Deserter or Disciple?

In John 6, Jesus has been talking about the Bread of Life. Then he says, "This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world . . . I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you . . . For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him."

Not surprisingly, his followers reply, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" And Jesus asks them, "Does this offend you?" Then comes today's verse: "Many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."

A hard teaching? That's a bit of an understatement, isn't it? This is beyond the craziness of tearing down the temple and rebuilding it in three days. This is beyond death and resurrection, which someone might be able to accept on a theoretical level. This is cannibalism. "Eat my flesh. Drink my blood." And Jesus doesn't say, "Don't panic. I'm speaking figuratively here." Rather, he says something along the lines of, "You think this is tough? Wait until you see what's coming." He then turns to the twelve and asks if they want to leave too. I love Peter's response here, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God." It might sound like craziness to us, but we're all in. We've put all our eggs in your basket. Where else can we go?

I want to make this personal, but I also want to be careful -- perhaps too careful. I think I may have, at times in the past, heard God's Spirit speaking to me or felt him nudging me but chosen to ignore those communications because they were not rational. The words were not Scripture, nor were they clearly aligned with what I believed to be my prescribed roles as a Christian woman. Rather, they aligned very closely with my deepest longings -- to write, to create, to teach. Therefore, I distrusted them. I did not leap to follow but rather pursued with renewed vigor what I believed to be my duty. I returned to the law when the Spirit was calling.

Our 21st century sensibilities put a lot of stock in what is rational. Maybe too much.

Barbara