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Sermon for Sunday, August 16, 2009

“The Bread of Life – Part 4”

John 6:56-63

If you remember four weeks ago when we began this journey through John 6, I made the observation that Jesus was as popular as a rock star. “A large crowd kept following him…” (v. 2) He has a huge crowd following him because he is going around healing people. After a while the crowd gets hungry and Jesus feeds all of them, a stadium full is what I suggested to you since the scriptures said there were 5,000 men. A little boy gives Jesus two fish and five loaves of bread.

If the people didn’t love him before, they love him now! He’s not only healing people; he is also feeding everybody for free! What a day it must have been. What more could one want on any day?  Healing and free food. Sign me up!  The people are such big fans of Jesus that they want to make him a king, but he slips through that and goes to the mountains.

The next day, the crowd finds out that Jesus has gone to the other side of the lake, so they travel across the water toward Capernaum. They eventually show up on the other side of the water. Imagine a fleet of boats rippling through the waters of Galilee….”they themselves got into the small boats and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.” (v. 24) This time they find him at the synagogue. (v. 59) And instead of healing and feeding, he is teaching. “I am the bread of life, he says, I have come down from heaven.” “Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”  (vv. 35-40) And then they start grumbling. The people who were big fans now begin to grumble. They can’t believe Jesus is claiming to be from heaven. (v. 41)

As Jesus continues speaking, the enthusiasm for him plummets like a punctured balloon. What John tells us is that the people get so offended that “many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” (v.66) When the people are benefiting from Jesus, they love to follow him! But when he opens his mouth and teaches, the people don’t want to hear it. So they leave. Happens all the time to preachers.

As the dust stirs from the people walking away, Jesus turns to the 12 and says, “Do you want to leave also?” (v. 67) Can you almost hear the beating of the hearts of the 12? “Do you want to leave also?” What are you going to decide? You can leave. You can stay. What are you going to do?

Peter is always good with an answer. He breaks the silence, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the holy one of God.”

Peter’s confession is the climax of a very interesting chapter. At the beginning of chapter 6, Jesus has thousands of eager followers, but by the time we get to the end, it is Jesus and the twelve. What happened along the way? Jesus taught and as he taught, his words were too difficult to hear and if the hearing was difficult, the practice was even more difficult.  Now it is easy to be hard on the crowd, but we must admit how easy it is to adapt to their mentality. It is much easier to sit here, sing the songs, listen to the prayers, but it is harder to follow him when he starts teaching.

We also like the wonder working Jesus and who wouldn’t?  He turned water into wine. Good thing. Think of all the money one could save at a party. He healed the sick and cast out demons. He calmed a storm and walked on the sea. He raises people from the dead. The wonder working Jesus is a mesmerizing and attractive Jesus.  It is just when he opens his mouth.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  Come on, Jesus, you mean we have to deny our selfish desires and get ready to suffer and maybe even die with you?

“Love your enemies.” Surely you don’t mean it like it sounds, do you? You mean the people we can’t stand, the people we have the hardest time getting along with, the folks who are against us? Love them? He didn’t tell his followers to love their enemies because love would or would not work. He told them do it “that they might be sons of the father.”

“If someone hits you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Now that’s crossing the line. If someone smacks us in the face, we’re suppose to stand there and take it? That’s a little much. There are a lot of mean, hostile people in this world. What if someone is trying to hurt me or those I love?

Jesus’ words are often hard to swallow, and hard to follow. Tom Long tells a story about Peter Gomes, pastor of a church near Harvard University. Gomes spoke at a graduation ceremony for a wealthy private high school in Manhattan. In his address, he encouraged the graduates to follow Jesus’ words in Matthew 6, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow.”

After the service was over, the father of one of the graduates was irate. He came up to Gomes with fire in his eyes and ice in his voice.  He told Gomes that what he had said about anxiety was nonsense. Gomes informed him that it was actually Jesus who said it. “It’s still nonsense,” the man said. “it was anxiety that got my daughter into this school. It was anxiety that kept her here. It was anxiety that got her into Yale and it will be anxiety that will keep her there and it will be anxiety that will get her a good job. You are selling nonsense.”  (Thomas Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian) Jesus taught us not to be anxious about the future, but his words were too hard for this man to hear.

You see, anyone who actually pays attention to Jesus’ words will realize that they are often demanding. “Repent and believe the good news.”  Repent? It is hard to change our ways.  “Just as you have done it to the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.”

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  You’re not talking about checkbook are you?

Jesus, sometimes you just push us to the edge of belief and service. We’re here in this place to worship. Can’t you be satisfied with that?

Friends, when we come to this place of worship, the time comes when we have to make some kind of decision. Throughout this entire chapter, indeed, the gospel story declares that it is Jesus who has the words of eternal life; it is Jesus who calls us to transformation; it is Jesus who ask the hard questions about how we live life; it is Jesus who calls for commitment; it is Jesus who offers us the kind of bread that will sustain now and forever. Not the stock market, not Oprah or Dr. Phil, not the government, self help books.

But the time is going to come, when we will have to and make Peter’s confession and keep following Jesus as best as we can, even when it is hard and difficult. And though when we stumble and even fall, we will be able to count on Christ’s forgiveness and continue to follow. And when we stumble and fall again, we get up through his grace and love. And when we stumble and fall again, we get up again and continue to follow. Since he has chosen us, we continually choose him.

It was in the synagogue that Jesus did his last teachings in John 6. That is where his disciples had to decide if they were up for the next leg of the journey.

Today, the place of worship is still a place for decision. Each Sunday when we gather for worship, we have to decide whether we are up for the next leg of the journey.

The question still lingers, sometimes hauntingly, “Do you want to leave also?” My prayer for you, me, us is that we will be able to declare with the saints throughout the ages, “Lord, to whom shall we go. You have the words of eternal life.” Amen.

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First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005

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(804) 798-9014

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  9:45 a.m. -  Sunday School
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