While Kris and I were in Eugene for her brother's wedding, I had the privilege of preaching at my in-laws' church, Bethesda Lutheran Church, where my father-in-law is senior pastor. Here is the sermon from that day.
“Alleluia! Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia!”
For years you have sung this little line just prior to the reading of the Gospel on Sunday mornings. Look closely in your bulletins at John 6.68. Think of our Lutheran Book of Worship liturgy: which words are missing? Alleluia. You got it.
Peter had no Alleluia for Jesus that day near Capernaum. We have a hard time seeing what’s happening in John 6 because our lectionary divides it over several weeks of readings. So let’s summarize what’s happened to give you an idea for Peter’s resigned answer to Jesus’ question:
1. Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread.
2. The crowd prepared to make Jesus their King, but Jesus escaped what they intended and hid in the mountains near Tiberias.
3. Unable to wait for Jesus any longer, his disciples tried to cross the Sea of Galilee during a storm, only to be terrified by the sight of Jesus walking on the water towards them.
4. The crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum, where he confronted them with the truth: they followed him only to see more miracles. But Jesus wanted to give them more than just miracles – he wanted to give them salvation.
5. Jesus identified himself as the Bread of Life, something even more powerful than the manna God had given to the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings in the days of Moses.
6. The crowd was offended when Jesus claimed that he was the Son of God – they remembered that he had grown up in Nazareth, the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary his wife.
All of this comes as prologue to our Gospel reading for today. Today we read how Jesus further exasperated his followers. The crowd and the disciples were even more offended and challenged when Jesus said that only those who drew life from himself – only those who ate his flesh and drank his blood – would be given eternal life. Jesus reminded the crowd that even the people of Israel who ate the manna in the wilderness still died – but those who would follow Jesus and receive life from him would never die.2. The crowd prepared to make Jesus their King, but Jesus escaped what they intended and hid in the mountains near Tiberias.
3. Unable to wait for Jesus any longer, his disciples tried to cross the Sea of Galilee during a storm, only to be terrified by the sight of Jesus walking on the water towards them.
4. The crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum, where he confronted them with the truth: they followed him only to see more miracles. But Jesus wanted to give them more than just miracles – he wanted to give them salvation.
5. Jesus identified himself as the Bread of Life, something even more powerful than the manna God had given to the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings in the days of Moses.
6. The crowd was offended when Jesus claimed that he was the Son of God – they remembered that he had grown up in Nazareth, the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary his wife.
As one of Jesus’ other disciples put it, this was a difficult teaching. In Greek the disciples literally said “this is a hard word.” What Jesus said sounded unforgiving, confrontational, harsh – possibly cruel. It was a finger of words jabbing right into the heart and conscience of everyone who heard it. And some couldn’t handle it. Some of Jesus’ followers walked away from him that day in Capernaum. But we should note that those who left Jesus didn’t walk away from Jesus because he was crazy or obscene, even with all this talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Those who left Jesus that day in Capernaum left because his words were too hard to hear. They didn’t leave Jesus because he was a nutcase – they left Jesus because his teachings made them too uncomfortable. As Jerry Goebel puts it, “What happened on this day was that the Gospel became suddenly, and radically, uncomfortable. Those who had been following Jesus to get bread, get fish, or even get a new political leader were confronted with a Gospel that wasn’t about ‘getting.” It was about giving…EVERYTHING!”[1
Can you imagine how quiet it must have been after everyone left Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum that day? Thousands had been clamoring for Jesus to become their King, but once they all rejected Jesus because of his hard words, only the Twelve remained. This wasn’t one of those comfortable silences, either – this was a silence filled with apprehension, confusion, perhaps even a little fear. You wouldn’t think of offering an “Alleluia!” into a silence like that. Even “Amen!” wouldn’t do. I imagine the disciples who remained focused on their sandals and prayed to God in heaven above that Jesus wouldn’t say another word that day. I imagine that nobody knew what was going to happen next.
In the middle of all this sat Peter, with no “Alleluia” to offer. But what Peter did offer to Jesus was remarkable, because in Peter’s words God created something out of nothing. Jesus asked them, “Do you also wish to leave me?” Peter’s response? “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
Can you hear the despair in Peter’s response? When Jesus asked if they wanted to leave, was there an unspoken “YES!” demanding to be heard? I’m sure there was. Peter’s response to Jesus was not a declaration of faith – it was a desperate surrender to forces which were beyond Peter’s control. In Peter’s response there was an acknowledgment that if there were any other option, he and the disciples would take it and run. “Yes, Jesus – I want to leave. Yes, Jesus - you are giving us teachings that are more than we can bear. Yes, Jesus – you have spoken truth so painful that it is destroying us. But Lord, where else would we go?"
Many of you have probably seen the movie An Officer and a Gentleman. I'd like you to think of one particular scene to get an idea of what I’m describing. Richard Gere plays Zack Mayo, who is in training to become a Naval officer, but he’s being pushed to the limit by his drill instructor, Foley, played by Louis Gossett, Jr. During a weekend of punishment for violating barracks procedure and other training rules, Foley abuses Mayo with harsh words about himself and the life he's led. "You're no damn good!" JAB "Your father was an alcoholic and skirt-chaser!" JAB "Your mother was a whore!" JAB "You're not officer material!" JAB "No one here trusts you!" JAB "Why don't you just quit?" JAB Finally, when Mayo refuses to quit or break under the constant jabbing of Foley's abuse, Foley throws the last hard word at him: "I'm not going to let you finish this program, Mayo - you're out!"
That word was more than he could bear. In a stunning moment of desperation, Mayo screams "DON'T YOU DARE!!! I GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!!!" And he crumbles into tears.
All that’s left is a desperate surrender and an admission that will change the course of his life. “I got nowhere else to go!” Can you hear the despair in his voice as he confronts the fact that this is it? That he’s reached the end of the line, the place where it’s this or nothing at all? If you can, then maybe you’ve known a bit of that desperate surrender yourself. Maybe you’ve been in Peter’s place, where desperate surrender is all that you’ve got left.
This is the uncomfortable truth that Jesus continues to reveal to us today: being a follower of Jesus Christ isn’t easy or rewarding or blessed. Sometimes, being a follower of Jesus Christ means listening to that jabbing finger of hard words that reveals the uncomfortable truth about your life. Sometimes being a follower of Jesus Christ means that it’s Christ or nothing at all. There’s nowhere else to go.
But Christ asks nothing of us which he has not already given himself. If you remember all the way back to the beginning of the sixth chapter of the gospel of John, it was Jesus himself who fed the 5,000. When Jesus says he alone is the bread of life, Jesus is making a promise to those who listen to his word: “If you feed on me, you will live.” Last week you heard Pastor Troy talk to you about living wisely. When Jesus confronts us with the uncomfortable truth that He alone is the bread of life, Jesus is also making a promise to us: nothing else gives life the way that He gives life.
As you practice your wise living, ask yourself: from where do I draw my life? If you draw your life from your possessions, from your vocation, from your family, from your spouse, or even from the bread that you eat, you are not living wisely. But when you are taken to that place of desperate surrender, where it’s Christ or nothing at all, you will see that no one else will give life like Jesus gives life. The desperate surrender of your life into his hands, after all, is the same surrender that Jesus gave to his Father in emptying his life on the cross for you. For Christ, it was the cross or nothing at all – and Christ chose the cross for you.
Peter and his companions were only just beginning to understand what it meant to follow Jesus when they came to this point of desperate surrender. I imagine it wasn’t the only time of desperate surrender for them, either. The world in which we live is filled with false promises of a good life through a million different ways. We, like the followers of Jesus, don’t always like to be reminded of our utter dependence on God’s mercy and grace for our life. It is a hard word to hear, a difficult teaching to understand. For years, we’ve believed that following Jesus meant escaping the world’s sorrow and pain. But now we are beginning to see the truth about following Jesus. We don’t follow Jesus to escape the world in which we live. When we follow Jesus, we follow knowing that the hard word of truth that sometimes comes our way is a word designed to bring us to a place where we desperately surrender to him, where it’s Christ or nothing at all, because only then can we begin to understand what salvation is all about. God isn’t interested in comforting you or helping you grow or rewarding your good behavior: God is determined to be your God, to be your source of life and your salvation, and if a desperate surrender is what it takes, then a desperate surrender is what it will be.
The author Kathleen Norris struggled with her faith for years before becoming one of the foremost American literary theologians of the past 20 years. In an audience once, she was asked how she could find comfort in a religion whose language does so much harm. She said, “I [don’t] think it was comfort I was seeking, or comfort that [I] found…As far as I’m concerned, this religion has saved my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. So it’s not comfort that I’m talking about but salvation.”[2]
Now, in retrospect, we can add the Alleluia to Peter’s desperate surrender. Alleluia: Lord, to whom shall we go? Only you have the words of eternal life. Alleluia. Lord, you have brought us here to where it is you or nothing at all, where we surrender our lives into your hands as you once surrendered your life into your Father’s hands. Fill us with life. Feed us with your bread of life, that we may know eternal life, that we may know you and your Father through your Holy Spirit. And may your peace, which passes all our understanding and fills us even in our moments of desperate surrender, keep our hearts and minds in you, Christ Jesus, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
[1] Goebel, Jerry. ONEFamily Outreach. http://onefamilyoutreach.com/bible/John/jn_06_59-69.html
[2] Norris, Kathleen. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. pp. 3-4
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