The Words of Life

Text: John 6:56-69

Focus: The Bread and Cup

Function: To prepare people for worship

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

Sometimes preachers say provocative things to get people to think outside the box. Sometimes they do it to overcome certain cultural biases in order to understand the time, place and context of certain passages of scriptures.

Jesus got very provocative here.

Actually, the scriptures in the original writings are provocative enough! Many of the idiomatic expressions and phrases used in the Bible are cleaned up for the pulpit. Or they are explained differently. For example, when Doeg killed the Priest, the actual Hebrew says “he counted down the 5^th rib.”

Sounds like tickling? But it was an assassination technique to locate the heart.

There are a few times when they are down right vulgar. But, I won't go in to those except to ask the question about this passage, How would you feel if your pastor told you that the way for you to get eternal life was to eat him or her?

There is a Science Fiction author who writes from the philosophical world view of nihilism.

For a moment, as we consider the 21^st century Church and the end of the age of Modernity, in theological circles that means the age that where Christianity was defending itself against the concept that science and reason alone can solve humanities problems.

Nihilism was the philosophy that grew out of it. In Nihilism, everything is completely random, or by chance. By chance, the universe existed and given enough odds, in an alternate universe, a living being might look like a sofa to us. Anything could have happened in evolution and since everything is random, life has no real meaning. Nihilism.

And a 6-part BBC miniseries was first made of the book and then Hollywood itself took it on with full blown Hollywood production.

The book from which the movie was made was has a panic button on the front with the words “Don't Panic.” It is The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and it is bizarre.

The age of Modernity, the philosophical age of Science and Reason alone can solve humanities problems, seemed to be a sort of hopeless time.

And then Post-Modernity came, it was ushered in fully after 9/11 and humanity was again looking to spirituality to help solve problems.

I believe in Science and every time I go to the Doctor, I thank God for science. But, humanity also needs its spiritual connections to help Reason Out the Ethics of Science. Science and reason alone do not have an ethical component: enter spirituality.

But the movie is nihilistic.

And the movie takes a ridiculously bizarre turn at the end. They are at this bizarre restaurant in space somewhere and sometime else, to bizarre to go in to, but the main course for the evening is this pig that is half pig, half person and the pig, knowing it is about to be slaughtered is selling off his prime body parts.

-Really bizarre image. I hate to bring it up to you, but that is the author's condemnation of nihilism because without Spirituality, randomness is meaningless, well, depressing.

I am sure that the image of that scene is related to this passage. In the book, the author is trying to say that since there is no God, nothing matters, even -pause- even someone giving their life for someone else.

And I wonder if the author is crying out for God, or making fun of Christ. I suspect the latter, but even that, is a cry out to God, a cry for meaning.

Of course, the people at the restaurant in the movie are disgusted by the suggestion.

And the same here.

If I said this, you would, you better, walk out of the room, call a council meeting and fire me on the spot.

But Jesus said this. And it appears that at this point, the crowds went from hundreds and then thousands to maybe 120-25 or so. The crowd becomes small enough that the Sanhedrin have to hire Judas to betray him.

This event reduces His ministry to the faithful fewer number.

The crowd was grossed out and left Him.

I don't want to dwell on that movie and the ridiculous image that I painted in your minds except to say that at that time, in the late 70's or so, that Modernity was at its height and there really wasn't a lot of hope.

People were sort of flocking to these ideas that nothing really counts. I think it might be why abortion became inflamed in people's minds. I think more than anything it is political and that is sad, but the Church trying to defend the concept of the human soul, of meaning beyond this life.

And cracks were showing up in culture. Spock, the guru of science and reason dies and they played Amazing Grace at his funeral. A popular rock song: “Bohemian Rhapsody” hit the charts and it described the futility of nihilism, the boy confesses his crime of murder as if it was just a random act with no moral consequences.

The culture starts asking itself, are there consequences of actions? And that is good.

We aren't defending the faith against atheists as much as we are having to answer the question to the world: “Does the church live up to the example Jesus said would prove us to the world, the way we love others.”

And that is proving very hard for some branches of Christianity. Hopefully not us.

During that time, a friend of mine was furthering her education. I was in Bible College and she asked me one of those difficult questions of the day at a Sunday School class party.

She said to me: “Is Christianity really a bloody religion?”

I said to her, after quite a bit of thought: “I guess it is. I mean, some of us celebrate the sacrifice of Christ every single week teaching that it actually becomes the real flesh and the real blood of Jesus.”

She drifted away from that sort of shame. She did not see it as good for her mental health.

A good friend of mine actually tried to explain to me his difficulty with some atonement theology. Atonement theology is the teaching around the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the doctrines that we get from it. The most being salvation by faith in the sacrifice that Jesus provided freely for all of humanity. That salvation, to me, is best described as a welcome into the family of God here on earth and it will last forever.

But my friend may be thinking more of it as that sentient pig and the awful idea that any person would willingly allow another to die on their behalf. To allow someone else is an injustice. “The soul that sins shall die” is his trained theological answer. He is hard to argue with.

And I have always looked at the mystery of the bread and cup, but body and the blood of Christ with a lot of mystery.

I like the mystery that maybe I can't figure out all of what this symbol means to us, to me.

There is a scene in Saving Private Ryan that really demonstrates the humanity of war. Two enemies are engaged in hand to hand combat and by chance, one gets the upper hand and as he is plunging a dagger into his enemy, he is also cradling his head and shushing him as a mother does her baby.

Both men hated their job.

And one gave his life for his cause while the other took a life for his cause.

And I think about the willingness with which Jesus gave His life for us and I shudder with wonder.

And that is a powerful image to me, I took Jesus' life.

And, I realize that it is a shameful image and that was not Jesus' intent. His intent is freedom, not shame.

Before the Passion of the Christ was released, Mel Gibson explains that the only part he would play would be the soldier nailing Jesus to the Cross because, he said: “I too, killed the Christ.”

I wept for the humility that he expressed when that he said that.

But again, that twinge of pain comes back to me.

And that when it is shamefully motivated, it is a woefully incomplete image of God's love for us.

Jesus didn't suffer and die on the cross to shame us into following God.

No. He loved.

And love does not shame the other.

Nope, as I contemplate that image, I contemplate instead what actually happened the night he was betrayed, Paul said it: “For I received from the Lord that which I also gave unto you, the the Lord Jesus, the night He was betrayed took bread and brake it and said, this is my body, broken for you.

He gave.

Yes, we took.

Yes, we could have been the soldier who nailed Jesus there, we could have been Judas, we could have been the active killers of that time and still be forgiven. Even today.

But the emphasis is on this: HE GAVE. For God so loved the world that God gave...

This, by faith, is indeed the words of life. His life, in us to live in us, to give us hope, to give us purpose. Praise GOD!