“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your
sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Amen.
As we near the end of the
summer, in this last week of August, we also come to the end of Chapter Six in
John.
For me, as I suspect for many of you, the end of the summer is a
mixed bag. I have been spending a lot of time in Maine this month, where I
particularly am aware of the nip in the air, especially in the evenings, and
waning daylight hours. Even some of the leaves are starting to turn color! This
summer, especially, I want to hold onto each lovely, lazy warm day and resist
the change that fall brings- kids moving back to college, leaving a hollow
feeling in the house, and also the increase in my own level of activity and
responsibility. I’m resisting getting out of my false comfort zone that this
month has brought and coping with the ever changing circumstances and challenges
of life.
There was a great deal of resistance to change in this Chapter
in John, too. Resistance of Jesus’ followers to change their way of thinking in
order to believe what he was saying. I can’t blame them. Jesus was saying some
pretty controversial things, with his talk of eating flesh and drinking blood,
his talk of living forever. Talk that was so outrageous that many of Jesus’
disciples quit on him after that. “This is just too hard; we can’t accept it
anymore.” They turned and left.
I think we can all relate to these
disciples. In some ways, we are programmed, for survival’s sake, to resist
change. In a very biological way, our bodies crave to maintain “homeostasis”- a
condition of stability and constancy. Challenges, as the ones that Jesus were
presenting, often ignite the body’s fight or flight response. Instead of
continuing to stay and “fight”, or grapple with the meaning of the words of
Jesus, and the change in thinking that he was demanding, most of his followers
threw their hands up and said “enough”.
But twelve of them remained.
Twelve of them chose to stay, be uncomfortable, and trust that this Jesus was
offering something that they could not turn away from. And when Jesus questioned
them, asking “Do YOU, also wish to go away?”, Simon Peter spoke for all twelve.
“Lord, to whom can we go?” It was a statement of faith, followed by his
assertion that indeed, he and other others- “they had “come to believe” that
this man was “the Holy One of God.”
The ones who left had not fully “come
to believe”. Maybe they believed halfway....they followed the teachings of Jesus
as much as they could....but they just couldn’t take that last leap of faith to
believe the Jesus was who he said he was. They resisted change.
How
difficult it is to step out of old habits and thinking and “come to believe.” If
you are familiar with 12 step programs, you will know that, in fact, there is a
whole step devoted to this. It’s Step Two. Before you can overcome whatever
addiction or situation is afflicting you, you must “Come to Believe” in that it
is only a power greater than yourself who can help you. You must change your way
of thinking, and give up your old ideas of self-control and powerfulness. The
very expression “come to believe” indicates a process- a movement from one
place- the place of non-belief, to another place- that place of knowing with
your whole being that something that is true. In the case of the 12 steps, as in
the case of the 12 disciples, “coming to believe” is a spiritual journey, one
that may involve resistance, wavering, hard questioning, and then
finally....acceptance that this “Higher Power”, or something bigger than just
our own human selves, the can “restore us”. For the 12, acceptance that Jesus
truly is the son of God and that it is through him that they will receive
eternal life.
So John, Chapter Six, concludes on a high note. It
concludes with assertion in a belief that it truly is Jesus who comes from the
Father, who can give us eternal life. And here, “Eternal Life” doesn’t just mean
life after death in a place like heaven-it means living a very high quality of
spiritual life on earth. That, no matter what our circumstances are, God will
provide what we need. As Christians on a spiritual journey, we too are
constantly being challenged in our every day lives. Life itself throws us so
many curve balls. Just when we think we have something all figured out, or
settled- something else comes along to upset the apple cart! Like my false sense
of escape from life in Maine, we sometimes hide our heads in the sand when
life’s changes become too overwhelming to cope with. And this is all normal
human behavior. But in John, Jesus shows us that by coming to believe in him,
and through him in God, we are never left alone to deal with the changes and
challenges in our lives. We need only to try, over and over, to turn to the
source of strength and power who will guide us along our way. I would like to
close my reflections this morning with one of my favorite poems, from Irish poet
and philosopher John O’Donohue, from his book entiteld “To Bless the Space
Between Us.” This poem is called “For a New Beginning.”
For a New
Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts
never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting
until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your
desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed
yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched
you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness
whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you
always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage
kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with
energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your
destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this
opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with
your life's desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing
back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new
rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
