The Bread of Life

     This is third straight week of gospels about bread and I’m beginning to feel a little crummy about it!

      Last year, at the hospital where I work, a situation came up around a teenager who was a Jehovah’s Witness.  I received a phone call from a doctor, who was one of those treating the boy, asking me to intervene because she believed the boy would not be able to get well without a blood transfusion. The young man, it turned out, didn’t fully embrace that faith, and in the end told us he only said he was a Jehovah’s Witness to keep his mother happy. In the end, he made a decision for himself to receive the transfusion.  As you probably know, Jehovah’s Witnesses, for the most part, refuse blood transfusions on the basis of a couple of texts of scripture from the Old Testament.  The main one is from the Book of Leviticus, which reads:

     “For the life of every creature—its blood is its life; therefore I have said to the people of Israel: You shall not eat the blood of any creature, for the life of every creature is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off.”

     One of the holiest of sacred rituals remembered by our Jewish brothers and sisters each year is that of  “The Passover”---when those whose doorposts were marked with the blood of sacrifice were “passed over” when God began the struggle for his people’s freedom from slavery to Pharoah.   Both Muslims and Jews take the text from Leviticus which says specifically not to “eat the blood of any creature,” and make of it a dietary law. In order to eat meat, it has to be kosher, if you are Jewish, or halal if you are a Muslim---without any blood left in it.   This proscription against eating blood in the book of Leviticus is said to go back to about 1400 BCE, and is said to be a law laid down my Moses himself.

           A lot of people don’t even need a religious reason to avoid eating bloody meat---personally, if I have steak, I prefer mine more well done.  There is just something about seeing blood pooling on my plate that inspires revulsion, regret and disgust in me!  If only bloody meat was available, I’d be a vegetarian.

          So,  I am really sympathetic to those people Jesus was speaking to in this morning’s gospel, when he says, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”   Instead of moderating his words, Jesus intensifies them by using the Greek verb that means to crunch or to gnaw, and he uses this crude word four times in as many lines.  (vv 54, 56,57, 58).  The verb implies both the state of being torn to pieces and the mandate to consume the sacrifice (W.F. Dewan, “The Eucharist, As Sacrament,” NCE 5: 603-4).  Understandably, those listening were disgusted, as John tells us later: “Because of this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”  Not only was Jesus being kind of gross with his words---to those with “ears to hear,” he was setting himself up to supersede Moses himself.  Knowing how this all sounded, Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.’”  It must have been very, very hard for them to stay.

      This would prove to be the dividing line between literal-minded, observant Jews and the Jewish Christians---who like Simon Peter, may have had to swallow hard---just to walk a little farther with Jesus.  /// And the time would come, we  know---when even Peter couldn’t go where Jesus went---to a place where he was beaten and bloodied, killed and turned into dead meat.   Knowing his Lord in that way, after Jesus---more or less served himself up as so much meat on a plate---would Peter still be able to say,“You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God?”

      Jesus says, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” (pause) “I am the living bread. … Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.”

      I woke up around 6 AM yesterday and started to work on what I could say about this 3^rd gospel reading on the topic of bread.  I worked straight through to 11 AM, and realized I was feeling hungry. (J pause)  So I took a few moments to surf the web on over to Arby’s---because it’s less than a mile from home---to see how many calories there are in an Arby’s mushroom and swiss sandwich---thinking I might take a break and fetch brunch for us---which got me to thinking, what is it to be hungry?   What does it mean to eat? 

     It seems to me that Jesus wants us to meditate a bit on this, as he tells us that he himself is for us “true food and true drink.”  We know we can survive awhile without eating or drinking water, but not for very long---it’s a condition of life, without which we would die.  It is part of the story about God and humanity right from the beginning, in the book of Genesis, when God, after creating people tells them to enjoy the fruit of the all the trees but one---and in the wilderness when he gave them quail and manna, and water from a rock.  God has always made it his business to feed us but in Jesus, God took it to another level.                                   

    Here in John’s gospel, Jesus emphasizes the relationship between eating and having life when he says: "Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life," (Jn 6:22).  Being nourished by his food is the necessary condition for life in God.  At that last Passover meal, Jesus perpetuated himself by taking the form of bread, and the disciples consumed the sacrificial offering.

     Among our phrases of endearment, we have the phrase, “I could just eat you up!”  It is usually said while cuddling or playing with a baby, when an parent wants to express inexpressible love for a child---which when you think about really is kind of awful!    But it lends vividness to the truth of Jesus’ desire to unite himself to us.  The relationship between body and food is learned in early infancy as matter of primary bonding.  Awful or not, that phrase, “I could eat you up” implies that life, the body, and food go together.

      Jesus, in his body, blood, soul, and divinity, gives himself as food and nourishment to his people.  Our response is to accept the gift as “Eucharist,” another Greek word that means “giving thanks.” It is a mystery of primary trust and bonding with the divine---with Christ---given and received at the point of our most basic need, that of food and drink.

     In an Easter sermon, St. Augustine once said: “If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.” In receiving Christ, we become one body in him, and through him, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  We enter into a unique and intimate relationship with God, and with one another---sharing this bread and wine, we become the Body of Christ for the world.  We become what we eat.

          During General Convention, one of the speakers reminded us that we really don’t need to ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”   Instead we might ask, “What did Jesus do?” 

     We can begin by referring to our Baptismal Covenant, following Jesus by resisting what we know to be evil---by persevering in prayer and by proclaiming the Good News in what we say and what we do;  working for justice and peace and by respecting the dignity of every human being.

      Finally, we should seek the living bread that nourishes and sustains us: Jesus, whose prayer, whose very life---show us what to do,/// Jesus whose flesh and blood instill new life within us, ///Jesus who lives in us that we might live forever.  As the collect for today has us pray, “Give us grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work and to follow in the blessed steps of his most holy life.”