Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Dr. Lissa Wray Beal

John 6:56-69

I come from a family of rapid woo-ing. You know, that period of time from first date to engagement? Some call it the period of courtship. I prefer the older term: an intentional time of gentle unfolding of a mutual love.

In my family, it has historically happened quickly.

My mom and dad met and were engaged within two months. I suspect (because dad was then a commercial fisherman) in response to the timeline of the fishing season. Another in my family beat that: they were engaged in 2 weeks!

So, when Steve and I started dating I guess the family thought we’d up the ante even more. After all (so they must have reasoned), at 38 you have some time to make up. Given this background, it is not surprising that after we’d been a-wooing a year (with no engagement yet!) the queries and admonitions started coming. When? Why? Hurry up!!!

You know who had a long wooing? Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. A young girl in Victorian England. Monied. Smart. Independent and proud. Beautiful. When she first met Gabriel Oak (strong of frame and character, as his name suggests) and this upstart shepherd quickly proposed, she turned him down. Flat.

She didn’t need anyone! She was sufficient to herself!

The years went by, and life pressed on many sides. Marriage became something she contemplated. There was William Boldwood, the rich, next-door-neighbour-farmer. She almost married him, though she thought him staid and a little controlling. But then Sergeant Troy came on the scene: swashbuckling, dashing in his uniform, sweet-talking. She married him. . . quickly!. . . and then lived a life of regret and thrill. For he was not only dashing, but unstable, reckless, and profligate.

Years later. Sad years later. Sergeant Troy dies tragically. Re-enter Oak. Still strong; still present; still loving. In fact, he’d been loving Bathsheba through all the long years. Helping her as he was able. Now, he was free to woo her.

And Bathsheba? She came face-to-face with a truth that had lain long undisclosed. She had always known that Oak loved her. She knew his character; who he was. And now with utter clarity she discovered that she – loved – him. That life was
not life without him.

And with that encounter with truth, she marries Oak. The man who had long wooed, and whom she now knew was life and love and happiness for her.

Bathsheba’s story reminds me of the long wooing in John 6. It is just one chapter – but a long one! And we’ve now spent 4 weeks preaching through this long chapter. I think that says something about its importance to our life as disciples of Jesus Christ!

The long chapter is mostly conversation. In fact, mostly Jesus’ words as he engages the crowds, the Jews, and the disciples—both the curious and the committed. Much of the time, Jesus is explaining who he is: Bread of Life; Bread from heaven; one with the Father in will and purpose; the one who has seen and knows the Father fully.

All this, Jesus explains with words, pictures, and actions. But like Bathsheba Everdene who didn’t understand the truthiness of Gabriel Oak’s abiding love, the people - the curious, the seeking, the committed, together with the hostile – don’t “get it.” They don’t understand who Jesus is. They don’t understand the love underlining every word he says.

And not understanding Jesus, they try to craft other Jesuses that they are more comfortable with. Jesuses that fit in with their worldview. Jesuses that let them sidestep his discomfiting declarations of relationship to God. Jesuses that make Jesus – who is fully human, fully God - over into their own image:

So, when Jesus performs the sign of feeding the crowd, with food left over, they decide that “This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world” (6:14). They reduce Jesus to his wonder-working power. They hope this one will give good words of a good future. Take away their worry. Let them live in security because they know what is coming.

But Jesus is not a prophet wonder-worker, though (like the Prophet Moses) he feeds people with heavenly manna. But unlike the Prophet Moses, Jesus’s bread is his own body; his own self come down out of heaven to feed the hungry heart.

So, they decide that one who has the power to effect miracles should therefore have the power to boot the occupying Romans out of Judah. They come to make Jesus king (6:15). But the kingship they envision is only earthly – of their own vision. It does not encompass all the world. Nor does it envision that world in the all-encompassing rule of God’s loving care. They want a king after their own making.

But Jesus is not their kind of king, although he is King of the Universe.

Then, after Jesus feeds them and they follow after him, demanding more, Jesus charges that they are only responding to further their own comfort. He says, “You are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves . . . the food that perishes.” They want a Jesus who simply attends to their physical needs: more food! More comfort! More. . . more!

But Jesus is not a cosmic slot machine to satisfy material demands.

People didn’t “get” who Jesus was. They didn’t “get” his brand of wooing for they could not understand his brand of love.

Until our passage today. It is here, that Jesus—after saying and showing his commitment; his love; his compassion; his wisdom – all the things that God is (because he is God)—it is in our reading today that Jesus makes his full declaration of love, and makes his invitation to his beloved people.

The invitation is this: “abide in me, as I abide in you.” This is an open invitation! It is also an invitation of great intimacy, calling people to a closeness they perhaps could neither imagine, nor easily welcome.

It is an intimacy that comes through an encounter: with Jesus, the Bread of life. “Whoever eats my flesh and drink my blood abides in me, and I in them.” And again, “whoever eats me will live because of me.” And again, Jesus says that “his words are life. . . his words are Spirit that gives life.”

Jesus invites us to intimacy. To an encounter. And that encounter is with Jesus the Christ, the Life – the one who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6). The one who said he would give Life, and give it abundantly (John 10:10).

Jesus invites us to Life-with-a-capital-“L.” John elsewhere says, “this is eternal life, that you may know the only true God, and Jesus whom God has sent” (John 17:3). Life that lasts forever, yes. But life that is now. Full and abundant.

And life entered through Jesus, who is himself the raw stuff of existence. Who, as God, is Life in all its living. Who is Source and Sustainer. Who is the one who gives all this to those who enter that intimacy of abiding in him.

It is this invitation to Life intimately encountered, that sticks in the craw of many of his disciples. Last week, Rod talked about the discomfort – and even disgust – that arose from Jesus’ talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The discomfort in today’s reading is of a different sort.

In response to Jesus’ invitation to Life, they say, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” Yes, indeed. Who can accept it?

For to accept Jesus’invitation to Life, is to accept that he is Life’s source. We are not. And, like Bathsheba Everdene, I think we’d much prefer to not need anything from anyone. Perhaps we rather like the delusion that we are sufficient to ourselves, the Masters of our Destiny, our own source of life.

When the Living God who Gives Life invites us to share life in him, we can only do so by admitting – hard as it is – that we ourselves are not that life. Life does not lie in our power and is barely within our grasp. We need to empty our hands, full of our own self so that they are free and open to receive all the Life that is in Jesus and which he wants to give us.

For the Life in God is a gift freely given. Given to any who hear Jesus’ words and recognize in him – perhaps for the first time, perhaps again and again – that Jesus is the Bread. . . of Life! Life full, free, and abundant.

Many disciples who’d been interested in Jesus turned away at this point. They were not willing to let go of the myth of their own certainty of life.

But Peter responds differently, and many have taken up his response. Standing before Life – a life that Jesus desires to share; a life he is willing to lay down so that he can demonstrate his Power of Life by reclaiming it - standing before Life, Peter recognizes that Life is only in Jesus. And he says, “To whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (v. 67-8).

That is the “aha!” moment for Peter. Confronted by Life itself, he knows he needs the life Jesus gives. He acknowledges Jesus is God – the Holy One – the Life. And Peter believes, uniting him in intimate life with God, the Life-Giver.

We have looked at wooings today, comparing Jesus’ words in John 6 to a long wooing that leads to Peter’s realization of both need, and love.

And this is, perhaps, a microcosm of God’s wooing of the world. A long journey, with misunderstandings and “aha” moments; with people receiving his love, or rejecting it (as Judas does, immediately following our passage today).

And, perhaps, this is our individual story as well. Stories we could share with one another of the ways Jesus has revealed himself as the Lover of our own souls. Wooed us gently. Loved us passionately and with strength. And always, holding out the invitation to us: to intimacy; to Life.

Have you said “yes” to that invitation? You can do so today, just in the quietness of your own heart.

And if you said “yes” long ago, or last week, or last year – you can reaffirm your acceptance of that invitation. As you come to the table, that love is depicted in Bread and Wine given for us.

For abiding in God’s love and life in Jesus is a daily invitation. One that is never exhausted. And one that always leads to deeper relationship, greater intimacy, surer knowledge of the Lover of our Souls.