Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Rev. Daniel E. Somers, Deacon

St. Andrew’s Church

Sermon

August 26, 2018

Christ and Us: Perfect Together?

            May the words of our lips and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Father God.  Please be seated.

Welcome to the fourteenth Sunday of Pentecost and again to John’s Gospel.  This evangelist’s writings in the view of one author “constitute a kind of poetry that spouts from the earth from the physical encounter with Jesus to reach the brightness of the light that comes from heaven.”  Today’s lection is the conclusion of Jesus’ ongoing dialogue in John with his remaining disciples about bread and eternal life.   

            But first, allow me to digress a bit.  Some of you may be coming with me to Monmouth Park after today’s service.  Let me tell you a wee story about Sister Carmel and racehorses.  Sitting by the window of her convent, Sister Carmel opened a letter from home one evening.  Inside the letter was a $100 bill her parents had sent.  Sister Carmel smiled at the gesture.  As she read the letter by the window, she noticed a shabbily dressed stranger leaning against the lamp post below.  Quickly, being a compassionate soul, she wrote, "Don't despair. Sister Carmel," on a piece of paper, wrapped the $100 bill in it, got the man's attention and tossed it out the window to him. The stranger picked it up, and with a puzzled expression and a tip of his hat, went off down the street. 

The next day, Sister Carmel was told that a man was at the door, insisting on seeing her. She went downstairs, and found the stranger waiting.  Without a word, he handed her a huge wad of $100 bills. "What's this?" she asked.  "That's the $8,000 you have coming to you, Sister," he replied.  “Don’t Despair paid 80-to-1."  No one ever hit such a jackpot with my horses, You Bet Lily and Burnt Tree, long since retired from racing.  They both raced at Monmouth.  Lily is probably the fastest horse that I have ever ridden.  I am no jockey – I last weighed less than 120 pounds in my early teens – but I have ridden much of my life.

Sister Carmel’s act of kindness and generosity had immediate paybacks – not all do nor are they expected.  It is in a way an example, however, of what Jesus was teaching.  No, not about betting, but about love – a certain kind of love in the New Testament.  Written in Greek, that word was agape.  In the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, it was hesed.  The love you demonstrate when you sacrifice yourself for others.  By promising to abide in us, Jesus is promising to love us, and asking us to love him in return.   

            I haven’t visited the Holy Land, but am told one walks in the footsteps of Jesus and learns about the complicated world in which he lived.  You’ll visit the Garden of Gethsemane, the Upper Room, and about fifteen sites claiming to be Lazarus’ tomb.  You’ll also likely visit Cana, the place where Jesus is said to have turned containers of water into wine for a wedding feast.  At the gift shop, you may even try some “Cana Wedding Wine,” but it is not recommended.

A rector in Fairfield, Connecticut shares the following anecdote: While sampling the “Cana Wedding Wine,” one tourist asked the theologian guiding their tour, “Is this wine from the time of Jesus?”

To everyone’s surprise, the guide answered, “Yes, in fact, this wine is from the time of Jesus Christ because now is the time of Jesus Christ. He is not dead, he abides in us, he is risen.”

It is one thing to hear these words repeated in the midst of a Eucharistic prayer or during an opening acclamation; it is quite another to hear these words in ordinary conversation, and it is something else entirely to think about our lives through our practice of consuming bread and wine during Holy Communion, but that is precisely what the Eucharist is all about.  Last week we talked about the bread and wine of the Eucharist feast.

In the 1940s, a young black woman invited her boyfriend to join her one Sunday at her Episcopal church, and he was hesitant.  He was also black and knew that his girlfriend’s congregation was mostly white.  This can be an uncomfortable dynamic in the 21st Century —seventy years ago it could have been downright dangerous.

When it came time for Holy Communion, the woman’s boyfriend noticed that everyone drank from the same chalice; people who were not allowed to share the same drinking fountains in public were using the same cup to drink the sacramental wine.  Nervously, he followed her to the rail and watched as she took bread.  The priest lowered the chalice to her lips and said, “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.”

Stunned, the young man experienced the boundary-breaking, bad policy-defying, reconciling mission of the Living God.  He drank the wine and was forever changed.  This couple married, and one of their children grew up to become the current Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry.

In light of this story of how his parents experienced the Episcopal Church, Curry says, “Communion is a sacrament of unity that overcomes even the deepest estrangements between human beings.”  It is a meal celebrated together, in which all join.  Deep estrangement exists today, whether based on political beliefs, socio-economic statuses, or the different ways we experience the world because of our race, creed, or sexual orientation.  We need a way of bridging those gaps, because until we can find unity among ourselves, we will struggle to find union with God.  Taking communion together is one such way.

Jesus says in Saint John’s account that, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”  This is, understandably, a difficult teaching for those crowds that followed Jesus.  In fact, we are told that “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”  For many today — especially those that have little familiarity with sharing in the bread and wine of Holy Communion — this continues to be a difficult teaching, one that may often be depicted as archaic or even disturbing and absurd.  Any reasonable person can understand this perspective; however, there is always more to Jesus than meets the eye.

What made Jesus’ words offensive? Was it the symbolism, which the disciples misconstrued, leaving them with the crude notion of literally eating Jesus’ flesh and actually drinking his blood?  Possibly.  There is good reason, however, to think that the truly difficult issue was not understanding the metaphors, but accepting Jesus’ demand for participation in his death as the way to ultimate life. 

Even for readers more sophisticated than the disciples, who recognize that “eating” and “drinking” are verbal images for sharing in the destiny of Jesus, the words remain hard.  Whether stated as “take up your cross and follow me” (as in the Synoptic Gospels) or eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood (as in John), the Christian invitation at its heart contains a tough demand.  The Jesus to be followed is no non-human, docetic figure whose arrest, trial and crucifixion were rounds in a game of charades.  “Believing” and “knowing” him involve participation in his death as a means to sharing his life.

Second, it is the Holy Spirit that enables the disciples to embrace the difficulty and accept Jesus’s words.  The Spirit gives them the eyesight to perceive what Jesus is talking about: that the only way to eternal life is through Jesus’ death.  That Spirit works in all of us.

The statement that “the flesh is useless” in 6:63 is not meant to degrade the flesh.  After all, the Word became flesh (1:14), and his flesh is the very life he has given for the world (6:51). One must eat of the flesh of the Son of Man to live (6:53).  God’s salvation is worked out precisely in the arena of that flesh and nowhere else.  

Third, the reality of unbelief has to be taken seriously.  It is not merely “out there” among the religious authorities who comprise the opposition to Jesus, but among the larger group of his disciples and even among the chosen Twelve.  Since it is mentioned twice in this brief passage (6:64, 70-71), it is not a trivial detail. 

Jesus is pictured as a seer, who perceives from the very beginning who would not believe and who would finally betray him.  The narrator wants us to know that Jesus is not the victim of misguided hopes, who at the end dies disillusioned because good does not triumph over evil.  All along, with eyes wide open to the presence of unbelief and destruction, he follows the plans given to him by his Father.

Finally, while the passage has about it a somber note of unbelief, it also poignantly reminds us of divine grace.  Verse 65 recalls earlier statements in the chapter (6:37, 39, 44) that no one comes to Jesus, unless by divine election, except as one is drawn and kept by the Father. The Twelve for whom Peter is the spokesperson are not smarter or more religious than the others who turn aside, nor are they necessarily the achievers.  They are merely those “granted by the Father” (6:65).  And yet election never becomes determinism.  Jesus asks the Twelve whether they too will go away.  They are free either to follow him or to abandon him.

By sharing in the Eucharist, we share in an experience of the Living God that breaks down walls.  By living Eucharistically, we seek to recognize the Living God in others, and by doing so, we are able to embrace one another as the gifts.  Do you remember the exuberance you felt as a child on Christmas morning (maybe you still feel this way) as you opened presents and joyfully or frantically tried to play with all of them at once?  What if we treated everything and everyone with that kind of exuberance – as if everything and everyone were a gift?  By inviting us to be in union with him, he asks in turn that we be in union with our neighbors.

By living a Eucharistic life, we might find ways to break down the walls that divide us and see those from different backgrounds and those with different beliefs as gifts from the God who created them.  This is the way Jesus lived: as if everyone possessed something special that was worth getting to know and worth connecting with on a truly human level.

In the words of the Dean of General Theological Seminary in New York,

And my prayer for General Seminary, for The Episcopal Church, and for the wider Church is that we are constantly inspired by the person of Jesus Christ. That we are not inhibited by the great challenges of this age, but rather, awakened to the unlimited potential in Christ who, working in us, can accomplish infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. That we are ever mindful of Christ’s heart dwelling in us, our exemplar and the perfection of faith who knew and taught us that it is all about the people.

This is the way Jesus lived, and this is the way we can live.  This is the way God lives among us today as we share in the Eucharist feast.  Now is the time of Jesus Christ. He is not dead, he is risen. He is with us and within us.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

            P.S. just remember, Don’t Despair!