The Gray Monk

Tewkesbury Abbey
Trinity 14
16th September 2001

John 6:66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

At the end of a week such as the one we have just lived through, I suspect that many will be asking the question “Why does God allow this?” Perhaps the question would be better phrased “Why does man never learn?”

In St John’s account of the events in tonight’s reading, several strands weave together to create the background to the rather bald statement I have taken as a text. For many, this Galilean has taken that one step too far. He has crossed that invisible line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. For many in his audience, the claim that the bread of his body will impart eternal life is just one claim too far. Indeed the word, which our translators give us as “hard”, is more properly rendered as “offensive”. For the faithful Jew much of what he reveals in the discourse would have been offensive for it cut to the heart of what they believed the Messiah was to bring and do.

No doubt many in his following knew him well enough to know at least some of his background and upbringing and his claim to be the Messiah, the Holy One of God is just too much. No doubt they too asked; “Why does God allow this?” The problem for them would have been the language of eating his flesh. This would have been difficult to understand even though it seems that John has included this discourse as an explanation of the miracle in Mark 8 - the feeding of the 5000. The twelve alone seem to understand, eventually, and accept the teaching. It is Peter who once more speaks for all in declaring “you are the Holy One of God.”

Many of the audience on this occasion could see no further than their own expectations. The Messiah was destined to come from the Royal House of David, not from Galilee! He was supposed to usher in the new age of glory for Israel, not come preaching sacrifice and reconciliation! He was supposed to crush their enemies, not nurture them or offer them healing and hope! Their concept of the Messiah blinded them to the indications in the prophets and in many other parts of scripture. God offers humanity hope, healing, and immeasurable riches, not in material goods but in spiritual terms.

So why does God allow the sort of atrocity that we have witnessed this week? Why do we need to be reconciled with the perpetrators when every instinct says we should wipe them from the face of the earth? It is not God’s will that is served in the perpetration of atrocities such as the deliberate crashing of passenger carrying jetliners into buildings, it is man’s blind hatred and man’s evil egotism which is served by these means. Pity those who carried out the deed, dying no doubt with the cry “God is great!” on their lips, believing that they were winning for themselves eternal joy by killing so many “infidels” for God. Pity those who rejoiced in this carnage; pity them for they have sown the seeds of their own judgment in so doing.

It is not God that allows this. It is man. It is man who, given free choice, deliberately chooses the path of darkness and evil, turning his back on God and walking in misery and false hope. It is man who will not learn who, in the name of God, carries out the sort of vile attack we saw on Tuesday or the demonstrations which terrified children in Belfast last week. Like Christ’s audience in the synagogue, we turn away when the message doesn’t suit our pattern or our desires and fail to follow where he would have us go.

It is difficult to respond rationally to the events of this last week. Events of this magnitude defy our ability to absorb the full horror of what we are seeing. Bad enough if it is a natural disaster, but this is man made, man inflicted might be a better description.

The problem for all of us is that we have allowed our faith to become something of a habit, something almost two-dimensional. When we are then confronted by events such as these we lose our bearings, our faith is shaken, and we experience fear of the unknown. That perhaps was the problem for those of Christ’s listeners. He was asking them to abandon some of their comfortable certainties and follow into unknown territory, to take his teaching on trust and allow themselves to believe what they were seeing and hearing. Even now it is difficult for some to accept that the path to salvation and eternal life is through Christ, through the word made flesh and not through any deed or action of our own. Psalm 125:1 declares:
“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures for ever.”

Faith, to endure, needs to become three-dimensional. It must be founded firmly on understanding, nurtured in worship, and fulfilled in belief, and it must grow and develop as we do. Those who fail to develop their faith find themselves eventually confronted with “hard teaching” and must then choose to follow and accept or to turn away in anger or sadness.

It is often said that there is no free lunch. Certainly that is true in this case. There is a penalty to accepting the Bread of Life; discipleship means accepting the hard and sometimes unacceptable. It means following sometimes where we do not wish to go and accepting God’s timetable and God’s judgment or intention, not our own. As Jonah discovered when he railed against God’s sparing the people of Nineveh, God often asks us to do and to accept hard things. It means standing up for God when that is required and staying silent when that is what is needed. It is all to easy to respond in anger and pain when we feel afraid or threatened, but down that path lies only misery and loss. So to whom do we turn when we feel threatened, when we are threatened?

Christ has promised us his fellowship and the salvation that comes from the divine bread of the spirit. It may be “hard”, it may at times be unpalatable, but it is the way of hope. To whom do we turn when threatened? Our response to the threat surely reveals our direction. Turning to Christ in times such as these may not be the easiest option, but it is the right one. When we can join Peter and say: “We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God”
then we will have begun to drive fear and prejudice from our lives. When we can also truly turn away from the viciousness and wickedness that characterizes so much of the relationship between faiths and between our fellow Christians we will truly have begun to share in the one true Body of Christ.

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

The events of this week have shocked us, shaken our security, and reminded us, if such were necessary, of the inhumanity and evil that man is capable of producing. Who could be surprised if some turned away from God as a result of this week’s atrocity? Yet we must not, for to do so is to allow evil the victory.

“I am the living bread that came from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.”

In Christ alone we find hope and salvation. In him alone we find peace and refuge from the insanity of this world. In him alone we can hope for the future. We must learn to trust in him and teach others to do so, too.

Amen.