All right, good morning. My name is Gregg. I am
one of the pastors here at the house. Thanks
so much for joining us today. If I've never met
you, I'd love to meet you, and I'd love to maybe
buy you a coffee or something like that, hear
your story. Feel free to put that on your connection
card at the end of the service, and I'll make
sure to follow up with you and set that up. We
are in the second week of a three -week series
that we're calling Follow Me, because Jesus said,
follow me. So last week we talked about how Jesus'
first disciples that he called and said, follow
me, were drastically different. You had the fishers
working with their hands, covered in the odor
of fish in the Sea of Galilee, and then you had
a tax collector that smelled like other people's
money. So how did Jesus fit those people together?
When you read the chapters, the four plus chapters
between when you meet the first four and that
fifth, you see all the moments where Jesus was
teaching those fishers all the things that they
would need to know about how to accept that fifth
disciple. Maybe we should start with, you know,
just a tag for last week's sermon, which would
be who's your fifth disciple? You've got a group
of people around you that you're like, ah, these
are my people. Who's your fifth disciple? Who's
the person that you need to learn a bunch from
Jesus in order to know how to accept and to love?
Now, week two, we're going deeper into the journey,
deeper into the timeline of Jesus' ministry.
And where we are reading from today, by the time
you get to this point, Jesus has amassed crowds.
of people. Thousands and thousands of people
are coming to listen to him all at one time in
one place. And they're actually following him
around from place to place. One day when they
find Jesus on the other side of the lake, he
fed 5 ,000 and then they wake up the next day
and he's not there anymore. So they literally
go to the other side of the lake to find where
he has gone. Because they like the things that
he was saying. They like the way that he was
serving them, caring, about them, performing
miracles. But in this case, when they find him,
Jesus doesn't say something about teaching them
how to accept. Here's a hard thing I'm going
to say so you know how to accept others. Instead,
this time, he says something that was hard for
them to accept about how to accept him. With
that, let's open up our Bibles to John chapter...
John chapter 6, it goes Matthew, Mark, Luke,
John, Acts, Romans. John is in what's called
the New Testament or the Second Testament, and
there are Bibles on the tables, or you can download
a digital Bible from any of the app stores. If
you don't have a Bible, feel free to take one
of those blue ones home, or even just grab one
off the bookshelf out in the lobby and take that
home with you. It's our gift to you. We're happy
for you to have it. We're going to be in John
chapter 6, and we have a tradition around here
of giving the scriptures our full attention while
they're being read in the context of a sermon.
You can do that any way that you see fit, but
if you would like to join me in standing as you
are able, let's do that as I read. John 6, starting
in verse 51. I am the living bread that came
down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread
will live forever, and the bread that I will
give for the life of the world is mine. The Jews
then disputed among themselves, saying, How can
this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said
to them, Very truly I tell you, unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh
and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will
raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is
true food and my blood is true drink. Those who
eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and
I in them. Let's jump to verse 66. Because of
this, many of his disciples turned back and no
longer wanted or went about with him. So Jesus
asked the twelve, Do you also wish to go away?
Simon Peter answered him, 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. Let us pray. God of every tribe,
every tongue, every color. every nation and people.
We thank you for the scriptures that they have
persisted throughout the millennia, that we still
have them to learn from, to consider, to be led
by. I pray that whatever you have for us to learn
today, pray that it would stick, that it would
become a part of the framework of our faith as
we become more like your son, Jesus. Amen? Amen.
Y 'all have a seat. Thanks. I'm guessing if we
pulled the room and asked every single person
in this room what I was about to say that none
of you would get it right. Because it's not the
kind of thing that you would expect a pastor
to say. The first thing I want to say is Christianity
is weird, y 'all. Christianity is weird. Some
of us have been around church so long. We have
heard the phrase, eat my flesh and drink my blood,
so many times that we have forgotten that that
is not a normal thing to ask someone to do. We're
used to it. We know that it's a metaphor. We
know that he's talking about a spiritual concept.
We know that it's connected to what he would
do on the cross and in his resurrection. But
if you do not know all of that, it makes about
as much sense as eating a Tide Pod for clicks
on TikTok. It does not make any sense. It is
weird. It is not palatable. It does not sound
safe. I mean, do you boil it for safety first?
How exactly do we go about this? It makes no
sense. And it didn't make any sense to the people
that were following Jesus when he said it. That's
why so many people stopped following him that
day. I also want to say it would be a misnomer
or a misunderstanding to think that the people
that stopped following him that day were just
marginal followers that were just there every
now and again. When you read it, it says many
of his what? Disciples stopped following him
that day. There is a misunderstanding that Jesus
only had 12 disciples. He had 12 primary disciples.
He had many people that were considered disciples.
In other books, he sends out 70 disciples at
a time. Depending on which version you're reading,
70 or 72, he had many people that consider themselves
disciples. And these people heard what he said,
and they could not. Accept it. Why is that? I
think partly because of something that we still
struggle with today. And that is knowing when
Jesus is being literal and when Jesus is being
figurative. Knowing when Jesus says, it's better
for you to cut off your arm, knowing that he's
being figurative. He's not asking you to actually
go and cut off your arm. He's telling you to
take it so seriously that this is the metaphor
that I am going to use. Now, it wasn't just the
people that were following him that day that
struggled to understand that he was using metaphor
or struggled to understand the metaphor when
they would first hear it. There's actually some
research to suggest that people continue to misunderstand
this for centuries. According to Dr. David Castle,
says this, a complaint of Roman critics of Christianity
was this. They thought Christians were involved
in bizarre and terrible religious rituals that
included eating flesh. In other words, they heard
rumors about these secret gatherings where Christians
would eat the body and drink the blood of their
leader. And so rumors would begin about, I think
they're vampires. I think they might be cannibals.
And why wouldn't they think that? It's weird.
And I do not blame people. And we should not
blame people when they don't get it without all
of the other explanation. I don't blame people
now, and I don't blame people then for not getting
it. Because I think that is kind of the point
of what Jesus is doing in this moment. One of
the reasons that Jesus is doing this is to say
something so jarring to see who is willing to
get it. So last week, Jesus started with zero
disciples, and we see him calling the drastically
different. This week, he's got plenty of followers,
plenty of disciples. Thousands are showing up
to see him, but now he's finding out who is curious
enough, hungry enough. to hear a drastic and
difficult call and stay. He wants to know, are
they coming for the food? Are they coming for
the miracles? Are they coming to hear him talk
about how they're actually, oh, the poor shall
inherit the earth. They're coming to hear about
how the group of people that they're in are better,
and oh, all these rich people and these people,
oh, there are, oh, are you guys, anyone in a
circle, I hope they're listening. Is that why
they're there? Or can they hear a difficult word
and continue to follow? Because this message
was a difficult word. Now maybe you've heard
of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance
is that uncomfortable feeling that your brain
gets. It's a real feeling. Your brain feels discomfort
when what you have always believed crashes into
something that's new information that contradicts
what you always knew. Our brains do not like
that dissonance. Our brains do not like having
a set belief that we're sure of, and then we
get new evidence or new information, and our
brain has to decide, like, how do I justify that?
How do I fit it in to maintain what I already
believe? We do not like to feel like what we
know, what we were sure about is getting pushed
around. It's like when you live with someone
and you worked all day. and then maybe they work
a different shift than you, or they had the day
off, and you come home, and they completely rearranged
the kitchen. I don't know if that's ever happened
to you. Cindy has this fun thing that she does.
She'll joke with me about how, like, wouldn't
it be nice to have the couch over there? And
I'll be like, oh, yeah, maybe. And then I'll
come home the next day, and it'll just be done.
Maybe you've... No, and it's amazing. It always
works out well. But let's say you came home and
someone moved around everything in the kitchen.
You're looking at it and you're going, okay,
maybe you want to hold out the possibility that
maybe this is better. Maybe this is a good thing.
You're like, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
The milk should probably be in the door of the
fridge instead of behind the vegetables. It's
always a pain to, okay. I guess the cups should
be in the cupboard right there next to the sink.
That makes a lot of sense. But then you start.
wondering and almost panicking, where did they
put my favorite spoon? Where's my favorite spoon?
Will you guys stop pretending that you don't
have a favorite spoon? I know you have a favorite
spoon. We all have a favorite spoon. And then
you notice that the blender isn't on the counter
anymore, and they put the blender in the pantry,
and you're thinking, why would they put the blender
in the pantry? Don't they know that I use that
at least every month? Why would they put that
away? Because it's ugly. For the crowd in January
6th. I'm sorry. For the crowd in John 6th. Take
that for what it's worth. Jesus' words aren't
just moving the milk or the spoon. They're gutting
the plumbing. What Jesus is saying isn't just
putting the blender in the pantry. It's actually
pulling out the electrical lines. The cognitive
dissonance that they would have felt was drastic
and difficult. So they say to Jesus, Moses gave
us manna bread every single day. What sign do
you have? And Jesus' answer was to push them.
He says, I am the bread of life. You can have
me. You can have this flesh. You can have this
blood. And if you eat this flesh and this blood,
then you will have more than Moses could ever
have given to you. And they're thinking, who
is this guy to say that he has something better
than Moses? Moses was venerated. Moses was honored.
Moses was cherished. He had led them out of Egypt.
How dare you say that you have something better
than Moses? Who does this guy think he is saying
something as weird as eat my flesh and drink
my blood? If you've never heard anything like
that, how do you process that? Then consider
that in their context, in their religious law,
that it would have immediately been rejected,
the concept that you could eat human flesh or
drink blood. Religiously, it would have been
rejected. So it's not just weird. It feels wrong.
It feels offensive. It feels like it's against
their religious law. The cognitive dissonance
is off the charts. And it feels like Jesus is
just breaking everything that they knew about
God. The sink has not been torn off the wall.
The fridge isn't just moved. The fridge is outside
on the porch. And the sink is in the tub. So
because of this, it says in verse 66, many of
his disciples turned back and no longer went
with him. They'd seen the miracles. They had
eaten the bread and fish that he had multiplied
just one day before. Some of them had been healed
in their bodies. Some of them had felt forgiven
for the first time in their life. But this was
too much. It was too far. It didn't matter how
much good they'd seen, how much good they'd experienced.
It took one moment, one teaching, one drastic
and... difficult word. Now something that I find
truly special about the scriptures is that the
idea that you can read something from 2 ,000
years ago and that it seems to still express
the human experience that we have now. Don't
we feel the same things? Don't we? have moments
where we wonder, is this too difficult? Is this
too drastic? Is this too uncomfortable? Don't
we say, I like the sink where it is, Jesus? Maybe
Jesus has something to say to you. Maybe he has
already said something to you in the scriptures,
in your prayers, through someone here in this
room, or dare I say, Maybe he said something
to you through the church that you used to go
to, but it was too drastic, it was too difficult.
How often, instead of enduring the difficult
and uncomfortable, do we just move on to something
else, to someone else? So Jesus says to his closest
disciples, do you wish to go away as well? And
Peter, you've got to love Peter. Peter says,
Lord, to whom else could we go? For you have
the words of eternal life. I think a truly difficult
question to answer in this life is how can we
be more like Peter? Because it's scary to be
like Peter. If you read these stories in the
book of Matthew instead of the book of John,
it says that just that early morning, the day
before the 5 ,000, and then it says that they
were on the lake. And in the book of Matthew,
it says that Peter did what? He got out of the
boat and he walked on water with Jesus. Peter
is the kind of guy that, Jumps first, asks for
a parachute later. Peter seems to be the kind
of person that acts on impulse. I imagine if
you said that to him, he would call it faith.
So I think when Jesus said, eat my flesh and
drink my blood, Peter wasn't afraid. to be full
of this bread and wine because Peter was already
full of faith. He had decided, I believe. And
because I believe, one messy metaphor won't scare
me away. One drastic or difficult call cannot
overcome me. Because of everything else that
I believe. A misunderstanding cannot change that
I believe in Jesus. For whatever reason, only
one person in this room will know these names.
But this made me think of Tim Fiscus and Danny
Gordon. My dad knows those names. The church
that I grew up at. Tim Fiscus was one of the
Sunday school teachers from my high school class.
And Dan Gordon was my best friend. And Dan is
someone that had grown up as the child of a missionary
in Papua New Guinea. And he had come back around
junior high, beginning of high school, to kind
of go to high school in America. And Danny was
like, and he lives in California now. He is,
imagine surfer kid. That was Danny. We would
skate together and just have fun. We would play
pool, try and write songs. And we're in Sunday
school one day, and Tim Fiscus is doing a little
bit of apologetics. Apologetics is like the defense
of Christianity. And he says, well, what are
you guys going to do someday when someone says,
you know, this Bible, this is just a bunch of
fairy tales. And he looks at Danny and goes,
Danny, what are you going to do? And he goes,
I believe in fairy tales, man. Danny was full
of faith. He had this sense that it doesn't mean
I'm going to ignore things or my beliefs aren't
going to change, but there's something inside
of me that tells me that God is real. So it's
important for us to understand that faith is
not the absence of tension. Faith is not the
absence of dissonance. Faith is the decision
to believe in the tension. Because sometimes
Jesus is going to give you real bread and real
fish. And sometimes he's going to say something
like, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood.
And you will not understand what he is saying
in the moment. And only you can decide if you
will take and eat even when you do not. As I
close, I added this to my notes because I was
just reminded of a book in the Old Testament
called Ezekiel. Ezekiel is a book to the people
of God while they were in exile. They had lost
their land. They were under Babylonian rule.
and Ezekiel is meant to be the voice of God to
the people. And it says that he's having a vision
of God and what God wants him to say. And there's
this moment where it says that God puts these
scrolls before Ezekiel. And Ezekiel looks at
it, and the scrolls are covered with lament.
And sorrow. They're the saddest words you could
think of to say to the people. It says that God
said, take each of these scrolls and speak these
words to my people. It just reminds me a little
bit of Jesus asking someone to take something
that you wouldn't normally put in your mouth.
Ezekiel in this vision. He hears God say, here,
take these scrolls that are filled with sadness
and eat them. And he says, and so I opened my
mouth and I ate the scrolls and they tasted as
sweet honey. I just felt like I was supposed
to say that. Sometimes there's a drastic call.
There's a difficult word. Sometimes God will
open a scroll in front of you of what he'd like
you to do, and all you see on it is sadness.
And it looks so hard. But if you will open your
mouth and receive what God has for you, I believe
that it will taste as sweet as honey. Let us
pray. Jesus, we thank you for the work that you
have done, all the things that you have taught
us. I pray that little by little, maybe even
all at once, that we will open ourselves to what
it is you are saying to us, that we will hear
the call to follow me, that we will take and
eat. That we will be filled with faith so that
no one moment of tension can tear us away from
you. Amen? Amen.