A Sermon for St. Stephen’s Church, August 27, 2006

Prepared by the Rev. Cork Tarplee, delivered in his absence by the Rev. Herb Tinning

            A missionary got lost in the African jungle, so the story goes.  Suddenly he found nothing around him but trees and vines and bushes.  Finally he found a hut and asked the African he saw there if he could get him out to the nearest town.  The African said he could.  “Show me the way,” said the missionary.  The African said, “Walk,” so they walked and hacked their way through unmarked jungle for more than an hour.  After all this time and effort, the missionary still saw nothing but jungle.  “Are you sure this is the way?” he asked.  “Where is the path?”  The African said, “Sir, in this place there is no path.  I am the path.”

            Jesus’ disciples find themselves in much the same predicament in this morning’s Gospel.  As John tells us, Jesus was both attractive to his followers and off-putting.  In the sixth chapter of John alone, Jesus teaches a huge multitude of people—some of whom others viewed with suspicion.  Then he performs his most written-about miracle: he feeds five thousand people with a little fish and bread. This causes so much of a stir that John reports that people tried to take him by force to make him king.  He escapes by walking on water—much to the terror of his disciples.  Finally he describes himself as the Bread of Life and identifies his own purposes with those of God the Father.  He says that his own flesh and blood will become the source of life for others.  All of this is too much for many of his followers.  “Because of this,” says the Gospel, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” When so many left him, Jesus asked the twelve followers he had selected himself, “Do you also wish to go away?”  Peter’s answer contains more than a little ambivalence. “Lord,” he says, “to whom can we go?”  In all likelihood, they too, would like to find another, less frightening path in the jungle, but they reluctantly realize that Jesus IS the path.

            Probably most of us can identify with the disciples’ ambivalence.  There is plenty about Jesus that we find attractive, but there is also plenty that we are challenged by. The nurturing and reassuring side of Jesus’ message is attractive, for example.  We like the notion that God will provide for us out of the abundance of the universe the way Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.  We like the notion that Jesus’ power is greater than the natural forces of the universe.  However there’s plenty we don’t like, too.  We don’t like the challenging side that asks us to act out our faith. We, are put off by Jesus’ demand that we feed the multitude around us with the meager resources we have.  We are put off by Jesus’ call to generosity, to share what we have.  We are put off by Jesus’ insistence that in the windstorms and turbulent seas of life, we should relax and trust the power of God to make things turn out OK.  We like the notion of Jesus’ radical acceptance of us—that he was willing to die for us no matter who we are or what we’ve done; but we are put off by the notion that we should be just as accepting ourselves: that we should love others as indiscriminately as Jesus loved. I think we, too, might have a little trouble believing that Jesus, in ALL he said and did, is the Bread of Heaven.

            Perhaps, just perhaps, it takes a life-time of trying to follow Jesus, accepting some parts and rejecting others before we can say for ourselves, “This is the Bread of Heaven.” Sometimes, the value of someone only becomes clear as time goes along.  Preacher William Willimon illustrates this by telling the true story of a farmer in South Carolina who struggled to make a living on a scrubby piece of land.  Finally, after his tobacco crop failed, he sold up—and since the land was poor, he sold it for next to nothing.  The next owner, however, knew a little about geology.  One day while he was walking over his new property he found an unusual bit of rock and had it analyzed.  Turned out to be bauxite—essential to the production of aluminum.  He sold that poor little farm for millions.  The treasure hidden in the life and teachings of Jesus may be like that.  There may more power in them than we can see today. 

We live in a jungle of selfishness and greed, of hate and distrust of people who are different from us. In this jungle it is scary to trust Jesus’ radical acceptance and self-giving love. Sometimes we long for a clearer path.  But perhaps, just perhaps, Jesus IS the path, the true Bread of Heaven that gives life to the world.                                                AMEN