The Living Bread

John 6:51-58

August 19, 2018

            “This is my body given for you.”

            “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sin.”

            “The body of Christ.”

            “The blood of Christ.”

            I sometimes wonder what it would be like if someone who had never heard anything about church – about Christ, about Christianity, someone with no cultural references, no memories of visiting church with their grandparents or going to Vacation Bible as a kid – walked into our church just as we were celebrating communion. What would they think? What would they hear? What would they see? What would they believe we were doing?

            I read a story in a blog I follow about preacher and scholar,Martin Copenhaver, who witnessed a moment like the one I described. The setting was a traditional church. The communion table was spread with fine linens and a beautiful chalice and plate. The minister stood and solemnly intoned the words of institution: the body of Christ, the blood of Christ. And in a moment of quiet, a holy pause, a little girl in the congregation who was really listening to what was being said, suddenly exclaimed, “Ew! Yuck!”

            It was when I was attending a Catholic Junior College that I first realized that different denominations understand what happens in the Lord’ Supper differently. Some traditions, such as Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopalian, believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood. When we were discussing this belief in my required theology class, Father Dolehide asked a Catholic student what he thought about when he took the Eucharist. The young man looked somewhat shamefaced, and then he said,

            “Honestly, Father, I just close my eyes and try not to think about it.”

            My fellow student’s answer was not, “Ew! Yuck!” But the underlying sentiment was similar to that of the little girl’s. He was taught that the bread and wine became the body and blood, so he just closed his eyes and tried not to let his imagination get the best of him.

            I admit that I take comfort in our Presbyterian understanding of the Lord’s Supper. This is a communion table, not an altar. Christ is spiritually present, which means that we are eating bread and drinking wine – or grape juice. There is no mystical substitution going on. The bread stays bread and the grape juice stays juice. I take great comfort in all of that, because I get the “Ew! Yuck!” factor. If I really believed that the bread became flesh and the wine became blood, it would be a lot harder to deal with. My comfort level about communion remains high until I get to this passage from John’s gospel.

            “So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.’”

            Our English translation does not adequately describe the scandal of these words, nor the shock and disgust the people listening to Jesus must have felt. What Jesus was saying was an abomination according to the Law and prophets. It was repugnant.

            John’s gospel is metaphorical and layered with meaning, but in this case, the verbs in Jesus’ words are vivid and more literal. The first verb for eat was more like a gentle supping, but it switches to a verb that can be translated as gnawing. When Jesus spoke of eating his flesh, he wasn’t necessarily being metaphorical. He was talking about them gnawing his flesh. Was Jesus inviting the people around him to come over and take a bite of his arm or leg? No, of course not. But clearly he was trying to make a point, an intense point. I am the living bread. God gave your ancestors manna in the wilderness to sustain them, but that manna did not last. I am the living bread, I am the bread that lasts. If you want to abide in God, then you need to abide in me and I in you. You have to eat this living bread and drink this living blood.

            Abiding in John’s gospel is not just about staying someplace. Abiding in John’s gospel is about being in relationship. Jesus was making the connection between God and him; a relationship with God comes through him, the Son. And that relationship was cemented, founded, grounded, made eternal through eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

            So what does all of this mean? What does this have to do with us, not just when we’re sitting here gathered around this table, but in our everyday lives? How will digging into this strange passage from John help us on Tuesday? How does it counsel or comfort us as we just try to get through the everydayness of life?

            I think we have to go back to the first chapter of John, to those first verses, specifically to, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God, our God, is not just out there somewhere watching from a distance – like that popular Top 40 song from years ago. Our God is the incarnate God; as Dr. David Lose put it, the carnal God. God became one of us. The Word became flesh, our flesh. I learned this week that the Hebrew idiom, “flesh and blood,” is about a person’s whole self. If I speak of giving God my flesh and blood, then I am giving God my whole being – my heart, my mind, my body, my soul, my everything. God becoming flesh and blood in Jesus was God giving us God’s whole self, God’s whole being. God asks the same of us in return. Jesus, in dying on the cross, gave his whole self, did he not? He gave his flesh. He gave his blood.

            As strange and even gory as his words sounded, Jesus was not speaking of something cannibalistic. He was telling those who would listen, that he would give his flesh and blood to them and for them. He gives his flesh and blood to us and for us. He gives his life so that abundant life for the world, for all of us, is possible – not just in some distant future, but right now. It is about a relationship, an abiding in him, in God through him, that goes far beyond any external relationships we may have.

            To quote from Martin Copenhaver:

            “The New Testament uses many different images to express the intimate relationship between Jesus and those who believe in him, and John gives us many of the most familiar expressions of this relationship: Jesus is the shepherd and we are the sheep. He is the vine and we are the branches. He abides in God and we abide in him.

            In this passage, however, language is pressed to its limits to express the indissoluble participation of one life in another. For those who receive Jesus, his life clings to their bones and courses through their veins. He can no more be taken from a believer’s life than last Tuesday’s breakfast can be plucked from one’s body. It is the ultimate communion – the coming together, the union of the Savior and the saved.”

            “The indissoluble participation of one life in another.” Whenever we gather around this table, whenever we share the bread and drink the cup, we are remembering and renewing this indissoluble participation of our lives in Jesus and with one another. God became flesh and blood so that God’s whole self would be given to us. Jesus literally gave up his flesh and blood through death for our sake. God resurrected Jesus so that new life could be ours. Jesus is the living bread, and we are called to taste it, to eat it, to remember and know that “that his life clings to our bones and courses through our veins.” Sisters and brothers, may we all taste and see the goodness of our God.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.