Eating Jesus?

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, August 18, 2024
John 6:51-58

    Have you ever been invited to a meal and really didn’t care for one of the foods being served?  I like to eat almost anything. I have very few food aversions and no allergies or dietary restrictions that I know of, but especially in the summertime I am faced with the possibility that I will be served watermelon.  I really don’t like watermelon, and I know it’s strange.  Other melon, sure; just not the texture and taste of watermelon.  I have forced myself to eat it to be polite on a number of occasions, but if given the opportunity, I pass.  It can be pretty awkward to try to get through a meal that you don’t really like to be a gracious guest.
    We can only imagine what the first hearers of Jesus’ words in our gospel for today thought when they realized they were invited to a meal where Jesus’ blood and flesh would be served!  We’ve come to maybe the most difficult part of John 6 this week where Jesus starts sounding like he’s encouraging cannibalism.  He’s not talking about eating or drinking a kind of bread or wine you don’t really like and would prefer not to ingest; he downright sounds like he expects us to eat human flesh and blood.  It’s OK if you have a visceral reaction like the first disciples had.  Remember, Jesus is speaking these words BEFORE the Last Supper, BEFORE his death and resurrection.  Most people are just starting to wrap their heads around the idea that Jesus could be the Son of God; they haven’t come close to understanding that the Messiah must suffer, die, and be raised on the third day, and that sharing in this new Passover/Last Supper meal of bread and wine we call Holy Communion is what Jesus is talking about.  Jesus seems to have crossed a line in talking about himself as a meal that even the most polite of guests would refuse if he truly means eating his flesh and blood.
When the topic of Holy Communion comes up, people usually want to know what’s the difference between what Lutherans, Catholics, and other Christians like Baptists believe and the answer can get technical pretty quickly.  Lutheran Christians have used the term “real presence” to try to simplify this answer.  Jesus is really present in the bread and wine at communion.  We are not just remembering something that the historical Jesus of Nazareth did 2000+ years ago, we are feeding on and being fed by Christ, and the gathering of other believers at Sunday morning worship IS the body of Christ. We believe that Holy Communion is more than just a memorial meal. While we believe that we can feel Christ’s presence in all kinds of situations and places, we point to Holy Communion as one time and place where we know each week, when we are gathered to celebrate this holy meal, we are reminded with all of our senses that Christ is as present to us as the air we breathe and the food we eat.  What may be a bit confusing or mind-blowing is that we try to be “both-and” when it comes to Communion – Jesus IS present, the body and blood of Christ is what we are receiving- and yet it is also bread and wine.  We are not cannibals, but rather we are receiving Christ so that we become what we eat – this meal strengthens us to live like Christ in our communities!
The real presence of Christ in Communion transforms us to become what we eat.  So whatever we do to feed hungry people and share Christ’s love to those who are hurting is continuing to live out Jesus’ teaching and preaching.  Just as Jesus invites us to share this meal at his table, so we seek to be invitational and welcoming to others, so that all might know Christ’s love.  Jesus lives in and through us!  Have you noticed that at the dismissal this season I’ve been saying, “Go in peace, YOU are the body of Christ?”  Well, we believe that to be true!  The New Testament’s most common description of the church IS the body of Christ. We who believe and come together around the Lord’s table are his body living in the world today.  We receive the sign and reminder of his death and resurrection for our sake – this IS my body, given for you.  This IS my blood, shed for you.  Jesus did this for us on the cross, willingly, for our sakes.  And Jesus didn’t stay dead but rose again so we might participate in his resurrection life and know life eternal along with him!  We become what we eat.
You are, we are, the body of Christ together.  When we were serving as pastors in Omaha, Rich and I became friends with another local clergy couple serving a big church that had become smaller due to demographic changes in the area – what had been a prosperous, mostly white middle-class neighborhood is now mostly nonwhite, poorer, and like many churches, the congregation was struggling to change to still look like their community.  Older folks still commuted into worship from the suburbs out west, and most of the local worshippers didn’t have incomes to support the church like in decades past.  The pastors led the church with a strong mission into an uncertain future – “If we’re going to die, we’re going to go down serving,” they said.  Because their church was mostly made up of older retired folks, they used that to their advantage and started a reading program in the local public elementary schools – a trained volunteer from the church each week brought enough books for the entire class and read that book.  They gave out free hot dogs at the local park in the summer.  They opened a food pantry.  Their worship attendance still dwindled, but they were going down serving.  Isn’t that what the body of Christ is? Becoming what we eat – forsaking our own survival and sometimes comfort for the sake of loving and serving our neighbors – feeding people both physically and spiritually, listening for what people are hungry for in the neighborhood and then responding like Christ.
Maybe harder to believe than wrapping our minds over what Jesus is saying here in our gospel for today about eating his flesh and drinking his blood is that we can possibly become anything like Christ.  I know most days I feel a far cry from being Christ-like.  If it is up to me and my own will and strength, I fail in the first minute of my striving to be like Christ in my daily living.  I rely on the body and blood of Christ, this meal I receive, to regularly remind myself that I am a child of God, Christ lives in me, I am forgiven and set free, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  That’s the gift of this bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ. Thanks be to God!  Amen.