Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Texts:
Proverbs 9:1-6;
Ephesians 5:15-20;
John 6:51-58.

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. And whatever else you get, get understanding.”

Well that’s helpful. This pithy saying comes from Proverbs 4. It’s reminiscent of those job postings that require experience to get hired. But to get experience you first need to get hired. So what can you do?

Fortunately, when it comes to wisdom, the prerequisite, at least according to Proverbs 9 is to be simple, foolish, and without sense. Forget carefully discerning your way into God’s presence with practiced prayer or excellent theology. Bumble around with God and you’ll go far. It’s what’s happening in the gospel today.

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” We might look at those confused people with pity. We might criticize them for their lack of understanding. After all, we are the inheritors of centuries of church teaching about Jesus really, truly, substantially, and literally present in the bread and wine. So we’ve got this, right?

Or not.

This is why in the gospel today, the real players are ones who are confused and questioning. Is it because they just can’t accept that Jesus is the Son of God who is about to give up his body and blood for the sake of human sin? No, in every sense that is right and good, these people are considering every possibility of what Jesus means.

Because, isn’t that the core question for all of us? What does Jesus mean? For me? For the world?

“Get wisdom; get insight: do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.” (Proverbs 4:5)

In the gospel of John, Jesus teaches in a very different way from the other gospels. First he introduces an idea. Like when he offered the woman at the well living water. And she wondered how his water was different from well water. Or when Jesus told Martha I am the resurrection. I am the life. People, even his closest disciples, heard him, and mostly didn’t get his meaning.

Then later on Jesus brings back that same idea but with greater intensity. And again the people struggle with confusion and misunderstanding. Sometimes there’s a breakthrough – an aha moment. But it doesn’t necessarily last. Like Peter who says he believes, understands, and knows who Jesus is. Until in some specific moment, he doesn’t.

Is Jesus being offensive? Jews who keep kosher do not consume blood in any form. Leviticus 17 says why. Blood is the essence of life. It is to be poured out to God, not consumed by humans.

Koshering meat means to take the life of the animal in such a way that it does not suffer any pain or anxiety. All the creature’s blood is drained from the body. It is disposed of reverently, as a spiritual act.

Yet long before there was a practice of koshering, God provided Life-giving bread from heaven to the Israelites in the desert. Jesus said he was also life-giving bread from heaven. Both kinds of bread require an open mind and bring forth the same question, what is this?

Asking is good. But to grow in faith we also need to listen. The Hebrew word Shema means to listen, hear. A word that begins both instruction and prayer. It invites us to approach as if we know nothing. But desire everything that is of God.

Wisdom calls – Come, eat my bread and drink my wine. Jesus is God’s Wisdom, no? Therefore he invites the whole world to take him in. The whole life of him. So that we can be transformed as his essential being becomes our way of being.

You can choose to be offended by Jesus. You can also choose to listen, as the Judeans did that say. And never stop listening. Keep returning to listen again until you hear. Pray for understanding. Shema people of God. Listen.

Jesus offers food for the ravenous, drink for the dehydrated. Chew on it for as long as it takes. Guzzle it, because there’s no limit.

The body of Jesus will never die. Because we become the body of Christ for the world.

This is blood poured out to give life to all who are lifeless in so many ways. Listen, taste, find understanding. So you can really live.

But remember, this is no mere intellectual exercise. It is a journey of our spirits into the Way of God. Shema. Listen. Shhhhh! These are words that change the world.