St. John’s Lutheran Church
25 August 2024 + Lectionary 21b
John 6:56-69, [70-71]
Rev. Josh Evans
Let’s talk about Judas.
This is, after all, the first time Judas is mentioned in John’s gospel:
not by name, not with any biographical background,
not by what he has done up to this point –
oh, you know, Judas, the one who’s from [that place],
you know, the one who did [such and such].
Not for any of that.
But for what he will do:
the one who will betray Jesus.
In case the reference in verse 64 isn’t clear –
“For Jesus knew from the beginning [ … ]
who was the one who would betray him” –
(and why would it be if we didn’t already know the end of the gospel story?)
the evangelist gets specific in those verses not included in the lectionary:
“Jesus answered them,
‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’
He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot,
for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.”
(v 70-71)
This is Judas, one of the Twelve, one of Jesus’ inner circle,
called by name, and named specifically here.
It’s startling … poignant … upsetting even.
And it has everything to do with the bread of life –
as much as a part of the story as the 69 verses that precede it.
This teaching, this sign, is for the disciples,
and in these last verses, the disciples get a chance to respond for the first time.
Ever since the sign –
the miraculous feeding of the five thousand –
the conversation that follows has narrowed
from the crowds,
to the Jewish leaders,
to the disciples at large,
each of whom, in turn, walks away from Jesus,
leaving him,
betraying him.
This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?
This teaching: a cause for offense
and scandal.
Until the question is turned pointedly to the last twelve left:
“Do you also wish to go away?” –
the question presupposing its own answer.
Does this offend you too? Does this scandalize you?
It’s interesting that the cause for such scandal, of all things,
appears to be Jesus’ imminent ascension.
Not the crucifixion. The ascension.
Jesus’ return to the Father,
to which he alludes in the very next breath:
“What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”
What’s so scandalous about that?
“Perhaps,” as gospel of John scholar Karoline Lewis observes,
“it would then make all of what this Gospel has presented so far actually be true. That Jesus really does come from God. That he really was in the beginning with God. That he really is God.”
(John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014], 98)
It is this teaching that is simply too difficult, too scandalous, to accept.
Death by crucifixion? That’s commonplace. Not surprising at all.
That’s what happens when you start doing and saying
the kinds of things Jesus was doing and saying.
But that he really is who he says he is?
That he really has come so that all might have life and have it abundantly?
That he really is the bread of life, the bread which gives life to the world?
That it is this bread, this flesh, this lifeblood
that we are invited to feast on, so that we might live?
It’s too much. It can’t be true.
It defies their expectations of the God they have known
and have come to expect.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice have famously let us into the mind of Judas in his own, albeit imagined, words:
My mind is clearer now.
At last all too well
I can see where we all soon will be…
I don’t like what I see…
You have set them all on fire.
They think they’ve found the new Messiah.
And they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong…
(“Heaven on Their Minds,” from Jesus Christ Superstar)
Judas had every reason to be afraid,
every reason to doubt,
every reason to not believe.
This isn’t what he signed up for.
And Judas will, inevitably, walk away.
Betrayal.
Except – unlike Jesus Christ Superstar
or the other gospels from which it takes its collective inspiration –
there is no financial motive or personal gain to be had for betraying Jesus in John.
No thirty pieces of silver,
no nefarious deal with the religious leaders.
There’s no kiss in the garden,
and, in fact, Judas barely has an active role at all –
mentioned by name,
but only as an apparent bystander,
alongside the police and religious leaders.
Neither is there any remorse or repentance after the fact,
nor the drastic and desperate act of ending his own life.
Instead, the act of betrayal alluded to here,
already in chapter 6,
will eventually come in a much quieter, much calmer, moment at the meal,
with Jesus and the Twelve, his inner circle:
when Judas abruptly exits … into the night …
physically leaving Jesus behind,
and abandoning the relationship.
Betrayal.
But the text gives us another choice.
Choice. That’s an interesting word for Lutherans
who lean more heavily into that other sentiment of Jesus:
“You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16) –
shying away from “decision theology” –
the idea that we make a conscious choice to follow Jesus –
an idea which seems to fly in the face of our fundamental confession that we are utterly fallible humans who cannot save ourselves,
who cannot “by [our] own understanding or strength cannot believe in Jesus Christ [our] Lord or come to him,” to borrow a phrase from Luther.
(SC, 355.5)
On the one hand,
the reality of Jesus’ invitation to abundant life
is not negated by how we respond.
The nature of God’s wildly extravagant and limitless love
cannot and will not be diminished by anything we do or don’t do.
As a colleague of mine, quoting a colleague of his, has often said:
“There’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more,
and there’s nothing you can do to make God love you any less.”
But:
This relationship, this invitation to abide –
to be the recipient of the good gifts of a God whose sole purpose is to give life –
is also not a hostage situation.
We have a choice to make.
The gospel isn’t a trap
into which we are baited by the enticing aroma of fresh bread,
only to find ourselves captive again.
The gospel is life and freedom.
And in that freedom is the choice to reciprocate,
to enter fully into the relationship to which Jesus calls us by name,
to abide in the eternal promises of a God
who never tires of giving their children good gifts.
Maybe there is too much of a good thing …
but Simon Peter is willing to chance it,
to choose belief over betrayal,
to stake his life on this good thing,
because it’s the best and most reliable option that he has encountered:
“Lord, to whom can we go?
You have the words of eternal life.”
Simon Peter, who himself will come to a crisis moment –
and actually fail as he denies Jesus in his own act of betrayal –
at least in this moment admits his utter need for and reliance on Jesus
and what Jesus has to offer.
“Do you also wish to go away, Peter?”
Where else is there to go?
You have what we need.
What we need is here.
Peter chooses relationship and life.
The choice is ours.
Or put differently by another colleague of mine, Pastor Kate Drefke, who preached these words in a sermon, here at St. John’s, three years ago:
“Simon Peter surrenders to the Word of God.
And we who confess to be followers and believers [ … ]
are called to do likewise.
We are called to surrender our doubts and our comforts to hear,
to eat and drink,
and to follow the Word of God
in easy and hard times alike [ … ]
“It’s easy to be fed by the bread and wine of the eucharist.
It’s hard to live nourished by Jesus, the bread of life,
and share that with all we meet.
“But to whom else can we turn?
Who else has the words of eternal life?”
The doubts and the worries are real.
The temptation of unbelief is challenging.
As with Judas, our suspicions, our skepticism,
and our short-sighted, limited expectations
often get the better of us.
And yet, in the midst of it all,
to whom else can we turn?
Where else is there to go?
Except:
To keep coming back time and time again,
despite our doubts,
despite our worries,
despite our unbelief,
despite our suspicions that this good news is too good to be true.
To keep hearing Jesus’ invitation
to take and eat,
to take and drink.
To keep coming back here,
to this place,
around this table,
to encounter the living Word.
This teaching is scandalous.
This teaching is too good to be true –
and it is true:
The bread of life,
given in abundance and without exception,
for you, and for the life of the world.