What Does Kanye, Madonna and Jesus Have In Common? Aug 26, 2018 Sermon on John 6:56-69

Rev. George Miller
Sept 26, 2018
John 6:56-69

During the summer we have experienced a series of people whose careers have imploded over a single tweet, or public statement, or something they wrote in the past.

We witnessed a TV comedy queen lose her kingdom over a misogynistic and racist post on her Twitter account.

An iconoclastic rapper abolished his fan base with a statement that both shamed them and nullified 400 years of history.

A movie director loses his role in the next installment of his multi-billion dollar science fiction franchise.

Then on Monday, the music world watched in utter shock as Madonna gave a tone-deaf tribute to Aretha Franklin by appropriating African garb and speaking more about herself than about the Queen of Soul.

Madonna, like Cher and cockroaches, will withstand the fall-out but the other 3 personalities probably will not.

With today’s reading, we can add Jesus to the list of public figures who had a moment in which his message nearly destroyed his career and reputation.

Some background- chapter 6 begins with Jesus doing amazing things. After healing a multitude of sick people, Jesus has a crowd of 5,000 folk following him around.

He goes up the mountain where he proceeds to teach and to feed the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish.

After that miracle takes place, Jesus walks on water, amazing the masses even more.

Folk are so eager to seek him out and things are going great for Jesus and his ministry…but then he opened up his mouth, goes into an overlong and very complex sermon that not only confuses the crowd, but outright angers them.

First, Jesus challenges their ancient faith. He reminds them it was not Moses who gave the Israelites bread in the wilderness, but it was God.

Jesus then goes on to state that he is the bread, and that he has come down from heaven, and that God is his father.

These statements alone upset the congregation. What insolence to disrespect Moses! What audacity to claim you came down from heaven!

Jesus should have stopped there at the first sign that the crowd was unhappy with him, but he continues.

He tells them to stop their whining. He tells them that he will raise them up at the end of days. He tells them that the bread their ancestors ate was not good enough.

Then as final insult, he makes the claim that unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood, you cannot experience eternal life.

Let us pause here for a moment….

We may have 2,000 years of learning, history, and writing ahead of us to try an understand what Jesus was saying, but this crowd is hearing these claims for the very first time.

They have no basis on which to understand what he is saying, no precedent on which to respond.

Not to mention, many of them are Torah observing, kosher Jews, in which the thought of drinking any kind of blood goes against their faith.

And the idea of consuming human flesh? Unholy. Unclean. A complete abomination and insult to the Lord.

So when Jesus concluded his sermon by telling the multitudes that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, well- they had no other choice but to turn around, walk away, and stop following Jesus all together.

In the beginning of chapter 6, when Jesus is doing signs and miracles and feeding the people, he has 5,000 followers. By the end of his sermon he has just 12, and one of them is going to betray him.

It is a wonder that Jesus’ ministry survived. It is amazing that Christianity exists. It is astounding that we are even here.

Like Madonna, Roseanne Barr and Kanye West, Jesus says something so outrageous he is immediately lambasted and publicly scorned.

So, what do we do with today’s reading? What is there to say about such a confusing scripture that even today scholars and church leaders cannot agree about what Jesus was saying?

One way is to embrace the unembraceable. Another is to mystically welcome the mystery.

Do we think that when Jesus talked about consuming his flesh and imbibing on his blood that he was talking literally, that we must feast upon him as a cannibal would?

Or do we think that Jesus was talking metaphorically? That he was using strong, provocative symbols to prod us into thinking and wondering how we can become a part of Jesus and Jesus becomes a part of us?

Was Jesus teaching a fact, something that is concrete, like 2 plus 2 equals 4? Or was he teaching more of a truth, something that exists within the abstract, like being knee high to a grasshopper or that it’s been raining cats and dogs?

Was Jesus teaching dogma and liturgy, pointing his listeners towards the Last Supper and what happens when we share the sacred elements?

If so, how can anyone expect to understand what Communion is if it will be weeks, months, even years before Jesus is crucified, resurrected and the Christian Church begins?

Were the crowds of 5,000 living 2,000 years ago in the middle-east supposed to hear his words and think “Oh yes, he’s talking about what Emmanuel UCC does the 1st Sunday of every month in Sebring, Florida!”

Or was Jesus using his words and intense imagery to talk about a lifestyle, a way of being in which every aspect of our life is touched by our relationship with Jesus, in which you are wholly present to God, and the Lord is wholly present to you?

Just how are we supposed to take this scandalous sermon of Jesus? As a metaphor or literally? As a poetic truth or scientific fact? As a way to live or the proper way to worship?

No one can fully say with 100% certainty, and in many ways, that is a good, good thing.

What we have here is a shining example of Wisdom at work and what it means to walk with and to wrestle with the Lord.

Sometimes that walk is pleasant, like when we sit with Jesus upon the grass and he reminds us that we are blessed.

Sometimes that walk is healing, as he takes care of our most basic needs, answers our prayers, and restores our health.

Sometimes that walk is uncomfortable, like when Jesus asks us to forgive 70 X 7 times or he calls us out on our own transgressions.

Sometimes that walk can infuriate us, just as today’s sermon angered the 5,000.

The challenge for us is that we continue to walk with Jesus, even when things do not seem easy, even when the lessons seem hard to learn, even when Jesus makes us angry.

If you have come here today wanting to hear a clear cut description of just what Jesus meant or what his words say, there is no answer that can be faithfully given.

But instead what can be shared is that we each have our very own unique and personal experience with the Lord. It is a relationship that will never be quite the same for each person.

Because of this, no one can truly be told what to think, what to believe, or how to act.

But instead, like last week’s reading from Proverbs 9, what we have is the gifts of Wisdom and the opportunity to listen and to read and to hear and to learn for ourselves.

When it comes to our continuing growth and understanding of the Christian experience and what it means to proclaim Jesus Christ as the Son, the Crucified, and the Resurrected, it means to continue wrestling, continuing to be guided by wonder, to be guided by wisdom, and to be guided by compassion.

It also means to be Ok with not always knowing and with not always understanding.

In closing, there is perhaps some insight that can be applied to today’s reading.

Author and church pastor Warren Wiersbe puts a unique spin upon what Jesus could have meant about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Have you ever walked into a library or a bookstore and been in such awe and overwhelmed by so many books?

You look around wondering just how can so much knowledge exist?

Then a book calls out to you.

You take it down from the shelf.

You bring it home.

You read it. You consume it.

By the last page you close that book, feeling content, feeling you have just experienced something.

And now that book is inside of you. It’s a part of you. It is forever with you.

Perhaps what Jesus was metaphorically saying to the people back then, and to us today is that to be nourished by Jesus is to welcome his Word, to welcome his wisdom, to welcome his teachings and his ways, and to allow them to become a part of us also.

If so, then we can end today’s message by saying that Jesus Christ is the Living Savior, always present, always waiting to be discovered, always there to be debated, to be discussed, to be absorbed into our very being.

And the more present we are to Christ, the more present heaven and eternal life will be to us.

For that we can say “Amen.”