In journalism, one of the rules is “don’t bury the lede.” In other words, to capture attention, get right to the point. Well, the point of this sermon is that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist in a unique and holy way, and this matters deeply. The rest of this sermon will be an exploration of what it means to say that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, why we say this, and what ‘difference this makes.
The
question of “what does this mean” is the same question that those who heard
Jesus speaking in John 6 had. Over the past several Sundays, we’ve been reading
through this chapter of John that tells the story of the feeding of the 5,000 which
is followed by Jesus’ teaching about him being the bread of life. And the crowd’s
reaction is to ask “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Literalism is
an understandable place to start – someone says “Here, eat my flesh and you
will have eternal life” and a reasonable response is “Excuse me? What do you
mean? You don’t really want us to take fork and knife to you, do you?”
Jesus’
answer is a lot closer to “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying” than we might
be comfortable with. He begins with, “Very truly, I tell you.” In the untranslated
text of Scripture, it’s “amen amen.” In
other words, Jesus doubles down and says “Absolutely, unless you eat my flesh
and drink my blood, you have no life in you.” In fact, Jesus even changes the
vocabulary here to make the point absolutely clear. Up to this point, the word
being used for “eat” is the general word eating. We use the word “eat” or its
derivations in lots of ways “I’m fed up with this,” “she’s eat up with him,” “the
mosquitos are eating me alive,” “chew on that idea for a while.” That’s the word
that everyone has been using up to this point in the passage – a multi-purpose and
generic word for eating.
But
when Jesus says, “Amen, amen, unless you eat my flesh” he changes the verb. He’s
not using the everyday and respectable word, he’s changed it to a word that is
much narrower in meaning and more descriptive of the actual process of chewing –
it means something like chomp, crunch, or gnaw. Jesus, given the opportunity to
say “Oh sure, you were hearing me speaking literally, no, of course this is a
metaphor,” rejects such an interpretation and says, “No, unless you go at me
like a group of hungry people around a bucket of KFC, you have no life in you.”
Earlier
in John, Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus about what it means to participate
in the kingdom of God. Jesus says that you have to be born again, a phrase
which has a double-meaning; it could also mean “born from above.” Nicodemus
though took the literal understanding and said, “What? I’m supposed to climb
back into my mother’s womb and be born again.” Jesus responds, again with the “amen
amen,” but tells Nicodemus that we must be born of water and Spirit to enter
into the kingdom. Jesus, gesturing towards Baptism, makes it clear that he’s
talking about being a part of the New Creation which comes through water and
the gifting of the Spirit. Jesus knows how to use metaphors and he is a
masterful parable-teller. But, here in John 6, Jesus insists that he meant what
he said – Unless you gnaw on my flesh, you have no life in you.
So,
to the question of “what does it mean to say that Jesus is present in the
Eucharist,” it means that this is not a metaphor, it means that Jesus is really
and truly present in the breaking of the bread. The great American novelist of
the 20th century, Flannery O’Connor tells the story of being out at
dinner with friends. Eventually, the conversation turned towards faith and the Eucharist.
One of her friends said that when she was a child, she heard adults talking
about the Communion host, but thought people were saying it was the “Holy Ghost,”
the part of God that we take with us; but now she thinks of the Eucharist as a
symbol, and, as far as symbols go, a pretty good one. O’Connor had been rather
quiet that evening up to this point. She writes, “I then said in a very shaky
voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I
was capable of, but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say
about it, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of
life is expendable.”
Like
the crowds hearing Jesus speak, I know you might have some questions. “Robert,”
you might say, “I used to be Roman Catholic and I left for exactly this sort of
superstitious nonsense” Or you might say “Sure, maybe people thought that
before we had microscopes and understood what atoms and molecules are, but we
know that it’s still bread and wine, not flesh and blood.” Perhaps you’re
thinking, “You’ve been to seminary, Robert, you know better than this. Haven’t
you read in the 39 Articles in the back of the Prayer Book where it says ‘Transubstantiation
(or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord,
cannot be proved by Holy Scripture; but is repugnant to the plain words of
Scripture, overthrows the nature of a Sacrament, and has given occasion to many
superstitions?’” These are valid questions, to which I say, “Amen, amen, Jesus
has said that unless we gnaw on his flesh, we have no life in us.” So why do I
say this?
Well,
to start, I say this because I trust that there is more truth in the universe
than the mind can fathom. The majesty of a Bach symphony is not provable, the
experience of falling in love is not reducible, the way that poetry can say
more than prose is not explainable, the way we use math all the time even
though numbers are just made-up concepts is fanciful, why there is something
instead of nothing is unexplainable– none of these things make sense in any real
way, and yet they are all undeniably true. One theologian has said, “Mystery is
not that which we cannot understand, it is that which we can endlessly
understand.”
I believe in things that
I have never seen, I believe in the experiences of others that I will never
have, I believe in love. We’ve become so literalistic and reductionistic in our
thinking that we miss the most obvious things. We think that for all of our scientific
and cultural progress, we are more open-minded, but the reality is that we are
more closed-off than any other group of humans in history. So, to trust that
Jesus is present in the Eucharist is to embrace a mystery that we can endlessly
participate in.
I
also believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist because I experience, all
the time, that two things can be true at once. I can be a priest, and a parent,
spouse, child, and friend. An experience can be both challenging and a blessing.
We can forgive someone and be disappointed by them. So to say that in Communion
we receive something that is both bread and the Body of Christ makes sense with
everything else about the world because two things can be true at the same
time. Not everything has to be a competition, and the grace of God is never in
competition with our lives.
Jesus’
presence also completely makes sense of the entire story of faith. All of
Scripture is the story of God being with us – often in ways that we do not recognize
or understand in the moment. Even the disciples did not realize that Jesus was
present among them at Emmaus, so it’s no surprise that we might overlook his
presence with us in the familiarity of the Eucharist.
The story of God’s
presence in Jesus is that he came down to us, that his body was given up for
us, and that he was raised up, bringing us up with him. Our human flesh and
blood was taken up by God, given up on the cross, and raised up at Easter – and
that is what we receive, that is the story we are made a part of. It’s why I’m
so fond of St. Augustine’s way of speaking about the Eucharist – that we behold
what we and become that which we receive. We are the Body of Christ and we
receive the Body of Christ which enables us to more fully become the Body of
Christ in the world.
Key to the Eucharist is
this idea of participation. St. Paul, in First Corinthians, writes, “The bread
which we break, is it not a participation in the Body of Christ?” That word “participate”
could also be translated as “fellowship, community, or sharing.” This isn’t a
metaphorical participation, not a theoretical fellowship. No, in this sacred
meal, the God of all time and space is present among us, with us, and to us. If
our senses have dulled to the point that we can’t experience it, the blame does
not lie with the Sacrament.
In actuality though, that’s
not quite right. It’s not that Jesus is made present to us, because Jesus is
always present with us. Rather, in the Eucharist, and this is what is unique
about the Sacrament, we are made present to Jesus. It’s why our Eucharistic Prayer
starts with “Lift up your hearts.” The Eucharist draws us into the grace and
love of Jesus in his Passion and Resurrection. If we have trouble experiencing
this, the issue might well be that we are weighed down with resentment,
anxiety, fear, or doubt. This is why we do things like put aside other priorities
and business for an hour, say prayers, hear a sermon, confess our sin,s and are
assured of God’s peace and forgiveness all before coming to Table. We’re trying
to cut all of those ties that keep our hearts from being lifted up. And, again,
this is what God has always been about in Scripture and Creation – being with
us. This is why I believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist – because it
is in the character of God to stop at nothing to be with us.
Lastly, what does this
mean that Jesus is present with us in the Eucharist? Well, a few really, really
important things. First, it means that God loves us so much as to come down, be
given up, and then raised up. The fact that God promises to be with us in this
Sacrament, even if we don’t understand the “how,” means that we can have confidence
that God is always on our side, that we are always loved and already forgiven.
Secondly, because the
Eucharist allows us to participate in the life of God, it means that our lives
deeply matter. We are not just sentient beings who happened to evolve on some
rock hurdling through space in a vast ocean of meaninglessness. No, our lives
are hidden with Christ in God. The Eucharist assures us that love is eternal
and that life is not something to endure, it is a gift.
The Eucharist also forms
us into being Eucharistic people – people who are rehearsed in offering thanks
and praise, people who understand that it is more blessed to give than to receive,
people who embrace mystery, people who make haste to be kind, are swift to
love, and ready to forgive. The Eucharist helps us to see Communion in
everything – always noticing those otherwise easy-to-miss opportunities for
nourishment, community, celebration, and love.
And, to be honest with you,
I think this was a part of the Church’s failed response to the pandemic. To be
sure, we did the best we could given the knowledge we had; but, for the most
part, we were reacting in fear instead of responding in faith. The Eucharist
has rightly been called the source and summit of our faith, and for many months,
we closed our doors and sheltered in place. Yes, we livestreamed the Eucharist
every single Sunday, but participation in Jesus is meant to be tangible, not virtual.
We stopped gathering, we stopped being fed with Jesus’ very body and blood, we failed
to recognize that faith always involves risk. I’m not saying we should have made
every Sunday a super-spreader event, but, in my opinion, we, and I mean I, prioritized
the wrong thing and listend to the wrong voices. I rely on God’s grace and
forgiveness for my part in that failure of faith.
Ultimately, why the
Eucharist, and confidence in Jesus’ presence in it, matters is because it makes
manifest and shows us that transformation really does happen. Just as surely as
bread and wine become Jesus’ body and blood by the grace and power of the Spirit,
sins can also be forgiven; hope can flourish in the midst of pain, betrayal,
addiction, and depression; enemies can become friends. The Eucharist shows us
that God is in the business of transformation, so broken and flawed sinners can
become beloved community; stingy and selfish people can become generous and
cheerful givers; mean and angry people can become humble peacemakers; and death
is not the end of life, it is a transformation into the fullness of life in the
eternal love of God. And if we trust that we live in a world where all things
really and truly can be made well, that makes all the difference.
The Eucharist is that sacred meal in which Jesus makes good on his promise to be scandalously, intimately, and graciously with us. Amen, amen, whoever knows this knows how to share in his eternal life.
