Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-april-4-2025
John 6:60-69
Many Disciples Desert Jesus
60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
67“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Thirty-one years ago, I worked on a documentary film crew traveling with a competitive drum and bugle corps for most of the summer. It was interesting to see how the staff directed and motivated the corps’ members — all between seventeen and twenty-one years old — through a demanding season that included many days of practicing and competing from 7:30 in the morning till 11:00 at night. I never forgot one of the things one of the instructors said to the young musicians. He said, “The secret to success in this activity is to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.”
I was thinking about that instructor and his advice in reading this passage this morning. I say that because I think what that instructor said about drum and bugle corps competition is somehow true of the Christian faith as well. One of the great challenges of being a disciple of Jesus is getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. We serve a master who says things and asks questions that nudge us outside our comfort zone — that push us and prod us to examine our accepted beliefs and how they inform our lives.
It seems to me that for most people, true discipleship is a lifelong process of learning from and being shaped by the teachings and example of Jesus. If we ever reach a point where we think we have those teachings in that example all figured out – where we think we know all we need to know about Jesus – then we might actually have stopped being disciples. We’ve become something else. I’m not sure what. Religious people, maybe. Maybe that’s what you become when you opt out of discipleship. Religious people think relationship with God is about knowing the rules, obeying the rules, and telling those who don’t obey the rules that they’re going straight to hell.
So if my theory is correct — if being comfortable with being uncomfortable ideas and questions from Jesus is a major element of what true discipleship is about, maybe our reading today is a classic example of what happens when people just can’t tolerate that discomfort.
The passage begins with some of those who had been following Jesus complaining that something he said was “a hard teaching,” and asking, “Who can accept it?”
The particular “hard teaching” they were talking about is what Jesus had said about the need for his followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood. For those of us who are regular participants in the Christian faith, what Jesus said here makes us think immediately about the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Our normal Communion liturgy quotes Jesus as saying, “This is my body, broken for you,” and, “This is my blood, poured out for the forgiveness of your sins.” The words and the metaphors are so familiar to us that they don’t disturb us. In fact, they have kind of pleasant associations for us. They’re part of Communion, and that’s a good thing.
So it’s probably hard for us understand the degree to which these words of Jesus would have gone beyond uncomfortable for the people who heard them first – they would have been downright shocking. Eating his flesh and drinking his blood? That would have struck people as gross. For Jews, any contact with blood would make a person unclean. And consuming it was strictly forbidden. So what Jesus had said would have struck some Jews as downright blasphemous.
Of course, with the benefit of 2,000 years of Christian tradition, we know that Jesus would soon let his body be broken and his blood be shed for the sake of the world. And following him – living a life of discipleship – that means embracing that great sacrifice as an act of love. For the world, but also for each of us as individual believers. So we embrace what Jesus did as an act of self-sacrifice that feeds and nourishes us spiritually.
So even though this story looks forward to the sacrament that has become central to the life of the church, it also serves as a reminder that the way of Jesus was and still can be scandalous and shocking to the rest of the world.
In the story, so some of those who had been following Jesus turn away from him. Watching them go, he asks the disciples, “You do not want to leave me too, do you?”
As he often does, Peter speaks up for the disciples. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Good answer, don’t you think?
I can’t help thinking that this passage poses the question to us, living 2000 years later — a question for all of us who claim to be disciples of Jesus. “You don’t want to leave me too, do you?” And Peter gives the only answer that’s possible from a truly faithful heart: “To whom shall we go?” Where else can we hear the words of eternal life Peter speaks of? Where else will we find teachings that have the ability to lift us to new and abundant life?
The world is full of other movements, religions and self-proclaimed influencers who claim to have the secret to living a good life. Some of them have great wisdom to offer – even wisdom that followers of Jesus can learn and benefit from. But only the life and teachings of Jesus offer us the path to a truly authentic life. A life that puts us in touch with the human manifestation of the creator of the universe. A life that’s based on mutual caring and support instead of slavish service to our own egos. A way of living that acknowledges the worth of every human being, and of the creation God has given us. That recognizes that we’re all fallible and subject to sin, but that sets us free from guilt and fear through forgiveness and repentance. Who else but Jesus can offer us that kind of authentic life?
And who else has risen from the dead as Jesus did? Witnessed by hundreds of people at the time, and attested by the best-preserved accounts in human history – accounts so uncharacteristic of their time and place that nobody would have made them up or dared to pass them along unless they absolutely believed they were true.
“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter asked. And we ask the same question. And arrive at the same answer. Only life as a disciple of Jesus – as challenging and uncomfortable as it might sometimes be – offers us the way to a true and authentic life.
Let’s pray: Lord, we thank you for coming into this troubled world in the form of Jesus, and for teaching us – and showing us – what it means to live authentically as the people you intend us to be. By your Spirit, help us to keep his teachings and his example at the center of our lives, so that we make him known to all who encounter us. Amen.
May you have a great weekend,
and may you worship God joyfully on Sunday,
Henry
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