To Whom Can We Go?

A sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 16
Education Sunday
August 25, 2024, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs

Readings: John 6:56-69

In today’s gospel, Jesus is deserted. He’s been teaching on what he means when he says he is the bread of life. He has said that we abide in him and he in us when we eat his flesh and drink his blood. It is a call to communion with God through Christ in the Holy Eucharist, daily prayer, and service to the least among us. For Jesus’s crowd, though, it is a bridge too far. John tells us that they say the teaching is too difficult, and many turn back and no longer follow him. 

Sometimes a challenging message means we are tempted to turn away just like that crowd. We naturally want to go where it is easier. But resistance is necessary for growth. Sometimes a difficult message is needed to push us to greater faithfulness, to deeper knowledge, to truer love. 

Good teachers know that–teachers like Mrs. Wharton, my 10th grade English teacher. I was warned about her. “Take someone else–anyone else.” And I had another choice; I knew I could get out of there with an easy A. As for Wharton, she had a reputation for ruining 4.0 streaks. She would pass out tests while singing that song by Cher, “if I could turn back time.” But a friend gave me good advice: “Take the easy A if you want, but take Wharton if you want to learn.” That’s who I took; the class, like Jesus’s band today, was far from full. 

The first day she assigned a simple essay. No problem. The next class, however, she passed out those graded essays, covered in red. Like a sergeant, Mrs. Wharton addressed us: “It is clear to me no one has taught you how to write. Pity. Let us start from the beginning.” And we did. I learned how to write; how to read and think critically; how to learn and grow. Several years later, Mrs. Wharton retired. A graduate student, I traveled back to Missouri with a thank you card and a small gift. In hindsight, I saw that her difficulty made everything else possible–not only the technical ability to write, but also the appreciation for beauty, the love of critical thinking, the courage to ask questions of others and myself. I saw that teaching had been her ministry, that she had been doing nothing less than the work of God on a state salary. 

Some practical advice on this Education Sunday: Students, when you have the choice, don’t take the easy A. Take the teacher who will make you grow. And by the way, education is not supposed to be all practical; it’s about forming you into a complete, well rounded person. Embrace that. And teachers: Push your students. Push them to well-roundedness, to an appreciation of the humanities and arts, to critical thinking and problem-solving. Push them to courage, to love of beauty, to sincerity of heart, to curiosity and questioning. 

And just for what it is worth: Learning to read critically, to engage a text rightly, to ask good questions–these are not secular values. They are part of being formed into the people God desires us to become. For one, they are necessary for appreciating and approaching the biblical text correctly. Ignorance, we must say, is not a Christian virtue. That is why churches over the centuries, including our own, have invested in good educational opportunities for all children regardless of background, in classrooms, in laboratories, in centers for learning… in libraries.

Jesus and Mrs. Wharton have some things in common. They loved their students deeply. They weren’t afraid of pushing to make them grow. They didn’t always have full classrooms because of that. Sometimes they were avoided in favor of others with easier messages and more relaxed standards. But for those who listened, who allowed their teaching to sink in, they made all the difference. 

That’s where the similarities stop, though. Jesus is not just a wisdom teacher. Jesus is not just a lecturer with exacting standards. Jesus is not just a traveling rabbi with some crazy ideas. He’s the Son of God, the living bread that comes down from heaven, and in his living word–his way, his teaching, his life–is eternal life here and now, newness of life for you and me. 

The small group of disciples that stays with Jesus sees that. Jesus, showing his human side, looks to this small group and asks, are you going to go away, too? It is a heartrending moment of vulnerability in the face of rejection. But Peter speaks up on behalf of the group: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” 

Jesus asks, will you go away, too? Joshua asks, whom will we serve? Education Sunday is about backpack blessings and prayers for students, teachers, and staff. But it is about more than that. It is about how we are all being formed in virtue to choose rightly. It is about all of us committing ourselves to following Christ, accepting his invitation. It is about choosing to commune with Christ in weekly worship, in daily prayer, in service to our neighbors, and in study. Education Sunday–we might call it formation Sunday–is about how God is seeking to form all of us, and our community, more in the image of his Son everyday. Today we recommit ourselves to that work of the Holy Spirit within us, and we choose, as we must everyday, to follow Christ and his way of love.  

How God is calling you to do that? We do have an option. We can take the easy way out; avoiding challenges, those things that make us uncomfortable, those pressing questions within us; choosing to have our ears tickled instead of our hearts pierced by grace, our wills conformed to the divine will. We can do that. Or we can dive into true life, into a challenging life, into a questioning life that grasps ever more for the bread of life. It won’t be easy. It will require, to quote T.S. Eliot, not less than everything. It will mean picking up a cross and laying down resentments; walking to Golgotha instead of on our own path; dying daily to sin–dying to those things that seek to turn us away from God, from love of one another, and from the goodness of creation–instead of turning inward in fear. But the way of the cross, the way of Jesus, is the way of life. It always has been, and the gate is open. Where else could we go?