"To Whom Shall We Go?"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” With these words, Jesus summarizes His preaching in this discourse.

His preaching here has a rather simple dichotomy: eat earthly bread and die, or eat spiritual bread and live. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they still died, but you can eat the bread of life and live forever. All you must do is come to Him who calls you, and eat His flesh and drink His blood as He gives them to you.

However, “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, 'This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?'” Admittedly, this is a confusing discourse which St. John records for us. Jesus says some strange things. Things which are difficult to understand, and even more difficult to actually put into practice, at least if you take Him at face value.

"This Bread Is My Flesh"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Elijah faced a great deal of hardship in his life. Of course, it did not help his safety that he regularly challenged the pagan religious establishment backed by King Ahab and his queen, Jezebel. Elijah even had the gall to upstage the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mount Carmel, and then slaughter the host of them. Because of this outrage, Elijah had to flee for his life, because Jezebel had sworn to put the prophet to death.

So Elijah fled to Beersheba, which is on the southern border of Judah, and there he left his servant, but the prophet himself continued on a day's journey into the wilderness. Then he lay down under a broom tree and prayed to God for death. He fled death at the hands of the pagan queen, but sought death at the hands of the Holy Lord God. He was completely spent from his battles with the forces of evil and his flight from destruction.

Eating the Bread of Life

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A few weeks ago, you heard how Jesus fed the multitudes on the hillside near the Sea of Galilee. With such a great crowd about, even pushing the disciples off into the boat and into the water could not keep people from connecting the dots and realizing that Jesus was the one who had provided them with bread and fish to their fill. And so they came and sought Him, and would have made Jesus be their king, because He had filled their bellies.

However, Jesus can see right through their superficial interests. “Jesus answered them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.'” The throngs pressing in on Jesus were not there to be cleansed by the Lamb of God, or even to be healed by the Great Physician. They were there to be fed by the bread-king, with whom they wanted to replace their current, inept temporal rulers.

But this is not an isolated incident. After all, the people of this world seek after foolish things. How much time and energy are spent scrambling after things which are temporary and do not satisfy.

“But Deliver Us from Evil”

[Pr. McDermott preached this sermon while on vacation at

Highland Park Lutheran Church, Los Angeles, CA]

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

After Jesus fed the five thousand on the hillside near Capernaum, immediately He knew that He must leave, or else risk being mobbed as the crowds figured out what He had done. So He directed the Twelve to get into the boat and shove off across the lake, while our Lord retreated to an isolated place to pray. When He came back down to the sea-shore, Jesus saw that “they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them.”

While possibly not the same acute peril they faced in other storms, this was nevertheless a hard force against which the disciples rowed and fought. The wind was beating against them, buffeting them about and pushing them off course. The waves were stirred up, making it rough going and hard to steer. After hours of this, anyone would be fatigued, frustrated, and fed-up.

Now, one thing that bears considering is why they were out on the lake in the first place.

Food That Satisfies

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.” What a description of the general state of mankind! “Like sheep without a shepherd.” Everyone running his own way, scurrying to and fro, in a mad dash to dash madly until the end comes and everything stops dead.

In today's Gospel lesson, you heard how the people of the Galilean towns and villages were scurrying about in such a manner to get a glimpse of Jesus, to hear Him preach, and maybe even to have their ailments healed by His sacred touch. In such holy fervor, they were missing the point of actually listening to what Jesus was saying to them, much less doing what He commanded of them.

In this way, they were not so much different than you today. Possibly, you may not spend your life rushing about in holy fervor, but how much time do you spend distractedly busy with the this, that, and the other of this body and life?