From the Pastor’s Desk – September 2024

In the last several weeks, our Sunday Gospel passage led us to discuss Jesus as living bread. Finally, last Sunday, Jesus speaks in graphic, flesh and blood language. He also suggested that eating his flesh and drinking his blood was the only way to come to the Father. It is a very difficult teaching; so much so, that many (perhaps most), of His followers left him.

Do you also wish to go away? He asked this question to those followers who remained. I wonder sometimes how I would have responded to the question. Because at times the truth is I do wish to go away. I don’t like thinking this about myself. But in times of temptation, in times when I deceive other people to avoid trouble or get what I want, in times when I deliberately close my eyes to the sight of those who are poor or  marginalized because I don’t want to feel guilty or bother to help. I too am one of the ones who wish to go away.

Do you also wish to go away? Peter’s response is striking. He doesn’t say yes, of course, but he doesn’t quite say no either. Instead, in good Jesus-style, he answers back with another question: To whom else can we go? It is not, perhaps, the most flattering answer in the world, but it is honest. It’s a little reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s famous description of democracy as the worst form of government except for every other form that has ever been tried. Following Jesus may not always be easy or pleasant, or even totally comprehensible, but when it comes to peace, joy, love, and compassion, or when it comes to the eternal-life business, to tell the truth there’s not much out there in the way of alternatives.

As ethicist Lewis Smedes said, “This is where the trolley stops. . . Without Jesus we are stuck with two options: utopian illusion or deadly despair. I scorn illusion. I dread despair. So, I put all my money on Jesus.”