Sermon on the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Is there Grace in uncertainty?
I often note that the Bible is not always an easy book to deal with. Some people say it is, especially those who proclaim that they have the perfect explanation for everything in the Word of God. But I, and many in the Episcopal Church, recognize that we might not know everything as we deal with scripture.
It has all sorts of tricks for us.
For example, in the gospel reading last week I noted that Jesus was, as so often, not speaking literally. The meaning behind his words were more complex and difficult. And in this gospel we see that many in close contact with him, who had far more information personally about Jesus that we can squeeze out of four gospels, these people did not fully comprehend what He was about. Because in the gospel today, Jesus is having difficulty with his disciples, or rather, some of them are having difficulty understanding all Jesus’s talk about the living bread.
Jesus is trying to make clear who he is and what he is doing. While his own disciples, the ones who should have known best don’t get it. Yet, maybe, that’s not a terrible thing, indeed maybe there is grace in it.
Of course, the difficulty understanding the Bible is at the heart of many problems and divisions among Christians today. It was a problem from the beginning, when no sooner did Jesus ascend into heaven, to which he alludes in today’s gospel, than people were fighting about his nature.
What exactly was he? Just look at the list of term in just this one passage: This Son of Man? This child of the Father? This living bread? This Holy One of God? How do these very different terms explain Jesus?
Early Christians had all sorts of ideas to describe him, which have all sorts of interesting names, which I learned once about and have mostly forgotten. Today the problem seems not to be understanding, but incorporating the reality of Jesus. His disciples said: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
And as a result they leave.
For us Episcopalians, I believe, our strength is our Church’s willingness to deal with some ambiguity and accept difficulty, while appreciating grace. Some people, some churches, want things to be black or white, yes or no, up or down. Okay, that’s their choice.
But I see a lot of the world, and faith, in grays, maybes, in-betweens. For some theologians they assert that it is essential to know exactly what is going on in the Eucharist, in the person of Christ, with the End times, regarding heaven. For others of us, a general sense is good enough. For some people their Church must speak with one authoritative voice, commanding absolute agreement for themselves and saying everyone else is wrong. For others, our Church lays out a program, but allows disagreement on specifics, even allows people to vote, on matters of faith and doctrine, not just discipline. We believe the Holy Spirit can work through democratic action, not just monarchical command.
Holy Scripture is not always so clear, giving mixed messages and speaking with many voices.
Those disciples who, as we read today, “turned back and no longer went with” Jesus, I think just got stuck on their view of the Bible. As good Jews, -- remember they were mostly all Jews at the time --they would have taken seriously the Biblical prohibition against drinking blood from the book of Leviticus, as many kosher Jews did and do today. Hearing Jesus talking about himself as blood to be drunk, Jesus talking about spirit and flesh, well, I think some people just could not handle it. These words were too strange, too new, clearly NOT part of tradition and the way things were supposed to be done.
That is what we often forget about Jesus, though: he was strange and new and not the way things were supposed to be done.Jesus was radically different, not just new and untraditional, but unique in all of history.
To be a follower of the Christ is to be different from the past and the world, even today.
In our church we call you to believe in things, as we say our prayers and recite our creeds. Still, we do not insist that everyone understand everything. Indeed, I don’t, and I’ve got some training in this.
But like a popular saying goes: “Most people are bothered by those passages of scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I DO understand.”
Making scripture your guide is a hard road, as Jesus warned the disciples. But what lays at the end of the choice to follow Jesus? Listen to what Simon Peter answered Jesus about whether he would leave: “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.”
When he said this, I don’t think Peter understood in deep theological, analytical, exegetical, structured and argumentative detail exactly how and in which way Jesus was the Holy One of God.
Peter just knew; he just believed, without positive proof, but in the power of presence, that Jesus had the words of eternal life. I believe can be sufficient for us as well: figuratively, not literally, that we “who eat[s] this bread will live forever.”
Given at St. James & St. George 2021 April 1
URL: <http://therev.brianpavlac.org/srms/20210822.html