Abiders

Scripture: John 6:51-58

John 6:51–58 NRSV

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

Bumper Stickers

We communicate in many layers, depending on how many people we are trying to reach at once and who they are. It is a science and an art that we learn from the crib onward. Our cats only have one word to use to communicate everything they need, "Meow!" We have thousands and thousands of words from which to craft our communication.

One of the basic forms of communication is something I call "bumper sticker slogans". These are short, usually pointed phrases that can fit on a sticker for others to see when they come up behind you on the road or see you parked in a parking lot. There are a lot of bumper stickers that have a bible verse, or part of a bible verse on them. Many more have short paraphrases of scripture. But there are only a small handful of scriptures that are usually chosen to put on bumper stickers.

You can find bumper stickers that have scriptures about Christmas on them, but you won't find the list of who begat who, leading up to Jesus. You can find #Blessed statements from the Sermon on the Mount, but probably not the verse where Jesus tells us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. You can find some of the Ten Commandments, like Thou shalt not Kill, but probably not Thall Shalt not Covet thy neighbor's house or wife or donkey.

Why are we so careful about only choosing certain scriptures to use? Because those short, powerful sayings, usually say more about who we are than anything else. It is why we put them on things that belong to us. We don't put those stickers on other people's cars... they certainly would not thank us for doing that. We wear them on our t-shirts, we don't write them on t-shirts hanging on the rack at the store. We use them to say, ""This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is the category I want you to put me in."" We would be confused to see a Hindu priest wearing a t-shirt that said John 3:16 on it. If you say the right things, wear the right things, have the right stickers displayed, that means you are a Christian, right?

I remember my first few weeks at college, off on my own for the first time, worried that I was going to struggle with my faith and get caught up in a wrong crowd. I wore a cross around my neck all the time, hoping that would help me share Jesus with others and remind me who I was. I met a classmate of mine who was a Christian, but didn't believe in wearing crosses. He said he wanted people to know He was a Christian based on how he treated them, not because of what he wore. That was convicting to me. As I got to know him, he challenged me to grow to a stronger faith and to share that faith through my actions and not just through my words and wearables.

Jesus used bumper sticker slogans, but they weren't the ones that anyone expected from Him. They so strongly believed that God was far away from them that they didn't recognize Jesus, who was God, when He came face-to-face with them. He had to show them that God not only could, but actually wanted to be close to them, before they would be able to see that He already was. The Bible word for this is "Abiding", which is an older, fancier way of saying living with someone.

It is a powerful word, "abiding". Back in those days there were only a few ways people would abide, or live with one another. If you got married, you would abide with each other. If you moved in with someone as their servant or slave, you would abide with them. If you were a very important guest, you would abide with someone temporarily, and they would serve you. Or, if you were adopted as someone's child, you would abide with them. In most cases, abiding meant joining families together and it was and continues to be a holy, sacred thing.

Jesus was trying to tell the people that God wanted to adopt them into His family, and He was willing to buy them with the life of His only Son, Jesus. He was also trying to tell them that they needed that abiding relationship to live. And so, Jesus, in bumper sticker slogan fashion, told them, "Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life."

Thesis: We are made to live with/in Christ.

Weird and Gross

Okay, okay... I know. We're not supposed to talk about things that are weird and gross in church. The problem is, sometimes Jesus talked about things like that. In our passage today, for example, He mentioned that the Living Bread that He wanted everyone to eat, was His own body. Wait! What? Jesus told people to eat His own body?

(Now I know that many of you already know better. You've already made that jump from Jesus talking about being the Bread of Life, to communion, and then back away from communion, to thinking about the Bread of Life as something different, like reading the Bible, or prayer, or singing worship music,... Gosh, you could make that Bread of life mean just about anything you want. Except what Jesus said, because that's just weird and gross.)

Unfortunately, the people that heard Jesus teach that day, didn't think about all the things we may have been taught about the Bread of Life. They were just confused and grossed out. They probably lost a little respect for Jesus. Some of them walked away that day.

The Jewish people were not like us. Their ancestors were taught that all life comes from God and all life is sacred. Not just human life. If you butchered an animal, you gave part of it to God as a sacrifice. Human life was extra special. God did not allow humans to be sacrificed. Instead, something else had to be sacrificed in their place. Every time a firstborn child was born, it was to be redeemed by offering up a sheep as a sacrifice in its place. They didn't go to the grocery store or restaurant to get food. They had to raise their own food.

Jesus compared Himself to the food that God sent from Heaven that fed the Hebrew people when they were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. These flakes they collected on the grown each morning, called manna, were used to make bread. Jesus was claiming that He was even better than manna. If they had Him, they would never go hungry again. In fact, they would live forever. He wasn't trying to gross everyone out. He was trying to explain that we need Jesus more than we need food and water to live.

Intimacy

But how do we need Jesus? Do we need his teaching? Do we need his encouragement? Do we need his touch?

Yes. All of the above. And so much more.

Years ago, long before the internet, before television, before automobiles and refrigeration, we were a personal and social kind of society. People in and near towns went to the market every day for their daily bread or daily ingredients to make the bread because food did not keep. Oh, they canned and preserved food, but that was for the winter when food grew scarce, not just for stockpiling your pantry. If they wanted the latest news, they had to ask somebody. If they wanted to buy something, they often had to trade or bargain for it. Everywhere you went, everything you did involved dealing with a person face to face.

Entertainment happened at home, much like today, but homes were filled with neighbors, family, and friends. Do you remember those late Friday night card games with a dozen grim-faced grownups sitting around the table, all looking to win big that night. Suddenly the silence is broken when one of the men says, "Alice, do you have a two" and Alice responds, "No, go fish." The trusted sources of news were not national networks, they were individual people.

Without good heating, people huddled together to stay warm. They were not just personal, they were able to be vulnerable, intimate, and authentic. Can you imagine what the disciples thought of the upper room in Jerusalem: a place where they celebrated the Lord's Supper for the first time, and also had their feet washed, and also slept and ate meals during many of the days and weeks that followed? All in the same room.

The Methodist movement, way back in The 1700's tapped into that kind of intimacy and invited into those close-knit fellowships. They brought Jesus to the Go Fish game, put away the cards, and let Jesus lead them together in prayer, in study, and in helping them serve and support one another. They learned to love each other the way Jesus loved them. While other churches were building beautiful buildings, the Methodists were building beautiful people. They learned it from Jesus, who was and is willing to get more personal with us than we are comfortable being with Him.

Two-Way Invitation

God could have just made a big announcement. He could have thundered out His words for us from the sky. But He almost never does, and even when He did, He does it for a small group of people. They in turn are asked to pass the message on to others... personally. The Bible is such a gift to us, but it is powerless without the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, with us as we read it. Every time we see someone choosing to follow Jesus, there is a person God is working through to guide them.

Our most basic understanding of the gospel is rooted deeply in relationships. We are not pointing people to a pile of free tickets to paradise. We are pointing them to a personal, closer-than-you-are-comfortable-with relationship with Jesus Himself. Not through a book. Not through a video. Not through a preacher or any other person. The Presence of God is not a phone call away. He wants to come live with you. He wants to be part of your life. And I think God does this with us here, because when we die, He is inviting us to come live with Him. God is not giving us real estate in heaven to build our own homes. He is telling us Mi casa es su casa. My home is your home. So you better get used to having me around all the time.

And we better get used to spending a lot of time with each other. We are going to have eternity with each other as brothers and sisters. We will suffer if we cannot learn to love one another. And it takes time. Relationships grow as we get to know and trust one another. As you look around the room today, who would you feel comfortable inviting over for a riveting game of Go Fish? Who would you be willing to go to their house and pray with them? Who would you bring into your home to care for, and, if you were in need, who would you be willing to ask for help?

This is what Jesus called the Church. It's not something you go to. It is something you become. We become that kind of because of what Jesus does in you when we say yes to the invitation to join God’s family. And it happens because of what Jesus does through all the other members of His family He puts around you.

Will you accept the invitation Jesus is giving you today? Will you abide with Jesus and let Him abide with you?