A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on
Sunday 19 August 2018, Thirteenth Sunday
after Pentecost, by Timothy Chan. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 111, Proverbs 9:1–6, John 6:51–58.
Good morning friends, the Gospel
reading today is taken from John chapter 6, again, Jesus is referring himself
as the bread from heaven, but this time, he is more specific. He points out
that the bread, the food from heaven, are the flesh and blood of his own. When
he was saying these to the crowd, they were all shocked and probably scared.
But why does Jesus insist that everyone must eat his flesh and drink his blood?
And why do we have to? Before we find out why, let us pray:
Loving God, you are the light of the
world, and you are the bread for the world. We ask that you put this hunger and
thirst for You in us, so that we will be transformed by you. Open our hearts to
receive the word that you have for us this morning. In the name of Jesus we
pray, Amen.
“You are what you eat!” is a very popular
phrase since the science of nutrition has become more and more important.
People are more aware of what they are eating in order to be healthy and fit.
Before science was introduced, our ancestors also believed in this saying. In
the old days, people around the world believe that eating a certain type of
food/thing would help them in a specific way.
In the Aztec tradition, they
believed by eating the brain of their enemy, they would have obtained the
knowledge and wisdom of their enemy. In Europe, the Vikings believed that
drinking the blood of wolves and bears before the battle would make them more
ferocious. In China, of course, quite well-known for its
“Like-supplements-Like” way of eating, you would hear people say, “Oh your
child is not doing well in school? No problem na, make a pig brain soup to help
your child’s brain la.”
People have been practicing it for
centuries, until the breakthrough of science, we understand more how our body
works. According to science, aka Google, an adult would lose 300 billion cell
every day due to aging, and the food we eat would eventually, somehow, become
the composition of the new cells. So basically, we are literally what we eat!
So, if you eat junk food, you are probably becoming junk. Well, back then in
the time of Jesus, they did not have this kind of knowledge, and from a
spiritual point of view, food is always playing an important part in their
religious life. The Israelites are so picky on what to eat, and what not to
eat, because they believed that eating inappropriate food would defile their
religious life, and by eating certain food, they would remain holy and pure. So
when Jesus is challenging the people around him to eat his flesh and blood, it
is definitely offensive to the people back then. How can I as a holy man need to
eat your flesh to obtain eternal life? Is this man crazy?
1. Jesus is challenging them to
change their way of thinking, their way of defining what is holy and what is
not. He is leading them to see the spiritual food, not to focus on what they
shall eat physically, but only through having or “eating” Jesus would lead them
to eternal life. Jesus was sending out a powerful, “instead of counting how
many times you wash your hand to make you holy, you should focus on abiding
with God. Instead of classifying what food is unclean and clean, you should
follow Jesus Christ’s footsteps to reach out to the outcast.” Religious life is
not about rituals, but rituals should be the tool to help us to understand and
experience the divine. The focus of our life is to abide with God, and to
realize God’s presence within us, like what Pastor Phyllis was leading us to
meditate on last week, God within us. Not only to realize His presence, but to
live a life of transformation, to live a life of “We are what we believe”.
Today we are also caught up by many
superficial traditions and rituals which define our life. However, friends, we
often have the wrong focus. I remember debating with some Christians about
whether a Christian who was not baptized would go to heaven or not. Well, I
don’t know! Even though you are baptized, then another argument would start,
whether you do it by immersion, or you do it by sprinkling or pouring. Oh, if
you are not immersed, then the argument would start all over again.
It just won’t stop, churches would
argue why you share the Communion with those who are not baptized. In KUC, if
you are not baptized, or even though if you are not a Christian, you are
welcome to take the Communion, because we believe that God is the host of the
table, not any of our pastors here.
Friends, after all, it is not about
how we are eating the bread and drinking the juice or wine. It is all about
Jesus, sacrificing his life, to become the bread for the world, so through
Jesus, we can have life and it is an eternal life. It is between you and God,
only you would know whether you are abiding with God or not, only you would
know whether you are following him or not, and it is only you who can
experience this heavenly love, that the world can never take it away from you. No
theology or church tradition can separate us from God. Jesus invites us to
build a relationship with Him, and frees us from man-made traditions and
teachings which confine us.
2. “We are what we eat”, and “we are
what we believe”. By “eating” Jesus, we are inheriting his personality, his
passion and his love, but it is a process and journey that we have to work on
it every day. Jesus is the truth, and the way. He is the Word of God. Some
people say the Bible is the word of God, but I prefer to say that Jesus is the
Word of God, this Word, in Greek is Logos, it means the principles of how God
runs the world, the Way of living, the Way of sustaining the whole Creation.
Many of you would come to church,
hoping the preacher is not so boring and you may learn one or two things out of
the sermon and the Scripture readings. By learning more about the word of God,
we aim to apply the teaching into our life and hoping that our life can be
transformed, maybe not instantly, but slowly slowly. What you believe, indeed,
would become what we are eventually.
I believe most of you went to
different churches before coming to KUC, and you might realize the teaching of
your church might be a little different with KUC’s, and the people coming to
KUC are also different, right? I think it is very okay to be different, and we
should appreciate the diversity in the family of God. When a church is
preaching about the urgency of evangelizing people week in week out, I guess
the congregation would be more evangelical, right? When a church’s teaching is
more focused on sin and what you should not do, I guess the congregation would
be more aware on their personal conduct and behavior. When a church preaches
more on social justice, well, I guess the congregation would be more aware of what
is going on in the society. As a Christian, we have to be aware of what we are
being fed. It is also our responsibility to reflect on what we receive, for
what we believe of God would affect our relationship with God too.
I remember long time ago, a teenager
who saw God as an unpredictable, strict and stern-faced old grumpy man, he
believed that God would punish him whenever he sins, and he never believes that
good things would happen to him, because he believed that God is so strict with
him. For a period of time, this boy would wake up every morning feeling he is
so sinful and dirty that God would not forgive him. Then he would read Psalm 51
out loud 10 times a day, hoping God’s wrath and punishment would not come to
him. It took a long time for this boy to get rid of this image of God and start
to believe that God is not a grumpy old man. It is no longer the fear of
punishment which kept him from leaving God, but the acceptance and love which
he has experienced moved him to follow Jesus. And this boy is preaching to you
this morning, hoping his audience can rethink what they have been believing
about God.
3. “we are what we eat”, “we are
what we believe”. In the proverb we read this morning, Wisdom has also invited
us to her banquet. If you can turn to proverbs 9 together and we shall see she
has built a house with 7 pillars. Many scholars believed that these 7 pillars
are the 7 days of creation, so this house is the whole creation, so God herself
has prepared a banquet for all the people.
She called to those who are simple,
and those without sense, in other translations, it says those who are
simple-minded, or naïve, or ignorant or foolish. So basically, she is inviting
all of us here. Look at verse 5 and 6, She said “Come, eat of my bread and
drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the
way of insight.” The banquet is an invitation, not just for enjoying food and
sharing joy, but it is an invitation for people to lay aside immaturity, to lay
aside the old ways and thoughts which led us away from God.
It is an invitation to walk in the
way of Wisdom. In the Hebrew tradition, wisdom has two meaning, one is skill,
such as craftmanship, art, and different survival skills, and the other meaning
is referring to the way of living according to the divine will, to follow the
pattern of the Creation. Therefore, to eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his
blood, is only the beginning! The goal is to be like God and live like Christ.
Friends, it is easy to just come and
enjoy all the nice food, it is free! What do you want right? It is also easy to
come to God, enjoy all his love and grace, and remain the same. Without a
doubt, the grace is free, the salvation is free, but there is a price, just
that Jesus paid it for all of us. Apart from eating, what can we do? Now we
know God is within us, so what? We learn that we have eternal life, so what?
Friends, God is within us, but God cannot live our life for us, we are the one
who live our life! God is within us, but sorry some of you still have to wake
up early and work tomorrow!
God is within us, but we still have
to face the difficulties and challenges in life. But don’t worry my friends,
“we are what we eat”, don’t forget to feed yourselves with the bread of life,
the love of God is our source of energy for us to become what God intends us to
be. “we are what we believe”, the wisdom
and teaching of God is our guide leading us to where God intends us to be.
4. at the end of the sermon, I want
to talk about food again. Recently I have shared a video on social media, it is
about three chefs, a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian, living in the Palestine
sharing meal with each other. Today we talk about how we reconcile with God and
have peace with God through eating the flesh of Christ. Eating and sharing food
can also obtain peace and bring us closer to one another. Food can be a media
of peace. We are so lucky in KUC that we have opportunity to taste different
cuisine all over the world. I remember one of our refugee kitchen chefs told me
that seeing the local people eating her food meant so much to her. For her, it
represents acceptance and inclusion, that she felt she is one of us. By eating
her food, we are connected in the love and fellowship of God. This is what God
wants to see, not only calling people to abide in God, but also to see people
putting down their prejudice and stereotype, and to come together in unity and
build peace on earth. May we all be united, not just by food, but by the
undying love of God. Amen.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, August 19, 2018
