In the name of God:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus said, “Whoever eats of this bread will live
forever.” Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Whether it’s Ponce de Leon’s
search for the fountain of youth or the latest miracle treatment, we’re all
ears when it comes to eternal life. Over the past several weeks, the sermons
have been focusing on the readings about King David that we had from 2 Samuel,
but you may have noticed that the Gospel texts the last three Sundays have all
come from John 6. This chapter of John is called the “Bread of Life discourse.”
It begins with the multiplication of the loaves and fish and then Jesus talks
about the implications of that miracle.
Next Sunday is the final installment of this Bread of
Life discourse, and the disciples will say “This teaching is difficult, who can
accept it?” That’s a good question. Perhaps when I read the Gospel this morning
you didn’t flinch, but that’s probably because you’re heard it before. But
think about how scandalous this passage actually is. First of all, Jesus said
that he is the living bread come down from heaven. What does that even mean? If
he’s bread, then how does he walk and talk? If you stop and think about it, as
I’m trained to do now that our almost three year old asks “why” all the time,
it’s a fairly ridiculous metaphor. But putting aside the notion of bread
becoming human, the heaven part should catch out attention as well. Anything
that comes directly from the realm of God is shocking, as the limitless takes
on limits and the unknowable becomes known.
Then we have the preposterous claim that eating this
bread will give us eternal life. How is that possible? Next, we get into the
most disturbing aspect of this story – Jesus notes that the bread that he gives
is his flesh and we should eat it. Plain and simple, this is cannibalism.
Eating flesh and drinking blood is not only disgusting, it is prohibited in
Leviticus. This really is outrageous. Clearly, Jesus’ handlers and speech
editors weren’t around for this one.
And especially in “progressive” or “liberal” churches,
there is that problematic word “unless.” Jesus says “Unless you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Through the
centuries, that one word has been used to exclude people from the love and
grace of God. Many of us rightly wonder, “What happens if no one offers this
bread of life to them” or “What if this bread is presented in an unappetizing
way and people reject it, not knowing what it is?” Does that exclude them from
this eternal life? Some say yes, and so controversy is added to this already
scandalous passage.
When you stop and think about it, this passage really is
a hard one to accept. For one, it’s cloaked in so much metaphor that it’s not
easy to comprehend. And that’s assuming that it is metaphorical, because if
Jesus’ words are intended to be literal, then most of us will walk away at the
prospect of cannibalism. But how do we know which parts are a metaphor? Around
the world today, at least in the churches that use the lectionary, there will
likely be many sermons preached about the Eucharist. And given the reading,
that’s understandable.
Some of
these sermons will focus on Eucharistic theology, explaining what Communion is
all about. This passage is actually one of the more contentious passages in the
Bible. Many of the reformers, such as Martin Luther, struggled with this
passage because it seems to suggest an understanding of the Eucharist that is
favored by the Roman Catholic church, namely that the bread and wine literally
and truly become flesh and blood. So some sermons will argue for a particular
interpretation that suits the proclivities of the preacher. Other sermons will
be exclusivist and focus on that word “unless” and talk about the need to
convert others. But I’d like to go in another direction and instead focus on
the often overlooked promises that we find in this passage. By consuming this
bread, first we are promised eternal life, and second we are promised that we
will abide in Jesus and he in us. How do those promises get worked out? I have
no idea – but I trust God to sort out those details. Those two promises are
very Good News, and that’s enough for me.
The
promise of eternal life is good enough to catch most people’s attention. A lot
of people think is about “getting to live forever,” and while that might be a
part of it, that misses the point of eternal life. Living forever isn’t the
goal of our faith, nor should it be. Instead, we might better understand the
promise to be that of never-ending life. Eternal life is not a reward that we
get at the end of our earthly pilgrimage, but rather, it is an affirmation of
the life that we have lived. Eternal life is God’s way of saying that the love
that we have known will never end. You love your family? Great – death can’t
take that away. You’ve experienced the grace of forgiveness? Wonderful – that
has no expiration date. You value your relationships with family and friends?
Magnificent – the grave can’t put an end to those relationships.
Eternal
life is what gives meaning to this life, otherwise, what’s the point? One of
the reasons why humans, even those who are not religious, are generally good
and moral people is because there are consequences to our actions. Moments in
time are connected to each other, so we know that selfishness can hurt others
and that generosity can help them. But if each moment in time were completely
separate from another, how might we act differently? If what you did in the
next 5 minutes would be have no impact 6 minutes from now, what might you do?
It’s the connections, both to each other and from one moment to the next, that
make the meaning. This is what eternal life is all about, it gives us
meaningful connections, just on the cosmic and eternal scale. The promise of
eternal life means that the love we share today not only matters, but endures.
The virtue of our good deeds lasts forever.
What
does this eternal life look like and how does it happen? I don’t know, I really
don’t. But that doesn’t make the promise an less Good News. Eternal life isn’t
a reward for answering a question correctly, rather it is an affirmation of
life itself. Life matters and love endures – that’s a promise we all need to
carry in our hearts and minds.
The
second promise of Good News is that by partaking of the bread of life, that we
abide in Jesus and he abides in us. This is the promise of the Incarnation,
which is a theological word that means that God has come to us. Earlier in
John, the gospeller wrote “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The
root of the word “incarnation” is a word that means “meat” or “flesh.” In
Jesus, God gets fleshy and messy. And through eating of this bread of life, we abide
with God.
The
particular words used by Jesus in this passage are very evocative and
incarnational. When he says that we are to eat his flesh, the word really does
mean our physical body, it isn’t symbolic language referring to some vague
notion of self. And the word used for “eat” isn’t the regular word that we’d
use to talk about eating a meal. Actually, the word that Jesus uses is often
the word used to describe how animals eat. We might better translate “eat” as
“chomp down on” or “gnaw on.” That word implies that you’re not minding your
table manners and are chewing with your mouth open. There is nothing polite
about this cannibalistic command to chew with your mouth wide open on this
bread of life. When you consume Jesus, everyone around you should know what
you’re chewing on.
Jesus is
not content to live only in our minds, but wants to be in our bodies as well.
Notice that eternal life here isn’t promised as the result of thinking certain
things, but rather actually having Jesus, the bread of life, in your body. In
the same way that God becomes incarnate in the world in Jesus, our beliefs
about God are to become incarnate in the world through our bodies. Faith is not
an intellectual exercise or a private matter. No, faith is a bodily experience
and a public display. That is what it means to have Jesus abide in you.
You
might be thinking “Sounds like this abiding is more of a responsibility than a
promise.” And while there certainly is that element of responsibility to abiding
in Jesus, there is indeed something very promising about having Jesus abide in
us. One theologian has astutely and provocatively said that the chief sin of
humanity is forgetfulness. We forget to be thankful. We forget that love is
more powerful than hatred. We forget that light can overcome darkness. We
forget that God lives among us. But when we can remember that God abides in us
then we can remember that we are never alone. We can remember that though God
gives us minimum protection, that God also gives us maximum support.
And this
is where the power of the Eucharist comes in. In the Holy Eucharist we are
presented with the mysteries and manifestations of these promises. The
Eucharist is that place where the veil between heaven and earth is at its thinnest.
At the altar, past salvation becomes present anew and future hope is glimpsed.
You are given bread and wine which symbolize the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ, who abides in you when you consume them; and by partaking of this holy
meal, you abide in God.
Some
people wonder whether or not Sacraments, such as Eucharist, really matter.
Absolutely they do. In them, we participate in our ongoing salvation and are
reminded of the eternal and transcendent nature of grace and love. Through the
Eucharist, in our very hands we behold our salvation, the promise of eternal
life which affirms our relationships of love. As we crunch on the wafer and
gulp the wine, we abide in Jesus and he in us. And so it is a good thing to
celebrate the mystery of our salvation on a weekly basis. The promises of
eternal life and God’s abiding presence are world-changing and provocative
promises that can be hard to understand. In the Eucharist we are reminded of
these promises that come from the understanding that Jesus is the Bread of
Life. So feed on Jesus in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.
