Say What?

John 6:51-58
August 16, 2009


I’m so glad the 24 hour news coverage
wasn’t around when Jesus was around
Better yet, I’m glad the internet wasn’t around
Can you imagine?
Jesus got enough flack as it was,
and was certainly misunderstood, misquoted,
and mis-represented
I can just see it now:
“New Religious Leader Insists on Cannibalism”
“Jesus,” they’d say, “the son of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth
who many are claiming could be the long – awaited Messiah,
was heard saying recently
that in order to follow him
One must eat his flesh and drink his blood….
Parents are outraged
religious leaders are denouncing him,
Could he actually be the Son of Satan?
More at 11….”
I can see the disciples being mobbed outside
the synagogues, microphones pressed into their faces
as they just try to get home
“No comment,” they kept saying,
pushing their way through the arms and cameras
Talk show hosts going on TV and radio
shouting, shaking their fists
denouncing this new leader, this idealist
who claims some special authority
“He’s the son of Satan!” They say
“Keep your children away from him!
He must be a communist!”
Others say…

In the 2nd century, when the Early Christians were persecuted
by the Roman authorities,
they were accused of just that
of eating flesh and drinking blood
The news got around that this new young sect,
this religious movement started by that radical teacher
who was killed on a cross around 30 A.D.,
this group of followers were engaging in cannibalism
It was horrifying
denounced as evil, of the devil
Eating the flesh of a human being was an Old Testament metaphor
for very hostile acts against your enemy
Drinking the blood of any living thing
was abhorrent to any good Jew
it was in God’s Old Testament law
You do not drink the blood of an animal --
the though of drinking the blood of any human
was too horrifying to even talk about….
The rumors just grew from there
the speculations about what those Christians did
when they went inside their places of worship
to eat flesh and drink blood
People started saying that they were having orgies in there as well
that they were sacrificing human beings
and eating their flesh, drinking their blood
all in the name of this Jesus
And you know how it is,
nobody bothered to find out the truth
nobody bothered to actually go in there to worship
where all were welcome
in order to find out if those ugly rumors
People just got worked up,
spreading the lies and the rumors
and increasing the violent hostilities against Christians
deepening the convictions
that many people had
that that Jesus person
was the son of the devil
and was leading all his followers deeper
into the darkness of evil and death
even from the grave

Jesus never explained himself when he was alive
He never laid it all out
explained that this was a metaphor
he didn’t try to justify himself
He simply spoke the words
and let those words fall where they may
The religious leaders hounded him daily
in the book of John
they were always picking apart everything he said
misconstruing every word
to paint the evil picture of him that they had
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life,
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty….”
‘But this is the son of Mary and Joseph, they said,
How does he DARE to say that he is bread from heaven??’
Remember the manna? Jesus said
remember the manna in the wilderness that God rained down
for your ancestors and mine?
They were hungry out there, day in and day out
and God rained down manna from heaven
But it was only given one day at a time
Just enough for that day’s need
“I am the living bread,” he told them
“I come from God,
and so anyone who eats of this bread
will live forever…
And the bread that I give for the life of the world
Is my flesh…”
And they raged on..
‘How can he give his flesh?
This is blasphemy! This is heresy!’
They didn’t think, they didn’t listen,
They just yelled
and shook their fists
They never did listen,
They never did try to understand
because they thought they already knew everything
they needed to know
And so they missed out
on the living bread in their midst….

Jesus taught us to pray,
“Give us today our daily bread,…”
In other words, give us today what we need for today
to have life,
to have sustenance and to live
But do we know what it means to live?
I see so many people
that go through life not truly living
they eat their food, they drink their drink
but they don’t TASTE any of it
they take it in just to get going again
But they don’t stop and savor the deliciousness of life
life is just getting through the day,
eating, sleeping
and doing it all over again
They don’t learn any new thing
they don’t think, discover and learn
they don’t know the beauty of deep, intense relationships
with other people
They just breathe in and out
The poet Henry David Thoreau once said
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived."
How horrible it would be to come to die
only to discover that you never lived
I think that’s the kind of living that Jesus wanted
for his followers
one might say that he didn’t live much,
as he died in his early 30s,
and of course,
one has to wonder what more he would have done
and said
if only he’d gotten to live to be an old man
And yet, I suspect, that Jesus lived more in those 30-some years
than many of us live in a whole lifetime
we don’t know anything about his life
from the age of 12 to about age 30
Many have speculated that he traveled a lot
during those years
met many different people in different cultures
talked with other religious leaders
and learned what they taught
as he formulated his own teaching
We have no idea
but those speculations make sense
as when he shows up on the public scene
he has a lot of wisdom to share
He thought differently,
spoke differently than others
and so of course he was often misunderstood
The words, I think, came from deep inside of him
deep from his own learning, soaking up of wisdom
and making it his own
“You must be born from above,” he told Nicodemus,
and Nicodemus was horrified
trying to imagine the messy, embarrassing
details of being born
and certainly not wanting to deal with that again!
“I and God are one,” he told others
and they shouted blasphemy
and tried to kill him on the spot
“I am the bread of life
unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
you have no life in you…”
and people started making phone calls,
writing notes,
and getting on T.V. to denounce this monster
Jesus spoke a different language
because he had experienced the Divine
more profoundly than any other human being
he had an unnatural gift and wisdom
And when that happens,
the world tends to crucify that person
bit by bit
and then we pick at his bones
We have a hard time seeing the beauty before our eyes
the Divine right in our very midst

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said,
Every day we pray for our daily bread
we want bread that will nourish us
that will fill that hungry ache in our stomachs
we want something to slake that terrible
thirst in our souls that never seems to be filled
Some of us drink a lot
to get rid of that thirst
and yet it’s never enough
Some of us eat a lot to try to suffocate that terrible hunger
and yet it’s never enough
Some people use sex or drugs or spending
to quiet that desperate longing
and it never goes away
Some people decide to find out what’s wrong with everybody else
to kill them with words
bit by bit,
to exchange volatile words and hate
to keep the focus off of their own emptiness
so they can feel better than SOMEBODY at least
But Jesus said, “I am the bread of Life,
whoever comes to me will never be hungry again..”

We all know that Bread is a basic staple food
It’s one of the oldest prepared foods we have
it can be traced back to as far as the 9000’s B.C.
Prehistoric peoples learned how to make a kind of bread
We usually have bread with our meals
we think of the most basic foods as bread and water
Eating is necessary, we know
but what we haven’t quite figured out
is that we have to choose carefully what we take in
what we chew on, and what we swallow
because there is so much out there that makes us so sick
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us
the Word, the Word of God
the Wisdom of God that existed before creation
became a flesh and blood human being
that knew hunger, that knew thirst
that knew all the physical needs of every human being
He had seen it all
he saw creation as it was being begun
he was also born in the same messy way we all are
he learned, he grew up,
he traveled, he was hungry
he was dependent on human beings for nourishment
he saw deeply into people’s hearts and lives
and saw the hunger, the need
that unsalted thirst
and he grew up to say
“I am the living bread, eat of me, drink of me,
and know richness of life and beauty that never ends..”
It’s the language of intimacy
Feed on me, Jesus says
Take in what I have to offer you
internalize the Wisdom of God, the life and breath of Jesus
Blood is the life force in every human being
take my life into yourself
let me into your system, your head, your heart
your very soul, your thoughts, your emotions
Let me live in you
let me be the force inside of you
that gives you life and sustenance
in a world that drains so much life out of you
So many people miss it altogether
they speak the words
they believe the right things
but they haven’t taken it IN
they haven’t let it be a part of their hearts and souls
and they are so, so hungry and thirsty
Jesus can be embarrassing
he talks of intimate things in intimate language
because he wants to get the point across
we need each other, we need him
we need the daily bread of his life in us
We need to search, to learn, to discover, to travel with him
to sometimes uncomfortable places
talk about things that might be uncomfortable
love people who are outcast
see beauty where the world sees ugliness
Savor, chew, taste and see that God is good
and all of God’s creation is good
and meant for us to share in the feast of abundant life and living
Most people don’t get it
they didn’t get it then, either,
they just thought he was crazy, even dangerous
they didn’t see how beautiful he was
and they killed him
because they couldn’t stand the brightness of his light
but they couldn’t put out the light
they couldn’t shut it down
nd now we’re invited to shine that light
to see the beauty, to savor it, to chew on it
and to share it with the world
We’re invited to live…
to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if we can learn what God has to teach,
and not, when we come to die,
discover that we had not lived….