John 6:22-34 September 6, 2015
The people were
looking for him. He disappeared. They saw the disciples take off without him. They probably saw him head off into the
mountains, but now he was gone. Some
boats did arrive from Tiberias, but Jesus wasn’t on those as well. He was gone.
He wasn’t gone
of course, he’d taken a hike across the lake, literally. He and his disciples were now in Capernaum. The people walked around the lake and they
caught up with him there. But these
people were playing it cool, like, yo, Jesus, my man, when did you get here?
Jesus, not being
a dope, saw right through their act. You
are not here for me, you are here for the free meal. You are expecting me to buy you another, pardon,
create for you another round of bread and fish.
27Do not work for the
food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the
Son of Man will give you.
The people were
not born yesterday either. Jesus is
making his pitch, their response, ‘What must we do to
perform the works of God?’ It was
a really tough answer that Jesus gave them, believe in me. Now we come back to the angle that the people
are working, believe in Jesus, okay, but… ‘What sign are you
going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you
performing? 31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written,
“He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
If you’ve seen “Little Shoppe of Horrors”, you might remember
the line, “Feed me Seymour…” The people
are like, “Feed me, give me something to eat.
Yo, Jesus, feed us a little more and we’ll give the matter some serious
consideration.” Maybe this time, instead
of barley loaves and fish, they were cruising for a little surf and turf, you
know, lobster and steak…
So Jesus comes
to the crux of the matter, …Jesus said to them,
‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven,
but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God
is that which comes down from
heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread
always.’ They came for the fun, they stayed for the grace.
Isn’t this what
we are seeking to create in this church?
We begin with the place and the
people, inviting, attractive, dare we even call church…fun? When people come to us, when the Lord sends
people to us, we hope they find a good place to be. I look forward to Sundays because I know the
company that I will keep. I work for
this congregation as your minister, but I have come to receive the support and
the blessings of you all as well. You
guys are my friends. You are very precious
to me.
I see this
passage standing behind our vision, to be a Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom. There is an implication that we are creating
a place of safety, a place of friendship, a place of caring, a place where we
can have fun together. But that is not
the end of the journey, only its beginning.
When someone comes to this church, I have a vision for what I hope will
happen. I hope that the power of the
Living God, through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, will bring about
a life-transforming experience for them.
I know where the
life-changing experience comes from. It
is not a fluffy or light bit of religious ‘feel-good’. I know the center comes from what our passage
speaks to. I know what wells up inside
when I consider this ‘bread of life’, this bread from heaven. It takes me to the table at which we will
celebrate the Lord’s Supper in just a few minutes. Here is the bread of life broken for us for
the forgiveness of our sins. Here is the
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, bearing our sins and our judgment on his shoulders
that we may experience only God’s grace.
Here is the Good Friday event leading to Easter liberation which is the
hallmark of our Christian faith.
What this
passage shows us is a way for people to reach that grace. I think a prime example of how we, in the
Neighborhood, should be seeking to do the work of God. Because there is another paradigm, another
way of doing this. That is threatening
people with hell. A lot of churches out
there, a lot of messages out there, a lot of Christians out there, the reason
they are in it is not to win it, not to go to heaven, but to make sure that
their friends don’t end up going to hell because of their actions in this
life.
Well
brothers and sisters, when I consider that, when I think about that, when you’re
telling someone they are going to go to hell for what they have done, you have
not asked them to change their ways, you have threatened them. You have laid a consequence upon them without
even illustrating the love of God. You
are attempting to scare them, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to
be a part of a religious organization that uses scare tactics.
There
has got to be a better way, there must be a more wonderful way and I think the
passage that we have this morning from John is telling us what that right way
is. Now, I know our kids have gone back
to school, I know our teachers have gone back to school, I know life has gotten
going a little earlier this year, before Labor Day. The hallmark of an excellent teacher is not
that they are going to come before their class and say, “Look here is the
textbook, you are going to learn algebra, or you are going to fail the exam.” I have not met a teacher yet who can get away
with that and make their children enthusiastic about the subject, “Oh, I want
to learn algebra because I don’t want to fail my test!”
The
best teachers that I have ever seen in operation are the ones who get people
learning, who get their kids learning despite themselves. Yes, there is content, yes, there is material,
yes there is core curriculum, yes there are things that those students are responsible
for, yes, there are things the teachers are responsible to get into their
heads, and sometimes you feel you need a drill to get it into their heads… Those teachers who are able to make the
material lively, maybe even fun, are able to engage with their kids. They get things from their kids that I result
in parents standing around with their jaws dropped, saying, “Is that my child?”
I
have been that father going to back to school nights, when they describe my
kids in school, and these are good teachers working with my kids, and I love my
kids, but I cannot believe they are the same people who come home from school
every night. Have you had those moments
in life, those of you who have kids, those of you who have grandkids?
The
good teachers get things out of them.
Does the material change?
No. They are still learning their
history, they are still learning their math, they are still learning their
writing, they are still learning their science, those things are still being
formed in their lives, but it is being done without the threat of a textbook
over their heads, without the threat of an exam being failed, without this
fear-threat response.
I
think church has to work in the same manner.
If you have six friends that would like to invite to church, I would
suggest going to three of them and say, “If you don’t want to go to hell, come to
church with me this Sunday.” And maybe
to the other three, say, “We’ve got something cool going on at church, would
you like to come?” Now you may not get
any of the six to come with you, you may get one, but I bet you, dollars to donuts-especially
if you serve donuts-that you get the friends you invited nicely along to come
along with you instead of the ones you threatened with hellfire.
Does
it make sense? It is the same path Jesus
is taking with these people. He fed the
five thousand, they want to come back for more, they like it. They enjoyed the food, free food, who wouldn’t? We’re Presbyterians, we love food. But Jesus is taking that bread of life and he
is taking it to a place that is deeper for them. There is more to it than just sitting around
and eating. There is more to it than
just coming out and hanging out with your friends. There is more to it than just showing up on a
Sunday morning and enjoying good music, and enjoying one another’s company.
There
is something absolutely life changing about what we are trying to do here. We don’t build a Neighborhood because we want
to be Sesame Street. We want to be
Sesame Street so people will be welcomed and people will enjoy, and they will
come and they will see, and they will know we are Christians by our love.
We
are on the cusp of a whole new program year.
Some things are changing. We are
redoing the pattern of our Sunday school.
We are going into a quarterly basis, we are going to have a fall
quarter, break for Christmas-have some great fun at Christmas, do something in
the winter, do seomthing in the spring, teams of teaching, bringing all our
kids together, one room schoolhouse effect.
There
are a couple of reasons for that. One,
we are losing kids on the edges. We
gotta try something new. We gotta give
them this thing that we have, that we know about, that Jesus is Lord, but that
Jesus isn’t a boring, scary, threatening, fire breathing Lord. Our Jesus is THAT Jesus, up in the picture
there, welcoming the children. Our jesus
is not the one who looks down upon them with his finger out.
That
does not undermine the absolute life changing seriousness of who we are as
people of faith. We gather together
because we believe in a Lord who loved us so much that he let the Romans break
his body. We gather together to worship
him because he loved us so much that he let the Romans stick a spear in his
side, put nails through his hands, spill his blood.
Yes,
that is gross. Yes, that is not
politically correct, but you know what, that is the thing of life. And it was because of his death that we
receive new life. Should we enjoy the
bread of life? Absolutely. Should we ever forget the cost at which it is
laid before us? Absolutely not.
He
is our Lord, we are his Children. May we
be blessed and may we take his blessings out into the world. Amen.
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