Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Sermon on John 6:35, 41-51

This sermon was preached at South Side Anglican Church on Sunday, August 9, 2015.


We've all done embarrassing things in our lives. A lot of times, these things can be told as stories and laughed off amongst our friends and family. This has always been a struggle for me. Not only because I'm not very good at laughing at myself. A big part of it is that my embarrassing moments are more awkward than funny. In high school, I was a loner. I wasn't good at making friends, and I didn't know how to relate to people when they spoke to me. So, I wasn't one of those cool loners that was so self-contained that he didn't need anyone. I was the weird quiet kid in the back of the class that shook every time he had to speak in public.

One such instance of my awkwardness manifesting itself full swing happened my freshman year of high school. I was in Spanish class. It was test day, so everyone was spending the whole period working out verbs and nouns and endings in silence. When I finished my test, I turned it in, and then sat back down in my seat. So far, so good. But, what I did next, I don't really know why, or what I was thinking. I started singing softly. And I didn't sing a song about being free, or a pop song that everyone knew. I sang a song about committing suicide. I sang Adam's Song by the band Blink-182. I want to make it clear that I didn't actually want to commit suicide. But for whatever reason, I thought while the rest of the class was silently taking a Spanish test was a great time for this depressive anthem. When I finished, I looked up and the teacher as well as a few of the other students were looking at me. The kid sitting in front of me turned around and said, “hey man, don't ever try to be a rock star.”

To this day, I still get anxiety thinking about this moment in my life. I am filled with embarrassment and shame about how awkward and weird it was for me to do that. I still wonder why I ever decided to sing, not just a verse or chorus, but the entire song in that classroom. I wonder how much had to do with wanting attention. Though I never wanted to commit suicide, maybe having others think I did would make them talk to me. Of course that didn't happen. All I got was a kid in front of me telling me I shouldn't ever sing again.

In our reading from John's Gospel, Jesus tells the people following him, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” In response, many complain among themselves, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven?'”

Those surrounding Jesus doubt who he is because of what they think they know about him. They are using what they know of his earthly life to dispute the claim of his heavenly life. If he was the son of Joseph and Mary, how then can he be the Son of God? If he was born here on earth, how can he be the bread that has come from heaven? These are not bad questions. The problem is not that these questions are being asked, but why they are being asked. The people following Jesus were fine doing so when he was healing the sick and giving them food. But now, Jesus has asked them to do more than just receive these earthly gifts. He wants them to receive the heavenly gift. He wants them to believe in him.

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

They are no longer free to come and go as they please among the crowd following Jesus. Jesus is not saying what they want him to say, which is, “whenever you need me, come to me, and whenever you don't, you can go and do your own thing.” Instead, he says, “now that I have fed you and healed you physically, I want you to let me feed and heal you spiritually. But to do that would mean putting your trust in me for all of eternity.”

But we distrust the heavenly truth because we believe earthly lies. The people following Jesus had trouble believing who he is because they saw him only as one of them, a human person with the same physical limitations as any other human person. Maybe they even thought he was a great human person, a prophet with God's favor, but still only a human person. To believe in Jesus as more than that requires faith. We need faith to believe in Jesus because we can't see beyond the world around us. Everything we know is what we see and hear and feel in this physical world. We can't believe a man rose from the dead because people don't do that. We can't believe God can heal us of our brokenness because we know that we can't do it. And what we can do is all we know.

When I think about that day in my freshman year of high school, I'm reminded that I do embarrassing things. I'm reminded of the shame and misery I felt in high school because I didn't know how to make friends or talk to other people and make eye contact. I'm reminded that I'm weak and that I'm weird. When I think about my earthly life, I see that I'm hopeless. I see that a guy can turn around in his chair and tell me I'm not worth caring for just to break the awkward silence in a high school Spanish class. Without knowing whether anything else is out there, our earthly life is all we can know. Without there being something else out there, our earthly life is what defines us.

When we read Jesus saying that he is “the bread that came down from heaven,” what he is saying is that this earthly life isn't it. But we can't believe that there is more unless it is shown to us. A hungry child can't see the full meal on top of the table without being lifted up by it's parent. The child will grumble and complain because of hunger and may even resist the parent's hold because the child doesn't understand the reality of what's up there. In the same way, we can't see the full heavenly life in store for us beyond this earthly life without being shown. We grumble and complain that life is unfair and difficult. We don't see that there is another plane of reality. We don't understand Jesus when he says, “in this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

There are two steps in receiving this revelation. First, we need to accept who Jesus is. Then, we learn who we are in him.

The difficulty of the crowd to understand Jesus comes from an unwillingness to believe by faith. Believing by faith doesn't mean believing blindly, but it means believing something to be true that goes against what we have thus far understood. A simple example of this is sushi. A lot of people are freaked out by the idea of eating sushi because it's raw fish wrapped in seaweed, and just saying that should make you wonder why this was ever invented. For someone to try sushi for the first time who has not been raised in a culture that eats it regularly requires faith. Their faith might be in a friend who knows that person's eating habits and knows they will like it. Their faith might be in the person that makes it, knowing that this person typically makes very good food. Their faith might be in the fact that a lot of people they know like eating sushi and so they trust these people's judgments. The point is, that to take their first taste, that person must have faith in one or all of these things. When I say raw fish and seaweed, the first reaction is that there's no way that will be good. But faith can convince a person that it does.

So what is faith in Jesus? For the crowd surrounding him, faith is trusting in the miracles he has performed. He was famous for healing the sick. He actually fed the people in this crowd, over five-thousand of them, with five barley loaves and two fish. Faith for them is trusting that his great teachings on the Scriptures include his teachings about who he is. It's trusting in the character he has shown himself to have, caring for the poor and the oppressed, and spending time with the least of the people. Faith is putting all of this together, and seeing that he really is who he says he is. Faith is putting trust in him because of these things.

Faith doesn't mean the absence of doubt. I can have faith that this sushi will taste good but still have doubts about it in my mind. It's when I first taste the sushi that my faith is realized. Faith is what gives us the ability to overcome doubt. According to the epistle to the Hebrews, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Having faith in Jesus is knowing that this earthly life isn't it, but he has given us access to eternal life. He says, “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” Faith is the assurance of our hope for resurrection. It is the conviction that not only is there really a God, but that he loves us and “sent his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” We know this is true because Jesus didn't only come and live among us, but he died and rose again. He came so that we can literally have new life. This isn't just a saying, like “I started to diet and exercise and I feel like a whole new person.” This really is a new life; a life we haven't had access to before. This is a life that doesn't die. The one who believes in him will be raised up by him on the last day and never go down again. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually, the life that Jesus gives will never go down. There will be no more weeping, and no separation from God.

Our faith is built on this promise. Because Jesus rose again, we can be sure that our faith will not be in vain. And the best thing about it is that this faith is not based on us or our abilities. Faith comes from outside ourselves. For me, that's very reassuring. I don't need to trust in my ability to understand God fully to have faith in his promise. I don't need to trust in my ability to follow Jesus fully to have faith that he will raise me up to new life. I don't need to trust in my ability to be a good person to have faith that Jesus can share his good news through me.

Because the crowds had their minds set on earthly things, they were unable to receive Jesus by faith. God works in ways beyond our understanding. Who Jesus is can only be understood by faith. Our understanding of heavenly things only comes from him because other than him everything else we know is based on earthly experiences. We cannot know heavenly things without experiencing heavenly things. Jesus is the heavenly experience that gives us access to heavenly knowledge. We see his miracles and hear his promise through his resurrection, and believe. We believe even though our earthly minds say it doesn't make sense. The only way to overcome our earthly understanding is through faith in Jesus. There is no other access point to the heavenly reality of who God is and the promise he has made for us.

Knowing Jesus through faith also means learning who we are in him. In the world, it is said that you are the culmination of your experiences. But the gospel says you are God's if you believe in the one that he sent. By the world's standards, the shame of my past is part of who I am and I won't be able to change that. But as it is written, the Gospel tells me that there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

Especially in this time of presidential races, we know very well how much our past means to the world. Politicians spend millions of dollars to hide or twist the things they've done so that it doesn't come back to haunt them. If it turns out they smoked marijuana in college or spent time in jail for a petty crime, their entire campaign is in jeopardy. The world doesn't want us to let go of our past. If you've committed a felony in your life, getting a job will become exponentially more difficult. If you've hurt a child, where you live will be determined by your proximity to schools and families. I know, for me, the temptation to let my earthly life define me is very strong. Something that happened thirteen years ago still has control over me. There have been nights I can't get to sleep because of it. But that's not who I am. I don't mean because I've matured, or because I've learned from my mistakes. I mean that who I am is not determined by me or this world. Who I am is determined by the one who made me with a purpose. The one who made all of us with intentionality. God created us to be his own. And by accepting that, we gain the freedom of not determining our own worth. We gain the freedom of knowing our worth comes from him and not from anything we do or have done. Then we have the freedom to become what he would have us be in him.

In our Ephesians reading, Paul writes “let us speak the truth to our neighbors … be angry but do not sin … thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up.” And finally, he says, “do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.”

The reason Paul can give instructions on how to live godly lives is because we have already been sealed for the day of redemption in Jesus. So now, we can strive for holiness without fear of losing our identity when we fail since our identity is in God and not in ourselves or anything we do. Good works don't add to our salvation, but they help us to live into the redemption that is already our own. Paul says, “forgiv[e] one another, as God in Christ his forgiven you.” We are only able to do these things because we have forgiveness in Jesus. I don't try to be a better person to make up for my past mistakes. I don't try to be a better person to deserve respect or honor. I know my past is forgiven and I know I have all the honor through the Spirit which adopted me as God's own. I now seek after God knowing that he has already accepted me.

When I think about that time back in high school, I know I can't change what happened. But I also know that what happened can't define me anymore. I know that the definition of who I am doesn't come from this earthly life. We have trouble seeing that because this life, so far, is all we know. But I believe Jesus when he says that he is the resurrection and the life. I believe that even now I have a new life free from the condemnation of my past mistakes and even the mistakes I will continue to make as I try to follow God's will. I know that there is a heavenly truth of who I am because of who I know Jesus is. I know Jesus wasn't just born in this earth, but that he dwells eternally in the heavens interceding for me at the right hand of the Father. I know that I am loved without having done anything to deserve it.

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