Day of the Church Year: 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Passage: John 6:56-69
When I first read this passage from John this week, the image that flashed through my mind was me at age 21. In college. In chapel. I went to a Lutheran college where we had chapel services Monday through Friday at 10 am. Being a church girl, I regularly attended these chapel services and participated in a variety of campus ministry groups and activities. I was also majoring in religion, being challenged by my professors, and having my mind expanded by all I was reading and discussing, especially feminist theology. So, chapel was tricky. Twenty minutes of song, Bible reading, prayer, and sermon, and I got stuck on the patriarchy of the Bible and masculine metaphors used for God. Twenty minutes, and I was infuriated by what I considered bad theology in the liturgy. Only twenty minutes, yet I sometimes got up and left before the end. It was just too difficult.
After Jesus shares the hard teaching we have heard and studied the last four weeks, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the followers of Jesus complain. The teaching is too difficult. Many of Jesus’ followers turn back and no longer travel with him. And then, Jesus asks those who remain: Do you also wish to go away?
When I was 21 and excusing myself from worship on the regular, I thought that I might leave the church. I despaired of the injustice I saw woven into our liturgies. I wondered if there was a place for me in the church with my questions, doubts, and anger. In truly humorous fashion, that very same year, God called me to serve as a pastor. On my least favorite day of the church year, Good Friday, in the middle of worship, actually at the point when I was devising a plan in my head about how to respectfully exit the worship space, I suddenly knew that God had called me to serve as a pastor. And I knew the decision had been made and that it was the right decision because God had made the decision and not me. Over twenty years later, I realize it’s a given that the church is going to fail to some extent in following Jesus because the church is the people. And we are going to fail. But this need not deter me—or us—from following Jesus. To forgive and love people as we are is, indeed, a large part of following Jesus. I no longer wish to go away.
Lutheran doctrine states that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works for the sake of Christ. There is nothing we can do or not do to be saved. Whether we follow Jesus or not has no bearing on our salvation. And so, Jesus’ question is genuine and even kind: Do you also wish to go away? Because you can if you wish. God will not love you less.
Following Jesus does not mean an absence of questions, doubts, or struggles. We know from the gospels that Jesus’ first followers had plenty of questions, doubts, and struggles. They frequently did not understand what Jesus was talking about in parables. Judas betrayed Jesus. Peter denied him. Every one of them abandoned Jesus when he needed them most on the night of his arrest. Still, as they pondered Jesus’ complex parables, they also literally followed him as he traveled and ministered. Still, over what we now call Holy Saturday, the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the disciples gathered in the upper room, together, to live among God’s faithful people, as we would say two thousand years later. After Easter Sunday and Jesus’ ascension, the disciples received the Holy Spirit and got to work building the church: preaching, teaching, gathering community, healing, caring for those in need. And for all this, they received in return persecution, skepticism, and conflict about the inclusion of Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish people, among those who followed Jesus.
Jesus asks his disciples today: Do you also wish to go away? Because life following Jesus is honestly difficult, for the disciples, a life of persecution, for them and all of us, a life of forgiveness, loving our enemies, working for justice and peace, serving all people, giving up our ego and practicing humility. Jesus’ question is for all of us. Do you wish to go away, to no longer follow Jesus? If the answer is yes, it is understandable. Not only does Jesus compel us to give of ourselves, we live in a world where bad things happen to good people, where we are beset by pandemic and violence and natural disaster, where illness and death are ever present, where we have lots of questions and many fewer answers. In this world, perhaps following Jesus just doesn’t make sense.
In response to Jesus’ question, Peter says neither no nor yes but instead asks: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
My last year of seminary, I did not have any commitments or obligations on Sunday mornings. I remember thinking: This is the last time until retirement I’ll be able to sleep in on Sundays. Still, each Sunday, I got up and walked across 55th Street to attend worship at Augustana Lutheran Church. To be honest with you, very few of my classmates attended worship that year, and I was annoyed with myself, asking myself: why are you going to worship? Very soon, you will have to go to church every Sunday morning! But I couldn’t help myself. I needed to hear the words of eternal life. I wanted to follow Jesus. I still do. For no one else has the words of eternal life. Thanks be to God! Amen.