Real Soul Food
I was fortunate growing up in that I considered myself as having two sets of parents, one my own set of parents and then a set of parents that I acquired from my best friend in high school. They were the Lindsay’s. And one thing about the Lindsay’s is that they were well endowed in terms of being rather large people. My friend Fred was just a big guy but some of it was because of what they ate. What I remember most about eating there, and I spent the night with them all the time, is that the Crisco just flowed, or the bacon grease. I will always remember having fried eggs that were fried in about that much bacon grease. I will have to admit that the sweet potato pie that we had I have never had the like before or since; it was just wonderful. I have great memories of that. My friend, Fred, his father died about a month or so ago and I went down to the funeral. I had to go, and I am glad I did. But those are my memories of that time. We might call that kind of food, soul food, but soul food technically comes from the African American variety. The slaves, when they came over, sometimes were not given the greatest of food so they had to make the best of things and used all parts of the animals….we won’t go into that. They used all parts, and other things, and that became a term called soul food; but it has also kind of graduated into the southern style of food. Some people might call it comfort food, at least that is what my mother would call it, but we might call it soul food.
Well today I want to talk about a different kind of soul food, the real soul food. Jesus, in the passage that we will talk about today, and we have been studying the gospel of John, that is what we have been doing over the last several weeks, and I want to encourage you to bring your bible if you can. We have it on the screen but it would be great if you did that and followed along with me. On Wednesday nights I am also teaching a class going a little deeper into that. This passage is a difficult one because Jesus uses an image in it which is very hard for the people of that time, and has been hard for the Church. He says that “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have no part of me” essentially, and that is hard. It was hard then because the Jews didn’t like the idea of dead things and it was confusing to them. But Jesus is talking about himself, he is talking about faith in him, and he is talking about eating and drinking that which is good for the soul.
Follow along with me as we begin this passage. It is from John, chapter 6, beginning at verse 41. It is a little long but notice again what happens in this passage, the conversations and what Jesus says. Remember also when he says Jews he is talking about Judean Jews. There were Jews from Galilee, as well. So he says:
(John 6:41-65)
41At this the Jews began to grumble (or murmur) about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
43″Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. 44″No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. 47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
53Jesus said to them, “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. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
60On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”
Would you pray with me?
As always Lord I pray that you would help us to understand your word, that we know you better, and that we may take something from here that will mean something to our lives and we can live it more as would please you. Be with us Lord, open our hearts and minds. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen
Well, as is my habit, I have a couple observations to make before we get into the passage, very quickly. As we go though the passage you will note the growing offense toward Jesus and particularly in this passage he will go further and people will begin to be more and more angry with him. I have said before a lot of times we think of Jesus as sort of soft and cuddly, but not really. You don’t get yourself crucified if you are soft and cuddly. Jesus is beginning to say some things that are somewhat offensive to people– as a matter of fact, not somewhat, very offensive. We will note that the Jews, these were folks from Judea that had followed him up from Galilee, murmured at him because he said “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” Now murmur is a very interesting word that is translated in the NIV as grumble, and murmur is like group grumbling. It is an English word, kind of like buzz–it means what it sounds like. I have a friend who was a pastor of a church. He was in a group meeting in which something was said that was not very popular and he said. “You could hear the murmurs start when people start talking among themselves.” It is not a very pretty sight. As a matter of fact, it is interesting that it was probably the Jewish leaders that were murmuring about Jesus, because right in the Old Testament it talks about how the children of Israel murmured against Moses and God took it personally against him. It is not a very pretty thing for people to do, but that is what was going on with Jesus. They were murmuring and what was interesting is that murmuring has to do with people talking among themselves. They didn’t really talk to Jesus. You know, it is O.K. to disagree with something and to talk about it; but they weren’t even talking to him. They were talking with one another and he was addressing it. It is going to get worse and worse.
Another observation that we will see is that Jesus’ listeners confused the figurative with the literal. Now I want to be very clear here. In the modern eras when we talk about things not being literal we usually mean that they are not true. But when Jesus uses figurative language he is using something that is deeply true. He is using it as a symbol for something and we have seen this before. In this case they hear him talking about how he is the bread of life and then he uses this graphic image about how you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. It is a hard one for them. But we have seen it before, remember Nicodemus when Jesus says “You must be born again” and Nicodemus thinks that Jesus is talking about obstetrics. Or later on with the woman at the well, he says, “You should drink this living water.” She thinks he is talking about real water out of a well and he is talking about water that quenches spiritual thirst. Well, in the same way, he is talking about something very specifically here but it is not literal blood or literal flesh. He is talking about faith. He is talking about what faith means and it is like drinking his blood and eating his flesh. We will be a little more clear about that as we go along; but I do want to say very clearly that many people think, many Christians think, that when he talks about that he is talking about the Lord’s Supper. But, not really; this was said before the Lord’s Supper was instituted. What he is really talking about –as a matter of fact, both of those images, both of those things, talk about the same thing –this does not refer to the Lord’s Supper, rather the Lord’s Supper refers to the same thing. They are pointing to the faith, the kind of faith, that we are to have and what we are to have faith in.
So what is true faith? This is something very important for us to understand because I think as western Christians we sort of intellectualize faith, we make it something that is just about the head; but it is so much more than that. It is so much more than that. It is really about a relationship with God. It is about what God does in our lives and our response to that. True faith starts with God’s power and you know when you read the scriptures and if you see something repeated two or three times, pay attention to it. Pay attention. Now, you should pay attention anyway; but if it is repeated, pay attention to it. We find this particular idea several times in Chapter 6. In verse 37 he says “all that the Father gives me will come to me.” Then later on even the disciples start to run out on Jesus and he notes that “this is why”, in verse 65, “this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.” Those who were running away hadn’t been given the power to believe.
Now this is a hard teaching for us because we tend to think of faith is something that we do and it is really something we respond to, and that is the power of God, and it is very important for us. Now, what does that mean? Well this is a day for object lessons. Remember I talked to the kids about this epoxy glue. Well if you can think of the glue in this tube on one side, I am not sure what side it is, is the epoxy. By itself it doesn’t do anything. It is just there. You can put it on a piece of wood and it will just sit there. It might dry out but it won’t hold anything. But when you put the activator in, or the catalyst, it changes it chemically and it suddenly fires up, if you will, it gets hot to the touch. If you put your finger on it and wait a minute, you are going to be in trouble; it is kind of like super glue. That is what our faith is like. By ourselves it doesn’t mean a lot. You see we do not have the ability to believe without help, because we are sinners, because we have all kinds of things standing in the way. We have our self-centeredness; we have our desires; we can’t see very clearly by ourselves; but God helps us. What does that mean to us? Well it means we have a lot to be thankful for. We should wake up every morning and thank God that he works in our lives. You might say, “Well my life is not very good. I wish God was more active.” If he wasn’t active it would be worse. God is in the process of not only helping us to believe initially but to continue to help us grow in that. In other words, you are saved by grace. Paul puts it this way, he says, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” Dead people don’t get up unless they are helped. But then it says, “But he who is rich in mercy made you alive,” made you alive. “It is by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of yourself unless anyone should boast it is a gift of God.” Not only that, it has something to say about all those folks and relatives you would love to see come to Christ. Conversion is God’s job. Our job is to witness. So I would just pray. If you are going to witness, pray; pray. That is the biggest thing you can do. It is ninety percent prayer and ten percent witness. But you need to witness, too. Thank God for the faith that you have.
True faith must also have the correct recipe. Now I have a confession to make. Lately I have boasted, and I know I shouldn’t boast, but I have boasted that I am really pretty good at making southern fried chicken. I hesitate to say that because someone is going to call me on it and make me make lots of fried chicken someday, maybe at a church dinner. I was taught the recipe for that by my mother, from Memphis, and we had very good fried chicken; but, when I got married I had forgotten it. Someone at our marriage gave us a Mississippi cookbook. I remember looking into this and it wasn’t quite the same as momma used to make. It was close, close enough that I could remember. “Oh now I remember how I make southern fried chicken.” You know if you don’t follow the recipe, it might be fried chicken but it is not going to be southern fried chicken. And that is true of anything we make, right? Now we may have our own take on different recipes but you have to follow the recipe in order to have it right.
You know, that is true about Jesus, too. Faith requires some things that we need to believe. Jesus has been made out to be all kinds of things in history. I mean, in the last hundred years people have said he is a communist revolutionary; they have said all kinds of things about Jesus. Even churches, sometimes you walk in and the stained glass windows have Jesus and in the picture he is blonde haired and blue eyed. I’m going … that must be Scandinavian. But he doesn’t look probably what he was which was very Jewish, whatever that means. We are not sure what Jesus looked like but we make him to be what we want him to be. Jesus came along and said, “I am the bread of life.” Now when you read this, this is the first of seven in the gospel of John, “I AM” statements. Jesus will go on to say, “I am the door,” “I am the good shepherd” “I am the way and the truth and the life,” “I am the resurrection and the life,””I am the bread of life”…several of them. When he says “I am” he is referring to Exodus chapter 3, when Moses says, “Tell me your name.” And God said, “I AM…sent you.” The literal term is Yahweh which is a form of the verb to be in Hebrew. In other words, Jesus is saying, “Yahweh is here in me.” That is part of our doctrine. We believe that Jesus was God walking in the flesh. It is part of the recipe.
Later, when all of the disciples are leaving, many of them, and only the twelve and maybe a few others are still hanging around with him, Jesus is frustrated. Can you imagine that? Everybody is running out the door away from him and he says, “Are you guys going to leave too?” Then Peter does say, “Where are we going to go? We do believe that you are the Holy One and you have the words of eternal life.” They believed the recipe.
You know, in the modern world it is common today to believe that spiritual truth is just a matter of opinion, and one opinion is as good as another. But, I have to ask, when we stand before God at the Judgment, is God going to ask you your opinion about his nature or how things are going to be? Spiritual truth is really like mathematics, we might have an opinion that two plus two equals five but it is not right. Or we might have an opinion about gravity; but when we fall off the roof, the opinion won’t matter. We might think it is highly unfair as we fall and go splat! But spiritual truth is real truth and it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter what you think, in terms of opinions. It only matters what God thinks and part of our job is to find out what God says about himself and about salvation. So part of our faith has to include the right recipes.
But it needs more than that. True faith requires eating and drinking. It requires eating and drinking. You know, I said to you earlier that we in the West have our roots and our way we think in the Greeks and the Romans. Greek and Roman philosophy tend to intellectualize things, so we tend to think of faith as being something I believe. It is in my head. And that is certainly part of that. We take that truth in our head and then we need to act it out and that is O.K. You know, I use the story about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade all the time about how Indiana Jones has to step out into the chasm and believe that that bridge is there. That is certainly part of that. I remember when I first jumped out of an airplane at Airborne School. We spent two weeks training to do it and we were told that the chutes opened ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. It is still wonderful when that chute opens and you see it. So faith does include that. But the Middle Eastern view of faith is to have a relationship with them. In other words, when we believe in Jesus we have to get involved with him. We have to eat and drink. It has to do with a relationship and it begins with him personally. In our Christian lives we have to trust him and learn to trust him more. We have to worship him and learn to worship him more. We have to love him and learn to love him more. It is like eating. Eating is when you take something inside of you and make it part of you. That is what we do with Jesus. It is not just believing a truth; it is partly that, but it is so much more than that. It is eating and drinking.
True faith also requires commitment. It requires commitment. I like to use the image of marriage when I talk about faith, because when you get married you commit yourself to that other person; and, theoretically, when you commit yourself to that other person, really, as well, you give them certain things. You give them the rights to your life and your body and your finances and your children, if they come along. You give them everything. Then you grow in that relationship because it doesn’t always happen at once, does it? Even after thirty years, or thirty-five years, or forty years, as we learn in the marriage course, it still takes work. But it is that commitment that counts. It is the ring. And even though I have lost my ring, three times, and this one is brand new, I still wear it and that is pretty good for me because I hate rings. I don’t mind this one… I have never had any other ring that I kept, maybe because I have always lost them. But luckily I have a wife who still loves me. But it is commitment. We trust someone with our whole lives and we trust that that person will keep faith with us. We know what keep faith means and when some one breaks faith, we know what that means. That is what we are talking about. Faith requires commitment. It requires giving ourselves to some one. It is a matter of life and death. Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life.” You know, people can live apart from Christ, but not forever. We must commit ourselves to him. You may say to yourself, I am not sure what it means to have a personal relationship with Christ. Most in the room, I think, do. But some of you may not.
There are a couple of things you need to believe. You need to believe that you are helpless to save yourself. You need to believe that you are a sinner. I know that is negative today, we don’t like to hear that kind of thing. On a scale of one to ten, one being a really good person and ten being really bad, you may be a two; but you are still a sinner. And you can’t save yourself. Secondly, you need to believe that Jesus can do for you what you can not do for yourself. And that is the whole story of the Gospel, that God sent Jesus to do that. He died for you. That is part of what it means to eat his flesh and drink his blood, too, is to believe in that doctrine, that recipe if you will. And thirdly, you need to commit and it is like getting married, to say “I do, and I give my life to you.” If that is where you are, then pray. Those of you who already know him, pray for those who may not. As we walk away from here if you have made a commitment, let me know. I will be confidential. I know that is embarrassing sometimes, but I would love to hear it. I would love to welcome a new brother or sister into the kingdom as true faith.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we are all sinners, we all have fallen short. But thank you that you have done something about it and you have come to this earth and not let us be lost. We ask you Lord to give us the power to believe, all of us here, to believe more if we need to and if there are people here who do not know you, quicken their hearts, help them to confess that they cannot save themselves and they need you and what you have done. And may we all commit our lives to you once more, put aside all the fluff and all the distractions and follow Jesus and “come to Jesus,” as we heard in the song. Oh God thank you. Thank you for Jesus our Savior, and it is in his name that we pray. Amen.