Pentecost+14/Proper 16B (Joshua 24:1-2a,14-18; Psalm 34:15-22; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69)8/26/2018 Humans are animal species. We are creatures with a finite lifespan. We like any other animals need protection and food. We eat, sleep, rest, and procreate. We often forget this fact that we are animals for various reasons. I would say the development of technology or medicine might trick us to believe that we are somehow very different from other animal species. Yet, how advanced our technology or medicine may develop, our human nature first as part of animal species does not change. Natural disasters, for example, might remind us we are not gods but animals, creatures whose power is quite limited, who cannot stop raining or flooding. Especially during this time in our town, we see our limitedless, helplessness, and powerlessness more than ever. We can try to protect ourselves yet we become quite vulnerable when unstoppable natural disasters, perhaps a stronger one like an earthquake happen.
On the other hand, we are not just an animal species. There is something that distinguishes us from other animals, which is language. We are linguistic animals. We speak. We express ourselves with words and bodily gestures. We communicate with one another through the use of language. This is the most unique characteristic thing about being human. God’s punishment to the idolatry of the Babel tower was to set one another apart by taking the one common language away from them. No same words were there. Which means there was no communication among people. This importance of language or this distinct nature of humans which differentiates us from other animal species might be so deeply embedded in our common vocabularies. Biology, sociology, physiology, or theology all have the suffix ‘-logy.’ It comes from Ancient Greek ‘logia,’ meaning speech, talk, or words. So theology in its literal sense is simply ‘God-talk.’ What about our liturgical language that we speak in worship? After each lesson is proclaimed, the lector says, “The Word of the Lord” or sometimes “Hear what the Spirit says to the Church.” Words are everywhere, and for us Christians words we hear in worship are not just words but the Word of God. Or it is at least used as a means that God uses in order to communicate to us. And most importantly, we Christians are the ones who confess our faith in the Word that became flesh. The Word of God became human, incarnate, flesh just like us. Jesus is the Word of God in whom we put our trust. In a way, God became an animal, the Word became human in the person of Jesus. (this idea is originally borrowed from Herbert McCabe’s saying, “God is an animal-more exactly, the Word made flesh.”) Let us not be confused in our belief in Jesus Christ the Word of God with that of a fundamentalist or a biblicist. Of course, we believe that the Hebrew Scriptures and Christians Scriptures, Old and New Testaments are to be the Word of God. But this doesn’t mean that we believe in the Bible. We believe in Jesus who is the human embodiment of God’s Word. And because of Jesus, the Bible can be considered the Word of God in a secondary manner because for us Christians we believe that the entire Bible points to Jesus. When it ceases to do that very work, if we treat it as the Answer Book for all the problems, for example, it loses what’s most essential and crucial to our faith in Jesus the Word of God. In short, we would all agree that words matter. One does not have to be a linguist to recognize this. We all speak everyday. We talk. We communicate with words. We at least use one language. We express our feelings and thoughts with words. What we say matters to us. And how we say also matters to us. What Jesus says and how he says in today’s gospel lesson trouble lots of people around him. Let’s not forget that these people who are troubled by Jesus’ saying are not the religious authorities who already dislike him very much. These people are his followers and close disciples. This is the group of people Jesus offends with his words. So we can imagine that what and how Jesus says must be provocative or even upsetting. So what does he say? What are his provocative words? I’m not sure if you have noticed that for the past three Sundays and including today we’ve been sort of stuck in John 6. So here are some keywords that particularly frustrate his followers; “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This 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.” So there are three times in John 6 that his followers get offended by Jesus’ saying. First, they raise a question, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” It’s about where he’s from, which can determine who he is. They don’t believe that Jesus is from heaven. They even know his mom and dad. Second, they complain and ask, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” This question, I think, is not really a question but their sarcastic response to Jesus’ saying. Obviously Jesus will die if he gives his flesh to others. And the last time Jesus offends his close disciples, they are puzzled and say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” To make it simple, what in the world is Jesus teaching us? No one can accept nonsense. The result of Jesus’ saying in John 6 is that many people leave him. He turns them away by revealing his identity as the bread of life from heaven, his sacrificial compassion to give his life for the sake of the world, and his strong urge to his disciples to believe in him. Now, what is more striking to our generation would be that Jesus’ words do not seem to trouble or offend us any more. It’s not because we all believe this. Rather, it doesn’t offend us because we don’t really care enough to bother us. We might be too used to his words that we might not actually believe his words or take his words seriously. Do we believe his words? Do we believe in Jesus as the living bread from heaven? Do we believe that in the Eucharist he sacramentally gives us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink, which he has done through his death and resurrection? Do we even reflect enough to find his teaching difficult to the extent we cannot accept it? I ask all these questions because I find myself not being so offended or troubled by his words. I am more like I know all that. How arrogant my attitude is! My friends, Jesus’ words must trouble us. His words must awaken us. Not because Jesus is asking us to believe something that doesn’t make sense to us. His words are difficult because Jesus calls us to become part of who he is, that we no longer belong to this world but to the kingdom of heaven through baptism, that in eating his flesh and drinking his blood, we give our flesh and blood as his flesh and blood, and lastly that in the words of Jesus the Word of God we do the work of love that the world finds difficult to accept. Jesus tells his disciples whose hearts are shaken and offended, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” The words Jesus has spoken is the Spirit that gives life to those who hear and believe. His words through the work of the Holy Spirit give life to those who put their trust in Jesus the Word of God. Believe it or not, all of you here have come to Jesus because it is granted by the Father as Jesus says in today’s gospel lesson. I would like you to listen to what Jesus is saying to you at this moment. What words is he speaking to you? I’m not asking you to go back to today’s gospel lesson and repeat to yourself his words there. I’m prayerfully asking you to listen carefully to the words of Jesus that are so intimate, personal, and loving. What does Jesus call you to be and do in your life with others at home, here at St Agnes’, or in your local community, or at your workplace? We might have different, unique, and personal words that Jesus tells us. But one thing that is common to all of us which Jesus tells this morning is that we are called to be his words. We are called to embody his words that bring life to those who are suffering. This does not mean that we are called to preach or talk at people. Maya Angelou, an American author, actress, screenwriter, dancer, poet and civil rights activist, gives us a hint on how we can be the words of Jesus. She says, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” How we make people feel, that they feel loved by God, that’s the words of the faithful followers of Jesus who is the love language of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. P.Yn. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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