A preacher can usually tell when he’s hit upon a controversial passage of scripture. What happens
is that when we begin perusing the different commentaries on a text, there are as many opinions
about the passage as there are commentators, and those opinions are generally held with flint-eyed
confidence.
In this morning’s passage from the Gospel of John we have Jesus saying some things that resulted
in some head-scratching and tongue-wagging among the Jews. John reports politely that, in
response to Jesus’ words, they “disputed among themselves.” My church history professor at Trinity
referred to this as “vigorous fellowship.” And even today, there seems to be a lot of “vigorous
fellowship” about Jesus’ words.
So this morning I’d like us to take a look at the words that have caused so much controversy, and try
to make sense of them, hopefully without being unnecessarily dogmatic. Last week’s reading set the
stage as we heard Jesus make the extraordinary claim, “I am the bread of life.” We saw that there
was more than a little consternation expressed by his audience at these words. His listeners begun
grumbling among themselves, saying things like, “Wait a minute, isn’t this the guy we’ve seen
working in Joseph and Son’s Carpentry Shop over on Main Street? This is Joseph and Mary’s boy
for crying out loud, and he says he came down from heaven? I think he’s been into that water he
supposedly turned into wine at that wedding a while back.” (Cynicism about Jesus isn’t a new
thing…)
And after Jesus refuses to retreat from his claim to be the bread of life, today he ups the ante. He
says, “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Then the sound of bearded
chins hitting breast bones. “Say what?? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” But Jesus
presses further. He says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
his blood, you have no life within 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.”
Now, to fully appreciate the response of his listeners, there are a couple of things of which it’s
helpful to remind ourselves about the Jewish people. First, as with most cultures, the image of
eating the flesh of a human being is utterly repugnant. It’s disordered in the highest degree. That’s
the first shocker.
And second, consuming blood is strictly taboo amongst observant Jews. From very early times the
blood was considered to be the life of an animal or human, and belonged to God and God alone.
The kosher laws require that the blood be drained from an animal before its flesh is consumed.
So if Jesus wanted to shock his listeners, I can’t think of any more effective way than by saying what
he said. In fact, as we’ll see next week, it hit them hard enough that many who’d been following him
up to that point parted ways with him. But there’s a strong irony here. Because those very things
that his Jewish listeners found repugnant are things that represent exactly what it is that Jesus has
to offer to humanity.
Let’s look first at Jesus offering his flesh. The first thing we obviously can eliminate out of hand is
cannibalism, which is the image that an overly literal mind would probably concoct. But the use of
the word “flesh” in the scriptures is an important clue. Most importantly is something that John
himself writes in the first chapter of his Gospel.
In setting the scene for the rest of his Gospel, John says of Jesus, “The Word became flesh and
dwelt among us.” The Word, the meaning of existence, the architect of all creation, took on human
flesh. In so doing God not only showed us the way he always meant for us to live, but made the
offer of himself to balance the scales of cosmic justice for all the sins ever committed by human
beings. He had to become human to taste death on our behalf, before showing the triumph of God
over sin and death in his Resurrection.
Having foreseen his own death and resurrection, Jesus tells the people that their eternal
nourishment, their means of gaining and sustaining eternal life, is to take him into themselves. To
feed upon him by faith, and with thanksgiving as the Prayer Book says, and gain the benefits of his
sacrificial work. And he tells them they must also drink his blood. This is perhaps an even more
direct archetype. Because Jesus is saying that we must take his very life into ourselves. That the
blood he shed for the sins of the world is what slakes the human thirst for meaning and redemption,
and imparts the eternal life that characterizes God himself. Since these words are spoken well in
advance of Christ’s death and resurrection, we can probably sympathize to some degree with the
difficulty his listeners had in understanding him. This was a tough message.
As we said a couple of weeks ago, this imagery of eating and drinking has to do with the mutual
indwelling of God and man. Jesus says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you have no life within you.” OK? Abide in me as I abide in you. In a way, it’s almost like
having a biological process where there’s an interpenetration of human and divine molecules within
us, if you will. It really is a very graphic way of saying that, to have eternal life, we must take Christ
into our innermost being.
And this is what leads us to the area of modern-day collisions of opinion. Because all of this
imagery of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ certainly does seem to point toward the
Holy Eucharist. It’s fascinating to see how broad the range of opinion is on whether the words of
John 6 refer directly to what we do at Communion each Sunday. One commentator stated that
Jesus is simply using symbolic language, and he inferred that considering the bread and wine of
Communion to be literal life-giving agents is the height of superstition.
On the other hand the Roman Catholic Church states that John’s references to the Eucharist are
absolutely inescapable, and that the elements of Communion become literally the body and blood of
Christ, and that their continuing appearance as bread and wine should not lead us to think
otherwise. This doctrine is called transubstantiation.
And between these two extremes Martin Luther believed that the real presence of Jesus is, in a
sense, within and beneath the physical elements. This is called consubstantiation. And the Eastern
Orthodox believe that Christ’s presence in the elements is a mystery in which the symbolic and the
real are undivided, and aren’t subject to any kind of human logic that would distinguish between the
two.
So there are a lot of interpretations of Holy Communion. A couple weeks ago we noted that prayer
and scripture reading are two ways of getting to know the Lord, even of intermingling our spirits so
that we’re transformed by his “good infection.” I think it’s more than safe to say that Holy
Communion is another very important way of doing this.
Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t require us to have a thorough understanding of the mechanics of the
sacraments for them to be effective.
One person tells the story of his 2 ½ year-old niece named Kelli who went with a neighbor girl to
church for First Communion practice. The pastor had the children cup their hands to receive the
bread, and as he gave each child the wafer, said simply, “God be with you.”
Apparently this made quite an impression on the little girl. Kelli went home and told her mother to
kneel and cup her hands. Then Kelli took a piece of bread from her sandwich, placed it in her
mother’s hands, and whispered in a kind but purposeful voice, “God will get you.”
I guess that’s kind of the bottom line with the sacraments. We may not know exactly how, but if we
trust him and make room in our hearts, in the very best sense of the phrase, God will get us. As
Anglicans, something we firmly believe in is the real presence of Christ at Holy Communion. We may
not precisely define the mechanics of this, but we see the Eucharist as a sacrament. The Book of
Common Prayer defines the sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace,
given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” And the scriptures say
that if we approach the table of the Lord with an attitude of humility and trust we will be nourished to
spiritual wholeness and eternal life.
When we come and share at the table week after week it’s easy to sort of take this all for granted,
and sometimes not be especially mindful of what’s really going on here.
But here’s what’s really happening: Just as Jesus was the material point of contact between physical
and spiritual reality during his time on earth as the incarnate Word, his real presence with us at Holy
Eucharist in a sense brings time to a standstill and opens the portals so that heaven and earth are
mystically united in a foretaste of that time in which they’ll be once again and forever joined.
This is such a tangible and real thing that as far back as the late First Century, St. Ignatius referred
to the Eucharist as “the medicine of immortality.” Now of course there are other ways of
experiencing God. We can sometimes feel his presence powerfully when we’re breathing the cool
air of an ancient forest, or seeing the stars and galaxies splashed across the sky on a desert night.
But the very special thing about the Eucharist is that we’re coming together as Christ’s body in
community, as he meant us to be, receiving and celebrating life at its very fullest in a way prescribed
by Jesus himself for the express purpose of bringing heaven and earth together for a few moments.
Many believe—and I’m one of them—that when we break bread together at the holy table, we’re
doing so with Jesus, the apostles, and all the saints and believers, past, present, and future,
mystically gathered, in a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
I had a vision of sorts about this when I was in seminary. We used to have a Wednesday morning
Eucharist for seminarians, families, staff and faculty. In one of these services when I was walking up
to the altar rail the people in chapel appeared to transform into people from all nations and cultures
throughout history, and as I walked forward they were all turning and smiling at me. This impression
moved me to tears, and to this day I suspect that the Lord was allowing me to catch a brief glimpse
of the spiritual reality of our meal shared together.
You probably know that “Eucharist” is from a Greek word that means thanksgiving. My prayer this
morning is that we’ll receive the full impact of the familiar words that we call the Sancta Sanctis: “The
gifts of God for the people of God, take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on
him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.’
For Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them
up on the last day.” Amen.
is that when we begin perusing the different commentaries on a text, there are as many opinions
about the passage as there are commentators, and those opinions are generally held with flint-eyed
confidence.
In this morning’s passage from the Gospel of John we have Jesus saying some things that resulted
in some head-scratching and tongue-wagging among the Jews. John reports politely that, in
response to Jesus’ words, they “disputed among themselves.” My church history professor at Trinity
referred to this as “vigorous fellowship.” And even today, there seems to be a lot of “vigorous
fellowship” about Jesus’ words.
So this morning I’d like us to take a look at the words that have caused so much controversy, and try
to make sense of them, hopefully without being unnecessarily dogmatic. Last week’s reading set the
stage as we heard Jesus make the extraordinary claim, “I am the bread of life.” We saw that there
was more than a little consternation expressed by his audience at these words. His listeners begun
grumbling among themselves, saying things like, “Wait a minute, isn’t this the guy we’ve seen
working in Joseph and Son’s Carpentry Shop over on Main Street? This is Joseph and Mary’s boy
for crying out loud, and he says he came down from heaven? I think he’s been into that water he
supposedly turned into wine at that wedding a while back.” (Cynicism about Jesus isn’t a new
thing…)
And after Jesus refuses to retreat from his claim to be the bread of life, today he ups the ante. He
says, “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Then the sound of bearded
chins hitting breast bones. “Say what?? How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” But Jesus
presses further. He says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink
his blood, you have no life within 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.”
Now, to fully appreciate the response of his listeners, there are a couple of things of which it’s
helpful to remind ourselves about the Jewish people. First, as with most cultures, the image of
eating the flesh of a human being is utterly repugnant. It’s disordered in the highest degree. That’s
the first shocker.
And second, consuming blood is strictly taboo amongst observant Jews. From very early times the
blood was considered to be the life of an animal or human, and belonged to God and God alone.
The kosher laws require that the blood be drained from an animal before its flesh is consumed.
So if Jesus wanted to shock his listeners, I can’t think of any more effective way than by saying what
he said. In fact, as we’ll see next week, it hit them hard enough that many who’d been following him
up to that point parted ways with him. But there’s a strong irony here. Because those very things
that his Jewish listeners found repugnant are things that represent exactly what it is that Jesus has
to offer to humanity.
Let’s look first at Jesus offering his flesh. The first thing we obviously can eliminate out of hand is
cannibalism, which is the image that an overly literal mind would probably concoct. But the use of
the word “flesh” in the scriptures is an important clue. Most importantly is something that John
himself writes in the first chapter of his Gospel.
In setting the scene for the rest of his Gospel, John says of Jesus, “The Word became flesh and
dwelt among us.” The Word, the meaning of existence, the architect of all creation, took on human
flesh. In so doing God not only showed us the way he always meant for us to live, but made the
offer of himself to balance the scales of cosmic justice for all the sins ever committed by human
beings. He had to become human to taste death on our behalf, before showing the triumph of God
over sin and death in his Resurrection.
Having foreseen his own death and resurrection, Jesus tells the people that their eternal
nourishment, their means of gaining and sustaining eternal life, is to take him into themselves. To
feed upon him by faith, and with thanksgiving as the Prayer Book says, and gain the benefits of his
sacrificial work. And he tells them they must also drink his blood. This is perhaps an even more
direct archetype. Because Jesus is saying that we must take his very life into ourselves. That the
blood he shed for the sins of the world is what slakes the human thirst for meaning and redemption,
and imparts the eternal life that characterizes God himself. Since these words are spoken well in
advance of Christ’s death and resurrection, we can probably sympathize to some degree with the
difficulty his listeners had in understanding him. This was a tough message.
As we said a couple of weeks ago, this imagery of eating and drinking has to do with the mutual
indwelling of God and man. Jesus says, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, you have no life within you.” OK? Abide in me as I abide in you. In a way, it’s almost like
having a biological process where there’s an interpenetration of human and divine molecules within
us, if you will. It really is a very graphic way of saying that, to have eternal life, we must take Christ
into our innermost being.
And this is what leads us to the area of modern-day collisions of opinion. Because all of this
imagery of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ certainly does seem to point toward the
Holy Eucharist. It’s fascinating to see how broad the range of opinion is on whether the words of
John 6 refer directly to what we do at Communion each Sunday. One commentator stated that
Jesus is simply using symbolic language, and he inferred that considering the bread and wine of
Communion to be literal life-giving agents is the height of superstition.
On the other hand the Roman Catholic Church states that John’s references to the Eucharist are
absolutely inescapable, and that the elements of Communion become literally the body and blood of
Christ, and that their continuing appearance as bread and wine should not lead us to think
otherwise. This doctrine is called transubstantiation.
And between these two extremes Martin Luther believed that the real presence of Jesus is, in a
sense, within and beneath the physical elements. This is called consubstantiation. And the Eastern
Orthodox believe that Christ’s presence in the elements is a mystery in which the symbolic and the
real are undivided, and aren’t subject to any kind of human logic that would distinguish between the
two.
So there are a lot of interpretations of Holy Communion. A couple weeks ago we noted that prayer
and scripture reading are two ways of getting to know the Lord, even of intermingling our spirits so
that we’re transformed by his “good infection.” I think it’s more than safe to say that Holy
Communion is another very important way of doing this.
Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t require us to have a thorough understanding of the mechanics of the
sacraments for them to be effective.
One person tells the story of his 2 ½ year-old niece named Kelli who went with a neighbor girl to
church for First Communion practice. The pastor had the children cup their hands to receive the
bread, and as he gave each child the wafer, said simply, “God be with you.”
Apparently this made quite an impression on the little girl. Kelli went home and told her mother to
kneel and cup her hands. Then Kelli took a piece of bread from her sandwich, placed it in her
mother’s hands, and whispered in a kind but purposeful voice, “God will get you.”
I guess that’s kind of the bottom line with the sacraments. We may not know exactly how, but if we
trust him and make room in our hearts, in the very best sense of the phrase, God will get us. As
Anglicans, something we firmly believe in is the real presence of Christ at Holy Communion. We may
not precisely define the mechanics of this, but we see the Eucharist as a sacrament. The Book of
Common Prayer defines the sacraments as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace,
given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” And the scriptures say
that if we approach the table of the Lord with an attitude of humility and trust we will be nourished to
spiritual wholeness and eternal life.
When we come and share at the table week after week it’s easy to sort of take this all for granted,
and sometimes not be especially mindful of what’s really going on here.
But here’s what’s really happening: Just as Jesus was the material point of contact between physical
and spiritual reality during his time on earth as the incarnate Word, his real presence with us at Holy
Eucharist in a sense brings time to a standstill and opens the portals so that heaven and earth are
mystically united in a foretaste of that time in which they’ll be once again and forever joined.
This is such a tangible and real thing that as far back as the late First Century, St. Ignatius referred
to the Eucharist as “the medicine of immortality.” Now of course there are other ways of
experiencing God. We can sometimes feel his presence powerfully when we’re breathing the cool
air of an ancient forest, or seeing the stars and galaxies splashed across the sky on a desert night.
But the very special thing about the Eucharist is that we’re coming together as Christ’s body in
community, as he meant us to be, receiving and celebrating life at its very fullest in a way prescribed
by Jesus himself for the express purpose of bringing heaven and earth together for a few moments.
Many believe—and I’m one of them—that when we break bread together at the holy table, we’re
doing so with Jesus, the apostles, and all the saints and believers, past, present, and future,
mystically gathered, in a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.
I had a vision of sorts about this when I was in seminary. We used to have a Wednesday morning
Eucharist for seminarians, families, staff and faculty. In one of these services when I was walking up
to the altar rail the people in chapel appeared to transform into people from all nations and cultures
throughout history, and as I walked forward they were all turning and smiling at me. This impression
moved me to tears, and to this day I suspect that the Lord was allowing me to catch a brief glimpse
of the spiritual reality of our meal shared together.
You probably know that “Eucharist” is from a Greek word that means thanksgiving. My prayer this
morning is that we’ll receive the full impact of the familiar words that we call the Sancta Sanctis: “The
gifts of God for the people of God, take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on
him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.’
For Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them
up on the last day.” Amen.
Flesh and Blood
John 6:51-58
John 6:51-58
August 16, 2009
The Rev. Daniel Tuton
The Rev. Daniel Tuton
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