My sermon for today (Sunday, September 3, 2006) focused on interpreting some difficult passages in John 6, which follow Jesus’ feeding of the 5000. In particular I tried to show that faith is not a matter of nailing Jesus down but of listening and following Jesus even when i is hard to do so. The scriptures I used are printed below, and under them you will find the full text of my message.

John 6:35, 41-69

Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 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 for ever.’

Now Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

How many of you will admit to checking on your horoscope on a regular basis? (Several people raise their hands).
I thought so.
I knew there were pagans among us . . .
Now you may not know this, but St. Augustine did not approve of astrology,
His disapproval, however, wasn’t based on his understanding of scriptures that condemn this practice (of which there are a few),
nor did he oppose it because it was merely superstitious.
No, Augustine’s main argument against the practice of astrology,
for looking for some message in the movement of stars and planets,
was because it is a lie that claims to have simple, straightforward, direct answers to complicated questions about life.
You see Augustine had such a great respect for the complexity of the world,
the density, the thickness of reality,
that he had great contempt for simple answers.

Of course, the modern world, loves simple answers:
please list the three causes of the Civil War;
give me four reasons why we have terrorism;
don’t talk about moral ambiguity,
just give us a lists of do’s and don’ts.
We love to have things spelled out for us simply and succinctly.
We are forever trying to nail things down, to explain them,
to fix them firmly in our minds.
It is not a stretch to say that we love our issues, problems and concerns in black and white terms.
And this also includes religion and faith.

I am reminded of one of my favorite Christian singers from about 20 years ago.
Her name was Leslie Phillips, and in the early 80s she was one of the industry’s most successful singers.
Labeled the “Queen of Christian Rock” by Harpers magazine in 1984,
CCM listed her last Christian album as one of the 10 best of all time.
One of early albums, and they were albums – LPs back in the day,
was entitled Black and White in a Grey World.
The lyrics of the title song included these words:

Situational lies, situational hate
Situational adultery
They mix the black and white so casually
Their ethics seem so vague to me
[But] I’m black and white in a grey world

In just a few years however, Leslie Phillips, the darling of Contemporary Christian music,
would leave that world behind and strike off on her own.
One of the songs she wrote at that time gives a glimpse of her changing views:

The turning from light to shadows
From burning to indifference
The turning of heart to granite
Of steel hopes to molten fear
And when it turns on me
Don’t let it turn on me
The turning of admiration to obsession
Of caring to control
The turning of shouts to whispers
Of warm and full to grey and hollow

Commenting on these lyrics, Phillips, now going by her nickname Sam, said,
“Life is so tricky, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out,
it changes.
And the song is just a prayer to be able to meet those changes in love and truth.”

On elaborating why she left the contemporary Christian music scene (and by extension those churches that are heavily involved in it):
“I first started singing and writing when I was 14 in my church,
because I thought that was the place where I could be free to talk about things other than the things everybody else talked about in their songs – spiritual things, deeper things.
I found out that the church really wasn’t the place where I had more freedom – it was the opposite.
I was swimming upstream in that environment.
And I don’t agree with it; a lot of it is selling God.
Some so-called [Christians] in this country have about as little to do with real Christianity as a Xerox of a hundredth-generation print of the Mona Lisa has to do with the real thing.
One problem with these [people] is that they’re all about obsessions,
and true Christianity is about mercy,
you can’t be obsessed with mercy because it’s so inconsistent and so unpredictable,
whereas these people are very predictable and narrow-minded.
I wanted to separate myself from them because I don’t believe they have a whole lot to do with true Christianity.”

Leslie, aka Sam Phillips became disillusioned with simple answers and life in a black and white world.
Many of us, however, prefer to live there.
We love simple explanations, black and white viewpoints,
and we are forever trying to pin or nail things down.
But we can’t simply explain or nail down Jesus.

Now I assume that most of us have come here this morning in an attempt to encounter Jesus,
to try to better understand who he is and what he is all about.
We are here to meet and to comprehend Jesus.
In this way we are a lot like the people in John 6.
If you remember back about a month ago we read the first part of this chapter in worship.
This is where John tells the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
It is a story told in every gospel,
and no doubt most of the 5000 were, in one way or another,
coming to Jesus, seeking to know him,
and wanting to understand what he is all about,
But Jesus’ response to their seeking him out is to engage in a lot of strange and confusing talk.
He tells them that they need to seek a different kind of food,
a bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
Then Jesus goes on to say that those who have come to him have been given to him by the Father,
and then he adds a little something about resurrection,
and most of what he says doesn’t seem to make much sense.

So it’s no surprise when most of the multitude disappears,
leaving a hostile group of cynics behind.
The cynics begin questioning Jesus about his teaching,
but instead of answering their accusations and questions directly,
Jesus talks some more about being drawn to the father,
he adds a little more resurrection talk,
and then he says, “I am the bread of heaven.”
He then goes on to tell those that remain that must “eat” or “chew” his flesh and drink his blood.
Now I don’t know about you,
but by this time even I, as brilliant as I am,
am having a hard time following the conversation.

Will Willimon has this say about this exchange:
The dialogue is dense,
full of strange, unexplained phrases and curious twists.
Jesus critics leave and the disciples appear,
and they too complain that Jesus’ words are hard to hear.
But Jesus adds that his weird words are nothing compared to his coming ascension to the Father where he was before.
Then Jesus remarks on the difference between “flesh” and “spirit,”
and then adds again that faith in him is granted as a gift of his father above.”

By this time, if you are like me,
you can sympathize with the disciples who say to Jesus,
“This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?”
Not only are the crowds and critics confused by Jesus,
but so are his own disciples.
They have as hard a time understanding Jesus as anyone else does.
Chapter 6 of John is filled with examples of Jesus repeating himself,
and then throwing in a new, strange and unexpected word or image now and again as well.
Jesus is bread, he is not bread.
Understanding Jesus is a gift,
given by the Father,
and somehow everything he says is tied to eternal life.

Of course, this is typical of Jesus in John’s gospel.
People are always coming up to him,
thinking like Nicodemas that they already knew what the word wind meant,
or like the woman at the well, what water meant,
and here he is at it again,
turning our understanding of the word bread on its head.
We thought we knew what bread was,
but after this encounter with Jesus,
after listening to Jesus for a few minutes,
we’re not sure anymore.

Belief in Jesus is a work of God in our lives.
We really can’t come to Jesus without God drawing us to him first.
If there is a theme that runs through this wild and strange conversation it is that our relationship with Jesus is a gift.
Belief, understanding – these are not the result of some great intellectual effort that we carry out,
they are not the consequence of our own hard work -
they are gifts, they are grace.
Today’s gospel tells us that we are not here because we are extremely intelligent or perceptive (though many of us are),
we are not here because we’re better than all those people who aren’t here.
No, we are here because we have been drawn,
we have been lured here by the very Spirit of God.

You can know physics or algebra or any other subject by staying up late at night, reading and thinking and applying yourself to your studies.
And if you work hard, and some of us will have to work harder than others,
but if you work hard,
you will eventually get physics or algebra or whatever. . .
But not Jesus.
Understanding Jesus, getting Jesus is a gift.

Let me try to explain by giving you another example.
Noted Biblical scholar Eugene Lowry says that there are at least two ways of thinking about things.
One way is when you are working on a tough math problem.
You work and work and finally it hits you,
“Aha,” you say, “I’ve got it!”
“Two plus two equals four.”
Another way, however, is when you go to some wonderful movie and when you are finished watching it,
you walk out knowing that your world view has changed,
in some way, small or large, you have been changed.
In this case, you don’t say at the end of the film,
“I got it?”
No, what has happened is that the movie has gotten you.

Blaise Pascal was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived,
particularly when it came to mathematics.
Yet he found a higher way of knowing when he was converted to Christ.
It happened on November 23, 1654, after he had been meditating on a picture of Jesus’ death.

He recorded the experience (called the “M