"Because of this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, 'Do you also wish to go?' Simon Peter answered him, '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.'"
-John 6: 66-69
The General Seminary class of 2012.
I wanna tell you about one of the most remarkable and resilient
groups of people that I’ve ever come to know:
my seminary class. We were a hodgepodge.
The youngest of us was 21. The
oldest of us was 68. We were black,
white, hispanic, gay, straight, married, partnered, single, divorced. We were so very different, and yet God had
brought us together to live together, worship together, and be formed together. But in the spring of 2010, not long after we arrived, we got word that our seminary was in trouble. The dean was
retiring, we were millions of dollars in debt, and there was
a very real threat that the place might close before we could graduate. What were we going to do?
As a class, somehow, we rallied around each other and made a
vow: we would stay. I personally didn't think that vow would hold up. I even thought I would leave at a few points. But we stayed. All of us. The next two years would be anything but easy: we sold half our
property, outside folks who had nothing to do with the church were now living
and walking around OUR close, the administration turned over (twice!). It was chaotic, scary, hard to accept. Yet the men and women with whom I had the
pleasure of being formed stayed resilient.
They remembered why we were there in the first place: because God had called us there. They showed me what faith looked like, what
discipleship looked like. It looked like
resiliency and grace in the face of events that were so very hard to accept.
We finally come to the end of the Bread of Life discourse, and after all this talk about eating his flesh, drinking his blood,
and him being the very bread that has come down from heaven, Jesus finds his
followers in a state of confusion at the conclusion of this long sermon. "This teaching is difficult, who can accept
it." You can hear the uncertainty and
fear in their voices.
And you can hear
the frustration in Jesus’ voice: "Does
this offend you? Well, what if you saw
the Son of Man ascending?" Would that
convince them? It’s almost like Jesus is
begging for them to have some small ounce of faith in the midst of all this,
and you can almost see them shaking their heads. You can see them saying among themselves, we
can’t stay with this guy. His teachings
are too hard. His way of life is going
to set us up against the authorities.
It’s going to be too hard, it’s going to be be too demanding. So they leave.
We don’t know how many of them left, but it was enough to get
Jesus’ attention. So he turns to the 12,
his inner circle. Maybe even half
expecting some of them to leave too. “Do
you also wish to go away?” he asks them.
And Peter has the best response ever.
“To whom can we go?” To whom can
we go. Where are we gonna go? You’re the very reason we started this
journey. We are here because of you. You. The Holy One of God.
Peter makes a lot of mistakes (he falls when he tries to walk on
water, he denies ever knowing Jesus after he gets arrested), but here he nails
it. This is John’s version of the story
that we call the Confession of St. Peter, where he stands up and proclaims
Jesus as Lord. But here it’s more than
just an acknowledgement of Jesus’ authority.
It’s an acknowledgement of the very reason why Peter and the others have
left their old lives and come together to form this community and their role in it. It’s the same spirit that burned in the
hearts of those classmates of mine who were the first to say, “We’re not going
anywhere” when things got so hard at General Seminary. And because of their witness and willingness
to acknowledge the very reason we had come together, the rest of us had the
courage to stay as well. I suspect the other apostles felt the same when they saw Peter stand amongst them and say that they weren't going anywhere.
The door was open for them to leave. “Do you
also wish to go?” Jesus asked. Here. You’re free to do so. And our bishops all said that we could transfer seminaries if we wanted to, no questions asked. Who could blame us? But is that what discipleship looks like? Is that what living in community looks like? No! Discipleship and living in community are about remembering the
very reason why we come together. And
the reason is Jesus Christ. He is what
bound the 12 together, what bound us together as a class at General, and he is
what brought each of us here to this place right now.
It’s not easy because there are plenty of times when things
happen that we cannot accept or understand and such drastic change occurs that it cuts us to the core.
We know all about that in the Episcopal Church! But what makes us different
from, say, the churches in the hollows where I grew up is that when disputes
arise or times get tough, a few folks generally leave those churches and go
start one of their own. In the Episcopal Church we have lost brothers and sisters who have done the same, who decide that to leave their community and start new congregations is better than sticking together through difficult times. That’s not how
discipleship, works brothers and sisters.
That’s not how life works. We
cannot always abandon and run away when times get tough. We have to lean on the one who brought us to
the situation in the first place.
Because it’s not about us, it’s about him. The folks that left, they were in it for
themselves. Peter and the apostles, they
were in it for Jesus. True discipleship
is remembering why we do what we do, especially when we can’t understand what’s
happening around us. It’s easy to do when things
are going our way, but the test of our faith comes in the times when it’s not
going our way, when the future is uncertain or when we cannot accept the
present. Peter got it. My classmates got it. We get it too.
Why did the 12 stay? Why
did my classmates stay? Why have you stayed in the Church? Why stay in a place that can be so volatile, where mud is slung and politics so often take over and people get hurt? I think I know
the answer. Because you understand what
it’s all really about. It’s about
Jesus. Where else can we go? Maybe you
find yourself in the midst of something that you cannot accept. Don’t run from it or abandon it. Remember why you’re here. Remember who brought you here. Remember that our journeys are not just about
us as individuals but about us as a community, leaning on one another and on
the one who brought us here. And
together, by him, with, him, and in him, we can face any obstacle, any
uncertainty, even when we can’t hope to understand or accept it. There is no other place for us than with the Lord Jesus and with the Body of Christ assembled in community.
