13th Sunday after Pentecost

Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 34:9-14; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58 

John 6:51-58

[Jesus said,] ⁵¹“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
 ⁵²The Judeans then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” ⁵³So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son-of-Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

. . .

Jesus is Joy

Grace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Bible study was back this week. Normally, we would be back after Labor Day. Nonetheless, it seemed our group was hungry for some spiritual nourishment. 

We meet weekly to do a variation of lectio divina, Latin for the Devine lesson. We begin with the prayer of the day for the coming Sunday. We invite the Holy Spirit to inspire our thoughts. We read from the texts, also from the coming Sunday, and the participants are invited to share the question: what did you hear? We somewhat take notes of those thoughts, and that guides our conversations. 

It should not surprise you that our group was a little uneasy, picturing Jesus telling his audience to eat his flesh and eat his blood to receive everlasting life. It does sound like a scene from a horror movie. It certainly bothered the listeners of Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse. The teachings of the Torah in the Old Testament forbade eating the bloody, raw flesh of animals. Imagine then hearing about eating the flesh of human beings.  What does this guy from Nazareth mean by eating his flesh and drinking his blood? Cannibalism was somewhat frowned upon at that time. Rumors about the early Christians once raised suspicions that they sacrificed babies to eat their flesh. 

It’s preposterous, right? However, it would make sense if they don’t know what they are talking about. 

It is very likely that early Christians already used the prologue of the Gospel of John for worship. Much like us today, when they celebrated the birth of our Messiah, they would recite or sing that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5,14). 

Celebrate, they did. Like us today, Jesus, born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, was the hope of restoration for the Joy of the beginning (Proverbs 8:22-31).

I had a friend who once taught me about what she learned growing up in her church, about the joy that only Jesus can bring. She had learned that J.O.Y. among believers is possible if we put Jesus first, then others, then ourselves. If our faith leads to practice that kind of J.O.Y. – Jesus, others, then ourselves –  maybe the joy from the beginning can be restored.

Jesus then becomes the hope that the peace with justice and love that God still wishes for all peoples. The life abundant that Jesus promised where every child of God is free to live, love, and laugh. 

This kind of J.O.Y. is joyful for God and for us. It is joyful to restore what is broken or find what is lost. It is joyful to bind together once-shattered relationships. It is joyful to offer and receive grace with kind hearts. It is joyful to extend hospitality to the stranger who was also deemed very good by God and belongs to God’s kingdom. It is joyful when those who went away return home. 

Faith in Jesus Christ, acknowledgment of what he did and still can do for us, and practice of his teachings are sufficient. His body and his blood are sufficient. Jesus is sufficient to find this joy. Jesus is sufficient because all the Wisdom, love, and grace of God were incarnated in him to nourish our hope. He became our most precious thing and allowed himself to be sacrificed. He left the tomb empty to prove that evil and death had no power over him. Faith in that is sufficient for joy. 

It is OK to come, eat, drink, and participate in this celebratory feast of what Christ alone accomplishes for us so the joy of our only Lord may be complete. Thanks be to God. Amen.