Lord Jesus, you have told us that those who eat your flesh and drink your blood abide in you; grant us the grace to always abide in your love ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last
week, on the question of what is the purpose of the Church, we saw that it is
the Eucharist – that great meal in which we are made present to the Passion of
Christ, nourished by his grace, and united by his love. The Eucharist is something
that not only reminds us of who we are, but it also shapes us into the
grateful, Spirit-filled, and humble people that God is summoning us to be. As
some have put it, the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the
Church.
The
next foundational question for us is “Why do we come to church?” It’s one thing
to be affiliated with a church, but attending church is a step beyond that. Coming
to church requires intentionality, planning, commitment, and sacrifice. So why
do we do it? Now, one way of responding to such a question would be to respond
with an answer that sounds like economics – essentially telling you why coming
to church is “worth” it or enumerating what good things you’ll get out of
coming to church. But I’m not interested in those sorts of answers. You might
not feel like you get a single thing out of coming to church – and that’s fine.
Church isn’t about you and it’s not about me. It’s about God Almighty.
Will
Willimon tells the story of speaking with a young undergraduate in the
cafeteria. The student says that he’s not interested in attending church, and
Willimon assumes that it’s one of the usual reasons – Christians are such
hypocrites, Christians are so judgmental, or prudish, or don’t believe in
science. But, no, this student had a very different, and much better, reason
for not coming to church. He told Willimon, “Look, I’ve heard enough about this
Jesus character to know that if start hanging out with him that I’m going to
have to make some serious changes in my life. Jesus is going to have me do
things that I’d rather not do.” Willimon says he was stunned by the honesty and
wisdom of that answer and remarked that he wished that the people in his pews
understand as much about Jesus as this college kid did. One author has said
that if the Church was going to be serious about our mission, instead of
handing out hymnals and bulletins at the door, that we’d give you life jackets
and crash helmets.
In
the early Church, Christians, quite literally, risked life and limb to gather
in worship. Even today, Christians in Afghanistan, North Korea, and Somalia are
truly persecuted. Every time they gather, they are risking being killed in a
bombing. And yet they attend church with greater frequency than the average
American Christian. Clearly, it’s not 5 tips on how to have a better marriage
or how to improve your self-esteem that is inspiring them to go to Church. Rather,
they have come to know the words of Simon Peter in the Gospel are true: “Jesus,
you have the words of eternal life.” They have eaten the flesh of Jesus and
drank of his blood – and they know to not go to church is spiritual starvation,
which is actually a far more serious condition than physical starvation.
And
so I’ve just alluded to the first reason why coming to church is important for
all Christians – to be fed. To be clear, we are fed most fully when we are physically
here – but with the surge of Delta cases, some people are rightfully being
cautious and prefer to watch online. I completely understand and support that
decision. However, if you’re comfortable being fed out at restaurants, then it’s
also time to be fed at the altar.
Yes,
God will absolutely feed us in many and multiple ways. We are fed not only in
the Eucharist, but we are fed most fully in the Eucharist. There is simply no
substitute for being nourished in particular this grace of God. As Jesus said, “Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them… This is the
bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and
they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” This bread is
not served up in music, nature, or meditation, as wonderful and Spirit-filled
as those things may be, but in the very Body of Christ which has been given to the
Church to steward.
When
we come to Church, we receive the grace of God. If you hang out around the
church long enough, you’ll sometimes hear people talk about “liturgy.” This is
a word that is largely misunderstood, even by those who have been to seminary. You’ll
hear people say that liturgy means “the work of the people.” This is a
misunderstanding both in theology and etymology. The word “liturgy” was used to
describe a public work or duty given voluntarily for the benefit of others. Instead
of being a “work of the people,” liturgy is actually a “work for the people.”
Liturgies were often very costly things given by the wealthy to benefit others –
something like an amphitheater or public water source. This is why I don’t like
using the word “service” to describe what we do on Sunday mornings – while it
is certainly our duty to offer praise and thanksgiving to God, we are not
serving God here. God is always the host, God is the wealthy benefactor who has
given us the costly sacrifice of Jesus for the benefit of all. It must always
be clear that at church, we receive far more than we bring.
In
the reading from Ephesians, part of what we receive is described in terms of
armor. Certainly, the world is full of evil that assaults us from all sides. It’s
there in the text, but I need to point it out and make it clear – “For our
struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh.” Yes, we are at war, but
not with each other. As much as I’d like to take the sword to certain people
these days, that is not what this passage is encouraging. Our struggle is against
sin, not each other.
Life,
though, has a way of beating us up. To say nothing of the personal struggles we
all have, this past week has been a rough one. I’ve had multiple people say to
me what I’ve also thought – it seems like the world is falling apart. An
earthquake in Haiti, the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, wildfires in the West,
continuing sobering reports on the encroaching climate catastrophe, hospitals
filling up with unvaccinated Coronavirus patients, and tens of thousands of
children out of school due to quarantines. Add to that whatever is causing you
stress in your personal life and it’s just too much.
Armor
is a helpful way of understanding the grace that God gives us in coming to
church. Armor is defensive, not offensive. And armor allows us to stand firm in
the face of adversity. We are given the belt of truth so that we are secure in the
truth of God’s love and know that all shall be well. We have the breastplate of
righteousness to protect our hearts from the vile, degrading, and divisive ways
of the world. We have shoes that allow us to stand firm on the peace of the Gospel
even on rocky ground. The shield of faith has been given to us so that we can
be confident that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And it’s
interesting here that it is spelled out that we are given a shield that is able
to quench flaming arrows. Shields back then were made of wood, which didn’t do
much good against arrows that were dipped in tar and lit on fire. So they
learned that covering the shield in layers of cloth and then soaking it in
water was helpful. Well, we have been protected by the waters of Baptism so that
the flames of evil will not consume us. The helmet of salvation gives us
assurance in knowing that, as we hear in Romans that “neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The only weapon we are armed
with is the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. As we know from the Psalms, “God’s
word is a lantern to our feet,;and a light upon our path.” So this is not a weapon
to force anything on others, rather it is a blade to cut through the lies and
threats of the evil one who would pull us away from the love of God.
In
church, we receive these gracious gifts of God – to nourish us in grace and to
strengthen us against the evil in this world. A second, but no less important,
thing that happens at church is that we are instructed, trained, and corrected
in the ways of God. In John, Jesus has just delivered a rather tough message –
he is like the manna that fed the people in the wilderness, and if people do
not each his flesh and drink his blood, they have no life in them.
Several
of those who had been following Jesus say, “This teaching is difficult; who can
accept it?” As the Greek puts it, they were scandalized by this teaching. While
we are certainly comforted and strengthened by being nourished in the Eucharist
and given the armor of God, we are also challenged in coming to church. We do
not have all the answers and we need to grow in maturity and grace. So
sometimes Church will challenge us – you might be challenged by the words of
Scripture, by a point in the sermon, by seeing someone who has wronged you, by
being seen by someone you have wronged. And we need this. We need to be pruned,
to be corrected, to be taught.
As
people are deserting Jesus, he turns to the twelve and asks, “Do you also wish
to go away?” And Peter says, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of
eternal life.” As St. Augustine wrote nearly 2,000 years ago – our hearts are
restless until they rest in God. We are hungry for meaning, for purpose, for forgiveness,
for love, for peace. And the only place to be truly nourished is in Jesus, who
is the source of all things, the foundation of mercy, the shepherd of our
souls.
I’ve
quoted the book Seculosity before, but it fits well here – though we might
not call it religion, we are never not in church. Humans are meaning-making machines.
We crave validation, purpose, and identity. If we don’t find those things in
church, we’ll look for it at work, in romance, in parenting, in sports, in
hobbies. And while some of those are good things, none of them have the words
of eternal life because none of them can let us rest in the “enoughness” of
grace. In Jesus, there is nothing to prove, nothing to earn, nothing to merit. Grace
says that you are enough, you are loved, you are redeemed. All of those other
replacement religions might be easier, or feel nice, but they simply aren’t
enough. And so we come to church to receive the bread of life that will fill us
as nothing else can.
Lastly,
coming to church is about abiding. Jesus tells us that when we eat his body and
drink his blood, we abide in him. And, as I’ve been pointing out recently, faith
is always in the plural, and so is this abiding; it’s about all us together. When
we come to church, we gather in community with one another across all sorts of
differences, and we need to be reminded that we are the Body of Christ. This is
why Christianity cannot be done in isolation from others. It’s why we have to
gather on Sunday mornings with one another – because our faith is common. Not
common in the sense of ordinary, but common in the sense of it is held in
common by us all. And so we come to share a common space, sing notes in common,
say prayers in common, and receive grace in common. In other words, we abide in
and with one another. Of course, in Church, we also abide in the glory,
majesty, and grace of the Holy Trinity and the liturgy helps us to lift up our
hearts towards heaven.
And
in all of these things – receiving the grace of God as food and armor, in being
trained in faith, and in abiding with one another in Christ, the Eucharist remains
the perfect sign of these things, as the Eucharist is the means of grace for
feeding us, it instructs us in the faith of Jesus, and it is the hope of glory
in which we abide with Christ face to face. So why do we come to church? Because
where else could we go for the words of eternal life?
