Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
August 16, 2009
The Gospel: John 6:51-58
Sermon: "Eucharist and Eternal Life"
The Rev. Dr. Vicki L. Smith, Rector
The Gospel: 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."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "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. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."
John 6:51-58
Eucharist and Eternal Life Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost - August 16, 2009
You probably noticed that our gospel lesson today is a challenging one. All that talk of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood has been a challenge for the church from the very beginning. In fact, if you read 2 verses further on in John’s gospel, Jesus disciples say, “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?” No kidding!
The idea of eating flesh and drinking blood was absolutely offensive to Jesus’ disciples and the other Jews who heard him speak. In the Jewish law, blood is unclean and if one even touches blood, let alone consumes it, that person is made unclean as well. So Jesus really rattled his disciples with this description of eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
And yet, Jesus is describing a central sacrament of our lives—the sharing of Holy Communion. Jesus has moved into symbolic, sacramental language. Jesus is describing his gift of the eucharist for us—It is a sacrament, as our prayerbook says: an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
All Christian churches share the gift of communion, though we don’t all agree on its nature. What we believe about this central sacrament is one of the things that distinguishes us on the one hand from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches and on the other hand from our more Protestant brothers and sisters. I once had a Roman Catholic friend explain to me that he could not chew the wafer of communion, because that would be breaking Jesus’ bones, and he couldn’t take the wafer in his hands because he was unworthy. While he was probably on the extreme side, the Roman Catholic church does take a more literal understanding of communion, believing that the bread and wine literally become Jesus’ body and blood; that’s what transubstantiation means.
Our more Protestant brothers and sisters: Methodists, Presbyterians and the like, believe communion is a symbol, a deep, important and profound symbol, but a symbol, nonetheless, that reminds them of Christ’s sacrifice.
We believe, as do the Lutherans, in what is called the Real Presence. We believe that Jesus is truly present in the bread and the wine of communion in a unique and exclusive way. We believe that communion offers us a special opportunity to participate fully in Jesus Christ; and we believe that Jesus is present in that bread and wine because he promised he would be. It’s still bread and wine, but Jesus makes it holy. (incidentally, that’s why we are so cautious about what we do with the leftovers- Jesus has made that bread and wine to be vehicles of his grace and we want to treat them with respect, even as we dispose of them.)
Jesus gives us the gift of communion because he wants to participate fully in us, and have us participate fully in him. Communion offers us the opportunity to embrace Jesus, to invite him into our lives, to ask him literally to be a part of us.
It is because communion offers us that opportunity of full participation that it is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Receiving communion gives us a little sense of what it will be like to be with Jesus all the time and share in him completely. With his death and resurrection, Jesus has given us eternal life, beginning now and continuing forever. In communion our eternal life in all its fullness touches our present life. William Sloan Coffin wrote: We are on the road to heaven now if today we walk with God. Eternal life is not a possession conferred at death: it is a present endowment. We live it now and continue it through death.” We are on the road to heaven today as we receive the holy bread and wine of communion with Jesus Christ. It is a most powerful reminder of the present reality of our eternal life with Christ, and the promise of the heavenly banquet.
I’m sure you remember that on the night before he was crucified, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. As he moved around that circle, gently washing their feet, Peter protested. He felt that for Jesus to wash his feet was unseemly and he didn’t want to allow it. “You will never wash my feet,” he said. Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you shall have no share with me.” To which Peter said, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” That’s full participation—offering all he had to Jesus.
Each Sunday, at God’s table, we share the gift of holy communion. As you come forward to receive it today, I invite you to accept this gift with Peter’s enthusiasm— to receive this sacrament with your whole self, holding nothing back. As you receive the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, offer yourself fully to the one who gives us eternal life. Put your hands out, receive the bread and wine and know Christ’s presence anew in the very midst of your life, now and forever.