Coming to the Table

Sermon for Ames

8/19/12

John 6:51-58

 I went through a period when I was becoming Catholic where I just couldn't understand transubstantiation, this is the Catholic belief that the elements become the actual body and the actual blood of Christ and it is a mystical moment. All of communion is supposed to be mystical. I just couldn't buy it. I was a science major, I knew science, and transubstantiation was not possible.  I had prayed about it for several months as I was getting ready for my confirmation and refused to be confirmed if I couldn't get my head around this idea. Then I went to a church service across the Hudson River in this large church and I prayed that God help me to understand. As the priest raised his hands and asked Jesus into the elements, I felt a feeling of God's presence so large, overwhelming, yet all encompassing and loving that it is beyond words. Tears poured out of my eyes and I felt so awed I had difficulty raising myself to go to the altar for a blessing. I did go through with becoming Catholic. I was not sure if that was transubstantiation but God's presence was there and that was good enough for me.

As I have come to understand more about the protestant stands on communion and in particular the United Methodist stance, I have come to understand my experience a bit more. For us the scientific fact of it actually turning into God's flesh and blood is not the case. It is the out pouring of the spirit on those elements, God's presence in that space and our choosing to come to the table. Grace is beyond our choice. God's pull on our lives is always there, but we do have the choice to accept it. To come to the table in eager anticipation of being filled with God's love and in that love trying to walk God's path out of love. As our communion service say - "Make them be for us the body of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood." (UMH p. 10).

When Jesus used the metaphor of becoming the bread and blood of salvation he meant to be shocking. Some may have understood him to be literal but he was playing off a cultural experience of the time to ingest portions of Holy scrolls to remind oneself of how to live. To take in the Holy in such a way that it becomes part of you and you must live it out. To suggest that he was the Holy was truly shocking, but ingesting the Holy wasn't completely novel.

Jesus calls his flesh and blood to be true food or true spiritual fulfillment, and compares it to the Manna that left you wanting. He is promising here that the new covenant that includes him is going to be different to wandering lost in the desert and being given just enough to sustain life but not really satisfy. Jesus will satisfy our hunger if we choose to accept the grace that is offered us, that is constantly pulling us, causing us to be hungry for something. That restless feeling of needing more spiritually is a call to come to the communion table, to choose to be fed.

The absolute miracle of communion is that when you choose to come to the table truly seeking Christ, truly wanting to be spiritually fed, Jesus has promised to meet you there. Not only has
Jesus promised to meet you there, but he promised to help you live out that life.

So how do you choose to come to the communion table? Is it a process devoid of any real commitment, or are you truly expecting to meet Christ? Are you coming feeling hungry and dissatisfied with your spiritual life or do you not have time to think of such things? What kind of life are choosing to have? A life without Christ, or an eternal life? Are you choosing to have Christ live in you, to answer that pull? To truly believe that Christ came to rewrite our covenant with God, no matter how outrageous it seemed at the time or even today? How do you come to the table?

Jesus the Bread of Life

August 12, 2012

John 6:35-51

I find much comfort in this week's passage by John. It is not so much John's attempt at explaining the mystery of communion, or the resurrection, both extremely important topics, but it is in the disagreement in interpretation. Jesus is speaking to the people, and people are misinterpreting him. Right there, even at the time. It may sound small, petty and selfish, but it gives me a whole lot of hope. God did not give up on us, Jesus did not give up on the people he was preaching too, and although as the many denominations point out, no one agrees completely on communion theology, we are promised in verse 37 that, “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away.” He goes on in verse 39 to remind us that I should lose nothing at all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

John reminds us that Jesus was sometimes difficult to understand. Jesus made many references that the people would understand but he also used a great deal of metaphor and simile. As any middle school English student can tell you these, literary devices are not always easy to understand. For many years, the Romans believed that Christians were cannibals, citing Jesus telling us to eat his flesh. This is just one example of the misinterpretations that can and have occurred throughout the ages.

Then in verse 41 we hear the complaints begin. How can this man claim to have come down from heaven? He is merely human! We know his parents! This is ridiculous.

Jesus refutes them and uses references to Isaiah and Moses to make his point. God draws us to Jesus. We can't do it on our own. We can't just decide to be drawn to Jesus, but rather God draws us to Jesus and all of us who are pulled towards Jesus will have eternal life.

Jesus used the analogy of the bread of life to refer to himself. That is very interesting. At this time period at leas 50% or more of a persons calories were consumed through bread daily. But anyone who has every made bread can tell you this is not a quick process, even today. If you lived at Jesus' time you had to grow the wheat, harvest it, mill it, and then store it without vermin getting into it. Then you have to add the yeast, sugar and water, mix in the flour and let rise, then you needed to knead it, and let rise again. Finally you bake it. This is a lengthy time consuming process. I wonder if following Jesus is not the same. It fills us, gives us everything we need, but is a lengthy, time consuming process.

When Jesus discusses consuming himself he may have also been referencing a traditional practice of writing verses from a Torah and consuming them in order to pull them inside one's self and fully live them daily. By the time Jesus was preaching, it was understood that you did not have to actually eat them, but you had to be with them, be fed by them and spend time with them in order to live them out, just as one has to spend time in food preparation in order to consume it and use it to help sustain their body. We need to spend time with Jesus to sustain our souls.

So why did Jesus choose to be the bread of life? What does it mean that it takes so long to make bread? How are we pulled by God? How are we nourished? What does it mean that every one of us that feels called by God will not be lost? Why all the metaphors? What did Jesus mean then and for us now?