May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Have you heard the ‘rabbit pie’ explanation of the Trinity? Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail were three rabbits who lived very happily in a warren under a beautiful, green field, until one day the farmer caught them, killed them and gave them to his wife to put in a pie. They were still Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail, but it was one delicious pie!

This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of today’s readings but it is one of the very few easy lessons I have had during my first year of Reader-training - a year that seems to have been a whirl: First it was Church history - from the very early Christians, to The Council of Chalcedon, through the Reformation to post modernism.  There was hermeneutics, systematic theology, contextual theology, eschatology, apologetics, ecclesiology, Christology, liturgy, universalism and pneumatology.  Then there were the theologians: Justin Martyr, Calvin, Luther, Kant, Kierkegaard, Schleiermacher, Barth and Zizioulas, to name but a few.  More recently came the spiritualities: the Benedictines, Carmelites, Franciscans and Ignatians, charismatics, and non-conformists. …….  And somewhere amongst that lot came liberation theology.  I can’t even pronounce some of the subjects we have been learning over the year!  And like the disciples in today’s gospel reading, I have to say that this teaching is difficult!  However, as Mark Twain is reputed to have said,

“It is not the parts of the gospel which I do not understand which cause me difficulty – it’s the demand of that which I do understand”,

and similarly it is quite clear from the original Greek text that the disciples in today’s gospel did not find Jesus’ teaching difficult to understand, but difficult to accept.

If you had been brought up as a Jew in the first century you might have been prepared to follow a leader like Moses – or even a would-be Messiah, just as long as he kept roughly to the teaching that you had been brought up with in the synagogue.  But of course Jesus didn’t.  He blew a great hole in their beliefs with his miracles and his teaching.  It was the whole set of ideas about Jesus' heavenly origins and his intimate relationship with God that were really problematical. In place of their material expectations Jesus offered the people a spiritual conception of the kingdom. It went down, as they say, like a lead balloon.  If you went to a meeting or a church service - the speaker completely demolished the way you have been brought up to think - then offered you a completely different way of thinking and looking at the world - and that whilst convincing, is not only going to mean a complete change of lifestyle, but is also going to be extremely costly to you personally - you might think again before returning to hear the same speaker. You might even accuse him or her of being a maverick or a heretic.  And that is what it must have been like for those first century Jews.

This chapter, with its ’striking claims from Jesus, and its extraordinary language about eating his flesh and drinking his blood’, is very easy for us today to read or hear about in the light of the Christian Eucharistic experience which we constantly renew.  God the Father is the source of all life. Jesus lives because of the Father, therefore any who receive the flesh and blood of Jesus take the life of God into themselves. But would the disciples have understood?

Jesus then goes on to compare the bread of life (v. 58) with the manna in the wilderness.  Those who ate the manna ultimately died, but those who eat the true bread of life in Jesus, will live forever (v.58). Jesus warns against interpreting this in a purely physical, one- dimensional way when he says, ‘The flesh is useless’.  But would the disciples have understood?

There is the mention of the Son of man ascending to where he was before.  It is easy, with hindsight, for us to say that this is to show that Jesus is at home both on earth and in heaven.  He is a citizen of both, the Word made flesh.  Could the disciples have possibly understood?  Certainly not without the spirit.

Now it appears that there were two groups of people in this story who are referred to as disciples.  There is the first group who turned back when the going got difficult, the camp followers or groupies, and the second group of the 12 disciples, who of course stayed.

The first group of followers moaned and grumbled.  They found Jesus’ language about ‘eating his flesh’ intolerable, and they couldn’t understand what he meant, when He said it had not been given to them by the Father to all believe in Jesus. Oh it was great to be with Jesus when he was healing people and performing other miracles, then they had basked in his glory. But now they could see that Jesus was heading for disaster - he could not continuously challenge the authorities and keep getting away with it – and when things went pear-shaped, as they would, these followers did not want to be around…and most of them drifted away. Indeed when confronted with today’s Gospel reading, and also those of the last 2 or 3 weeks, we too may be tempted to say with this group of followers, 'This teaching is difficult' (v. 60).

Clearly by the time Jesus and his disciples arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover later on in John’s gospel, the crowd of followers had built up again but that is the nature of this type of disciple. 

The 12 disciples did not understand how Jesus could be the bread which would come from heaven to bring eternal life either, or how eternal life could come from death. But they did believe in what Jesus told them.  Not only was this given to them by God, but something had happened the previous night.  They had been crossing the sea to Capernaum in a boat when a storm blew up while they were 3 or 4 miles from the shore and they were afraid.  They became even more frightened when they saw what looked like a ghost on the water, but it was only Jesus who told them not to be afraid - and then took them instantly into port. So the next day when the followers left and Jesus gave the disciples a get-out clause, “Do you also wish to go away?" 

Peter, their spokesman, said, “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”.

In his commentary, ‘John for Everyone’, Tom Wright offers interesting observations not only on this passage, but on the whole of John’s gospel.  He notices a prejudice today against taking John historically which fits in with a tendency in western culture to see religion as purely spiritual.  We are told that it doesn’t matter whether or not these events actually happened or the words were actually spoken.  What matters are the spiritual truths being taught.  But Wright goes on to say,

“the whole of John is about the Word made flesh, not an idea or a spirituality, a feeling or an experience. John might be writing something like history or he might not, but he is trying to tell us that history – the actual story of Jesus, His-story matters”.

Jesus' expectations of faith in Him were so high that some of His followers turned away. They could only see and understand the man in the flesh and not the word made flesh. It is not intellectual difficulty which keeps people from becoming Christians, it is lack of faith and the unwillingness to accept some things that we do not or cannot understand. At the heart of religion there must be mystery because at that heart there is God, and we can never fully understand God. If we are honest we must accept that there must be mystery.

When Jesus challenged the twelve about their intentions, it was for them to decide what they made of Jesus and how they would respond. Peter answered in a memorable way (v. 68) – That there was nowhere else to go.

God called me to be a Reader – he did not promise me that it would be easy.  And when the essays and reading are piling up or I have to worship in a way outside my comfort zone, it is sometimes tempting to join the followers in today’s story and say what they did, “Lord, this teaching is difficult”, but I can’t turn my back on Him and walk away. Something stops me and then I say, “Lord, to whom can I go? You have the words of eternal life. I have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God”.

Now today’s set reading actually ends here and doesn’t tell you how Jesus responded, although His response was read, and the immediate response of Jesus was, “Did I not choose you?”

So are you merely one of His followers when the going is easy, only to turn your back on Him when things get difficult?  Or are you a true disciple, having faith in God even when things are difficult and you don’t understand?

“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”.

And Jesus will answer, ‘Did I not choose you?’

Amen.