August 22 Sermon Discussion Guide
Sunday we explored the link between breaking bread and betrayal through the lens of John 6:60-69. In a matter of a few verses in John 6, the crowd following Jesus receives the bread Jesus miraculously provides, seeks to crown him king, then turns back and no longer walks with him.
Jesus is familiar with desertion, betrayal, and grumbling, but he doesn’t carry on as if the desertion didn’t happen. Instead, he gives voice to his frustration. We can almost hear the exasperation in the question he asks the disciples who stay with him: “Do you want to go away as well?” His question and ensuing comments echo turmoil the psalmist expresses in Psalm 41:
6 They visit me as if they were my friends,
but all the while they gather gossip,
and when they leave, they spread it everywhere.
7 All who hate me whisper about me,
imagining the worst.
8 “He has some fatal disease,” they say.
“He will never get out of that bed!”
9 Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely,
the one who shared my food, has turned against me.
In fact, Jesus quotes this same Psalm directly in John 13:18 as he's sharing the Passover meal with his disciples and predicting Judas’s impending betrayal:
“But the Scripture will be fulfilled, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.’”
These and other examples throughout Scripture demonstrate that God is familiar with desertion, betrayal, and grumbling. The fact that Jesus’ instinct is to quote a Psalm of lament is instructive for us as we encounter our own disorientation.
Theologian Walter Brueggeman says praying lament Psalms like Psalm 41 “may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith or failure, but for the trusting community, their use is an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith. It is an act of bold faith, on the one hand, because it insists that the world must be experienced as it is and not in some pretended way. On the other hand, it is bold because it insists that all such experiences of disorder are a proper subject of discourse with God.”
Questions for discussion:
Nearly one-third of Psalms can be classified as lament, and though the Church broadly is tempted to avoid utterances of lament, we often find these very Psalms on Jesus’ lips. What “experiences of disorder” are you currently facing?
How are these experiences of disorder currently addressed in your prayers? In your experience, who has modeled this kind of prayer well?
What do you think is at stake when we as Christ-followers fail to tend to the language of lament? What do you think is at stake for the Church’s witness when we fail to speak and to pray our “experiences of disorder”?
Prayer for the week:
O God, send your Spirit upon us and light our path,
that we may travel the road you have prepared for us.
As we gather to be formed into your likeness,
enable our hearts and minds to more fully understand
your goodness and your grace.
Help us break free from ideas and actions that no longer bring life,
that we may embrace the life-giving work of your Spirit.
Challenge us to forsake paths that ask little of us,
and help us resist the evils and temptations of this world,
that we may truly follow the way of kingdom living. Amen.