment; after remembering so much about God’s goodness, after hearing the promise of life-giving bread and being reminded that God draws us to this idea of a Christ who loves all and draws us into our deepest longings. Yes, now it is time to review our own fundamental allegiance. Please remember we do not need a Billy Graham altar call. You will have one in two weeks when your pastor is back, and the Eucharist will be offered. For now, we need to renew our deeply personal and public dedication to God. Please think of your next time at the Altar for Communion as a re-enactment of the pledge Joshua was calling forth in our first lesson today. Just think of what we are saying when we say “amen,” at the end of our service today. As Augustine said, “are we willing to receive what we are and to be what we receive?” Jesus’ offer to those who would receive him is nothing less than an invitation to an adventure of unlimited love that leads to unlimited life. Those disciples who had remained with Jesus understood the implications of all this. Remember they said, “this is too hard.” Those who were concerned primarily with their own well-being were not able to stay with him without the grace of God. So that part was “easy,” but now this is where it gets hard. Because if we allow ourselves to be drawn by grace, we will become counterintuitive, and countercultural. We will become a faith of empathy for people of diverse humanity. We will not practice the theology of cruelty, exclusion, and malice that so many seem to proclaim as Christianity today.
The hymn “Onward Christians Soldiers” is just beyond the pale. Early Christianity was largely pacifist. I have never been quite there, although my six years in the Marine Corp was about as safe as it could be, it was not long after I was in Canada that people said to me, “you can never go back to the USA with your views on Vietnam.” So it was too much, is too much, for many would-be disciples. We hear it again, “do you also want to leave?” and we should not be surprised that most of our friends and family have walked away. You see this is what liturgy is all about, my preaching, Sonya’s playing, our singing, and praying, and listening is only authentic if it leads to changed lives. Faith is a gift, but it is also a choice. Paul was in jail when he asked his readers to pray that he would proclaim his faith boldly. It is hard work to preach and believe in daunting times. I, as a preacher, fear, on one hand, to sow division or misunderstanding but on the other hand, I fear failing people by an overcautious silence. I believe in placing these readings before us today, the church is affirming the crisis which is at the heart of Christian commitment.
So, for us addicts of freedom, as we have meditated on Jesus as the bread of life, I ask the following questions to myself and to you, knowing full well that none of us live up to the answers of these questions, even with God’s help. But we still need to ask ourselves these questions. Do we make God the centre of our lives? Do we live in such a way that our daily decisions and choices bear witness to our relationship with God? Do we live in mutual faithfulness and service to spouses and family? Do we accept the wisdom of God as our guide on this earth? In other words, does faith permeate all that we do? Remember in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures we find a God who has given us free will. Interestingly, the more we use that free will, the more we actually become like the God we are trying to imitate.
Today is a turning point, yet another opportunity offered by God. How do we decide? How will our decisions affect the rest of today? How shall they reshape tomorrow? We “gotta serve somebody.” And so, today, like every worship service we partake of, we ask, “are we all in?” and we hear God ask,
“Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you do not know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?”
“Will you love the you you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you have found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?”
[ELW 798 v. 1 & 4]
Amen.
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