These are thick readings we have today
A lot to chew on
In the reading from Joshua
It is CHOOSING
“Choose this day whom you will serve”
And then that famous line
As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord
[…Joshua’s next few lines…]
And then in Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians
At the end…It is a kind of recap
We hear some hefty military imagery
Which is understandable as Paul is a guest of the Roman prison system.
But paying careful attention
We can notice that the image is static…calmly defensive.
Therefore
Take up the whole armor of God
So that you may be able to stand firm
fasten the belt of truth
Put on the breastplate of righteousness
As shoes for your feet
Put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.
And for the Gospel
We have been reading from Chapter 6 of John for 5 weeks
We have been hearing A LOT about bread and life
actually more about LIFE
In John’s gospel LIFE
Is being in relationship with Jesus…the one who comes from God and returns to God
And who invites us into that shared life.
From the first reading we get the idea of Choice/Choosing
and from Ephesians it is Peace, proclaiming the Gospel of Peace
And in the Gospel
Let’s paint a picture
the crowds that have been following Jesus
Signs and wonders have kept them close by
But the closer they get to Jerusalem
The harder the teaching
I can see the back of the crowd
Its getting thinner
People are beginning to do the “I wanna get of here” shuffle
Many of the disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.
And then the question to Simon Peter
Do you also wish to go?
“Lord, to whom can we go?
You have the words of everlasting life.
We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
The next lines
(which we didn’t read but which give important context and contrast to this passage)
are about Judas for whom the teaching is just too much
Judas’ betrayal in John’s gospel is not about handing him over…
Jesus hands himself over in John’s Gospel
For John
Betrayal is walking away
Not staying in relationship
Not believing
This believing or not believing…isn’t about cognitive ascent.
Peter doesn’t do that
Peter rests in a relationship that he has come to trust
Even though his understanding is limited
SO
We have these two characters
Peter and Judas
One staying
One walking away
This past week
Rob and I were watching a couple episodes of
Season Four of The Chosen.
Do you remember, in the sermon on the mount
Jesus says:
“If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile,
Carry it two miles.”
This becomes an actual scene in the series
Jesus and his disciples are walking down a dusty road
All of them carrying a portion of their nomad-life essentials
When a cohort of Roman soldiers
Pulls up alongside them
Acting in full-on bully mode
They make the Jesus-group drop their belongings and pick up the soldiers’ equipment.
Mockingly, the soldiers put their heavy helmuts on the disciples, including the women,
And there is all the predictable laughter and jeering.
This is the law
Romans like their laws .
The road is marked with stone mile markers.
When the requisite distance is reached, the soldiers begin to take back their belongings…
But Jesus keeps walking
his disciples follow His lead
And they quietly, without discussion, carry the burdens another mile
This completely baffles the Romans
And slowly
Time seems to be in slow motion
The soldiers begin to take back some of the burden
Nobody is jeering
Confused and questioning faces appear on the screen
They simply don’t know how to understand this…
I tell you about this scene
Because the camera focuses in on both Peter and Judas from time to time
Judas, has been struggling
and he just kind of scrunches his face and shakes his head
He is trying
Really trying
But he is beginning to get angry
Peter, on the other hand, while not understanding fully, he is untroubled.
This scene stuck with me
As a kind of image of belief
that I can hold on to
For me, it offers Both a WHO and a WHAT
That I trust that I believe in
Karoline Lewis
a Lutheran scholar of the Gospel of John
is quick to say that the hard teaching referred to in todays tet
is not only the Bread of Life discourse
but everything that has come before
This tough teaching is all of it.
This worship service
Is full of statements of belief
Maybe, like me, you have wrestled with most them over the years
often believing, like Peter, more with trust than with full understanding
I’m not sure full understanding is necessary, or even possible
For Jesus in John’s Gospel
The criteria for discipleship
Seems to be a continual
“Coming to believe”
Staying in relationship with Jesus whose life comes from the Father
And who bids us to join in that love.
Staying in relationship…might sound easy
But we know better…
It demands our prayer, our eagerness
our attention…
In that scene in the Chosen
The disciples, following Jesus’ lead to walk another mile
Were doing the work of “staying in the relationship”
And something changed…in the disciples and in the soldiers…something changed
And it had everything to do with proclaiming the Gospel of Peace.
I found myself thinking of our NH Food Pantry this week
Many of you know that Ken (and Rose) are retiring from their years of good work
leading the NH Food Pantry.
For someone, for a few someone’s, maybe for you, maybe for me
This is that next ‘Coming to Believe’ move
What does it mean, today…
To “stay in relationship”
To “proclaim the Gospel of Peace”???
