This is Difficult!

Posted on Aug 26, 2018 by

“[Jesus said,] ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.’ He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum” (6:56-59).

For most of us when we hear these words of Jesus, my guess is that we immediately think about the Eucharist. Every week when we gather for worship we celebrate Holy Communion, and when we do we hear Jesus’ words, “Take and eat this is my body, given for you, do this in memory of me.” Then, we hear “Take and drink, this is my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Do this in memory of me.” We have heard these words so many times they are ingrained in our brain, and we have received the bread and the wine so many times it is just another thing we do for many of us, but today’s lesson offers a little different perspective.

Remember in the Gospel of John, we do not read anything about Jesus’ “Last Supper,” nor does John offer us the “Words of Institution.” It appears John’s purpose was to help his followers understand the real meaning behind this notion of Jesus being the bread and the wine. For John it wasn’t about eating a meal during worship, it was about a way of life that was going to require those who chose to follow to make sacrifices and to place their total trust in God.

So when Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them…” many of his disciples said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (6:60). Think about it, for our modern way of thinking we connect these words to the ritual of the Lord’s Supper, but for the disciples who were hearing Jesus say these words some 2,000 years ago for the first time, they would have had no experience of the Eucharist. They rejected Jesus’ teaching because they thought he was literally referring to cannibalism. So of course this was hard to hear for them.

So for those who heard Jesus’ words and took them literally, I get why they found this difficult. But I also wonder if some of the disciples understood Jesus’ teaching as John intended it and also felt it was too difficult. Think about it, Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” We have talked about this word “abide” before. In the Greek the word is “meno” and it has an ancient meaning of “to tent with,” or “to live with.” In other words, when you do this, we will always be together and being understood in this way can also create resistance.

When our oldest daughter started nursing school, she was living in Lawrence. Now, she had been accepted to KU’s nursing school, but the problem was that the school isn’t in Lawrence. The school is in Kansas City, Kansas, and it was literally about a 40-mile drive from where she lived. Now, at the time Jill and I were living in Overland Park and we had plenty of room for her to move back in to live with us. We had an entire finished basement with a bedroom, a full bathroom, a game room, and TV sitting area that we offered her to live in free of charge. It would have cut her commute in half and it would have allowed her to save money and even not have to work. I couldn’t see how she could reject such an offer, but do you know what she said, “No way!”.

Now at first I was hurt, and even a little mad, because I thought why wouldn’t she want to live with us and why would she want to make her life harder. But the truth is, I might have said no, too. You see, had she moved back home, she would have had to change her life. Oh, she could have saved money, but she would have had to follow our rules. She had grown accustomed to going and coming as she wanted. She had learned how to run her own home and set her own rules and she liked that and she didn’t want to go back to mom’s and dad’s rules. And you know what, I get it and I think for many of Jesus’ disciples this was a big problem of what they found so hard about Jesus’ teaching, as well. To follow Jesus means that we will live with him, which means we can't hide from him or his ways of living.

In addition, to live with Jesus means we “believe” in him, or better yet, as I said a couple of weeks ago, to follow, or live with, Jesus requires us to “trust” him and his ways and trusting in Jesus’ ways of living is not easy. To be honest, who in here really believes we will accomplish world peace without fighting and war? Who in here believes we can stop violence without guns? Who in here doesn’t believe doesn’t that real success is about having money and physical wealth. Oh, we might say these things with our lips, but our actions do not support them. When a school shooting happens, we instantly talk about gun control, but no one wants to talk about better mental health support. When a terrorist attack happens we immediately talk about retaliation, instead of trying to figure out why people hate others and seeking real change. When our kids begin to think about what they want to do with their lives, most of us instantly want to know how much the career will pay them, without any regard as to how the career they choose will offer them true happiness, or how the career they choose will allow them to truly make a difference in the world.

And, yet, if we were “abiding in Jesus,” war and retaliation would not be our first response. If we were abiding in Jesus, seeking real joy and happiness not only for ourselves but for all of God’s creation would be our priority. If we were abiding in Jesus, then when faced with financial issues or building issues here in our faith community, our first question would be how can we best serve this world and not how can we best pay our bills or fix a building. Being a faithful follower of Jesus begins with trusting that Jesus will always be with us and that even if things don’t always go as we want them to that if we place our trust in Jesus and not in our bank accounts, not in the ways of this world, not in buildings, or any other worldly thing, that in Christ, we will accomplish all things. This is what makes Jesus’ teachings today so difficult, because to live with Jesus means we have to be willing to live differently and to accept that the ways of this world that have been ingrained into our heads as truth are not the truth. The world has convinced us that our goal in life is to amass power and wealth and, yet, when we die, power and wealth will not go with us. The only things that will remain with us in our death is Christ Jesus, our trust in him and the love of a God that will never cease, not even in death.

Yes, “abiding” in Jesus’ is difficult, and staying with him and learning from him is a long process. The problem is, for most of us, we prefer a quick fix and all the answers before we will make the change. Like those who followed him after he fed the 5,000, most of us want the free food, but we don’t want to make the commitment that comes with it. When we began these readings five weeks ago, the crowds loved Jesus because he fed them and they followed because they wanted more. They even wanted to make him their king. And, yet, today, when Jesus says here is how you can live with me, most of them walk away because it is difficult.

So, what will we do? Are we attracted to Jesus because we think he can offer us miracles and provide us the victories we want? Or will we continue to follow Jesus because we know and trust that no matter how difficult life gets, we know that Jesus is with us and will strengthen us to do all things. In this meal that Jesus gives us he does not offer us an easy victory, but instead he offers us the long road of discipleship in which we will truly come to know his joy. Amen.