Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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It is a sign of true faith, I think, that it never shrinks from the truth, not even from bitter truth. Faith is not an opiate, it is never pretending or fanaticizing. That is important. Jesus said it is in knowing the truth, and facing the truth, that we are set free. And many of his faithful disciples have gone to the gallows, or the stake, or the cross because they refused to lie. To be sure, many others, over the years, have preferred a cheaper, easier version of Christianity, one that fudges on the truth but makes them feel good. "Tell me nice things. Sing me the songs of love. Pat me on the head. Rock me to sleep."

Jesus encountered people like that. Here, in the sixth chapter of John, we are told that, one day, many who had followed him for a time actually walked out! Why? Because of persecution? No, too early for that. Because they were tired of traipsing all over creation with him? No. They left because they didn't like what he was saying. He was telling them the unvarnished truth, requiring them to face the hard realities. When he told them that he himself was the real bread from heaven, and that the manna of Moses (which they had learned about since Sunday School) would not sustain them, they were appalled. They said, "Boy! This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?" And when, exasperated by their low tolerance for truth, he further angered them by saying, "You think that's hard to swallow -- wait 'till you see me ascend…", they were offended. He said that only the spirit counts, and that "the flesh is useless." Nobody likes to hear that. We pamper the flesh, we invest ourselves in things of the flesh, things of this world. Anyway, they quit! "We're out of here." Stomped off. Refused to listen (which is anyone's prerogative in regard to Jesus). And he turns back sadly to the original twelve (God bless them.) -- the only ones left, and asks, "Are you, too, going to leave?" And Peter (showing the good stuff in him, for a change) says, "To whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life." He knows: there is no alternative to Jesus.

The Gospel is good news -- wonderful, delightful news, and it fell upon the ancient world as a gentle dew from heaven. Jesus does have the words of eternal life, and to believe and trust him is the most deeply gratifying experience any human being can have. But here's the rub: there are no short-cuts to happiness in Jesus. He says it. It's all through the New Testament. We just don't like to hear it. We get to the Kingdom by going through the valley of the shadow of death, on a straight road, through a narrow gate, and by way of the cross. And it is here (at this point of truth) that many Christians walk away.

In a way, Christ is like a surgeon. Patients come full of tumors -- tumors of greed, and anger, tumors of fear, and worry, tumors of pride and self-delusion. Jesus can remove such tumors. But his patients are afraid of the knife. "The knife" in Christianity, the cutting, we call "repentance" or "conversion," and it consists mainly of facing the truth. And that can hurt. You bet it can! Repentance means we have to lay aside much that we enjoy and rely on. Worse, we have to admit we've been wrong -- not in a few minor things, but in our whole way of living and thinking. No one likes to admit, at age thirty, or forty, or fifty, that he has invested his whole life in junk bonds, in the empty promises of this world. So the surgery is painful. But the benefits are wonderful. Something in us has to die so that the better parts of us can live.

Peter, in this scene, is like someone sitting before a doctor saying, "The tumors are killing us. Only you can do this operation. We don't like the prospect of suffering, but what choice do we have. Where else can we go?" Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. All the others were murdered for their faith. Salvation and suffering go together. Telling the truth offends the world. People who do it will surely die.

Where else can we go? To whom can we turn? There is nowhere and no one. This century, which will soon be over, began in a burst of optimism. The western world had not fought a major war in fifty years. Alabaster cities were gleaming everywhere, and cities were wonderful, safe places to live. The mechanical revolution had made farm work easier (increasing the food supply) and now promised to improve every other nook and cranny of life. Trains, telephones, automobiles, electricity -- life was moving on up! And many were convinced we would no longer need the hocus pocus of God and religion -- we could get to heaven (an earthly heaven, in this case) by ourselves. But the twentieth century has been a bust! All the hopes that arrived with her have been dashed. We put our faith in things of the flesh (the products of science and technology) , and forgot the things of the spirit, and ended up devouring our children in two world wars. Trains could carry food to the hungry (and sometimes they did), but they could just as easily carry Jews to concentration camps. Science could prevent disease, but it could also destroy a whole city in a flash of light. Telephones could carry messages of love or of hate. Cities could be concentrations of culture and learning, or concentrations of crime and despair. We had hoped on these things, even thought they might be alternatives to Jesus. We tried big government and planned economies (which some said would solve all problems.), we adopted guiltless religion, we made excuses for all manner of bad behavior, we tried free love (and every other excess of freedom we could think of) and we came up broke. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Some time ago I had a long conversation with a depressed person. He was receiving good, professional help from a doctor, and had not come to me as a counselor. Which allowed me to sit back and listen to the case he was making. He was desperate for me to understand that, having studied all the evidence, he had concluded, in a responsible way, that life was bad. And he wanted to talk, for once, about the merits of the case and not about his feelings. And guess what? The case he made involved the old questions of philosophy and theology (so thoroughly ignored today): why everything ends in death, why all human motivation is selfish, why loving and caring makes a person vulnerable, why the suffering and hurting of this life is often not balanced by happiness. His family and his doctor were trying to make him feel better about life (with "talk therapy" and "drug therapy"), but no one was listening to him. He was searching for truth, and was willing to suffer if that's what truth meant. He was rejecting the idea (that Jesus and his followers had rejected so many years ago) that everyone has to feel good all the time.

Today we would surely diagnose Jesus as clinically depressed. And we would attach a similar diagnostic tag to Paul and the other disciples and apostles. We would want to treat them, so they would be content to fish for fish and make tents, and not be so compulsive about their lives. This is a modern way of walking away from Christ. This is how we slip the noose: we ignore facts and retreat into a world of feelings, where nothing is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong. But if the Pharisee is still stealing from the widow, it doesn't matter that the widow is comfortable with it. If the bread of Moses does not satisfy, it doesn't matter if a million people wish it would. If the things of the flesh are useless, if they in fact cannot give us security and happiness, it doesn't matter how much we pretend it isn't so.

What if we had a pill that would make people happy all the time, that would fix our feelings? What if we could add it, say, to the drinking water, so that no one would ever suffer again, no one would get angry or be afraid? Loved ones would die, but we would not grieve for them. Injustices would take place, but we would not care. Slaves would be happy being slaves, and the poor would be content in their poverty. Would that be a Christian world? No. For Christ, it is not how we feel but how we act that counts. He demands truth in the inward parts, a righteousness of thought and deed. He calls for true repentance -- turning around -- not just for feeling better about ourselves. It's not a pleasant prospect. Some of us will walk away when we hear it. But where would we go?