John 6:51-58

[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.”

Sometimes my irreverence gets the best of me, and I’m hoping you’ll forgive me if you think this is too much, but I couldn’t help reading today’s Gospel without hearing Jesus say, in no uncertain terms, “Eat me.” And I realize that may cross a line – that it’s my inner, adolescent Beavis and Butthead coming out, but bear with me for a moment, because I think it’s true, with a capital T, in more ways than one.

See, I think there were times – I think there are still times – when Jesus says that, and means it, with all the snark and frustration and seriousness the phrase elicits out there in the world. And I think there were and are times when Jesus says that with more love and more earnestness than we might imagine, too.

Just after these numb-skulls who were listening to him started asking each other, “How could this man give us his flesh to eat?,” Jesus proceeds to explain why the bread of God is better than the manna of the world. How taking in the body and blood of God’s greatest gift in Jesus is different – and better – than all the ways people of all stripes were used to filling themselves up.

For the Jews of Jesus’ day, it was their continued reliance on the old ways of faith – that judged others; that separated the good from the bad; that still pretended they could be saved by following the rules and striving for perfection. For the Gentiles it was their chasing of other gods altogether. For anyone and everyone, it was an inability or unwillingness to rely fully on the new thing God was doing among them, in Jesus.

Because in Jesus Christ, had come a new way to be found and to be filled and to be practiced at being changed by God’s grace – and that was through the eating and drinking of bread and wine, through the sacrament of what has become Holy Communion.

When a friend of mine – an older woman who never had any grandchildren of her own – met my first-born, for the first time, when he was still an infant, just a few months old – she oooed and ahhhd over him with as much joy and enthusiasm as anyone. She wanted to hug and cuddle and squeeze and kiss him all over. She couldn’t get his shoes and his socks off fast enough, because she wanted to see his cute little feet and his impossibly tiny toes. And with her face sandwiched between those feet, she said, “I could just eat him up!”

And her theory is that that’s one of the reasons God gave us the gift of Holy Communion. Because we know what it’s like to want to be that close to…to want to be filled up with the kind of joy and beauty and sweetness and love and grace that comes in the form of that kind of perfection. That the reason we’re given body and blood in the form of bread and wine is because that holy food represents for us a way to eat and to drink – a way to take in and to be filled up with – a way to be nourished by and to become, even, the joy and beauty and sweetness and love and grace that is perfected in Jesus Christ.

You are what you eat, right? So Jesus says, “Eat me.”

When we’re feeling less-than; ugly; unforgiven; unforgiveable – Jesus says, “Eat this bread.”

When we’re feeling sick; broken; unredeemable; unloved; unloveable – Jesus says, “Drink this wine.”

When we’re feeling imperfect, when we think we’ve failed beyond redemption, when we’re convinced there’s no hope, no reason, no way forward – Jesus says, “Take this and eat it. This is my body, more broken, than even your brokenness. This is my blood, poured out to give you new life.”

And it’s bigger than just us, of course. In any place where justice is being withheld, where peace is being denied, where fear is being leveled, where death appears to be winning – Jesus would say, “Eat me.” And he would mean it.

And I don’t mind hearing a holy kind of snark and a deep, abiding love in that refrain. Because Jesus has been saying it and offering himself up in as many ways as there are people in this world and yet, we still refuse to accept his invitation or to follow his command.

We keep looking for other answers…other food…other sustenance…different kinds of nourishment. And we keep coming up empty. Like those ancestors in the wilderness, like his followers back in the day, we still fill ourselves with earthly sorts of manna, don’t we?: wealth, addiction, idols, lies – all sorts of “stuff” and all variety of “things” that pale by comparison and that perish in the face of God’s eternity, unlike the Bread of Life that comes to us in Jesus.

And I’m not saying this is easy or sensible or likely, by the world’s standards. I find myself asking questions, just like those First Century Jews when I read all of this from Jesus. (“How could this man give us his flesh to eat?” I don’t even eat beef or chicken or pork, anymore. Did he just say “Eat me?”)

How in the world is this bread – that comes to us from Linda Snow’s kitchen today – supposed to be the body of Christ? How is this wine or that grape juice supposed to be the blood of my salvation, poured out for me, let alone the sake of the world? And how is any of this supposed to carry the weight of God’s promises for me, or any of us – the stuff of redemption?, the forgiveness of sins?, the resurrection of the body and new life?

One way I make sense of it is to think about what I do whenever I’m physically sick or not feeling well. The first thing I wonder about is what I’ve been eating – or all the things I can’t imagine putting into my mouth. Like, if you’ve had too much to drink the night before, you don’t even want to think about another sip. If you had some bad fish for dinner, the idea of another bite of anything may turn your stomach. It’s time for water – lots of fluids. And maybe some crackers to calm your stomach. What we eat matters, right?

And then there’s the other kind of culinary medicine, too. Like grandma’s homemade chicken noodle soup, maybe, or whatever comfort food that brings with it all kinds of history and a whole lot of memories and more love than makes sense – food can heal and mend and comfort in wonderful, unbelievable, other-worldly, holy and loving kinds of ways, can it not?

Whatever the case then, in Communion sometimes, Jesus is like a mother or a grandmother or nurse, even, sidling up to our spiritual sick-bed, setting down a tray of bread and wine and saying “Here. Try some of this.”

And through the food and drink of Holy Communion, we are connected through time and space and Spirit to this Jesus of history and to the God of all eternity. This bread has already been broken, in Jesus Christ. This blood has already been poured out, for our sake and for the sake of the world. Our sins have already been forgiven. Our lives have already been saved. Our hope has already been restored. Our redemption has already been promised.

All we’re called to do is eat, drink, receive, rejoice, and respond to the grace that is ours when we do.

Amen

John 6:35, 41-51

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They were saying, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, "I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, "And they shall all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 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."

Over spring break my freshman year at Valparaiso University I toured with our college choir. One Sunday while on tour we sang as part of a worship service in a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. When it came time for communion, our choir director invited those choir members who were members of a LCMS church to come forward for communion. I thought it was odd that they would segregate us into groups in order to escort us to the altar. What I soon learned was that I was not welcome to the altar at all because I did not belong to their church.

This was my first experience of being excluded from church, and it has had a remarkable and lasting impact on how I approach the Lord's Supper. The openness of our ELCA congregation and our insistence that all are welcome to celebrate communion is one of our most wonderful gifts to the world.

I tell that story as a way to invite you to think a little more deeply about what happens every Sunday when we gather at the altar and receive the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.

Perhaps you have wrestled with the underlying theology of the Lord’s Supper: this idea that flesh and blood is really present, and then really ingested. It all sounds so…weird.

In spite of the weirdness of the language and concept of flesh-eating, what I think is going on here–what I trust is going on here–is that Jesus is teaching us this truth: We show love by what we’re willing to give up and that God shows the depth of his love for creation by giving up God’s self, through Jesus, for the life of the world.

The sacrament of the Eucharist – Holy Communion – is a simple act of grace, trust, and faith composed of earthly elements infused with God’s promise. The complex truth that undergirds the simple act is that communion is an opportunity for us to receive God’s love so that we can go out and give God’s love to others.

The body of Christ is here, at the table, and here, in us, all of us, coursing through our veins, most notably after we have received Christ’s body and blood in the celebration of Holy Communion.

This table is a body of ideas, a statement really, to the rest of the world of just what God’s priorities are. At this table, everyone is invited forward, and no one leaves without something: bread, wine, a blessing.

And everyone leaves differently than when they first came up: fed, nourished, blessed.

You see, this table changes us so that we can be change in the world. And change happens all over the place, right? It happens in here, in our inner-selves. It happens in here; in our church community. It happens out there; in the world.

Jesus is inviting humanity into the life of God in a way that helps us to do what we cannot do alone – change ourselves and the world.

I think one of the best descriptions of a person coming to terms with that very notion is found in a book by Sara Miles titled Take This Bread. It’s her story of coming to faith and meeting a God she never thought was real, and certainly never expected to trust.

She tells the story of a time when she was taking care of a friend, named Millie, who was in the final stages of cancer; her body fighting with the radiation.

Millie was physically ill, bitter, upset. She wasn’t pleasant to be around, and taking care of her was taxing Sara to the point that she was physically and emotionally exhausted. Sara tells the story of how she went to prepare Millie some toast (the only thing that she could stomach), when she finally broke down.

“Help, I can’t do this alone,” Sara cried out. And in between her tears, as she’s breaking up the toast, she begins to imagine that what she was doing was sacred, like Holy Communion. She writes,

“What makes the bread into the body of Christ? What makes words more than words, mortal flesh more than mortal flesh; what makes a piece of toast into a sacrament? I broke the bread.

[‘It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and all places give thanks and praise...’] the Great Thanksgiving prayer began. It was chanted every Sunday at the table, and I knew the words by heart now…and something was in the kitchen with me, like the sunlight falling on the braided rug, like the piece of bread in my hands, warm and uncompromisingly alive.

I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the end. I took the toast back to the little room, where Millie had propped herself up with a couple of pillows. I could smell the wisteria, faintly, through the opened window, and hear the kids from the school next door yelling in the yard. I pushed away a box of Kleenex and sat down on her bed. ‘Millie,’ I said, ‘this is for you.’

In half an hour, I would tuck her in, and set out a glass of water, and drive home across the bridge, stunned and blinking and saying aloud to myself, ‘Oh my God, it’s real.’”

Oh my God, it’s real.

Strength where there is no more strength. Hope where there is no more hope. Life when life seems breathless.

This is the real mystery that God is offering at this table, the real assurance that we are hungering for in this world: God is real and we are not doing this alone.

We feed from Grace’s table so that we can go out with that love inside of us, into a world that needs it, into our homes that may need it, into our relationships that may need it.

Perhaps you are walking with someone through difficulty and you, like Sara, cry out, “I cannot take it anymore!”

Come to this table. Lay that all down. Fill up again with God’s love, and the love of this community, the body of Christ.

Perhaps you are that one in distress and pain, feeling dead inside in spite of having a beating heart and breathing lungs.

Come. Eat. Drink. Be blessed. Reconcile the opposites of feeling dead inside while still walking around with the love of God that brings you back to wholeness in time.

Perhaps you are in dire need of forgiveness, for reconciliation, within yourself or with someone else in your life, maybe someone in this room. Come. Be filled with the love of God, and then you have what you need to go to that person.

Perhaps you are in bliss at this very moment. Come, then, and feast in the love of a God who shares in your joy!

In this meal love provides the understanding that we don’t do this alone. That is communion. That is the bread of life–the living bread from heaven. That is the Lord’s Supper. And that’s why we celebrate it as often as we can with whomever we can.

Pray with me,
Sometimes, God, your word is a parable;
and we do not understand what it means
to be taught by God.
And so you have given us things to help us understand:
Wine, Water, Bread, Each other.
Jesus, the living bread, as you invite us to your table be our bread.
That we might feed the world in your love.
Amen.

"Eat Me" - John 6:51-58

"Bread from Heaven for Everybody" – John 6:35, 41-51