what's the point?

while in japan last month for their wedding, we went to church with my brother and new sister-in-law. i am still processing that experience, but the trip also gave me some fodder for my sermon this morning.

What's the point of following Jesus?

Last month, my husband Chris and I were lucky enough to be able to go to Japan for my little brother’s wedding. One of the problems was that with the exception of my brother, no one in my family spoke much Japanese, and with the exception of his bride, no one in her family spoke much English. However, Chris and her brother became friends at the reception by mostly avoiding language and simply pouring each other sake. On the other hand, a few days later, it took Chris and me twenty minutes just to figure out how to buy train tickets. Twenty minutes just for train tickets. If I ever go back to Japan, I’m going to ask my brother for a crash course first.

The sheer power of words for humans is uncontested. It was the development of sophisticated language, scientists believe, that was one of the key skills that allowed homo sapiens to become the dominant species on this planet. Language allows for communication and cooperation far beyond what is achievable by any other method.

In one of the few moments of levity in Hamlet, there’s an exchange between Hamlet and Polonius while Hamlet is pretending to be insane. Polonius comes across the prince in the castle and asks him, “what do you read, my lord?” And Hamlet answers, “words, words, words.” Polonius then attempts to disentangle himself from this apparent misunderstanding, which allows Hamlet to mock him and wander off continuing in his apparent insanity.

Shakespeare’s plays, of course, are treasuries of words, containing some of the most carefully crafted English ever written, and, at least at one time, coming in only second to the bible itself in the sources of common quotations for English-speakers.

And yet, language isn’t all good. If I asked, probably everyone sitting here today could, within a few seconds, come up with an insult, a cutting word, a verbal takedown that someone said to us in our lives somewhere that still stick with us. Especially if said by a parent or a close friend, such words can be deeply wounding. And language can simply be a barrier as well, because there are thousands of languages spoken in the world.

Today we reach the end of this long, confusing dialogue between Jesus and the people in the synagogue at Capernaum. Just look at the confusion that can be caused even when people do speak the same language! Like many of Jesus’ conversations that the gospel of John gives us, this one has not only confused its hearers at the time, but continues to stump not only the church, but also people who don’t follow Jesus. John’s gospel seems to include this passage instead of recording Jesus’ words at the last supper, but Christian scholars have debated for centuries whether or how much of John 6 refers to the Eucharist.

Martin Luther mocked one of his Catholic interlocutors for appealing to this passage in their debate about the Eucharist, but the command to eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood seems unmissable. Also, it was this passage combined with the traditional “institution” passages in the other gospels that led people to charge the early church with cannibalism and to accuse them of murdering and eating babies in their worship rites. Even today, some anti-Christian writers have accused the church of trying to gloss over its own cannibalistic history by insisting this passage is Eucharistic, against its apparent plain meaning, and even the way the crowd in the text is recorded as having reacting.

Has Jesus purposely set out to confuse people?

I don’t think so. His answer here is different than, say, to Nicodemus in chapter 3. When Nicodemus can’t understand being “born again” or “born from above,” Jesus does not explain himself, but simply asks Nicodemus, “how come you’re not getting this?” Nicodemus is an educated man, a Pharisee, Jesus even calls him “Israel’s teacher.” But here, Jesus is talking to a crowd of people who have been following him, and probably also to those who have just come to the synagogue for services that evening. Jesus leaves the realm of the metaphorical and says, “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

Jesus seems to have been using a rabbinic style of teaching here, with extended metaphor taken from the Exodus passage on manna. Since the people are thinking about manna and bread, Jesus uses that to launch his teaching. But people are obviously confused. If Jesus were a pastor, people would probably be complaining that his sermons are too unfocused. And, indeed, some of his disciples leave here. Even when he says, Ok, it’s not about flesh, it’s about my words, what I’m teaching you, people still can’t get over it and they bail.

Can we blame them? You think you’re following a miracle-worker, a healer, a teacher who has something new to say, and then he comes out with this crazy-sounding sermon in front of everyone at the synagogue. Who can accept this teaching?

It’s passages like that that make scholars think that the community to whom this gospel was written were asking the same question. Who can accept this teaching? Why are we bothering to follow this weird guy? People are kicking us out, accusing us of cannibalism!

What’s the point of following Jesus?

You can almost hear the sadness in Jesus’ voice when he says, “But among you are some who do not believe.” Even though maybe he knew people would not believe, he also says, again going back to chapter 3, that he has not come to condemn the world, but to save it. And then again, he turns to those closest to him, and he asks, “Do you also wish to go away?” The writer of the gospel is asking the same question of his readers. Some have already left us. Do you also wish to go away?

Is the journey getting too hard? Is the mocking getting too much? Do you just hate getting up early in the morning for some superstitious nonsense?

As in the other gospels, Peter gives a clear answer that rests on the identity of Jesus. “You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” They get Jesus’ turn away from the confusing bread and flesh. Remember, Jesus said, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” But Peter says “eternal life.” Is that something special?

After the first and second Great Awakenings in this country and the revivalist Christianity that resulted, most of us would answer yes, it is! It’s about life after death, or something, right? It’s about “going to heaven when you die.” Jesus is a fire insurance salesman, right? That’s the whole point of following Jesus. You get to “go to heaven.”

Not really. In Jewish thought of this period, and especially in John’s writings in the New Testament, eternal life is about living now. It’s not some vision of playing harps and sitting on clouds after death. It’s about living now, following Jesus’ teachings, his words, living in this crazy new radically expanded community of God. Jesus brought God’s teaching about how things were supposed to be - life empowered by God’s Spirit as promised in John 3, all people united in worshipping God as promised in John 4, celebrating God’s creation and taking care of each other promised by Jesus’ miracles of wine and bread in John 2 and 6. When Jesus sets out to feed people, he doesn’t hold back! The best wine at a wedding, where people had already been drinking for days, and enough food for 5000 people. This is what eternal life looks like.

This is what Jesus promises. This, John says, is the point. This is the power of these words. Follow Jesus and live like this. Live life worshipping God with those who were your enemies, celebrating together with them and feeding and caring for each other.

The cost for those earliest Christians was high. The cost for some Christians today is still very high. Jesus never promised a life of material wealth or success, or a perfect family, and he definitely never promised that things would all make sense. The power of Jesus’ words is that when meditated on, eaten, absorbed into us, they give us a new way to live.

The second century church father Tertullian encouraged his home church, “We ought to devour him with the ear, and to ruminate on him with the mind and to digest him by faith.” Or as we say at the Eucharist, “feed on him in your heart with thanksgiving.” Words are powerful. May we take Jesus’ words into us as food to live the life he promises.

Amen.