Preached at the Parish of All Saints, Ashmont
August 26, 2018

Put Your Hand into the Hand of God

Jesus said to the twelve: “Do you also wish to go away? Do you also wish to leave me?” Simon Peter answered him, Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed and have come to know , that you are the Holy One of God.”

– John 6:69

Let me say first that everything we do and say this morning comes in the shadow of Sen. John McCain. It is impossible to imagine a truer naval hero. It is impossible to imagine a life more heroically and sacrificially given to others than the life of John McCain. Sometimes in life, we feel thrilled by our insights into the meaning of life. We experience one of those wonderful – literally wonder-filled – moments when we are filled with joy and excitement about life. Things come wonderfully together and life not only makes sense, life seems filled with meaning and purpose and joy.

Today’s Gospel is not about one of those glorious moments. Today’s Gospel, instead, describes a moment when such joy, such fulfillment is missing, absent. In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ followers are not experiencing a high. St. John tells us that Jesus’ followers were, in fact, in a very discouraged, unhappy, dark state of mind. Jesus’ followers were in a very down-hearted, bitter, mood filled with festering discontent.

Rupert Brooke, the British poet, died very young early in the First World War. His fellow Frances Cornford described the brilliant and dazzlingly good-looking Rupert Brooke in these words:

A young Apollo golden-haired,
standing on the brink of strife,
magnificently unprepared
for the long littleness of life.

“The long littleness of life.” Even the most brilliantly successful of our friends and contemporaries inevitably experience “the long littleness of life.” They do sometimes experience moments of golden and rapturous insight, but such moments are inevitably followed by moments like what the disciples – and dare we say, Jesus – experienced in today’s Gospel – times of hopelessness and despair. Imagine John McCain day after day, week, month, year without knowing ... (could have been forever). Imagine his loneliness, despair ...
Today’s Gospel is not about a wonderful, successful, joyful, fulfilling moment for Jesus and his friends. In today’s Gospel Jesus’ followers – at least some of them – were discouraged: they were experiencing “the long littleness of life.” Some of Jesus’ followers were actually deserting Jesus. Following Jesus had not turned out to result in the wonderfully “fulfilling” life they had wanted and expected. St. John tells us that “many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.” Is there any worse experience in life than that?

These disciples were not the first – nor would they be the last – to desert Jesus in life’s tired and unfulfilling times. Defection, desertion, has been an often repeated experience of Christians through the ages. Discouragement, disappointment, fatigue, disillusionment always occur when life seems burdensome and largely devoid of fulfillment. All Christians at some time or other – and usually often – experience such times of discouragement – all Christians experience the “long littleness of life” when glowing faith doesn’t glow any more. Imagine John McCain – alone, tortured relentlessly – without any hope to hold onto.

Some of these discouraged and disillusioned followers of Jesus, described in today’s Gospel, become bitter, and some desert Jesus. You can almost hear some of them say, “This isn’t what I signed up for. I thought this was going to be one wonderful high after another.” This discouragement, this disillusionment comes inevitably to all those who try to follow Jesus. All who try to follow Jesus at times experience what Frances Cornford called “the long littleness of life.”

Then, very bluntly, very straightly, very plainly, Jesus asks these discouraged and disillusioned young men, “Do you wish to go away? Do you want out? Have you had enough?” Jesus’ question – Jesus’ words – do not appear, at least at first, to be inspirational – nor, I think, were they meant to be. They are a blunt straight-forward challenge: Jesus says to his followers very plainly, very bluntly: “This is the way things are. Following me is not going to be one continuous picnic, one uninterrupted joy ride.” These words of Jesus are not – at least in the normal sense – some sort of pep-talk by Jesus. Jesus says, in effect, following me is not going to be one joyful and fulfilling experience after another. Jesus actually sticks it to his followers: “Do you wish to go away?” It is a straight question and it has a yes or no answer. “Do you want to leave me and give up on this sort of life?”

Of all Jesus’s closest followers, only Simon Peter answers Jesus, and he gives what appears to be a “We’ll tough it out; we’ll hold on” sort of response to Jesus. Simon Peter answers Jesus by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. Where else would we go?”

Peter does not speak for all Jesus’ followers. We know that some had already deserted. When the going get tough, some people always fade away. When the going gets tough, the not-so-tough often disappear.

Those who continued to follow Jesus that day did not do so because they were filled with excitement about his teachings or thrilled about the future of their lives. Peter’s statement is not a glorious inspirational message. It is blunt straight talk. Peter simply asks, “Lord, to whom shall we go? We are not thrilled and inspired at the moment; this has not been a glorious day of wonderful inspiration, but we have to believe that it is you who has the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.
Years ago, an older priest said to me, a rather volatile young priest: “Tony, I think you want all the good days, all the thrilling and fulfilling happy days without any of the uninspired pedestrian hum-drum days. The Christian life is not like that. Sometimes in life you just have to hold on, plod on – without inspiration, sometimes even without much hope – until sunnier days return. [What’s utterly astounding about John McCain – in the worst of suffering – is how heroically he endured to the end.] Jesus did not tell us that life would be one continuous beautiful and fulfilling moment after another.” That’s not the reality of following Jesus.

I want to conclude this morning with a story which I have told before. I remembered it again this past week as I was reading about the early days of World War II. The story became well known because King George VI made it the conclusion of his Christmas broadcast to all the nations of the British Empire at Christmas 1939 when England stood alone against the tyranny of Nazi Germany. Still today – in our time – the Sovereign’s Christmas Day message is the most widely listened-to broadcast in the world. King George’s 1939 Christmas message has words we need to remember as we face those moments of great discouragement in life, when things seem hopeless, when in our despondence we see little or no hope for the future, when we are discouraged.

These are the words which the King spoke to his people in that time of darkest despair:

A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring.... I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you.

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out in to the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be better than light and safer than a known way.

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.