Blessed are
you, O God, Ruler of the universe, you are the giver of this bread, fruit of
the earth and of human labor, let it become for us, the bread of life.
Jesus is
still talking to the crowd in Capernaum. This is the crowd who experienced the
miracle of the loaves and fishes. The crowd had just invoked manna in the
desert, the bread that came down from heaven, the miraculous food given to the
Israelites to sustain them in the desert.
Jesus, in
return, obliquely invokes the incarnation. The second person of the Trinity,
who John identifies with Wisdom, there at the creation of flesh itself, comes
down and is made flesh. This flesh is the bread of heaven now. In the
incarnation, Jesus sanctifies all of creation, reconciling it with God,
restoring it to its original sacred state.
I’m with the
theologian Schmemann. The fall was not disobedience, the fall was ceasing to be
hungry for God and for God alone, ceasing to see our whole life depending on
the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God, ceasing to see that all that exists is God’s gift to us, to make God known
to us, to make our life communion with God.
Jesus is telling us this when he
says unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will not have eternal life.
And what is eternal life? Jesus tells us in Chapter 17 of John that eternal
life is knowing the only true God, through knowing Jesus Christ. This is the
beatific vision. According to Saint Aquinas this is what we were made for, our
whole reason for existing. We already abide in God whether we know it or not,
but to live, to really be alive is to let God abide in us.
And Jesus tells us the way to do
this is to eat him. Let’s admit it, the Eucharist is ritual cannibalism. It’s
certainly not only that, but to deny that is to deny the incarnation. God was
made flesh. When we eat the body and blood of Christ, we are communing with the
second person of the trinity, and we are ritually eating the flesh and blood of
Jesus.
When we try to pretty these
things up, we engage the fall again. Creation is good. In our fall we decide
parts of it are unclean, are dirty or disgusting and not anything God would
touch. If we proclaim the incarnation we proclaim that creation has been
redeemed. It is all sacred. The bread we eat grows out of the dirt, has been
fertilized by dung. Don’t think of this ritual cannibalism as gross, think of
it as intimate. I don’t know how you can get any more intimate than this. Christ
is in your mouth, you taste Him, swallow him, and digest him in your stomach.
In sacrificial worship it was
common to eat the sanctified meat of the slaughtered animal. Jesus’s sacrifice
on the cross was the last sacrifice, no more life needed to be taken to honor
God. And so we worship by ritually invoking that sacrifice. The sanctified meat
we eat is the bread of life.
Now it’s curious to note that in
John, Jesus does not institute that ritual in the upper room with just the
disciples present. So
why does John have the Eucharistic institution here, in a small fishing village
surrounded by crowds, rather than in the upper room with the disciples? There
are certainly a number of possibilities.
In one
commentary I read it was suggested that for John, all meals were Eucharistic
meals. If you do see the whole world as sacred that might be true, but not many
of us so that. I believe at least some invocation or institution needs to take
place or it’s not a ritual enactment. It could easily indicate, however, that
for John meals outside of worship time can be sacraments. I’m more likely to
think it means that Jesus is offering his sacrifice to everyone. Not just
people who are Christians already, not just to the baptized (a sub set of
Christians), but everyone who is called by God to partake.
BECAUSE THIS
IS HOW WE KNOW GOD! How we abide in Christ, who abides in The Lord, who through
Christ abides in us. This opportunity should be available to everyone, whether
they know about the True Presence or not. For often it is in doing a thing that
we come to know what it is.
I really
don’t remember how many of us here tonight actually believe in the True
Presence, though I’m sure it’s come up. Obviously I’m not convinced that
matters. It is with the assurance of the True Presence that communion is
offered tonight. Whether that dogma works for you or not, even if you do think
of the Eucharist as mere memorial, I implore you to approach this with a mystically
oriented heart. Wisdom said tonight to lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk
in the way of insight. Let me suggest that one way to define immaturity is a
closed mind. Let Christ convince you, not me. All I ask is that you come to the
table desiring union with God. Come to this table in love. Come to this table willing
to engage the Divine with all your senses. Come to this table prepared to share
this intimate moment with everyone else at the table. Come to this table and
let this meal be love. Come to this table and let this meal be life itself.
Readings:
Proverbs 9:1-6 and Psalm 34:9-14 •
Ephesians 5:15-20 •
John 6:51-58
A Note to Readers of a Different Faith: This sermon is meant for a Christian audience, who all worship the Trinitarian God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth (The Second Person of the Trinity.) I still assert that to know the Divine is what we are made for, our whole reason for being. However I would suggest finding the way God is known in your own tradition is ideal, unless you for some reason do feel called to the Eucharist.
