St. Paul's On-The-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

12 Pentecost; August 23, 2009

John 6:56-69

GOT QUESTIONS – ANYWHERE, ANYTIME?

If you are like me, you often have questions. If you are like me you often face new situations and wonder how to get through them; you often face new challenges and wonder how to overcome them. If you are like any citizen of the world today, you are often faced with new conditions in our government or economy or environment, and you wonder – what will I do?

If you are a religious person you ask God – what will I do?

As Christians we know that God answers. We know that God is here. We know that God listens.

God was present in the world through Jesus, listening and talking to everyone. He was present by the road, on the hillside, in villages and towns and synagogues, in religious towns like Jerusalem and secular towns like Capernaum. He was present everywhere, so God was present everywhere. He was not just in the Temple, though he was there too. He was not just in the synagogue, though he was there too. He was in the home of Mary and Martha of Bethany, on the hillside teaching the Beatitudes, off by himself in a remote place, on the water in a boat, and on the water outside a boat.

He certainly wasn't just in heaven, a long way off.

He was everywhere his disciples were. He taught everywhere. The question always was, who would listen, and who would ask new questions, and who would converse, and who would change?

Perhaps the only reason to be in church is not because God is more likely to listen here or talk to us here – but we are more likely to talk to him here and, more importantly, we are more likely to listen to him here once we've said what we need to say. We are less likely to move on to the next thing. We are here for an hour with other pilgrims on the way of discipleship, and are more likely to open our ears and our hearts to him so we can come away with something useful and helpful and life-giving.

This is what the disciples had learned; that whenever they stuck around with Jesus, and really listened, and really talked, they were likely to come away with something useful and helpful and life-giving.

There comes a moment in Jesus' ministry when everything is changing too fast, and people cannot keep up with him. He says that he is known in the breaking of the bread and in the eating of it. He says his words are spirit and truth and people should listen to them and take them in and be nourished by them.

This is too much for too many people – so they leave. He is not supporting the Temple as he should. He is not supporting the priesthood as he should. He is simply telling people to listen to him. This is too much change for most people so they go back to their old ways, even though they had left them long ago to follow him. Now, it seems, following him is too risky and too new – except for some.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter asks. “You have the words of eternal life.”

His words may be weird, but so far they have worked. His words may be different from what they are used to; but so far they have helped. “You have the words of eternal life.”

Peter seems to indicate that they have tried these words, they have tried these concepts of love for neighbor and self and stranger, charity for all, God's love for all equally, being the salt of the earth no matter who they are how they were born, the meek inheriting the earth and all the words of the Beatitudes – they have tried all these words and concepts and all the others Jesus has taught and that we have heard week by week, and they have worked! The disciples have felt alive! Truly alive! Eternally alive right down to their souls and their bones.

They have long since moved on from simply coping, simply existing, simply surviving. They feel true life and love coursing through their systems and they don't want to give it up!

So what Jesus is saying about bread and wine and body and blood is a little weird, but they're willing to try it, because everything else that he has said, everything else that they have tried, has worked, and has given them new life.

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Certainly not to the old, soul-numbing ways that never really worked. We liked them then, but things have changed in the world.

Fortunately God is right here in the world and not just in heaven; so we can ask him our questions, about what to do next; and he will listen, and he will answer, if we listen; but it might not be what we want to hear. It may stretch us. But he – not we – has the words of eternal life, which is why we show up here and why we pray and why we listen.

As you know, my family is entering a new phase of life, with one suddenly off at college as of yesterday. So a lot of things are different, though much is the same.

Thanks be to God that God is in the world, and not just in heaven; and not just in the old ways to which we'd love to return, perhaps, but cannot.

God is with us all in every change and every circumstance and every place in our life. He walks beside the road as well as being in the Temple. He is in the church as well as in the home, and the college. He is on the mountainside, the beach, the boat, the water in the storm. He's wherever we are! So all we have to do is ask our questions and listen for the answers.

So my question to you is, when did you first start asking your questions? When did the old ways of being religious first wear out? Yet the God of those old traditions is still our God, but is simply sending us out in new ways and introducing us to new ways of being.

Ask him new questions. Wait for new answers – a little different from the old ones, but still offering new and abundant and soul-nourishing life when we take them in.

This happened often enough to the disciples that when the time came and everyone else left because the times simply got too tough and Jesus' teachings got too challenging – that they simply met the challenge.

The times were tough, they admitted, and nothing they could do would change that.

Jesus' teachings – religious teachings, our teachings – were getting a little too challenging and so others left without hope.

Yet they, the disciples, knew Jesus and Jesus had always loved and helped them. Why should this new circumstance be any different? Perhaps they should bear with him as he had always born with them. His love and words had always worked. Maybe they would again.

Amen