“Journeys”

Karen Sloan 22/08/2021

Reading - John 6:56-69

Recently I have had the chance to read a few emails from people totally disillusioned with the church.  You might think these are people who have never been to a church, or maybe when they were little, but no, they are retired ministers.  Nev was asked to respond to a question put out into the internet ether, enquiring about whether progressive church ministers still went to church.  Wow, many responded and it was a surprise.  Sad as it is, many of them have found  that after a life time of going to church it doesn’t seem so important anymore.  They list lots of different reasons, the loss of real mission, the unbelievable theology, the politics and the lack of real compassion.  And these are people from the Uniting church!

Shoot, I thought.  Why am I still here, up the front leading a service?  In some ways it would be easier to leave, as Barbara Brown Taylor did.  She didn’t leave faith, just the church!

So I just want to do a little exploring!.  Using the readings for a bit and then some not so ancient wisdom.

It is interesting that the reading from John starts half way through the reading set from last week about Jesus being the bread of life. That reading  can be understood symbolically, not literally, not that people of his day were really eating and drinking him, but on the notion that through Jesus we see what life in and with God can be. Through Jesus we are given the heart of faith, which is not about what to believe but how to believe. He brings us the message and love of God, in which transformation can occur for ourselves, our society and our world.

In last week`s reading the Jews who opposed him couldn’t get the message, and kept asking whether it was possible that Jesus was going to give his flesh for them to eat or that something magical might happen if he does. Today it is the turn of his followers, who believe he has gone completely over the top. Jesus` claim that he had come to replace the Jewish law as the source of life was pretty radical. Yet Jesus declares, `the spirit gives life, the flesh is unprofitable`. The writer of John wants people to see that the true meaning of Jesus is through the spirit and through faith, through people opening themselves to a new way of being and allowing themselves to be reborn to a new life. By following their heart.

As Bill Loader says, “John`s religious language has one single core claim about life in relation to God. Jesus is the major image or icon in whom we see God`s light and life. The law is secondary to the life available with and through God”. Marcus Borg agrees, suggesting what makes Christianity Christian is centering on the God known and met in Jesus. In this way Jesus can become the bread of life, the everlasting spring, the light to us and to the world and the way to fullness of life.

Jesus has therefore turned what was a faith based on laws and rules into something far more fundamental, something that connects to our innermost selves. Transformation can only come from within, and from God, but once it takes place, the effect of it can be seen outwardly. For Jesus was not only intimately connected to God, he was intimately connected to those around him.

This way of seeing Jesus leads to a vision and form of Christianity which is deeply rooted in these two journeys, the inward and outward. While Marcus Borg also talks about this duality I would like to revisit Elizabeth OConnor’s ideas, with some thoughts from Borg.

Elizabeth O’Connor was a founding member of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, who Nev was intimately connected to for over 50 years, and suggested the inward journey for a Christian involves three engagements.

1. The first engagement is with oneself. To consciously move toward self knowledge, things that influence us, restrict us and restrict our response to others. This journey inward to our true selves helps us become whole, but unique people. People who are able to both receive and to give love. Borg would say this is personal transformation into the likeness of Jesus.

2. The second engagement is with God. It is not just head stuff, which I often get stuck in, but heart stuff. Ultimately our vision is deeply centred on God’s spirit which is at the heart of everything, and is at the heart of Jesus.  Many of us often think of the spirit without really connecting to it, deep in our innermost selves, and yet this is what we are called to do through prayer, meditation, walking, retreats and quiet times, to name a few. The spirit within us is also the power within us for transformation and renewal but we need to allow space and time for it to influence and energise us. O`Connor calls these our spiritual exercises. Borg refers to this inner life as the way, the way to be followed in which beliefs are secondary. A way to be followed every day for the spirit is present everyday..

3. The third aspect of the inward journey is the engagement with others. And in this case what we are doing today is what O`Connor is on about. A Christian community is bound up with our whole concept of the church as a people committed to the God seen in Jesus and to one another. A deep commitment as described by Borg. Gordon Cosby, in one of O`Connor`s books, put it this way,

“It says to a specific group of people that I am willing to be with you. I am willing to belong to you, I am willing to be the people of God with you. This is never a tentative commitment that I can withdraw from. It is a commitment to a group of pretty beautiful but flawed individuals who make with me a covenant to live in depth until we see in each other the mystery of Jesus himself and until in these relationships we come to know ourselves as belonging to the Body of Christ.” (I have edited the quote just a bit!)

O`Connor says that in a Christian community where the basis is love and forgiveness, people can be free to act or speak, can be real together, can journey together in all of life’s joys and sorrows. A life away from the superficial and inconsequential. Is this what we are committing to here at Wembley Downs.  Maybe! I hope so!

So the inward journey involves knowing ourselves better and more honestly, growing closer to God`s spirit and being involved in a community of faith.

But there is also an outward journey both for us and the church.

As O`Connor writes, “If engagement with ourselves does not push back horizons so that we can see neighbours we did not see before, if prayer does not drive us out into some concrete involvement at a point of the world`s need and if community of our Christian brothers and sisters does not deliver us from false securities and safe opinions and known ways then the inward journey is betraying us.”

The outward journey takes what we find in our quiet dwelling places and uses it for service in the world, whether locally or globally. We are called not only to find and know God, but to let it influence the way we live and breathe and move.

……..

So I know you have heard it all before, but perhaps it’s worth repeating. These two journeys , the inward and outward, exist together, so that the inward must not be sacrificed to the outward and the outward to the inward.   Both are needed to follow the way to fullness of life, for everyone.

And these journeys are at the heart of the call to follow Jesus. As I said in the beginning, Jesus shows us what a life lived with God is like, a life based on an invitation from within, not a law from outside.  A life lived in community, with others, for others.  He is the window through which we discern what it means to be brothers and sisters together under God’s banner and in God’s love..

Maybe that’s why we should come to church.

Amen