Part 3: No Complaints [Proper 14B]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
John 6:35, 41-51
Part 3: No Complaints
We have now arrived at the turning
point of this story. This is our third
week in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel; we have two more yet to come. This
is our mid-way point. And it is in this middle section that things start to
crumble.
Week one was great. On one miraculous evening, Jesus fed five
thousand people with five loaves and two fish.
The meal was so good, the quantities so impressive, that the crowd
decided to make Jesus their King – right then, right there. On week one Jesus received nothing but
overwhelmingly positive feedback. And
why not, he came to them as a healer and then proved that he was also capable
of food production. Jesus was able to
give the people what they wanted.
Happiness and praise ensued. So
week one was great.
Week two was still pretty
good. Jesus did slip off without even as
much as a goodbye. But after they chased
him across the lake, he welcomed them.
He welcomed even though their motives were pretty selfish. They kept asking him to make them more
bread. It's like yelling “Free Bird” through an
entire Skynyrd show. Like, I'm sure they
get it, but they also have a lot of other songs. But Jesus is understanding. He loves them enough to offer them something
better than bread – life,
eternal life. So while the people are no
longer getting exactly what they want – loaves of bread – Jesus
still has the crowds. They are still
interested, still after him. So week two
was still pretty good.
Now, week three. The crowds are now growing restless. This is like the scene in a romantic comedy
where the guy says the wrong thing and everything starts to go wrong. But in this story Jesus is the guy. And the crowd does not like what he has to
say. Their infatuation is fading. And there is no bread to be found.
The people, this crowd of fickle
human beings, now start to complain.
Because Jesus is not feeding them and he doesn't want to be the king and
because he said things with which they did not agree and because they resent
that he thinks he is special. But mostly
because they are people and people complain.
And while complaining is a very
common human expression, it is not a terribly healthy one – not for
ourselves and not for our Christian communities. I knew of an Episcopal parish a number of
years ago that called the wrong person to be their Rector. The priest was a good person; I trust that
the members of the congregation were good people. The match, however, was bad. And people were complaining. In fact, the people were complaining to
anyone who would listen – including
all the visitors who happened to show up any given Sunday morning. Every visitor would spend coffee hour hearing
about all of the problems of the parish.
There were not many repeat visitors.
You likely will not be surprised to know that that parish started to
shrink pretty drastically. A new priest
and years of healing later that parish is still trying to recover from that
season of negativity.
Jesus responds to the complaints he
hears in today's Gospel, not with poisonous snakes like God does in the book of
Numbers when the people complain, but Jesus does directly address the
issue. Jesus says to the people: “Stop. Do not complain among yourselves.” Jesus cares about them and knows that the
more the crowd complains the more difficult it is for them to recognize the
good things he is offering them. It is
no different for us. The more we
complain the harder it is to recognize all the good things Jesus offers us.
The complaining begins when Jesus
says something they don't like. Jesus
says, “I am the
bread that came down from heaven.”
And that offends the crowd. They
know Jesus and his parents. They knew
him as a child. They watched him grow
up. And they know he is actually from
around the corner – not from
Heaven. How dare he claim to be
something special?
He's not special. He is one of them. He is common.
A laborer from Galilee. He is not
a royal. He was not raised in a
palace. He did not emerge mysteriously
from the desert wilderness. He was not
an angel, a spirit, or a primitive hologram.
He was a man from the neighborhood.
And folks from their neighborhood don't come down from heaven.
All the complaining doesn't really
seem to discourage Jesus too much. I
mean, he tells them to stop it. But he
doesn't change his message. He doesn't
try to appease the crowd or win them back over – which he could have done easily by
making more bread. In fact, he doubles
down. The Gospel reading says they
complain because he said, “I am the
bread that came down from heaven.”
And so, just a few verses later Jesus says to the crowd again, in case
there was anyone out there not yet offended, “I am the living bread that came
down from heaven.” I don't want to spoil next week's reading,
but this does not endear Jesus to the crowd.
The problem was: Jesus was too
common to make the claims he made. It
was like dragging God through the dirt.
Jesus, a guy they knew, claimed to be the God they desperately needed. David Lose writes, “Think of
the audacious claim that Jesus is making. Who ever heard of a God having
anything to do with the everyday, the ordinary, the mundane, the dirty? Gods
are made for greatness, not grime; they [are] supposed to reside up in the
clouds, not down here with the commoners. I mean, who ever heard of a God who
is willing to suffer the pains and problems, the indecencies and embarrassments
of human life? It’s down
right laughable. No wonder the crowd grumbles against Jesus’ words, for
such words seem to make fun of their understanding of God’s majesty
and, even worse, to mock their own deep need for a God who transcends the very
life which is causing them so much difficulty.”[1]
Maybe that is at the heart of our
complaints: it's supposed to be more special than this. And yet here we are. With all of these normal people, people with
issues, who make mistakes, who let us down.
This is the Body of Christ – and it is just so ordinary.
This guy who preaches the Gospel is
just a guy; shouldn't angels be proclaiming the good news from the
heavens? And the water in the baptismal
font is from the tap – Toledo tap
water, no less; shouldn't we have a miraculous spring pouring forth from a rock
or something? And the bread and wine
were removed this morning from a plastic sleeve and a glass bottle; shouldn't
the bread fall like manna from heaven; shouldn't the wine be the product of a
miracle, like at the wedding at Cana?
Shouldn't our God be above all of this; instead, we get a God who was
born of a women, in a manger, and ultimately died a brutal, shameful death on a
cross.
Maybe we should complain; maybe we
deserve something more impressive, more otherworldly – something
less common. But that's not what we
get. God chooses to get into our dirt,
to get under our skin, to speak salvation through the common, to make the
ordinary extraordinary.
Recently, author Greg Garrett wrote
an essay entitled, Why I am (still) an
Episcopalian. In it he writes, “I'm not Episcopalian because I
think the Church needs me — but I am
Episcopalian because a faithful community from this tradition saved me, and I
know many others could tell similar stories. God spoke to me in the words,
love, and actions of Episcopalians when I had no hope and the future seemed, at
best, impossible. As much as I love the great gifts of common worship, love of
beauty, and thoughtful exploration handed down to us from the Anglican
tradition, I am Episcopalian — still — because in
the faces of other Episcopalians, I saw — and see — the Face
of God.”[2]
The same thing is happening right
here. I hope you can see that; I hope
you can see God in these faces. I hope
you can recognize all of the good things that Jesus is offering you, is
offering us. These ordinary people, this
ordinary bread, this ordinary wine: this is how God comes to us; God wraps
salvation in common stuff. I'm not sure
that makes any sense, but I've got no complaints.
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