A Sermon preached on Sunday 25 August (Pentecost XIV) at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18, Ephesians 6:10-20, John 6:56-69
For 5 weeks now, our Gospel reading has been taken from chapter 6 of John. My last sermon before my holiday was on John 6 and now my first following that break is once again on John 6. While I was away, we worshipped in an Anglican church one Sunday and the preacher commented on what seemed to him like a too long “Season of Bread.” (He also thought that the hymn we will sing at Communion, ‘I am the bread of life’, is virtually unsingable – so let’s prove him wrong!).
Chapter 6 began with John’s version of the feeding of the 5,000 and ends, as we heard this morning, with John’s version of Peter’s confession: While in Matthew (16:16), Peter says “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” John (6:69) has Peter say: “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
In John’s Gospel, Peter’s confession and public commitment are a reaction to division and dissent. Many of Jesus’ disciples found his teaching difficult to accept and so they “turned back and no longer went about with him.” (6:60, 66) What was so upsetting? Well, some people had already begun to complain when Jesus said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ (6:41) How could Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know, say “I have come down from heaven,” as if he came from God, they asked? Where does he have the authority to make these claims? And now it’s even worse, as according to Jesus, the life-giving bread or living bread is his own flesh: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them …. Whover eats (literally “chews”) me will live because of me.” (6:56) Considering the Jewish prohibition of eating blood – no black pudding and no Blutwurst in Judaism – this is now a deeply problematic and offensive statement, even if only understood as a metaphor. But for us this is more than a metaphor. Unlike Mark, Matthew and Luke (and Paul in Corinthians), John’s Gospel has no institution narrative, but many commentators see this passage as his equivalent. We hear the language of the Eucharist in Jesus’ words that “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” sounding very like “This is my body given for you.” And we hear him tell his listeners again and again that they need to eat and drink of him to share in his life.
From the very beginning of his Gospel, John focuses on the Incarnation, on God becoming human: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14) And in this passage the Word who is Jesus promises to give up his flesh and blood so they become the food of life. The Eucharist as the Sacrament of Incarnation is the means of salvation!
How sad, how scandalous then that the Eucharist, this great gift, this sacrament of unity, something Jesus told us all to do in his memory, has instead become a symbol of division among churches. And how prophetic that Jesus’ teaching already led to division in his day.
In 1 Corinthians (10:17) Paul writes "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." And yet we do not all partake of the one bread, when some churches restrict access to the bread and wine made holy, either only to their own members or to those considered worthy to receive. But in fact, no one is really worthy to receive, as the traditional Anglican Prayer of Humble Access makes very clear:
“We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table.”
It’s the Lord’s table, not ours. It is the Lord’s gift to us, and not something earned. Jesus does not differentiate who is invited to His table, but we do. We restrict access, we argue, we even used to kill over the different understandings of the Eucharist. What does it mean? What should it be called? How often should it be celebrated? Yet this is the very ritual given by Jesus to foster unity and strength. Of course, there are real and important theological issues at stake. But even in the New Testament there are differences in emphasis. For Paul (1 Cor. 11:26), the Eucharist proclaims the death of the Lord until he comes at the end of the world. It is “in remembrance of me.” For Matthew it is for the forgiveness of sins. For John it is the food of life. Anglican eucharistic theology too is diverse in thought and practice – there are many different ways of explaining Christ’s real presence in the bread and wine. One of the best is the saying attributed to Queen Elizabeth I:
“'Twas God the word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it; And what the word did make it; That I believe, and take it.”
Her focus was not on the how, but on what God did and does and how we respond to God’s word. In an article entitled “The Many Faces of the Eucharist,” RC priest and theologian Ronald Rolheiser describes the Eucharist beautifully as “like a finely-cut diamond twirling in the sun, every turn giving off a different sparkle.” And he goes on to say: “There is no adequate explanation of the Eucharist for the same reason that, in the end, there is no adequate explanation for love, for embrace, and for the reception of life and spirit through touch. Certain realities take us beyond language because that is there very purpose. They do what words cannot do.”
And that is why we practice Eucharistic hospitality and invite all Christians to participate. In Baptism we receive the life that the Father shares with the Son, and in Eucharist that life is renewed week for week. I believe that the Eucharist, the bread and wine, Jesus’ flesh and blood, change people for the better. And I want you to experience that change. I want you to receive the food of new life, the food that nourishes the life we share with one another and with God. I want this to strengthen your faith and fellowship. I want you not only to hear the word but to receive the Word in this Sacrament. Why would I, why would any church want to restrict that access to God’s love and grace? And so, in the words of the Prayer of Humble Access:
“Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear So Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.”
Amen.
