Sermon – Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Genesis 12:1-4; John 6: 60-69
Farmville Presbyterian Church
8/25/24
Today, I need to share something amazing that happened to me yesterday. I dropped off my youngest daughter at college for the first time. She is entering Roanoke College as a first-year student, and yesterday was move-in day. While that does make us empty nesters now, what really stands out to me is that she actually went through with it. Let me explain.
She has spent her entire life in our direct care, living under our roof, sharing in our life, eating our food – you know, all that good and necessary stuff. Now, she is completely on her own with people who are strangers in a strange place leading a strange life. She has gone from all-familiar to all-different. Of course, she is not the only one doing this right now. This is what fascinates me. You see, ordinarily, people do not walk into change unless something is compelling them. Think about it: we do not change anything unless we must. Yet, my daughter Rachel has embarked on radical change, change that will shape the rest of her life, and she did it without reservation. She did not put up a fight or even get upset. Something gave her the desire to leave life with us and to go to a new place.
My guess is that we have all walked in those shoes at some point in our lives. We have all faced times when we had to choose whether we would go somewhere or not. Our own H-SC and LU are full of those lives being led in new ways right now, just like my Rachel, but there are plenty of other times we have to face significant choices about where our path might take us or what our life might look like. Whether to marry or not, whether to serve in a certain way or not, whether to live somewhere or not, whether to be employed in some way or not, or whether to associate with a group or not are all examples of some of these choices, but it is hard to put those choices on the same kind of level as with Abram.
I have to scratch my head every time I run across this passage from Genesis. We have no indication that Abram had any relationship, let alone any IDEA, who the God was who was asking him to leave everything and follow. Abram took his own family, but he left his larger family, his business, his familiar land, his security, and whatever religious commitments they might have had before. It is bizarre how he chose to leave everything familiar to follow everything that was unfamiliar. What did it take for him to go? What would it take for you to go?
Again, we are not creatures who entertain change without something pressing. We must know the need for change because change, even good change, is always loss over the way things used to be. For Abram, we have no idea the inner workings of his mind, so we are speculating, but something is driving him to accept this radical, out of the blue, change. Maybe they were in hard times or he had problems with his family. Maybe the idea of starting over somewhere with the promise of a great people was too good to pass up. Maybe it fueled his ego a bit. Maybe having a direct contact with an actual God made the kind of impression that changes lives. Of course, it had to be his free-will to make the choice. Otherwise, there would be no faith involved. He had to choose to take that risk.
Now we are getting somewhere. In our decision to stay or to go in the face of a choice involves risk and faith. If Abram were to have faith, it had to be much more than his simple agreement: “Yes, God whoever you are, I believe that this offer is legitimate.” He could have believed that but stayed where he was. That attitude reflects our hearts more often than we want to admit. We believe God is real and wants us to do things beyond our comfort or familiarity, but we don’t actually do them because living out the faith involves some level of risk.
Our passage from John 6 is the other side of that coin. We see this same situation as Jesus offends those following him with his strenuous, difficult, shocking language. It is almost as if he is trying to winnow out the ones who are just there for the tricks and gimmicks. Remember that this whole chapter is the feeding of the five thousand and what follows. The great crowds have been hounding Jesus for more. If you had heard that there was someone anywhere close who could miraculously heal or feed, wouldn’t you go, too? I bet you would, especially if you or a loved one were sick. He even raised the dead. But he was not here to just show us miracles. He was here to change the world. He was that change.
This is what Jesus is telling them, what he has been telling them this whole time. HE IS THAT CHANGE in a world that is broken. He is able to heal us and feed us and lead us no matter what our lives may look like and no matter what has happened. He is our daily bread in our journey in life. In fact, he just said earlier that if we don’t chew on his body or drink his blood, we have no life in us. Without his help, we are stuck in a world of death. He is our true hope.
Inviting people to change is hard, though, and plenty of people left from following Jesus right then and there. He challenged them to leave the way of the world and to see him as their one and only shot at life in God. His people had tried and tried and tried for a long time, but fuller life in God was elusive. We cannot make that happen by ourselves. We cannot be our own saviors or redeemers. Yet, good portions of the crowd left from following Jesus. It sounds like so many people left from following him that he wondered if his own closest disciples would leave, also. That gives us this beautiful response, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Should we stay or should we go? This is that crisis moment forcing them to make a choice. He says, “What are you going to do when you see me going to where I came from?” This decision is going to get real for them. Here, the easy choice is to go home, back to the life they left behind. It was demanding but less demanding. Following Jesus was VERY demanding. They paid for it with their own lives according to tradition, too. This was not at all an easy choice, and they had a choice. But they had something many in the crowds did not have – faith, and with faith comes risk. They could not just believe that Jesus was who he said he was. That’s not faith. Faith is walking into that change and living into that change and embracing that change. They had to be different people because of his call. For them there was no other choice to make.
We are all addicted to the world. We may not want to admit it like that, but the world has been our comfort on some level for our whole lives. We are used to it, even if it is harsh sometimes. There are also times that give us joy, and there are plenty of things in the world that are beautiful and uplifting and good. It is God’s creation, after all, but the world is also a place that reflects selfishness and pride and power and all of the things that Jesus stands against. In the world, we put people in their place. In the world, we seek our benefit at the expense of others. In the world, we ignore the need around us because it is inconvenient. In the world, we mind our own business and forget our neighbors. In the world, we forget who our neighbors even are. In the world, we are not accountable to anyone else but ourselves.
This makes the world a very difficult place. On the one hand, there is beauty and love in the world, but it is also marred by our selfishness. There is grace but many see entitlement. There is plenty to share but we want to make sure we get as much as we can first. The world can be a hard place, even harder for some.
We can stay in that world and labor at the altar of self-love. That is what the world expects from us. That is what normal people do. We may talk about fairness or kindness and learn about sharing in kindergarten, but when we grow up, the gloves come off. No one really expects us to sacrifice for anyone outside the family.
Except for Jesus. He actually does expect us to sacrifice for others. He sacrificed everything for us, and he calls us to follow however we can. He is not content for us to stay IN the world and OF the world. Some of us need change, too. Some of us need to walk into change for something better or something different. Some of us are not content with the world. If that is the case, then the Spirit is working in your heart right now. If that is the case, you have found a new home, a new life, and a new way. This is something worth exploring, but it is definitely worth staying for. To God be the glory. Amen.