Readings:
Joshua 24.1-2a, 14-18; Psalm 34.15-22; Ephesians 6.10-20; John 6.56-69
May I speak in the name of God, always creating redeeming and sanctifying. Amen.
Please be comfortable.
We are on our last Sunday for the Season of Bread. For five weeks we have been travelling through John chapter 6. At the beginning I said that John is telling us who Jesus is. That’s the purpose of this chapter, who is Jesus? Five times he uses the term I am. Which recalls to us the name that God gave Moses at the burning bush. I am who I am (or I will be who I will be, in the Hebrew). John tells us what we must do. We must eat we must drink. Gnaw on the body of Christ. And why? What is Jesus’ mission?
In John 5.36-40 it says, “But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the father gives to me will come to me and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him sent me: that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my father, that all who see the Son and believe in him will have eternal life and I will raise them up on the last day.” Jesus’ purpose. God’s purpose.
But it’s not easy. We’ve seen twice in this chapter the conflict it causes. The first time in verse 42 where those who know him cannot accept what he’s saying. Is this not Joseph’s son, Mary’s son? Do not know his brothers and sisters? How could he possibly tell us these things? And today, in verse 60… but this time is not just those who know him from childhood. This time the people are his disciples. His disciples cannot accept what he is saying and they all leave, apart from the 12, ‘they no longer go about with him.’ Those who remain so because even if they don’t fully understand they grasp a thread of truth of who Jesus is. And that’s all that we really need: to be able to grasp a thread of the truth.
So where does that thread lead us?
Hope.
When we grasp in our hearts that in Jesus God is present to us in all that life throws at us and when we remain in relationship with God we get to experience part of the quality of eternal life here and now.
The Anglican Church of Australia’s General Synod have created an initiative called Hope25. It is part of the mission and ministry commission this initiative has gathered clergy from all parts of the Anglican community. Across the country, across the theological spectrum, and have created a steering committee who are helping parishes to be involved in Hope25.
We are encouraged to do something, anything that is appropriate to our context, that spreads the hope we find in Jesus Christ to the wider community during the season of Easter next year. I’ve got a video that we’re going to watch. Hope in an uncertain world. I’m not sure that our world is any more uncertain than it was in Jesus day, it was pretty uncertain then too, because we’re all humans. The amazing thing for me is that it appears to me that this is a movement of the Holy Spirit in the whole church of Christ. Across denominations. Last month at our monthly church leader gathering it seemed that everyone was speaking of something like this in the planning stages. So that in itself fills me with hope.
After our Visioning Day on 7 September, the parish council will consider in what ways we can be involved in Hope25 that aligns with our values and vision named on the seventh. We may find that Jesus purpose in verses 36 to 40 is too difficult for some to accept. It may cause conflict like Jesus experienced in today’s gospel.
One of the things that I’m taking away from conference this week is that declining numbers in attendance does not need to be taken negatively. It can be understood as a refining. The old models of church are dying. Models like church as social club. What remains, like what remained with Jesus when his disciples walked away, what remains is a church made of those whose intentions and desires are more genuine. It means that those of us who do attend church are here because we wish to follow Jesus. Even when we suck a bit at it.
We keep coming and we keep trying.
We keep gnawing on the bread of life.
We do that together so that we may offer the same hope of eternal life to all those whose paths we cross.
Amen.