Sermon for 16 August 2015: 12th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon for Sunday, 16 August 2015: 12th
Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Carrie Smith
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Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This
morning’s Gospel lesson ends with these words from Jesus: “…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.”
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| The altar prepared for holy communion Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem Photo by Carrie Smith |
However, if we
read just two verses further, past the assigned reading of the day, we hear
this:
(Jesus) said
these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. When many of
his disciples heard it, they said, “This
teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
This
teaching is difficult! Amen! The disciples have finally said what most of us have been thinking for the past five
weeks of this “Jesus is bread” focus in the lectionary—this stuff is hard to
understand, Jesus! Amen?
But which part?
The fact that this bread is Jesus’ flesh, or that we are invited to eat it? Is
it the promise that eating it will bring us eternal life, or that eating it
means Jesus will live in us? Which is
the difficult part?
If you have
been raised in the church hearing these texts, and if you have been coming to
the table since you were a child and have heard the words “This is my body
given for you” always accompanied by a snack, then perhaps it doesn’t seem so
terribly difficult. But the idea that eating and drinking the flesh of the
Messiah is a central component of our worship and our life of faith is actually a scandal. It shocked the
Jews who heard Jesus say it in the synagogue. It shocked even the disciples who
knew him and his way of speaking well. And it can be a stumbling block today
for interfaith conversation and understanding, not to mention evangelism.
There’s no way around the awkward fact that our Lord said, “This is my body – now eat me.”
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| Kids of Redeemer Church having fun (and eating the leftover communion bread) in the pastor's office Photo by Carrie Smith |
This
teaching is indeed difficult, and many find it hard to accept, which is why it is
so amazing to observe children not just talking about it, but experiencing it. In
the Lutheran church, children receiving communion is a fairly new practice, and
is still not accepted in some churches. However, any lingering concerns I had about
the appropriateness of children at the table were erased on the day my three
year old told me in the car after church, “Mom, guess what! My blood is the
same as Jesus’ blood!” When I asked for clarification, he said with a proud
grin, “I drank Jesus’ blood this morning, so now it’s in me!” This wasn’t a
difficult teaching for him at three years old—it was Good News. His blood was
Jesus’ blood now, and he seemed to sit three inches taller in his car seat
because of it.
And Jesus
said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
And there was
the story I heard from a pastor in a neighboring church, who told me how she
had been greeting people after Sunday services when a little girl excitedly
came up to talk to her. “Pastor, pastor, I have a secret!” she whispered. “What
is it?” my friend asked. She leaned in closer and said, “I have Jesus in my
pocket!” Then she proudly pulled the communion wafer out of her pocket to wave
it in her face, before carefully placing it back in the pocket and running off
to play with friends. The words that rolled off the pastor’s tongue a hundred
times that morning—“This is the body of Christ, given for you”—were received as very Good News for one little girl.
And Jesus
said, “I am the living bread that
came down from heaven.”
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| What kind of bread does your congregation serve? Drawing by a Redeemer child Photo by Carrie Smith |
Yes, this
teaching is difficult. It is also Good News! It is strange. And it is also a
gift! Sometimes children receive gifts
much more readily than adults (wasn’t it Jesus who said, “Truly I tell you,
whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter
it”?) At the table we receive again and again a gift we cannot fully
understand—God’s amazing promise that by eating and drinking, Jesus himself
will live in us and we will live in him, and whoever eats this bread will live
forever.
It is such a
beautiful sign of God’s love for us, that we receive God’s promises in, with,
and under food. After all, we can
never escape our stomachs. Humans will always be obsessed with eating and
drinking—what and when, where and how much. We love food tours and food blogs.
Our best memories are often made around a dinner table. We mark our days by
meal times, and the passing of years by patterns of feasting and fasting.
And of course, there are the diets. Just this week there was another heavily
promoted news story about a new nutrition theory. This latest report reveals
that one of our favorite food dogmas (that belief that a low carb diet is the answer to weight loss and health)
may be misguided after all. Forget about banning bread and potatoes, now the
doctors are saying you can eat whatever you want (including bread!) as long as
you eat less of it and also exercise. This does seem
sensible. But as I heard this message pitched on yet another radio broadcast and
read about it on yet another webpage, I wondered just how long it will be
before this becomes our new gospel of food. It was hard not hear the reporter
sounding a bit like Jesus: “This is the bread of youth, of health, and of
skinny jeans – now eat it.”
Sisters and
brothers, hear again the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: “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.” This is the
Good News—much better news than any diet will ever be. It’s understandable that
when the Jews heard Jesus saying such things in the synagogue, they got stuck
on the “flesh and blood” part. “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they
asked. After all, consuming blood was against Jewish law!
And the
disciples certainly had it right when they said, “This teaching is difficult.
Who can accept it?” There’s a reason churches are still arguing about the
details of who, what, where, and when we celebrate Holy Communion.
But we miss
the point when we focus on the strangeness of eating flesh or the shock of
drinking blood. The most difficult part of this teaching, the part of the Good
News which is truly scandalous, is one little word:
Not “bread”.
Not “flesh.
Not “blood.”
The tiny
word that makes this table an altar, and which transforms simple bread and wine
into a feast of love, is “my.”
Jesus said, “Those
who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
The flesh we
encounter at Holy Communion isn’t just anybody,
it’s Jesus’ body. This body is God-with-us. This body came from heaven to walk
with us. This body touched sinners and outcasts with acceptance and love. This
body carried a cross to Golgotha. This body felt the pain and humiliation of
public crucifixion and death. This body was laid in a borrowed tomb. This body,
Jesus’ body, was emptied of divine power for the sake of love, and for the sake
of the world.
The bread
Jesus gave for the life of the world is his flesh, and herein lies the
difficult teaching—not that bread becomes flesh, or wine becomes blood, but
that when we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s
death until he comes. At the table, we eat and drink of a love so profound, so
deep, and so complete, that it lives forever in us, the church, the Body of
Christ in the world today.
When we
consume this bread and wine, we are in turn consumed by Jesus’ love. It’s easy
to understand how this kind of diet has implications, not only for our health,
but for how we live our lives. With this kind of self-emptying, sacrificial
love coursing through our veins, filling our bellies, and moving in and out of
our lungs, we might tend to move through the world a little differently.
Fueled by
Jesus’ self-emptying love even for us sinners, we no longer live trying to
cheat death, but we live in defiance of death’s power over us.
Nourished by
Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the Other, we live not in pursuit of
our own beauty and perfection, but with a passion to honor the beauty and image
of God in our neighbor.
Most of all,
strengthened by bread which is flesh—Jesus’ crucified and risen flesh—we are
freed from fear. In, with, and under the bread and the wine, we have received,
we have tasted, we have chewed on, we have digested, we have consumed, and we are consumed by the most perfect love
of our Lord Jesus Christ—and we know that perfect love casts out fear.
Empowered by
this kind of love, what powers and principalities can ever harm us?
What words
can ever scar us?
What sins
can ever destroy us?
What threat
can ever deter us?
What terror
can ever disturb us?
Therefore,
sisters and brothers, I invite you today to the table. Receive the gift of
God’s love. Eat the bread of teaching and the wine of wisdom, the body and
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be filled, be nourished, be strengthened for
the work to which you are called.
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