Sermon for August 25, 2024 - The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

For the sixth week in a row, we once again find ourselves in the 6th Chapter of John. I did warn you all those weeks ago, that we would be sitting with this piece of scripture for a while, because it carries deep significance for our faith. So, after six weeks in this Bread of Life discourse, the long account comes to its end, but not without some unexpected surprises.

Throughout this chapter’s discussion about the bread which gives life, Jesus’ words have been greeted with misunderstanding, confusion, and even objection from the crowd, who in this case is referred to either simply as “they” or “the Jews.” In these final verses of this long chapter on the bread of life, we hear about the reaction from the disciples and should rightly be surprised that they do not fully understand what Jesus is saying to them.

We may expect better things from the disciples. After all, they were the ones who sat together with Jesus at the beginning of this text, who followed Jesus’ instructions in gathering up the leftovers of the bread and fish, and who were rescued from the storm at sea by Jesus. Perhaps most importantly, we expect that “the disciples” belong to us, the faithful, and not to them, the doubters and the unbelievers. If only faith was that black and white.

Many years ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, said that at times he questioned if God was really there. He told an audience at Bristol Cathedral that there were moments where he wondered, “Is there a God? Where is God?” The media’s coverage was predictably juvenile: “Even God’s earthly emissary isn’t sure if the whole thing is made up!” read a headline.

Another called it “the doubt of the century.” Archbishop Welby’s admission had not just “raised a few eyebrows” the article continued, but “sparked concerns if the leader of the Church of England would one day renounce Christianity or spirituality as a whole.” And another journalist wrote excitedly, “Atheism is on the rise, and it appears as though even those at the top of the church are beginning to have doubts.”

But Archbishop Welby’s candor only makes him human. He may lead 80 million Anglicans worldwide, of which we are just a small part of that communion, but he is also a man who knows anguish, rage, and sorrow. His firstborn child, Johanna, died in a car accident when she was only 7 months old. As a teenager he cared for an alcoholic father. When explaining his thoughts on doubt, he referred to the mournful Psalm 88, which describes the despair of a man who has lost all of his friends and cries out, “Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” The psalm reads bleakly: “Darkness is my closest friend.”

Just as courage is persisting in the face of fear, so faith is persisting in the presence of doubt. Faith becomes then a commitment and a practice that is sustained by belief. But doubt is not just a vulnerability; it is also a strength. Doubt acknowledges our own limitations and confirms, or challenges, fundamental beliefs. Doubt is not separate from belief; it is a crucial part of it.

So, at the end of six weeks of bread, at the end of all this talk of eternal life if we eat this bread, we are still left with doubts and unanswered questions. The issue raised in this text revolves around a division between those who believe and those who do not. The text makes clear, however, that unbelief can be found not only among “them” on the outside. The pain of unbelief is also found among us and indeed within us, reflected in this text both in those disciples who leave and in the one who stays to betray Jesus. Where do we find ourselves in this narrative? Are we the disciples who turn and leave, or those who with Peter confess that Jesus is the one - the only one - with the words of eternal life?

Chapter six begins with a huge crowd that needs to be fed and is interested enough to track down Jesus across the lake, but soon becomes disenchanted and grumbling. Even many of his disciples who stay around through the long sermon, in the end, cannot accept it. At the end of the chapter, only twelve are left. The direction of chapter 6 is not a promising trajectory for the Jesus Movement.

Yet God is working life in the midst of apparent failure and rejection. The church is still called to see that it is in such places that Jesus, the very Word of Life, is working around us, among us, and within us. The presence of Peter the denier, and even of Judas the betrayer, at the end of this text is a striking note of hope. Our natural inclination is to turn and leave, to avoid the difficult call, and above all to avoid the cross. Yet Jesus, the Spirit, and the Father continue to call, and enlighten, and draw us to life.

Peter’s response to Jesus is not a word of despair or a statement that they will have to settle for Jesus because there is nothing else. Peter and the others who stay have been given the gift of knowing that Jesus is the one who can give genuine life. Here, as elsewhere in this chapter, the paradox remains: faith only comes as the Father draws us, and yet Peter and the others (and we too) are asked for our response. Peter and the other twelve “choose” to remain, and yet the greater and prior reality is that they have been chosen. The mystery of faith and unbelief is not answered by supposed solutions to the paradox, but by grateful confession that the Father has indeed drawn us to faith in Jesus, and thus to eternal life. Amen.