To What End Our Religion?
A number of people often wonder why
sometimes the lectionary seems to repeat itself. The Gospel of Matthew contains some 28
chapters, Mark 16, Luke 24, and the Gospel of John has 21. With such a plethora of material it seems
strange that the lectionary would sometimes pull from the same basic set of
events one week after another. Well,
there is a reason for this and that reason is they aren’t really repeats. Each gospel has its own story to tell. Jesus’ life was seen as so big, so
incredible, that people believed that one account would simply not do Him
Justice. While many accounts of Jesus’
life were written at various times and for various reasons, the early church
very quickly came to recognize four that clearly stood above the rest – each
with a slightly different view. So while
it may look to us that our lesson today is simply the same story that Craig
related to us last week the reality is each gospel is told for different
reasons and paints a slightly different picture.
Last
week we read from the gospel of Mark, a gospel very likely written to Gentile
Christians during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
In the midst of that reality, faced with the power of the unstoppable Roman
war machine Mark uses his story of the loaves and fishes to remind his audience
of the power of compassion. Sieges, after
all, often meant people would go hungry as food would be rationed or indeed
used up by your soldiers, but whereas War brought hunger and death, the power
of this Jesus, the power of compassion, brought food and life. Yes, whereas Rome conquered human bodies, this
Jesus conquered the human heart. That is
Mark’s story to tell, but it is not John’s story.
No,
whereas Mark was writing to Gentile Christians John seems to have written his
gospel to the Greek-speaking Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire. Though Mark wrote his gospel to encourage people
who were already believers in Christ, John explicitly tells his audience that his
book is written that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God, and that by believing they would have life in his name. It is not that Jesus is less compassionate in
John’s gospel, no not at all! But rather
the story that John tells uses the same facts about Jesus but for a radically different
people. And it follows that if John
wants to write his gospel so his Jewish audience will come to believe in their
Messiah, it is also only natural to want to highlight what that belief looks
like.
In our
gospel reading for today, John has Jesus on the far side of the Sea of Galilee
and a great crowd of people are following him.
However, unlike the other Gospels John makes sure to tell his audience
why. They are there because they saw the
miracles that Jesus performed on the sick.
They are not there because of faith, they are not there to learn
anything profound, they aren’t even there to have the sick among their number
healed. Jesus had become a TV show, a
spectacle to watch if you could make the time, not unlike the circus. Still, despite this Jesus decides to work
with it. He sits down upon the
mountainside and sees this great throng of people coming toward him, waiting
expectantly for a miracle.
Knowing
what they are there for, Jesus decides to take this as an opportunity to reveal
himself. He turns to Phillip and says, “Where
can we get bread for all these people,” knowing very well what he is going to
do. Phillip, of course, looks upon the
crowds and declares that six months of a man’s wages could not by enough bread
for each one to have a bite. Another of
Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, however, responds in faith. Wishing to find any small way to respond to
his master’s wishes, he comes forward saying that he has found a boy who has
some small barley loaves and a small amount of fish. “But,” he says, “how far will they go amongst
so many?”
Jesus tells
the disciples to have the crowds sit upon the grass and to let them take as
much food as they want. In a miracle both
reminiscent of Elisha and the man from Baal-shalishah where God declared the
crowd would eat and have some left but also reminiscent of the Exodus - where
the Israelites followed God into the wilderness and were fed by God with the
bread from heaven - both the crowds and the disciples find that they can have
as much bread and fish as they please from this boy’s small basket and it just
doesn’t ever seem to run out! Just as
the Israelites did in the wilderness so long ago, Jesus has his disciples
gather what is left, wanting nothing to be wasted. When the disciples had finished, the meal
that fit into one basket had grown to fill twelve! One basket for every tribe in Israel, as it
turned out. Twelve baskets filled to the
very brim.
To us, living in our scientific day
and age, this tale is seen merely as an interesting yarn of how the laws of nature
were somehow broken but to John’s audience it was an act steeped in meaning and
rooted in the very history of the Jewish people. But how does the crowd respond? Is it in faith? Is it in gratitude and wonder? No, despite not once in its own revered
Scriptures was anyone but God ever described as having these powers, Despite
that Moses never fed the Israelites miraculously with bread, despite that Elisha
couldn’t make the food never run out, and despite the fact John the Baptist
came mimicking Elijah down to his clothing and even his diet, the crowds
proclaim that here in Jesus is the Prophet
that was to come into the world. No
doubt deeply disappointed and saddened by this, Jesus senses that the crowd is even
coming to make him king by force and so he retreats up the mountain- alone.
But John doesn’t end his tale there. Later that evening, John says, the disciples go
down to the lake and set off for the city of Capernaum. John recounts that it was dark, and that Jesus
had not yet rejoined them. As was common
for sea-going travel in that part of the world, a strong wind arose and the
waters became very rough. Being poor
fishermen, however, it would be very unlikely that they could afford a boat
meant to take the kind of weather the sea was about to throw at them. Indeed, as the story says, three and half
miles from shore they would be too far to swim to safety if the worst should
happen. The disciples must have been on
nerves end and scared almost witless. It
is then, however, that they see Jesus coming toward them walking on the waters
of all things! Already frightened I
could only imagine how they felt upon seeing this. Indeed, as other gospel writers recall the disciples
believed he must have been a ghost! In
the midst of those uncertain waters though, here Jesus does something very
curious. Here, in the midst of their
grave need Jesus takes the opportunity to reveal himself again. Now, our English translations often have
Jesus saying, “It is I, do not be afraid” but that isn’t quite true. Jesus doesn’t say “It is I, do not be
afraid,” he says, “Ego Eimi, may phobeisthe”- “I am, do not be
afraid.” Uttering the name Yahweh, the
personal name given to Israel through the burning bush, Jesus reveals his true
nature to them. It is here we come to
John’s true point. Whereas the crowds
were shown Jesus’ true nature but disregarded it for an earthly political
figure, the disciples are told straight out, and they accept him willingly just
as he is. And upon his acceptance into
their number, they find the boat miraculously ashore at their intended
destination, safe and sound. One
instance of revealing and crowds misunderstand and reject, and God Incarnate
withdraws, leaving the crowds still wandering in the wilderness, the other with
acceptance and gratitude followed by miraculous salvation and rescue.
In the
ancient world, you see, they didn’t have Microsoft Word, they didn’t have
printing presses or even whiteout. To
make a book was a monumental expense in terms of money, effort and time. As such, what came out of that process wasn’t
just a book and it wasn’t just a story.
It was a craft, a work of art as well as history that was written
because there was an important lesson that needed to be taught. When John wrote to his fellow Jews it was not
merely to impart a story they could find in another gospel, he is not throwing
out an interesting anecdote to fill up space until he reaches the resurrection,
rather he is deeply challenging his audience to analyze the very motives of their
Jewishness. He is asking his fellow
Israelites “To what end is our religion?”
Is our beloved national identity, is our way of life, our understanding
of God and the universe, is it about seeking an authentic relationship with the
God who still walks among us or is this just a selfish means to a selfish
end? Do we go about doing our religion,
do we quote from our Scriptures, show up at our places of worship because we
seek a real encounter with God in the wilderness of our lives, or are we just sort
of here for the show and hoping to get fed?
Do we seek the King because he is there to be sought, there to be with
us in our darkest night and our roughest seas, or is even He just there so we
can get what we want, a king that we make by force to replace the things, the
beliefs, and the people that we don’t like?
These are the challenges John is placing before his audience, and they
are as valid for the faithful now as they were two thousand years ago.
So the question must be asked, not
only of us personally but as an American Church: To what end is our
religion? What are our motives, why do
we as American Christians go about this business of faith? Is it to be entertained? Is it something to do when we have a day
off? When we argue our faith over
against another, when we quote our Scriptures and invoke our God, is it for the
other person’s benefit - or is it forcing the kind of Jesus we want to be king
over their lives?
Ladies and gentlemen let it not be
so! I have been an American Christian
for some 38 years and I am sorry to say that the most selfish and manipulative
people I have met have never been atheists, and that is to our shame as a
nation. But is it not to our shame as a
congregation. Like the disciples, when
we saw the public’s reactions to the gospel of forgiveness, an attempt to take
the truth of God’s love and twist it into something it wasn’t, we left. We looked out at those lonely waters and we
struck it out on our own knowing fully the dangers those waters posed. We went anyways. When those waters got rough, when we were
scared trying to keep the waves from crashing in and swamping what we meagerly
had, we saw Jesus out on the waves and we invited him in just as he was, and those
storms came and went didn’t they?
I am not telling you this lesson
because you need to learn it, you already know it well! No, I am telling this
lesson because this is the lesson that disciples teach to others. Just as John understood this lesson nearly
two millennia ago and was empowered to challenge his fellow Hebrews so it is
our job to learn this lesson well so we might challenge the faithful of our own
era. And let this be our message: Accept
the real Jesus. Not the Jesus that is to
your liking, not the Church that puts on the best show, not the Christianity
that lets you force your understandings onto others. The real Jesus. The Jesus who invites us to know Him and His
Father in every act that they do. The
Jesus who affirms others as a good people with an honorable history worthy to
be called the children of God. The Jesus
who would rather withdraw than let us make a mistake and the Jesus who comes
off of mountaintops and across stormy seas to be with his own when they need Him
most. That is the Jesus of John, and may
we be ever faithful to Him. Amen and
Amen.
