Leap
/When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” -John 6:60
Jesus says to his followers that they must eat the living bread to have eternal life. They need to eat his flesh and drink his blood to truly abide in him. Jesus was not suggesting cannibalism, but what he was teaching was just as difficult in its own way. Basically, he taught us that we need to give ourselves away. We need to allow our own cells become the body of Christ. We need to give him our own lives. Follow him in our own choices, words and actions. “He must increase and I must decrease,” as John the Baptist once put it. Paul said it this way: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
We can hardly fathom what it looks like to completely give ourselves over to Christ, let alone do it well. This indeed is a difficult teaching that takes a great leap of faith to accept. And it takes a lifetime of committed practice to even become a good beginner at it.
To add insult to injury, Jesus responds to his listeners’ frustration by saying that his words are spirit and life, and although he’s here with them offering this deep nourishment, there are some that will not take the needed leap to fully trust in him. He tells them that some of them are just not called by God and will never truly believe. And with that stark statement, many people turned away that day and stopped following Jesus.
This indeed is a difficult teaching.
There are many reasons to stop following Jesus, not least of which is that his teachings are confusing, difficult and often seem impossible to do well. Add to that, most people here in the northeast have decided they’re done with religion, and those who persist in attending a mainline church each week are considered rather an oddity. I’m sure many of us have experienced other ways of spirituality in our world - books, online groups, various gatherings - and have considered how following Jesus in our divided world and at this difficult time in the life of the institutional church is so difficult it might no longer be worth it. Even the most faithful among us have their days of doubt.
But when an exhausted Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” 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.”
Those of us called into the body of Christ know full well that Jesus offers us a difficult teaching that we fail at learning far more often than we ever come even close to mastering anything. But we are not willing to let go of the spirit and the life that we have experienced through Christ. This is a deep and wide tradition, and offers great wisdom from its depths. Far more than any pop spirituality with its feel good aphorisms can provide. It can be difficult. It can be challenging. But despite the struggle, we know where the deep well is. We know where the bread that really is bread is. And so we keep following.
