DUKE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL

Transcription

1 DUKE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL William H. Willimon, Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry "What Are You Looking For?" July 27, John 6:1-21 "When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself" This past year we conducted a survey of those who attend Duke Chapel. The results showed that most of you are reasonably happy with the way we do worship here, contented with the sermons, appreciative of our efforts as ministers and musicians. This was gratifying for those of us who work to make a Sunday morning in Duke Chapel all that it ought to be for you. And yet, after the surveys are in, after the data are collected, there is still one more question to be asked ofwhat we do here on a Sunday: what does Jesus think about our worship? That's a frightening question, frightening not only because there are bound to be many answers, many of them conflicting, to that question. Frightening because it is such a basic question. Frightening because the scriptures note that Jesus drove away about as many people as he attracted. For instance, I'm pleased when we have a crowd here in the Chapel. I try not to "play the numbers game," but still, it's nice to know that a good sized crowd ofyou are here on Sunday. But then, just when I've counted all of you and taken some pride that so large a crowd is here on a summer Sunday, then I recall that some of Jesus' most abrasive and controversial teachings were precisely at the moment when the gospels say that he was attracting great crowds (Luke 11 :29f, 14 :25). How well I remember that Sunday last fall when the assigned gospel was from Luke. Luke begins, ''Now great crowds followed after Jesus." Great crowds. Jesus is a success. Then Luke says, "At that time Oust at the time when there were such great - crowds] Jesus began to teach them to deny themselves and follow him, to hate their mother, their father, their family and follow him." Reading that, I said to myself: "I expect that the crowds got a good deal smaller after that sermon!" You will be happy to know that I wisely decided not to preach on that text! Which brings me to today's scripture from John. It's a story about Jesus, but first it is a story about a crowd. "A large crowd kept following him," says John (6:2). Can there by a surer sign of success than this? Who can argue with numbers? Look at the "bottom line." A large crowd. Jesus has become popular. Then John tells us why they were following Jesus. "They saw the signs that he was doing for the sick" (6:2). Jesus has healed the hurting multitudes. He has brought to people that to which we give the largest portion of our national product - health care. If

2 there is one indisputable, uncontested good that we have it is this - health. Great crowds are following Jesus because they see his signs. He heals them. He meets their needs. Curiously, Jesus does not continue to meet their needs. Next verse: Jesus "went up the mountain and sat down there with his disiciples" (6:3). Well, even a do-gooder like Jesus needs a break, a temporary respite from meeting people's needs. Jesus looks up from his mountain retreat and "saw a large crowd coming toward him" (6:5). Having a bit of fun with Philip, Jesus asks, "Philip, how much money do you think it would take to cater a meal for such a crowd?" Philip replies that six month's wages might provide a snack for them, but not much (6 :7). A kid is found who has a few loaves and a couple offish. Jesus commands the people to sit. He takes the lad's food, gives thanks, and they all eat their fill. Jesus is the compassionate one who feeds the hungry, hurting multitudes. Now, if you were here last Sunday, you've already heard that sermon. Jesus is the compassionate one who meets our needs. And after all, isn't that why we're here? We are here hoping to have our need met by Jesus. Please note, however, that this story does not end with Jesus' feeding of the multitudes. The people are naturally impressed. "This Jesus must be quite a prophet of God who has come into the world!" they exclaim. Surely Jesus is gratified by their exclamation. At last, they appear to have gotten the point. After so much rejection, at last the people see who Jesus is and proclaim him Lord. At last the Jesus Movement is getting somewhere. No. Jesus rejects their acclamation. Next verse: "When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself" That's curious. Right at the point when people have at last accepted Jesus, have acclaimed him Lord, he nervously withdraws, departs the crowd to be alone. Why? Why did he withdraw precisely at the point when his coronation was being arranged? The people need bread. Jesus has given them bread. They acclaim him as king. What else could Jesus want? Do you remember, at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, how he was tempted in the wilderness? Satan met Jesus and offered him this world and heaven too. "Make stones into bread," said Satan. Jesus refused. Isn't bread good? Isn't feeding the hungry self-evidently good? Why did Jesus refuse and why, when he did feed people, was he so put offby their calling him king? Something in.jesus recognized that he could not meet the needs of so many people who were clamoring after him without at the same time denying who was called by God to be. In the wilderness, Satan tried to transform Jesus into a wonder-worker. Jesus refused. Now, Jesus has given bread and when the grateful crowds attempt to crown him king, Jesus withdraws (John 6:15). When the crowds find him the next day, Jesus rebukes them for caring only about their bellies (6:26). They ask for a sign from Jesus, perhaps hoping for another free meal. But Jesus refuses, and launches instead into his famous "Bread of Life Discourse," where he identifies himself with what they truly need. Many of his disciples say, "This is a hard saying," and many of them no longer follow Jesus after he stops giving them bread but now says that he is their "bread from heaven" (6:60, 66). 2

3 f Jesus refused to do for the crowds what they wanted, as if to do so would be a forsaking of his vocation. Jesus, What will you do for us? must be subsequent to the prior question, Jesus, Who are you and what is your mission? The great theologian, Karl Barth, said people come to church asking, "It is true.?" Torn Long feels that today, most people in the pew are simply asking themselves, "Will it work for me?" That's why I think this story is told to us. When will we ever learn? Christianity, following Jesus, is not merely another helpful means of helping us get what we want. Rather, following Jesus is the means whereby God gets what God wants. Jesus cannot be enlisted as another helpful therapeutic device to enable us to get what we want before we met Jesus. The Gospel implies that we do not know what we want, what we need before we meet Jesus. How well this was understood by the atheist, Nietzsche: "Christianity is a system, a whole view of things, thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: Nothing necessarily remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know what is good for him, what evil; he believes in God, who alone knows it." (Quoted by Kenneson and Street, The Selling of the Church, Abingdon, 1997, p. 82). I heard William Sloane Coffin say that he did not know how you attracted people to the Gospel by appealing to their essentially selfish needs and then ended up offering them the unselfish Gospel of Jesus. John says that Jesus performed a great miracle, feeding hungry people, as a "sign." It was not so much a "miracle," though it was that. It was a sign, something which points beyond itself to something greater and more important than the sign. The bread blessed and given for the people was a sign that God was among them, not among them as fulfillment of all their hearts' desired, but present as Jesus. This God was greater even than their hunger. this God was there to be worshipped, to be obeyed, to be followed, even when the following did not appear to meet their needs. Modem people want to be entertained. At school, at work, at home, we want to be amused, captivated, entertained. We would rather watch sports than do sports. This entertainment mentality severely undercuts our ability to grow morally or intellectually, maybe even spiritually. Neil Postman says that in order to compete with television, teaching, which once was thought of as formation or inculcation, has been reduced to popular entertainment: "Drawing an audience--rather than teaching--becomes the focus of education, and that is what television does. School is the one institution in the culture that should present a different worldview; a different way of knowing, of evaluating, of assessing. What worries me is that if school becomes so overwhelmed by entertainment's metaphors and metaphysics, then it becomes not content-centered but attention-centered, like television,. chasing 'ratings' or class attendance. If school becomes that way, then the game may be lost, because school is using the same approach, epistemologically, as television. Instead of being something different from television, it is reduced to being just another kind of television." (Quoted by William Kilpatrick, Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong- Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education. Simon & Schuster, NY, NY, 1992). Is there a message here for the church? 3

4 I spend a great deal of my summers roaming about the country speaking to preachers about how to improve our preaching. (This surprises some of you that I should be so employed!) There are many reasons why we don't communicate as preachers. We don't communicate.because we are not good as preachers, because we don't prepare, because we don't know enough about the gospel, we misunderstand the human condition. But today' s scripture suggests to me that there are excellent reasons for not communicating, for being rejected. People bring many things with them in their listening to a sermon. They have been pre-conditioned, their ears are not in tune with the message, their understanding is blocked by metaphors which they have received from the culture but make it very difficult for them to hear the gospel. Some of my communicative failures are due, not to me, but dut to Jesus. Recently, I had a woman come to my class who was a practitioner of sometping she called "destructivist art." Destructivist art involves, at least in her case, throwing hydrochloric acid on a canvas, while viewers watch the canvas rot due to the eating away of the canvas by the acid. This is alleged to be some sort of statement about George Bush. After she showed the class some of her art, some of the class said, "This is the most wonderful thing we have ever seen." However, the majority of the class felt totally excluded by her communication. Many of them were even angry. "This isn't art!" they blurted out. "This is the dumbest thing we've ever seen." She responded to their questions with grace and good humor. By the end of the class, most of the students were still unconvinced, uncomprehending of her work. "There are good reasons for not understanding this art. Don't be so hard on yourself," she reassured them. "This art is very demanding. If this art is really making a critique of the present structure of society, then if one is caught in those structures, or benefitting from those structures, there are good reasons why one should not be able to understand. In a way, your inability to comprehend this art is, in itself, a validation of what I am claiming to be the aims of this art." The thing that impressed me as a preacher was her willingness to have her hearers not understand her. I was struck by how she seemed utterly unpreterbed by our failure to receive, to comprehend what she was trying to say. I think she was about something larger than our acceptance, the meeting of our needs. I think she was trying to do something to us. NOTES: John's account of the miraculous feeding is curious, when compared to the synoptic gospels, for a number of reasons. John links the feeding to the story of Jesus' walking on water, and to Peter's confession of faith. Probably, John means thereby to make a strong point regarding the identity of Jesus as the exaulted Christ. Moreover, we should take note that this feeding is set by John in the context of Passover. In John's gospel, Jesus cleanses the temple at passover and uses the occasion to speak of his impending death (John 2). Later, in John 13, Jesus will speak again of his death in the context of a Passover meal with his disciples. Unlike Luke's account of the miraculous feeding, as well as Mark's, this meal is not presented by John as a sign of Jesus' compassion for the hungry multitudes. Rather, this feeding is used by Jesus as an opportunity to perform a sign that will be considerably greater than the crowds 4

5 i expected. This is a typical Johnannine moment. In John's gospel, they come to Jesus asking for "water," and he offers "living water." They come hankering for bread, and his gives them "bread from heaven." So again, in today's passage from John, we are alerted that "bread" means considerably more than what we mean when we say, "bread." We come to Jesus with our bodily, carnal, immediate needs only to be surprised that Jesus seems to be about more than the meeting of our needs. Nothing so satisfies us as a good meal. After their miraculous meal, the crowd immediately thinks of monarchy. Moses earlier gave bread, manna, in the wilderness of the exodus (Deut. 18:18). They hail Jesus as the new king. John offers us an exaulted Christology. Jesus will not be controled or utilized by the crowd for our purposes. He will not be jerked around in fulfillment of our wants. against the crowd, against us in order truly to be for us. 5