Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

John 6:56-69

Humble Walk is the church that I planted and served prior to coming here. And for a number of years, Humble Walk hosted a weeklong thing in the park attached to Adams Spanish Immersion school. Think of it as a sort of a janky drop in Vacation Bible School. Except we didn’t have registration or a building and we didn’t tell bible stories, we lived them. With the emphasis on community building and feeding and eating. 

We served quite a bit of bread in the park. We called it Wild Week and every evening we’d lead a couple hours of community building games and art making with a local artist and then we gather for a meal on the lawn. There were kids, babies, grandpas, trusted adults, teenagers who were in the park playing basketball. Many didn’t even know it was Humble Walk leading. Some people just happen to be at the park and joined us.  In each conversation and meal shared, Jesus was present. Giving life and hope and connection.

One summer, a grant from Gloria Dei paid for those meals and those tie dye supplies and I can say with confidence it mattered. I know it, because when I see these kids now some ten years later, they say, “Hey, remember when we had cardboard camp night? Remember when we had a bike rodeo?” 

One of my favorite moments during Wild Week was when Noah, age two, could smell the big boxes of Rooster’s fried chicken. We were just getting it set up and needed five more minutes to wrap up the community time and to get the hand washing station set up. 

Do you think Noah cared about order? Or our agenda? Or debriefing or saying grace?

Noooo. He looked at me from the other side of the table and said, “I’m hungry.” And I chuckled and said, “I know, honey. Five more minutes.” And he said, with wrinkled brow, “But I can smell it. I’m hungry.”

We are all beggars, friends. Hungry.

Sunday after Sunday, the risen Christ comes to us as God in flesh ”hidden in the ordinary food and drink of this world. We eat and drink believing. Then believing, we see.” We see the world God is creating.

We see that if God is in this meal, then God is in all of life.

We gather every single week to share Holy Communion. We need to regularly take Jesus into our own body in order to remember. Jesus seemed to know this so maybe it’s why he went on and on for weeks about bread. This meal shapes us, feeds us, provides hope and vision and endurance. It is the story of God in ordinary bread. Today, in the form of a tortilla.

Jesus shows up in this Gospel of John and says, “It’s me! I am the bread. Cling to me. Take me in. Put your trust here. I am the story of God that will feed you. I am the bread of life.” 

I’m actually grateful this time around. Because it’s a month of manna. Of feasting. Of abundance. And if we are going to over-emphasize anything—let it be abundance. And man, we’ve had abundance in the sweetness and grace of worship, in handmade bread, conversations around the coffee tables, sticky notes.

All of this repetition has me thinking about our typical approach to bible stories.

You know how you hear or read a story in the Bible and you have to be convinced that it’s good news? That’s the usual stance. Because it sounds harsh or you go to some interpretation of the story you heard when you were 10 or 20. Or because it’s just hard to believe it that there’s no downside or catch or yes, but…

If the Gospel is the Good News of Jesus Christ, then there is no yes, but… There is no catch. God is love. And in God there is no darkness. God is the kind of love that drives out division and hatred. The kind that loves the betrayer and the betrayed.

We tend to say we believe that. God is love. That’s baseline Christianity.

But then we start reading the bible and we have to be convinced of that love in every story

For example, this week’s Gospel in John had Jesus finishing up the Bread of Life series. And we hear Jesus say to his dwindling disciples—remember this whole series begins with the feeding of the thousands—and now he is down to a few in the synagogue. We started with a music festival crowd of humanity, with a State Fair crowd on opening day—a giant, gorgeous everyone everyone everyone crowd. And as the teaching continued—people dropped like flies. Until today—when we find Jesus wrapping things up with a handful of church leaders.

And halfway through today’s Gospel, a whole group of disciples were like, “Ugh. Too far, Jesus. We are out.” And they turned around and left. 

You know what pushed them over the edge? Jesus said,  “I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.” 

I get it. That sounds super selective to our ears. My body tightens when I hear it. Except, God the Father is all love. Perfect love. (Back to baseline Christianity). And the story from the beginning has been God in Jesus casting the invitations far and wide to the whole world.

Like a farmer, throwing lavish seeds not only in the well-producing soil, but on the rocks and in the dry places where it seems like a frivolous waste because what good can come from that? Except God the Inviter goes far and wide with the invite. Ridiculously so. So much so that if we were in charge, we would ask God to reign it in a bit, save a bit of seed for next year. Thankfully, we are not God. Because God just keeps spreading arms wide open with those invitations.

So when we hear Jesus say no one comes to me except through the Father, why do we automatically think it’s a narrow way? For only a few?

And. Even though we love to feel included, even we have our limits. 

What about Judas? Judas is our deal breaker, isn’t he? Our barometer of just how wide that invite might be. Why on earth mention Judas in this story? 

Did you catch the reference? “For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe and who was the one that would betray him.” That’s Judas. So now, all of sudden Judas is wrapped into this Bread of Life series. 

If we were writing the story—of God being revealed in the world through Jesus Christ—I’m not sure we would mention Judas. Our self interest in wanting to seem like winners in our monthly report to the powers that be—our self interest in wanting to a part of a winning project or a winning team means Judas would be left out. In the editing process, we’d circle back and politely say, “Maybe don’t mention him.” Judas’s failure at following Jesus was colossal. His level of betrayal was impressive. 

My friend said that the biggest, most heated discussion he ever got into with his mom was about Judas. His devout, faithful, bible loving mom just could not fathom that Judas might not be cast out of God’s glorious Kingdom. Because rules is rules. And how terrifying it is to entertain the idea that our rules might not apply to Jesus. 

Thankfully, we are not the writers of the story. 

Make no mistake. Judas is mentioned in this Gospel story today because Judas is included in the story. Even Judas. I know it might be terrifying (at first) to imagine God’s mercy being wide enough for this ultimate betrayer. 

We might prefer that he’s not. Because rules is rules and Judas is out. Which makes Judas a convenient scapegoat for all of us. Because then we can focus all our attention on deciding who is bad enough to be in camp Judas and who is good enough to be in camp Jesus. Doesn’t all of that measuring of people feel exhausting though?

Instead. Let’s go back to this being all good news. All love. That’s the beginning and ultimately, will be our ending. 

God’s mercy is wide. 

It does not depend on the rules of the people. 

It does not depend on the action of the people.

It does not depend on the faith of the people. 

Which means there is room for all our mistakes and betrayals and waywardness. There is room for our half hearted attempts at following and for the moments when we tap out because it’s too hard. 

Jesus has given us five bread filled weeks to hear over and over that the only qualification to the bread of life, to this meal of abundance and mercy… is hunger. 

The only qualification is hunger. 2 year old Noah had it right and leads us into Gospel truth. 

Come to me all who are hungry and I will give you the bread of life. Not once but over and over and over again. Eat as much as you need. 

At the end of the Gospel, we find one lone voice. After the crowds have gone on their way, and after many left because the teaching of Jesus is hard or because the world is hard or because their lives are hard. We find Simon Peter still in the room. Who reminds us all that after all the options have been explored, we are left with Simon Peter’s words, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” And if you have been around Lutheran liturgy a bit, you know what comes next. You are gonna want to say a hearty Alleluia. Alleluia. So I’m going to quote Simon Peter one more time and you come with the Alleluias.

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia. Alleluia.