Sunday Sermon 8/5/12

Today's gospel is the beginning of Christ's beautiful "Bread of Life" exposition, initiated by the "Loaves and Fishes" episode last week. It is both poetic and pointed; Christ is very direct in what He says is going on, what His relationship with God is and how the people should view Him.

Squeezed into the readings is a brilliant line from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, a line easily overshadowed and a crucial notion in the problems raised by religion then and now: "henceforth you walk not as also the Gentiles walk in the vanity (sometimes written as 'futility') of their mind."

The Gentiles here are not generic non-Jews, they are Greeks. There was always a conflict within the early church among the Jewish apostles as to the appropriateness of including non-Jews in their ministry. But Paul here is creating a more complex distinction. He is not worried about the Gentiles non-Jewish background, he is focusing on the Greeks philosophical tradition. The Greeks famously relied upon the mind as an adequate interface with wisdom. They sought truth through the mind. Paul here is saying that this type of thinking will not solve any of life's basic questions and results in despair when it fails. Only faith in Christ can bridge the gap between the mind and truth.

When Nietzsche declared that God was dead, he did not say this with any of the relish or the glee of the modern atheist. He said this with great anxiety that the result would be emotional and spiritual chaos.