All In

Text: Gospel of John 6:25-71

The interaction here between Jesus and those who follow him reminds me of one of those high stakes games of five card stud poker in the movies.  There's the good guy.  There's the bad guy.  There's all the others.  They all sit around the table with their solemn poker faces on while the dealer throws everyone one card face down at which they take an impassioned peek.  This is an important card.  Only the holder knows what it is and thus it permits the opportunity to bluff, to act as if you have a better hand than the one showing.  The dealer then deals everyone one card face up.  Each player must put in or place a bet if he desires to stay in the game.  This continues on until each has four cards showing and one card down. 

In the movie version what ends up happening is the bad guy pushes the stakes higher and higher with each round of betting until either by bluffing or by the strength of his cards showing those of weaker fortitude drop out with a heavy sigh.  By the time the fifth card is dealt, there is only the good guy and the bad guy facing off.  Usually the bad guy has a seemingly unbeatable hand and he places a big enough bet that if the good guy wants to stay in the game with a hand that is showing nothing, he must go all in and bet everything.  Yet, his down card may be the one card in the whole deck which against seemingly impossible odds can turn this hand of nothing into poker’s one unbeatable hand, the royal flush.  The odds of that are 1 in 2,598,960.  He’s got the ace of hearts and the king and the jack and the ten.  Is he holding the queen, the queen of hearts?  Unfortunately, his all in is not enough to match the bad guy’s put in and unless he can find a backer he will have to fold but along comes the pretty lady dressed in red, the Queen of Hearts.  Remarkably, not knowing the card and simply because she believes in him, she gives him the money he needs and some.  The tables are now turned.  Now it’s the bad guy who must choose between folding and losing everything he’s put in or going all in to see if the good guy is bluffing.  The suspense builds.  He looks at his card, sweats, puts a finger to his temple; in Casino Royale fashion his eye begins to tear blood…he folds.  Against impossible odds, he has also come to believe that  the good guy must have the queen of hearts.  The good guy rakes in his winnings.  He never shows his card.  We never know if he was bluffing.

So, gathered here around the table in John's Gospel we find Jesus, the Jews (the synagogue and thus town authorities of Capernaum), the disciples, and the Twelve.  Thus far, we have seen the synagogue authorities drop out.  The stakes of accepting Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Incarnate Word of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world are just too high.  They’ve too much power to loose being religious, societal, and political authorities.  Their hand is not showing strong enough either.  They can’t feed the multitudes like Jesus did; over 15,000 on two fish and five loaves of bread…something only God could do.  So, they convince themselves that Jesus is working for the bad guy, the devil, and accordingly they fold and as they leave the table they try to convince others that Jesus is a blasphemer and a liar…he’s bluffing.

The stakes got too high for them when Jesus claimed to have come down from heaven being sent by the Father which was a claim to divinity.  They leave the table and as they go Jesus has an interesting life-word for them, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.  And I will raise him up on the last day.  It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’  Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me – not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.”  The authorities can’t just come to Jesus and have eternal life – the life that flows from the relationship of God the Father and Son in the Holy Spirit – they are not going to believe him unless the Father who sent him draws them.  Apparently, the Father hadn’t been drawing them.  He hadn't been attracting them to come to Jesus by revealing to them who Jesus is.  Their claimed expertise in the Prophets and the Law of Moses was simply a sham, a power play bluff.  What they had supposedly learned there wasn’t taught them by the Father.  They were using the Scriptures just to insure their grip on power and the way things are.  Had the Father been their teacher, they would have come to Jesus accepting him as having seen and been with the Father and as having the authority of one sent by the Father, an authority greater than theirs.  What they had learned wasn’t God’s self-revelation as the one true God steadfastly loving and faithful who saves his people.  Rather, they believed in an insular god of “ism’s” – protectionism, nationalism, conservatism, moralism, legalism.

Next, at the table are the disciples.  Take note here that John makes a distinction between “the Twelve” and “the disciples”.  It appears that around Capernaum Jesus had amassed a following of people who regarded him as a great teacher, a great Rabbi, and quite possibly the Messiah.  They were following him; heeding his teachings rather than those of the authorities.  We might call them the liberals.  Jesus had the religio-socio-political plan of the Messiah king that would make life better for them the poor and oppressed people of the land.  They ate the bread and the fish.  Yet, the stakes got too high when Jesus told them that they had to eat his flesh and drink his blood if they were going to receive the life he had to offer.  True faith in him which is eternal life - knowing the Father and the Son through the Spirit, sharing in the loving communion of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit (I hope you've got it that eternal life in John's Gospel is not going to heaven when you die; cf. 17:3.) - is the manna, the bread of life that will sustain them in the wilderness of this broken world. 

But, they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood to get it.  Jesus wasn't talking about becoming cannibals.  He was intimating that as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world he was going to have to die for them and his death would be for them the once and for all Passover Lamb whose blood would shield them from death, once and for all scapegoat of the Day of Atonement who bears their iniquity away reconciling them to God.  I don't have the time this morning to flesh out the meaning of those Old Testament sacrifices, yet I will say that to drink his blood is to drink of his life, the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, spirituality honed in obedience is key to the life of faith.  Imbibing of the life-giving relationship with Jesus that the Father has freely given us by the work of the Holy Spirit is crucial.  Prayer, contemplation, Scripture study and meditation, corporate worship are things we cannot see as optional.  Also, to eat his flesh is to participate in Jesus’ ministry, which means we must be cross-bearers in this world who sacrificially lay down our lives for love of others.  Participation in his ministry of reconciliation must be the highest priority in our lives.  Does saying that offend you? 

Jesus and his ministry must be the absolute first place in our lives if we are going to have any kind of a taste of eternal life now, any personal/relational/me-changing knowing of God the Father and Son in the Holy Spirit.  This is a hard teaching to hear and to heed.  “The disciples” rightly realized their inability to do just that.  "This is a hard teaching.  Who is able to heed it?"  They said.  As they fold and leave the table Jesus says to them, "No one is able to come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."  No one can just up and decide to be a disciple of Jesus.  No one can just up and decide to believe Jesus and call themselves saved.  No one is able to come to Jesus and truly know who he is except by a gracious revelation of who Jesus is from the Father through the Spirit giving permission for him to come to Jesus indeed, making him able to come.  We cannot have faith and be faithful of our own initiative.  Luther wrote in his Small Catechism: "I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in the true faith..."   Faith in Jesus is a gift we cannot have apart from a work upon us by the Trinity. 

Finally, we have the Twelve and they are all in.  Peter says, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God”.  They have received what the Jewish authorities and the disciples did not.  The Father by the self-revealing work of the Spirit drew them to Jesus and permitted them to come.  They know Jesus.  They know who he is.  They know that life is all about Jesus; Jesus the Holy "One" of God.  Yet, Jesus humbles them.  Indeed, humbles them.  He lets them know in no uncertain terms that not a one of them would be standing there knowing him had he not chosen them.  Moreover, he says one of them is a devil…a devil.  One who will betray him.  I can't imagine how they must have felt, standing there wondering "Is it me?...is it me?"

As we come to this the Lord’s table, let us come knowing that it is solely by the love and grace of the Father that we can come saying “all in”.  Yet, let us not come with pride because in the end even though one has been chosen, one still harbours the capacity to betray him, to deny him, to desert him.  Amen.

You Are What You Eat

Text: Gospel of John 6:51-58

Since the mass introduction of processed foods into the Western diet during the 20^th century a growing concern with eating healthy foods has arisen and the use of a popular catchphrase “You are what you eat”.  The idea is if we eat healthy foods, we will be healthy.  The phrase has been a part of the popular mindset since 1942 when a nutritionist and radio personality named Vince Lindlahr wrote a book entitled You Are What You Eat: How to Win and Keep Health with Diet.  He also developed the Catabolic Diet where you eat nothing but foods that take more calories to digest than they actually contain.  In the ‘60’s hippy era, promoters of the macrobiotic diet or “long-life” diet made ready use of the phrase.  They encouraged eating grains and local vegetables and properly chewing your food to promote long-life and prevent cancer.  Their ideas have persisted hence the arising of a lot of eat-local movements and Farmer’s Markets selling organically raised foods.  Some on the Christian side of things have begun to promote the God-diet; if God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.  They also want to push the card that spiritual health is also related to healthy eating.  If you eat the foods God has given, you will be better related to God.  I’ll withhold comment on that, but I will note that it is quite possible that the actual origin of the phrase is Christian beliefs.

Most trace its origin to the 19^th century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who is known for offering the most damning critique yet of Christian “religion”.  In his book The Essence of Christianity he says Christians have projected their own human qualities, values, and ideals onto an object that they call “God” and worship that rather than experiencing God who can be experienced with the senses.  He wasn’t too far off.  There is a huge difference between Christian “religion” and practicing the heart of Christian faith which is our participating in the divine communion of the Triune God of grace – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – by means of union with Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit.  There’s a difference between just claiming to be a Christian who believes certain dogma about Jesus and actually eating his flesh and drinking his blood – which is what’s at the heart of the difficult claim Jesus confronts us with here in John’s Gospel.   

Back to Feuerbach, in an essay entitled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism from around 1863 he wrote, “Der Mensch ist, was er ißt.”  “Man is what he eats”.  The point he was making had little to do with overall health but rather with a revolution of the poor.  He was saying that if there is going to be a general uprising or revolution by the poor against the rich, then the poor need to have a better food staple than potatoes.  Potatoes lack the necessary fats for proper development of the brain.  Hence, due to this food staple the poor will lack the intelligence to wage a revolution.  He wrote that, of course, less than fifteen years after the infamous potato famines in Ireland and Scotland.  He said beans would be a superior alternative.  Either staple the poor don’t have much of a choice.  It’s either an underdeveloped brain or chronic flatulence?

Prior to Feuerbach, the historical roots of this phrase and the idea that there is a correlation between what we eat and our overall way of being may lie in the Roman Catholic church’s doctrine of transubstantiation; that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper actually change in substance from bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus so that one literally eats the body and blood of Jesus to the effect of becoming one body with him.  Part of the prayer many churches read today during Holy Communion reflects this belief:

“We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.”

Roman Catholics rightly want to stress the crucial importance of partaking of the Lord’s Supper and our spiritual health and growth in Christ.  In short, we become , whom we eat.  Our tradition, the Reformed Tradition, tends to avoid getting bogged down in the question of how we receive Christ Jesus through participation in this meal and rather rightly focuses on the question of who it is we are receiving with this meal: Jesus Christ the incarnate Son of God and Saviour of the world.  In some mysterious way we are partaking of Jesus’ life and are being nurtured by grace for faith.  We believe that it is not so important how it is we partake of him in the Supper for no one can answer that.  Rather, it is that we are nourished by means of a spiritual/relational union with him that changes us, transforms us, heals us each to be more as he is.  It is not that the bread and wine are transformed, rather it is that we are transformed.

It is our belief that Jesus was referring to the totality of our relationship with him and the Father in and through the Holy Spirit and not just the literalities of a sacramental meal when he said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”  We are what we eat and here eating means more than just the celebration of the meal of Holy Communion.  The act of eating is what goes into maintaining our living and life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ which involves contemplation of him, talking with him, breathing him, following him, studying him, and obeying his command to love as he loved us.  Either we are eating Christ which means experiencing him and being transformed by him by the working of the Holy Spirit or we are eating something else and are rather perishing.

Back to Feuerbach, taking seriously his critique of Christian “religion” in which we more or less project ourselves onto God and in essence create a god in our own human image to worship and serve, a god we use to gird up and protect the social institutions we hold near and dear, a god we use to ensure morality among people, a god whose chief purpose is to judge between good and evil.  If that is the god we worship and serve, then we are just like it.  We use the name of god coercively to protect social institutions that we claim are instituted by it.  We substitute simply being good people for spiritual discipline and obedience to Christ.  And, we judge rather than truly love our neighbours and ourselves.  Instead of bearing the cross, we bear the gavel.  So much of Christianity in our culture is nothing more than the religion eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil rather than the fruit of the Tree of Life.  When it comes to the matter of faith, the matter of our relationship to whatever it is we call god, we are what we eat.  Therefore, we must honestly ask ourselves what are we eating?  Dead idols foster death.  Are we truly eating Christ Jesus in a living spiritual communion with him which we experience by means of the work of the Holy Spirit and truly taking up the cross as our way of life in this world or are we simply clinging to blind faith and the beliefs and practises of a dying religious institution?  Amen.