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12 Pentecost B, Proper 15, August 16, 2015
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
The Rev. David R. Wilt
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven.”
God certainly has a sense of humor, doesn’t She? I explained last week that due the fact that the Gospel was almost identical to the one the week before concerning “I am the bread of life” I would take the opportunity to talk about David, since I had heard that the choir was a bit fixated on the David story.
So, imagine my surprise when I opened the lectionary this week and there it was again. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Obviously, John is trying to make a point here. Perhaps he is trying to make several points.
You can imagine this Jewish audience to whom Jesus is talking. This group with hundreds of dietary laws and restrictions, one of which is that all blood must be drained from meat and poultry or boiled out of it before it is eaten.
Hearing this man, who is already causing a stir in the neighborhood by healing people on the Sabbath, say, “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,” might just rock you back on your heels. You might call that a blatant challenge. You might call that just plain crazy.
The only thing I can think of that might come even close to this audacity is standing before a meeting of the Altar Guild and suggesting that the linens only need to be washed once a month.
Jesus tactic here is brazenly bold. What is he trying to do, other than enrage the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the priests and the scribes, all of these groups that live strictly by the book or, at least expect others to live strictly by the book?
Maybe he is sort of, tongue in cheek, trying to tell them in an argumentative sort of way, by calling their customs into question, that their rules are simply meaningless detriments to worship if they result in people being excluded, if they result in separating people from God, if they result in penalizing someone who cannot afford to comply with the Levitical requirements.
We all have those requirements in some form or fashion and we really have to ask ourselves if they have any connection to salvation or redemption.
It reminds me of the story about the Catholic and the Jew and the Episcopalian who, by coincidence, all arrive at the entrance to heaven at the same time.
The Catholic asks to get in and St. Peter says, “No way.” The confused Catholic asks, “Why?” And St. Peter says, “Well about twelve years ago you ate meat on a Friday during Lent so you can’t come in.”
The Jewish man is refused also and demands an explanation from St. Peter who says, ‘You may not even remember it but there was in instance where you ate pork so you can’t come in.
The Episcopalian is feeling pretty smug because hearing this he knows we don’t have any foolish restrictions like those. So confidently he begins to stroll past St. Peter who says, “Not so fast there pal.” To which the Episcopalian snickers and says, “So what did I do?” “Well,” says St. Peter, “you once ate your entrée with the salad fork.”
The tactic that Jesus may have been using, with this analogy of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, was to be so shocking that the temple officials would be forced to look at how oppressive their rules were to people’s spirituality and really didn’t benefit anyone other than the dietary police.
If that was his purpose I think we can say it was pretty much a total failure with the temple crowd. And, even some who had begun to follow him were astounded and we are told “turned back and followed him no longer.”
But, the picture Jesus was painting can be viewed in a different light. We have all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat,” coined by the great French gastronome of them all, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
Then, if we are to be like Christ we must consume Christ in body mind and spirit. Paul would say in Galatians, “…no longer I… but… Christ who lives in me.”
Jesus intends to have all of us. He wants his truth to burrow deep within us. He wants to consume us as we consume him. He wants to course through our veins. He wants to be inwardly digested until we become like him.
Without total engagement we will not become like Christ. He is not abstract, he is not some disembodied idea, He is the incarnate God that we must embrace fully and eat up, if you will, by chewing the bread of life and sipping the wine filled with Christ’s presence.
That’s the only thing that distinguishes us from other Faiths. But for it to matter or have any kind of impact at all on the world, then we have to consume and be consumed by the incarnate Christ.
Christ is not some special gift that God sent down for us to be amused and entertained with. Christ is not some club to be used to beat others into submission to out dogma’s. Christianity is not some social club with reserved pews and dress codes.
To even be minimally effective we must be as bold at embracing the world and all who live in it as Christ was.
Going to church on Sunday, hanging out in the pew, hearing all the good music, getting high on Christ, and then going out and having two standards, going out and viewing others as lesser creations of God, going out and practicing prejudice, and division and bigotry, is, in our dietary imagery, like bingeing and purging.
Stuffing ourselves with Christ, but before the nutrients can be absorbed into our bodies and replace those dark spots on our hearts and souls purging it out so that we are once again left empty and hungry.
Interestingly, this repetitive oratory of Jesus in John’s Gospel, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, comes immediately after the story of the feeding of the 5000.
What if we were to reverse the order of their telling for our purposes today?
If we are willing to be fed by Jesus, if we are willing to consume and be consumed by the incarnate God we also would have the vision and faith and confidence that no one in the world should be hungry. We would have the vision and confidence that all who come can be fed until full with basketfuls left over.
If we are fed then we can feed others; the poor, the oppressed, those who are in prison. We can clothe the naked. We can quench the thirst of the thirsty. We can embrace with confidence and hospitality the stranger in our midst.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and to all who received him he gave power to become Children of God, if we are willing to be consumed and consume the living Christ in loving communion with one another.