In the last part of the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus says a lot of things that offend just about everyone who hears them. For starters, he uses the phrase “I AM”—as in “I AM the bread of life”—which, of course, offends the Pharisees, since “I AM” is God’s name, and no one is permitted even to utter God’s name, let alone adopt it.

And then Jesus states, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” which, obviously, offends the crowds, since to them it sound as if Jesus is endorsing cannibalism.

The end result is that most of those who had been following Jesus turn their backs and walk away. At which point, Jesus looks at the twelve disciples and asks them, “Do you also wish to go away?” For a while, no one dares to speak, but finally Peter steps forward and says, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Now, there’s no evidence that Peter was any less offended by what Jesus had said. In fact, he may have been just as troubled as everyone else … but he is willing to keep following Jesus. And maybe that’s the point.

Too often, I think people leave the church because they don’t understand what God is doing—or maybe even because they are offended by what God is doing. I hear it all the time. “If the denomination votes this way on a particular issue, then I am out of here.” Or, “I refuse to be a part of a church that feels called to move in that direction.” Or, “I don’t go to church anymore, because I couldn’t take 1) the hypocrisy; 2) the bureaucracy; 3) the music; 4) the preaching; 5) fill in the blank.”

Please don’t misunderstand. I believe that, at times, there are good reasons for leaving a church. However, I’m not sure that our reason should ever be that we don’t happen to understand what the Holy Spirit is doing there. Let’s face it; there is no perfect church, if by perfect we mean that we are going to agree with, or approve of, everything that takes place.

Wherever people are people (and that certainly includes the church), there will always be things that offend us. Many of those things we need to pursue and continue to discuss until we reach an agreement. But some things we may be better off leaving alone, and learning how to agree to disagree—if for no other reason than it helps to remind us that there are other people, just as sincere and faithful as we are, who do not see things our way.

Do we sometimes wish to walk away from the church altogether? Of course. We all do. But to paraphrase Peter: “Where else would we go? The church is the one place where we have heard the words of eternal life.”