A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, August 23, 2009
John 6:60-69
On Monday evening, I pushed myself away from the cool air of the church office, put on my sneakers and went for a run in the heat. Each muscle in my body rebelled. I gasped for every breath. I ran. With each step, I thought about stopping. It. Was. Just. So. Hot. Useless flesh, I thought. Useless, useless flesh that would prefer to sip lemonade in air conditioning. My flesh is useless!
When this thought came to me, I nearly stopped in my tracks. (I didn’t actually. I thought about it. But, I didn’t because if I did, that would have ended the run. Right then and there. And then, my flesh would have been beyond useless. Anyhow, I digress.) I kept running. I pushed around another corner, down another street, through the heat, thinking about flesh – the papery hands of widows I’ve held, the newborn fat that I’ve squeezed, the flesh of all shapes and sizes that I’ve embraced. Even when our bodies don’t work the way that we want them to, this flesh is not useless. My steps got faster. It can’t be discarded. I pounded into the pavement: it can’t be ignored. Flesh requires attention and care. Flesh is not useless – even though my flesh felt less than useless running in the summer’s heat. Totally useless.
Of course, it’s not true. It’s not really what I believe. I believe in flesh. I believe in the mystery of sweat pouring off my skin. I believe in the frustration that this flesh will not do what I want it to do. I believe all of this because I believe in Jesus’ flesh. I believe in the awesome, incomprehensible wonder that God’s self came into this world in human flesh. I believe that God lived among us with aching muscles, broken bones, clammy hands, goose bumps, bruises, scars, pimples and sunburns. I believe that our God became flesh and lived among us in this world.
That’s how this Gospel begins. In the beginning, God became flesh and lived among us. And yet, throughout this gospel, Jesus talks a lot about the separation of these two things – the spirit and the flesh. The theologian Raymond E. Brown explains how this gospel describes the separation vertically – with “one above, the other below.” It’s not only “spatial but qualitative.” The spirit and the flesh are two extremes that do not co-exist. They are separate from each other. They do not relate. This all fits very nicely when Jesus assures this large group of followers: “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” He seems to be saying, this is everything that matters – spirit and life. Don’t worry about the flesh. Focus on the spirit. It’s more important.
But, that doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all. In the beginning, God became flesh and lived among us. Six chapters later, the flesh is useless. No way! It doesn’t make any sense to say that flesh is useless when flesh is so important to human existence. This isn’t just something I believe. It’s right there in the opening verses of the gospel: God came into this world with flesh. God gets the same thin skin that we do. God has the same stuff holding together our blood and bones. God becomes flesh. And so, the flesh cannot be useless. It just can’t. Not if God comes into this flesh in Jesus Christ. No, flesh is important. Flesh is very important.
Last week, when I stopped in to make my visits, the Nazarene chaplain reminded me of this. He told me about his denomination’s annual meeting. Knowing that the Maine Conference Annual Meeting is coming soon, I wondered what they had talked about. You know, because there’s always a hot topic at these meetings. So, I asked: “Really? Anything interesting?” He smiled and told me that they debated into the wee hours of the morning whether or not they should adopt a “Wellness” paragraph in their shared covenant of behavior. We don’t have this sort of thing in the United Church of Christ. We don’t vote upon what it looks like to be a faithful person, but the Nazarenes do. They were debating an addition to their covenant that affirms health and exercise as a value of faith. The word that tripped them up in this paragraph? Gluttony. No one seemed to like that. Indeed, flesh is very important. It’s not only the spirit that gives life. It’s this flesh. Our flesh. Certainly, this teaching is difficult. It’s hard to accept because it’s hard to know what Jesus is saying to this large group of his followers.
And yet, in the end of the passage, he asks a question. It’s a very simple question. He turns from the large group to the twelve disciples and asks them directly, “Do you also wish to go away?” Jesus knows that his message is not about easy answers where there is a clear right and clear wrong. His message is complex and confusing. And so, he asks them if they are willing to grapple with the tension of believing in both spirit and life. Even though the Spirit is so totally different from the flesh, Jesus asks the disciples if they can imagine these two things together – at once.
Simon Peter responds by talking about words. He says that Jesus has the words of eternal life. I think Simon Peter is missing something important. He’s tripping over words when really Jesus is all about life. Every single thing Jesus does is about life. Every healing. Every parable. Every miracle. It’s all about this life. Jesus comes to bring life, but Simon Peter doesn’t get it. He just can’t imagine the life of the Spirit in his own flesh. He just doesn’t have the words for it, but he thinks he should. Clearly, he doesn’t get it.
We’re not reading the last few verses of this chapter because I don’t think they’re all that important. I don’t think that Jesus replies to Peter in this way. And if this gospel author can offer such blatant contradictions in the same story, I don’t see why I can’t add my own ending to this exchange. I don’t think Jesus called anyone the devil. That seems more like creative license to me.
Instead, I imagine that Jesus touched Simon Peter. Words have power and certainly Jesus has plenty of words – important and life-giving words – but I think that this message requires touch of one person to another, where you actually feel the heat in another’s skin through the palm of your hand.
You know, like when you hear your friend talking and hear what he’s saying but none of it really makes sense until… until… he touches you. There’s that strange electricity. Even when it’s hot and sticky, when that friend touches you in that moment in just that way, it makes all the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. You know that you are not alone. You know that he understands and you feel alive. I imagine that Jesus touched Simon Peter just like that. His hand lingered there on his back as if to say:
This isn’t about tomorrow.
This is so you will have life today.
Your flesh is not useless.
Go now and live.