August 27, 2006 - John 6: 56-69 - Mother Stephanie E. Parker


Religious folk are a cantankerous lot. It seems that since the frail mind of humanity first perceived that there was "GOD" we have spent far more time arguing and killing each other over this wonderful mystery than celebrating it as a marvelous and amazing gift. Religious controversy is as old as humankind and despite God's best efforts, we seem honor bound to find new ways to punish and reject one another over the "question" of God's love for all of humanity.

To this end, today's Gospel continues Jesus' teaching on the bread of life. We continue to hear him, in his own earthly time, embroiled in a controversy with his own faith community. The faithful who have followed him to this synagogue in Capernaum want a revolution that will liberate them from Roman oppression and instead Jesus offers them his own broken and bloody body as a sacrifice for all that will grant humankind eternal freedom.

If you will participate with me in my life and sacrifice, Jesus tells them, you will receive freedom far beyond the social and political. The freedom I offer you is yours regardless of how the world or society will seek to oppress you. If you believe in me and follow me, he says, then there is no jail, no occupational force, or any punishing cultural taboo that can truly imprison any of you ever again. Jesus tells us, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them."

Jesus' words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood can sound like something out of a modern day horror film. Even though I have heard these words hundreds of times in reference to our Eucharist, I am still sometimes shaken by the sound of them.

But Jesus' strange words about flesh and blood actually give us the clue to his real meaning. He tells us that when we eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, then we abide in him, and he in us. So, what does it mean to abide in him? In short, it is how we truly join our lives to his in a way that allows us to see the world differently---to abide in him means to see the world through God's eyes and know we are forever changed in light of this new vision.

Think of this...have you ever loved anyone so much that when you hugged them in a moment of closeness you just lost track of where they ended and you began; when you just poured yourself out as much as you could to let more of the other in? This is what it feels like to abide in someone.

I know I always felt like that the first time I held any of my newborn nieces and nephews. The sweetness of their new life, seemingly fresh off the breath of God, just pierced my heart and I wanted to hold them and protect them from anything that might ever harm them.

[ I also felt this sense of abiding in another when my mother was dying of cancer. As she breathed her last breath, I was lying beside her in her bed holding her in my arms with my right hand placed over her heart. As painful as my personal grief was, I felt so privileged to be there so close with her in this moment as she slipped from my arms into Christ's. Her life and mine were so closely bound in that moment that we were abiding in one another. ]

This, Jesus tells us, is how we face the challenges of this world. This is how we face our fears and live through our controversies. We abide in him. We pour our selves out in order that he can more readily fill us. We begin to listen to his life-giving words and we come to believe in the power of his mercy and forgiveness. We grow so close to him that we don't know where Jesus ends and we begin.

When we step out in belief and surrender to God's love for all, we find ourselves responding to others out of mercy, compassion and forgiveness----- instead anger, frustration and fear---and we can do this because the best part of us has become intertwined with Christ's love.

This is how we live and grow together in the face of whatever conflict or controversy shakes our world, our church, our community, or our personal lives. When we are faced with the troubles of our own present time we will do well to step away from the fear and panic that is often our first response and look at the bigger picture.

When we take a moment to look back we see that in fact much of what we think is unique to our own time and experience is simply another iteration of the ongoing human experience. I suppose it is the nature of every current generation to think the times in which we live are the definitive times that mark some great turning point-pointing us to either to heaven or hell.

But in fact, every generation of humanity's unfolding story is filled with amazingly wonderful advances and ideas as well as unspeakable cruelties and desecrations. We've always taken 3 steps forward and 2 steps back.

Jesus' time in history was no exception. God became flesh and dwelled among us at a time when the world was as polarized and fragmented as ours is today. A snapshot of the time and place in which Jesus lived his earthly ministry shows us that there were great divisions everywhere. There were divisions between the people of Israel and the occupying Roman force.

There was also a divide between Jews and Gentiles. Within Jesus' own faith community there were factions that were hostile toward one another; the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes and the zealots could never agree about what was the substance "true" faith.

Beyond that, there were divisions between the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the educated and the uneducated, between male and female. **Does all of this sound familiar?** Jesus constantly calls us out of these divisions because God knows they are humankind's greatest weakness.

So much of what we see and worry about as "the worst ever" this or that simply is not new. ****Now does that mean we should just become complacent or cynical or live in denial that the world can be a fractious and sometimes frightening place? Absolutely not! As a people who love God and follow Christ, we have been offered a new vision---- a new way to be in the world.

What we are called to do day in and day out, generation after generation, is to remember that the love of God is greater and stronger and more absolute than the multitude of ways we seek to destroy ourselves and to destroy one another***** either from within or from without.

When we abide in Christ, when we eat of his flesh and drink of blood---- when we share his risen life this deeply-- then we can do none other than love the world in spite of the way it falls so very short of God's wish for it. ***We can do no other than put our fears aside and love one another across whatever issue divides us.

When we allow the Holy Spirit to transform us with Christ's love we seem to put away the litanies of the way our lives and times are doomed and the worst ever ---and instead---we learn to trust----we learn to trust Jesus' very difficult teaching and accept that God does have the power to heal and redeem the world, our Church and our lives.

In our own time we are called as the new disciples to share in this healing and reconciling love. We are called to love and transform this world that still rejects the notion that God's grace and love is given for all of humanity-God came for both the best and the worst of humankind.

So amid a world tossed by religious driven turmoil, a Church marked by division, and a denomination steeped in controversy, Jesus asks us today, just as he asked the twelve, "Do you wish to go away?" His poignant question reminds us that we always have a choice.

The call he issues for those who wish to remain and follow is a messy and heartbreaking one, but in the end it is also the way to a true and meaningful existence...

"Lord, to whom else can we go? You have the words of eternal life." Today we have a chance to stand with the ever imperfect, but nearly always devoted Peter, and affirm our belief that Jesus is the Holy one of God. Amen.



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