A clergy colleague and I were talking about our Gospel text this week and she shared about a sign that had hung in the kitchen of her former call. The sign read: “Wash your hands and say your prayers, because Jesus and germs are everywhere.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I think it’s important for me to share with you that I like this sign and I dislike this text because I, myself, am an obsessive hand-washer. No joke, I could probably be in therapy for my clean hand needs. The fact of the matter is, if the controversy in this Gospel text is really about proper hand washing, then sign me up for team Pharisee. I love Jesus, but we have a lot better understanding of germs now than we did in Jesus’ time and the sign in my colleague’s former church kitchen is right on. Jesus is everywhere, but so are germs and the Center for Disease Control recommends good hand-washing protocol as the best prevention against the spread of disease. If, as the Bible also says, our body is a temple to the Lord, who can argue with that? I mean, come on now, tradition of the elders or not, it’s just a good idea. Team Pharisee.
But I don’t think the point Jesus was making here has anything to do with the CDC. For brevity’s sake, the lectionary left out a section of this reading, but I think this section is crucial to understanding the point of Jesus’ argument. So let me read the missing verses. This is between when Jesus quoted Isaiah, “this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” and when he called the crowd together to tell them that nothing outside them can defile a person. Mark seven, nine to thirteen: “Then [Jesus] said to them, “you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother’; and “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban,” (that is, an offering to God)—then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
Remember that this was a time before 401Ks and retirement plans. People lived a day-by-day existence. They couldn’t save for the future; everything they made was enough to get through that one day. And so when a person got older and was unable to work, they were totally dependent on their descendants to support them. So it was part of the Jewish law that children had to support their elderly parents, or else those parents would starve. Let’s be clear, “honor your father and mother” was not a romantic notion of respect for the people who birthed you, it was an economic commitment to care for people in dire need. But the Pharisees found a loophole in the law through a tradition known as Corban. Corban was the dedication of wealth to the temple, to God. Which is great, of course, to give of what you have to God. In fact, God commands us to do this very action. We have a word for Corban too, we call it stewardship, and we know that God asks us to give of ourselves because it makes us better people, it helps us grow. So, again, what’s the real problem here? But what the Pharisees were doing here wasn’t stewardship, though they called it stewardship; it wasn’t giving of their own wealth. Think about who was benefiting from giving these gifts, and who was suffering. The Pharisees were getting honor and praise for their great generosity to God and to the Temple, but that generosity was coming not from their own sacrifice, but out of the hands and mouths of the vulnerable elderly. The Pharisees were using the practice of Corban not to honor God but to honor themselves, at the expense of people in need. Calling what the Pharisees were doing here “Corban” would be like cashing in your parents’ retirement account as your stewardship pledge to the church and then making a big deal about how generous you are. Jesus was calling the Pharisees out on their desire to show off how good they are at being good followers of God not to draw honor to God, but to draw honor to themselves. The Pharisees were using God as a tool on their road to self-aggrandizement.
Which brings us back to the question of hand washing. The Pharisees weren’t concerned about the disciples’ personal hygiene or about whether God was being honored in the disciples’ dietary habits. The Pharisees were concerned about showing the world how much better they were than these unclean followers of Jesus. Look how great I am, look how clean my hands are, look at what a great Jew I am. Your following of the traditions of the elders isn’t about God at all, Jesus told the Pharisees, it’s about your own pride.
Because the Pharisees always take the fall in the Bible stories, it is so tempting here for us to once again get a laugh at the expense of the foolish and wrong-headed Pharisees. Of course they were stuck up on something silly like food laws and bragging about stewardship. They are stock characters in the Bible; you almost hear that wowa-wowa-wowa sound whenever they come on the scene. But we, followers of Jesus, we have been set free from such silly restrictions as hand washing and food law and all of the things that hold us captive. We are above the Pharisees. Because of Jesus we know that we don’t have to worry about those things anymore, and we are free to cast judgment on the Pharisees and their self-righteousness.
But are we really? Or were my judgmental words about the Pharisees really just another form of the exact same thing. The truth, brothers and sisters, if we are honest with one another, if we are honest with ourselves, is we still struggle with this. There are still people who come to God with what we see as unclean hands, and we turn away in disgust. We are guilty of the same sin as the Pharisees. I know I am.
But there is good news for us in these words from Jesus. As I read this Gospel text for this morning, the first thing that caught my attention was what Jesus did immediately following his calling out of the Pharisees. Jesus turned to the crowd, those who had been judged by the Pharisees, those who had been cast aside, called less than because they could not live up to the draconian purity standards ascribed to them, and he said to the crowd, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile.” Listen and understand, Jesus said to the crowd, there is no restriction that some outside person can put on you that can keep you from being welcome in God’s community. There is no rule that someone can hold against you that you can fail to live up to so much that it will make you unworthy of God’s love. This is good news for those of us who have turned away, who have felt ashamed, unwelcome, unworthy in the judgmental eyes of those who cast themselves as Pharisees. Jesus says to the crowd, you are welcome here. You are not defined by what others think of you. There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile them.
There is challenge here too. Jesus goes on to tell the crowd and the Pharisees, “It is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come.” Then he gives that laundry list of temptations that sound distant and ominous and all too familiar. These things, these evil things, are inside of us, they defile us, and Jesus knows it and Jesus calls us out on them.
But even in the calling out, even in this list of evil, here too is good news for us. Because in Jesus we have a God who loves us enough to call us out on the evil within us. Jesus didn’t let the Pharisees get away with their judgmental ways, didn’t ignore the Pharisees, didn’t turn his back on them. Jesus loved them enough to look them in the eyes and say to him, these things that you are doing, these things are sin. They defile you, and they will destroy you.
Sisters and brothers, this is what grace, true grace looks like. Grace is not always rainbows and unicorns and soft fluffy kittens. Sometimes grace is looking someone in the eye and saying, yes, that thing you are doing, that thing is sin. It is dark, it is ugly, and it is wrong. It hurts to say it; it hurts to be told it. It hurts to have our brokenness held up before us by God as in a mirror. We would prefer that Jesus gloss over the messier realities of human existence, that Jesus just tell us we’re doing a great job, give us an A for effort and a participation sticker, but Jesus simply loves us too much for that. Jesus loves us too much to be nice. Jesus loves us so much that Jesus has to speak truth.
And in this love manifest as challenge, Jesus loves us enough to not leave us alone. You may not have caught it but there’s a very subtle anatomy lesson going on here. Jesus makes a distinction between two main systems in our bodies, our hearts and our stomachs. Evil intentions, Jesus said, come from the heart. But things that go in—food—go nowhere near our hearts. Food goes to our stomachs. Now, you could argue that food energy powers our hearts, but that is a depth of anatomical knowledge that is really beyond first century Palestine. Basically, the argument Jesus makes here is that food cannot defile, because food is just food, doesn’t affect our hearts.
But there is one food that can cross the stomach/heart barrier. There is one thing that comes in from the outside that ends up nestled in our hearts, right in the midst of all that brokenness and hurt and, yes, evil intentions. That food is the food we eat around this table. That food is Jesus. Through the bread and wine of the Eucharist, Jesus enters into our hearts and transforms us from within, changes us from the very heart of our brokenness, and makes us new. So when Jesus, in his grace, calls the crowd, the Pharisees, us, out on the evil that comes from within, Jesus does that knowing that he is already at work within us, bringing us peace, changing our hearts, making us new. So come to the table. Bring the things you think belong, but more importantly, bring the parts of you you wish you could hide. Bring the grubby parts, the messiness, bring your unwashed hands and your thirst for the rules. Bring all of these things to the table of the Lord, and feast on the one who pours himself into our unwashed hands and makes us new. Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Monday, August 31, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
Words We Can Touch: A Sermon on John 6:56-69
You know the old children's rhyme, "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me." That phrase is a lie. Sticks and stones can do physical damage; it's true. But words, for good or bad, can root into our souls and change us in ways that sticks and stone can never touch.
Words have power for good and bad. Think, for example, of the words that told you that you would be a parent or a grandparent for the first time. When your boss gave you that big promotion at work you'd been working so hard for. When your significant other first said "I love you." Think of the way those words shaped your identity, as a parent, as an employee, as a person of value.
Think now of the opposite side of the equation, of word's power to hurt. Think of the jab that spelt the end of a relationship. The words spoken that you immediately wished you could take back. The thoughtless Facebook post, the question left unanswered, the words spoken in anger that cut deeper than truth. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can hurt and heal the places sticks and stones can never reach, our very hearts and souls.
And then there are times when words are not enough, when all the words in the world fall short. Sticks and stones have a conclusiveness to them, a swing or a throw and the damage is done. But words. The uncertainty of a word can root into our lives and fester, what seeming at first so tiny becoming so powerful. Waiting for a test result. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for an apology to be accepted. Lifting a prayer to God and wondering, what now. Words have power even in their absence, and sometimes we long for something more than words, something solid that we can hold onto.
Our gospel readings for these last few weeks have been all another words. Jesus started the whole thing off with a miracle, feeding the five thousand on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. A miracle of abundance that people could touch and taste. Sticks and stones of bread and fish to fill their empty stomachs.
But from there on, Jesus filled them with words. Good words of promise, hard words of challenge, ambiguous words of uncertainty. So many words have filled the crowd; have filled us, these last four weeks. What are we to do with all these words?
Last week we heard the initial grumbling of those for whom the words had become to heavy to bear. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Today that grumbling became more pronounced. “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?” It was just too much for some of the disciples, who, the Gospel tells us, “turned back and no longer went about with him.” It was too much, the words were just too much, they couldn’t understand it, they couldn’t comprehend it, and they left. So Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” And Simon Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Which of course is the right answer, right? Of course, Peter is the hero of the day. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” We love the line so much it’s a part of our liturgy. We didn’t sing it this morning, but certainly the tune is familiar. “Alleluia, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia.” Do you recognize it? It’s one of the Gospel acclamations we sing regularly before the reading of the Gospel. Next time you hear it, now you’ll know the context, it comes from right here in the sixth chapter of John.
So we want to go with Peter, but Peter is a complex character. It won’t be all that many chapters before Peter will stand in courtyard beside a charcoal fire and the one who proclaimed, “Lord to whom shall we go” will deny knowing the Lord at all.
Words, human words, are fickle. We see it in Peter, we see it in the crowds, we know it in ourselves. The one who proclaimed “Lord, to whom shall we go,” will deny the Lord in a courtyard. We don’t know what happened to those who announced, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it,” but we know just a few verses before Jesus fed those very same doubters with the bread and fish of abundance.
But Jesus words are not like our words. Not like Peter’s confidence or denial, not like the crowds’ search for Jesus or their turning away from his promise. Jesus words have power because they are not ambiguous ideas, they are words anchored in tangible promise. I am the bread of life, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them. There is no uncertainty in Jesus words, no questions left open, no level to live up to or checklist to reach.
Jesus words are words we can touch. When Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life,” his statement was more true than I think Peter even knew. Because it was not just that Jesus has the word, but that Jesus is the word. Jesus’ words are not just spoken, Jesus’ words are embodied, Jesus’ words are lived. Jesus is the Word made flesh, words we can touch and feel and taste. Words that took on human form, pulling on sinews and muscles and bones, fitting the Word like a familiar sweater out of the closet after a long summer. Jesus Word is also a word of challenge, a word that drives us forward. The sweater sustaining us with warmth so we can enter into a cold world to be about the work Jesus is calling us to.
Jesus, the Word made flesh, is a Word we can touch. And no place is that made more clear for us than in the sacraments. Sacraments are by definition a word and an element. A word and a promise. Jesus said, “go and baptize,” and with this Word and water, we are redeemed. Without the Word, water is just water. But without water, the word can be hard to comprehend. But because we can touch it, feel it, run our hands through it, pour it on our heads, we can know that this thing we touch is Word made flesh for us. Word incarnate in the promise of Christ’s word. Word that makes us new.
This month our worship has had a special emphasis on the Eucharist, and as a sacrament, it to is Word and element, thing and promise. Jesus said to his disciples, I am the bread of life, I am the cup of salvation, whoever eats and drinks of me will have eternal life. We know this to be true because we can touch it, we can feel it, we can taste Jesus in our bodies and we can experience being transformed by the living word made flesh of Jesus.
“This teaching is difficult,” the disciples said, “who can accept it.” But around this table, we are not asked to accept it, we are only asked to do it. Come, eat and drink of the one who gave himself for us, the Word made flesh, the fulfiller of promise, the giver of life. Come, because this bread and cup are the words of eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Words have power for good and bad. Think, for example, of the words that told you that you would be a parent or a grandparent for the first time. When your boss gave you that big promotion at work you'd been working so hard for. When your significant other first said "I love you." Think of the way those words shaped your identity, as a parent, as an employee, as a person of value.
Think now of the opposite side of the equation, of word's power to hurt. Think of the jab that spelt the end of a relationship. The words spoken that you immediately wished you could take back. The thoughtless Facebook post, the question left unanswered, the words spoken in anger that cut deeper than truth. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can hurt and heal the places sticks and stones can never reach, our very hearts and souls.
And then there are times when words are not enough, when all the words in the world fall short. Sticks and stones have a conclusiveness to them, a swing or a throw and the damage is done. But words. The uncertainty of a word can root into our lives and fester, what seeming at first so tiny becoming so powerful. Waiting for a test result. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for an apology to be accepted. Lifting a prayer to God and wondering, what now. Words have power even in their absence, and sometimes we long for something more than words, something solid that we can hold onto.
Our gospel readings for these last few weeks have been all another words. Jesus started the whole thing off with a miracle, feeding the five thousand on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. A miracle of abundance that people could touch and taste. Sticks and stones of bread and fish to fill their empty stomachs.
But from there on, Jesus filled them with words. Good words of promise, hard words of challenge, ambiguous words of uncertainty. So many words have filled the crowd; have filled us, these last four weeks. What are we to do with all these words?
Last week we heard the initial grumbling of those for whom the words had become to heavy to bear. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Today that grumbling became more pronounced. “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?” It was just too much for some of the disciples, who, the Gospel tells us, “turned back and no longer went about with him.” It was too much, the words were just too much, they couldn’t understand it, they couldn’t comprehend it, and they left. So Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them, “Do you also wish to go away?” And Simon Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Which of course is the right answer, right? Of course, Peter is the hero of the day. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” We love the line so much it’s a part of our liturgy. We didn’t sing it this morning, but certainly the tune is familiar. “Alleluia, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia.” Do you recognize it? It’s one of the Gospel acclamations we sing regularly before the reading of the Gospel. Next time you hear it, now you’ll know the context, it comes from right here in the sixth chapter of John.
So we want to go with Peter, but Peter is a complex character. It won’t be all that many chapters before Peter will stand in courtyard beside a charcoal fire and the one who proclaimed, “Lord to whom shall we go” will deny knowing the Lord at all.
Words, human words, are fickle. We see it in Peter, we see it in the crowds, we know it in ourselves. The one who proclaimed “Lord, to whom shall we go,” will deny the Lord in a courtyard. We don’t know what happened to those who announced, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it,” but we know just a few verses before Jesus fed those very same doubters with the bread and fish of abundance.
But Jesus words are not like our words. Not like Peter’s confidence or denial, not like the crowds’ search for Jesus or their turning away from his promise. Jesus words have power because they are not ambiguous ideas, they are words anchored in tangible promise. I am the bread of life, whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in them. There is no uncertainty in Jesus words, no questions left open, no level to live up to or checklist to reach.
Jesus words are words we can touch. When Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life,” his statement was more true than I think Peter even knew. Because it was not just that Jesus has the word, but that Jesus is the word. Jesus’ words are not just spoken, Jesus’ words are embodied, Jesus’ words are lived. Jesus is the Word made flesh, words we can touch and feel and taste. Words that took on human form, pulling on sinews and muscles and bones, fitting the Word like a familiar sweater out of the closet after a long summer. Jesus Word is also a word of challenge, a word that drives us forward. The sweater sustaining us with warmth so we can enter into a cold world to be about the work Jesus is calling us to.
Jesus, the Word made flesh, is a Word we can touch. And no place is that made more clear for us than in the sacraments. Sacraments are by definition a word and an element. A word and a promise. Jesus said, “go and baptize,” and with this Word and water, we are redeemed. Without the Word, water is just water. But without water, the word can be hard to comprehend. But because we can touch it, feel it, run our hands through it, pour it on our heads, we can know that this thing we touch is Word made flesh for us. Word incarnate in the promise of Christ’s word. Word that makes us new.
This month our worship has had a special emphasis on the Eucharist, and as a sacrament, it to is Word and element, thing and promise. Jesus said to his disciples, I am the bread of life, I am the cup of salvation, whoever eats and drinks of me will have eternal life. We know this to be true because we can touch it, we can feel it, we can taste Jesus in our bodies and we can experience being transformed by the living word made flesh of Jesus.
“This teaching is difficult,” the disciples said, “who can accept it.” But around this table, we are not asked to accept it, we are only asked to do it. Come, eat and drink of the one who gave himself for us, the Word made flesh, the fulfiller of promise, the giver of life. Come, because this bread and cup are the words of eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Monday, August 17, 2015
What's in the Cup?: A Sermon on John 6:51-58.
Wednesday nights at my internship congregation were pretty raucous occasions. Every Wednesday, we would have dinner together, followed by children’s time and a worship service for the adults, which the kids would join at the passing of the peace. The free meal and fun games attracted numerous children from the nearby apartments. The result was a communion service of around sixty of whom forty or so were marginally or totally unsupervised children under the age of ten. Chaos, as you might imagine, was the name of the game. On one particularly crazy evening, I found myself seated in the front row, surrounded by a hoard of six-year-old boys. My internship supervisor, a larger than life figure who always seemed to feed on the energy in the room, took the cup, held it aloft, and, his deep voice booming through the sanctuary, proclaimed “This is my blood, poured out for you.” And the six year old to my left all of a sudden turned to me, eyes huge, and said, “wait, there’s blood in that cup! GROSS!”
And I panicked. How in the world was I supposed to explain the complicated nuances of consubstantiation—a long word you may not be familiar with that I am using deliberately right now to make the point that this is a complicated subject—to a six year old in the middle of a worship service. My mind raced through hours of seminary lectures, pages of hastily scribbled notes, books upon books upon books by brilliant theologians, and just as I was opening my mouth to utter a long, confused, stalling, “um,” the six-year-old to my right conveniently chose that moment to begin to beat the kid next to him with his folded up bulletin. I turned to break up that situation, and in the seconds it took to grab the offending bulletin and end the scuffle, my budding theologian had turned his bulletin into a bullhorn and was attempting to shout the Lord’s Prayer as loudly as he could over the combined voices of the rest of the conversation. Then it was time for me to go forward and assist with communion. As the kid came forward, hunk of bread gripped firmly between two grubby fingers, I knelt down to his level and, hands shaking, held out the cup, uttering the familiar words, a hint of hesitance in my voice, “the blood of Christ, shed for you.” I wondered what I would say if the question came up again? What if he balked at taking the cup? What if he said something and it freaked the other kids out so much that they stopped coming to church? My worry was unfounded. We used a sweet bread, and the kids liked the sense of danger they got from getting to have wine. “Jesus is pretty delicious,” one of them once told me. This meant communion was always the high point in the evening. The kid looked up at me, face broken into a huge, gap-toothed grin, and shoved his hand into the cup with such force that wine sloshed out of the cup and onto my hands. He held the bread in the cup for a moment, wine up to his knuckles. Then he stuck the thoroughly soaked bread in his mouth and made a huge production of chewing with great enthusiasm, loud smacking to indicate his pleasure at the treat, making sure every single kid still waiting in line understood that because he had sat in the front of the church, he had gotten his snack first and they had to wait. Seminary logic, as so often happened, was no match for the unbridled joy of a six-year-old.
So here we are, week four of the five weeks of the bread of life texts. We’ve been muddling through this sixth chapter of John for a while now, and as is the case with all of the long speeches in John’s Gospel, the longer Jesus talked, the more confusing he became. Finally, this morning, we reach the tipping point. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And the crowd responded, “wait? What? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They will get more firm in their confusion next week, but this week it still takes the form of an uneasy question. And Jesus responded with like the most Jesus-y comeback ever. The kind of comeback that makes Jesus both such a great teacher and such an incredibly frustrating one. Because Jesus didn’t answer their question. Jesus didn’t break down the doctrine for them, he didn’t define what he meant, didn’t throw in a bunch of fancy words like “consubstantiation” or say something in Latin or name-drop a theologian. Jesus instead gave them a promise. Instead of answering their questions, Jesus simply promised, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood with have eternal life.” That’s it. It’s that simple.
Except, it’s not at all simple, right? The crowd didn’t respond, but you can hear their unwritten questions because they are the same questions rattling around in our own heads as we hear this story. But wait Jesus, you’re not telling us that you are made of flour and water? You’re not advocating cannibalism? What if I don’t eat of your flesh and drink of your blood? What if I don’t understand what you’re talking about? Can I do this wrong? How often am I supposed to do this? Once a week? Or does too often make it not special? How do I get ready for this? Do I have to confess first? Should I not come if I’m not yet ready? How do I know if I’m ready? What if I think I’m ready and then I eat and then I’m totally not ready? Are you going to be mad?
So in verse fifty-seven, Jesus drops the flesh and blood part, simplifying it even more. “Whoever eats me will live because of me.” These words Jesus spoke, this meal he calls us to, it isn’t about believing or understanding or getting right with God. It is about Jesus. It is about what Jesus is going to do because of who Jesus is. Jesus promises to meet us and feed us and give us his entire being.
Just come. Just eat. Eat and drink and receive God. It really is that simple. This morning in the first reading we heard in Proverbs about wisdom, in John six we see Jesus’s bold declaration that the wisdom of God is not knowledge or understanding, the wisdom of God is relationship. The wisdom of God is a God who encounters us in our very bodies and transforms us from within. In the third chapter of John, Jesus talked about believing, but here in chapter six, Jesus moves from belief to promise. Bishop Craig Satterlee wrote, “Eternal life does not come through understanding correctly or believing the right things. Eternal life is being in close communion with Jesus. Eternal life is to remain in Jesus and to have Jesus remain in us. We take Christ’s body and blood into our mouths, into our stomachs, into our bodies, so that Christ remains in us and we remain in Christ.”*
Since the conversation with the six-year-old, I read a lot more books about teaching communion to children and adults. I wrote a paper about that experience and all that reading. I graduated seminary. I have been “set apart” for word and sacrament ministry, a fancy phrase that means I get to preside at communion, for three years now; I’ve been ordained for one. Even so, if you ask me after the service or, if you really want to put me on the spot, at the communion rail, if there’s blood in the cup, you’re likely to get the same frantic blank, backpedalling stare that I gave the six-year-old many years ago. I can define consubstantiation for you, it is a theological doctrine that asserts that during the sacrament, the fundamental substance of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of bread and wine, which remain present. However, I will also tell you that consubstantiation is not our Eucharistic theology as Lutherans, and you can really safely forget that word. So instead of you asking me, and me awkwardly stumbling through an explanation, let me tell you what I believe. No, more than believe; let me tell you what I know to be true because I have experienced this truth. Jesus Christ meets us in this meal. In this meal, we encounter, we take into ourselves, the Word made flesh. God incarnate in Jesus Christ enters our very bodies and transforms us from within. What I have experienced is that this meal gives me life. This meal changes me. This meal feeds me in ways that food cannot. So come. And eat. Come eat of the flesh of God and drink of his blood. Come and meet Jesus. You will be transformed. Jesus promises you this. Thanks be to God. Amen.
* Bishop Craig A. Satterlee, "Commentary on John 6:51-58," Working Preacher, August 16, 2015, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2552.
And I panicked. How in the world was I supposed to explain the complicated nuances of consubstantiation—a long word you may not be familiar with that I am using deliberately right now to make the point that this is a complicated subject—to a six year old in the middle of a worship service. My mind raced through hours of seminary lectures, pages of hastily scribbled notes, books upon books upon books by brilliant theologians, and just as I was opening my mouth to utter a long, confused, stalling, “um,” the six-year-old to my right conveniently chose that moment to begin to beat the kid next to him with his folded up bulletin. I turned to break up that situation, and in the seconds it took to grab the offending bulletin and end the scuffle, my budding theologian had turned his bulletin into a bullhorn and was attempting to shout the Lord’s Prayer as loudly as he could over the combined voices of the rest of the conversation. Then it was time for me to go forward and assist with communion. As the kid came forward, hunk of bread gripped firmly between two grubby fingers, I knelt down to his level and, hands shaking, held out the cup, uttering the familiar words, a hint of hesitance in my voice, “the blood of Christ, shed for you.” I wondered what I would say if the question came up again? What if he balked at taking the cup? What if he said something and it freaked the other kids out so much that they stopped coming to church? My worry was unfounded. We used a sweet bread, and the kids liked the sense of danger they got from getting to have wine. “Jesus is pretty delicious,” one of them once told me. This meant communion was always the high point in the evening. The kid looked up at me, face broken into a huge, gap-toothed grin, and shoved his hand into the cup with such force that wine sloshed out of the cup and onto my hands. He held the bread in the cup for a moment, wine up to his knuckles. Then he stuck the thoroughly soaked bread in his mouth and made a huge production of chewing with great enthusiasm, loud smacking to indicate his pleasure at the treat, making sure every single kid still waiting in line understood that because he had sat in the front of the church, he had gotten his snack first and they had to wait. Seminary logic, as so often happened, was no match for the unbridled joy of a six-year-old.
So here we are, week four of the five weeks of the bread of life texts. We’ve been muddling through this sixth chapter of John for a while now, and as is the case with all of the long speeches in John’s Gospel, the longer Jesus talked, the more confusing he became. Finally, this morning, we reach the tipping point. Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” And the crowd responded, “wait? What? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” They will get more firm in their confusion next week, but this week it still takes the form of an uneasy question. And Jesus responded with like the most Jesus-y comeback ever. The kind of comeback that makes Jesus both such a great teacher and such an incredibly frustrating one. Because Jesus didn’t answer their question. Jesus didn’t break down the doctrine for them, he didn’t define what he meant, didn’t throw in a bunch of fancy words like “consubstantiation” or say something in Latin or name-drop a theologian. Jesus instead gave them a promise. Instead of answering their questions, Jesus simply promised, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood with have eternal life.” That’s it. It’s that simple.
Except, it’s not at all simple, right? The crowd didn’t respond, but you can hear their unwritten questions because they are the same questions rattling around in our own heads as we hear this story. But wait Jesus, you’re not telling us that you are made of flour and water? You’re not advocating cannibalism? What if I don’t eat of your flesh and drink of your blood? What if I don’t understand what you’re talking about? Can I do this wrong? How often am I supposed to do this? Once a week? Or does too often make it not special? How do I get ready for this? Do I have to confess first? Should I not come if I’m not yet ready? How do I know if I’m ready? What if I think I’m ready and then I eat and then I’m totally not ready? Are you going to be mad?
So in verse fifty-seven, Jesus drops the flesh and blood part, simplifying it even more. “Whoever eats me will live because of me.” These words Jesus spoke, this meal he calls us to, it isn’t about believing or understanding or getting right with God. It is about Jesus. It is about what Jesus is going to do because of who Jesus is. Jesus promises to meet us and feed us and give us his entire being.
Just come. Just eat. Eat and drink and receive God. It really is that simple. This morning in the first reading we heard in Proverbs about wisdom, in John six we see Jesus’s bold declaration that the wisdom of God is not knowledge or understanding, the wisdom of God is relationship. The wisdom of God is a God who encounters us in our very bodies and transforms us from within. In the third chapter of John, Jesus talked about believing, but here in chapter six, Jesus moves from belief to promise. Bishop Craig Satterlee wrote, “Eternal life does not come through understanding correctly or believing the right things. Eternal life is being in close communion with Jesus. Eternal life is to remain in Jesus and to have Jesus remain in us. We take Christ’s body and blood into our mouths, into our stomachs, into our bodies, so that Christ remains in us and we remain in Christ.”*
Since the conversation with the six-year-old, I read a lot more books about teaching communion to children and adults. I wrote a paper about that experience and all that reading. I graduated seminary. I have been “set apart” for word and sacrament ministry, a fancy phrase that means I get to preside at communion, for three years now; I’ve been ordained for one. Even so, if you ask me after the service or, if you really want to put me on the spot, at the communion rail, if there’s blood in the cup, you’re likely to get the same frantic blank, backpedalling stare that I gave the six-year-old many years ago. I can define consubstantiation for you, it is a theological doctrine that asserts that during the sacrament, the fundamental substance of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of bread and wine, which remain present. However, I will also tell you that consubstantiation is not our Eucharistic theology as Lutherans, and you can really safely forget that word. So instead of you asking me, and me awkwardly stumbling through an explanation, let me tell you what I believe. No, more than believe; let me tell you what I know to be true because I have experienced this truth. Jesus Christ meets us in this meal. In this meal, we encounter, we take into ourselves, the Word made flesh. God incarnate in Jesus Christ enters our very bodies and transforms us from within. What I have experienced is that this meal gives me life. This meal changes me. This meal feeds me in ways that food cannot. So come. And eat. Come eat of the flesh of God and drink of his blood. Come and meet Jesus. You will be transformed. Jesus promises you this. Thanks be to God. Amen.
* Bishop Craig A. Satterlee, "Commentary on John 6:51-58," Working Preacher, August 16, 2015, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2552.
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