Pentecost 12

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
The Reverend Martha Frances
Year B, Pentecost 12, Proper 16
27 August 2006

Text: John 6: 60-69

Other Readings: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-25; Psalm 34:15-22; Ephesians 5:21-33

Joshua said to all the people whom he had led into Canaan after 40 years in the wilderness with Moses, “. . . choose this day whom you will serve,. . . but as for me & my household, we will serve the Lord.” With these words & the Israelites’ answers, they all renewed their covenant with Yhwh, the God of the patriarchs. A recurring theme in the Hebrew Bible is Yhwh God’s covenant with the Hebrew people then renewed in successive generations.

A covenant is a solemn binding agreement freely entered into by 2 or more parties, typically including terms, oaths, & some sort of ritual such as a sacrifice, a meal, an exchange of tokens, or even a handshake. Obviously, the Hebrews have had a hard time sticking to the earlier covenant that Moses made with Yhwh, so Joshua challenges them to turn away from the old gods, including those worshiped by the conquered people whose lands they have taken. At one point, he insists they aren’t capable of serving Yhwh because they won’t forsake the old gods. They jump to the bait & respond, “No, we WILL serve Yhwh.” Can’t you just imagine Yhwh sighing & saying, “Wonder how long they’ll keep up their part of the bargain this time!”?

Today’s psalm reminds us just how close God is to God’s people: the eyes of God watch over the righteous, God’s face confronts those who do evil, God hears the call of the faithful & is near to the brokenhearted. The promise of the psalm is that God will deliver the faithful from their troubles & will ransom his servants’ lives. We might say, “What kind of fool would renege on such a deal? God promises so much, & so little is required of us.” We all know, however, how difficult it can be for us to fulfill what is required of us.

Such a dilemma confronted the disciples—& confronts us—in today’s gospel. Last week, we explored Jesus’ command that the disciples must eat his flesh & drink his blood if they want eternal life. Jesus makes a strong case for being part of the Christian community who share the Lord’s Supper together as the surest sign of our unity with him. I tried to make an equally strong case last week that we form & strengthen community best when we come frequently to the communion table & receive the body & blood of Jesus which he has given for us. However, Jesus doesn’t tell us that all our problems will be solved magically by our taking communion each week. If that were true, we wouldn’t be able to fit all the communicants in this nave.

The hard saying that Jesus hears the disciples grumbling about is his insistence that he is the life-giving revelation from God & will return to God’s right hand. The Jewish people are unhinged when Jesus claims to be the Son of God which they consider arrogant. Much like the Hebrews from old, many of the 1^st century Jewish people can’t get past their unbending tradition & their own insistence that God cannot appear in human form, providing the salvation for which they yearn. They have been looking for a prophet, but Jesus comes as Messiah, the Son of God. They have been looking for a military rescuer, but he comes as the Prince of Peace. For many, this is simply too great a challenge to their long-held beliefs.

Jesus has offered them a choice, a turning point in their lives, sort of like the covenant which Joshua had offered their ancestors long before. Jesus wants to covenant with them, & the ritual to affirm that commitment is eating his body & drinking his blood. Many turn away because they cannot trust this new way of believing. Jesus’ ministry has been very popular up until now, & crowds have come to him to see & receive his sign & wonders, but now he’s just asking too much. Furthermore, he’s not behaving the way they expect the Messiah to act.

Jesus tells them that the Son of Man must ascend to God & that the Spirit who comes gives life. The Greek word for the life that the Spirit offers is “zoe” which doesn’t mean life’s duration like just living a long time but means joyful & abundant life, life that matters enough that you want to live it. Jesus offers a quality of life through the Spirit which surpasses just putting in more than average years.

Can you imagine the despair & disappointment Jesus feels when he asks the 12, “Do you also wish to go away?” So many have turned away from the Covenant that God grants them all through Jesus. So many have refused to act out of a belief that all they must do is love God with all their heart, soul, & mind & love their neighbor as themselves.

Peter, who often answers for all the disciples, responds, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe & know that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter actually says, “Where else do we have to turn, Jesus? We’ve thrown in our lot with you, & we don’t have a Plan B.” But you know what? That’s enough. Peter has accepted the condition of belief that the New Covenant requires. And he has spoken for the 12.

Jesus calls us to believe also, & to continue to grow in that belief. He asks us to make a choice, to turn around, to love God with all our heart & soul & mind. How do we show that love? We love our neighbors as ourselves. We fulfill our part of the bargain, not alone, but in the Christian community. What is the ritual, the process we go through?

Most Christians become part of the faith community through the sacrament of baptism. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, & ever since Jesus initiated the rite, it has been the way we become Christians. We will have baptisms some Sunday this fall in case you want to be included or for your child to be baptized. Please check with me so we can schedule the baptismal preparation class.

If you’ve already been baptized, even as an infant, you don’t need to be baptized again. Regardless of how you considered it then or what you’ve done since, God did it just right the first time. If you are now ready to respond to the gift & grace of baptism which Christ offers you, the way to become a member of the Episcopal Church is by the sacramental rite of Confirmation. Confirmation is the mature sacrament by which you accept your baptismal responsibility of living as an adult Christian. Although the Bishop will not return to Hope for Confirmation until 2007, it would be a great opportunity for you to let me know now in order to better structure our classes. Of course, those who have already been confirmed may ask us to request your membership be transferred.

How do we continue to grow in our walk with Christ? Well, that’s why we have a Christian community? Has it ever dawned on you that, if God needed the community of the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, that we need a community, too? We aren’t created to live alone. We’re supposed to develop our faith in a Christian community where we can praise God together & learn from & strengthen each other. We have the awesome & amazing opportunity to break the bread & drink the wine, being strengthened by Christ’s own flesh & blood. The Holy Eucharist is the ritual through which we renew our covenant with God through Christ often. By pouring over God’s Word & taking his body & blood into us, we learn in the community to fashion our lives after the life & mind of Christ.

The passage from Ephesians we read today is an example of an ancient household code taken over by the early Christian Church communities to help Christians live faithfully together. I’ll bet you thought I was going to ignore the scripture for wives to be subject to their husbands as they are to the Lord. Oh, no, this is too good a chance to clear up some misconceptions about that passage! The book of Ephesians was written to teach new Christians, especially the Gentiles, how to behave in a world in which they were very much the minority. Why do you think they needed this baptismal instruction? Of course, because they were very easily influenced by the behavior of the larger community around them, they needed some guidelines for Christ-centered behavior.

Most people don’t read far enough in this passage. The way some men use this passage to justify abuse of their wives is certainly not the Good News of Christ. Notice that the comparison is that wives should be as reverent toward their husbands as the church is reverent toward Christ. Now we all know the church—that’s you & me, all of us together—certainly fails to be properly subject to Christ from time to time. But this is the goal to strive for.

In addition, husbands are supposed to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church. Wow, now that’s a remarkable statement! You men are supposed to treat your wives with as much respect & awe & reverence as Christ nurtures the Church. Who lives up to that instruction? Well, we’re talking about the ideal here, but what I notice is this relationship between husband & wife is supposed to be mutual & reciprocal. Just in case you men don’t get the point with the 1^st comparison, the writer offers another: husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. Now the author of Ephesians didn’t know anything about our modern tendency to put ourselves down. He assumes that we accept & respect our own bodies as glorious gifts created by a loving God. We should treat ourselves & our spouses with mutual respect & care. How do we learn to treat others with such care & respect? We do it together in a body which we call the body of Christ, nourished by Christ’s very body & blood of the Eucharist. We don’t understand this totally, for the writer tells us it is a mystery. Just because something is a mystery doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to learn what we can about it; it just means we’ll never fully understand a mystery. We Christians are called to treat our closest human relationships with just as much honor & love as we know how, allowing our association in the community to help us learn how to grow in that love & respect.

Now I’ve just touched on the tip of the iceberg of what it means to live as a Christian within a community of faith, but I pray you’ve been intrigued enough by these scriptures & my thoughts on them that you desire to respond to God’s invitation to a covenant relationship in a deeper way today than ever before. May each of us commit to Christ’s journey anew today. Perhaps you will covenant with Christ one concrete action you will take toward a deeper faith relationship now & in the future.