It’s a fact of life. People leave the Christian faith regularly.
An analysis by Brandon Flannery in 2022, surveying 1,200 individuals on why they left Christianity, the top two reasons were “LGBTQ Discrimination” and “Behavior of Believers.”
Of course, Flannery’s list has 22 other reasons for leaving, ranging from politics and unanswered prayers to theological issues.
Most of the respondents to Flannery did not have a personal relationship with Jesus.
In his 1977 book, “A Severe Mercy,” author Sheldon Vanauken writes, “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians — when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”
My question for current believers who love and worship Jesus as the Son of God is: What would it take for you to walk away and leave him?
Individuals have been leaving the Church and Jesus for centuries. Would it surprise you to know that during Jesus’ ministry — when he was alive and teaching — a group of his disciples left him?
After speaking at a synagogue in Capernaum, Chapter 6, verse 66 in John’s gospel tells us, “From this time on, many of his disciples broke away and would not remain in his company any longer.”
That sounds serious.
Up to this point in John’s Gospel, Jesus had performed many miracles, including turning water into wine (chapter 2), curing the sick (chapter 5), and multiplying the loaves and walking on water (chapter 6).
Which of Christ’s teachings was so hard that the Jews following him walked away?
The passage that causes the disciples following Jesus to start quarreling among themselves is in verse 51: “I myself am the living bread come down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he shall live forever; the bread I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
In the next verse, John tells us, “the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’”
Even today, some of Jesus’ followers describe this passage as symbolic. In other passages of John’s Gospel, speaking symbolically, Jesus says, I am the gate, I’m the good shepherd, I am the vine, you are the branches.
Teaching on this passage in John’s Gospel, Fr. Mike Schmitz says, “If Jesus was speaking symbolically, this is the perfect moment for him to say, ‘hold on… don’t go there… that’s disgusting.”
Instead, what Jesus does is back up or emphasize this teaching five more times.
Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you,” or, depending on the translation, “Amen, Amen I say to you.”
“What that means is this,” says Schmitz “what’s coming after is a solemn oath, what I’m about to say I stake my life on, this is pretty serious.”
1. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. — Verse 53
2. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. — Verse 54
3. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. — Verse 55
4. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. — Verse 56
5. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. — Verse 57
A symbolic statement is not hard to accept. What Jesus was teaching his disciples, and us, in chapter 6 was literal. This was so hard to accept many of his followers left.
Fortunately, Jesus’ chosen twelve remained with him until the end.
The only time in the New Testament when people left Jesus was this teaching on the Eucharist. It is in the Eucharist that Jesus gives his whole self to us. In return, he asks us to give ourselves to him.
