How to leave the church
Who is Jesus? part 72
I want to have some fun with this. When working through the debate following Jesus feeding the 5,000 I was drawn to four words on how the people were reacting to Jesus. These are, in the ESV translation, seeking, grumbled, disputed and turning away, (sorry, grammar freaks, but that’s their list; the tenses of the words vary) as if there was a sequence to people losing their faith. I do not claim any originality here, it comes from this commentary on the Gospels that I have:
Wiersbe, Warren W.. The BE Series Bundle: The Gospels: Be Loyal, Be Diligent, Be Compassionate, Be Courageous, Be Alive, and Be Transformed (The BE Series Commentary) (p. 952). David C Cook. Kindle Edition.
24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.
41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
John 6, verses 24, 41, 52 and 66 ESVUK
So here it is, the steps on how to leave the church, according to John’s Gospel, Chapter 6
Step 1: Come with an agenda.
John says the people came seeking Jesus, using the present active participal version of the word, they were actively seeking where Jesus was, and found him in Capernaum. What they did not come with was an open mind, unlike Nicodemus who was interested in who Jesus was and what he taught. These people had seen or heard of Jessus supplying food for a crowd and wanted Jesus to supply them with free food. Jesus refused instead he tried teaching them.
He tells them that he is food for the whole world. But that is not good enough, they want a miracle for themselves.
So if you want to leave the church, the first thing to do is to be selfish. Come with an agenda that is for yourself or your group. It’s an easy thing to do.
Step 2: Don’t ask questions
John says the people grumbled. He uses the Imperfect Active Indicative – 3rd Person Plural tense of the verb. Know what this means? Me neither, I had to look it up. It’s a past tense that describes incomplete, ongoing, or habitual actions. The problem with this grumbling is that they did it among themselves. Could they have asked Jesus to clarify? Yes. But they didn’t, they just grumbled.
They grumbled because when Jesus did not repeat his miracle of giving free food he said he came from heaven. They are closing their minds to the one person whose words have power, the Word made flesh.
If you want to leave the church, grumble about anyone that disagrees with you, especially the leaders, but don’t talk to them about it.
Step 3: Marginalise people
Now John says the people disputed. That’s a bit mild for the Greek which literally says that they began to war. He uses the Imperfect Middle Indicative – 3rd Person Plural of the verb, but that probably means a little to you as it does to me. Whether they came to blows or there was just a war of words, tempers were frayed.
They were arguing about Jesus’ claim that you have to eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have life. They were taking these words literally despite non-literal passages in the Old Testament like when David and his men were pinned down and David said he wanted a drink from the well in Bethlehem, which was cut off by the Philistines. Off went three of his men, and brought him the water. Daid then poured the water saying, “God forbid that I should drink the blood of these men who risked their lives.”
Jesus had a symbolic meaning in mind, we don’t know what the arguments were or which people were on each side, but we do know it was fierce.
To turn away from Jesus all you need to do is treat someone as beyond salvation because of… it could be anything, race, supporting Palestinians, of the Israeli government, or for being gay. Jesus does not turn away anyone who comes to him (6:37). Why do you stop them coming?
Step 4: Don’t accept anything outside your worldview
The story ends with Jesus’ followers turning away from him. These are not the same people who grumbled and argued, Jesus has now left the synagogue at Caperneum. These are Jesus’ own disciples. They know of the dispute in the synagogue only by hearsay.They do not misunderstand what Jesus said about eating and drinking his flesh and blood, the problem is that they DO understand. Yet they grumble.
They know what Jesus means, but they don’t want to change the way they think, and it doesn’t matter if their tradition is Jewish or Greek, the message of Jesus that his words must be part of you, right to your inner core. But they turned it down. It’s like saying you need to lose weight before eating your third cheeseburger.
The Jews wanted a conquering Messiah who would overthrow the Roman Empire. A crucified Jesus contradicted this. To the Greeks an executed criminal brought shame[1]. To follow Jesus means changing your world view, which at the very least is likely to make you unpopular. Or worse.
If you want to leave the church all you have to do is act like society says you should act.
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Making an ass of myself 