A sermon preached at St. Mary’s by Alice Lawhead on 18th August 2024

Today’s gospel lesson is the 4^th instalment in a 5-part series of readings from the 6^th chapter of John.  (That should be pretty easy to remember!)  The lectionary has been pulling us through this chapter in the Gospel of John and what is often called the ‘Bread of Life’ discourse.  It’s important teaching from Jesus, it has been very important in the life of the church, and it’s important for each one of us individually.

But first:  Here’s a summary of the story so far.   Previously, in ‘John 6’:  Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee with his disciples and was followed by a huge crowd — 5000+ people — who needed feeding, which he miraculously did by turning a bit of bread and fish into lunch for the entire multitude. Confounding the laws of nature, he then caught up with his disciples who were out on Lake Galilee — caught up with them by walking on top of the water to get to their boat.  The next morning, the people who had been at that big meal for 5,000 went looking for Jesus and found him on the opposite side of the lake.  With the miracle of the loaves and fishes uppermost in their minds, they begin to question Jesus about signs and miracles and, understandably given what they’d experienced the day before:  food.  And for some reason this made them grumble, because what Jesus was saying about bread was hard to digest.

In today’s exciting episode of ‘John 6’ we pick up the story as Jesus talks about food that lasts – that is, spiritual food.  Do you remember that Jesus, in Chapter 4 told the Samaritan woman that he was living water, and that no one who drank of him would be thirsty. Now says that he is the bread of life, and that whoever eats of that bread will live forever.

The people who heard that claim seem annoyed or confused about the idea of eating human flesh, which is no surprise. But Jesus doubles down, and says things that are going to be almost impossible for observant Jews to accept:  that not only must they eat his flesh – Jesus uses a word that we might translate not just as eating, but as ‘gnawing’ or ‘chomping’ – they must drink his blood.  (It’s horrific! It’s cannabalism!)  This is provocative language under any circumstances, all the more so in a culture that distinguishes so precisely between clean and unclean meat, that exercises strict dietary laws, and where the handling of blood — whether human or animal — is such a tricky business.

But, goodness:  I don’t think you have to be a first-century Jew to find today’s gospel passage difficult, distasteful, even offensive.  ‘Unless you chomp on the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’  In the first instance, it’s gruesome.  In the second, it comes across like an ultimatum:  Unless you do this, you can’t be that.  No one likes an ultimatum.  Word by word, these are hard words. 

There is a lot to be said about this passage.  There’s a lot of theology here, but I’m no theologian. I’m a lay preacher — so let me just offer a couple reflections of the ‘lay’ variety.

The first is that those of us who follow Christ are not floating along in some lazy river, peacefully drifting toward paradise, unbothered by the elements and unhindered by obstacles. We are navigating a churning river in leaky canoes, with rocks and falls and whirlpools, with danger and difficulty.  Life Is Hard.  That’s just …. obvious.

And the spiritual life of a Christ-follower isn’t an escape from these troubled waters; it’s more like a deep dive into them. Jesus himself took that deep dive when he came to live with us, and he showed his appreciation of our condition when he healed the sick, fed the hungry, calmed the seas.  When he talks about water and flesh and blood, he’s meeting us where we live.  He’s speaking in a way that we, as flesh-and-blood people can understand.  He’s talking our language.

You are what you eat.  Everyone knows this.  And when Jesus says we need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he’s addressing our humanity as well as our spirituality.  He’s saying that following Christ, joining the Kingdom of God that begins in this life that goes onto the next, is going to affect us on every level of our existence. It’s not some little badge we pin onto a lapel, or one opinion we add to all our other opinions.  It is the complete stuff of our being.  It is the blood and bones, the tendons and tissues of life.  It is who we are, at the most fundamental level, and without it we are nothing.

My second observation is that with our perspective of history we can understand this passage in light of the Eucharist, The Lord’s Supper.  These words of Jesus are echoed in the Upper Room before Christ’s death, when he broke bread and poured wine, said they were his body and blood, and invited his disciples to eat and drink.

Perhaps, like me, you have had an opportunity to share Holy Communion in other traditions.  In the Baptist church of my childhood, the elements of communion were delivered to us in our seats on the first Sunday of the month:  little squares of white bread and little cups of purple grape juice.  At the invitation to eat and drink we all did so at the same time.  After the service we took the hand of the person next to us, joined hands across the aisles, and sang, ‘Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.  The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.’  That hymn still chokes me up.

I’ve shared communion bread and wine with friends around a table, after our regular meal – no priest present.

In a Syrian Orthodox church we visited in Damascus, communicants received big wadges of bread – something to truly gnaw on. Afterwards, as we left the church, loaves of consecrated bread were offered to take away for the week ahead.  

The Free Presbyterians of Scotland show their seriousness about holy communion not by a weekly observance, as we have here, but by holding ‘communion seasons’ only once or twice a year; communicants begin their preparation – which includes a certain amount of vetting — on a Thursday evening and that preparation continues until bread and wine are dispensed on the Sunday.

I’ve been to churches where anyone – baptised or not – is invited to partake in communion.  And to others where only members of their own denomination, or in some cases members of that one particular congregation, may join in the meal. 

Some churches call the Lord’s Supper an ‘ordinance’, with the emphasis on something we do.  Others say it’s a ‘sacrament’, with the emphasis on what God is doing.  Many understandings, many traditions.

But whatever the tradition, whatever the imperfect understanding of what is happening when we take bread and wine, all Christians are brought back to these words of Jesus, and in faith we are enacting a ritual that takes Him at His word.

‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.’

In taking bread and wine we express our hope, our belief that in consuming the life, the teachings, the spirit of Christ fully with our heart and mind and soul, and yes with our bodies, we may claim his promise that in doing so we will live forever.

This is breathtaking stuff.  This is big.  It’s elemental.  It’s existential.  And it’s a mystery.  Something that can only be understood by trying it out.  ‘Taste and see’ – that’s what we have to do.

The author Annie Dillard has written, It’s madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church, we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers –  should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. 

As we come to the altar in a few minutes, we will do something that is, for most of us, quite familiar.  That is beautiful, well-organised, careful, and ritualised – and that’s all good.  But let’s remember that it is also disturbing, confusing, radical, life-changing, and eternal – firmly dug into this world, and at the same time placing us in the next.  Crash helmets on, seatbelts fastened, braced for impact …. We come to the Lord’s table.

AMEN