Loving God, you invite us to follow Jesus, and to love, learning what we were meant to do and to be.  Sustain us on the journey, and empower us by your Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Today’s gospel is pretty difficult to ignore.  We hear about eating flesh and drinking blood, and some of us think immediately of horror movies, or perhaps the old camp song, “Purple Stew.”  However, much of Jesus’ teaching includes things that were intended to get people’s attention.  A Jewish audience, in fact, would have been horrified at the mere mention of drinking blood.  There were all kinds of purity laws related to blood – not touching it, not touching a person who is bleeding, and not eating anything that still has the blood in it.

         Part of the explanation that is given in Leviticus is that “the life of every creature is its blood” (17:14).  Thus, when Jesus speaks about giving his flesh and blood, he is speaking about giving his life.  At the same time, it is worded in such a way that it leads us to think beyond the ordinary, and to think symbolically or metaphorically (workingpreacher.org).  We are invited to think about the life of Christ within us, going beyond the eating and drinking that are part of the Lord’s Supper.  We are also invited to think about munching and chewing and ruminating (as the Greek word suggests), and absorbing Jesus’ teaching and character into our lives.

         Were we to do this, we would be all set to abide and grow in Jesus for the long term.  However, just like Solomon, we don’t always manage to follow through with what we have started.  What we hear today from 1 Kings is Solomon making a really good beginning to his reign as king of Israel.  He humbles himself before God, and asks for wisdom and understanding in order to be able to govern God’s people.  And – as often happens – God gives even more than Solomon has asked.  However, were we to read the whole story of Solomon’s reign, we would discover that, just like his father David, he strayed from God’s way.

         Over the next few weeks, we will hear Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple, and some of his wisdom from Song of Solomon and Proverbs.  God works through Solomon in order to do some great things.  However, like his father David, and perhaps like us as well, Solomon did not always look to God for direction.  He made slaves out of his own people in order to accomplish all of his building projects, and he married many foreign women – and worshiped their gods.  It was this idolatry later in his reign that provoked God’s judgment against him (1 Ki. 11).

         For us, too, we are not always as Christ-like as we might want to be.  There may be some times when we are really faithful and genuinely seeking God’s direction and listening to the Holy Spirit.  There may also be some times when we are “self-directing” and allow our own sinful nature to come to the fore.  Most of us – being human – have been there, done that.  This is why we have things like confession and forgiveness, and regular worship, and Holy Communion.  We all need spiritual practices to keep us on the straight and narrow, and to absorb Jesus’ teaching and character into our lives.

         I recently saw an episode of The Chosen where Matthew has a conversation with Gaius, the Roman centurion, about his new life as a follower of Jesus.  In Matthew’s estimation, every day he has only one job, and that is to follow Jesus.  Following Jesus means learning from him, and learning how to live faithfully as a child of God.  Really, shouldn’t this be our number one job as well?  Aren’t all those who believe in Jesus called to follow him, to learn from him, and to live faithfully?

         As I continued to think about this, it occurred to me that Matthew did not learn how to follow Jesus all by himself.  He was part of a community of believers who helped each other to figure out what it really means to follow Jesus. They were all learning and growing and being challenged and figuring out what, exactly, they had been called to be and to do.  Ideally, this is what we would do, as well, as we support one another in seeking to follow Jesus.

         Regardless of how long any of us have been followers of Jesus, or how well we know our Bibles, there is always more to be learned, and more that God can do within us and through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.  At the same time, there are marvelous promises in today’s gospel – promises of abiding in Jesus, and he in us; promises of eternal life and resurrection; promises of abundant life – all of them through taking Christ into ourselves in, with, and under the bread and the wine.  All of this is part of believing in Jesus, and absorbing his teaching and character into our lives.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Lectionary 20(B)                              John 6:51-58

August 18, 2024                              1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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