Pentecost XIII - Holly Hartman

“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.