John 6:51-58

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.”

Richard was 33, lonely, and living on his own for the first time in his life. A former monk, he had just left a catholic monastery because he could no longer square his sexuality with his religious vocation. So he moved to New York city and after a few weeks, he met a southern gentleman named Peter, an avid activist and community maker. As Richard tells this story, they fell for one another fast. They couldn’t get married back then, but they lived together and the foundation of their relationship was hospitality. Every week, they hosted a communal meal and the center of that meal was bread; fresh, home baked, gluten morgan, baby. Richard was a bountiful bread baker. And he describes how at these meals, all sorts of people would show up, family, friends of all kinds. And just as quickly as their relationship developed, a community dedicated to caring for another formed around this bread, this meal they had every week.

About five years into their relationship, Pete got sick. It started with pneumonia, then neuropathy in his legs, and then even the loss of some of his vision. They both knew what was happening. Peter tested positive for the HIV/AIDS virus. He lived with this for a long time, but after many years, Pete’s mental health began deteriorating, and he spiraled into these deep depressions. In 2012, Pete was the sickest he’d ever been and he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

Richard says, “When Pete took his life, a big chunk of me died with him. I stopped working. I didn't want to see family or friends. I became a hermit in my own apartment. I was just this hollow, solitary, shell of a person.” It’s as if the grief, the shock, the hurt, had pulled the life right out of Richard, leaving him empty.

Maybe you know what’s thats like, feeling like the life has been pulled right out of you. For some of you, like Richard, it was losing the love of your life. But it could be so many things: a divorce, a diagnosis, debt, depression. We all go through experiences and events that make us feel like a hollow shell of ourselves. We pull back from community. We isolate ourselves from family and friends. We stop doing the things we once enjoyed. We feel empty and wonder what, if anything, can give me life again…

Jesus seems to have a simple answer to our question. You want life? Then eat me… eat my flesh and drink my blood and you will have life, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. When reading this passage, I couldn’t help but think of the question someone asked in our CrossRoads class last week.

+Mark and I mentioned that not everything in the Bible ought to be taken literally. To which someone responded, “how do you know which parts to take literally and which ones to not?” A thoughtful, faithful question, perfect for today’s reading…

Does Jesus actually mean what he says? Or as the crowd around Jesus asked, “how can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The questions are warranted, especially from those of us who cannot indulge in an entree al la Jesus.

Yet no matter how hard I’ve looked in this gospel or the other three, Jesus doesn’t flesh out an answer for us (pun intended). But I think the rest of Richard’s story might help us understand what Jesus is talking about.

Five months after Peter died, Richard found himself alone and hungry in his apartment. So he did something he hadn’t done at all in those months: he baked bread. A lot of bread, eight baguettes to be exact. He was never going to eat all of that. So that next morning, he forced himself out of bed and down to the Browery Mission, bread in hand. As soon as he walked through the door, a guy said “sorry, department of health rules, we cannot accept food donations from anybody”.

So Richard turned, walked out, and went to the park across the street. Some guys followed him, wanting some of that fresh, home baked gluten morgan. After they devoured the seven baguettes, the men asked Richard if he would come back next week…

So that next Sunday, Richard made eight sourdough loaves for the guys and brought them to the park. This time, they talked a little more, shared some things about themselves, and even began connecting over their bread memories. One told the group how he missed his grandmothers cornbread she made in a skillet. Richard said, “well I make cornbread, I’ll make that for you next week.” Another man, a Jewish man, reminisced about running home before sundown on the sabbath so he could rip off a piece of hallel to eat. So Richard made hallel for next week, too.

“In the ensuing weeks” Richard recounts, “there were an awful lot more bread requests. Over the next five months we started talking and laughing and sharing more than bread. And I started to heal. I became lighter.” In other words, he didn’t feel so empty. It is as if the bread filled Richard with life once again. And that story helps me appreciate what Jesus is offering to us here in John. Because it wasn’t really the bread that gave Richard life again… It was all that came with the bread, the sharing, the talking, the offering of one’s self to someone else, in ways as simple as breaking baguettes together in the park.

In much the same way, I don’t think Jesus is really saying “eat me”. Rather, he is telling the crowd and us, that he will sacrifice his flesh and blood for us and for the whole world, so that you might believe and have life now and forevermore. Flesh and blood was a Hebrew idiom meaning one’s whole self. Which is exactly what Jesus offers up on the cross and here at this table too.

We might only get a small piece of bread, or a little sip of wine, but through it we receive all of Christ; everything he has to offer us: forgiveness, grace, love, all that we need to fill the emptiness we feel and give us life here and now. So if you feel like life has been pulled right out of you, come to the table. If there is an emptiness you can’t fill, come to the table.

Come to the table where Jesus offers us his whole self in, with, and under the bread and wine.

Come to the table where we are united not only with Jesus, but with one another, too.

“The real miracle” Richard said, “was that we had created this wondrous sharing, and giving, and life affirming community”. And that is the same miracle that this bread does right here in this place. Jesus is at work in this meal, forming us, shaping so that we too can be a wondrous sharing, giving, and life affirming community. That’s what this world needs, what this country and county needs, and what your neighbor needs! A people willing to offer up themselves, sharing and giving who they are and what they have so that others may have life. In that way, we are a Christ to our neighbor, just as Jesus offered himself to me and to you.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean you die on a cross for someone. No, we can offer ourselves to one another in smaller, still meaningful ways; like breaking bread together, talking and laughing together, connecting over stories and memories.

And in doing so, we will be sharing more than just bread. Amen

John 13:1-17, 31-35

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So this is a Canadian grocery store commercial, for their “President’s Choice” brand of groceries. They’re mission is to “#eattogether” because, as they say, “so much good happens when we do.”

Eat together, because so much good happens when we do. Indeed.

And, on a night like tonight, I think we’re supposed to remember that this is more than a little bit of what God had in mind and what God has in mind for the Church, and for how we do what we do as God’s people in the world. I think so much of the time it’s meant to begin around the table – eating and drinking together, because so much good happens when we do. And I think too much of the time we’ve done just the opposite with the celebration of Holy Communion.

Unlike the commercial – cell phones and technology are not our biggest problem when it comes to what keeps us separated where the church is concerned. (I actually saw this commercial for the first time on my cell phone several months ago, so there’s that.)

But you know what I mean, right? Some of you have experienced it. Yes, it’s a special meal… a sacred feast… body and blood… bread and wine… broken and poured out for the forgiveness of sins; given for you, given for me; given for the sake of the world. There couldn’t be more weight or meaning attached to it all.

And because of that, too many people have gotten protective of it all. Too many people put up too many barriers about what this meal is or could be for God’s people – and for the world.

I had a conversation recently with one of our people who was laid up in the hospital. Very sick. Waiting for test results. Anxious. Afraid. So that when the hospital chaplain stuck his head in the door to ask if he was up for communion, the patient was glad to say yes and invited the chaplain in. After a brief conversation, though, the chaplain found out the patient – one of our people – was a Lutheran flavored Christian, and without much more to say, very little apology, and a quick prayer, the chaplain packed up his things and excused himself, because he wasn’t allowed – and Lutherans presumably weren’t worthy – of sharing the sacrament as far as his piety is concerned.

And I don’t mean to throw stones. We might do the same sort of thing in our own way, if we’re honest. There are some who question that children as young as those who will celebrate their “first communion” tonight should be able to… that maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to partake of the sacrament at such a young age. (Nevermind that most of these young people have been doing this for years, already.) People new to Cross of Grace are often surprised to see us offering the bread and wine to children and toddlers who sometimes have to take the pacifier out of their mouth to make room for the body and blood of their savior.

Still others worry about women presiding, about the un-repentant receiving, about the unbaptized, the unconfirmed, the uninitiated, the un-whatever having a place at the table. Welcome to why the Church is dying around us in too many ways and in too many places, as far as I’m concerned.

But what if what we did around the table of Holy Communion looked more like an invitation to dinner… to conversation… to friendship… to relationship… to joy and laughter and comfort and more. What if, we see what Jesus does for us in the giving of this meal, as something like setting up a table in the hallway of our lives? A table that gets in the way of all the things that get in the way of our willingness to look one another in the eye, to listen to one another, to love one another the way we have already been looked at, listened to, and loved by the God of our creation?

Because what Jesus does, in giving us this meal, is share it first with everyone in the room – even with Judas, the one who was fixing to betray him at that very moment. (If Jesus shares it all with Judas, his betrayer, and Peter, who would deny him, who are we to keep it from anyone?) What Jesus does, in giving us this meal, is humble himself – ultimately – by washing the feet of his friends and by teaching them what it means and what it looks like to love one another at all costs. What Jesus does, in giving us this meal, is offer himself – his body, his blood, his life and the love of God – for the sake of the world.

And I think our call is to get better at this. In our homes… in our neighborhoods… in our schools… where we work… And I think our call is to start here – in church, at worship, in the name of Jesus – who gives us permission in a way the world doesn’t always. And Jesus gives us more than permission. Tonight reminds us that Jesus gives us a command people, to love one another, to make room, to extend invitations, to remove barriers, to wash feet, to serve and to sacrifice in surprising, counter-cultural, rebellious ways so that the love of God can’t be avoided or denied or withheld for one more minute.

So let’s eat together tonight, because so much good happens when we do. And let’s let that goodness find us and fill us; to change us and to change the world by the grace we will see hanging on the cross and walking from the tomb, soon enough.

Amen

A Bread Offering

Eat Together - Maundy Thursday - John 13:1-17, 31-35