Offend
John 6:56-69
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I saw a meme the other day. For those of you who don’t know what a meme is, it’s a picture accompanied by words that people often post to social media. In this instance it looked like an old black and white photograph of Jackie Gleason in his younger days, standing on a beach with arms wide open. The words accompanying the photograph read, “Good Morning, America. What are we offended by today?” It seems like everywhere you turn these days, somebody is offended by something. Some people are offended by the Confederate battle flag and what they think it symbolizes. An entirely different set of people take offense at the rainbow-colored flag that symbolizes support of the LGBT community. One set of people are offended by what they see as a pattern of police violence against people of color, while another set of folks are offended by that group’s form of protest against that violence. One person is offended by those who speak a language they cannot understand, while someone else is offended that speaking that language is used to marginalize them. And on and on it goes until it begins to feel like everyone is offended by everything, and there is little you can to do that won’t offend someone. Early in the sixth Harry Potter book, The Half-Blood Prince, Harry’s guardian Vernon Dursely encounters the Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore. “I don’t mean to be rude,” says Dursely. To which Dumbledore replies, “yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often.” Some look to offend. Others do so accidentally.
However, there is nothing accidental about the things Jesus has said to make some of his disciples complain about him. They find his teaching difficult and wonder who can accept it. To which a part of me wants to say, “Well, duh!” I mean it has to be said that if a person doesn’t find what Jesus says at least a little difficult to accept, they clearly haven’t been paying attention. There are people who just love Jesus. And don’t get me wrong, I love the guy too- I really do, most of the time. But that isn’t to say that there aren’t some days that I wish he hadn’t said half the things he said. Things like, “You lack one thing, sell everything you own, give the money to the poor and then come and follow me.” Or, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Or, “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Or, “Whatsoever you do (or don’t do) for the least of these- for the junkie, or the prostitute, or the immigrant, or the refugee-you do (or fail to do) for me.” And that’s just the beginning. But it’s none of those things that offend his disciples in this particular passage from John’s gospel. You see, Jesus has been talking about himself as the “bread of life.” It’s one of the handful of ‘I am’ statements that come from Jesus in John’s telling of the story. They echo the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush- I AM WHO AM. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus tells the crowd that has followed him after one of those miraculous feeding stories in which, even though it doesn’t look like there’ll be enough, everyone eats their fill. He even goes so far as to draw a comparison between himself and the manna that God sent to sustain the Israelites who wandered the wilderness after their harrowing escape from slavery in Egypt. Some of the people in the crowd that day were from Nazareth and wondered aloud if Mr. Bread from Heaven might not be getting a little too big for his britches. They knew who his mom and dad were. He wasn’t all that. But Jesus persists, going so far as to suggest that if they eat his flesh and drink his blood they will live forever. That might sound pretty grotesque to our ears, but it probably doesn’t rise to the level of offensive. Now imagine that you’re Jewish in the first century. What Jesus is suggesting is definitely no way to keep Kosher. But that isn’t even the part that his disciples have the biggest problem with. No, it’s what comes right after. It’s the part where he describes himself as having come down from heaven, sent by God, just like the manna that sustained the people in the wilderness. Not sent by God, mind you, with some kind of message like the prophets. Sent by God as someone whose flesh and blood itself offers those who eat and drink of it eternal life.
Now, some of the things that offend us are legitimate. They often represent a form of injustice, some vestige of inequality or mistreatment. Racism IS offensive. So is poverty, and war and abuse. But increasingly what people find most offensive is having their position challenged, or called into question. What offends them is anything different from themselves. Difference of opinion, difference of background, difference of lifestyle. By saying what he has said, by offering himself as the source of a life that is worth living, Jesus challenges all the notions we have about our own self-made lives. What he is saying, what is on offer in his words is something far different than a blessing upon the status quo. It is a direct challenge to it. It is something altogether different. We are offended by the suggestion that we ourselves are not God, but that Jesus may be. Just who does he think he is anyway?
But maybe what offends us most is that Jesus refuses to be what we want him to be. Jesus refuses to play small and unobtrusive, a nice addition to the family who just says the loveliest things about giving rest to the weary and blessing the children. The church word ‘heresy’ is one that gets thrown around whenever one group doesn’t like another group’s ideas about who they think God is. But the only true heresy is when we think that our words, our understanding of who God is, how God works, and what God wants are in any way complete, or comprehensive. Because the actual meaning of the word heresy is to worship a lesser God. That is to say, a God that has been reduced to something less than the fullness of who God is. If, to borrow a phrase from the letter to the church in Ephesus, God is able to do in us abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine, it only follows that nothing we say can adequately contain such fullness. And yet, Jesus stands in front of us and says that somehow that same fullness has taken up residence in him- this earthbound rabbi belonging to a rather unremarkable family from a rather unremarkable town. And that if we can trust that to be true, if we can trust that God is not somewhere else, doing something else, but that God is, in fact and in spirit, accessible right here in the midst of this material world, then we too will be connected to Jesus in the same way that Jesus is connected to God. If you’ll pardon the pun, that is just a little too much for some folks to swallow.
Somewhere along the line we got it into our heads that the mission of the church was to be successful and popular. That our job was somehow to create a place where people could feel good about themselves and God without demanding too much or offending anyone. We hear about all the crowds that show up at other places of worship and think we must be doing something wrong because they are doing so well. I don’t know how anyone could come to that conclusion after reading the sixth chapter of John’s gospel that opens with Jesus in front of a crowd of five thousand, and ends with him wondering if even his twelve closest disciples are going to stick around. Jesus isn’t trying to win any popularity contests, and he sure isn’t trying to give the people what they want- lights, drums and great production values. What Jesus is trying to give them is himself, and in giving them himself, he is offering them a life like no other- not one in which flesh and spirit are at odds with one another, not one that rejects or demeans the beauty, glory and grandeur of God’s wondrous creation, but the only life that can unite them, reconciling them in such a way that we come to see the Spirit that gives life to it all: our work, our play, our family, our business, our body, mind, soul and strength.
It shouldn’t come as a newsflash to anyone here that church isn’t what it used to be. Those who have been here for decades can still remember when this sanctuary was full. Plenty of people have gone away. Some have chosen different congregations to be a part of, but the vast majority have simply stopped coming to church altogether. Maybe they still believe… something. It has been suggested that those who are no longer here didn’t leave because the church asked too much of them, but because it offered so little. In an effort not to offend, we may have made Jesus too small, and so palatable that he became pretty bland. So the question that hangs in the air is the question that Jesus poses to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” To be honest, some days the answer is, “yes, Jesus, I really would like to.” As strange as it sounds, what Jesus has to offer can be hard to accept. It can be hard to accept that peace is found in forgiveness and not vengeance. It can be hard to accept that we are worthy of love and belonging not because of whatever we have done, or proved, or earned to deserve it but because that is how we were made, in the image of the one who made us. It can be hard to accept that we are not masters of our own destiny, but provided for every step of the way by the one from whom all blessings flow. It can be hard to accept when someone we love is struggling to stay alive, or when we wake up alone and wonder why the other person left, or when we’re standing in line not knowing if we’ve got enough to pay for what’s in the shopping cart, or when we’re faced with the unrelenting ill-will between family and friends.
But as Peter puts it, “where can we go?” I mean, there ARE plenty of places we could go. Places guaranteed not to offend. Places that would reinforce everything we already believe without ever challenging us to consider something new, or different. Comfortable places. Convenient places. Safe places. But to be clear, Jesus doesn’t promise to be any of those things, no matter how much we would like him to be. What he does offer are the words that give us a life like no other, if we trust that they, and him, are true. Alleluia, Amen.