The Thinkable and the Unthinkable John 6:56-69 Lawrence Jackman
John Kocur told me the other day that, given my appearance and my tone sometimes he thought maybe I could be channeling George Carlin. I found that flattering pretty much because George was skinny. Inside a robe you just can’t tell huh? One of Carlin’s bits was a list of words you couldn’t say on TV. It was a pretty obnoxious bit actually. For a long time, though, I have thought seriously about the things that you can’t say in church. (at least not very well).
One thing you aren’t really able to say is the truth about biblical people.
We make up some pretty interesting stories about biblical times. Even the characters in the Bible itself made up some pretty interesting stories about things they should have known about. Ah…lets face it, they put a spin on things that had very little to do with reality. Solomon probably didn’t want to speak ill of his father, David. Was he really asking us to believe that God wanted to use David as a model for future generations? The king David was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. He was an awful moral mess. Of all people Solomon had to have known that. Yet for Solomon that wasn’t a speakable truth. And the more that the truth could not be spoken, the more you could not really even think this through.
Jesus thought the unthinkable. He said the unspeakable. And he was not universally accepted because he did just these things. The passage from John is pretty interesting because it includes a fact that we just do not ever think about. Men and women were walking with Jesus. They were listening to his words, hanging on his every word, watching miracles happen. They were believing. They were close enough to God on earth to reach out and touch him.
When Jesus then began to explain some of his most profound thoughts, what happened? It looks like from the record that a majority of his followers simply left him. They walked away. It looks like maybe only the twelve are left. Maybe it is more, but it doesn’t sound much like very many more. And even they sounded more like resignation than commitment. Jesus says, “So, you guys going to leave too?” They answer, “There is nobody else to go to. You have the words about eternal life.”
In a day, maybe an hour or two, Jesus lost the majority of the flock. If he had been a minister in a church, he would have been fired.
So, in order to honor a Savior who thought the unthinkable and spoke the unspeakable, what do you say we spend a little time this morning getting use to the idea that we are called precisely to the unthinkable. Those folk who left Jesus were the ones who could not tolerate a new idea. The people who stayed were perhaps not too impressed with or enthusiastic about the brand new ideas, but were impressed with the fact that no one else had answers and Jesus did.
The fact of the matter is that the “faith” /Christianity is not a settled place or a settling in place. It is more of a way that we travel. It is not the destination—it is the sandals we wear as we move along a journey. And those sandals are just like you would imagine they ought to be. They are dirty, damp with human sweat, scuffed by the surface of the road, smelly and altogether very human tools. That is the faith—our sandals. They take us on this journey through unthinkable and unspeakable realities that need to become both thinkable and speakable.
Can we talk about new forms for church in the church? Generally the answer is no. We need to. Let me spin you a bit of a personal yarn about new forms. We have in the Presbytery both a church transformation group and a church planting group. It costs money to start a church or to redevelop one—a lot of money. I am guessing that in this environment and time it would cost something over a million dollars to actually found a church and get it off the ground. Would it be worth it? Of course it would, if that church nurtured members and strengthened the kingdom. But, it would take all that money and maybe 5 years for the group to become self supporting.
There might also be a way to start a church for one percent of that much money and three percent of the time and have it be self supporting in a couple of months. All we would have to do is give up everything that we think about when we think “church”. Bricks, mortar, pews, rooms, and whatever else.
There was a church fire in one of our places in Florida last week. The members of that church stood around the ashes and declared what every congregation facing that situation that I have ever seen declared. They said, “That was the building. We are the church.” When push comes to shove we do know that the church is such a greater thing than any room we sit in. Who says that there isn’t a First Church of Starbucks, of the Web, or of the public meeting room or the living room?
All we have to do is think the unthinkable. And when we do, we can foster the Kingdom of God in ways we have not dreamed of.
Can we mentally go where the people are? The world is hungry for the spiritual value that Christianity offers. All we have to do is go where the world is. But we have answers and they have doubts. Can we tolerate the doubts of the world? They doubt our sincerity. They doubt that we believe as completely as we say we do. They doubt that we have our “act all together” like we want the world to think.
Can we have the courage to go where the world is? God did in sending Jesus. Jesus did in walking the highways and byways. The disciples did who packed up and followed on the roads. God, Jesus and those people led with their weakness instead of their strength. It was vulnerability, displayed weakness, and open lives that converted the world the first time. It will be those qualities again. We will be like the disciples who stayed on board—not flinching from the challenges of being weak. We will look at our brothers and sisters in this world and say quite honestly, “We don’t know either. But we do have an extra pair of scruffy sandals. Take them and let us walk together.”
We do not have answers, but we do have relationships founded in love. However tenuous that fact may be it is the one reality that we need to learn to serve like no other. Jimi Hindrix said, (and you know I am out on a limb when I quote a musician of any stripe) “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Love is the single transformational principle of individual or corporate life.
Think about that and the Church. I believe all the way to the bottom of my heart that we can become the Kingdom if we but latch onto that single principle. We are here for a lot of reasons. Sense of duty; I made a promise; it is a good habit I just can’t seem to break; I want to learn more; I am hoping that I can find meaning, purpose or belonging; I want to meet God. We are all different and sometimes we have to work pretty hard to tolerate each other. We do that tolerating because we have an institution to maintain, programs to promote, and a structure to support.
What a different world it might be if we were gathered for a single purpose. What if we all said, “I am here because I love you”. What if we believed that so deeply that we would say it to God and to each other individually? Even just trying that on as an idea or a fantasy is truly transformative. Ah. lets do that. Lets become a new thing.
Once a long time ago in my life, I had a period of trial. It pales in comparison to many people’s experiences and I am deeply aware of that. I was working 6 days a week and commuting 90 miles each way to work. I was trying very hard to be a person and a half at work and a single parent at home. I was trying to survive divorce and a redefinition of my professional life simultaneously. Poor me. Here was an epiphany I had one night late when I got home and collapsed in my bed. I was both too tired and too depressed to even figure out how to pray. I lay in the dark and said perhaps the most authentic prayer of my entire life. I said, “I love you God”. And I went to sleep. That was a pivotal moment in my life. That was all there was. And that was all there needed to be.
Love for each other individually and love for God individually that is the transformational principle on which our faith is founded. “For God so loved…..” If we move nothing else in this world, let us move the concept of love from the unspeakable and unthinkable to the speakable, thinkable and doable skills of the church.
We can’t say the church should have new forms. Lets change that. We can and we will either by leading the way into the future or by being dragged kicking and screaming into the night. The church can be a new and transformed reality.
We can’t say in the church that we need to be where the world is. Lets change that. We can sanctify the world with our presence. We can transform the world like leaven. Lets not be afraid of that.
We can’t say in the church, “I love you”. Oh for heaven’s sake, (literally) lets change that. We have been given the power of love lets make it work like the power it is for all women, men and even the little ones. Amen