August 26, 2018

14th Sunday After Pentecost
Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18
Psalm 34:15-22
Ephesians 6:10-20
John 6:56-69

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the Holy one of God. Amen
 
The book of Joshua
 is an epic worthy of Hollywood,
 
in the prequel the people of Israel
 have been wandering around in the desert for forty years
 traveling to the promised land
 
and they make it all the way
to the point where they can see the promised land
on the other side of the river
 
but before they can cross, their leader Moses,
who God used to bring them out of slavery in Egypt
and who led them through the desert all those years,
 dies
 
and the people are left by the riverbank
in sight of the promised land.
End film, roll credits.
 
now as the lights dim
and the new epic begins to unfold before the audience
we see God,
 instructing Joshua, Moses’ assistant
 to take over the leadership of the people
 and to cross over the Jordan river into the promised land,
 
 oh and by the way
people already live there
so you’ll have to conquer it by military force,
 
 and what unfolds before the audience
 is an action movie worthy of the genre,
 there are spies who infiltrate
 and only escape with the help of a prostitute,
 
rivers stopped so the people can cross on dry ground,
cities overthrown with trumpets,
multiple kings brought low
and the land divided among the people
 
 and while the movie could end there
it doesn’t,
 we see a montage of the years passing
and the people settling in
and Joshua growing older
 
until the final portion of the movie
where an old Joshua brings the people back together
and before he dies,
reminds them of all that they have been through together
and how it was God who brought them there,
 
and the excitement builds
as the people remember the glory days
and then Joshua lays it out for them,
 
there are still some of the other people living in the land
 and they’ve kept worshipping their false gods which are a temptation
and so the people of Israel have a choice to make,
worship those false Gods,
or the one true God,
 
the choice is yours Joshua says
 “but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
 
and a great cheer goes up
 and the people, inspired by their history
 and Joshua’s bold choice
 say ‘of course we choose the Lord’
 
 and the credits roll
 and we all leave feeling righteous in the choice to serve the Lord
because that is clearly the only choice to make.
 
If only that truly were the end.
 
Because after the drama and the rousing speeches
and the cheering crowds all fade away
the story continues
 reality sets in,
 
the reality that it is difficult to resist the temptation of those other gods
who are frankly easier to follow,
 it is difficult to tell your friends and neighbors
 I’m sorry I can’t eat that bacon cheeseburger
- it’s not on the approved list of food given to us by God,
it’s hard to say I can’t go on that trip,
 it falls over the sabbath.
 
And the histories tell us that the people slowly turned to other gods,
away from the one true God
because the teachings were difficult.
 
“This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
 say some of Jesus’ disciples today
in response to his lesson at Capernaum
 where he tells them that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will live
because he, Jesus is the true bread of life.
 
“Does this offend you?” Jesus asks them
then continues teaching,
without changing or compromising his lesson.
 
And we hear that because of this
many of his disciples turned back
and no longer went about with him,
 the teachings were just too difficult
 
but John assures us that Jesus knew that this would happen
 and he lets them go,
but he does check in with his closest followers
 and here we have another decision scene,
it’s not as dramatic as the one in Joshua
 but perhaps closer to our own experience,
 
Jesus asks the twelve,
 those who have been traveling with him the longest,
“Do you also wish to go away?”
 
 and Simon Peter answers him
and I can almost hear him shrugging and looking uncomfortable
 as he finally says  “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy one of God.”
 
Lord where else can we go?
This response strikes me as a far more realistic depiction
of choosing to follow God,
 
it’s less a dramatic climax
and more a moment
 
a moment when someone asks you outright if you really believe all that stuff
and you realize that the teachings are difficult,
 and while you may not understand or agree with them all
embedded in them are the words of eternal life
 and there’s nowhere else to go for those
 and so you shrug and look uncomfortable and stick it out
 because you have come to believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God.
 
This is a difficult teaching we follow,
eating flesh, drinking blood,
 the dead raised, the promise of eternal life,
 the expectation that we love our neighbors as ourselves
where the definition of neighbor extends to those on the margins of society
 and even our enemies.
Why would we logically choose this?
 
Well, mostly because it’s not about logic or even us.
Martin Luther, in his explanation of the 3rd article of the Apostle’s creed
in the Small Catechism says this:
 “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.”
 
That we believe even a little bit
 is through the grace of God
and the work of the Holy Spirit
who has brought us to the point
 where we can echo Peter’s confession,
 
and yes this too is difficult,
 some people take more work than others
we do have free will after all and some people are just plain stubborn
 
 but we trust that the Holy Spirit,
who Jesus sent to be our advocate,
does not give up,
 even on the tough cases.
And when we do come to believe, even a little bit
the Holy spirit continues to be with us
 as we live out our faith
and the difficult teachings of Jesus
 made even more difficult by the opposition of the world around us,
 
we heard the Holy Spirit working through Paul in our second reading,
offering encouragement to the community in Ephesus
 reminding them of all of the gifts from God
that will help them live out Jesus’ teachings,
righteousness, faith, salvation, the word of God, prayer,
 
Paul likens all these gifts
to armor that a soldier would put on
 as defense against the swords of the opposition.
 
This image I think made more sense to the early Christians
who were practicing an illegal religion
and could very well expect to be confronted by soldiers
if they were found out,
the people to whom Paul is writing were on the defensive.
 
But for our purposes
 I think a better image might be that of tools in a tool box.
 
We are no longer on the defensive
 but there is still much work to be done
 as we build our community
and share in God’s mission of redemption for the world.
 
So God has given us tools,
righteousness, faith, salvation, the Word of God, prayer and more,
 they are all available to us
to help us in our work
 
 but just like other kinds of tools
 we need to learn how to use them,
 either figuring it out on our own
or even better have someone teach us,
 it takes practice, perseverance to live into the faith given us
 
 Living into our faith
 and the difficult teachings of Jesus
doesn’t happen overnight,
in fact it takes a lifetime of practice, lifetimes even
 
for the broader community, the church
 it has taken thousands of years to get to where we are today
and we’re still not done learning and growing, making mistakes even.
 
 And yet over all these years people have stuck with it,
through the arguments and schisms,
the danger and exclusion,
the extra human rules,
the struggle to love everyone,
why?
 
 Lord, to whom can we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy one of God. Amen