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Kit 6, 2003 - Pentecost 7 to Pentecost 13
Sunday 17 August 2003 Pentecost 10
1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14, Ps 111, Eph 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
In the previous three sections, we have tried to look at the passages from the perspective of, first, the contemporary audience, then the particular church John was writing for and finally the modern audience. You can judge for yourselves whether this has been in any way helpful. We will now go on with the next two sections from John to simply look at them from the point of view of the preacher today, always reserving the right to go back to the historical setting in order to understand them better.
This whole long passage follows on the feeding of the 5000. As we noted in that story, there were hints of the Eucharist in the feeding. As we come to the section for today, we are struck by the way these hints have been developed. Yet no where in John do we find anything like the institution of the Lord’s Supper that appears in the other Gospels and in Paul. There is little point in speculating what this implies about the practice of Holy Communion in the Johannine Church. The questions for us are what does the teaching mean in our life of faith.
We begin the section with our old friends, the Jews. Note that they are disputing among themselves. We are well aware of the difficulties posed to the early Church by the way they talked about the Lord’s Supper. Accusations of cannibalism were made but here the thrust seems more to be puzzlement. Jesus is long departed by the time this is written and we seem here to have the kind of curiosity that can be found today. But we are, in our tradition, not followers of the old Roman Catholic idea of trans-substantiation, the idea that the bread and the wine are miraculously transformed into the real body and real blood of our Lord. There would be few in the Reformed tradition who hold to anything like that idea. We must note, however, that this passage offers support to any who are inclined in that way.
In response to the mumblings of the Jews, Jesus reiterates what he has already been saying, and even adds to the offence. To find life, one must eat the flesh of Christ and (the new element) drink his blood. This is shocking to us but was probably even more shocking to John’s contemporaries. We know that accusations of cannibalism were made against the early Christians and it was this very kind of language that opened the way for such accusations.
It is notable that the very sharp way this is put is different to the way the Eucharist is described in the synoptic accounts of the Supper and by Paul in 1 Cor, where the symbolic nature of the meal is made very clear. Yet maybe this very sharp way of putting the matter can help us as we preach from the text.
The first point starts off as a technicality. To the Hebrews, blood was life. They knew perfectly well that when a living being is cut, it bleeds. If the injury is severe, the animal will bleed to death and at the point when it stops bleeding, we may well say that it is dead. Furthermore, a dead animal does not bleed. It was therefore logical to assume that the blood equalled life. No blood, no life – blood, then life. What is being said here is that the believer takes into themselves the very life of Jesus.
This understanding makes sense of a great deal of the language about being “saved by the blood of Jesus” or being “washed in the blood of the Lamb”. To many modern people, such language is difficult to accept or even repulsive, but if the concept of “life” is substituted for “blood”, then the expression is acceptable and helpful. The believer is cleansed by the life of Jesus – something which we would all agree with.
John, for reasons we do not understand, does not include the actual command of our Lord to remember him through a sacred meal of bread and wine. Instead, he uses the foot-washing at the last supper to represent the cleansing and acceptance offered by Christ. But, as we have seen, the Eucharist is not far from his thinking.
The other point I would use is the slogan that has become popular amongst those who follow particular diets. “You are what you eat”. If Jesus indeed was the possessor and the giver of eternal life, then those who partake of him will also share that life. The teaching here is an assertion that the believer becomes one with Christ through this eating and drinking.
That this is spiritual teaching is clear because the relationship between the believer and Christ is parallel to the relationship between the Father and the Son. It is this same mutual relationship which is clearly not identity. John moves so comfortably between the physical and the spiritual that we are sometimes fooled. But we can be certain that it is the spiritual which always takes precedence. This is reinforced by the statement that those who ate the manna in the desert, even though it was provided by God, surely died, but those who eat this new (spiritual) food will have eternal life.
O God of young faith and new beginnings
I remember the church of my childhood
where you first stepped into my life
and fed me with your life
Your life is a treasure
I have never stopped seeking.
It is a treasure
I have never stopped finding.
I remember the deep,ever-growing faith of my parentswho not only taught me to walkbut taught me to walk in your paths.
But now, in the middle of my yearsI need you O God of young faithand new beginningsFor the path my parents pointed out to me seems to be a paththat leads to a cross.and I hunger for a signa rainbowa sprouting seeda meal shared with lovea warm embraceto assure me that it really is the best path.O God of young faithand tired faithBreath into my life
A new beginning.
Macrina Wiederkehr “Seasons of your heart”