A Hard Teaching

And later he says “I am the living bread come down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

He keeps adding a bit at a time to his teaching until it finally fells overwhelming to the disciples.

“This is a hard teaching; who can accept it?”

Why did he use that term “flesh?”

There were other words that Jesus could have used, less offensive to his listeners, gentler on the ear, but Jesus keeps piling it on.

The Greek word for flesh is sarx; but he could have used an easier word, soma, which means body.

If we do not eat his sarx, flesh, we have no life in him, Jesus says. Intense!

And he does not apologize for it; he just lays it out there for them and lets them deal with it.

“Hard” is a wimpy translation of the Greek word skleros.

It could also be translated “harsh,” severe”, or perhaps even “cruel.”

One might think that Jesus would soften it a bit to make it easier to take, but he doesn't.

He could have said something like, ”Now let's sit down and talk about this a bit, and see if we can come to some compromise in understanding about these matters, because I'd hate to distress you so much that I lose you as followers.”

But he offers no compromise; he gives no apologies or explanations or exceptions.

He simply builds up this hard, severe teaching which frankly drove a number of people away and mystifies many others.

Well, there are any number of things in scripture that are hard teachings, inconvenient things, teachings that we don't want to hear.

--Remember Jesus' question, “And who is my neighbor?”[Luke 10], a teaching we would like to limit, just as did Jesus' first audiences.

--Or the Lord's command, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” [Exodus 20] which has a direct bearing on so many current issues.

--And the prophet's stinging rebuke, “Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves instead of feeding the flocks; therefore I am against the shepherds and I will demand my sheep at their hand.” [Ezekiel 34]

Some might have been prepared to follow a figure like Moses, or a military leader like Joshua to drive out the hated Romans, just so long as this Messiah kept within their preconceived ideas of how the Messiah should act and say and teach.

Jesus never pretended that he would do any of that.

So some didn't like Jesus' harsh teaching, and wandered away, looking for an easier show.

But we wouldn't do that...or would we?

There is an argument that has gone on for a long time, whether the Gospel of John is presenting a true picture of Jesus' teaching or not.

It has a different approach than do Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so could Jesus have spoken this peculiar way sometimes in addition to the things reported in the other three Gospels?

John's presentation is so … offensive.

Yes, it is; so deal with it; and stop trying to explain it away.

Think again how we can hear it as Good News, life-changing news.

The offense is throughout the Gospel, right from the first chapter where John asserts “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” [John 1]

Oh no, we protest, “that can't be; God is too holy and wonderful to do that, to consort with mere mortals.

God is so holy, so other than us, that he remains in heaven...

...safely out of our way, we might add, so that we can do whatever we want, on our own time-schedule.

No, that won't do, at all.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us,” John says.

He doesn't say that the Word became an idea, a spirituality, a feeling, or an experience.

The Word became flesh and blood.

Another way for us to get our hearts and minds wrapped around this truth is to talk about the term “Body of Christ.”

How many different ways do we use that phrase?

--“Body of Christ” is Jesus walking around Israel 2,000 years ago.

--“Body of Christ” is Jesus, one with the Father and the Spirit from all eternity: What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Spirit. [Athanasian Creed, verse 6]

--“Body of Christ” is this messed-up entity called the Church.

--“Body of Christ” is Jesus come among us now in Holy Communion.

And Jesus is all of these things all at the same time.

Is this offensive? Yes, in the most important kind of way, a way which challenges us daily.

It flies in the face of the general way in which we want to live, which is to be independent of God.

But the Lord says: I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other. [Exodus 20]

I think we can put it even more strongly: if we are not offended by Jesus' teaching about himself, we haven't been listening.

But the emphasis of this passage is not on those who were offended and walked away, but rather on those who were offended and stuck around anyway.

Peter voices it for the rest, “Lord, to whom shall we go; you have the words of eternal life.”

That was the Verse our soloists sang for us last Sunday, but it could be used for all four of these weeks in which the subject is the Bread of life.

There is nowhere else to go, Peter blurts out, because even though there are many things that are mysterious and hard about Jesus and his teaching, they are the things which at least have a chance of making sense of life.

But along with the other things that he says in support of Jesus, we remember what Peter did when the trial and death of Jesus was immanent; he denied he even knew who Jesus was, and ran away.

And we walk away also, often, and in an infinite number of ways.

As we look around at places that are empty because folks walk away from all of the hard challenges of the body of Christ, we have returned here because we still have that persistent hunger for the Bread of Life.

It keeps on calling us here, calling us like Peter is called back to the Lord Jesus, and we say with Peter, “Lord, where else and to whom else shall we go; you have the words of eternal life.”

We have nowhere to go except back to the Lord Jesus whom we have denied.

And we know that Holy Baptism is so precious because it provides to us the chance for daily repentance, turning around, returning.

Along with repentance comes forgiveness, in either order.

We walk away, yet there is nowhere else to go – except back to the Lord Jesus whom we had rejected.

Then at his table, the Bread of Life gives his own body in exchange for our life.

At his table we become what we eat, the body of Christ.

Years ago I read about a custom from Liberia.

A man may be busy all day, eating western-style food along the way, but when he gets home in the evening, he tells his wife how hungry he is, that he has not eaten at all that day.

His wife immediately served him a bowl of rice and palm-butter soup which she had prepared for the family that day.

The man eats, and then declares that he is finally full and satisfied.

For you see, in traditional Liberian culture, a person is considered not to have eaten until they have had rice, which for them is the great satisfaction for hunger.

We will be chasing after many things, some of them of very little value, but we will not be satisfied until we have the ultimate food, the bread of life, the body of Christ.

We sing next: You satisfy the hungry heart

With gift of finest wheat.

Come, give to us, O saving Lord,

The bread of Life to eat.

It is a hard teaching, but a wonderful Good News lesson. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.