Monday, August 17, 2015

Sermon for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

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.    

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