Proper 16 -- I
Kings 8: 22–30, 41-43; Psalm 34: 15-22; Ephesians
6: 10-20; John 6: 56-69
This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at St. John’s Church, in Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania on Sunday, August 23, 2015.
“OUR ADVANTAGE
IN BELIEVING AND KNOWING”
(Homily text:
John 6: 56-69)
Let’s consider the advantage that
we, as Christians who live after the Lord’s resurrection, have over those
original witnesses to the things the Lord said and did. Specifically, this morning, let’s consider
the ways in which we come to believe in the things that Jesus did and said, and
in the ways that we have come – as a result – to know the truthfulness of
Jesus’ witness and the power He is given by God.
These two aspects, believing and
knowing, arise out of our gospel passage for this morning.
Since we have been making our way,
Sunday by Sunday over the last month, through the very lengthy and rich sixth
chapter of the Fourth Gospel, let’s take a moment to review where we have been:
The feeding of
the five thousand: The sixth chapter opens with an account of
Jesus’ feeding of a very large crowd with five barley loaves and two fish.[1]
·
“I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me
shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (Verse 35): In the wake of the feeding of the crowd, a
conversation ensues between the Lord and some in the crowd. Jesus begins a teaching discourse, seeking to
widen the understandings of those who had been fed. This “I am” statement about the “bread of
life” is but one of many such “I am” sayings which are found throughout John’s
account.
·
“…The bread which I shall give for the life of
the world is my flesh.” (Verse 51b):
In response to the Lord’s previous statement, His hearers begin to
grumble among themselves, asking how He can give them bread. After all, they say, they know His mother and
His father, so how can this man say, “I have come down from heaven,”? The Lord expands the meaning of His teaching
with the connection between “bread: and
“flesh”.
·
“Truly, truly, unless you eat the flesh of
the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you…” (Verse 53): The Lord’s teaching expands still further, and
now His statements are blunt, connecting the importance of eating and drinking.
The eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood. But the Jews of Jesus’ day often think in
strictly literal terms, and they are horrified at the literal meaning[2] of
what Jesus has said, for the Law of Moses strictly forbids contact with blood.
Their shocked response to Jesus’
comments appears in this statement: They
said, “This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” And John goes on to tell us that, from that
point on, many of the disciples[3] no
longer went with Jesus.
Jesus then turns to His inner
circle of the twelve disciples, and He asks them if they, too, also want to go
away, which prompts Peter’s wonderful response:
“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.”
Notice the two words “believe”
and “know” that flow from Peter’s lips.
These two words summarize the
journey of faith, for the original believers, for the early Christians in
John’s faith community, for Christians down through the ages, and for us. All of us begin by coming to faith in the
things that God has done in Jesus Christ.
We come to believe, in other words.
And as we come to a deeper and deeper belief, our convictions are
affirmed and solidified, so that we come to know the truths of God as they are
found in Jesus Christ.
For Christians living in the
decades after Jesus’ resurrection, and for us, there is a sense of perspective
that allows them and us to make sense of Jesus’ statement, “I am the bread of
life.” After all those early Christians
– and we ourselves – have witnessed the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and
we have come to believe and to know in the power of God made known in the
raising of Jesus from the dead on Easter Sunday morning.
In retrospect, all of what God
was doing in the sending of Jesus Christ makes sense. Perhaps all that God does makes the best
sense in retrospect, as we look back over our shoulders to see how the truths
of God made known in Christ work themselves out in people’s lives, and in our
lives.
It is much easier to face the
future, armed with a rich and reliable past, than it is to face the future with
little basis for believing and knowing.
That, of course, was the problem that Jesus’ original hearers
faced: They knew that God had fed their
ancestors with the bread of manna in the wilderness, but they were not equipped
to fully understand what God was doing in sending Jesus to be the bread of
life. They had not yet experienced the
Lord’s Supper. They had not yet seen the
risen Lord on Easter Sunday.
Those who stayed with the Lord,
not only the Twelve, but the others were remained faithful, were eventually
rewarded with the fullness of understanding and meaning that came with a
perspective that was aided by time and by the miraculous event of the
resurrection. Their faith solidified
into the certainty of knowing that Jesus’ words were true, and that He had been
sent by God to open the way to eternal life.
As we make our way forward on the
pathway of faith, may we rely on the strength of the Lord’s words and actions
as we find them in the pages of Holy Scripture, and may we be fed with the
heavenly food of the Eucharist, by which the Lord seeks to become one with us
in the communion of bread and wine. For
this is the heavenly bread that came down from heaven, bread which gives life
to the one who partakes, bread which bears us up to the throne of God until the
day when we stand before that heavenly throne in eternity.
AMEN.
[1] This miracle is recorded in all four gospel
accounts, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in addition to John’s account.
[2] For Christians living in the Roman Empire,
the literal sense of the words of the Eucharist (“This is my Body, this is my
Blood”) caused problems, for many who were outside of the Church thought that
Christians were practicing cannibalism.
Their suspicions were heightened due to the fact that Christians met
secretly, which added to the mistaken belief that awful things were taking
place during their meetings.
[3] This group refers to a larger group of
Jesus’ followers, not to the Twelve, whom John is careful to identify
differently in verse 67.
