Waiting for the Pay-Off
John 6:56-69
G. K. Chesterton was a 19th century writer and lay theologian who is remembered today for his quips. Sometimes, his insights provided clarity for how the world works: ““The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.”
Sometimes, his quips were funny: “Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it.”
Sometimes, he mixed humor and religion: “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”
And sometimes, he was simply religious: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
This was his way of saying that while Christianity is entirely consistent and completely whole as a way of life, most people are not entirely consistent or completely whole, so living as a Christian is just too hard to do. This is something that the people in our reading might say. They had tried to follow Jesus, but it was just too hard, so they weren’t going to do it anymore.
We live among these people today. There are plenty of people who are more than willing to tell us that being a Christian is hard. In fact, most everybody agrees that being a Christian is hard, but for lots of different reasons.
Church consultants have created lots of lists of hard challenges facing the church. Each challenge, on its own, is enough for many to wring their hands and hand their heads in despair. But these challenges are considered together, they paint a very bleak future for Christianity.
We are told about the graying of the church, the exodus of youth, the too-long path to ordination, the escalating costs of maintaining church properties, and the divide between conservatives and progressives. Name an issue in society, and someone has declared that is a sign of doom for Christianity.
And those are just some of the issues for the people who want to follow Jesus. People outside of the church find it difficult to be Christians for their own reasons.
For example, how do we keep people “going on to perfection” in the church, when the culture promises instant gratification? How do we convince people that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, when the culture declares everyone is free to choose whatever path that seems good to them? How are we to proclaim that we have an authoritative word from God, when we are all encouraged to be our own little gods, and to value our own authority? We could go on, but it is clear that if we value our culture, it is going to be really hard to follow Jesus.
The Bread of Life discourse in John’s gospel comes immediately after the feeding of the 5000. The crowds are growing, the people are happy, and the Jesus movement is on an upswing. Jesus then starts to talk to them about discipleship, or what it means to follow Jesus. And this is when things start to get hard, and difficult, and challenging.
Like most stories in the Bible, it helps if we have a little context. The crowd of 5000 was likely from Capernaum. This was a fairly new village, as the Romans had gathered Jews together to provide fish for the nearby military outpost. While some might want to hear that as a jobs creation program, it is a pretty good bet that these new residents were not happy with this arrangement.
“Capernaum” simply translated means “the village of Nahum.” We remember that Nahum was one of the prophets in the Old Testament, but most of us don’t remember much about what Nahum said or did. That’s because it would be hard for us who follow Jesus today to preach much of anything Nahum proclaimed as important.
Specifically, Nahum called for the complete destruction of the army and nation that occupied Israel. In the time of Nahum, Nineveh was the oppressor. And even though it is Rome oppressing Israel, we can understand the appeal of Nahum’s message to a disgruntled crowd.
To this point in John’s Gospel, the crowd would have seen Jesus being tough on the Jewish leaders who cooperated and compromised with the Romans. The villagers of Capernaum weren’t as willing to settle for this new and unwanted reality, so Jesus seemed like their best option for getting the change they wanted.
Jesus was their best option, that is, until he started talking about being the Bread of Life. Post-resurrection, we can see how this is good news. But in that moment, Jesus was turning people away by insisting that his followers eat his flesh and drink his blood.
To this, the crowd of followers say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” Their implied answer is, “no one can accept it.” And we know this is their answer because they go away. They don’t follow Jesus anymore.
This is the same answer a lot of people give today. Following Jesus is too hard. It is difficult. It isn’t fun. It doesn’t give us what we want. And they don’t follow Jesus anymore.
The crowds think it is hard because Jesus tells them that being a discipleship is not about doing and getting what they want. The faithful Jews find it difficult because they are being asked to act and think in new ways, but they have put their trust in the old ways. By the end of this chapter, we are down to the 12 disciples, and Jesus challenges them to commit themselves completely.
Most preachers and commentators at this point in the sermon would appeal to your pride. They would declare that “You are the people who don’t run away when things get tough. You are not afraid of a little challenge. You know that on the other side of difficulty is glory. You know that at the end of a hard and challenging road is a pay-off that makes it all worthwhile.”
There are probably some other sports-related “rah rah” themes which could be applied, but you get the point. But even if we ignore the appeal to works righteousness, and the setting aside of humility, I think this is the wrong way to go.
The good news for followers of Jesus is not to chant, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” That may good motivation for becoming a better ball player, or a better sales rep, or a better bean counter. But trying to do the work of God apart from God is not the way the kingdom of God comes on earth as it is in heaven.
Instead of pushing you to believe that we can save ourselves by working harder when things get difficult, I think we need to question the question. We need to question the implied answer the crowd gave for not following Jesus any more. I think we need to ask, “What makes the message of Jesus difficult? What makes it sound hard in our ears?”
That may seem like an odd approach, but only if we forget that God made us to be in relationship with God. From the very beginning of our story, we were made to be with God, to love God, and to be loved by God. This is our native state, and it is our sin which makes being with God seem hard. Let me say that again, because it is important: It is our sin which makes being with God seem hard.
Do we hear that? It is our sin which makes us think that God requires too much from us. It is our sin which makes us believe that God is accountable to us. It is our sin which makes us think there is something better for us than loving God and loving our neighbors.
We think following Jesus is hard because we forget that we are stewards in this life, and not the owners. We want to believe that our time is our use, our money is our benefit, and our possessions are to support our chosen lifestyle. And if that is true, then anything God requires from us is too much.
We think following Jesus is difficult because we believe God owes us for following Jesus. We have all heard the complaints: I read my Bible – where’s my perfect life? I prayed – where’s my healing? I went to worship – where’s my mountain top experience? And if that is true, then we are trying to hold God accountable to us.
We think following Jesus is difficult because we would rather be god-like than be like God. The crowd was happy with Jesus as long as he was feeding them and healing them and giving them what they want. – when Jesus was serving them as if they were gods. And if that is true, then being treated like a god is better than loving God and loving our neighbors.
Many of the arguments among followers today are over what we think are the hard teachings. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile. Welcome the stranger. Don’t call anyone names. Give your last two coins. Eat my flesh and drink my blood. We compare these teachings of Jesus with the lessons of the world, and we think it is too hard, too unrealistic, to follow Jesus anymore.
And if we do struggle with the hard questions, we often frame the argument by asking, “What would Jesus do?” But that question assumes that any one of us can completely and perfectly know the mind of God, and that we also have the moral and spiritual strength to completely and perfectly do the will of God.
But this question can also distract us from the real question every follower must be able to answer: “What did Jesus do?” And what Jesus did was come to a world of sinners before we even knew to ask for a savior. What Jesus did was model what it means to be fully human by loving God and by loving our neighbors. What Jesus did was die for our sins on the cross. What Jesus did was rise for our new lives in God’s grace. What Jesus did was give us the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us, in the confidence and power of God’s grace and love.
When we know what Jesus did for us, what was once difficult becomes good news. It is by prevenient grace that we are able to hear it as good news. That is what Jesus said in our reading: “For this reason I said to you that none can come to me unless the Father enables them to do so.” The gospel is a gift from God, and the only way to receive it is as a gift.
We can’t buy it. We can’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. It comes to us as a gracious gift from God.
This doesn’t mean that there is nothing for a follower of Jesus to do. We can prepare ourselves to receive the gift. We can prepare ourselves to be filled with this gift. We can prepare ourselves to be good stewards of the gift.
Our preparation includes the practice of the means of grace, which help create in us a place which can only be filled with God. The means of grace help us accept that we are not God. The means of grace help us accept humility as the thankful and holy response to grace. The means of grace help us accept our salvation.
The difficult and challenging work is trying to control our sinfulness in order to appear as if we are following Jesus. But this is more than hard – it is ultimately impossible for us to do. But it is not impossible for Jesus, who gives us a new life when we die to our old life. Or, if you will, we can follow Jesus when he gives us the life God intended for us all along.
This is the real pay-off. Following Jesus is all about loving God and loving our neighbors, which is what we were made by God to do. But as long as people expect their faith to be a system of following rules instead of following Jesus, they are going to find following Jesus difficult to do. So perhaps we need another G. K. Chesterton quote: “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”
People still want to go away. And Jesus still asks the question: “Do you also want to go away?” Until we give our hearts to Jesus, and accept the gift of our salvation, this will continue to be the question that Jesus asks. Jesus is calling you to follow him. How will you answer?
FWS 2130 “The Summons”