Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Rev. Daniel E. Somers, Dcn+

St. Andrew’s Church

SermonAugust 19, 2018

Our Sacramental Life

            Because Jesus' baptism is given short shrift in John's Gospel and the meal in the upper room is absent altogether, until recently it was asserted that of the Gospels, the Fourth was the least sacramental in outlook.  Now it is increasingly asserted that John's Gospel is the most sacramental of the four.  Instead of packaging its sacramental teaching in discrete events in the ministry of Jesus, that teaching pervades the entire book in subtle but insistent ways.  Thus eucharistic meanings are seen in the turning of water into wine at Cana (not reported in the Synoptics) and in the feeding of the thousands.  More particularly, Jesus’ breakfast with the disciples on the lakeshore is seen as a kind of parallel to Luke's Emmaus meal; the risen One is known in the familiar act of eating with the disciples (John 21:9-14).

Of greatest importance, however, is the long discussion on the bread of life in John 6. The discourse grows out of the feeding of the five thousand and the subsequent return of many the next day.  Jesus deflects their desire for another free meal by contrasting earthly food with “the bread from heaven.”  The whole discussion could be seen as at best tangential to the Eucharist, were it not for the turn the passage takes in verses 51-56.  Until then Jesus has been discussing only bread in its literal and metaphorical senses.  Suddenly he connects the heavenly bread with his own flesh given for the life of the world (v. 51), and then explicitly introduces the drinking of his blood as well as the eating of his flesh in this assertion: “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.  Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (vv. 54-56).

Only the strangest kind of thinking can argue that all this has nothing to do with eucharistic eating and drinking in the community of faith.  Certainly the passage should not be construed to approve some mechanistic view of salvation.  It is not the eating and drinking as such that give life.  This is the key.  It is Christ who gives life, but the life-giving Christ is not some ethereal entity disconnected from human existence.  The life-giving Christ is the same Word made flesh for us (John 1:1-18). 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God…  And the Word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth….  The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

God’s incarnational action in Christ is presented in the Eucharist again and again for the life of the world.  This we grasp only by faith.  The manifestations of God in the earthly manner of the Eucharist elicit faith and enable it to flourish.

The belief that the bread and wine became the body and blood of the Lord in a very corporeal way gave rise to various practices unknown in the ancient church.  At the close of Mass, the priest must drink all of the wine and then cleanse the chalice carefully, lest any trace remain.  Should the consecrated wine accidentally be spilled, specific rites for its removal were required. Because spillage could occur so readily when administering the cup to the communicant, it became the practice that only the officiating priest drank the wine.  All others received the bread only.

Even the bread had to be administered in a particular way, lest the wafer be dropped as it was transferred from one person to another.  Traces of these practices are observed in our Eucharist rite.  

The other new dimension to the discourse comes with the sacramental allusions. The passage invites us to reflect on its meaning when we are gathered at the Table.  Two motifs emerge more boldly than in the traditional eucharistic texts and warrant consideration.  The first is that of participation.  The dominant verbs in the section are “eat” and “drink,” rather than “believe” (as in vs. 35-47).  Partaking of the sacrament draws one into the very life of Jesus.  The characteristic Johannine verb “abide” appears in v. 56, with its connotations of mutuality and consistency.  Ingesting the elements binds the participant in a unique way to the Son of Man.

The second motif connected to the eucharistic allusions is eternal life.  Of course, life has been an urgent theme not only through the sixth chapter of John, but through the entire Gospel. Here its source is the living Father, who gives life to the Son, who in turn through the Lord’s Supper gives life to participants (v. 57).  “Eternal life” clearly implies more than an existence that continues without termination.  Consistently in John, however, both “life” and “eternal life” signify life of the age to come, life with a distinctively new quality, authentic life fulfilling God’s intentions.

Even as Jesus is saying these words you can imagine some would-be disciples slipping to the back of the crowd before making a beeline home.  Watching Jesus give sight to the blind and making the lame walk would have been amazing, but now he is not making any sense.  Just beyond our reading for today, many of his disciples will say among themselves, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” The twelve will stick with Jesus, but many others will fall away. Knowing Jesus as a great teacher is one thing, but talking about your flesh as food and your blood as drink must have sounded like the rabbi had lost it.

Even the response of the people in the various Gospel passages tells us a lot about what people wanted verses what they needed.  They were more interested in following the “soup kitchen” Jesus, Jesus the cult leader and miracle worker.  That whole “I am the bread of life” thing and “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever” just wasn’t flying with them at all.  And so, because what they wanted clearly wasn’t going to be offered to them again, most of them left, simply stopped following Jesus.  But Jesus, being Jesus, remained steadfast and on point.  He didn’t adjust his teachings to get the people to continue to follow him.  He didn’t beg them to come back.  He continued to offer them what they needed – eternal life through spiritual nourishment and renewal.  Jesus leaves it to the people to decide for themselves and us: choose eternal life or not.

In the fullest New Testament tradition then, eating and drinking with Jesus is enactment: The Eucharist is a feast in which we, with the risen Lord bring to life the hope we have of a righteous realm in which Christ's sacrificial love destroys barriers among human beings and between humanity and God.   To this feast all are invited by God on equal terms.

This story is crucial for the contemporary church because it stands in judgment over our preoccupation with the upper room on Thursday evening as the dominant focus of our Eucharists.  Luke reports of Jesus in the upper room that he “took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them” (22: 19) and two chapters later at Emmaus tells of the risen One who “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”  Luke was too careful a writer for this similarity of language to be mistaken for an accident.  Instead it is a powerful theological affirmation: the pre- and post-resurrection meals cannot be separated.  If the Thursday meal was to be seen as a Passover feast, the joyful theme of God's deliverance therein is heightened by the Sunday meal.  But even if the Thursday meal is to be seen as one of gloom and foreboding in the face of death, the Sunday meal announces the victory of the resurrection, thus transforming what went before.

All of this is a cursory, quick overview of a complicated, complex idea, one that has filled reams of books on sacramental theology in seminary libraries.  You have all heard of the concepts of transubstantiation, real presence and remembrance.  Keep in mind, Jesus was not urging us to be cannibals, physically devouring him after being killed.  Nor do the bread and wine change their chemical composition.  Even after consecration, they remain bread molecules and wine molecules.

However, we do follow his command – the ordinance – to remember him.  And we do feel his presence in this room and within us as we share in his gift.  So when we partake in a few moments of the host, think about what the moment and the act mean for you.  I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Amen.