13th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, South Hadley, MA
The full worship service that includes this sermon is available here: https://youtu.be/vJqYrjw9jjk
10Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 11Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. 15As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. 19Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak. – Ephesians 6:10-20
[Jesus said,] 56“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 59He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
60When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
66Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” – John 6:56-69
My alma mater, Valparaiso University, is one among many schools and sports teams that has been in conversation for some time about changing its problematic mascot. They’ve been talking about it since before I was a student there (which though I’m not that old, is a significant length of time to be having the same conversation). You see, they were, until just some months ago, the Crusaders. They tried to make it into something cute, a little guy innocent but feisty. Then they remained the crusaders but rebranded with a shield logo – the shield of faith a la the Ephesians reading, or the shield of honor or truth or wisdom – they played around with it.
But the university clung to many an excuse not to jettison the crusader altogether for years. Finally, I think they could no longer deny the reality the crusader harkened back to a ruthless invasion of other lands under the name of Christianity: looting, pillaging, killing in the name of God whole groups of people who didn’t look like them and speak like them and worship like them. The crusaders justified it by ignoring the parts of the Bible that call us recognize, care for, and love our neighbor and focusing on the parts where God helps the people win military victories. They believed God was on their side.
Despite that history, people clung to that image as a mascot. Surely there was some simple nostalgia. But I wonder if there isn’t some piece of it, maybe not even conscious, that has to do with our own desire to be the powerful ones with God on our side. And, I think I sort of get it. Right now, worn down by the pandemic, desperate to help our synod congregations live into a new reality of church, committed to daily anti-racism action, worried about the climate crisis, and always conscious of poverty, hunger, and need for shelter in our communities, I didn’t know how to process it when just over two weeks ago almost at the same time it seemed another devastating earthquake shook Haiti and the balance tipped decidedly in Afghanistan. Two more things that feel beyond our control in which people’s lives are ripped from them violently.
I might want to do it in the name of humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, and care, rather than killing and pillaging but I’d like to suit up and go on the offense. I’d like to claim God on my side and charge forward demanding justice and equity, and for God’s sake, literally, for God’s sake feeding people and educating people of all genders and caring for our veterans who served and all those other things that our world seems to so desperately need.
In the face of a threat to the people of Afghanistan, one that I fear has a tendency to distort Islam in ways not unlike the crusaders who distorted Christianity, it’s tempting to take Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about the cosmic battle between good and evil and place ourselves firmly in the line of God’s truth and righteousness. Wouldn’t it be nice to dwell in a world where our cause is right and our victory assured? To put on the armor of God and rest in our protectedness?
Of course, that’s not really the point Paul is making. Paul is speaking to people who are a small religious minority in an unfriendly empire, speaking words of encouragement not words of military victory. He does identify the strong force of evil in the world, but he goes out of his way not to place that force of evil squarely in rulers and authorities in the world. Not because he doesn’t see the ways those evil forces act in and through empire and violence, but because he knows all too well that they dwell just the same in his own heart and in his own history. To put on the armor of God is not to set up a barrier between ourselves and the evil of the world, but to transform us into people who can recognize the gospel and live it despite the evil being within us.
This is the mystery of the gospel, and, I think, a bit of what is going on in the conversations Jesus is having with the disciples and the crowds. For some time now, those who have been following along the lectionary the last few weeks know, Jesus has been going on and on about being the bread of life. This week, someone interrupts and says “Ummm…excuse me, but I’m confused?!” Actually the Bible says that they said “This teaching is difficult,” but I take that not as a calm statement of fact but an interruption to say “Hey! This can’t be right.” What’s difficult about it? Perhaps for John’s readers and for us it calls to mind attempts to understand the mystery of God’s presence in our communal meal of bread and wine in worship. That is indeed difficult to understand. Luther himself, who wrote about it extensively, said essentially “I don’t get how, I just know it happens.”
But I think there’s a whole other layer here in the puzzled reaction to Jesus. I think they are struggling that Jesus’s mission is being lifted up in bread – bread broken and shared with anyone and everyone. So far in John Jesus’s ministry of signs and miracles have been supplying wine for a party, discussing theology in the middle of the night, chatting with an outsider at a well, healing a child and a man who couldn’t walk, and now feeding lots of people. And Jesus keeps saying in a way – “this is it! This is what I have come to do.” The only bigger thing he points to is the cross, his own death labeled as a criminal. But that’s only the boldest sign of this new world where armor is made of out of peace and the instrument of change is bread. Can you accept this, he asks his disciples? Can you accept that we are not charging the world’s powers by storm? Are you still in if this isn’t about winning?
Some give up. Some are not willing to let go of their hold on the world, their sense of power and privilege, their commitment to what they have known. I’m not even clear what it is that makes these people turn away, except that deep in my heart I know there are ways I respond to Jesus’ question by turning and walking away. And yet, too, for reasons I can’t always explain I know Peter’s response deep in my heart, too, “Where else can we go? It is with you that there is infinite life.”
I want to win. I want to be right. I want things to go my way. I want teaching I understand and can manage and control. I want a church that follows the rules of logic. I want to impose on the world what I think is Jesus’ vision for it. AND…
And…I long for the bread that feeds me for new life. I long for a world that is transformed by bread and not weaponry. I long for a world in which the people I label as other join me at the table to feast on divine love and grace. Both are true. Both are in my heart and soul and being. And Jesus knows that. The text reminds us right here that Jesus knows the betrayals before they happen and the professions of faith before they are on our lips. And Jesus just offers himself to us again.
Incidentally, we, that is the community of Valparaiso University, are now the Beacons with a lighthouse logo in honor of our longtime motto “In your light, we see light” from Psalm 36. I like it. We’re living into it, trying it on like a much improved but still new pair of shoes. And it makes me wonder, what would our mascot be if we had one for the church? After 5 weeks in the lectionary about the bread of life, I wonder what it would be like to be “The Bread of Life.” Not very intimidating on the sports field, I suppose. But, in fact, dear people of God, that is who you are. When we share the one loaf, we receive what we are and become what we receive, the body of Christ, broken and shared for the life of the world.
-Pastor Steven Wilco
Stewarding the Word 