Reading: John 6: 66-69
Hang on to your hats and fasten your safety belts. It`s going to be a rough ride for all of us this morning– and, if I don`t say something that offends you today, then I`ve failed this magnificent piece of scripture. In our scripture passage, the people are leaving in droves (much the same as they have from the Church in the last fifty years) and Jesus asks those close to him, `Are you also going to leave?` And Peter says, `You are where real life is to be found. You are the bread of life. Where else would we go?`

What I would like to do this morning is to look at alternatives: alternative theories, alternative understandings of life, alternative ways of life - many of which are assuming religious proportions and are very significant alternatives to the Christian faith.

Let me start at what may seem to be a strange place: the meaning of the word `Post-modern`. It is not unusual to hear or read that `We live in a Post-modern world `. What does this mean?

Recent human history has been divided into three periods: Firstly, there is the `Pre-modern` era up to the rise of science in the 1700s. This was followed by the `Modern` era from the 1700s to the 1980s, when the `Post- modern` era began.

The Pre-modern era was the period of authority: the authority of the Church, of Kings and Queens, of the Lords and Ladies of the Manor. You had an authority and you not only did what the authority said, you also believed what the authority believed. If not, `Off with his head. Burn her at the stake.`

All this changed in the 1700s with the rise of the intellectuals and science, when reasoning and testing and challenging became the order of the day. The Modern era was typified by Immanuel Kant`s words, `Use your mind!` This was to be the key to the progress and development of humankind. The `Big Story` of humankind was to be discovered by reason, science and technology. It didn`t quite work out that way, however, and the optimism was tempered by colonialism, communism and world wars with science contributing the nuclear bomb and showing itself to be agenda driven.

The result was that towards the end of the twentieth century, people started questioning Modernism as the story of progress and saying that there is no big story, only a lot of little stories and they are all equally valid. Post modernism had arrived with philosophers like Jacques Derrida saying that any work which relies on words to convey meaning can be interpreted in many ways. Culture and language are what Derrida and others say determine our direction. Every explanation of life is as good as the next.

It is important to recognise that we live in a Post Modern world. The concepts of an infallible Church and inerrant science have passed away. We live today within a multiplicity of understandings and ways of life, and in the end you have to choose from the alternatives where you are going to put your energy. Not to choose is to be like a reed blowing in the wind. I am reminded of the rough poetry of Studdert Kennedy. `I want to live, live out, my life; not wobble through my life somehow and then into the dark . . . I bet my life on Christ.` We live in a Post-modern world and it is in this world that the question of Jesus and the answer of Peter become strangely relevant. `Will you also leave?` `Where else would we go?`

The story line of the sixth chapter of John is quite clear. It starts with the feeding of the five thousand, the explanations of which are many. The one favoured by me is that he organised the crowd to share what they had. Why else would there be a reference to their being organised into small groups? There is in the end more than enough for everyone. `There is bread in the wilderness and plenty to share.` The people are impressed and see real political potential in this guy and there is talk of him as King of Israel.

The next morning they follow him to Capernaum and when Jesus meets them he says, `Still hungry? You should be after a different kind of food!` Then follows a discussion ranging from manna in the wilderness to sacramental and eternal life - which I remind you yet again is not about life after death but a quality of life here and now which is unaffected by death, a new quality of life that pivots around the idea of Jesus as `the bread of life`. Jesus offers them a new way of life based on the love of God and the love of one`s neighbour. This is all too much for the crowd. They are interested in bread, not the bread of life. And they leave. It is then when Jesus asks the twelve whether they are going to leave too. And good old Peter says, `Where else would we go? Yours are the words of life. The new world order you are proposing is far superior. You are the bread of life as far as we are concerned. We are staying with you. The alternatives are pretty poor.` Indeed they are Peter! Indeed they are!

What are the alternatives to Jesus as the Bread of Life?

(1) The first is that of Nationalism - the nationalism of `I am, you are, we are Australian`, the Anzac Spirit and all that kind of stuff with the peak performance being the `giving of one`s life for one`s country` - although I have never really understood what storming the heights of Anzac as an aggressor had to do with the defence of Australia.

Nationalism is a significant alternative way of life. It has been for many years, and its insidious influence has soaked its way into our lives. Margaret used to sing as her school song, `I vow to thee my country all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love`. The Nedlands Methodist Church where I grew up was but one goose step behind and I can remember singing lustily, `Land of our birth, we pledge to thee our love and toil in the years to be`. The words of Jesus were put on one side - the words about a Samaritan who helped a Jew, and all being children of God. Nationalism is a significant part of our lives and it is a concept opposed by Jesus again and again. The shocking thing about the story of the Good Samaritan is that it was the hated foreigner who received the praise. `Nationalism,` as Dostoyevsky says, `is a gross fraud perpetrated on humanity.` If it wasn`t so pitiful the recent Olympic games would have been laughable - a nation weeping over the absence of gold medals. Nationalism is a way of life that is very much with us. The Christian faith is about breaking down national barriers, not promoting them.

(2) Another way of life is that of competing and conquering. Our society today worships at the shrine of competition. You see it vividly in the cheering crowd at a football match and the vicarious cry of `We won!` We won? As illogical as it may seem that is the cry and motivation of millions. Winning is what it is all about! It is the symbolism of a hairy ape beating his chest as he stands astride the fallen body of another. The comments of the Geelong coach a few weeks ago were well taken: a player lying unconscious on the ground and the crowd cheering approval is a disturbing sight. I am no spoil sport and used to play in my school`s first eighteen. I enjoy watching a good game of football but the fanaticism of the crowd in those close up shots terrifies me. Our society is obsessed by football. Sport is undoubtedly a way of life for many and few ask the obvious question `Why is it so important to win?` The way of life proposed by Jesus is about not about winning. It is about loving and co-operating.

(3) A third alternative way of life might be described as the `Pursuit of Pleasure`, where we seek not bread but to be the Master Chef - the programme that stopped a nation and had record numbers gathering around a black box in eager anticipation. I hesitate to say it but our society is infatuated with food. Once again I enjoy a nice piece of pork as much as anyone else but the present concentration on food is not only unhealthy, it is indicative of a society that has lost its way. There is something very sick about people dying from obesity in Australia while others starve in the Sahel of Africa!

The pursuit of pleasure is of course not only seen with respect to food, it is fast becoming the aim and end all of life for many, whether it be the mindless consumption resulting from advertising or the more sophisticated forms of travelling, tourism and dining out. We are in terms of Neil Postman`s book, `Amusing ourselves to death`. What a superb title! In the book he says that `Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well informed in the world` (p106). That is becoming increasingly true of Australia. The maximising of personal pleasure is a very common approach to life. It was exploded for me in my early teens when, in Aldous Huxley`s Brave New World, I read of the world ending up with people lying in pods being fed happiness pills. It was a graphic way of saying that the logical end of pleasure seeking as a way of life is that of taking drugs. It`s worth thinking about: a series of pods where we can be fed pleasurable sensations.

(4) One last alternative - one that will probably have me being chased out of the Church. Having questioned the Anzac spirit, the sport of football and Master Chef I may as well go for broke and say that I see the central importance of the family as a very real alternative way of life.

In the Weekend Australian of August 11 There was an article by a journo parodying the significance of death, and saying that her father said `he wanted to be remembered as someone who worked hard, loved his family and never knowingly did anyone any harm`. She went on to say how that `should be good enough for all of us`. My reaction was, `Bully for you Susan! But there are many of us for whom it is not sufficient.` That working hard and loving one`s family are the two most common life goals in our community is without doubt. That they should be, is very much in doubt. It is such a limited concept of life and I remember the occasion when Jesus was told that his family was outside, and he said `My family! Who is my family? Those who do the will of God are my family.` (Mark 3:31-35) He was not denigrating the significance of the family. He was saying that as a goal for living it was inadequate. The Christian faith is about the life of new relationships and the family is not the goal of life, it is one of the contexts where the life of new relationships is played out. I hope you can see the difference.

Most families today have two bread winners (an interesting phrase!) and we are working longer and harder than we have ever worked before. And why? That`s a very good question! To have life dominated by work, to be working harder and longer than we have ever done before, is a no brainer. It makes work the rationale of life. The time was when we saw technology as something that would free us from the burden of work. There is more to life than work. `I work therefore I am` is no criterion for life. You may end up with plenty of bread, but not the bread of life.

Let me be very clear at this point that I am not suggesting a return to the narrow limited vision of the pre-modern. Christendom is dead and the conservatives will never put it together again. Nor am I suggesting that we can think our way out of our problems. Most of our problems are irrational but that doesn`t stop them occurring. I am not advocating a return to the pre-modern and modern eras of life, nor am I returning to the exclusivity of the Christian faith. They were and are all too restrictive with respect to the future. What I am saying is that in post modern society, you have to stand for something or you will fall for anything! And this is precisely what is happening in the world today.

On the way home from Gidgie last week I was listening to the Drive programme on 810 when someone tweeted in, `Why should I be concerned about anyone but myself?` I was fascinated by the question and all it implied, and I have been unable to get it out of my mind. So direct and to the point! Let me repeat the tweet so you can assess the significance of it. `Why should I be concerned about anyone but myself?` Because, you tweet, it is what makes you human! `The possibility of unreconstructed predators establishing a new world order is completely fatuous!` If he could hear my response he would probably say `I disagree. You are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine.` Welcome to our post-modern society!

In this kind of society, I am so grateful for this small group of people who meet here week by week to express the worth and learn more of Jesus of Nazareth whom we see as the bread of life, the new humanity, the hope of the world, the one whose concern goes beyond oneself and one`s family and is universal and all encompassing; the one who offers us `life in all its fullness`, the one who exhibits this life and urges us to give it a go. We may not be making a very good fist of it but for me Peter was dead right. It`s a damn sight better than what else is offering. Where else would we go! The alternatives of nationalism, winning, pleasure seeking, family life and work are not to be compared.

Thanks, but no thanks, Jesus. We`re staying with you!