It is good to be home in the sanctuary of God. It is good to be with you here today to hear the words of life read from the scriptures and to meditate upon the statements made by Jesus and by Peter in today's Gospel Reading.
Today, as we gather here to worship as a Christian community, as a congregation of the church of Christ Jesus, it is laid upon me to speak to you about Christ and the gospel that we have received in and through him. I will strive to proclaim what I believe are the core issues revealed in today's Gospel Reading, issues which apply not just to our church, but to all who would follow Christ. Indeed part of the power of the scriptures that we have received is that they are of significance not just to those who first heard them some 2000 years ago - but to all who would follow Christ in every place and every generation.
Hear again the first part of today's gospel reading. Jesus says this:
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe."
And then John records for us that from this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
The really difficult part of our faith as followers of Christ lies in our coming to grips with the claims that Jesus makes about himself - his claims about how he not only points to God and God's love for us but that in him and through him the life that God wants to give us is conveyed to us.
There are many seekers after truth who recognize Jesus as a great teacher, even as a great miracle worker - but who cannot accept his claim - and the claim that the Apostles have ever made about him - that he is the way, the truth, and the life. As with many of those who had followed Jesus around the land of Israel and Palestine 2000 years ago, the statement made by Jesus in today's reading , in which he claims to give life to us through his body and his blood - that body and that blood which we hold up to all every time we gather before this table - is too hard for them.
Too hard for them to accept.
Too hard for them to believe.
Too hard for them to commit themselves too.
We must remember that the world 2000 years ago was very much like the world is today. Most certainly some of us have comforts and conveniences unheard of in times gone by - our technology and our knowledge of the physical world is far beyond even what the most educated could have grasped as being possible back them - but in social and spiritual terms we of the 21st Century are far closer to what the world was like back then than in virtually any other time in the intervening centuries.
We live today, as we are constantly told, in a pluralistic world. So did they. The Roman world, and within it the Jewish culture, was awash in diversity. Many religions existed and claimed to be the way to the truth. Many cults flourished and claimed to give the secrets of life to their followers.
Jesus was but one claimant among many in that world. As it is today.
And like today, many of those who respected and followed Jesus about the countryside as he taught and performed miracles were reluctant to ascribe to him the power and the glory that he claimed for himself as "the" way to God.
For some this was based in the fact that they had a firm commitment to a different understanding of how God works in the world. For others (such as some Roman Catholic priests, even some teaching in their seminaries) it was based in the idea that all religions point to the same God - and all therefore are equally valid - and that therefore any claims they have to exclusivity are simply wrong.
To those who have another faith commitment I can only say - may God be with you and may you find that which you seek.
To those who claim that there are other ways to God, I can only say what the gathering at the San Antonio Conference on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches in 1989 said - and I quote:
"We cannot point to any other way to salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God."
This statement is quite in line with the other thing that is said in today's gospel reading, when after many of those who had followed Jesus left him, Jesus says to the disciples who have remained with him:
"You do not want to leave too, do you?"
And Simon Peter answers him, saying:
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
To whom shall we go?
We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.
You have the words of eternal life.
The Christian Church is defined within this question and this assertion.
We are a gathering of people who, while acknowledging that the saving power of God cannot be limited, have found in Christ that saving power and have committed ourselves to exploring and living within that power as Christ has both revealed it and embodied it in his own person.
We proclaim in our Baptism that God loves us and embraces us as part of his family - and that we wish to be a part of that family.
In our weekly worship - and particularly as we celebrate the Lord's Supper - we proclaim that we wish to remain part of God's family - that we need the strength, the forgiveness, the love; and the life of God in our lives - and that in the broken body and the poured out blood of Christ Jesus - God grants us those things in a unique and special way.
Our baptism - our profession of faith - and our coming together as a worshipping community to receive and share the gifts of God as mediated to us in and through Christ Jesus are the things that define who we are - the things that define our relationship with God and one another. We are followers of the Christ - we are brothers and sisters in his name.
Out of our embracing Christ Jesus and his embrace of us come the various things that make us, as a people, ones who show forth the love and grace of God for the whole world. Our commitment and our desire to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God find their source in Christ Jesus and are empowered by him.
It is Christ Jesus whom we proclaim - and it is his love and his care and his justice that we embrace because it is in Christ Jesus that we have found life, and it is through him and in him that we know the saving love and the righteous power of God.
We need not make any apologies to those of other faiths about this - and in fact people of other traditions tell the church that they wish we would not.
In interfaith dialogues held at every level of the church those of other faiths tell us that we should value and prize what makes us different - rather than seeking to say - as so many seek to say - that we are really all alike.
"Yes", our interfaith partners tell us, "there are many things that we share in common - but there are many differences too. Let us work together on those things we are agreed about - and respect those things in which we differ."
It is kind like a gathering at a great reunion. Each person there shares things in common - but is the differences between us that make us who we are - that make us distinct persons.
If all people and all ways to God are really all the same, then what point would there be to our conversations? Why would we bother - as we are about to here having reunions if, in fact, none of us can distinguish ourselves from the other? Why eat at a table together and share the gifts of God with one another if each of us already has the all the gifts that the other offers? If each of us thinks the same thoughts and lives the same experiences?
'We cannot point to any other way to salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God.'
We gathered here today are not simply the family of God, we are the church of Jesus Christ.
It is Christ who defines us. It is Christ who makes us who we are.
As Peter says to Jesus when many of those who had followed Jesus fall away from him because they find his claims to be too hard.
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
To whom shall we go?
All people are welcome in our midst. We are not called to judge them before God. God, we believe is more than able to make his own judgements. But the church is, in the end composed of those who with Peter say to Jesus:
You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
and who then gather in his name that they might receive that life and be strengthened to show forth that life to the world.
Those of us in this part of the church of Christ Jesus who recognize this, and who take part in the gathering of the faithful week by week, are one with those in other parts of his body who do the same thing.
It is not the wisdom of human beings or even the knowledge of scripture that we might have that makes us one, nor is it the power of human organizations - even if they be called churches, that gives to us life, rather it is Christ Jesus - crucified and risen - the Holy One of God who gives us life.
Keep that ever before you - in your hearts and in your minds, in your words, and in your deeds and you will not soon go wrong.
Praise be to God - in and through Christ Jesus - who makes us who we are and who grants to us the life that we, and the whole world needs. Amen
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