This sermon was preached for Sunday, August 25, 2024 for the fourteen Sunday after Pentecost. The texts for this sermon is Psalm 84, Ephesians 6:10-20, and John 6:56-69.
Most Friday evening, as my little family of four sits down for dinner someone reminds the rest of us it’s time for Shabbat prayers. Now you’re really supposed to do the opening Sabbath ritual when the sun goes down. And you’re supposed to have candles, bread, and wine, at the very least. But in our family we do it when the kids are hungry, regardless of what’s going on with the sun. And we make do with what we have: hopefully, if we’ve kept on top of our shopping that week, there’s some grape juice for the kids. Sometimes “the wine” is actually just whatever beer we have in the fridge. In a pinch, I’ve even mixed some lemon juice with sugar and water. The bread is usually just part of what we are having for dinner: anything from a piece of tortilla to a macaroni shell to a chunk of chicken nugget.
For us, for our family, it doesn’t really matter that it’s not actually bread. What matters most is that we are together, giving thanks to God, welcoming in a time to rest and be all together as a family on Friday night and Saturday day.
Sometimes the bread isn’t actually bread. It doesn’t need to be.
We’ve been talking about bread a lot at church these last few Sundays. Let’s recap a bit: the Gospel of John, chapter six begins with Jesus feeding five thousand people with five loaves of bread. When he leaves that place, the crowd follows him, demanding more, hoping to make him king. Jesus looks out at the clamoring people and astutely observes that they are following him because they want to fill their bellies with more bread.
Look, he tells them. This isn’t about the bread. That’s not really what I’m offering you here. This is about relationship with God. There is much greater bread than this. The bread of life. The bread of heaven. Over the last few Sundays, the crowd’s been grumbling about Jesus’ answers. Then he really gets them confused and offended by talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
I imagine Jesus is a bit exasperated at this point. He really wants everyone to stop being so hung up on the metaphor. It’s NOT about the bread! It’s about a spiritual relationship with God through me! Abide in me, get close to me.
At this point, today’s Gospel, a bunch of the people who had been following Jesus turn around and leave. He’s not being or saying what they want, so they just go. This teaching is too hard.
Jesus looks around at his remaining disciples, his friends, and he asks the most vulnerable, most heartbreaking question. In it, I hear God’s pain at the betrayal that’s coming, God’s grief at all the ways humankind has let God down again and again. Jesus turns to his disciples and asks them, “Do you also wish to go away?”
Peter, for once, says the right thing. He’s been listening. He’s heard Jesus: it’s not about the bread. It’s about Jesus being the way to God and eternal life.
As human beings, we need ritual and metaphor to help build our relationship with God. Just like friends and communities need missions and projects and dinners and activities to get close to each other. Just like kids need birthday parties to know they are special and families need reunions to see they are connected. That’s all religion is: the language and practices that help our bodies, minds, and hearts to feel and understand God’s presence and God’s love.
But at some point, we can get really caught up in the bread - so caught up that we forget it’s not really supposed to be about the bread at all. We need a harsh reminder, every so often, to stop being distracted by all the metaphors as if they are the ultimate truth.
It is relationship with God that saves you. Not your perfect adherence to a ritual. Not how much community service you accomplish. Not how many members your church has. In the end, salvation is about love - being part of love - love of family and friends, love of neighbor and stranger, and the big wide mysterious force of love that binds together all of creation and all of humankind. Become part of that love and your janky knees and failing heart, your fallible mind and clumsy feet, our “useless flesh” won’t matter in the end. Become a part of that love and you will live forever.
Do you also wish to go away? Jesus asks the remaining disciples.
It’s humbling to realize that even Jesus had people who walked away from him. Jesus had people who actually met him and talked to him, and still weren’t convinced, and still left. That’s why he shares that metaphor about the sower and the seeds - a whole lot of them fall on unreceptive soil. So why should we be surprised when the same thing happens to us? When people say to us, church is too stressful, I am too busy, this is asking too much. This teaching is too hard. When people leave.
It is so human, so natural, for us to instinctively judge whether something is the right thing to be doing based on how many other people are doing it, too. For us to gauge the value of an activity by how many other people are going, too. Or the righteousness of a leader by the size of their crowds. Truth is, it’s much more enjoyable to be a part of a community that feels bustling and alive and full. It’s easier to come to church, to be church, when a whole lot of other people are there, too.
I’m going to tell you something you already know. Church is not the cool, hip, popular thing, if it ever was. And these days, going to church is so often going against the grain of how the rest of society is set up. You want to be part of a team as a teen? Practices and games are on Sunday morning. You want to keep your job? You got to pick up some weekend shifts. Retired? There’s plenty of much more fun things to do with your weekends, and oh, by the way your grandkids are a plane trip away.
Being religious these days makes you a big of an odd duck, especially if you are my age. Sometimes I do start to wonder, what am I doing here? Why have I dedicated so much of my life to a thing that most of my friends really don’t understand?
You know that feeling when it’s the first day of school and you’re trying to find the right classroom and you think maybe you’ve found it but there’s only a couple people you don’t recognize in the room. You don’t really believe you’re in the right place until a bunch of other students come filtering in, until the room starts to feel full and oh, phew, there’s the professor.
Imagine the professor starts speaking and you start learning and you’re getting what you need to know, you’re growing in knowledge and insight and faith and then a whole bunch of people stand up, pack up their things and walk out. Do you leave? I think if we are honest with ourselves, a part of us really wants to. But the other part of us knows that we are already in the right place. This is where we can receive what we need.
I think it makes sense to worry, as I do from time to time, that someone new walking in here will be turned off by how small we are or how old we are. And it’s true we could offer more things - more programs and activities, more service opportunities and mission trips, more fancy worship services and music - if we had more volunteers, more staff, more young people, more funds. It’s true that people come to church through programming and offerings and events - or for the doughnuts - all the time. Maybe you did. But that’s not why people stay. That’s not really what we are competing for: to be the best place to get bread. We’re here to be the place where people come to know God through Jesus Christ.
This, us gathering and praying and committing to our covenantal relationship with God, it’s worth doing even if it is just two or three of us. Even if we don’t have children. Or a choir. Even if we don’t have coffee. Or bread to share. Because this is where and how we hear the words of eternal life. This is where we come to know the Holy One of God.
Our mission is not to draw in people so that we can do and be more, or even, or even, so that our particular parish can survive. Our mission is to bring people closer to God, so they, too, can experience what relationship with God through Jesus Christ feels like, the difference it can make. People won’t come, won’t stay, because we have the best bread or the best coffee or even the best music. Or even because this is where everyone else is on a Sunday morning. At least, I hope not. I hope people come and stay because this is where they get to know Jesus Christ. Because this is where they learn to love God and neighbor.
It was painful for me to read Jesus’ words this week. Do you also wish to go away? It’s a question I hear behind so many of my goodbyes with each of you. You’re leaving us, too?
It’s true. I am leaving this town and this parish and you. But I’m not leaving this Church with a capital C. I’m still all in on this mission of ours. I’m still all in on Jesus. I’ll still be your sister in Christ way over there in Ayer. It’ll just be in a different place, with different people. In, as it turns out, a smaller parish with just as big a heart and just as strong a faith.
My prayer is that you and I, we keep focused on what matters most. The meaning behind the metaphor. The mystery behind the bread. The Holy One who longs for you.
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