1 Kings 8.22-26; John 6.63-69
Overhead wires on the C Line being replaced …
Why?
Those wires are nearly 30 years old, near the end of their lifespan …
The wire is being replaced.
I wonder how the wire feels?
Hey, what’s this replacement business all about? I’ve got some years left. Let’s not be in a hurry. I can still get the job done. Come on, gimme a break! I’m not ready for the junk yard!
It happens all the time.
A month ago, we heard President Biden pass the baton to Kamala Harris …
A movie star retires … a top-notch athlete hangs up the cleats, puts the racket away, and goes fishing.
In July, I travelled to Michigan to do a memorial service in the church where I had served for 16 years … I hadn’t been back in nearly 20 years.
The strangest of things: I didn’t recognize anything …
Everything was different …
familiar landmarks torn down,
replaced by drug stores and gas stations …
it didn’t even seem “vaguely familiar” -
I was a “stranger in a strange land.”
The church is still there … a little long in the tooth, as they say … Anne Lamott puts it like this: the tide comes in, the tide goes out.
Or as the song says: They paved paradise and put up a parking lot …
Or as Shakespeare put it: Hey nonny nonny … whatever, what the heck, why not!
Things shift, things change … time moves on, and here we go.
In our gospel reading this morning, we find Jesus in a time of transition - a good many folks thought he was the One to answer their questions and solve their problems, but now they leave, like a jr. high love affair.
Jesus asks those closest to him: Are you gonna leave me, too?
Where else can we go? asks Peter.
To whom else should we listen?You have the words of eternal life … you are the one, the holy one of God.
Where else can we go?
I have learned over the years:
God creates mountains of truth all over the world … because God is the God of love,
love supreme,
love eternal,
love that can only love, and never walks away.
Every religion has it’s Christ-point … the mountain where God and humanity meet …
A quiet moment in a quiet room …
in the rush and hustle of a morning drive to work …
sacred places, sacred stories …
spiritual experiences and conversion …
when God seems powerfully close, and love rises to the top.
Every religion, every philosophy, has it’s entry point into the heart of God … because the heart of God shows up everywhere.
The Muslim in Mecca, the Jew in Jerusalem, the Buddhist in Bangkok, the Hindu in Bombay …
No one has a corner on the religion market … everyone gets it wrong … and everyone gets it right …
Every tradition has its radical elements where hate is preached and violence admired.
Every tradition has its beauty and its glory, wherein love is given and love received.
For anyone, the call of life invites us to take the entry point given to us … to walk into the heart of God … to embrace the ways of love and life … to reach high, and reach far …
Jesus puts it this way: Take up your cross and follow me.
And some found it just too hard … too difficult … they wanted something easy, they wanted some thing simple … but love isn’t easy, nor is love simple … because life isn’t easy, and people aren’t easy, and we’re not easy, either.
So, folks, looking for something easy, decided to look for another.
Jesus asks his disciples: Are you gonna leave me, too? …
It’s a real question …
people walk away from the truth all the time …
I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and we’ll do it again … before the last curtain call.
Because God never violates our freedom:
Our freedom to explore, think for ourselves, make mistakes, even big mistakes, and lots of little ones, all along the way …
Our freedom is God’s ultimate gift to us … created in God’s image as we are … to be free …
Like Adam and Eve, we pluck the fruit of self-interest and desire, and go our merry way …
Like the prodigal son who takes his money and runs to the land of dreams and nonsense.
And in our freedom, to make the good choices, take up our cross and follow Christ … forgive one another and love profoundly … we rise to the occasion … to be responsible, thoughtful, courageous and decent.
In our freedom …
Are you gonna leave me, too? asks Jesus!
For me, the closest entry point into the heart of God is Christ!
I was born into a Christian Family … Sheboygan, Wisconsin … the land of the Green Bay Packers and cheese curds … churches on every corner.
Christ is my entry point …
Had I been born in the Middle East, China, India, South Africa … if my family had been Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, even atheist … there would be other pathways, other entryway points, into the heart of God …
because God is love,
God is universal,
God is everywhere …
at work, to make all things new, and all things good.
Some years ago, a Christian mother came to me - deeply distressed - her daughter had married a Muslim and she was converting.
I raised my daughter in the church, she said, tears streaming down her face.
As we talked, she expressed here deepest fear, that when her daughter dies, she’ll go hell, and I’ll never see her again …she sobbed deeply … I will never see her again.
What’s her husband like? I asked!
He’s a good man, she said.
They love each other … and I love them, too.
I encouraged her to walk with her daughter … to learn and grow … ask questions … and not to fear … God at work everywhere …
In this place, Christ is our entry point … we are Christians, and for that we can be grateful,
Christ, our entry point, will never disappoint us!
The grand stories of scripture, the hymns we sing, the prayers we say … the waters of our baptism, the bread of the Table, the cup of blessing … we find God, and God most surely finds us.
If Christ is our entry point, then let us walk with Christ into the heart of God.
Let us follow Christ to the ends of the earth.
Let us cheer those who find God in other entry points.
Where there is love, let us rejoice …
where there is truth, let us dance …
where we find goodness, let us praise God.
Let us build bridges of understanding …
communication, respect, gratitude …
learn from others, learn of God’s glory in their traditions, their practices, their stories, their faith.
And learn of our own entry point … if we’re Christians, then, for heaven’s sake, let us be Christians all the more.
Let God be God … and then love Christ.
In the love of Christ, let God be God the creator of the heavens and the earth …
God, for all the world.
Amen and Amen!
