Pentecost 12b 2006

Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18

Psalm 34:15-22

Ephesians 6:10-20

John 6:56-69

What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Said goodbye to someone you loved? Moved across country? Faced your greatest fear?

We know that life isn’t easy. It can be downright difficult. And we spend a lot of time and money trying to either avoid the difficult or to deny it.

But eventually we are faced with tough decisions, moral crises, and heartbreaking events.

Those disciples are following Jesus around. Not just the twelve, but many, many folks who have listened and learned and tagged along.

In the time Jesus walked about Palestine life was tough. Many, many people lived a hand to mouth daily existence. The rural economy was changing, the cities were overcrowded. The Roman rulers here cracking down on zealots. You could be killed for speaking ill about the government. And then there were the taxes and tolls and tributes.

Raise wheat? Pay a tax. Haul it to market? Pay a toll. Give thanks for the harvest at the temple? Pay a tribute.

There was pressure on people from all sides. It was tough. Poverty was on the rise while the rich were getting richer. Imagine that!

So along comes Jesus. Speaking with authority! Not from a priestly family or a family of scribes. But from a peasant family born in a backwater town. Now he is speaking like someone who knows something!!

And he is talking and healing and handing out hope….to those people. The poor and outcast and lonely and scared. The ones who need it the most.

Jesus is talking about turning the tables. About God loving the lowly. About a time when no one will go hungry.

And so he gathers quite a crowd. Now, at this point, with a growing congregation Jesus could do two things. He could soften his message, tell the followers what they want to hear….easy answers…instant results…and a lot of pats on the back.

I’m okay, you’re okay.

But Jesus does the other thing. He speaks the tough stuff. He says, “Give up what keeps you from God.” “The folks that you try to avoid, have them over for lunch.” And “Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you.”

That is tough stuff. Difficult words. Following Jesus might just require a change of heart, a change of life, a change in how we do business.

Now this, in the Gospel of John. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

Flesh and blood? Gross…and not something a Good Jew would be interested in. There are prohibitions in the Torah against drinking blood, even when it is mingled with flesh. The fat of an animal is also to be avoided.

Yet Fat and blood, in Israel’s tradition are seen as the basis of life: life that is from God alone and belongs to God alone. To eat fat or blood is to strive to be like God (Malina and Rohrbaugh).

But now, Jesus says: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” This is a whole body experience!

This is receiving Jesus fully, completely, wholly. Believing in the whole shebang.

This is about having complete trust in Jesus, the one who comes from God. Not just mentally acknowledging that Jesus I Lord, but believing with mind, body and soul. So much so that when we commune together we ingest God and God flows through our veins, life itself.

This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it? Where that “Easy Button” I had up here a few months ago?

I don’t get it. Maybe I should go back to believing in, say, Reality TV, or the power of the government to solve all our problems, or in my own human potential.

Why doesn’t God make it easy? The church would be bigger…all those disciples who turned back and no longer went about with Jesus would have stuck around.

But it isn’t easy. Life isn’t easy. Faith isn’t easy. Trust isn’t easy. At the end of the day, when TV hasn’t calmed us down, when the government hasn’t provided us with a safer world, when even our own human potential has fallen short…

We stand with Simon Peter….

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I may not understand it. I may not always believe in it, I may question and doubt and turn away and turn back.

But at the end of the day it is like…well…the zip line Elizabeth and I went on last week.

First we had to climb a 30 foot telephone pole, hooked up in a safety harness, etc. We climbed up to a platform and were hooked up to the zip line, one at a time. So up I went, (climbing like that was much easier when I was 20 years and 40 pounds lighter!) And then I looked down. But there I was on the platform already. So I sat on the edge and shut my eyes and counted to three really quickly…123. And was pushed off. And flew through the trees!! Amazing! Breathtaking! Fun! Elizabeth went twice!

If I had thought about it too long I would have frozen with fear. They would have had to pry me off the pole. But sometimes you just have to jump. Take that leap of faith trusting that God has got you by some invisible but powerful safety line. And even if you feel like you are falling, God is holding you up, keeping you from crashing into the ground.

It may look like the earth is rising up to swallow you, but, God’s hold is more powerful than gravity.

And there will be times that we trust, count to three, 123, and jump. And squeal with joy at the sheer delight of being held by God.

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

For a moment, we feel God’s arms holding us up. And that is enough to see us through those times of doubt and worry and fear.

For God is in us, within us, consumed at the table…flowing through our bodies and our souls. This is a difficult teaching, not everyone will want to hear it. Some will turn away. Some will come and go.

Yet even in our turning away we are held by God.

Like Peter, when life got tough, Jesus was on trial, and he, Peter, turned away. Yet was saved.

Falling, but not hitting bottom. Held up by God, even then, even now.

Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.