For this week’s sermon, I have a brief message on Jesus as the bread of life and our call to put on the full armor of God. Then, the second part of the sermon is the video from our youth mission trip to Kansas City this summer, embedded at the end of this sermon text.
The texts for this week are Ephesians 6:10-20 and John 6:56-69. For this intro portion, I found helpful James Erlandson’s God Pause devotional for August 18, 2021.
Grace to you and peace from One who is living bread from heaven given for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
As you’ll see in a few minutes in the Kansas City video, our theme verse for this year’s mission trip was Romans 12:2, which says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I think this idea of being transformed by Jesus and conforming ourselves to God’s will connects to today’s readings in a couple ways.
First, I want to briefly look at this Gospel reading. The people are right: following Jesus’ commands, doing God’s will in this world is difficult! In fact, if you don’t think doing what Jesus tells us to do is sometimes challenging, you probably need to spend some more time reading Jesus’ words!
Commands like love your neighbors sound great, but sometimes our neighbors aren’t very lovable. Sometimes neighbors believe different things than we believe, look different than we do, make choices we disagree with, or even act unlovingly to us. Loving your neighbor can be hard. Loving your enemies is even harder!
Jesus says things we’d rather ignore, like sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. He says when you’re attacked, turn the other cheek instead of punching back.
But maybe the hardest teaching—the one that’s the breaking point for a lot of Jesus’ followers—is this bit where he says he’s the bread of life. For one thing, he uses strong, gritty language about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and it’s the same language you’d use to talk about digging your teeth into a steak. Not a comfortable, metaphorical image.
But more than that, he says specifically that he himself, Jesus, this guy walking around, talking, this physical flesh and blood person, he is the bread of life, nourishment sent from heaven.
His words, he says, are more important, more powerful than any other words spoken by any other person in history! It’s a huge claim. Imagine the arrogance it takes to say that, to claim you alone can give eternal life, that the only way to get to God the Father, the Creator, is through you.
It’s a ridiculous claim…unless he’s telling the truth. Unless he actually has that authority, that power. Unless this man Jesus is also Emmanuel, God with us, the Son of God. Because of this, John records, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went with you. Imagine being God in the flesh, telling the truth, and people not believing you, people turning away.
Jesus asked the twelve, the core group, the ones who’d been with him from the beginning, “Do you also wish to go away?” Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
The conclusive evidence Jesus is who he says he is will come later, in the empty tomb (or rather, not in the empty tomb). But these disciples believe him. They trust Jesus. They don’t necessarily understand, but they trust, and they are willing to be transformed by God. They want to know God’s will, rather than conform to the logic of this world.
Peter and the rest are an example for us, but it’s an impossible example to follow. We can’t just choose to believe.
We can certainly choose not to conform to this world (in both good and bad ways!), but we cannot on our own be transformed and perfectly discern God’s will. We need God’s help.
And God promises to help us. God promises to be with us, to protect us. Paul writes about putting on the whole armor of God, buckling on God’s truth like a belt, being protected by the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
When you feel like life is just too much and you’re overwhelmed and you need God’s help, you’re right! We can’t rely on our own strength. We need the armor of God. It’s not tangible, physical armor, but the promise of God’s presence with us, wherever we go.
When you go to school, or to work, or with your family, or wherever you go, know that God is with you. Trust that Jesus is your source of life.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Believe that in the waters of baptism you have been claimed by God as a beloved child. You have been fed with the bread of life.
No matter what obstacles you face, you are not alone. God is with you, transforming you to be more like Jesus so that you can know and do God’s will, so you can love your neighbor, forgive as you have been forgiven, even love your enemies, love others the way Jesus has loved you.
Amen
I invite you now to watch how our Luther League group tried to live out that love this summer in Kansas City.
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK5y20tjkF4″]