Discipleship is not Fast Food

John 6:51-58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.”  Okay, GROSS!  But wait, it’s actually worse than that.  The translators softened this up, believe it or not!  Jesus didn’t actually say “eat” here.  Jesus did not say, “with one’s linen napkin in one’s lap, one is to take nice, polite, little bites.”  NOPE!  Jesus said GNAW!  He said roll up your sleeves, put your elbows on the table, grab the bone with both hands and GNAW!  Jesus said, “Get into it!  Get obsessed with it!  Get messy with it!  Get it stuck in your teeth!”  GNAW on that sucker all the way down to the bone!  Which would sound great if we were talking about baby back PORK ribs, but he’s talking about his own baby back HUMAN ribs here and that, understandably, freaked the people out back in the day! 

Most of us these days, however, have heard this “eat the flesh and drink the blood” stuff our whole lives… so much so that we just gloss over how genuinely shocking it really is!  But Jesus said “GNAW” on purpose so that the people hearing it back then would STOP and NOT gloss over it.  Jesus used this strange, cannibalistic, gnawing language to shock people then and now out of our usual habit of running on autopilot and actually THINK about what he was trying to tell them... and us.  So what was Jesus trying to shock the people then and us people now, into hearing?

I think at least a part of what Jesus was trying to tell the people then, and us people now, is that discipleship isn’t something that you can do on the fly, in between this and that.  Following Jesus can’t be done like you’re horking down a paper wrapped burger on your way from one thing to another.  This shocking imagery, at least in part, is trying to let us know that discipleship is instead, much more like a fully focused, all consuming, sit-down, get into it up to your elbows kind of culinary experience!  It needs to be a deeply intensive, completely immersive feast, requiring menu development, selecting and sourcing ingredients, prepping, cooking, serving, and savoring.  Following Jesus is… a whole-life-consuming project and that shocking imagery is calling us to tuck in full time and completely make Jesus, a down and dirty part of every single moment of our lives.  He is our “true food” and we are being called to sink EVERYTHING we’ve got... all our time, all our skills, and all our being into the Jesus Way, the Jesus Truth, and the Jesus Life so that, just like the food we eat, Jesus becomes a part of every molecule of our bodies and the fuel we need to live our lives and live them abundantly.

Like we would for an amazing feast, Jesus is asking each one of us to invest REAL time, not just our left-over time or our in-between time… but to really slow down like we would for a eight course meal and not just grab a bite of faith in a paper sack from a drive through window.  Jesus wants us to slow down and invest REAL time to SEE… deeply see the people around us… to see and then care for those who live on the margins… to study, pray, and live each day with deep care, patience and passion.  Jesus is calling us to gnaw on the gift of God’s infinite love and unconditional grace, and make that an integral part of every molecule of our being, so that the Jesus Way of living and loving ends up seeping out of our pores and out into the world… like the smell of garlic through the skin.  

Discipleship isn't drive through.  Discipleship is meant to be slow food.  Discipleship is about lovingly, miraculously, patiently, and beautifully transforming something tough… someone tough… you and me… into something… into someone amazing… into the person God created us to be.  It is setting a table for a feast that stretches long into the night around a table where everyone has a place:  family and friends… addicts and apostles… sojourners and strangers… lovers and losers… rebels and refugees… a seat and a place set for EVERYONE.  Discipleship is making the deep commitment to gnaw and to savor every morsel of life we’ve been given, in the company of the whole community… all of us saints and sinners… all of us together!

Our friend Jack, who died this week, lived that sort of full-time, gnaw at the bone, continual feasting sort of life of discipleship.  I saw a cartoon this week of a couple opening a letter from their church.  “What is it Bob?” the woman asked.  “We’ve been called up to active duty!” he replied.  Jack never had to be called to active duty.  He was always active and always on duty.  Jack the furnace man.  Jack the buildings and grounds man.  Jack the 12 step man.  Jack the Breaking Bread Man and of course… Jack the Clam Man were just a few of the names he went by during his lifelong feast of discipleship.  

May you and I answer the call to active duty discipleship.  May we treat our faith not like some drive thru burger but a slow-food feast, and may we all strive toward the sort of commitment, dedication, generosity, love, and grace that, ends up running through our blood, and saturates our lives, right down to the bone.  Amen.