August 24, 2024 – Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” (John 6:60)

We claim to eat the body and drink the blood of a guy who died over 2,000 years ago. I think all religions are weird – we’re just used to the weirdness of ours. And it’s difficult to accept, as I mentioned last week. We try to accept this understanding by calling it a “mystery” and not explaining it any further. We don’t require – like our Roman Catholic siblings – that you believe that the bread and wine are literally transformed into Jesus’ body and blood (a thing called transubstantiation for those who care). But we do believe that we “consume” Jesus in some special way when we approach the table.

Every three years, the assigned readings during the summer include five weeks of working our way through the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, and what is called the “Bread of Life Discourse.” In the last five weeks we’ve gone from the feeding of 5,000; to Jesus walking on water in the middle of a storm at sea; the crowd chasing him down and demanding more bread; Jesus saying that he is the Bread of Life come down from heaven; and then instead of backing off when the religious authorities challenge him, he doubles down and makes it even weirder by saying that whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood has eternal life.

Which is where we pick up today when some of his disciples are like, “Jesus, that teaching’s HARD…who can accept it?” And many of them leave. And you know what? I don’t really blame them.

This teaching IS hard. But Jesus had a lot of sayings that were HARD. Sayings such as, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Or “You who are without sin cast the first stone.” Or “Sell all you have and give to the poor.” Maybe “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Or even “If you seek to save your life, you will lose it.” So I TOTALLY understand the reaction of these disciples.

And then we end this reading with the blunt information that because of this statement and explanation by Jesus, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (Jn 6:66). But maybe those disciples didn’t need to leave Jesus. Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor, once said, “When we make the accepting of hard teachings the litmus test for being a follower of Jesus, I wonder if we are perhaps missing the point altogether.”

She talked in a sermon similar to today’s about the ways that her emerging church, House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado, was united. The church attracted all different types of people – homeless, wealthy, laborers, management, black, white, native – you get the idea. But it wasn’t a doctrine that united all of the people there. While Nadia herself had a very shockingly (if you know her) Orthodox Lutheran perspective, the congregation ran the gamut from agnostic to evangelical, and – as she said – “some of you are both at the same time.” So while the church was centered on Christ, it wasn’t a doctrine that unified and energized the church.

Rather, it was the table. The table at which the congregation received the Bread of Life that comes down from heaven. The body and blood of Christ is what united them and made them a church.

And so this week, I began to think about what unites us. Like HFASS, I don’t think we are united theologically. We have people here who tend to find God more in nature and relationship than in church. And we have people who very carefully treat the physical structures of the church with respect because they believe that God is present there.

But we do unite around certain ideas and activities. We unite around food – eating it or making it. And we unite around helping others.

Each week, we are welcomed to approach the table where we are fed with the words “Walk in love as Christ loved us.” We welcome all baptized Christians, not just those who believe exactly what we do. As much as there is that is different in the Christian church, most of us have a table meal, but this is the thing that divides us most. Blood has been spilled over who gets to take communion. And the way we have historically responded to this gift of bread and wine that Jesus offers us is to make sure that we understand it and then we put boundaries around it in order to make sure that we enforce the “correct” understanding. But ironically, what Jesus tells us is “Do this in remembrance of me.” It’s a hard teaching.

It’s hard to accept that our enemies – those we hate, even though we are told not to – receive the same forgiveness and grace and redemption as we do. And sometimes it’s even harder to accept not just that God welcomes all, but God welcomes ALL of me and ALL of you. Even those parts we try so hard to hide… the part that yelled at our child this week, the part that has a problem with how we look, the part that suffers from depression and can’t admit it, the part that is too fearful to spend time working with those who are less fortunate, the part that cheats or lies. ALL the parts that we wish Jesus would not welcome to the table are invited to taste and see that the Lord is good. All that we are is welcomed to the table to see that the gifts of God are free and for all.

This teaching is HARD. Who can accept it?

I’m not asking you to accept it today… just to do it. Because here at this table, you can bring the most broken parts of your life, of the world, of yourself. And you can receive the broken body of Jesus. You don’t need to accept it or understand it. You just need to do it.

Come and receive the living bread come down from heaven. Receive life and forgiveness and hope. For that is how we are united in God’s love.