Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Canceled
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, August 22, 2021, the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Text: John 6:56-69
Our Gospel passage is the conclusion of a story that began with Jesus feeding his congregation of more than 5000 people with one child’s lunch. (Jn 6:1-13) It’s a wonderful, crowd-pleasing story. But the next morning, Jesus preaches a sermon and things take a turn. Today we hear the last of many complaints that follow. The complaint making its way through the grapevine of Jesus’ grumbling congregation is, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” Jesus picks up on the grapevine grumbling and asks quite directly, “Does this offend you?” Evidently, the answer for most of the crowd was a resounding “yes.” Most of those in the crowd decided that they could NOT accept what Jesus was saying, that they could NOT accept what Jesus was offering, that they could NOT accept who Jesus WAS and they “turned back and no longer went about with him.” // Y’all. Jesus got “canceled.”
For some years now, there’s a thing called “cancel culture” that has been prevalent in public dynamics and has been a focus of concern and debate in the public square and in academia. “Cancel culture” at its most basic refers to the act of withdrawing support for someone or something in response to words or actions that are found to be offensive or inappropriate. There are certainly times when boycotting a business or critiquing an influential public figure’s words or actions are important ways to exert pressure for positive social change. And free speech is a critically important part of a democratic society. But the toxic environment of polarized, easily triggered, dehumanized and dehumanizing, either-or thinking and reactivity has been a perfect breeding ground for a version of “cancel culture” that is quite simply an exercise in public shaming and ostracism. It brands people with a proverbial scarlet letter such that they are no longer seen as worthy of any care, respect, or engagement whatsoever. “Cancel culture” is not unique to one “side” or perspective in our society. There are persons across the spectrum of so-called left to right of the political, religious, or academic spheres who “cancel” people due to perceived disloyalty to their brand of dogmatic purity, prejudice, or discomfort.
To be clear, the focus recently has often been on celebrities or powerful public figures who are not going to have their lives or livelihoods radically altered by the social outcry against them. Their egos and sometimes their jobs may get altered, but not their capacity to live or ultimately thrive. It’s important to recognize that there are some for whom getting publicly shamed—whether they did something egregious or not—really does threaten their lives. My point is simply that the public shaming at the heart of today’s “cancel culture” often leads to no good or more just outcome for anyone or for the larger society.
Today we are reminded that “cancel culture” is not really anything new. Most of those in the crowd—the followers or “disciples of Jesus”—“turned back and no longer went about with him.”
What was so offensive that people would leave? What got Jesus “canceled” by so many?
Maybe it was the way Jesus talked or that his words were confusing. What does it mean to “abide in” Jesus? And what’s up with this idea that eating and drinking his flesh and blood has something to do with life “in” God? And is Jesus bread? And is it flesh or words that give life?
And—oh, by the way—gross! Eating human flesh and drinking human blood? Perhaps they couldn’t stomach such talk. It is, by the way, a documented historical fact that there were those who persecuted early Christians due to the accusation that the Lord’s Supper was a cannibalistic rite.
Maybe offense was taken at the fact that Jesus didn’t seem to be trying to “make nice,” but rather used provocative, earthy, unsentimental words to describe what he was talking about. Jesus isn’t talking about eating in polite company. The word he uses (tidily translated “eat” in verse 56) is the Greek word trogo which means “to chew on” or “to gnaw.” Jesus is saying that true life is found by hunkering down and gnawing on his flesh. Not the height of refinement or delicacy.
Confusing words, words that are easily misinterpreted, failing to use the “correct” words, ways of speaking that don’t placate but rather agitate…all of these things could have been what got Jesus canceled. They are certainly things get people canceled today.
Or maybe what got Jesus canceled was his challenge of cherished beliefs. He said that this “bread” they were supposed to chew on was more life-giving and sustaining than that connected with Moses (the manna in the wilderness). Challenging a comfortable, familiar faith and way of thinking? Yep, that’s always fertile ground for cancellation.
Or, perhaps some in the congregation began to perceive what Jesus was saying. Perhaps they understood Jesus as calling them into the messiness of human life and relationship and community: to have REAL flesh and blood encounters with people that might be really painful or challenging and that might require some self-sacrifice. Perhaps they began to realize that Jesus called them to follow in the way of life that Jesus modeled—and they just couldn’t go there because it made them uncomfortable or they didn’t want to be so challenged or bothered. Maybe they left because what Jesus was offering asked too much of them.
Regardless of which offense causes people to turn away from Jesus, the bottom line is that they do. Thousands in the story (then and now) just walk away, unable to perceive, unwilling to receive all that is offered.
There is certainly much to lose if we walk away. But, let’s be honest, let’s not sugarcoat it: there is a lot to lose if we follow Jesus. We have to lose our self-righteousness and self-centeredness. We have to lose our demand for control of everything. We have to lose our polarized, either-or thinking. We have to lose our capitulation to a culture that values bland niceness more than justice, upward mobility more than solidarity, being “right” more than being kind, and money more than mercy. We have to lose our taste for shaming, bullying, or belittling others.
To follow the Holy One of God, Jesus, means giving up “canceling” people. Dr. Cornel West puts it plainly, “Christians don’t believe in cancelling people, everybody can bounce back…everybody has the capacity to be changed and transformed.” That is at the heart of our United Methodist tradition, the belief that people can grow in holiness and love, that we are going on to perfection. And that’s an important piece here. What Jesus models is being present in the flesh and blood messiness of conflict and need and pain with clarity, patience, strength, and love. Jesus most certainly speaks words of critique, but always for the purpose of growth and transformation, not public shame. Not long after the story we heard today in John, a woman allegedly caught in adultery was publicly shamed and made to stand in front of Jesus and all who were gathered in the temple. When Jesus was asked whether he agreed with the law requiring the woman to be stoned, he said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” When everyone left and the woman was there with Jesus, he did not condemn her but gave her—and her accusers—another chance.
Much of current “cancel culture” offers no second chance, makes no room for grace, for change, for transformation. It ends conversation. It ends relationships. It ends possibilities. It makes a sibling into an object of scorn. And this happens not just on Twitter or Instagram, it happens in our personal lives and relationships at every level. Of course there are times when we need to separate ourselves from a harmful relationship or dynamic. There are times when it is appropriate to clearly denounce the injustice of a person or institution’s actions or policies. But what we’re talking about today are the ways we cut people off in our lives and refuse to engage in a difficult conversation for the sake of reconciliation. What we’re talking about today is how we write people off as nothing more than…whatever the thing might be: a cheat, a liar, a liberal, a Trumper, a coward, a racist, a homophobe… “Nothing more than” is not something Jesus would ever say about anyone. “Nothing more than” erases experience and context and humanity and potential. To follow Jesus we have to lose “nothing more than” and the juicy emotional satisfaction that comes with feeling morally superior or like we know everything about a person or situation (when we likely really don’t). To follow Jesus, there is most certainly a lot we have to lose. Some might find it too difficult a way to go.
But what do we lose if we turn back and no longer go about with Jesus? What do we lose if Jesus gets “canceled?”
Based on the text, the answer is “spirit and life.” If we cancel Jesus, we lose the life we are truly made for, a life enfolded in God’s life, life that is formed by and conformed to God’s wisdom and way of compassion and justice, life that shares in God’s work in the world, life that is filled and fueled by God’s steadfast love. That love is our sustenance, that love is our freedom, that love is shown to us and offered to us in the flesh-and-blood gift of Jesus. Jesus’ “flesh and blood” is, literally, Jesus’ life. The embodied, incarnate Jesus—and all that Jesus said and did—this is what we are invited to feast upon, to receive, to be filled with. The wisdom of God revealed in Jesus. The justice of God revealed in Jesus. The humility and generosity of God revealed in Jesus. The perfect love of God revealed in Jesus.
We are offered chance after chance, grace upon grace, life-giving bread from heaven, and a savior who never cancels us.
So the question is, to whom will YOU go? To a life-diminishing culture or a life-giving Christ? The good news is that you and I get to choose…every minute, every day, graced by a God of second chances. And for that I say thanks be to God.https://foundryumc.org/archive
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