Sermon for August 5th, 2012

Psalm 78:23-29

23 Yet he commanded the skies above,
   and opened the doors of heaven;
24 he rained down on them manna to eat,
   and gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Mortals ate of the bread of angels;
   he sent them food in abundance.
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
   and by his power he led out the south wind;
27 he rained flesh upon them like dust,
   winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28 he let them fall within their camp,
   all around their dwellings.
29 And they ate and were well filled,
   for he gave them what they craved.

John 6:35,41-51

35Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." 41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I 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."

Pizza From Mars

As you can probably tell, I've been having fun with sermon titles lately. Today's sermon title is "Pizza From Mars." I settled on this one because my earlier working title was perhaps too confusing -- I was going to title today's sermon "Predestination, Transubstantiation, Supercessionism, Eschatology, and Hypostatic Union. Oh my." Like I said, "Pizza From Mars" seemed less confusing.

But today's Gospel passage is confusing enough on its own, especially if you haven't grown up in church, and aren't that familiar with the story of Jesus or Christian doctrines. For the past three weeks, we've been following Jesus, the disciples, and his crowds of followers around through the first century desert, first in the Gospel of Mark, and now today picking up the story in the Gospel of John. After today, this is where we will leave them all for the time being, since next week we begin a sermon series on "The Heart of Worship." But we won't be alone in leaving Jesus at this point in the story--after what he says today, the vast majority of his disciples and the crowds who follow him in the gospels also leave him, going away perplexed and confused. I hope you don't leave here today in the same fashion, but if you do, please know you are, historically, not alone.